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Biden: There Will Be Enough Vaccine for All Americans By End of July; Biden: Now is the Time to Spend Big on Economic Relief; At Least 20 Dead, Millions Endure Record Cold Without Power. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired February 17, 2021 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:24]
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Laura. I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, February 17th, exactly 5:00 a.m. in the East.
And Americans await two pivotal lifelines -- a vaccine shot in the arm and a metaphorical shot in the arm from the president's economic rescue plan. President Biden addressed both in the trip to the swing state of Wisconsin for a CNN town hall, his first trip as president. He offered a timeline of when the vaccine will be available for all Americans and a return to something like normal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: By the end of July, we'll have over 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate every single American. As my mother would say, with the grace of God and the goodwill of the neighbors that by next Christmas, I think we'll be in a very different circumstance, God willing, than we are today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: One of the most pressing questions nationwide, when can schools reopen? And on that, the president tried to clear up some confusion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Your administration had set a goal to open the majority of schools in your first hundred days. You're now saying that means those schools may only be open for at least one day a week.
BIDEN: No, that's not true. That's what was reported. That's not true. That was a mistake in the communication.
But what I'm talking about is, I said opening the majority of schools in K through 8th grade, because they're the easiest to open. The most needed to be open, in terms of the impact on children and families, having to stay home. COOPER: So when do you think that would be K through 8, at least five
days a week?
BIDEN: I think we'll be close to that at the end of the first 100 days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: President Biden said he wants teachers and other school employees to be at the front of the line for the vaccine. He also showed the vast difference in personal style from his predecessor. He said even after a half century in public service, he's still in awe at the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I've only been president four weeks. And sometimes, because things are moving so fast, not because of burden, it feels like four years. It's not because of the burden. It's because there's so much happening that you're focused on, you're constantly focusing on one problem or opportunity. What I didn't realize, I had been in the Oval Office, a hundred times as vice president, more than that, every morning, for the initial meetings.
But I had never been up in the residence. And one of the things that, I don't know about you all, I was raised in a way that, you didn't look for anybody to wait on you. And it's -- where I find myself extremely self-conscious, wonderful people work at the White House. But someone standing there and, you know, making sure -- hands me my suit coat or --
COOPER: You'd never been in the residence of the White House?
BIDEN: I'd only been upstairs in the yellow room -- you know, the oval upstairs.
COOPER: I don't know, I've never been there either.
BIDEN: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Politics were at play last night as well. Wisconsin is a state the president barely won where Republican Senator Ron Johnson is up for re-election in 2022.
Tomorrow, Mr. Biden goes to another swing state, Michigan, to visit a Pfizer plant.
JARRETT: With his pitch for the COVID relief bill, the president is playing to a very receptive audience, the American people, but is he doing enough to sway members of Congress?
Let's go live to Capitol Hill and bring in CNN's Daniella Diaz. Daniella, last night, we saw Biden the moderate, on any number of
issues, except when it came to his rescue plan. He apparently had the message go big or go home?
DANIELLA DIAZ, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: That's exactly right, Laura. Look, despite the fact that Congress is out this week, Democratic leaders and their aides are working diligently behind the scenes to iron out these details, these last-minute details of Biden's massive $1.9 trillion COVID relief package.
Look, the clock is ticking. Millions of Americans are going to run out of their unemployment benefits in mid-March. So, Biden is adamant, as well as Democratic lawmakers to try to pass this before then.
But this is going to be a huge test for Biden and the Democratic Party. He needs all 50 Democratic senators to sign on and support his plan because they're trying to pass this using budget reconciliation which means they need 51 votes in the Senate. As you guys pointed out, he made his case last night to the American people, adamantly trying to say this needs to happen right now.
[05:05:06]
That this needs to be passed and the money needs to be spent.
Here's what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: This is the first time in my career, and as you can tell, I'm over 30, the first time in my career, that there is a consensus among economists left, right and center, overwhelming consensus, in order to grow the economy a year two, three, four down the line. We can't spend too much. Now's the time we should be spending. Now's the time to go big.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIAZ: So, as you heard from Biden there, he's adamantly pushing that this is the time to have a massive $1.9 trillion COVID relief package but, look, there are some sticking points that some senators are pointing out that they don't agree with. With phasing out for the stimulus check salary caps, phasing out that, as well as the increase to minimum wage to increase to $15 an hour.
We're watching in particular two senators who say they don't want this included in the package -- West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona's Senator Kyrsten Sinema.
So, Biden doesn't have any every single Democratic senator signed on to this package, it's unlikely that this will pass. So, bottom line, we're keeping an eye on this and the first votes will likely be in the House next week.
JARRETT: Yeah, clearly, sticking points to work out. Daniella, thanks so much. We'll see you back in a little bit. ROMANS: Yeah, big question, will there be a minimum wage increase in that rescue plan?
Last night, the President Joe Biden reaffirm his support for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: No one should work 40 hours a week and live in poverty. No one should work 40 hours a week and live in poverty.
(APPLAUSE)
But it's totally legitimate for small business owners to be concerned how that changes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Now, the minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for more than a decade, but states have been making these changes alone. Voters in dozens of states and cities have passed laws to raise the minimum wage themselves, even red states, raising the minimum wage on the state level. The Congressional Budget Office finds raising the minimum wage would pull 900,000 people out of poverty and give about 27 million workers a raise, 27 million.
But it comes at a cost. The CBO says that costs 1.4 million jobs and raise the federal deficit by $54 billion over a decade. Now, the CBO found raising the minimum wage would help lower income Americans, many of them are essential workers, people of color and women.
And, Laura, there is a misconception of minimum wage that it's an army of teenagers who are working jobs, you know, slinging hamburgers and they deserve $7.25 an hour. But the reality there are families living or two living on two jobs or three jobs at that minimum wage and it's just not sustainable for families.
JARRETT: And in the states where they have raised it, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but you haven't seen this massive drop off in jobs, right?
ROMANS: And they've been doing it slowly because their voters want higher wages for people. There's also talk, what if you could have, especially small business, a certain number of these workers who do work, like teenagers for a lower wage. Is that possible? But doing it gradually I think is what the president is talking about.
JARRETT: Yeah.
ROMANS: Will it be in the rescue plan? That remains to be seen.
JARRETT: All right. Still ahead, millions still without power across Texas. How did the state that produces the most energy in the country end up in the dark?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [05:12:44]
JARRETT: Many Americans across the South still waking up to bitter cold and ice this morning. At least 20 people have died, the state of Texas still frozen in place. Houston schools are closed until at least Friday. The mayor says maintaining water pressure is becoming increasingly difficult.
The city of Galveston is now under tight water restrictions after a major water line broke. Three million customers which, by the way, is a lot more than just 3 million people, are still without power.
Overnight, most buildings in downtown Houston turned their lights off trying to save energy there.
ROMANS: Yeah, these rolling blackouts in this big energy-producing state. Texas produces power more than any other state, but infrastructure in the warm weather state was unprepared for this cold snap. Critics of renewable energy, including the governor, pointing out that wind turbines have been frozen and shut down due to the extreme cold.
But, you know, that's only part of the story. Natural gas and coal plants also failed. They make up the majority of the state's energy use. And Texas is the only state to use its own independent power grid, which means it does not have federal regulations that might have better prepared Texas for an event like this.
CNN's Ed Lavandera reports for us this morning from Dallas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, it is the third night in a row that millions of Texans who have been without electrical power since the storm blew into the state Sunday night into Monday, another night of spending and living in dangerously cold and brutal conditions inside their homes. The million dollar question still remains when exactly will the power be turned on for all of these people suffering through these conditions.
And as hard as it may seem to believe, the answers just aren't clear yet. We spoke with the chief executive of the Texas power grid who had told us that they had hoped to have power restored in most cases, perhaps by Wednesday. But it's not exactly clear that's going to happen today.
In fact, the governor of Texas has been telling local reporters here in the state that there are problems with the natural gas pipelines, that natural gas essentially is frozen in those systems. And natural gas is what powers the heating systems for millions of homes across this state.
So, this is a situation that appears that it might get worse before it gets better. And on Wednesday, today, another storm system, weather storm system, is expected to move through the area as well. So, these conditions will remain cold, will remain dangerously and
bitterly cold for the next several days. And that is of great concern, because what local officials are saying is that they are worried that this will continue to be an incredibly deadly situation, for many communities across the state of Texas -- Christine and Laura.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JARRETT: All right. Ed Lavandera, thank you so much for that.
President Biden said there should be enough vaccine for all Americans by July but actually getting the shots into arms, well, that's harder. CNN has learned the rollout of Johnson & Johnson's single shot vaccine will be slower than officials anticipated.
Officials thought they would have 20 million or 30 million doses by April. But after miscommunication on the time line, it's clear the numbers would be slow at the start.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If you start talking about when vaccine would be more widely available to the general population, I was hoping that that would be by the end of April. They have gone through all of the priorities and now say, okay, anyone can get it. That was predicated on J&J, the Johnson product, having considerably more doses than we know they're going to have. So that timeline will probably be prolonged maybe into mid to late May and early June.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Officials do still expect to get 100 million doses from J&J by the end of June or early July. The FDA is scheduled to consider an emergency use authorization next week. The need is immediate. The Mt. Sinai hospital system in New York City has cancelled all patient vaccination appointment citing sudden changes in vaccine supply.
The Biden administration is increasing the weekly vaccine supply to 13.5 million doses a week. That's a 57 percent increase since inauguration. And the administration will be doubling the supply to the pharmacy program, increasing local access across the country.
JARRETT: The Biden administration is ready to unveil legislation on immigration. Here's what the president told Anderson Cooper last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: You do want a pathway to citizenship --
BIDEN: Yes.
COOPER: -- for roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants?
BIDEN: Yes.
COOPER: And that would be essential in any bill for you?
BIDEN: Well, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: The president, however, did suggest he'd be flexible on whether all his priorities had to be in one big immigration bill. The legislation will focus on undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S., as children, known as the Dreamers, along with undocumented agriculture workers and those in the country under some form of humanitarian relief.
ROMANS: All right. The mayor of Atlanta has a sobering message ahead of the NBA all-star festivities -- stay away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:22:12]
ROMANS: All right. The NBA is scheduled to hold the all-star game next month in Atlanta. But the city's mayor is asking fans to stay away.
Andy Scholes has this morning's "Bleacher Report."
Hi, Andy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, good morning, Christine.
So, the NBA hasn't made an official announcement yet, but it's widely reported that the NBA all-star game and all the skills competition are going to take place, one day, March 7th.
And Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, she has concerns about her city hosting the game. She tweeted, under normal circumstances, we'd be grateful for the opportunity to host the NBA game all star. But this isn't a typical year. I've shared my concerns with the NBA and Atlanta Hawks, agree this is a made-for-TV event only, and people shouldn't travel to Atlanta to party.
Now, in a memo obtained by CNN, the NBA told the teams on Monday that strict protocol guidelines will be in effect for the events. But Kings star, De'Aaron Fox, told Athletics' Chams Sharania the he is worried about the widespread outbreak during the all-star game.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DE'AARON FOX, SACRAMENTO KINGS GUARD: You bring in the players somebody ends up testing positive. And the contact tracing now instead of two different teams, it's 12 or 16 different teams.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SCHOLES: All right. Celtics star Jayson Tatum meanwhile says more than a month after having COVID 19, he's still feeling lingering effects. He missed five games in January after testing positive, and he says the virus is impacting his conditioning during games.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAYSON TATUM, BOSTON CELTICS FORWARD: I think it's messing with your breathing a little bit. I've been experiencing game where is, I don't want to say, struggling to breathe, but, you know, you get fatigued a lot quicker than normal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: All right. And Nets playing without two-thirds of the big three last night in Phoenix, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant both sitting this one out. They were down by as much as 24 points before storming back in the second half. Down one, under a minute to go, James Harden hits the step back three to give Brooklyn their first lead in the game. Durant and Kyrie pumped up about that.
Harden had 38 points. The Nets came all the way back 128-124, the final there.
All right. To the Australian Open, the top seed in the women's side Ash Barty is out, falling in the quarterfinals after taking the opening set last night, Barty dropped of the last two to the 25th seed Karolina Muchova. She's making her first grand slam semifinal of her career now. She's going to face American Jen Brady.
Brady coming back from the set down to knock out fellow American Jessica Pegula in three sets to make her second straight semifinal appearance at a grand slam.
And, Laura, the semifinal, we're all waiting for it. It's tonight, Serena Williams taking on Naomi Osaka. If you're watching us right now, maybe you can mix in a nap because it's not started until 10 10:00 Eastern.
[05:25:06]
JARRETT: Well, it's definitely one to watch. That's for sure.
Thanks, Andy. Appreciate it.
SCHOLES: All right.
JARRETT: All right. Joe Biden's first trip is in the bag. We'll tell you what he told people about COVID relief, reopening schools and when there's enough vaccine for all Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Good to be back, man.
COOPER: Nice to see you, sir. (END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: All right. Good morning, everyone. This is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
JARETT: And I'm Laura Jarrett. Almost 30 minutes past the hour here in New York.
Right now, Americans have so many questions President Biden tried to answer some of them at a town hall last night. The trip to swing state Wisconsin, his first as president, he offered a new time line when the vaccine will be available for all Americans.
