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Trump Signals He May Veto Newly-Passed Relief Bill; Researchers Say, Hundreds in U.S. Could Already Have New U.K. Variant. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired December 23, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: The president shocked Democrats, Republicans, blindsided his own staff, releasing a video overnight that signals he might veto the huge coronavirus release package passed by both Houses of Congress. So direct aid for millions of Americans, still in real jeopardy this morning.

To be clear, the president himself was not part of these negotiations at all. He was too busy trying to overturn the election. But he swooped in overnight and insisted that Congress give Americans $2,000 stimulus checks instead of the $600 that's part of this deal.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now trying to capitalize on this and secure that extra money with a vote immediately. We have new reporting on where this might be headed. But, generally speaking, there is mass confusion.

ERICA HILL, CNN NEW DAY: Mass confusion. The president also, overnight, issuing a wave of new pardons, and among them, three corrupt former Republican members of Congress, two men who pleaded guilty as part of the Mueller investigation, and four military contractors convicted in connection to the massacre of Iraqi civilians. Those contractors, part of the firm Blackwater, which is run by Eric Prince, of course, the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Not a lot of swamp draining in that list.

The president still ignoring the coronavirus, but it's not going away, more than 3,400 deaths reported on Tuesday. That's the second highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic.

And just ahead, we're going to speak with the incoming director of the CDC.

BERMAN: Let's start though with the fate of the stimulus bill. Our Phil Mattingly joins us now. And this news is so big and so confusing, Phil, that we literally shook you out of bed for this this morning to answer what I think are very crucial questions. Look, there are millions of Americans depending on this who want to know what happens now, what the reaction on Capitol Hill is over this and how we got here in the first place.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So let me take it from the top. We don't know what happens now. The reality is this was a $900 billion coronavirus relief package. It was tied to a $1.4 trillion spending bill.

So we are now dealing with the reality that unemployment benefits are for about 12, 13 million people are about to expire on December 26th. Obviously, the direct payments, $600 in this bill, were a crucial component. People need that. You can look at the food banks. You can look around the country and recognize that the direct payments are needed.

We are also now dealing with the potential for a government shutdown. Basically, there are five days left on the current resolution to keep the government open. So, you've got these dual kind of cries that are hanging out right now.

Congressional officials I spoke to, John, throughout the course of the night, one, as you noted, were stunned. They weren't stunned necessarily that the president was choosing chaos. This one told me this is kind of the perfect quota of the last four years, but they were stunned because his team was in the room for all of these negotiations. His treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, signed off on everything that ended up going through and the president, as you noted, was more or less a passive observer throughout this process and his aides said he was going to sign this package.

So what happens next is there's little desire on Capitol Hill to renegotiate something that's so big, so difficult, took eight months to do. As you noted, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a tweet last night, making clear that the president essentially put this on a tee for her and she was going to take a big swing and they're going to put this on the floor, $2,000 direct payments. They're trying to do it by unanimous consent. Any member can object and basically end that or kill that.

That, John, as you know, is very likely to happen, there are a lot of Republicans who are opposed to these direct payments, which means we are basically at the point right now where this is just at the whim of the president. Whether or not these direct payments go out, whether or not unemployment benefits are extended for 11 weeks when they expire on December 26th is up to whether or not the president decides to sign the bill or to veto it and potentially lead to not just the reduction of the much needed aid but also a government shutdown.

HILL: And there's really no knowing what's going to happen, because nobody can read the president's mind, and we know he's not listening to advisers around him. He's doing whatever he wants, Phil.

MATTINGLY: Yes. And I think that's the difficult issue right now is, again, in talking not just to congressional aides but also in talking to some senators last night, the pipelines to President Trump, if you kind of track back here, the way that Republican senators in particular reached the president was not talking to us, was not lambasting him or attacking him by us, much of the frustration of their Democratic colleagues. It was, they would go behind the scenes and they would call the president and they would continue to call the president. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is -- kind of this was his model. He would repeatedly call the president behind the scenes, never critique the president in public, and try to move him or work him towards a particular place. The president is now attacking Mitch McConnell. The president is now in tweets attacking Mitch McConnell's number two, John Thune, all for saying that Joe Biden won the election. And so those pipelines of key advisers, key members of Congress who can kind of tell the president or walk the president into signing this, nobody knows where this goes.

I do want to note, guys, in this video, kind of the rambling video last night that the president put out, about four and a half minutes, he spends a large portion of the video listing off things that he found abhorrent or that he had problems with.

[07:05:08]

Keep in mind, that was not part of the COVID relief piece of this. That was part of the 12-bill spending package that was attached to it. So when he's listing foreign aid, and I'm told this is the issue that's most fired him up inside the White House, that's part of spending bills that he signed with foreign aid at those levels in the past over the course of the last four years. So I think the biggest issue right now on Capitol Hill, Erica, as you kind of note, nobody knows how to really get to him, nobody knows how to deliver this message.

And also I think there's a recognition, as one Republican senator told me last night, that the president didn't have any idea what the entirety of this package was, whether or not he wasn't briefed, whether or not he didn't care. I think that's an open question. And those are real problems when you're dealing with real deadlines both on unemployment and on keeping the government open.

BERMAN: I think you're on to something big there. I also don't know whether the president understands the legislative process, the basic schoolhouse rock stuffs. I don't think he understands what it means that both Houses of Congress have passed this and very soon it will be sitting on his desk waiting for him to sign it or not, and him not signing it, I don't think he gets what that means, necessarily.

Also, Phil, another key point which you just made there, was that is if he had wanted this at any time and was willing to fight for it at any time over the last five, six, seven months, he could have and he didn't. And the fact that he did it last night at this moment when it all hangs in the balance, that's what creates this chaos.

My question is, Mitch McConnell, question mark, you know, what does he do now? Because he is, in a way, one of the key players here, because Pelosi, as you would expect, is leaning into this, saying, you want to give us more money, we'll take more money, but a lot of this depends on McConnell now. So where does that go?

MATTINGLY: Well, his office hasn't commented yet and I wouldn't expect them to. Again, I think the big question right now is McConnell's way has been to, in situations like this, give the president a little bit of time to cool off and then pick up the phone and call him. And the president and the Senate majority leader have had a very, very solid working relationship really for the last three and a half years, since the health care implosion happened and they kind of made up after this.

I think the big thing that you are likely to hear from Republicans right now, whether it's directly from the majority leader to the president or people around the president is, you saw in Georgia where there is a crucial runoff for the control of the United States Senate shortly after the coronavirus relief package passed. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the two Republican incumbents, immediately tout that they were able to secure this victory, that this was a big legislative win that they won over Democrat objections. Now, they're in a tough spot.

The reason why a COVID relief package is close to the finish line or was passed by Congress is, in large part, on the Republican side of things, because they want to ensure that David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler have something to talk about, have something to push back against when Democrats attack them on this issue. So I think you'll see Georgia become very, very crucial in the Republican argument for the president to sign this bill eventually.

One last point, though, John, and you made it up top. I've covered the ins and outs of this negotiation for the last nine months, really, all of these negotiations for the last year, and this was an epic disaster for eight months of people just banging into one another, no ability to find a pathway forward. You make the crucial point, particularly during the summer, if the president wanted to be involved here, if the president wanted an outcome here, the president could have gotten an outcome. He has been the missing piece.

When Republican senators didn't want to sign on, when Republicans weren't onboard with a large package, whether it's direct payments or just a bigger top line, generally, if the president would have stepped in, picked up the phone, gotten involved, things would have shifted. We know how the party lines up behind the president. He simply never did. There were a couple of tweets, sometimes he would blow up negotiations with those tweets, sometimes he would restart them with those tweets, but he never actually engaged.

And I think that's the frustration on the Republican side right now is, look, at any point, you could have been involved, not just your treasury secretary, not just your chief of staff, and we never really heard from you nor did we really grasp that you had a lot of interest in this, doing this after the fact given the work, the arduous, tedious work that went in to finally securing a deal. And it's very frustrating particularly, John, as you noted, this is done, you can't just amend something that's already been passed. Lawmakers are home right now for the holidays. They're not in Washington.

BERMAN: All right. Phil Mattingly, do me a favor, don't go far. Every little thing you learn over the next few minutes or few hours here is crucial to millions of Americans who may be depending on this extra $300 in their unemployment benefits or $600 stimulus check for food to get through the next month. So, again, each detail we learn is crucial. Thanks so much for being with us. Thanks so much for your reporting.

Joining now is CNN Political Analyst Maggie Haberman. She is a White House Correspondent for The New York Times. Maggie, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

What's the latest you're hearing on this about what the president might actually do?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Aides are not quite sure, John, what to make of what he did last night.

[07:10:00]

A bunch of them, obviously, knew that this was coming, because it was a video that he taped. But a number of them were completely caught off-guard. They are hopeful that what he is doing is essentially getting this out of his system because, as you and I noted last night on another show, he was not -- he did not specifically say, I will be veto this. He didn't use the magic words. So, the hope is that once he has done this, once he has staked out his position, that he is going to let this bill go ahead.

But, truly, John, we're in an unpredictable moment with this president right now and no one is entirely sure what he will do.

It's worth remembering, he wanted to put out a statement before the deal was announced, before the agreement was announced, well before the vote, saying that he wanted $2,000 direct payments and he was stopped by his own White House aides. And it's a real reminder that when you get him not to do something, one of his White House aides gets him not to do something, you're basically just delaying it. He's going to do it eventually. You're not deferring it from happening, at all.

I think he has created enormous confusion. I think that, again, people are hoping. I think Phil is right that McConnell will give him a little time to cool off and then hopefully move in. The president is not so worried about a through line, as we know, in his thinking, but we are in a strange moment.

HILL: Strange is perhaps putting it mildly.

In terms of getting it out of his system, I mean, one thing, though, that is clear and what we have seen over the last four years, the president bunt like to do the work, but he likes to get the credit, right? And so you could see if he had put out that statement and even with what's he's doing now that he -- I wouldn't be surprised if part of this was, I want to be the say you've that got you $2,000 in your check instead of $600, without even understanding what's in the COVID bill and what's in the spending bill.

HABERMAN: I think that's definitely part of it, Erica. I do think that the president certainly wants to be seen as the person who did more. He is, in many ways, in terms of his own politics, there are areas, particularly when it comes to spending, where he's just much more aligned, frankly, with Democrats than he is with Republicans. This statement that he gave is of the variety that Democrats were worried he was going to do in his first year, in his first six months. And, of course, he didn't. He ended up kind of burrowing into Republican policy, particularly on taxes. But this is something that people have been worried about.

But to John's point, this demonstrates just either a lack of interest or a lack of understanding in how this works. You can't say this once this is all over when you've chosen to expend none of your personal capital on this, but you have let your own treasury secretary and chief of staff, particularly the treasury secretary, go to the Hill day after day to try to work on this and it took months and months to do. So, yes, he doesn't want to be seen as the person who provided a payment that he considers too small, but, guess what, that's what happens when you don't say anything when the actual negotiations are going on.

And we've seen over and over again, look at how afraid Senate Republicans are of how Donald Trump will act and could motivate their own voters. He could have gotten them there. He could have worked this while this was in process. Instead, he is just coming in at the end.

BERMAN: And, again, just to remind people --

HABERMAN: After the end.

BERMAN: -- the people whose fate hangs in the balance are people who are waiting for these checks, the people who need the money to get by. To say it was a busy night at the White House is an understatement, Maggie, because we also had this slew of pardons and commutations, corrupt politicians, confessed liars, convicted murderers. Three members of Congress who have been convicted of various forms of corruption, you had two people connected to the Russia investigation, including George Papadopoulos, and then you had four Blackwater security guards who have been convicted of murder for the massacre of Iraqi civilians, so, an interesting list of people, Maggie.

What's the through line from the president?

HABERMAN: The through line, John, is that these are people who, in some way or another, relate to him. Two of these Congress members who were pardoned last night and had their sentences wiped away and their crime wiped away were very early endorsers of President Trump. The third whose sentence was commuted among those who had pushed for him as a candidate for a pardon, Sidney Powell, the lawyer who was been in President Trump's ear over last couple of weeks.

In terms of the Mueller-related convictions, that is the president's attempt to continue chipping away at the Mueller report and to dismissively describe anyone who is charged with anything other than conspiracy involving the Trump campaign and Russia as being hit with a process crime. Those process crimes are still crimes, but that is a term that Trump and his allies use derisively to talk about the charges that were filed against them.

And then these Blackwater contractors, Blackwater was founded by Eric Prince, a Trump ally who is also the brother of Betsey DeVos, the education secretary. So that's the through line.

Then you have a number that are related to minor drug offenses or non- violent drug offenses or minor crimes that occurred many decades ago. And those are in sort of a separate bucket. And there's a couple that look as if they may have come in through some window, some avenue of somebody in the west wing.

[07:15:03]

But President Trump is the through line through least half of these.

BERMAN: Maggie Haberman, thank you very much very much for waking up with us and helping us try to understand what's going on. We've got to figure this out over the next few hours, where this is going. People are depending on it.

There is growing concern this morning about a new variant of coronavirus. The incoming director of the CDC joins us in her first interview since being selected by the president-elect. That's next.

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BERMAN: Developing this morning, researchers tell CNN they believe that hundreds of Americans could already be infected with the new coronavirus variant that is in the United Kingdom, and that it likely arrived in the U.S. in mid-November.

Joining us now in our first interview since being selected by President-elect Biden to lead the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Rochelle Walensky. Dr. Walensky, thank you so much for being with us. Congratulations on your appointment. I think the whole country will be looking to you avidly and actively over the next several years, so we appreciate your time this morning.

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What is your latest thinking on this coronavirus variant in the United Kingdom? What are your concerns?

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, INCOMING CDC DIRECTOR: Good morning, John. I'm delighted to be back with you. Maybe I'll just start with the all-star team, and I feel like the president-elect has put forward to combat what I think is the number one health priority for this nation and I know he believes to be the number one health priority.

I'm privileged to be a part of this team with the attorney general, Becerra, Dr. Tony Fauci, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Dr. Marcella Nunez Smith. And we are committed to the science, we are committed to promoting public trust, transparency, to being accountable for our actions and communicating both to the science and to the American people what we know and when we know it.

I think we have to be committed in our next phase of this starting January 20th, when the president-elect is inaugurated, to sort of look to the path forward. I believe that path forward is going to be challenging when we get there. I think we all need to acknowledge that on January 21st, things are going to be bad.

It's going to be dark. Right now, we're already in some dark times. I do think that we're going to have more deaths, more surge after the Christmas and New Year's holidays, and all of those are going to manifest on, you know, around the end of January.

So as I think about the priorities, among the things that I think about are making sure that our hospital systems are okay, that we have enough supplies, that we have enough beds and that we have enough workforce to work in those systems.

I think we need to promote vaccine distribution and vaccination. We have two vaccines now and we need to get more vaccines into people and into vaccinations. We need to promote more testing, because I think we have realized with this new mutant that we are not done with testing, and that all of the population will not be able to be vaccinated immediately.

And then I think to your point, to your original question, we need to promote surveillance because we need to understand whether that new mutant is here and we need to understand whether and when new mutants will arise.

And then maybe the real point that I want to make is the underpinning of all of those strategies is our commitment to equity and that we recognize that we no longer can have a situation in this country where black and brown communities have less access to testing, they have longer delays to get test results, they have higher hospitalization rates and higher mortality rates.

BERMAN: So, Dr. Walensky, one of the things you said there is a commitment to science, listening to science, specifically, what does the science tell you about this new variant. And if you were advising the president today, if this were January 20th at 3:00 P.M. in the afternoon, what would your advice be on travel to the United States from the United Kingdom?

WALENSKY: I want to say, we're watching this very carefully. We've had numerous meetings already about this new variant. I think the one thing I should really just mention is, we have been saying loud and clear to the entire American people, we need to be limiting our mobility, period. And whether we think about it from the U.K., from European countries, from South African, we need to be limiting our mobility.

And so the real question now is, if we are concerned about a mutant strain, we know that viruses mutate, so there are probably many mutant strains. But if we're concerned about a specific mutant strain, what's the best way to control that so that it doesn't explode in other places.

And I think one of those strategies might be to ban travel, but other strategies might be to have quarantines upon arrival, to promote testing, to have testings before you arrive, to have testings upon your arrival or even several days after your arrival or some combination. And I think it's really important to understand which of those strategies or combinations of those strategies is going to limit the spread. It's not clear yet that banning travel is going to be the one, especially since we've been saying, limit your mobility already.

BERMAN: Let me ask you what your level of contact has been with the Trump administration and the current CDC so far. What have the conversations been like?

WALENSKY: I had a very pleasant conversation with the current CDC director the night I was named and I've had no, yet, conversations with anybody in the CDC so far. Our transition team has been working towards that and has been updating me and briefing me on a regular basis as to what they have learned.

BERMAN: There was news that broke just literally minutes ago, which is that the Trump administration struck a new deal with Pfizer to procure up to 100 million more doses of their vaccine by July 31st.

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I think the idea is 70 million by June 30th and then the 30 million over the course of the month after that. How much will that help?

WALENSKY: Well, I certainly think more vaccine is better than less vaccine. We need to get vaccine into the arms of over 300 Americans, right? I am really enthusiastic about this bill that Congress passed, that will allow 8.75 billion towards vaccine distribution, assuming it will go through, $4.5 billion of that will come to the CDC. $4.5 billion will go exactly where it needs to, to the state's localities, tribes and territories, for getting those vaccines into the arms of people.

But I also want to convey that I believe that that's just a down payment to what needs to happen in order to get to every corner of the country. And I also want to make sure Americans understand that more vaccine is a really good thing, but we can't let up on the measures that we have right now. And this is an analogy that I've used frequently to say, even a glass of water can put out a fire, can put out a candle. It can't put out a forest fire, and we're in the middle of a forest fire.

So we really do need to have the American people hold on and continue those measures to give this vaccine less work to do.

BERMAN: I want to ask you about the role of the CDC and perhaps a different or a reversion of the role of the CDC starting on January 20th. This is how Dr. Anthony Fauci yesterday described what he sees the role of doctors and scientists will be moving forward. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Probably be a uniformity of message instead of mixed signals. I think that's going to be something that very likely will be much, much more uniform. I think there will be more central guidance as opposed to leaving the states completely on their own and letting them do things the way they want to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What does that mean for the CDC starting when you take over?

WALENSKY: Right, I have some work cut out for me, right? I completely agree with Dr. Fauci. We need to have a uniformity of message. We're already in really frequent communication, which I'm enthusiastic about, to make sure that the science that we are hearing is consistent with what other people are learning and that we're taking all of the science collaboratively and sending that, and making policies at a federal level.

I want to also convey that I think my work really has to be in ensuring and in bolstering the public health responses and the public health structure at the state, local and federal levels. I think those infrastructures were underfunded before COVID and I see -- I think we really see that now during COVID. We need to promote the science. We need to just make sure that the science is being consistent and translatable into guidance that is uniform across the states.

You know, having each of these states, there are incredible people at these states, but to have each of them reinvent the wheel and not to learn from one another and not to have federal guidance is just not a good use of the sparse resources we have.

BERMAN: I have to let you go, but just yes or no, last question, will you return to regular CDC briefings which have all but disappeared over the last year?

WALENSKY: I think communication has to be key here. The public needs to know what we know. They need to know the good and there will be some bad news, I'm certain of it. They need to know that too. And so, yes, I very much plan to do so.

BERMAN: Dr. Rochelle Walensky, we appreciate you being with us this morning. Again, congratulations to you. And we look forward to speaking with you frequently in your new role. I appreciate your time.

WALENSKY: Thank you so much, John.

BERMAN: All right. President Trump, overnight, pardoning four military contractors convicted in connection with the massacre of Iraqi civilians. We go live to the Pentagon, next.

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