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Johnson & Johnson Ships Vaccine Doses, Injections Begin Tomorrow; Joe Biden to Meet with Mexican President amid Migration Issues. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 01, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have the Republican Party. It's going to united and be stronger than ever before. I am not starting a new party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The former president also repeatedly dangled the possibility of a new run for the presidency. Who knows if he'll follow through? But the mere suggestion of it has very real implications for the Republican Party today.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Also developing overnight, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issuing a statement of apology after a second woman, a former aide, accuses him of sexual harassment. Cuomo acknowledging for the first time that some of his behavior may have been, quote, "insensitive or too personal," while insisting he has never inappropriately touched or propositioning anyone. What happens next? Can he survive these allegations?

And this morning, video from Kentucky of Johnson & Johnson's newly approved vaccine rolling out across the United States. The new single dose vaccine could be in Americans' arms starting tomorrow, as the director of the CDC warns that the number of new cases, which had been dropping may now be plateauing at a very high level.

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN political commentator and former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent, and CNN political analyst Seung Min Kim. She's a White House reporter for the "Washington Post." So Charlie, he's staying in your party. You wanted him out. He declared moments ago, I'm staying. He also said the basis, in his mind, for membership in the Republican Party, that was the message, is adherence to the lie that he won the election. And I think we have sound of him declaring once again the lie that he thinks he won the election. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Actually, as you know, they just lost the White House, but it's one of those. (APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: But who knows? Who knows? I may even decide to beat them for a third time.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He's saying the Democrats just lost the White House. So Charlie, how do you feel about that? How do you feel about the former president saying he's a Republican now for good and making clear once again is that that is a central tenet of the party?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Let's first start out by saying what Trump-fest is, or CPAC is. This group has always drawn an excessive amount of the tinfoil hat brigade shows up, and the black helicopter crowd, and they're cheering wild statements about winning for a third time. This is just so absurd.

The party is bleeding right now. There have been estimates over 120,000 people who have left the Republican Party since the insurrection in Pennsylvania. The number is about 20,000 who have left. The party is in disarray. It's terribly divided and fractured. And just in Pennsylvania last Wednesday, there was a vote to censure Pat Toomey. And by the way, they're still tabulating the votes. I'm not suggesting there was voter fraud, but boy, it sure seems suspicious. They can't even get a count on that.

This is a mess. And that Trump-fest down in Florida really didn't settle anything. They have those meaningless straw poles. But the party is divided. It's fractured, no matter how much they want to say it's unified.

CAMEROTA: But about that meaningless straw poll, because you said that it's the tinfoil hat brigade, and the black helicopter crowd, what do you think of these numbers? In terms of should Trump run in 2024, that's the question, only 68 percent of that crowd --

BERMAN: The tinfoil hat, black helicopter --

CAMEROTA: The tinfoil hat brigade, as you called them, said yes. More than 30 percent said no or they're unsure. And then in terms of would he be the chase, only 55 percent of that crowd said Donald Trump is their top choice. So wouldn't you expect him to be higher among that crowd?

DENT: Yes, it actually would. It would be higher, you would think it would be higher, so that would be of some concern to Donald Trump. But also remember, too, these straw polls have always had Ron and Rand Paul leading or winning the nomination as well. So I always take that with a grain of salt.

But there's clearly some reticence even by that crowd that Donald Trump might not be an ideal candidate. Why double down on defeat or triple down on it? I can't think of anything more stupid than that. BERMAN: Do you have him naming names? One of the things that he also

did during this speech, Seung Min, was to go down an enemies list, a Republican enemies list. Let's play that for people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrats don't have grandstanders like Mitt Romney, little Ben Sasse, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: There you go. And so Seung Min, in your daily life covering not just the White House but also Capitol Hill, what's the impact of that, of having the former president name names of Republican members of Congress like that?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, certainly the immediate impact, because we always know that the next campaign starts when the last campaign ends, is how much he's going to be an influence in these Republican congressional primaries.

[08:05:00]

And we're already seeing the impact of that. Recently in the last couple of days, he endorsed a former aide of his in the White House to run for a congressional seat in Ohio against one of the Republican members who vote to impeach him in the House. So you see that impact right away. So that's why you're right now seeing a lot of Republican leaders scrambling to stress to the media, stress to the public that there is no civil war in the party. Senator Rick Scott, who is leading the National Republican Senatorial Committee, went on yesterday saying the party is united, but certainly we see just from the activities over the last several weeks that the party sure is not.

And I also want to go back to the straw poll for a second there. obviously, 68 percent doesn't seem to be that high considering that he is the former president. There's still a lot of adulation in the party. But there was another poll result from CPAC yesterday that said even if only 68 percent of those attendees wanted him to run in 2024, 95 percent of the attendees said they wanted the Republican Party to spread Trumpism, his policies, his agenda, his ideals. So I think that's why Republican leaders, the ones who want to come back into power in 2022, are really trying to find a way to keep everyone together, to keep the ideas of Trump, and to keep his voters in line. But obviously the former president makes it very hard for Republican leaders to do that.

CAMEROTA: That's really interesting, Seung Min, they want Trumpism maybe without Trump.

KIM: Right.

CAMEROTA: Seung Min, can you catch us up, what's the status of the COVID relief bill? KIM: So there's big news on that front, actually, just over the last

several hours in the last day, that Senate Democratic leaders who had been planning sort of a plan b of sorts to get a $15 minimum wage increase into the COVID relief bill dropped those plans. What they had been talking about was actually writing that provision as a penalty on businesses that don't raise the minimum wage, but they decided that there was simply not enough time to get all 50 members of the Democratic Caucus on board before the middle of this month, which is when they want to pass this bill.

So they're moving forward without the minimum wage increase. They will find ways to do it in future legislation. Should make it easier to pass in the Senate because that was the most controversial provision. But the fight over the minimum wage will definitely continue for another day.

BERMAN: And Charlie, what that means, though, is that the Senate is likely to pass the COVID relief bill this week, and then the House will go back and pass the Senate version likely next week. It looks like this will maybe get done by the end of next week. I wonder what you think the impact of that will be, both politically and overall to Americans?

DENT: Actually, John, I think the bill is too big. I think it's going to smell worse over time. A CBO report came out according to Mitt Romney who wrote an op-ed about this that $700 billion of this funding wouldn't be able to be spent until 2022 and beyond, out to 2030. I mean, $700 billion, that's the size of TARP. It's a lot of money. Putting a minimum wage increase of $15 an hour I think is really going to cause enormous problems to the hospitality sector.

BERMAN: It's not in there. That's out. That's out. That's out.

DENT: It's in the House, but it's coming out in the Senate. But the whole point of the matter is I think they overshot here. They had an opportunity to reach a bipartisan agreement here that would have been much more targeted, much more focused and, frankly, much more timely than what they have done. So I'm hoping Senator Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema can try to pull this thing back a little bit and deal with the minimum wage separately where they should increase it, but not by this much.

CAMEROTA: Seung Min, while we have you, we just wanted to ask how you're doing. We were concerned last week because you and so many of our colleagues have been on the receiving end of hideous racist or sexist attacks just for being a journalist, so much so with you that your newspaper, "The Washington Post," put out this statement, "The racist and sexist attacks have been vicious and typical. She and other minority women endure vile, baseless attacks on a daily basis no matter what story they're working on or tweeting about. She did her job. She did it well, like she always does." How was last week for you?

KIM: I'm doing fine. Thanks for asking. Very overwhelmed by the support from my employer, my colleagues, the public. I was flooded with very nice e-mails from readers of "The Post," and very thankful for that.

And it is an unfortunate reality of just being a woman, being a woman of color journalist, doing our jobs every day that we are subjected to these kinds of comments and harassment online. I think just also what my bosses state touched on was that in this whole episode, there was also kind of a fundamental misunderstanding of what our jobs are as journalists.

[08:10:08]

I was told that I was making myself into the story. that it wasn't my job to take down a Biden nominee or whatnot. And I think that, as my boss --

BERMAN: Seung Min was doing her job, that goes without saying. And the attacks on her were vile. They just were. They were repugnant. They don't have any place in our society. But she's going to keep doing her job as well as she does every day. And for that we're grateful.

CAMEROTA: Our thanks to Seung Min and to Charlie.

So the Republican Party is looking more like the party of resistance as former President Trump tightens his grip. CNN's John Harwood is live at the White House with more. I'm not sure what that means, John, exactly, because they're the party of adulation for Donald Trump if you base it on the CPAC response. Your thoughts?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Alisyn. But the question is, why the adulation? The answer to that has to do with the core message of Donald Trump, make America great again. He's looking backwards. Donald Trump gave that remark at the insurrection on January 6th, saying if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. What does that mean? Well, the core of the Republican Party is white Christians, who for most of the United States history have been the large majority of Americans. That is no longer the case. White Christians are now fewer than half of the American population.

And the Republican Party takes its strongest cues from the most fervent among those white Christians, that is evangelicals. You look at their attitudes, white evangelicals, there's been a lot of polling on this from the Public Religion Research Institute, from the American Enterprise Institute. Most of white evangelical protestant Republicans think life in the United States was better in the 50s. They think the United States should be a white Christian country. Sixty percent in January said that it may be necessary to use force to preserve the American way of life. That was after the insurrection.

So that is an indication for you of the depth of those feelings. And the kind of politics that produces is a tight embrace of somebody like Donald Trump whose message is I'm going to fight them. It's not about a policy per se, it's not about -- remember, the Republican Party did not approve a platform at their convention last summer. It's about resistance and fighting, and you see that translated last week to the vote in the House where, even though that COVID relief bill, whether it was too big or not too big, it's 70 percent popular among the American public. Zero House Republicans voted for that bill.

You saw only three House Republicans voted for the Equality Act last week, which was a Democratic measure to protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Only 11 House Republicans voted to discipline Marjorie Taylor Greene. They're responding, even if there are disagreements about Donald Trump and his conduct, the party as a whole is responding to that message, we need to stand up and fight. And what that tells you is it is going to be very difficult if not impossible for Joe Biden to generate significant bipartisan support for his initiatives on immigration, on infrastructure. No matter what the content of those initiatives, the imperative is to stand up and fight.

CAMEROTA: John, your points are so interesting. I heard the same thing just from my QAnon panel. The culture and country is changing. It's changing too fast for some people's comfort level. It's making them scared and anxious and paranoid, and some veer into violence. And so I appreciate you making all these point. John, I'm sorry, we're out of time. I've got to let you go, but everybody should read your fantastic piece.

Meanwhile, millions of Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses are on their way. How many can Americans expect to see in the coming weeks? A top J&J official joins us with the answer next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:49]

BERMAN: Nearly four million doses of the just approved Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine being shipped across the United States. The first shots could go into arms as early as tomorrow.

Joining us now is Dr. Paul Stoffels, he is Johnson & Johnson's Chief Scientific Officer. Doctor, first of all, congratulations to you and congratulations to the country for getting these vaccines shipped. They will make a difference over time.

I know we will talk about the numbers in a second, but I want to talk to you first about another piece of news in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

I understand that you're going to be the first to test your vaccine on infants. Right now, it's being tested on people 12 to 18 years old, but I understand immediately after that, there is a plan to test it on people younger than that.

When do you hope to have results and what do you expect?

DR. PAUL STOFFELS, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER, JOHNSON & JOHNSON: Well, starting now, as we got approval from the F.D.A. that was the start to get to infants and to adults -- to adolescents, and we're working with N.I.H. to accelerate that as soon as possible to get to the data.

Adolescents, we hope to have by the summer and infants later in the year. It takes somewhat more time to go different dosages for small kids, but we'll study them as quickly as possible.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Stoffels, can you tell us how many doses Americans can expect of the J&J vaccine this month because last year, I know you had promised 30 million doses, or sorry, 37 million doses were promised last year, but it sounds like you're not going to hit that mark and this month, we will only have something like 20 million doses at the most. What's the number?

STOFFELS: Well, we'll have 20 million in March and 100 million by June, and this is a single-shot vaccine so a hundred million U.S. citizens will be able to get vaccinated before the summer with our vaccine. And so, 20 million in the month of March, and up to a hundred by the end of June.

CAMEROTA: But why aren't you going to hit the 37 million prediction which was going to be by the end of March?

STOFFELS: Look, the upstart -- the startup of many of these plans is quite complicated. The throughput is like 70 days before you get to a vaccine from the start, and in parallel with the 12-month development, we started mid last year with gearing up the production, and yes, we are getting everything out what we can to the people what we can get out.

[08:20:22]

STOFFELS: You can't accelerate it by yelling at it, so you have to have the cells growing and the virus is extracted and put into vials and that's what it is.

And so -- but we are very, very proud that we can do hundred million in the first half of the year, and hopefully by the summer, contributing a lot to vaccinating all of the United States.

BERMAN: It is a single-dose vaccine as you know, which does provide different opportunities and maybe different focus for who gets it and when, but you are also testing the idea of what a second dose of the vaccine would do?

Why? And where does that research stand and what are you finding early on?

STOFFELS: Well, we are doing this study also global. It is done in the U.S., South America, Europe, Africa, and including Asia.

What we learned there is to look at is the durability of protection, and it is clear that this pandemic will not be over soon if we don't protect first the U.S., but also the entire world and we need to probably protect people for several years.

A booster dose will be needed at a certain point and we so started the study with an interim of two months to get to maximum protection and durability.

We are also evaluating when we need to have eventually a boost on the single dose, which might be six months, 12 months at a certain point to keep immunity up.

All new signs which still have to be studied and will be back with information on that soon.

CAMEROTA: In terms of your studies, have you gotten -- gathered any information about transmissibility, and whether or not the vaccine cuts down on not just severe illness but the transmissibility from one person to another?

STOFFELS: On Friday, with the advisory panel, we discussed the first information on that, but it's on a small part of the study that we could generate that quickly all of these data.

So, in the coming weeks, we'll have more data on that. It looks good that we can protect for transmissibility, but it's too early to claim that that is happening.

So stay tuned. In three, four, or five weeks, we'll be there with more information.

CAMEROTA: I mean, that would be a game changer, obviously, if that's what the vaccine bears. If those are the results, that would be a game changer for people getting back life back to normal.

STOFFELS: Yes. Absolutely. What we also know is that when you get vaccinated and you still have some symptoms, the symptoms are less -- much less severe.

So the vaccine, if we can prove that it prevents, that it decreases the symptoms if you get the disease, but most important, up until now, it has protected every participant in the study who got vaccinated from death and hospitalization and I think that continues to be the most important thing the vaccine can do because that will limit the burden on the hospitals and we can get back to normal life.

BERMAN: Dr. Paul Stoffels, thanks so much for being with us helping us understand where you are with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. We appreciate it, sir.

So, in the United Kingdom, the daily case rate has dropped nearly 80 percent in six weeks. So what have they done? What does it tell us about what we can accomplish here in the United States?

The Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:32]

CAMEROTA: President Biden talks migration with Mexico's President today. A CNN crew spent time with a group of migrants making a dangerous journey through Mexico to the U.S. right now and CNN's Matt Rivers has the story. Hi, Matt.

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn, yes, we always thought that the number of migrants from Central America going to the U.S. would go up as lockdown restrictions were eased and with the Biden administration, but the numbers we have been seeing down here over the last few days really are significant and it's a reminder how dangerous this journey can be.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RIVERS (voice over): Not far from the Mexico-Guatemala border, fielding two full soccer at La 72 Migrant Shelter is easy because the number of people headed to the United States is surging.

Carlos, 19, is bound for the U.S., too. He left Honduras five days ago with his little brother, 14-year-old Wilfredo. He says a lot of people not just us decided to leave and migrate and to look for a better life.

After dark there are among dozens that will spend the night inside the shelter.

RIVERS (on camera): The number of migrants like these lining up each night to enter the shelter has blown away the numbers that we saw last year. In the first two months of 2021, more migrants have already been registered here than in all of 2020.

RIVERS (voice-over): The shelter says more than 5,500 people just since New Year's Day.

Father Gabriel Romero says people are no longer afraid to leave their countries due to COVID. This is a moment of humanitarian emergency.

The next day, Carlos and Wilfredo are among a dozen that set out at dawn, set to walk for hours through an overgrown unforgiving landscape. And thousands have just taken similar trips. The number of people apprehended at the U.S. southern border last month higher than the same month in each of the last three years.

Over three days, dozens of migrants told us the reasons for the increase are myriad with poverty chief among them. Finding work was always hard but never worse than during the pandemic.

Plus after back- to-back Category Four hurricanes destroyed entire Central American communities in November, tens of thousands were displaced.

And as this group of migrants told us, there's another reason, too. It's not a Trump White House anymore.

This migrant says it's no longer a racist President because he looked at us like we're animals.

The Biden administration is trying to end Trump's more restrictive immigration policies and says it will admit more asylum seekers.

[08:30:09]