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End Of Senate Health, Education And Labor Committee Hearing; Fauci Warns Of Ignoring Guidelines On Reopening; Romney: We Treaded Water During February, March On Testing; Fauci: Going In Right Direction But Outbreak Not Controlled; Contentious Debate Between Sen. Rand Paul and Fauci Over Sending Kids Back To School. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 12, 2020 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-TN): How do we make sure we in Congress sustain and fund all the things we need to do?

And I want to make sure that we do that this year. And our collective memory is short. So while we are all worried about this, we need to not only deal with this crisis but get ready for the next one.

I thank the witnesses for their extra time. I hope they get a sense that our job is to create an environment that you can succeed. Because if you succeed, our country succeeds, which is what we desperately want.

The hearing record will remain opened for 10 days. Members may submit additional information for the within that time if they would like.

Thanks to everyone for being here today. The hearing is adjourned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you --

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: I'm John King, in Washington. You have been watching the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee.

A remarkable hearing, including Dr. Fauci, the top infectious disease expert, warning that if states are not careful, as the country begins to reopen, just about every state by this weekend will have at least reopening plan in place, Dr. Fauci warned if they are not careful and do not follow administration guidelines, if they do not have testing, contact tracing and other steps in place, there's a risk to trigger a resurgence, another outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Also, Admiral Brett Giroir, the top testing official, saying he is confident that by the end of May and into June, they'll have more tests available. By the time schools are supposed to open in the fall, he is confident there will be enough testing to reopen schools.

A great deal of skepticism from Democrats and Republicans on that front.

Actually, what was remarkable, Democrats saying they think the scientists are separated from the president quite frequently. Democrats harshly critical of the president.

But what was remarkable was a number of the Republican Senators, more gently than the Democrats, raising serious concerns.

Richard Burr saying the CDC have not used money that was given last year, before the pandemic, to hire key surveillance trackers to track such things as the coronavirus.

Senator Cassidy of Louisiana saying he's not convinced there's a specific testing plan in place to allow schools to reopen, especially in underprivileged areas.

Senator Mitt Romney harshly critical, saying the testing record of this administration is nothing to celebrate, saying that in February and March, time was wasted and loss as the coronavirus spread across the country.

Let's get some insight from our guests. With us, our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Also with us, Dr. Ashish Jha. He's the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.

Sanjay, I want to start with you.

And I want to tee it up with this from Dr. Fauci. We know he has been cautious behind the scenes. He believes -- and I am told by several sources -- that several states, including your state of Georgia, are out a little bit ahead of their skis. Too aggressive reopening plans, given where they are in tests and coronavirus cases and the testing regiment in place.

Listen here to the cautious warning from Dr. Fauci, be careful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES: There's a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control, which, in fact, will set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided but could even set you back on the road trying to get economic recovery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Sanjay, respond to that and your other major takeaways of this remarkable hearing?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDIAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's one thing -- I'm sorry, I'm hearing myself back. Dr. Fauci has been pretty consistent with regards to this. He frames it differently but his overall message has been the same. We release these gating criteria, they call for a 14-day downward trend and, at that point, we need to robustly test people.

The scenario is this. Any time we start to reopen things, there will be cases and people get infected who otherwise would not. People who would end up in the hospital that otherwise wouldn't And sadly, people who may day. The question is, how many, how many are you willing to tolerate.

And what Dr. Fauci and these gating criteria sort of suggests is, if you get to a 14-day downward trend, it should be a low number. But you have to have the potential to test people, otherwise you will go into exponential growth. Instead of having a few people who become infected at the time of reopening, you could potentially go into exponential growth unless you can find and isolate and trace the contacts of those people.

He's been saying this all along. It's quite something, the gating criteria, for the most part, by these states, have simply been abandoned. They were well spelled out and the rational was made. We expected that and that did stand out to me, John.

KING: This is the plan, Sanjay, they released at the White House. This is the president's own plan. The president said they should follow it. And you're right. He's now encouraging governors to blow through the flashing lights in his own plan because he wants the economy to reopen.

[13:35:09]

To Gloria and then Dr. Jha on the testing question.

What struck me in this hearing, yes, the Democrats were most critical. I mentioned Senator Burr, Republican of North Carolina, said, you know, we gave the CDC a ton of money to hire people, 30 people, to do surveillance, they hired zero.

Senator Cassidy raising questions about testing. Senator Roberts saying in his state of Kansas and other places that produce meat, cattle and for the food industry, he says the administration has been slow to get testing in place.

Senator Romney, the substantive questions here but also the politics of it. He watches these events in the Rose Garden and he sees the president saying we have met the challenge when it comes to testing. Senator Romney says this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITT ROMNEY, (R-UT): We treaded water during February and March. And as a result, by March 6th, the U.S. had completed just 2,000 tests, whereas, South Korea conducted over 140,000 deaths. Partially, as a result of that, they had 256 deaths and we have almost 80,000 deaths. I find our testing records nothing to celebrate whatsoever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Strong words there. And only a couple of the Republicans were profuse in their praise of the administration. Many others wanted to raise some skepticism and some sharp criticism.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, Romney clearly was directing this at the administration. And you can only imagine how the president is going to react to that, particularly with the comparison to South Korea, which, of course, gets under his skin.

What was remarkable about this hearing, John, is Democrats and Republicans were all saying, look, we have to get better at this. We have to get better at testing. We have to get better at contact tracing. These are the things we need to do to reopen this country.

There are a lot of folks who want to reopen, obviously, on the panel. All of them want to reopen. But all of them I believe who talked about testing and tracing were cautious.

As Tony Fauci says, look, you know, we are getting better but this is not contained. They, I think, listen to him.

He made a point, John, of saying I don't give political advice. I am not a politician. I don't give economic advice. I can't tell you how to do this. All I can tell you, as a scientist, is what I see.

The one piece of optimism was, I think, was he was cautiously optimistic as he put it about a vaccine sometimes maybe early next year, perhaps.

KING: Some optimism. He says it's more likely than not they'll have a vaccine within a year or two.

Dr. Jha, I was talking about Mitt Romney raising questions about both the substance and political commentary obviously. This is what you are studying the most. If you look at the ground, the administration promised a lot of things in the past and not delivered. Let's hope they do this time.

But when you heard of Admiral Giroir talking about ramping up testing, he sounded very confident with meeting the challenge of May and June. There's a lot of skepticism even from Republican Senators about July, August, September.

As you have the reopening, Dr. Fauci said it is inevitable there will be more cases. The question is, are you prepared to deal with them. From what you heard, do you have confidence the administration this time will keep the ramp promises or are you skeptical?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: John, thanks for having me on.

The track record on testing of this administration is not a glorious one, as Senator Romney said. We are inadequate of our testing right now.

It is interesting to listen to the language. Now they're talking about tests per month. It is a funny phrase. What we are seeing is testing per day. That's what most experts are using. And 40 to 50 million tests per month as they promise by September. I think it will be inadequate to send kids back at school. It's going to be about a million and a half tests per day. For most Americans, it is going to be like you get tested one every eight or nine or 10 months. We'll be testing people a lot more often as we have kids back at school.

I did not hear today a very coherent plan, not ambitious goals if we have school this fall. I hope we can revise those as the data comes in. We have to be much more aggressive and ambitious. And we have to deliver on that promise.

KING: Interesting.

Everybody, standby.

I want to go to the White House with CNN White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins.

Kaitlan, at the end of the hearing, one of the president's big defenders on the committee, Senator Loeffler, of Georgia, went around and asked all the scientists, she says the media and others sometimes try to overplay conflicts between the scientists and president.

All the scientists say we get along with the president, we have a professional relationship with the president. They did not say the president did not always take their advice.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, they didn't. They said flatly we offer advise but the president listens to other people for their opinions and their advice and then he makes decisions from there. All four of them do not have any kind of confrontational relationship with the president.

[13:40:08]

Which I don't think that's the portrayal. I think it's at times, we have seen, including when the president was holding those daily coronavirus briefings, where he would come out saying one thing and health expert would say something else.

We saw it happening with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, who was not one of the four officials testifying. But also with Dr. Redfield and others, talking about testing and the availability of it and what vaccines are looking like. So they all did deny any kind of confrontational relationship with the president.

But it was notable, if you look throughout that hearing that happened today, you saw what Dr. Fauci said about coronavirus is not going to disappear without a vaccine. That's a comment that the president made on Friday when he was talking about the coronavirus going away. He said there's a chance it could go away. Dr. Fauci made it clear today it is not happening without a vaccine coming.

Of course, just yesterday, in the Rose Garden, we saw the president say he believes they've prevailed when it comes to testing, talking about where we are now and how many people have been tested, about nine million so far. The president says 10 million by the end of the week. But you saw his official, like the admiral, who has been the one that

is really the testing coordinator in all this, say, by September, they hope to be at 40 or 50 million per month. We are not at 40 to 50 million per month now. They realize that's where we would like to be, where the country would feel more comfortable.

So they offered a much more sobering analysis of where we are right now when it comes to reopening the country and testing and things of that nature than you sometimes hear from the president.

KING: Kaitlan, standby as well.

Back to the other group. While listening to the hearing, it's interesting, the president came into the Rose Garden yesterday saying we met the challenge, we met the test. He later amended, when asked the question, he meant in terms of testing.

Senator Elizabeth Warren was pushing Dr. Fauci, asking him, where are we on the fight of this coronavirus, especially as we are heading into later spring, into the summer, talking about the school challenge ahead.

Listen, Dr. Gupta, of Dr. Fauci here saying, do we have it under control? Not yet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: If you think we have it completely under control, no. When you look at dynamics of new cases, even though some are coming down, the curve looks flat with some slight coming down. So I think we are going the right direction but the right direction does not mean we, by any means, total control of this outbreak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Again, he's a voice of caution where the president is leaning forward to, hey, reopen, it is safe.

GUPTA: It is interesting how he chose his words carefully here. I know he has to do that, not under total control. No, not under total control. I think the larger question is, is it in control enough to start reopening things. The answer from that question from Dr. Fauci is also no.

Again, they laid out this pretty clear criteria in terms of what be in control enough to think of reopening. We are not there. A 14-day downward trend. That criteria exists for a reason. At that point, you can feel like you have few enough cases where you can potentially talk about words like containing it or, as Dr. Tom Friedman likes to describe it, boxing it in, boxing in the virus, in this case, to really reduce the spread.

Right now, the virus spreads to two or three other people. If you start to get the spread to less than one people or not, of less than one, it is likely to start to dwindle down. We are nowhere near that. Again, he's careful with the words. But we are not in control enough to go to the next phase is the point that Dr. Fauci was making.

KING: That was the point he was making. Again, the president's guidelines among the criteria in these guidelines and the CDC shelves more detailed guidelines. We talked about that as well.

But he talked about, Dr. Jha, a 14-day downward trajectory in cases. Also talked about have a testing regimen in place. Talking about contact tracing army in place.

But the first gateway, with the trajectory is down, right now, in the U.S., one state reported of an increase week to week, last week, of more than 50 percent. Ten states were up between 10 percent to 15 percent. Seventeen states were holding steady. And 20 states -- and two states going up and down.

Are with anywhere near the point where you would say the United States nationally have this under control?

JHA: Yes, I am going to echo what Dr. Fauci and Dr. Gupta said. The evidence as you laid out is no.

There are some states, a small number of states that I think can safely reopen and enter phase one. It is a small minority. It is not some of the big states we have been hearing about.

The cost of doing it too early, it is not just people getting sick or die, which are terrible things, but the economy is going to suffer as well. If you are doing it for the economy, you will end up setting yourself up back.

[13:45:08]

This is not rocket science. There's evidence here. There's science here. You can't block the virus. You can't happy-talk your way through the virus. You have to pay attention to the data. And if you follow the data, we can safely open up and safe lives.

KING: Gloria, I thought on of the more fascinating points was one Senator at the hearing, who recovered from COVID-19, Senator Rand Paul, of Kentucky. He's more of a Libertarian. He's also a doctor, an ophthalmologist, I believe. And he was saying, once you have it, you should be immune from it. He believes that should be the default.

Yes, it takes years to study because it is a new virus. It will be months or years to prove that. But his point was that we should all assume that if you have been exposed that you are safe. Therefore, he said, in some ways, it's a blessing that these meat packing workers have been infecting so they can go back to work.

He had the testiest exchange of the hearing with Dr. Fauci where he said, I respect your work Dr. Fauci, but you're just person. You're not the end all, be all. Dr. Fauci responded by saying don't be so cavalier. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FAUCI: We don't know everything about this virus. We really better be careful when it comes to children. For example, right now, children presenting with COVID-19, who actually have a strong inflammatory syndrome, very similar to similar to Kawasaki syndrome.

I think we have to be careful and not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Dr. Sanjay's point, Dr. Fauci has learned to speak in very diplomatic language. But that was his way of telling Dr. Paul, Senator Paul, sorry, sir, I disagree, and very much so.

BORGER: That's right. What Fauci said, in a careful way, was, I am humbled that I don't know everything about this disease.

The argument was over whether you can send children back to school in the fall. And Rand Paul says it is a huge mistake if we don't open schools. And Fauci said -- he doesn't make a decision but he wanted to point out that, wait a minute, we don't know everything. And school districts have to consider whether this is a risk they want to take.

I think in an argument between Rand Paul and Tony Fauci on this one, I think -- who is an ophthalmologist -- Rand Paul and Tony Fauci, on this one, I think Tony Fauci was the one who said, even I don't know everything about this disease, so it makes you wonder if Rand Paul does.

KING: And the governor of the hardest-hit state, Andrew Cuomo, Democrat of New York, in Johnstown City, New York, giving his daily coronavirus briefing. Let's listen in for a bit.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: -- that erases all the theories, right? Everybody has a theory. I think this, I think that, I think this. I think warm weather is going to make a difference. I think God is going to do something. Yes, everybody has a theory.

Just tell me the facts and the numbers. That's what I want to tell the people of the state. And respond to the facts.

Local region then manages the system. They monitor those numbers we are talking about. They control that valve. They make sure businesses are complying with the safety precautions when the businesses go back.

Every business is going to say, don't worry, I will have safety precautions and I will socially distance and I will give equipment. Yes. Are they actually doing what? Are we staying away from large gatherings? Are we making sure? That's up to the local government.

Built in is a circuit breaker that when those gauges hit red, turn off the valve. Hopefully, you don't get to that point because you have been monitoring and you are calibrating and you adjust the valve a little bit at a time.

Worst-case scenario, you turn off the valve. That's what other countries have had to do when they open the reopening so quickly. No other states have this accurate or transparent a monitoring mechanism.

But, I want people to know exactly to know what's going on in your community day to day. You are the ones who are determining what's happening in your community. Nobody else. No governor or elected official. It is what people do and it is what our neighbors do.

The regional control groups are the top elected officials, academic officials, and top health care professionals in that region and in that community. They're the ones who are going to have to make it work.

[13:50:03]

But this will be online every morning or every day. Everyone can see exactly what's happening literally day to day. No other state has this system. No other state is as transparent. No other state is gathering local data so it can present data statewide every day.

We're doing it because the secret of our success has been exactly this. The secret of our success, the one thing I did right was communicate to people and trust people that, with the right information, they will make the right decisions.

This is the most advanced way in the nation to give people, to give citizens the information they need to lead their lives correctly. And that will -- that will be online in the next couple of days.

But Friday is May 15th. It's the opening date. And this would be online --(AUDIBLE PROBLEM.) Act smartly, right?

We've heard Washington say many, many times the governors are in charge of reopening. Thank you very much. So the governors are in charge of reopening. But that doesn't mean the states are on their own, the governors are on their own. We need federal help. We need federal assistance.

They're talking about passing a piece of legislation in Washington this week. It has to be a smart piece of legislation this time. What does that mean? No handouts to greedy corporations. No political pork and no partisanship.

There has to be a time in history when the federal government is willing to stop playing partisan politics. And if it's not through this experience, through this crisis, it will never be. That's -- that's the first definition of smart for the federal government.

The bill has to fund state and local governments. It has to fund working families. It has to fund state testing and tracing.

Everybody talks about testing and tracing. It's up to testing and tracing. It is. No one has done it before. No state has this testing capacity. We have to build it. We can do it. But it's a heck of a logistical endeavor. And we need funding to do it. And we need a real economic stimulus.

This economy has been damaged. Through no fault of anyone, through an act of God with this COVID virus, but to get this economy back up and running, we're going to need an intelligent stimulus bill from Washington.

When I say no pork barrel, what does that mean? When they pass a piece of legislation in Washington, every Senator sees it as their opportunity to bring home bacon to their state. This is supposed to be about the COVID virus and repairing damage from the COVID virus. Keep it about the COVID virus.

Last bill, they were talking about providing money to states that didn't have a major COVID problem, so how would the state spend the money? They were talking about building a new state capitol in some states, because they didn't have enough COVID cases to justify the federal allocation.

So they were looking for ways to spend the money. How ludicrous is that? This is somebody's money. This is the taxpayers' money. They worked hard. They're willing to help solve the problem about the COVID but keep it about the COVID virus.

Second, I understand businesses need to recover. This doesn't have to be a giveaway to the rich millionaires who are doing just fine anyway. It doesn't have to be a giveaway to big business. It shouldn't be that another episode in history where somehow the rich figure out a way to get more assistance, when it is supposed to be about helping average Americans.

And that is the people who really need help here, are the working families. The families that is go paycheck to paycheck. They're the once who are struggling. The essential workers, who have been so great for so long, police officers, firefighters, nurses, schoolteachers.

The people who literally need food. I have people literally saying I need food to feed my family. We have unprecedented demand at food banks. Those are the people who really need help. And those are the people who the state government funds.

[13:55:13]

New York State, we know what happened to our economy. We know what our budget looks like. We need $61 billion in federal support or we will wind up aggravating the situation.

Because when you don't fund the state, who does the state fund? The state funds schools, local governments and hospitals. You really want New York State to turn around and have to cut schools and cut local governments?

You know who local governments are? That's please, firefighters. You want me to cut hospitals? Hospitals are the nurses and doctors who just got us through this and every celebration as heroes. If you don't fund the state, that's who you're cutting in terms of finances.

Now, this is not a red issue/blue issue. Yes, I'm a Democrat. This is not about politics. I have Democrats, I have Republicans in my state. I have Independents. I have short people, tall people. In New York, we have everything.

If you're going to be an effective statewide leader, forget red and blue. It does not work. And every state, red states, blue states, they all need funding. You put the governors in charge. The states are heading the reopening. The need funds to do it.

There's an organization called the National Governors Association, NGA, Democratic and Republican governors. It's headed by a Republican governor, Governor Hogan. I'm the vice chairman. I'm a Democrat.

We're doing a joint statement today saying states need funding. Not pork-barrel funding and not funding that flowing through the states but gets to their special interests. That's not what we want. We want funding to allow us to do our jobs.

Democrats and Republicans, working together, will make this statement, and Washington should listen.

The federal bill should also be responsive to working families. What are the problems that working families are facing, they come to me with? I can't pay my rent. I can't pay my mortgage.

I'm afraid when this forbearance period ends, the bank will send me three months of mortgage payments and I'm not going to be able to pay it. I'm afraid once this forbearance period ends, I'll get a bill for three months' back rent and I can't pay it and I'll be evicted.

That's what real families are talking about now. They're afraid that they won't get job back. The funeral costs for families, funeral costs are devastating. That's reality for working families.

And you have homeowners in this state, and many of the states affected by COVID, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Michigan, same states that have the COVID problem that just were having an additional tax from Washington when they repealed what's called SALT, State and Local Tax Deduction.

It was a theft by Washington to increase taxes on certain states. New York is one of them. Massachusetts is one. California is one. And it hurt homeowners because you can't deduct your state and local taxes anymore. It was punitive. It was wrong. It was wrong.

You want to help taxpayers, you want to help homeowners, who want to help the places that were hit by COVID, repeal SALT. And that's what should be done in this bill.

You also have to fund state testing and tracing. We can put together the operation. It's not going to be easy. It's going to entail thousands of people in this state to test and trace. But we need funding from Washington to make that happen.

And if you want to be creative and aggressive and smart, which is what we need more than ever, the bill shouldn't just reopen America. Now is a chance to actually reimagine America, OK?

You need to stimulate the economy. You need to create jobs. You need to get people back to work. Now is the time to invest in building and rebuilding.

[13:59:56]

Invest in public infrastructure. Build airports, bridges, mass transit. Build a public health infrastructure so we can handle a situation like this next time.

The investment of public infrastructure is long overdue.