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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Coronavirus Task Force Disbanding?; Former Vaccine Chief Files Whistle-Blower Complaint. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired May 05, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:01]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: YouTube just announced this huge virtual graduation with Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, and, wait for it, Barack and Michelle Obama as the keynote speakers.

"Dear Class of 2020" airs on June 6.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being here.

"THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

At this hour, the death toll in the United States from coronavirus a stunning 70,272. This time last month, the death toll was not even 10,000, 9,267.

Yet, despite this huge spike and projections of 134,000 deaths this summer by the academic modelers the White House has cited in the past, Vice President Pence now confirming that there are conversations going on about the White House Coronavirus Task Force phasing out around Memorial Day, either at the end of May or early June.

Pence telling this to reporters in a briefing that CNN was not invited to. A source telling me that key medical experts will continue to advise President Trump even after the Coronavirus Task Force folds.

A separate knowledgeable source, sources, really, tell me that this news of the task force closing down was not shared with the actual task force when it met earlier today. In fact, some members learned about the decision through journalists, not from the White House.

The White House appears to be entering a period right now of hoping that everything will go back to semi-normal, despite the fact that the death toll and infection rates continue to grow.

The president also seems determined to fight oversight of how his administration is handling it all.

Earlier today, President Trump said he will only allow key task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify before the Republican-controlled Senate, but not the Democratic-controlled House. He called it a -- quote -- "setup" with Trump haters in the House.

The president there openly admitting that he will not allow House Democrats to conduct their oversight duties of his administration. His statement, of course, is in direct contradiction from the White House's claim last week that Dr. Fauci was too busy to testify.

Now we're told it's for completely political reasons.

The president has also been attempting to rewrite history about his response to the pandemic, from his early praise of not only Chinese President Xi, but the Chinese government's transparency, in his view, to weeks of belittling the threat of the virus, to the continued failure of his administration to lead a widespread nationwide testing initiative that would be able to identify and isolate the virus.

So, the American people have every right to find out why these failures happened and are happening, at cost to lives and livelihoods, questions about these issues. This is what the president is apparently seeking to stop oversight of.

Right now, President Trump is about to visit a plant in Phoenix, Arizona, converted to manufacture N95 respirator masks, so badly needed by front-line health care workers. It's a trip that the president says is meant to highlight the work of American companies to help get us out of this crisis, as the president is also pushing governors to reopen the economy as quickly as possible.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond joins me now live from the White House to cover all these major developments.

And, Jeremy, let's start with the phasing down of this Coronavirus Task Force. Do we know exactly why they're doing this?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, we know that the president and many of his advisers have been eager to pivot towards reopening the economy.

But as that has begun to happen, we have seen some states begin to reopen their economies, we have also watched some of the models, including those the White House uses, begin to predict a spike in deaths over the next couple of months.

Despite that, though, Jake, we heard that Vice President Mike Pence today. He told reporters in a pen-and-pad briefing today that the White House is having conversations about phasing out this task force. And it could happen as early as Memorial Day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND (voice-over): As the president lands in Arizona, his first trip out of the Washington area in 38 days, we're learning the White House Coronavirus Task Force may soon be dissolved.

A senior White House official telling CNN it could happen as soon as Memorial Day, but pointing out the president will be continue to be advised by medical experts.

President Trump today will tour a mask manufacturing plant in Arizona, where the president said he's likely to wear a mask for the first time. Avoiding the criticism his vice president faced for not wearing one last week, the president swapped one firestorm for another, after accusing Democrats of rooting for more coronavirus deaths, the president revealing his true motives in keeping government health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci from testifying in the Democrat-led House.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The House is a setup. The House is a bunch of Trump haters. They put every Trump hater on the committee, the same old stuff.

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DIAMOND: Those words flying in the face of the White House's official line, that members of the Coronavirus Task Force need to prioritize the pandemic, not congressional oversight.

Swearing off oversight by Democrats, the president making his latest move to avoid accountability, after sidelining several inspectors general, including a watchdog who exposed critical hospital shortages.

The president also downplaying new models predicting a spike in deaths, one model used by the White House doubling its death toll prediction to 134,000 deaths by August.

QUESTION: Are you concerned that that's happening because some of these states are relaxing guidelines too early?

TRUMP: No. No, I'm not, because that assumes no mitigation.

DIAMOND: But the models don't assume a stop to mitigation efforts, instead, taking relaxed rules in dozens of states into account.

TRUMP: We have to get our country open.

DIAMOND: While the president focuses on reopening the economy, most of Americans say it's more important to limit the spread of the virus. And nearly two-thirds of Americans are concerned states will start lifting restrictions too quickly.

The White House is bracing for the monthly jobs report on Friday, which could see unemployment rates at historic levels.

KEVIN HASSETT, CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: My guess right now is that it's going to be north of 16 percent, maybe as high as 19 or 20 percent.

QUESTION: Worse. Wow.

HASSETT: And so we are looking at probably the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression.

QUESTION: Wow. Well, then... HASSETT: It's a tremendous negative shock, a very, very terrible shock.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND: And, Jake, some other big news today.

Dr. Rick Bright, who was formerly the head of BARDA, which is a key federal office in charge of vaccine development, he has formally filed a complaint with the Office of the Special Counsel alleging that he was ousted from his position, moved to a narrower position at the National Institutes of Health, in retaliation.

In retaliation for what? He explains, Jake, that it's because he resisted efforts to push hydroxychloroquine, a treatment that President Trump repeatedly promoted from the White House Briefing Room.

And, Jake, in this lengthy 90-page complaint, he also talks about the fact that he tried to sound the alarm early on, including in June, about some shortages of critical medical supplies, including protective equipment like masks, as well as testing equipment, like swabs, for example.

He describes numerous instances and provides e-mails as well to back up some of his accounts, in which he explains that leadership at HHS, including his direct supervisor, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, Dr. Robert Kadlec.

Bright alleges that Kadlec and others repeatedly downplayed his concerns about some of these shortages. Of course, Jake, we know, since then, that many of those shortages were indeed a critical part of the story of this administration's failures at times to properly respond to this coronavirus pandemic.

On a call with reporters just a little while ago, Jake, Dr. Bright said that he was pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions, rather than the science -- Jake.

TAPPER: That's right. The FDA has since warned doctors not to prescribe -- individuals not to take hydroxychloroquine unless they're in the hospital or part of a clinical study.

Jeremy, the White House says that there are multiple reasons why Dr. Bright was removed from his post. And, obviously, they don't agree with his description.

What is the White House saying?

DIAMOND: That's right, Jake.

Look, the official side of the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, on this specific complaint, they have so far declined to comment.

But in reporting on Dr. Bright's initial allegations, which surfaced a couple of weeks ago, we uncovered reporting sourced to administration officials familiar with the situation who said that Dr. Bright mistreated staff. They alleged that he mismanaged his office.

And, in fact, several sources told me that they believe that Dr. Bright was in fact slowing the response to the coronavirus, rather than speeding it up.

But what is clear, Jake, is that this is going to continue to be a story for weeks to come. Keep in mind, Dr. Bright here is alleging that his ouster violated the Whistleblower Protection Act.

And we are also just learning from Dr. Bright's attorneys that Congress has scheduled a hearing. Congresswoman Eshoo has scheduled a hearing for May 14 -- sorry, I'm just getting this information my phone now -- for May 14, and Dr. Bright will indeed be testifying -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Jeremy Diamond at the White House with all the day's breaking news, thank you so much.

Joining me now to discuss, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash and CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta to cover both ends of this, the politics and the medicine.

Dana, let me start with you.

We have seen the task force -- there was a time when they briefed nearly every single day. Then, of course, the president made this disastrous appearance, when he suggested -- mused about injecting disinfectant as a possible treatment for coronavirus.

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Is that the moment when all of this changed and all of a sudden the task force was living on borrowed time?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It certainly seems that way, because the number of times that the task force has met has seemed to decrease after the number of press conferences have seemed to not just decrease, but basically evaporate in that form.

So, yes. And the question that everybody needs to be asking is, are they really winding down what they need to do as these phases go forward, or is it a political question, given where we are on the calendar of a presidential election year, and a president who is desperate to get beyond crisis mode?

Now, I spoke just before coming on with you, Jake, with a source familiar with these discussions, who insists -- and I know you have been talking to sources too, but insists that these are just discussions about discussions. Yes, Memorial Day has come up. They're not there yet.

It's going to be conditions-based. But one of the things that I was told is that, in talking about getting these decisions back to the agencies that have oversight traditionally, like HHS, for example, is to free up the vice president to do vice presidential things, like travel and do other things, as opposed to being in the White House at task force meetings on a daily basis, as he has been.

But you're exactly right to ask the question about the briefings and the task force kind of having -- going on paths that are decreasing, even though that might not be where the country needs it to be when it comes to the need.

TAPPER: Yes.

And, then, Sanjay, because of these task force briefings, Drs. Birx and Fauci really became two of the key voices on everything the Trump administration was doing in terms of the medicine, conveying the science to the public, even if that meant contradicting President Trump on hydroxychloroquine or the seriousness of the pandemic or whatever.

What's the impact on public knowledge of the pandemic if there is no task force, and then no doctors, no scientists speaking directly to the public at the briefings?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, I think that that's going to be a significant problem.

I mean, I think the public was getting a lot of knowledge about this and also giving a certain degree of seriousness, of gravity about this, actually, when you see this task force meeting and briefing the public like this.

I think these -- more than anything, I feel like these signals, the task force now being talked about being disbanded, the states reopening, are giving the false sense that is over, or this is starting to become over.

And it's not. One thing, Jake -- and I was just looking this up -- March 16, when they first announced the pause, there were 4,500 patients who had been confirmed with the coronavirus infection in this country, and 68 people who had died. That's when they decided to do the pause, and the Coronavirus Task Force really started doing these briefings in earnest at that point.

I mean, look how much things have changed since then. The numbers have obviously grown significantly. And at this point now, we're thinking about disbanding, now we're thinking about reopening?

It just -- it doesn't make sense. I hope people realize that. The states are not following the guidelines the task force put forth. The task force now being talked about disbanding, the states still reopening, it just -- it's hard to make sense of how this is all coming together, Jake.

TAPPER: Yes. I mean, we just showed a graphic at the beginning of the show of the number of coronavirus cases, and it continues to go up, although, in some places, like New York and Louisiana, I believe it's going down. Dana, let's go back to the other breaking news, Dr. Rick Bright,

formerly the top vaccine official at HHS, now filing a whistle-blower complaint over his reassignment.

He claims that his warnings about coronavirus, about the lack of PPE in the stockpile, were met with a -- quote -- "indifference, which then developed into hostility."

How much does this complaint center around his caution at hydroxychloroquine, the drugs that President Trump was pushing?

BASH: Well, it's all the above. And, as you know, he says that the reason why he was removed from his post ultimately was because people who were his superiors were worried that the president would get mad, because he was saying that the president's claims about that drug were false, which, of course, turned out to be accurate.

The FDA said, no, no, no, that drug should not be used for COVID-19.

So, look, I mean, the good news here is that this is how the system is supposed to work. He filed a whistle-blower complaint. The inspector general will look into his firing and whether or not -- or removal -- and whether or not there were other factors, as you just heard Jeremy say White House and other administration officials insist there were, like personnel issues and other problems that he had, separate from his response to coronavirus.

[16:15:08]

Well, now here on Capitol Hill, where he'll be under oath, and the inspector general, and so, we'll actually have a real independent investigation to get the questions that you just asked and get them answered.

TAPPER: And, Sanjay, Dr. Bright said he started sounding the alarm about the virus in January and he warned that the U.S. wasn't prepared if the virus made it over here. He says when he started issuing those warnings, quote, Secretary Azar of the Department of Health and Human Services and Dr. Kadlec responded with surprise at his dire predictions and urgency.

Assuming that's true, what does it say to you when a top vaccine official comes out and says the government's top HHS officials were surprised when he was warning them about the pandemic?

GUPTA: Well, you know, I would look forward to these hearings, Jake. To be fair, I think Secretary Azar, when we were doing some digging into this, there were some you know warnings that the secretary gave as well. And, you know, this 90-page letter, I started to make my way through it, one of the big things he says, Dr. Bright, that he was pushing for the genomic sequence of the virus to be released to the United States on January 10th to no avail.

Well, actually that weekend, 11th, 12th, is when the sequence was released, according to our reporting. So, I mean, there's a lot in this letter. But I think there were people who were sounding the alarm besides Dr. Bright, I think. How exactly that information flow went, how high did it go, you know, I don't know.

But I do know, you know, from some of our reporting, again, Secretary Azar initially did voice some concerns about what was happening and had talked about the idea that this novel coronavirus would spin into a pandemic. No one was calling it a pandemic, obviously. In fact, we were the first at CNN to call it a pandemic on March 9.

But there was concern voiced by senior leaders at HHS. So I'll be curious how these hearings sort of transpire.

TAPPER: Dana, there's also new reporting today in "The Washington Post" which says it obtained a complaint from a volunteer who worked with Jared Kushner's coronavirus response group. This is a group of volunteers from the financial consulting world and others. This volunteer says many of the people working on the pandemic response had little experience actually doing the tasks they were assigned, and that often they failed.

BASH: Yes. Look, I mean, this would not be the first time there was a complaint that the people trying to do jobs in this administration were doing them blindly because they don't have the experience that most people historically have in these jobs. The specifics on this, everybody is going to have to dig into, to see how accurate those complaints are. But again, there have been a lot of criticism along these lines in general across the board since this president was sworn in.

TAPPER: Dana and Sanjay, thank you so much. Be sure to listen to Sanjay's daily podcast, "Coronavirus: Fact Versus Fiction" on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Coming up, a new warning from doctors in the United States about how the virus is affecting children, that's next.

Plus, coronavirus nightmares such as this woman, arrested after allegedly licking her hands and touching food and surfaces, just one example of the actions leading to the creation of a new word to describe the horrific behavior of some during this pandemic.

Stay with us.

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TAPPER: Today, officials in Florida are starting to prepare for how the coronavirus pandemic could collide with hurricane season, including stockpiling critical PPE. This comes as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo warned that reopening his state too fast would undoubtedly cause more lives to be lost, as CNN's Athena Jones reports for us now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY, NY: This is something that's causing concern. ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As more and

more states reopen, new concerns about how the virus impacts the nation's youth. Fifteen children between the ages of 2 and 15 hospitalized in New York, some testing positive for COVID-19. The children all showed inflammatory symptoms compatible with the rare Kawasaki disease, a potentially deadly illness.

DE BLASIO: We've put out a health alert, letting health care providers know if they see incidence of this new condition, that we wanted to make sure it's reported immediately to our health department.

JONES: And the National Institute Health's back study is examining the impact COVID-19 has on children and their ability to spread the disease, issues that raise important questions about opening summer programs and schools.

DR. JUAN DUMOIS, PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE PHYSICIAN: We already have some data to suggest that especially in a household setting, children with the virus can be the ones, who -- even if they don't have symptoms themselves, can spread it to the adults in the household.

JONES: But there could soon be progress on the vaccine front. U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer today announcing that with its partner, German company BioNTech, it has begun testing a new vaccine in humans in the U.S. They say it could be ready for emergency use in the fall if it works.

On the testing front, the FDA authorizing the first new COVID-19 antibody test that has independent validation of its accuracy from the federal government.

Still, as states open up, despite having not met federal guidelines of a 14-day decline in new coronavirus cases, health officials worry about the dangerous public health consequences.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, U.S. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: This virus has enormous capabilities of spreading like wildfire. We know that.

JONES: Others are more worried about economic ones, as California borrows $358 million from the federal government to pay unemployment claims, becoming the first state to make such a move.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie comparing the current crisis to the sacrifices American troops made in World War II.

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CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: In the very same way now we have to stand up for the American way of life. What are those lives going to be worth if people can't go to work, if they can't support their families?

JONES: Some communities announcing plans that seem to fly in the face of stay orders, like Ocean City, Maryland, which announced its popular beach will be open to visitors starting Saturday. The state's stay-at- home order remains in effect.

While in California, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti says he's not yet ready to open things up.

MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: You can't give into political pressure where people say, do this because I'm getting antsy.

JONES: Meanwhile, some bad news for consumers. A meat shortage at Wendy's following the shutdown of meatpacking plants in several states. One analyst estimating nearly one in five of the fast food chain's restaurants are not serving hamburgers or other meat-based items.

Starbucks says 85 percent of its locations are ready to responsibly reopen this week for drive-through or pickup only.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: And we just got a bit more of reopening news from my colleague Ed Lavandera, saying that the Texas Governor Greg Abbott has announced that barbershops, hair and nail salons can open this Friday, May 8th. Previously, he said that would not happen until mid May, but it's happening this Friday despite a mixed bag of coronavirus statistics in the state -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Athena Jones, thank you so much.

There is more than 100 potential coronavirus vaccines in the works with doses already given to patients in the U.S. We're going to talk to a vaccine development expert, next.

Stay with us.

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