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The Lead with Jake Tapper

School Reopening Guidelines?; Trump Versus McConnell; Dire Situation In Texas. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired February 17, 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: "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.

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

Any minute, we expect to hear from president Biden and Vice President Harris speaking at the White House about their proposal for a $1.9 trillion economic relief bill. President Biden is fresh off a CNN town hall last night in Milwaukee, where he pitched his plan to get the country back to some sense of normalcy, normalcy he says he does not expect until Christmas.

This is one of a few predictions President Biden made, though he did reset some expectation amidst conflicting and confusing messages from the White House, shifting messages, we should say.

Biden now vowing widely available vaccines by the end of July, not April, May or June, as Dr. Fauci said this week, Biden also promising a majority of elementary schools, elementary schools, open for five days a week by spring, not at least one day a week, as the White House has said.

And Biden claims his economic relief plan will bring the economy -- quote -- "roaring back." Plus, as we reported yesterday, the White House is now publicly acknowledging that Johnson & Johnson, which is expected to be the first vaccine authorized under President Biden, will likely have a slower rollout than hoped, with fewer doses ready than previously expected.

As CNN's Phil Mattingly reports for us now, this is all part of a critical test for President Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hi, folks. How are you?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Joe Biden may have pledged to reopen the majority of schools in his first 100 days.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: So, when you think that would be K-8 at least five days a week if possible?

BIDEN: I think we'll be close to that at the end of the first 100 days.

MATTINGLY: But his administration can't seem to settle on what that means.

COOPER: You're now saying that means those schools may only be open for at least one day a week.

BIDEN: No, that's not true. That's what was reported.

COOPER: Uh-huh.

BIDEN: That's not true. That was a mistake in the communication.

MATTINGLY: That communication came directly from the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Teaching at least one day a week in the majority of schools by day 100.

MATTINGLY: Psaki clarified this afternoon.

PSAKI: When I initially said one day a week, it was our floor. It was not our ceiling.

MATTINGLY: The administration torn between parents, science and teachers unions also briefly clouding the water as to whether teachers must be vaccinated before schools can reopen, something the CDC said should be a priority, but not mandatory, with Vice President Kamala Harris refusing to give a straight answer.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Teachers should be a priority.

MATTINGLY: Again.

QUESTION: Is it safe for them?

HARRIS: Well, I think that we have to decide if we can put in place safe measures.

MATTINGLY: And again.

QUESTION: I don't want to beat it to death. But I just -- I know there are teachers listening.

HARRIS: We think they should be a priority.

MATTINGLY: Even as Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to hedge on the issue.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: If you were going to say that every single teacher needs to be vaccinated before you get back to school, I believe, quite frankly, Tony, that that's a non-workable situation.

MATTINGLY: With Biden even urging a focus on vaccinations for teachers.

BIDEN: I think that we should be vaccinating teachers. We should move them up in the hierarchy.

MATTINGLY: But it took Jeff Zients, the White House COVID coordinator, to put the issue to bed.

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: The president vice president agree with the CDC guidelines that it's not a requirement to reopening schools.

MATTINGLY: Still, Biden used his first town hall as president to highlight what White House advisers view as his key assets in the job, a touch of optimism.

BIDEN: By next Christmas, I think we will be in a very different circumstance, God willing, than we are today.

MATTINGLY: And plenty of empathy.

BIDEN: Don't be scared, honey. Don't be scared. You're going to be fine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, Jake, we're just learning one of the big unanswered questions for this White House, when would President Biden call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the answer was this afternoon.

After four weeks to the day, President Biden placing a call to the prime minister. According to the prime minister's office, they just released a tweet saying the call lasted about an hour. And the big question about this relationship is, was the unwillingness to have a call in the initial weeks deliberate?

What we're hearing right now from White House officials is, they believe it's more or less a reflection of where the priorities are for the administration. They wanted to focus on other elements before the Middle East. And once they got to the Middle East, Prime Minister Netanyahu would be the first phone call. That is what happened today.

We are still waiting for a White House readout, but the long-awaited call between the two leaders has officially happened, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Phil Mattingly, thanks so much.

I want to bring in CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Abby Phillip to talk about both the science and the politics of this pandemic.

Abby, let me start with you.

We're hearing a lot of conflicting stuff from the White House, especially right now about when the vaccines will be widely available, what counts in terms of reopening schools. What do you make so far of the messaging from the administration? ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think mixed

messaging is a little bit of an understatement, as Phil really clearly laid out.

There's been a lot of doublespeak. But I think they're in two categories. One, I think it probably has more to do with the uncertainty of the vaccine development process and the uncertainty around the variants and what that means for the timeline for when everyone might get vaccinated and when we might return to normal.

[16:05:11]

OK, that is one category of things. But then there's another category of things that seems to be just about politics, which is this idea that they can't seem to just give a simple answer about what the science says about when schools should reopen, and what they might want from a political perspective before that happens.

I think Jeff Zients, who you saw there in Phil's piece, laid it out pretty clearly. It's still puzzling to me why the vice president and the president won't say this themselves. But the CDC guidelines say, it's not a prerequisite to reopen schools, but the Biden administration very clearly wants for teachers to be prioritized.

Both things can be true at the same time. They just for some reason refuse to say it.

TAPPER: And there are a lot of teachers groups out there, teachers unions, who say, even after they get vaccinated, they're not ready to go back to school. Then they want all the students vaccinated. It is a muddled message.

Sanjay, let's talk about the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson. They have a single dose vaccine that could be the first vaccine authorized under President Biden.

But now we're being told there will be fewer doses ready than expected. What's the latest on that?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, that is what we're hearing as well, Jake.

We talked to people at Johnson & Johnson right as they were releasing this phase three data, which is now going to be evaluated on February 26. And what they said at that point was they had been manufacturing at risk.

Basically, look, we don't know if this can be authorized. We're going to go ahead and start manufacturing doses. And we heard it was up to 10 million doses at that point, but not an exact number.

They also told me at that point that they were going to start ramping up production quickly if there was an authorization after that. So, again, we don't have an authorization. So some of these numbers, I think, are just guessing. I think what Jeff Zients was sort of referring to now was going back

to Johnson & Johnson and saying, OK, 100 million doses by the end of June, we got that, but at what pace? And what he seems to be saying and what he's hearing, Jeff Zients, from Johnson & Johnson is 20 million doses by April. So that's a lot slower.

I think people thought, if it's 100 million by June, was it going to be 30 million, 30 million, 30 million, some faster pace? And maybe they will increase production, but not -- it's not going as fast as I think anybody hoped at this point.

TAPPER: And, Abby, we have heard President Biden and Vice President Harris and various administration officials all say that teachers should be a priority for vaccinations, as you note.

Then, today, we're also seeing more cleanup on the fact that CDC has made clear teachers don't have to be vaccinated for schools to reopen, as you also noted. Why is it so tough for the Biden administration to give a straight clear answer on this issue of when schools should open and just the general issue of teachers' safety vs. opening schools?

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, I think that they are torn.

Look, the teachers unions are a very powerful Democratic constituency. And they feel very strongly that teachers should, at the very least, all be vaccinated before returning to school. But that is clearly not what the CDC's recommendations say.

What is really puzzling to me is why the Biden administration, which ran on a campaign promise of having the science go first and the science lead, can't just simply state what the science says on the topic, while also stating their preference for what they hope to happen.

I mean, they have even been -- it has even been suggested by some experts that they could offer a sort of carrot/stick to states to prioritize teachers. Why haven't they done that to if the prioritization of teachers is so important?

So it's hard for me to understand this, but from a straight-up communications perspective, keeping that promise of letting the science lead seems to be something that they ought to be trying to do even on this issue, which is complicated. And it's difficult for teachers and for families all across the country.

TAPPER: Yes. And we're going to talk more about this issue later in the show, because this is obviously a real issue of concern for tens of millions of American families, as well as teachers.

Sanjay, today, the Pentagon said that about a third of U.S. service members are declining to be vaccinated. What do you make of this? How can the Biden administration help ramp up acceptance of the vaccines?

GUPTA: Yes, I saw that.

And it sort of tracks with the either hesitancy or wait-and-see sort of numbers that we're seeing in the general population. And in some ways, it's interesting, because, if you look at U.S. service members, the overall age demographic, they do tend to be younger, two-thirds at least under the age of 30.

And we see in the general population that it's younger people and black Americans in particular that tend to be the most hesitant or at least say we're going to wait and see. This has to be addressed.

[16:10:02]

I mean, that we have got a vaccine. We know that vaccines are important, but vaccinations are what really make the difference. And these various campaigns to try and reach out to various organizations are important.

What we have seen historically, and even through this pandemic, is that the numbers have been going up. There was 65 percent willingness to take the vaccine in December. We're closer to 70 percent now. So it is getting closer to that herd immunity sort of number, especially if you take into account the number of people who may have some immunity because they have been naturally infected.

So, it's not good. It's not ideal by any means. But, hopefully, that will continue to improve.

TAPPER: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Abby Phillip, thank you so much.

Mother Nature keeps messing with Texas. Millions are frozen, without power, as politicians are attempting to change the subject by scoring cheap political points in the blame game.

Then, it could be a Democratic divide in the making -- what President Biden said no to that has AOC publicly firing back.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:15:04]

TAPPER: In our politics lead today: Key members of Biden's own party are calling him out after he said he would not cancel $50,000 of student loan debt.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez calling Biden's argument wrong. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren issuing a joint statement, telling Biden, it's time to act.

But Biden made it undoubtedly clear where he stood last night, flat out rejecting the $50,000 idea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOYCELYN FISH, COMMUNITY THEATER MARKETING DIRECTOR: We need student loan forgiveness beyond the potential $10,000 your administration has proposed. We need at least a $50,000 minimum. What will you do to make that happen?

BIDEN: I will not make that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: let's discuss.

Paul Begala, this is the first real test of Biden, the more moderate Democrat, facing off against the more progressive elements in his party. And Schumer is standing with the progressives.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. And he needs to understand that Joe Biden has the support in the Gallup poll of 98 percent of Democrats.

Biden is more popular among Democrats than Trump ever was among Republicans. And we obsess about the Trump base. And it's interesting, and they're important people, and we want to learn from that. But Biden's got 98 percent of his party.

And so I think he's in full command of his party. And we're so used to a president who does nothing but pander to his base. Here's Joe Biden. The base does want this $50,000 debt forgiveness. And Biden says, no, I'm not going to do it.

By the way, he's prioritizing things like COVID relief, like 11 million people who have lost their jobs, like 14 million children who are experiencing what the demographers called food insecurity, which means kids are going hungry.

And I think President Biden wants to do something about student debt, but I think he's exactly right on the merits, but he's also right on the politics.

TAPPER: And Congresswoman, on the other side of the aisle, your side of the aisle, Trump has come out swinging against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He issued a statement calling McConnell a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack in a scathing statement.

Trump also was on FOX today spewing more lies about the election.

Do you think some Republicans, including McConnell, are regretting not voting to convict, given the fact that he's continuing to bully elements of his party and continues to spread the big lie?

MIA LOVE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think that -- I don't know if he's actually questioning his vote.

But I think it just goes to show that if you are not 100 percent a fan of Trump, if you are not 100 percent doing what the president wants, he will come after you. And there will be a time where Lindsey Graham will feel the wrath of that also.

I mean, he went after his own vice president, probably the most loyal person in the world to him. He allowed a mob to go after the vice president. This person is absolutely not loyal to no one but himself. I did want to bring up that one thing about the college forgiveness,

though. I really wish somebody would just talk about how to afford college. On one hand, we talk about government helping people get through college, but, at some point, we have got to address the rising price -- the rising cost of college, making it very difficult for everyday Americans to receive a higher education.

So, I think that that's one thing. I would really -- I appreciate the president saying, look, I'm not going to forgive this entire amount. However, a real leader has to say, we have got to bring down the cost of college education.

TAPPER: And, Paul, the congresswoman brought up Senator Lindsey Graham, a very, very loyal ally of President Trump. Take a listen to him on FOX last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Mitch McConnell, working with Donald Trump, did a hell of a job. They're now at each other's throat. I'm more worried about 2022 than I have ever been.

I don't want to eat our own. President Trump is the most consequential Republican in the party. If Mitch McConnell doesn't understand that, he's missing a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: It's really interesting watching people like Lindsey Graham and Ron Johnson attack Mitch McConnell.

But one of the things that is true there in what Lindsey Graham has to say is, Trump in his statement yesterday suggested that he might use his power to primary Republicans running for reelection next year.

BEGALA: And Lindsey is so cad, you can almost hear him moo.

I just think it's embarrassing. It's humiliating. Donald Trump has been a disaster for the Republican Party, OK? Not since the Great Depression has either party lost the House and the Senate and the White House in just a four-year span. That's what happened in the age of Trump.

That's very good for the Democrats in my party, but it's terrible for the Republicans. Mitch McConnell can count. And it seems to me that the very uncivil war in the Republican Party now is between the conservatives, like McConnell, and the cult followers.

And, apparently, Senator Graham, with a remarkably elastic spine, has gone from being a John McCain guy to Donald Trump cult follower. It is an electoral cul-de-sac. It's a dead end, and there's no victory there.

[16:20:03]

And that's why McConnell is breaking with Trump, because he knows actually Trump's been terrible for his party.

TAPPER: Congresswoman, what do you think?

LOVE: I think McConnell is doing exactly what he needs to do.

He knows that he has to win seats in Georgia and seats in the -- in Arizona in order to regain the majority in the Senate. However, I do believe that Lindsey Graham has to realize that, yes, you need Trump voters. You don't need Trump.

You need new leadership. And going back and having to continue to apologize over and over again is this cycle that he's not going to be able to break.

TAPPER: All right, Paul Begala, Congresswoman Mia Love, thanks so much. Always good to see both of you.

BEGALA: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: Coming up: no power, no gas, no heat, and now no running water, for some people, no food -- the dire, desperate situation for millions of Americans with no end in sight and lots of finger-pointing by politicians.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:25:35]

TAPPER: In our national lead: Imagine being three days into a frigid winter storm with no power, no heat and now scarce, if any access to clean water.

That is the sad reality for millions of people in Texas right now, where ice and snow have paralyzed most of the state.

As CNN's Ed Lavandera reports, no one appears to be taking responsibility for what went wrong during this disaster, as it's becoming a political blame game between Republican state officials and energy companies.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The deep Texas freeze is inflicting pain and frustration across the state. For three days, millions of people have been unable to heat their homes, temperatures dropping to life-threatening levels and causing chaos.

Linda Shoemaker had to leave her home for a warm shelter to protect her 101-year-old mother.

LINDA SHOEMAKER, TEXAS RESIDENT: My mother said: "I'm going to stay home and cover up with all my quilts."

And I said: "Mother, you could freeze in the middle of the night." LAVANDERA: The bitter cold has now turned to heated anger over the catastrophic failure of the state's power grid.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott made the rounds on Texas television news programs to say it's a total failure of the organization known as ERCOT, which runs nearly all of the state's power grid. He's called for an investigation and for executives to resign.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): ERCOT stands for Electric Reliability Council of Texas. And they showed that they were not reliable.

LAVANDERA: Most of Texas runs on its own power grid separate from the rest of the country. State leaders designed it this way to avoid federal regulation.

ERCOT officials insist the decision to take power away from millions of homes using controlled outages spared the entire state from a systemwide failure that could have taken months to repair and left even more people freezing.

BILL MAGNESS, CEO, ERCOT: If we had waited and not done outages, not reduced demand to reflect what was going on the overall system, we could have drifted towards a blackout.

LAVANDERA: According to ERCOT officials, equipment failures at oil and gas plants account for the largest amounts of power knocked offline. Despite that, right-wing pundits have used the Texas freeze to blast the reliability of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.

In the middle of this crisis, Governor Abbott went on FOX News.

ABBOTT: This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal.

LAVANDERA: But before the governor made that appearance, he was telling Texas news stations that one of the biggest concerns was frozen equipment at natural gas plants, which provides most of the heat for Texas homes.

ABBOTT: The power generators froze up and their equipment was incapable of generating power. And, then on top of that, the natural gas that flows into those power generators, that has frozen up also.

REP. MARC VEASEY (D-TX): There is no Green New Deal in Texas. That is a J-O-K-E joke.

LAVANDERA: Democratic Texas Congressman Marc Veasey says the governor and state Republican leaders are trying to shift blame.

VEASEY: I would say 100 percent of the blame goes to Greg Abbott and Republicans just for years and years of neglect and mismanagement.

LAVANDERA: In the meantime, Texans like Jose Limon (ph) scramble to survive. Limon recently spent three weeks in a hospital ICU battling COVID-19. He's home now, with no electricity, using a generator to power the oxygen machine he needs to breathe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: And, Jake, there are about 680 power plant generation units across the state. We're told about 180 of those have some -- have been knocked offline in some way over the last three days.

But state power grid officials say here the bottom line is, we're at the mercy of those power-generating plants to come back online. That could take several days. And we're also waiting for the temperatures to get above freezing. State power grid officials say they're hopeful that the power can come back in the next day or two. But hope doesn't keep people warm -- Jake.

TAPPER: It does not. And we have family members in Texas. The roads are bad. You can't escape. The airports are closed. It's just an absolute tragedy.

Ed Lavandera, thank you so much.

Joining me now, Galveston County, Texas, Judge Mark Henry.

Judge Henry, thanks for joining us.

I know, at one point, nearly 90 percent of customers in Galveston County had no power. Can you give us a reality check of how bad the situation is there right now in your immediate area?