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New Day

President Biden Pushes for Bipartisanship as GOP Clings to Trump; Novavax Vaccine Works Well Except on South African Variant. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 29, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: A long time. Congrats Australia for being able to pull that off. Here is to hoping we get there some time soon.

JOHN BERMAN: Yes, indeed. All right, Andy, thanks very much.

New Day continues right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day.

As President Biden tries to come up with solutions for coronavirus and the economic crisis, the Republican House leader is spending his energy visiting former President Trump in Florida so they can wash their hands of that pesky, deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that killed five Americans.

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy traveled to Mar-a-Lago Thursday to mend fences with Donald Trump, and we imagine, apologized for saying just two weeks ago that Trump bore responsibility for the Capitol riot.

Meanwhile, it's Democrats who are forced to try to expel Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who proudly videotaped herself harassing a survivor of the Parkland School shooting. Oh, and she's also said that Democrats should be executed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is very concerned about the ongoing threats to members of Congress and she says now the enemy is coming from within the House of Representatives.

BERMAN: There are new developments this morning in the effectiveness of vaccines against new coronavirus strains. Earlier results from drug maker Novavax show it is 89 percent effective against the regular strain, but only 60 percent effective against the variant that we are seeing in South Africa. That is worrying health officials.

What's more, people in the trial who had been previously infected with the first strain are getting infected again with the new strain. So this really has the potential to change some of the framing in the battle in this pandemic.

The first cases of that strain were now found in the United States. That happened for the first time yesterday. It happened in individuals who had not traveled, who have no connection to each other. This means there is already community spread of that variant.

CAMEROTA: Okay. But, first, we start with our top story. Joining us now, Democrat Congressman Jake Auchincloss, he was the first member of Congress to call for Marjorie Taylor Greene to resign or be expelled. We also have former Congressman Denver Riggleman, who is a chief strategist for the Network Contagion Research Institute. Great to have both of you here.

Congressman Auchincloss, I want to start with you, because you, as we said, were the first to really sound the alarm about Marjorie Taylor Greene. You believe she should be expelled. Isn't the argument against that, that that's for the voters to decide? They're the ones who put her there.

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): If you don't understand that calling for violence against your political opponents is unacceptable in democracy, then you should not be representing one. Marjorie Taylor Greene fails that test. But I should not have been the first person to call for her expulsion. Leader McCarthy should have beat me to the punch instead of traveling to Palm Beach to kiss Donald Trump's ring.

BERMAN: Congressman Auchincloss, let me just follow up on that for a second, because the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said that the enemy from within. That is what she now says. Look, you're a marine. Do you fear for your safety? Do you think that Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to do you harm?

AUCHINCLOSS: I don't fear for my safety. And I do think it's important that we turn the temperature down in the House chambers so we can have vigorous debate, as we're meant to do. The truth remains though that Marjorie Taylor Greene has called for the executions of Nancy Pelosi, President Obama, Hillary Clinton and she wants to bring a gun onto the House floor.

So, again, it really shouldn't have to be Speaker Pelosi who calls this out. The Republican conference should be taking care of extremism within its own ranks. They should have the decency to be embarrassed and then to take action on it, as opposed to continuing to buy into this cult of Trump.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Riggleman, they had their chance. They had their chance and they continue to have their chance to try to stop people like Marjorie Taylor Greene from leading, from talking, from being able to chase a Parkland School shooting survivor down the street, heckling him.

According to her opponent, so she was in this runoff race, as you know, in Georgia, 14th district in August. Her opponent said that there is a mound of oppo research on her. It's not just the stuff that we can see publicly on her social media post that she's now scrubbed, there's a mound of it, and so much so that Liz Cheney and Steve Scalise back then went to Kevin McCarthy and were like, we have a problem on our hands. They knew that she was going to be a problem. And somebody who is this fundamentally poisonous, who would heckle a teenage school shooting victim, that's not going away. But Kevin McCarthy hasn't done anything as far as we can tell.

DENVER RIGGLEMAN, CHIEF STRATEGIST, NCRI: You know, her opponent was a neurosurgeon also. So I want to put that out there about John. And we have talked about this and I find it amazing. And what scares me a lot and listening to the congressman, he is exactly right, it should have been the Republican conference that jumped up and said this is completely unacceptable.

[07:05:00]

My guess is she won't be expelled because it takes two-thirds of the vote. But what really concerns me is she had an audience for those videos.

We talk about the oppo research, people wanted to watch this. She thought that people would be interested in the things that she was saying. And when you think about liking posts that calls for the killing of members of Congress or thinking that space lasers are starting forest fires, you have an issue.

And you have to start wondering. People keep calling her a firebrand. I don't know if firebrand is a synonym for unstable, but that's the issue that we have right now, is we have somebody who is -- from what she said, the videos that she's put out there that we can define as unstable.

And that's I think there is that concern and I know why Nancy Pelosi was pretty surly in the press conference when people who do want to bring guns on the floor have been saying things are so outlandish and so ridiculous, basic conspiracy theories that were used to siege the Capitol, there is certainly a cascading effect here.

And I think that's the problem that we have, is not only do we have Marjorie Taylor Greene putting out this type of tripe, we have people watching this. And that's the issue with disinformation.

BERMAN: That's exactly right. Look, you say -- it's not just space lasers, Congressman Riggleman, it's Jewish space lasers. I mean, she says -- in this post, reportedly, she blames the Rothschilds for funding the building of Jewish space lasers. The Rothschilds, the European banking family, is the oldest, laziest, anti-Semitic trope out there, right?

RIGGLEMAN: It is.

BERMAN: But the point is it's not a mystery. I mean, none of this is a mystery. She is who she has always been. It's the -- the problem is the people electing her. The problem is the people allowing her to spread this at this point. She's who she always is. I mean, am I wrong?

RIGGLEMAN: John and Alisyn, she was seated on a committee.

CAMEROTA: Education. Education. How can she doing anything with children?

RIGGLEMAN: Nothing. And that's the thing that gets me. We look at Steve King, I was there when he was expelled from the committees. And what she's done is so much worse. You talk about the Rothschilds, John. Rothschild is also the baseline for QAnon theory for drinking blood from and harvesting babies, same exact thing, Jewish blood label.

And that's the things that we're looking at is that you're exactly right, people knew what they were getting. They knew the package this was wrapped in and she's still seated on committees. I don't think she's going to be expelled. I commend the congressman for doing this, for going forward and trying to do this. It's a noble thing to do, but it's not going to happen with a two-thirds vote in the House, and that's what we have right now.

And I think that that's what bothers me about disinformation. What bothers me is how many people have bought into this nonsense.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Congressman, can Democrats do anything without the support of Republicans?

AUCHINCLOSS: Democrats want to work in a bipartisan fashion, both to govern and to remove the worst elements from Congress. But the GOP has ownership of this. And the GOP knew what it was getting well before Marjorie Taylor Greene, when it embraced Donald Trump in 2016. And that is really when a ticking time bomb began.

And many GOP leaders, including Representative Riggleman, who voted against the impeachment of Donald Trump, own this issue and they all need to take ownership of removing this faction of white supremacism and extremism, meaning they had a GOP that can rebuild itself of foundations of integrity.

CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Congressman.

RIGGLEMAN: You know, I wasn't there to vote for impeachment or not impeachment, and I would have voted for impeachment, as everybody knows, you know, based on my background and talking about QAnon, as you know, for months. And that was the issue that I had, is that there has to be some bravery there.

You saw ten people who showed incredible bravery, and especially with Liz Cheney, what she's going through down in Wyoming right now, when you're looking at Fred Upton up in Michigan, Anthony Gonzalez in Ohio, Tom Rice, I mean, all of these individuals stood up and said that we have to get rid of sort of this scourge of disinformation and there is culpability when you see a siege on the Capitol on January 6th.

And when you have Marjorie Taylor Greene still spouting this nonsense, there has to come a time for accountability. And, sadly, from what I'm seeing on the ground out here, John and Alisyn, I'm not seeing that accountability that's actually going to jump up and bite anybody. I think they're going to actually make gains in 2022 based on Stop the Steal messaging. That's what I think is going to happen. BERMAN: Congressman Auchincloss, there's another development which has to do with security around the U.S. Capitol, which is the Capitol police are now suggesting putting a fence, keeping the fence up around the U.S. Capitol. How do you feel about fencing in the U.S. Capitol?

AUCHINCLOSS: We shouldn't turn the home of our democracy into a fortress. We don't want the Capitol to become a green zone that is unwelcoming, indeed even hostile to constituents and journalists. This should be open, safely opened to the public and representatives should govern with transparency and accountability.

I am deeply concerned about a permanent security posture around the Capitol that can keep people away. They deserve -- taxpayers and voters deserve to come and be able to ask questions and access the Capitol.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Riggleman, I want to pick up on what you were saying about Liz Cheney, because Congressman Kevin McCarthy had warned his members to, quote, cut the crap and stop attacking each other.

[07:10:09]

And then Matt Gaetz went to Wyoming and held a significant rally against Liz Cheney. This wasn't just a handful of people. There were hundreds of people there for his rally against Liz Cheney. Do you think that she is going to survive this?

RIGGLEMAN: Well, she did get almost 70 percent of the vote, but I think it's going to be a fight. And if you have people like Matt Gaetz going down there and doing those type of things where he's rallying up the crowd like this, I think that's a real issue.

And, again, I was shaking my head while I was watching this and you probably were too. I mean, we were in Wyoming and you have this individual who looks like he's dressed as an extra from Dead Poets' Society, and they're screaming about Liz Cheney in Wyoming. And Liz has done incredible things for that state.

And, again, watching this, Donald Trump Jr. called into that rally and Kevin McCarthy was with Donald Trump while this rally was happening. So I don't know how honest Kevin was being about those not speaking out against other members, when it looked like some kind of coordinated action in Wyoming, with the dump about some kind of ridiculous survey that most of the voters were against Liz, 500 people from a Trump-specific PAC that was doing polling there. All of this sounds like an oppo dump that was sort of rehearsed, it was coordinated, and all of this was done just to get at Liz Cheney for her vote for impeachment.

So it's pretty easy to see this when you've been politics and intelligence, when you see sort of a coordinated action like this. So I wasn't that surprised by it and Matt Gaetz has never seen a camera he didn't like, so it wasn't a surprise that he would be doing that.

BERMAN: Congress Auchincloss, let me ask you a question about relief that millions of Americans are waiting for. You just talked about bipartisanship in a different setting. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, was asked by our Kaitlan Collins yesterday, would President Biden sign a relief bill that didn't have Republican votes? As you sit here today, do you think that he should commit to signing or not signing a bill that isn't bipartisan?

AUCHINCLOSS: I think that's a question for President Biden. But I can tell you from my seat, I think a relief package that has bipartisan support is going to be a better, stronger relief package but we're not going to wait on it, because Americans and small businesses and local governments are struggling right now and we need to get something fast.

And as your previous report raised, we're now in a race between vaccines and variants. And we need the money to produce a vaccine supply fast enough and to get it into arms fast enough that we can outpace the variant. So this is becoming a matter of life and death as well as a matter of livelihoods. And we just can't wait on the GOP to come around to what is so clearly necessary.

CAMEROTA: And we're going to talk about that in one second. Gentlemen, thank you very much, really great to get your perspectives.

AUCHINCLOSS: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: So, new concern about the effectiveness of vaccines against one of those highly contagious strains of coronavirus. The new data about one of the coronavirus vaccines that Dr. Fauci says is, quote, not good.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

BERMAN: This morning, new growing concern about the effectiveness of vaccines against the highly contagious strains of coronavirus, especially the variant first seen in South Africa. So, preliminary results from Novavax show that its vaccine is 89 percent effective, which is good news against the regular strain, but only 60 percent effective against the strain seen in South Africa.

The U.S. reported its first case of that strain, two cases, in South Carolina. They involve adults who did not travel to South Africa, which means that there is community spread of that already here in the United States.

Joining us now is Dr. Peter Hotez, he's the co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital and the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Hotez, I'm glad you're here, because it's that gap in effectiveness in these vaccines between the strain we've seen and the strains we're seeing in South Africa. It's that gap that I know is of concern, and also the fact that people in that study who had already been infected with the first strain, getting infected again with this new variant. How does this reframe how you are thinking about the pandemic this morning?

DR. PETER HOTEZ, CO-DIRECTOR, CETNER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT, TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Yes, no, it is pretty concerning, because what we're seeing is reductions in the effectiveness of all of the vaccines tested so far against the South African variant. So, in some cases, it's just looking at virus-neutralizing antibodies, to the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. There's a significant reduction and same now with the Novavax vaccine, where we actually have clinical data.

I mean, look, they're still partially protective, so I think we'll still see a substantial potential benefit from these vaccines against the South African variant, but we're already anticipating -- and when I say, we, we also have a recombinant protein vaccines that we're developing, we're already looking at producing a second vaccine specifically against this new South African variant, that would likely be used as a boost later on.

So I think the message right now is to the American people especially, is, look, nothing changes in the immediate future. We're going to use all of our existing vaccines. They're still highly effective, but later on in the year or maybe in 2022, we might have to look at a boost using a modified version of the vaccine that's specific for the South African variant.

CAMEROTA: We are just hearing from CDC Director Rochelle Walensky about that 60 percent rate on the South African variant, so let's listen to what she just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: -- expected a vaccine as efficacious as the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine at 95 percent efficacy, and I would say even a vaccine that has 50, 60 percent efficacy would still be a really strong tool in our toolbox to fight this pandemic.

Furthermore, I know that these mRNA vaccines have the capacity to use and to engineer the mRNA so it would be more potent against these strains.

[07:20:10]

And that work is actually already ongoing.

So it may just lend us to feel like we need a booster effect further down the road, so all of that science is ongoing in anticipation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That sounds familiar. I believe you just said something like that. But, practically speaking, Dr. Hotez, how does it work? Because I would take that 60 percent right now, okay, and I think that so many Americans would. So that means that then when the booster is available, we would go back for the booster next year or whenever you have it ready?

HOTEZ: Yes, that's probably some scenario like that. But, look, here is where we have to -- here's how we have to proceed, I think. If we can vaccinate the American people, fully vaccinated, 240 million people in terms of three quarters of the U.S. population to slow or halt virus transmission, which is our estimate of what's required, if we can do that over the next five to six months, we still have the possibility of completely getting ahead of this variant and really halting virus transmission in this country.

We're not going to do it just with the mRNA vaccines alone. We won't have enough of those vaccines. It's still a young technology in terms of robust production, so maximize the use of the two mRNA vaccines. But if we can, if we can get the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine up, the adenovirus vaccine, the J&J adenovirus vaccine, if we can get that Novavax vaccine into production, we have a recombinant protein vaccine that nobody in the federal government has talked to us about bringing into the U.S., if we can bring all of those vaccines to bear, we can actually have a pretty big impact on halting virus transmission.

And I think that's where the emphasis needs to be right now is bringing along those other vaccines as soon as possible.

BERMAN: If, right, if, and that's a goal, but that's a goal that's not days and weeks away, that's a goal largely months away. And then there's a question about what do we do in the meantime, particularly, if this variant first seen in South Africa is here in the U.S. spreading amongst the community and maybe soon spreading quickly.

So, how far are you willing to go, Doctor? What measures do you think need to be considered now to make sure that the South African variant doesn't take off?

HOTEZ: Well, first of all, I do think we can maximize vaccination. I think we're -- you know, generally, the tone that I'm hearing is not from you, but, in general, is a bit defeatist saying, there's nothing we can do, we won't be able to vaccinate the American people until the fall. And I say, no, we have to make this a bigger priority and halt virus transmission. And we can do it if we kind of do a little bit of adjusting in terms of how we're thinking about this epidemic.

Look, if we get to 600,000 deaths, which are what some of the projections are by May, that is going to be so incredibly destabilizing. If we're a country, say, by the middle of May, 600,000 deaths, and people are still calling Duane Reade and Rite Aid and CVS begging for a vaccine for their mother or father or brother or sister, that is going to be a major hit to our homeland security. So we have to be all-hands-on-deck in preventing that.

In the meantime, we don't know how many variants are here and how widespread the South African variant is, because we're so underperforming in genomic sequencing. We still haven't fixed that. We're only doing 50, 60, maybe 100,000 virus genome sequences. We should be at around 10 million. We're not harnessing the full energy of all of our research universities.

We should have those robotic sequencers at the Broad Institute at Harvard MIT and the New York Genome Center and our Baylor Genome Center and University of Washington and Washington University of St. Louis. Those things should be running day and night, 24 hours a day, getting up to 10 million virus genome sequences, so we know what the heck we're dealing with.

CAMEROTA: Is the Biden administration considering that and working on that?

HOTEZ: I don't know. I would assume yes, but I don't have any inside information about that.

CAMEROTA: I don't know, Doctor. I mean, I don't know how we're going to avoid getting to that 600,000 dead number because we're still moving at this incredibly fast, deadly clip. So, hospitalizations have come down a little bit, the positivity rate at the moment has come down a little bit, but not the death rate. And so I don't see how we're going to dodge that horrible bullet.

HOTEZ: Well, remember, in terms of that decline in numbers, we have gone from about 250,000 new confirmed cases a day to about 150,000, so a 40 percent decrease. That's the eye of the storm from my assessment, and as these new variants start to take over. So now is the time where we have to rev up our vaccination rate. We're still only about 7, 8, 9 percent of the American people. That's just not enough. We have to move faster.

[07:25:00]

BERMAN: Dr. Peter Hotez, thank you very much for helping us understand this. And there is a lot to go through this morning. So we really appreciate it.

HOTEZ: Thank you so much.

BERMAN: All right. These stunning comments from Republican member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene, everyone has known them from the beginning. She is no mystery. So how is it that the party and the people have been welcoming her for so long?

We're going to speak to a reporter who's been covering from her from the beginning, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning, congressional Republican leaders under fire for their tepid response to outlandish rhetoric from Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is just a small snapshot of the things she said. She once wrote in a blog post that the total lie of this pizza gate conspiracy theory, claiming the Clintons and Democrats were running a pedophilia ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria, she wrote it was real. She's promoted the fringe QAnon conspiracy which casts the former president as some fighter against a sinister network of deep state government and Hollywood elites.

[07:30:02]

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): We are talking about who is Q, so I'm going to tell you what he says. According to him.