Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Department of Homeland Security Warns of Domestic Extremist Threat; Biden Hopes to Vaccinate 300 Million By End of Summer; Biden Targets Climate Change. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired January 27, 2021 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: It is striking, though, just as you pointed out off the top, the juxtaposition between seeing Mike Pompeo there behind that podium and now Tony Blinken. The world is watching us very closely.

Max Boot, Sabrina Siddiqui, Fred Pleitgen, thank you all so very much.

And thank you for watching me. I'm Brooke Baldwin here in New York.

Let's go to Washington. "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.

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

And we begin today with the politics lead. President Biden has now been in office for one week, and he is quickly facing the realities of the virus that has killed more than 427,000 people in the U.S. Today, a top member of Biden's COVID-19 team admitted that it will be months before every American who wants a vaccine will be able to get one.

President Biden has previously floated spring for that milestone. We shall see if he reaches it. Biden is pledging that, by the beginning of the fall, there will be enough doses to fully vaccinate 300 million people, almost the entire U.S. population.

So far, only about 3.5 million Americans have been fully vaccinated with both shots. That's only about 1 percent of the U.S. population.

Biden today focused a great deal of attention and action on a different crisis, the climate crisis, signing three more executive actions to begin to address that existential threat.

But, as CNN's Kaitlan Collins now reports for us, Biden and leaders around the world will have to do much more than that to address this issue, given that the last seven years were the hottest in recorded history.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With an elbow bumped to his climate envoy, John Kerry, President Joe Biden signed a raft of executive orders on climate change today, while comparing the crisis to the coronavirus pandemic. JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And just like we need a unified national response to COVID-19, we desperately need a unified national response to the climate crisis, because there is a climate crisis.

COLLINS: His sweeping executive actions will integrate climate change into virtually every level of the federal government. And Biden wants agencies to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, while also pausing all new oil and gas leases on public lands.

BIDEN: Unlike previous administrations, I don't think the federal government should give handouts to big oil, to the tune of $40 billion in fossil fuel subsidies.

COLLINS: Amid criticism from the fossil fuel industry, Biden said he won't ban fracking and portrayed the moves as opportunities for job creation.

BIDEN: We're not going to ban fracking. We will protect jobs and grow jobs.

COLLINS: As Biden governs largely by executive order, the White House is still trying to get support from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle for his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president and vice president are engaged directly with members and have had a number of productive conversations. That will continue through the course of the week and will only pick up in the days ahead.

COLLINS: Meanwhile, Biden's top coronavirus advisers held their first public briefing virtually today, technical difficulties and all.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: OK, so, in other words, nobody heard anything from me. Is that correct?

COLLINS: As Biden comes under intense pressure to ramp up vaccinations, his senior coronavirus adviser, Andy Slavitt, gave a sobering estimate of when they will be widely available.

ANDY SLAVITT, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISER FOR COVID RESPONSE: It will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Now, Jake, Jeff Zients, who is the coordinator of Biden's COVID team, used that briefing to plead with Congress to get that proposal that Biden has put out there on coronavirus relief passed.

So did the CDC director, talking about how they needed to be able to trace things like these new strains of the virus that we are seeing popping up and becoming a pretty big concern for scientists. And so there were several technical difficulties during that. It was hard to hear some of the answers.

But Jeff Zients did say they are going to have another briefing with those same officials on Friday. So, Jake, hopefully, they get those smoothed out by them.

TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan Collins at the White House, thank you so much.

Today, the Biden administration is also struggling to answer how much vaccine the U.S. government has and where it all is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Working very hard and ensuring we understand exactly where the vaccine is at any given day. So, much of our work over the next week is going to make sure that we can tighten up the timelines, understand where in the pipeline the vaccine actually is, and when exactly it is administered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The White House today also bluntly acknowledged that there is no federal stockpile of the vaccine. And, at any given moment, the U.S. government has only two to three days' worth of supply on hand, as CNN's Erica Hill now reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Pushed for more clarity on vaccines, the new White House COVID team offering another dose of reality.

SLAVITT: Any stockpile that may have existed previously no longer exists.

HILL: Shots for most Americans still months away. As for that second dose, the CDC director confirming it can be spaced out further, if needed.

[16:05:00]

WALENSKY: The CDC still recommends that people get their second dose as close to the recommended interval as possible. However, we also know that life can get in the way. And in those rare circumstances, the second dose may be given up to six weeks or 42 days after the first.

HILL: The promise of a bump in supply for states and a three-week planning calendar met with hope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's numbers we can plan for.

HILL: As the push for more equitable distribution grows louder.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, PROFESSOR OF GLOBAL HEALTH, EMORY UNIVERSITY: We may need to make sure that we get vaccines to the right people. We're vaccinating more white wealthy individuals, and, in fact, the disease is more in poor African-American and Hispanic individuals.

HILL: Faster-spreading, potentially more deadly variants also top of mind.

WALENSKY: They're more transmissible, which can lead to increased number of cases and increased stress on our already taxed health care system.

HILL: The U.S. still lagging when it comes to identifying new mutations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forty-third in the world in genomic sequencing, totally unacceptable.

HILL: Nationwide, new cases in 17 states and D.C. down 20 percent or more in the last week. In California, they have dropped 37 percent, and yet the U.S. is still posting huge numbers overall, more than 166,000 new cases a day.

DR. WILLIAM HASELTINE, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT: Mitigation is absolutely essential while we wait for the majority of the population to be vaccinated.

HILL: While hospitalizations are moving in the right direction, deaths are not, the nation reporting an average of 3,349 a day, January now the deadliest month since the pandemic began.

WALENSKY: If we continue on the current trajectory, the CDC's most recent national ensemble forecast predicts that 479,000 to 514,000 COVID-19 deaths will be recorded by February 20, 2021.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: So, we're learning a little bit more from states and cities about what this bump in supply could mean for them.

Mayor Bill de Blasio here in New York City said he's expecting 17,000 additional Moderna doses next week. That's about a 30 percent increase for that particular vaccine. He said, in his words, listen, we need a lot more, but he's really happy about it. They're going to need a heck of a lot more than that, though, Jake, if they want to be able to eventually open what is supposed to be a mass vaccination site here at Citi Field behind me.

TAPPER: All right, Erica Hill, thank you so much for that reporting.

Let's bring in CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, there seems to be some confusion about the location of some of these vaccines. Dr. Walensky from the CDC says they're focused on -- quote -- "understanding where in the pipeline the vaccine actually is."

How is it possible that so many vaccines are unaccounted for?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a real problem. I mean, Jake, this is a -- vaccines are the most precious commodity really anywhere on the planet right now. And there's many vaccines that are sort of unaccounted for. What we're learning as we're sort of digging into this is that the vaccines went to states. And that was sort of tracked by the software platform known as Tiberius. So it kind of knew the vaccine numbers that were going to states.

But then, after that, it became a little bit muddled, because states were handling this differently. Some states were automatically holding back second doses within the state. So, they had been distributed to states, but obviously not being administered.

So, that's caused some of this confusion. You also -- as I'm learning, the data that we see from the CDC is oftentimes lagging. It takes time to collect all this data from the states. So, by the time we actually see an aggregate data set, it may be several days or even a week behind. And that's a problem as well.

So, even if we look at the numbers on the screen in terms of overall doses administered, that may not reflect this point in time exactly. So we have to take that into account.

TAPPER: And, look, I get they have only been on the job for a week, the Biden administration. But it's so bizarre.

I mean, the White House is still trying to clarify the timing for when an average American could expect to get a COVID -- get a COVID vaccine. Today, White House adviser Andy Slavitt, said it would be months, months, before everyone who wants a vaccine can get one.

What do you think is a realistic expectation for regular Americans, people who don't jump in line, who are not in a particularly vulnerable group, seniors or nursing home residents, to get a shot?

GUPTA: I mean, you can do the math. Some of this is math in terms of figuring this out.

But if you put it all together in terms of how many doses are being administered, we can show you what it would look like if it's sort of stays at the current pace vs. if it starts to accelerate.

I was communicating with Andy Slavitt after the press conference today, and he fully believes that the numbers will start to accelerate. So, it's hard to look at this linearly.

But let's just say it's 1.6 million shots per day, which is very realistic. It's probably going to go higher than that, I think most people believe. Then you're looking at summer of 2021 for -- to get to that sort of herd immunity that everyone talks about.

[16:10:01]

If it stays around a million shots per day, it's obviously going to take longer. So, I think, as all these other resources start to come in line, the pharmacies, people's own doctors, primary care doctors, these vaccination centers they talk about, 100 of them, by the end -- within a month, I think those things are all going to make a difference.

And if we get to two, 2.5 million shots per day, then you're looking at spring, early summer.

TAPPER: Does that timeline change if the Johnson & Johnson vaccine gets emergency use authorization in the next few weeks?

GUPTA: Well, so I dug into this a little bit.

And what we find is that we know that 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been purchased. That was an at-risk purchase. Hopefully it gets authorized. There one shot, so that's 100 million people.

But the time frame for that is by June, they say 100 million shots need to be delivered. What we don't fully yet know is, does that sort of dole out over time? Is the majority of it near the end -- closer to when June when the deadline actually strikes, or what?

So, if the Johnson & Johnson vaccine gets authorized some time over the next several weeks, and they start to actually distribute it here in the United States, I think it tremendously impacts the overall timeline.

TAPPER: Today, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said that the U.S. still faces a shortage of PPE, personal protective equipment, like masks.

We're almost a year into this pandemic. That's surprising too. How significant do you think that is?

GUPTA: Jake, this is this is the most frustrating thing, because we talk about vaccines, understandably. That's the home run hit. Everybody wants that.

But PPE, basic testing, things like that could make a huge difference, we are still behind on. And I think, in some ways, I think those are the greater failures. And we ignored them because they were so simple, maybe. I don't know. But it is true. We are still behind.

In many hospitals, you have to -- you have got to go sign out your PPE. You got to sign out your N95 mask. You will get one. You have got to prove that your N95 mask is damaged or soiled or unusable anymore before you can get a second one.

It's still a problem. I mean, I think it's gotten better. It's a bit anecdotal, because everyone's experience is a little bit different. Our experience at our hospital system is better. But there's still clearly a shortage of PPE.

There's clearly a shortage of the same kind of protective gear that people use in hospitals for the average citizen, because, in some cases, the average citizen should have access to these types of masks and personal protective equipment as well.

TAPPER: Yes, absolutely. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.

And you don't want to miss the CNN global town hall tonight, Anderson Cooper joined by Dr. Fauci and other members of the president's coronavirus team to answer your questions about vaccinating America, "Coronavirus: Facts and Fears." It's tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Of course, Sanjay will be participating in that as well.

Coming up: a terrifying new warning about extremists here in the United States, extremists who believe Donald Trump's lies about the election.

Then: Despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary, thousands of teachers across the country are refusing to return to school, saying that it's still not safe. And that is putting President Biden in something of a political pickle.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:17:20]

TAPPER: In our politics lead today: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells CNN that he plans to -- quote -- "listen to the evidence" at former President Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate, after McConnell voted yesterday to essentially stop the trial from moving forward because of the belief that it was unconstitutional as to whether or not a former official can be impeached and tried.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer today slammed the 45 Republicans who voted for that measure, calling it deeply, deeply irresponsible.

Joining us now live from, Capitol Hill CNN's Ryan Nobles.

Ryan, what are we learning about Republicans, who are really the key jurors in this trial against former President Trump? And what about this alternative idea, this movement towards a censure for Trump instead?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, it seems, with each passing day, the Republican Conference is solidifying within the opinion that President Trump will not be convicted in this impeachment trial.

Republican senators have given a variety of reasons for why they won't vote to convict. But the overall consensus opinion seems to be pushing back on this idea that the impeachment trial itself should not happen because it's unconstitutional.

Many of these Republicans that don't necessarily want to be in a position of criticizing President Trump, but, at the same time, don't want to endorse his actions, are using that as essentially an excuse, saying they don't think it's constitutional, and therefore shouldn't go forward. So, that has led some senators here to look for alternatives to hold

President Trump accountable. And there is a bipartisan push between Tim Kaine of Virginia and Susan Collins of Maine, a Democrat and Republican respectively, to try and convince their colleagues to at least put up a resolution to censure President Trump for his actions on January 6.

But even though they have talked to some of their colleagues and do seem to have some level of support, Jake, there's really no will within Senate leadership either on the Democratic or Republican side to make this happen. It seems pretty clear that the impeachment trial is going to be the opportunity to hold the president accountable.

Now, even though many of these Republicans have signaled that they aren't likely to convict President Trump, like you mentioned, Mitch McConnell and others have said they remain open to hearing these arguments, and they want the trial to take place before they make their final decision.

But, Jake, in reality, not much has changed. It seems unlikely that the former president will be convicted.

TAPPER: And we should point out that most constitutional scholars who have looked into it say that it is constitutional to try a former official.

Ryan, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

The Department of Homeland Security today issued a threat bulletin due to the potential for violence from anti-government Trump-supporting extremists, those who refuse to accept the election results, this as sources tell CNN there is growing concern about the safety of lawmakers when lawmakers are outside of Washington, D.C.

Joining us now live, CNN's Shimon Prokupecz.

[16:20:04]

And, Shimon, what do we know about this bulletin from DHS?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, specifically, as you said, they are concerned over the chatter and some of what they're seeing across social media and other information that they have received.

And so they use this rare platform, the national terrorism advisory system, to put out this bulletin. And what they're saying is that the threats surrounding violence and some of the extremism that we have really seen since the insurrection is likely going to continue through the early part of this year.

And, as you said, Jake, they're concerned over anti-government views, and also the issue that so much of this extremism is being motivated by false narratives. That is a concern, certainly, that we have heard from the FBI and other law enforcement officials, and now the DHS putting out this bulletin, sort of letting everyone know what we have kind of have been saying now for several weeks.

There is continued concern over the rhetoric and some of the extremism that is ongoing throughout the country -- Jake.

TAPPER: And, Shimon, we're also hearing from the Capitol Police union after the acting chief admitted that the department leadership failed to properly prepare for the threat of violence on January 6.

The union chairman wrote this today -- quote -- "I have officers who were not issued helmets prior to the attack who have sustained head injuries. One officer has two cracked ribs and to smashed spinal discs, and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake, to name some of the injuries. The officers are angry, and I don't blame them. The entire executive team failed us, and they must be held accountable. They have a lot to atone for."

What else do we know about the fallout from this?

PROKUPECZ: Look, the fallout is pretty severe here, Jake.

Obviously, a lot of the Capitol Police officers and now the union, who is speaking on behalf of many of the officers, feel that they were let down by the leadership. Of course, the police chief stepped down. Others have stepped down since then.

One of the things that we heard from the acting police chief in this stunning admission that she gave yesterday to members of Congress was the fact that they had information, there was intelligence that indicated that people were coming here to do violence against the Capitol, that they were going to bring weapons, that there was other information.

And the idea that no one really reacted the way they should have reacted is something that has left the union certainly asking many questions, and, of course, lawmakers and others really as to why it is that the leadership of the Capitol Police didn't do more to try and protect the Capitol.

TAPPER: Obviously, the biggest leadership failure, of course, Shimon, President Trump and all the Republicans and MAGA media that pushed the big lie and incited the actual terrorists who committed the violence. They are ultimately much more responsible than the leadership of the police union -- or the police force.

Thank you so much, Shimon.

Coming up next: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in Florida for a meeting some members of his own party are quite worried about.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:27:15]

TAPPER: And we're back with the politics lead. A source tells CNN that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is

expected to meet with former President Trump in Florida tomorrow, this as the Senate prepares to undertake the second Trump impeachment trial in two weeks.

Punchbowl News was the first to report the Trump-McCarthy meeting.

Let's discuss.

Gloria, McCarthy helped spread the big lie about the election. He signed on to that mendacious lawsuit from the Texas attorney general. McCarthy even voted to disenfranchise millions of voters based on that lie after the terrorist attack.

What do you make of this meeting? What might it mean for the Republican Party?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's an important meeting. And, oh, to be a fly on the wall there.

The president has been furious with McCarthy because he went on the floor and said that the president bears responsibility. Then he kind of did a backflip, as you know, and said everyone bears responsibility for what occurred on January 6, which I'm still trying to understand.

And he's got to raise a lot of money. He wants to get the majority back in the House. He knows that he's got to stay in the good graces of Donald Trump, or so he thinks. And so I think he's going -- making this pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president and say, let's figure out a way we can -- you can help us to move the party forward. We don't want to become a party separate from you.

I think the president is also probably not happy that McCarthy said that Liz Cheney, who voted for impeachment, should keep her job, although he did say he had concerns about what she did. I think he and the president are going to have to sort of figure out a way around this, because he needs Trump to win back the majority.

TAPPER: Nia, Republican Senator Mitt Romney's hometown newspaper that -- said that Romney said in an online forum that he has a message for Republicans: Stop perpetuating the big lie that the election was stolen, go on FOX News, and say this publicly, before you want to talk about unity or moving forward.

Do you have any hope that that might happen?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Never, ever, ever going to happen.

I think, yesterday, we saw how small the Mitt Romney wing of the Republican Party is. He joined with five people to say essentially -- five Republicans -- to say that the impeachment trial in the Senate should go forward and that it's constitutional.

This is a party that is completely controlled by Trump at this point. We can quibble as to, are there true believers, how many of those are in the party, what percentage they represent vs. sort of the transactional Trumpers who just do stuff out of political expediency, but, in the end, they all end up on the same side, which is on Donald Trump's side.

And we see that with Kevin McCarthy making this pilgrimage to Florida to get his marching orders from Donald Trump.

[16:30:00]