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At This Hour

Now: Biden in Virginia to Build Support for His Nearly $4T Agenda; Biden Visits Elementary School in Virginia Amid Questions About Reopening in Fall; Rep. Liz Cheney: "The 2020 Presidential Election Was Not Stolen". Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired May 03, 2021 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:52]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us.

AT THIS HOUR, President Biden is in Virginia. He's hitting the road this week to try and sell his agenda and convince Americans his latest economic proposals are worth the huge price tag, nearly $4 trillion. The president and the first lady, they're making several stops in the state today, as part of what the White House is calling their getting America back tour, pushing expansive and sweeping investments in infrastructure, education, and childcare.

Recent polls have been showing these proposals are popular with many voters, but there are real questions about whether the president can get any of this through the divided Congress, especially when calls for bipartisan cooperation have so far largely gone unanswered. Republicans are nearly united in their opposition to the spending plans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): This is staggering amount of spending like someone with a new credit card and these are for things that we don't necessarily need. We certainly can't afford, but they're going to delight the liberal left of the party. It's almost creating an addiction to spending.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Let's get over to CNN's John Harwood. He's joining me now live from the White House.

John, they're hitting the road to sell this to the American people, a tried and trued strategy when trying to sell a new proposal, of course. But is that going to translate to Congress in this moment?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the challenge. It's certainly translating by and large among Democrats, although there some resistance there too. Obviously, not as you heard from Senator Barrasso there, transferring to Republicans, who say it's got to go on the credit card because they don't sport raising taxes on the business and the wealthy, which is how Joe Biden wants to pay for it. And there's really two parts of the sales job.

One, we'll see today when the president visits a school and a community college is selling people on the idea that these big government investments can pay off in their lives. That adding pre-K and childcare and free community college is something that will benefit them, allow them to extract higher wages in the future. That spending on infrastructure and other physical elements, broadband, the electric grid, all of that will create jobs for them. That's one side of it.

The other side of it is, of course, making the case that the price tag is not going to fall on ordinary people. Joe Biden says nobody under $400,000 income is going to get a tax increase. Republicans try to blur the argument by saying everybody's taxes will go up. And politically that, is a challenge for the Biden White House and for Democrats in Congress.

BOLDUAN: I mean, just looking down, because we're looking at some fresh video just in of Dr. Biden and President Biden visiting that school, one of the schools, one of the stops in Virginia right now.

Thank you so much, John. I really appreciate it.

So --

HARWOOD: You bet.

BOLDUAN: -- as the president and the first lady are visiting Virginia, big question is, what are people in Virginia saying about the president's agenda?

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty went there ahead of the president's trip and she joins me now.

Sunlen, what did you hear from people?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, we spent a few days talking to dozens of people in Virginia. Many could pick out individual items in the president's agenda that they liked. But many were also apprehensive about the massive price tag of the plan. And the White House, they have been arguing that they believe there's bipartisan support across the nation for their agenda, and they're hoping that will help overcome the opposition they're facing in Congress.

So, we tried to tap into whether that is reflected on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Think of what it will mean for opportunity if we can connect Milwaukee to Green Bay to Madison, Scranton and Allentown to New York. It's going to provide jobs. It will also accommodate jobs.

SERFATY (voice-over): As President Biden hits the road to sell his expansive and expensive agenda -- BIDEN: America is on the move again.

SERFATY: The rubber may really meet the road in places like Yorktown. A peaceful historic town in southeast Virginia where excitement for Biden's proposals comes with concerns about the trillion dollar price tag.

RICK CALVERT, INDEPENDENT VOTER: It's just big.

[11:05:00]

I mean, I can't see why anybody wouldn't be worried about that. I don't want to pay more taxes anymore than anybody else.

SERFATY: Ahead of the Monday's visit to the area about it president and first lady, CNN spoke with dozens of voters, Democrats, Republicans, and independents about Biden's plans to reshape the economy.

ERNESTINE BROWN, YORKTOWN RESIDENT: I would hope that, you know, he means that he sticks by what he says. We're going to try to build from the ground up and then the middle out. And not worry about this top down approach.

SERFATY: Many said they approved of Biden's vision.

BIDEN: America is moving. Moving forward. But we can't stop now.

SERFATY: And highlighted pieces they liked, like Danielle, who praised Biden's proposal for universal preschool as part of the roughly $1.8 trillion America Families Plan.

DANIELLE, DEMOCRATIC VOTER: I'm a single parent. And so, all the bills is on me.

SERFATY: She cited her own personal experience with her 4-year-old son who is already benefiting from a free preschool program.

DANIELLE: And I remember stressing over how I was going to be able to afford getting him in a quality preschool because the prices of the preschool programs are ridiculous. I do feel strongly that each child deserves to have education.

SERFATY: But others objected to Biden's far-reaching agenda.

DONNA ELLIOTT, REPUBLICAN VOTER: We paid for our children to go to college. My husband saved for our children to go to college. Now the money that he has saved they're going to increase taxes on the top 1 percent.

SERFATY: Republican voter Donna Elliott likes the traditional infrastructure parts of the president's plan.

BIDEN: Creates jobs to upgrade our transportation infrastructure.

SERFATY: But says the administration's approach goes too far to include other priorities.

ELLIOTT: When you take the word infrastructure and you stretch the definition of it now. Whoa, whoa. I thought it was roads, tunnels, highways, trains, buses.

SERFATY: It is that kind of skepticism that will test Biden's argument that bipartisan support in the country will help overcome GOP opposition to his plans in Congress.

Yet here in Yorktown, part of a district that went for Biden by five points in 2020 after narrowly backing Donald Trump four years earlier, there are signs Biden's approach may have broader appeal.

LEWIS JONES, INDEPENDENT VOTER: I voted for Joe Biden. It's first time in a long, long time I voted Democratic.

SERFATY: Like from Lewis Jones who said he traditionally voted for Republicans.

JONES: The little guy has to be given a leg up. If that money is actually used to lift the little guy up and shrink the divide --

SERFATY: While others like Gene Sutton would like Biden to slow down.

GENE SUTTON, INDEPENDENT VOTER: We can't do everything at once. Make pick and choose some programs that again both parties can agree on. And go with that. And, you know, not try to do too much at one time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY (on camera): And that certainly was something we heard from many voters that we spoke to cautioning the president and the White House to slow down a bit on all the ambitious plans.

Now, Kate, the president and first lady will be speaking at a community college in Yorktown focusing on part of his proposal that would pay for two years of community college in just a few hours, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Listening in. Sunlen, thank you very much for that look inside.

One of the president -- one of President Biden's first stops today is at a Virginia elementary school. We're showing you some new video from one of that stops spotlighting another focus of the Biden agenda, which is getting past the pandemic and getting kids back into classrooms.

And the administration is facing a lot of pressure, at this moment, to lay out clearly if and how they're going to hit the goal of getting all students back in classrooms full time. So far, they are not making promises.

Here's one of the president's top advisors this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANITA DUNN, SENIOR ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: It's an unpredictable virus. It is a virus that has, you know, it mutates. . So we can't look in a crystal ball and say what September looks like. But if people get their vaccine, if schools follow the CDC guidelines, then as we said, we probably should be able to have them open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is CNN medical analyst, Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist.

Dr. Gounder, we just heard from Anita Dunn there. The virus is unpredictable and it is a virus that mutates. But with the science that we have right now, do you say with confidence that schools should be open, you know, five days a week for in person in the fall?

CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Kate, look, we've known for a while now, based on all of the data we've gathered from across the country over the past year, that schools can simply reopen so long as teachers and students are wearing masks and you have other mitigation measures in place like ventilation or testing, not to the mention the fact that the Biden administration made teachers among the first priority groups to be vaccinated.

So, by now, most teachers who have wanted to get vaccinated should have had the opportunity to do so.

[11:10:04]

And so really what we worry about in the school setting are the older people who are at higher risk for severe disease. They really are protected between the mitigation measures and now the option to get vaccinated.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, and take one state, Maryland is going there. I mean, after being one of the slower states in the nation to reopen widely for in person learning, now, the state is requiring -- mandating that all schools be open and offering in person learning with a teacher in the classroom starting in the fall.

And is it -- I mean, do you think it is safe? I mean I know you said you think it is safe. Do you think it's safe for states to be there at this point?

GOUNDER: I do. And I think we have been at that point for a little while now.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

GOUNDER: I do think it's safe. We have seen that when you have transmission in schools, it's largely adult to adult. It's not the kids who are infecting the adults.

And when there is transmission amongst kids, it's usually in after school activities, play dates, not in the classroom. That's because the classroom, if things are being implemented correctly, is a controlled environment between the masks ventilation, testing and so forth. And so, it really is safe to return to the classroom for in person learning at this point.

BOLDUAN: This -- what we're -- you're also getting at is kind of what is safe and what is not when you are vaccinated. We're learning more and more about this every day.

It was fascinating to hear and I think important to hear Dr. Jonathan Reiner, he says that the CDC in his view is just being too cautious with these guidelines. That vaccinated people should be able to go -- to go without a mask in public, and into places without a mask if they are vaccinated.

Do you think the CDC is moving too slowly?

GOUNDER: Well, I'm speaking an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist, not as a cardiologist like Dr. Reiner. But knowing what I know about infectious disease transmission, vaccines are not perfect. And it really depends on how much transmission is occurring in the community.

If you are vaccinated and there is relatively low or moderate level of transmission in the community, yeah, you can probably go out safely without a mask in many places, and not just outdoors. But if you are vaccinated and there is a high level of transmission in your community which unfortunately remains much of the country, you really do need to layer those measures one on top of the other until we can bring down transmission.

And key to that is more and more people need to get vaccinated.

BOLDUAN: Well, that definitely is top of the list at this moment. Dr. Gounder, thank you very much.

Coming up for us, Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, she is not backing down from the truth that the 2020 election was not stolen. Why that is such a problem though for her fellow Republicans right now. Her latest state public statement just came out. That is next.

Plus, surrounded by death. It only seems to be getting worse in India's hospitals right now. They're running out of basic and necessary things like oxygen. We're going to take you inside a hospital at the epicenter of the crisis.

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[11:17:26]

BOLDUAN: This just in, Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, she is not backing down. She standing up and standing by her defense of the 2020 election and taking on her fellow Republicans who are still pushing the big lie. Tweeting just now this: The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading the big lie, turning their back on the rule of law and poisoning our democratic system.

That should not be a breaking news alert. But it is. And that is a statement in and of itself about the state of the Republican Party.

CNN's Manu Raju is joining me now with much more on this.

Manu, that's her latest statement. But Liz Cheney saying a lot more with this one tweet.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, look, this has become a litmus test in the Republican Party, particularly on the House Republican Conference and in primaries across the country. Whether or not you endorse Donald Trump's lie and conspiracies that he actually won the 2020 election and that it was rigged.

If you don't support that, then you can face backlash from the Trump defenders of the party in these primaries and on Capitol Hill. And the staunchest Trump defenders are a majority of the House Republican Conference right now which is one reason why Liz Cheney finds herself in a defensive position as a number three House Republican leader despite saying what is the truth here, that the 2020 election was not rigged and that Joe Biden won the election.

But nevertheless, her comments about Donald Trump, she is just one of ten Republicans who voted to impeach the former president during his -- on the charge of inciting the January 6th insurrection. She faced backlash from her colleagues for putting out a statement, saying that president was stoking the flame and the reason why the attack happened on the Capitol.

She later defended that position behind closed doors and she got some defense from House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy at the time and staved off an effort to push her out of the leadership post.

Now, behind the scenes, though, Kate, there is a growing grumbling about Liz Cheney in her position stemming from comments she made at the party's retreat last week. She was critical of the former president. She was asked by reporters.

She made clear her views and some Republicans are now calling for another vote to oust her from that position. And that vote would be a secret ballot vote. The person that can call that snap election is Kevin McCarthy. Whether he will do that, though, remains to be seen. But we have clearer answers when they return back from recess next week -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Good to see you, Manu. Thank you so much for bringing that to us.

[11:20:00]

So, back to this bigger picture that Manu is getting at. Donald Trump lost the election. But has he won the contest to take control of the Republican Party for the foreseeable future? New proof of that coming in just this weekend, and Republican Senator Mitt Romney, the man who was his party's presidential nominee just eight years ago was booed at his own state party's convention, when he mentioned his disagreements with President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): You know me as a person who says what he thinks and I don't hide the fact that I wasn't a fan of our last president's character issues. And I'm also no fan --

(BOOS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Romney was the only Republican senator to vote to convict Trump during the impeachment trials. But we know he is not alone, very clearly in facing the backlash and pressure from his party for daring to criticize the president, as Manu was just talking about, Liz Cheney.

Joining me right now to talk about this is Charlie Dent, CNN political commentator, former Republican congressman, the executive director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program.

OK. Charlie, what do you think of Liz Cheney? And what -- she is not staying quiet, she is not backing down. This latest statement, it's more than -- it's more than just a statement.

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, of course, Kate. Liz Cheney is throwing down the gauntlet. She is laying it out there. This is a referendum, look, you know, you either believe the election was stolen or you don't. She said I don't believe it was stolen. If you want to throw me out of my leadership position for doing, so you're free to do that.

But if anybody thinks the Republican Party is divided now over this issue, just imagine throwing out the number three leader in the House, the highest ranking woman in the House, throwing her out of her position. The party will become enormously damaged as a result of that. I don't think they'll be able to do it, by the way.

But I think Liz is not backing down, and good for her. She should stand up and state what she believes as she has done and others.

BOLDUAN: You think she'd survive another secret ballot vote?

DENT: I do. I can't imagine that these members would throw out the highest ranking woman in the House Republican conference right now.

BOLDUAN: I don't know if everyone shares your confidence in the -- I don't know if people chair your confidence in that, Charlie. I always appreciate it.

Okay. Because at the same time, you have other Republicans in the House tweeting not just saying it quietly and telling our great reporters on the Hill but also tweeting out that they think she's going to be out of her leadership position by month's end, after calling to the mat essentially Republicans who were sticking up with Trump's lie. I mean, could she -- do you think there is no chance she is out for month's end? DENT: Well, I mean, certainly could happen. Yes. I mean, maybe Matt

Gaetz will go back out to Wyoming again and hold a press conference. I would be surprised. I really would.

She won by a big margin. And, you know, the fact -- if the leaders -- if Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise were going to put their finger on the scale to try to push her out, well then that could have an impact. But I still think it's a heavy lift, because she is widely respected. And the reason they would throw her out because she is simply acknowledging the obvious, the election was not stolen and I guess they're upset because she says so publicly.

BOLDUAN: And, Charlie, what you're getting at is this really is a moment where Kevin McCarthy deserves especially attention. Kevin McCarthy is the one that would call this vote. The secret ballot if she would be pushed out.

But also just to remind folks of his own changing position in hypocrisy on the January 6th insurrection and what he said about Liz Cheney. I mean, doing nothing to defend her and her opinion to stand up for the truth. Let me just play this for folks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): President Trump won this election. So, everyone who's listening, do not be quiet.

The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters.

REPORTER: Do you believe that President -- former President Trump provoked?

MCCARTHY: I don't believe he provoked if you listen to what he said at the rally.

REPORTER: Is Cheney a still good fit for your leadership team, do you believe?

MCCARTHY: That's a question for the conference.

BOLDUAN: I mean, do you -- what do you think of Kevin McCarthy right now?

DENT: Well, what he said -- look, clearly, Kevin McCarthy and the leadership team other than Liz Cheney want to move on from the January 6th insurrection. And they see that, you know, Liz Cheney is impeding their ability to do so.

But the reality is for the Republican leadership is they just can't whitewash what happened on January 6th. There's going to be a commission that will -- for the look at this and, you know, it's a stain on the country and it's also a stain on the -- on the whole Congress, that this could have occurred. So I think this is where they are. They want to move on.

[11:25:00]

They think if they can somehow be unified if they stop talking about it, but I think that's very shortsighted on his part. I mean, Kevin was right first time when he laid blame on the president. Then he walked that back because look, they're trying to raise money.

Look, Kevin McCarthy just raised $27 million in the quarter, small donations. I mean, he -- you know, did he that by, you know, stoke being the populist anger that the president has helped gin up.

So, that's where they're going. I think they see that the ability to monetize this type of populism.

BOLDUAN: Which is -- but it's like not monetizing populism, it is monetizing a lie. That's the thing.

DENT: Well, yeah --

BOLDUAN: I mean, when you're looking at the litmus test in the Republican Party right now is if you're going to go along with -- go along with Donald Trump's lie which is what Liz Cheney is laying bear. It's -- I just -- you know, I know you believe that Donald Trump's influence will diminish over time. I'm wondering if, you know, you're looking at in a time period of decades, not years.

DENT: Yeah, I said monetizing this populist. I should perhaps say monetizing this notoriety, more than populism. That's what's happening.

But I do think Trump's influence is diminishing. But he can still be a very dangerous player for Republicans. I mean, I think most Republicans want Donald Trump to be quiet during this midterm election because he -- they want this midterm election to be a referendum on Joe Biden and the Democrats which is how things work better for the party out of power.

If this becomes a choice between the Democrats and, you know, Trumpism again, then that is not so good. But so he can cause damage and particularly in the Senate where Donald Trump will help -- could help nominate unelectable candidates in the fall, like we saw in 2010 and 2012 with the Tea Party wave. Same thing can happen again this time. Trump is both -- he's a maybe blessing for some Republicans in the primaries but he's going to be a curse in swing states and in swing districts in the general elections.

BOLDUAN: Let's see what happens in the next month with Kevin McCarthy and Liz Cheney. It will show a direction of where things are headed in the short term. Thanks, Charlie.

Coming up for us, the COVID-19 crisis in India spirals out of control. Oxygen is running out leaving patients gasping for air. We're going to take you inside the hospital there to show you the heartbreaking reality.

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