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Biden Inherits Non-existent Vaccine Plan from Trump Admin; U.S. Army Says Michael Flynn's Brother was Part of Capitol Insurrection Response; Youngest Inaugural Poet Captivates Nation with Her Words. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 21, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:31:13]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning. Sources tell CNN that President Biden is inheriting a non-existent coronavirus vaccine distribution plan from the Trump administration. This morning, the Biden White House has released its own strategic plan to turn things around.

And joining us now is White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield.

Kate, thanks so much for taking the time to be here. Can you just tell us what that means? A nonexistent plan? What were you handed when you all went into the White House from the Trump team about the vaccination plan?

KATE BEDINGFIELD, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, not a lot of detail. And you heard President Biden speak to this the other day when he said that the state of the vaccine distribution program so far has been a disappointment, it's been a dismal failure.

So this is something that he is incredibly focused on as we move forward into our first hundred days. You know, he has set a benchmark to get 100 million shots in arms, in the first hundred days of his administration. And this is something that he's going to be extremely focused on. He's going to leverage every tool available to him in the federal government. Some of the things that he is signing today are EOs that are going to direct agencies to use the Defense Production Act and all other mechanisms available to them to increase the number of syringes, for example, and just to make sure that we have the material that we need to get these vaccinations into arms around the country.

So, this is an incredibly important focus for him. And it's something that our administration is going to be laser focused on moving forward.

CAMEROTA: And so just to be clear, right now, as far as we know from the CDC, 16 million vaccinations have been given to Americans. 36 million, basically, doses are distributed. Are you saying that there's no more, no more were in the pipeline? That was it, that's all the Trump team ever had ready for us? BEDINGFIELD: Well, what I can speak to is what we're doing, which is

working to increase supply. There are a number of ways in which we are working very closely to -- with the pharmaceutical companies to ensure that they increase supply, so that we have the supply that we need. You know, we are going to be guided by CDC guidance about shot distribution and we're going to work to ensure that we have the supply needed to get shots into arms.

There are sort of two pieces to this. There's the supply piece and then there's the logistical piece. There's, you know, standing up mobile vaccination sites, there's recruiting additional public health workers, people like retired nurses to come help administer shots, to ensure that we have the people that we need.

You know, and the other thing I would say about this is the other critical piece of getting these shots to the American people is getting the funding to do it. And you saw President Biden put forward the American rescue plan, which provides significant funding, billions of dollars, to ensure that we are able to stand up the resources that we need to get people the shots. So this is, again, this is a whole of government approach that we're taking.

You'll see President Biden sign executive orders today that allow him -- that direct the agencies and allow him to move forward. But you're also going to see him calling on Congress and work -- and encouraging Congress and pushing Congress to pass the American Rescue Plan to get this badly needed money out to states and out to communities so that we have the resources that we need to ensure that people can get vaccinated and we can start to turn the corner on this virus.

CAMEROTA: And so quickly, today, we will see him exercise the Defense Production Act about this?

BEDINGFIELD: He will sign executive orders that direct agencies to exercise the Defense Production Act. Yes.

CAMEROTA: OK. Let's talk about another one of his top agenda items. He has sent an immigration bill to Congress and it includes a pathway to amnesty. Here is Senator Marco Rubio's initial response to that. "There are many issues I think we can work cooperatively with President-elect Biden." This is from the 19th. "But a blanket amnesty for people who are here unlawfully isn't going to be one of them."

I mean, this has been, obviously, the white whale of so many administrations, immigration or comprehensive immigration reform. What's going to be different this time?

[07:35:09]

BEDINGFIELD: Look, this is a pathway to earned citizenship. That's one thing I would say right out of the gate. I think amnesty is a loaded political term. This is a pathway to earned citizenship. Look, we saw during the Trump administration an abandonment of our American values around immigration. You saw family separation, you saw scapegoating of immigrants. So what President Biden is doing is restoring our -- restoring humanity and restoring American values to our immigration systems.

So this is a bill that creates an earned path to citizenship for people who are here in this country, contributing to our economy, contributing to our society, playing an important role in American society. It also works to reform the system, to keep families together. It includes smart technology at the border to ensure that we are better managing the border. It includes technology that allows us to more easily identify contraband, for example, to ensure that we are managing a safe and secure border.

So this is really a comprehensive plan that is going to restore humanity and American values to our immigration policy in this country. And that's something you heard President Biden talk about on the campaign trail a lot. It was a campaign promise that he made good on, that he promised to do on day one, sending this bill to Congress, and he did it yesterday. So this is an important -- this is an important priority for him and something that we will be focused on.

CAMEROTA: And in terms of his priorities, I mean, in addition to immigration, he laid out just a very ambitious plan for the first days in office. There is immigration, there's obviously tackling COVID, as we've discussed. There's economic relief that so many Americans are desperate for. There's a suggestion to buy more American, equity, climate, health care.

I mean, are any of these things going to be delayed or complicated by what looks like an upcoming Senate trial for Donald Trump?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, we certainly hope not. And that President Biden's expectation is that it won't. You know, I think there is past precedent for the Senate to be able to move on business, while conducting an impeachment trial. We saw that in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump. So, you know, President Biden believes that we are facing four massive interconnected and compounding crisis that are hitting the American people.

They're not just hitting blue states, they're not just hitting red states. They're hitting Americans and communities all across the country. And so, you're right. He's put forward incredibly ambitious, bold plans to begin to tackle these crises, to begin to make life better for people all over this country. And his great hope is that Congress is going to work swiftly to start to move to pass some of this and to get the relief, for example, that's in the American rescue plan.

There's -- as I said, there's vaccine funding. There's also direct relief, including $1400 checks, including an extension of unemployment insurance for people who need help. For people who have been battered by this crisis and need help.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: So he's going to work really hard to push to move quickly on all these fronts.

CAMEROTA: Politico is reporting that there's talk of an expedited plan for the Senate trial, a three-day Senate trial. Is President Biden supportive of that plan?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, he's going to leave the mechanics and the logistics of the trial up to Senate leadership. That will be their decision. But he has expressed both privately and publicly again, his belief, his commitment, his expectation that the Senate will be able to move forward on the business of the American people while also discharging their constitutional duty.

So, again, there's precedent for that. They've done it before. And his expectation and hope is that they'll be able to do it now as well.

CAMEROTA: I was struck by something that President Biden said yesterday in his inaugural speech. He said, there are truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit. And I heard that as a direct shot at some of the media companies that lied about the election results. We know who they are. I mean, they're, you know, right-wing companies, some are more fringe than others at this point, or more, I guess, extreme than others.

And so if they continue to engage in lies, something that he is trying to combat, what is your communication strategy? Will you deny those networks any interviews? I mean, what happens if they revert to form immediately?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, look, what I could say about our communication strategy is we are committed to reaching every American. That's another thing you heard President Biden say in his inaugural yesterday. He wants to -- he called on all Americans to work together. And I can say as communications director, our focus is on making sure that we're reaching everybody.

Now, obviously, if media companies are willfully lying or are not carrying forth straightforward, honest information from the president when we make him available or from administration officials when we make them available then of course that's something that we're going to think about and we're going to factor in.

[07:40:08]

But our hope, writ large, is that we're going to be able to use all sorts of creative platforms, that we're going to be able to reach out in all sorts of ways to meet people where they are. You know, we love viewers who watch CNN, but we also love viewers who don't watch CNN. People who are online, who are on Twitter, who are on digital platforms. So we are going to think comprehensively about how we can make sure that everybody across the political spectrum and in all communities all across the country are hearing from President Biden, from Vice President Harris, and are hearing about the Biden agenda.

CAMEROTA: Viewers who don't watch CNN? Your words make no sense to me. Kate --

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Kate Bedingfield, thank you. Thank you very much for your time. We really appreciate it. BEDINGFIELD: Thank you for having me, Alisyn. I really appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: We have a quick programming note. Dr. Anthony Fauci will join us live on NEW DAY tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m.

OK, did the Pentagon lie about Michael Flynn's brother being involved in this response to the Capitol insurrection? Why would they do that? We have new reporting, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:45:06]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So this morning, Michael Flynn's brother is responding to a "Washington Post" report that the Army falsely denied for days that he was involved in the military response to the Capitol insurrection.

CNN's Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon with the new reporting.

Basically the accusation here in "The Post" is that the Pentagon was lying about the presence of General Flynn's brother. What have you learned?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me start by saying, Lieutenant General Charles Flynn, a top Army officer here in the Pentagon, there's never been any public indication, no indication we know of, that he is influenced by his brother, Michael Flynn, so we want to state that and then set that aside for the moment because there's never been an indication, we know of, that he is influenced by Michael Flynn.

Charles Flynn, the Pentagon -- the Army, I should say, has never acknowledged that he was in any of the phone calls with Washington, D.C. authorities, Capitol Police, as the insurrection was unfolding on January 6th. They have said they're not aware that he was there. But now, General Flynn, Charles Flynn, issuing a statement, first published in "The Post" last night, and let me read it because it's important.

He says, "I entered the room,' the meeting room. "I entered the room after the call began and departed prior to the call ending as I believed a decision was imminent from the secretary and I needed to be in my office to assist in executing the decision." That would have been the decision to deploy the National Guard to Capitol Hill to help the police there, as that violence was clearly out of control.

Flynn is not a decision maker on this. He's not in the chain of command. That's another important piece. But clearly, the Army did not acknowledge that he was involved in these calls.

Why is all of this so important? Who was there and who said what to who? Because local authorities and the Capitol Police really believe that the Pentagon was slow in responding during the violence. They needed help very quickly and that they did not get it as quick as they hoped to get it. What I would tell you is the Army secretary, who left just a few days

ago, because he was a Trump appointee, he even said that the whole system of defending Washington, D.C. in a crisis is outdated, archaic, too many people involved, nobody really can make a decision fast when this kind of situation evolves. So a lot of work ahead to figure out how to do it better if, heaven forbid, there's a next time -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Barbara Starr, thank you so much for that reporting. Please keep us posted as to what more you learn.

So we know that President Biden is a huge fan of poetry, but even if you're not, there are some poems that reach out and grab your heart and pull at your soul. Amanda Gorman touched the American spirit and we hear from her directly, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:51:29]

CAMEROTA: Twenty-two-year-old Amanda Gorman captivated the nation with her words at President Biden's inauguration. Her poem "The Hill We Climb" offered a hopeful vision for this deeply divided country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANDA GORMAN, NATIONAL YOUTH POET LAUREATE: The dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and the time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president. Only to find herself reciting for one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Anderson Cooper had a chance to interview Amanda Gorman last night.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Amanda Gorman, it is such a pleasure. First of all, how do you feel?

GORMAN: I feel just so overjoyed and so grateful and so humbled. You know, I came here to do the best with the poem that I could and to just see the support that's been pouring out, I literally can't absorb it all. So I'll be processing it for a while.

COOPER: The -- can you just explain the -- why this message today? How did you go about crafting this?

GORMAN: Right. Well, you know, I did a lot of research ever since I found out in late December that I was going to be the inaugural poet. So that was making sure I read all the previous inaugural poems, really doing a deep literature dive of other orators who I look up to, whether it be Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, and how they speak to a nation that's very divided. And I was about halfway through that process and kind of that research

when the January 6th insurrection happened at the Capitol. And I'm not going to say that that completely, you know, derailed the poem because I was not surprised at what had happened. I had seen the signs and the symptoms for a while and I was not trying to turn a blind eye to that. But what it did is it energized me even more to believe that much more firmly in a message of hope and community and healing.

I felt like that was the type of poem that I needed to write and it was the type of poem that the country and the world needed to hear.

COOPER: Were there particular images from January 6th that, you know, that were kind of foremost in your mind or was it just the totality of the horror of the insurrection?

GORMAN: I'm a poet so often I don't work in images, I work in words and text. And so what I was actually doing is while keeping my mental sanity, looking through the tweets and the messages and the articles and seeing what stood out. And there's a line in the poem that you might have heard which is, we've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. And I got that absolutely from looking through a few tweets and a lot of people being like, wow, this is what happens when people don't want to share the country with the rest of us. And so I took that which often became a meme on Twitter and I put that in the poem.

COOPER: It's so interesting to me that you are not thinking visual -- that you're not -- it's not the images that motivate you. It's the text, the words that you come across.

GORMAN: Right. To me words matter. And I think that's kind of what made this inauguration that much more sentimental and special. We've seen over the past few years the ways in which the power of words has been violated and misappropriated.

[07:55:07]

And what I wanted to do is to kind of reclaim poetry as that sight in which we can repurify, re-sanctify not only the Capitol building that we saw violated but the power of words and to invest that in kind of the highest office of the land.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORMAN: We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover in every known nook of our nation and every corner, called our country, our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful when day comes we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light if only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: I got shivers when you said that. I mean, that is what it takes, isn't it? It's bravery. It takes bravery to see it and to be that light. GORMAN: I'm so grateful you brought up the last line. It's something

that I've been seeing a lot of people repeat. And to be honest, I was concerned of whether I should include that last line of be at all. I was kind of deliberating between see it, be it, free it, and then I said you know, we need all of these things at once. We need that cacophony, we need to realize that hope isn't something that we ask of others. It's something that we have to demand of ourselves. And that's what I wanted the poem to land on.

COOPER: I had a form of dyslexia as a child and kind of a minor speech issue, slight little stutter. And Joe Biden has talked about this. I read that you had some form of a speech impediment or may still have, which is obviously something you would have in common with President Biden. He's talked often about overcoming it, and I understand that you use writing to cope with it, to share your voice that way. Can you talk about that a little bit?

GORMAN: Yes, I'm proud to be in the speech difficulty club with you and President Biden, and also Maya Angelou. You know, growing up, I had a speech impediment. And for me, it wasn't stutter. It was, you know, dropping a whole swath of letters in the alphabet. So for, I want to say, most of my life up until two or maybe three years ago, I couldn't say the letter R. Even to this day sometimes I struggle with it, which is difficult when you have a poem in which you say rise like five times.

COOPER: I understand you have a mantra that you say before every reading you give. Can you reveal what that is?

GORMAN: Certainly. I do it whenever I perform and I definitely did it this time. And I close my eyes and I say, I am the daughter of black writers. We're descended from freedom fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.

COOPER: Hillary Clinton tweeted a picture of you two from the inauguration today saying, wasn't @theamandagorman's poem just stunning? She's promised to run for president in 2036. And I for one can't wait.

President Gorman has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

GORMAN: Yes, it does. Madam President Gorman, I like the sound of that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: I have seen that. I've seen hashtag AmandaGorman2036 repeated.

BERMAN: I will tell, you, I've never seen anything like that in my entire life to see someone that full of so much knowledge and so much depth. Forget the age. Honestly, forget the age. The idea that she talked about of wanting to reclaim words. The fact that one of the things we've learned so much is that words matter and that Amanda Gorman single handedly walked in front of the world and took words back. I mean, wow. I mean, honestly, it is stunning. And also just to hear

an artist talk in that detail that frankly in a way that I can understand. Because I don't understand much poetry. And to hear someone like that explain it to me so frankly and matter of fact, it was also --you know, what a thing.

CAMEROTA: No, I totally agree. Her way with words, of course, is what is part of what is so special. And her wisdom. I mean, her wisdom. It just felt like exactly what we needed to hear yesterday and I'm sure we've not heard the last of her.

BERMAN: I got to say, Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Amanda Gorman, those are some of the people who've recited their poetry at inaugurations before. What a group.

CAMEROTA: We have breaking news on the Biden administration's response to --

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: All right, good morning, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. The sun rising on the first full day of the Biden administration and already breaking news.

White House officials tell CNN the previous administration had no plan for distributing the coronavirus vaccine. So they say on day one of his presidency, President Biden will have to start from scratch to get hundreds of millions of Americans vaccinated. They had no plan, we're being told. It's a situation depicted in this, the brand-new cover of "TIME" magazine just released.

[08:00:00]