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The Lead with Jake Tapper

White House Announces Immigration Bill; Shifting Vaccine Timelines; Interview With Houston, Texas, Mayor Sylvester Turner; Texas Blackout. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired February 18, 2021 - 16:00   ET

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

RON GARAN, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: A better understanding of how planetary science works, how planets function, and the life cycle of planets is going to help us here on Earth immensely.

(CROSSTALK)

[16:00:04]

GARAN: And it's also going to help us understand our place in the universe.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: For sure, for sure for sure.

We will get all those pictures tomorrow and continue chewing on all of this. Touchdown. I love it.

Thanks for sharing that moment with me, Ron. I really, really appreciate you.

GARAN: You bet, Brooke. You too.

BALDWIN: And thank you all for being with me. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

"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 national lead, deadly winter weather crippling the United States, the already fragile distribution of coronavirus vaccines taking a major hit. From New York to Washington state, desperately needed vaccine appointments have been canceled and shipments of doses delayed because of the weather.

In Texas, the hardest hit perhaps, it's now the fourth straight day without power, heat and water for hundreds of thousands of Texans struggling to survive, as a deep freeze has paralyzed the Lone Star State.

Days without warmth means Americans are seeking refuge at warming centers, inside their cars even in a furniture store that has turned into a much-needed shelter for those without electricity.

The conditions are so desperate, one family told CNN they are literally burning their daughter's toy blocks to keep warm. More than 13 million people are also facing disruptions to another

basic necessity, water. And the freezing temperatures are expected to remain four days; 42 Americans that we know of have died because of the storm, 16 of them in Texas, though that number were will assuredly rise.

And while various lawmakers and community leaders have been doing everything they can to help Texans survive, to check in on each other, to find food, to find water, to find warmth and medical care, Texas Senator Ted Cruz has been an exception.

He was spotted flying from Houston to Cancun, Mexico, with his family yesterday. After hours of being savagely criticized on social and news media, Cruz put out a statement this afternoon announcing that he is heading back to Houston. He blamed his trip on his daughters having the week off from school because of the storm and his desire to be a good dad.

He's acting as if he was only going to accompany them, not as if this was a trip where he was planning on staying.

Our reporters are covering all angles of the disaster that's unfolding now.

We're going to begin with CNN's Nick Watt and the vaccine rollout that Dr. Fauci says has slowed to a grinding halt in some places.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOSEPH DIVINCENZO JR., ESSEX COUNTY, NEW JERSEY, EXECUTIVE: We have five sites here in Essex County. Today, they are all closed down.

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That's Newark, New Jersey. Similar scene down in Houston, Texas. Every county-run vaccination site is closed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vaccine shots will probably start again on Friday.

WATT: More than 2,000 vaccine sites are in areas with power outages, says FEMA, vaccine delivery delays from North Carolina to California.

NATHAN FLETCHER, SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, SUPERVISOR: While it might not snow in San Diego, the snow is directly impacting San Diego.

WATT: Because snow has fallen on delivery hubs in Memphis and Louisville, Kentucky.

GOV. CHARLIE BAKER (R-MA): We're currently talking to the National Guard about -- and they will do this -- about going down to Kentucky and Tennessee, which is where this stuff is currently located, and bringing it back.

WATT: The pace of vaccination was picking up before the cold took hold. But average shots in arms every day just took a little dip.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: We're just going to have to make up for it, as soon as the weather lifts a bit, the ice melts, and we can get the trucks out and the people out.

WATT: Meantime, average daily COVID-19 case counts down 26 percent in just a week, still high, but going down, for now.

The broader impact of all we have been through, still going through, drug overdose rates rose sharply when the pandemic hit, according to early CDC data, which also reports that U.S. life expectancy fell a full year first half of 2020, falling even further for Latinx and black Americans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, the sun is shining today in Los Angeles, but still the super vaccination site at Disneyland just closed, will stay closed through Monday, because, due to bad weather elsewhere, the shipment of vaccines just did not arrive -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Nick, thank you so much.

All day across Texas, rolling blackouts have impacted some 400,000 customers and the company that manages the Texas power grid says that this week's meltdown was seconds or minutes away from a catastrophic failure.

But the power problem has now ruptured into a full-blown water problem, as CNN's Camila Bernal reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QIANA ABRAMS, TEXAS RESIDENT: This is what we came back to.

Our whole apartment! Look at the -- you all, I cannot believe this.

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CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anger boiling over, as Texans endure more pain.

Millions are now facing a new problem, major water disruptions, this woman's apartment in Dallas flooded.

ABRAMS: And now we ain't got (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Everything that we brought here, we don't have nothing, you all.

BERNAL: Broken pipes, failing systems piling on to the pain Texans have felt since Sunday, when plunging temperatures crippled their state's independent power grid, leaving millions without power and heat.

PHILIP SHELLEY, TEXAS RESIDENT: We're just left sitting in a cold dark room in the middle of the night with a crying baby and an in-pain wife. And that's what hurts the most, is, there's nothing we can really do besides sit and wait.

BERNAL: People trying to do all they can to stay warm, even burning a baby crib. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the only way you can stay warm, because

the power's out.

BERNAL: And this mother trying to keep her kids warm in the car.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's horrible. We have been driving around during the day with the heater on in the car just to keep warm.

BERNAL: The water disruptions on top of everything.

STEVE ADLER (D), MAYOR OF AUSTIN, TEXAS: It is too much to ask of anybody. People are angry and confused and frustrated. And I am too.

BERNAL: The cities of Austin and San Antonio issuing boil-water notices Wednesday evening.

ADLER: This is a dire place.

BERNAL: When millions were without power Tuesday night, Texas Governor Greg Abbott went on FOX News to score political points, blaming green energy sources, which account for a fraction of the state's power.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.

BERNAL: Then walked back his comments the next day.

ABBOTT: Every source of power the state of Texas has, has been compromised.

BERNAL: At its peak, more than three million people were without power. The vast majority have had their power restored.

In Galveston, volunteers handing out water and this scene at the South Padre Island Convention Center, thousands of sea turtles rescued by volunteers trying to keep them alive until warmer weather.

But that may be days away. And people here want answers now.

RACHEL SIEGAL, TEXAS RESIDENT: I expect a full apology as to how this has been handled. And I expect some sort of solution so that this doesn't happen again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERNAL: And so many Texans feeling that way at the moment.

And when we're talking about the next challenge, the water and the 13 million people in this state affected by these issues, we're not just talking about a boil-water notice. We're also talking about people that have no water at all. We have heard from Texans who are telling us that they're collecting the snow, putting it into buckets, bringing it inside their homes, trying to melt it, Jake, for later use.

TAPPER: All right, Camila, thank you so much for that report. Joining us now, the Democratic Mayor of Houston, Texas, Sylvester

Turner.

Mayor Turner, what's the situation in Houston right now? And when do you expect conditions to improve?

SYLVESTER TURNER (D-TX), MAYOR OF HOUSTON: Things in the last 24 hours, Jake, have gotten better. Yesterday, for example, in the Houston region, we had about 1.3 million people without power. Today, that number is now 40, 40,000.

So things have gotten much better. The system is still somewhat, I would say, unstable. In the last 24 hours, ERCOT has brought a lot of generation back onto the system. But we have to be very careful that some of that generation may come off and we may have to have a few rolling blackouts.

But, for right now, from 1.3 million yesterday without it, under 40,000 today. With regards to the to the water pressure -- and all of these things are interconnected -- the water pressure is starting to come back, although we still a significant way from where we need to need to be.

But, for example, on the water pressure in the city of Houston yesterday, we were under what we call 20 PSI. And that's the magical number. As of right now, we have been holding at about 29. You need to be above 20 and really closer to 35. So, the water pressure is starting to build.

But, again, we still need people to conserve power and to conserve water.

TAPPER: It's clear that the state was not prepared for this disaster, even though the storm was forecast a week ahead of time.

What needs to be done to make sure this doesn't happen again?

TURNER: It's ironic. You ask what the answer is. And you are absolutely correct.

In 2011, 2013, when I was in the legislature, I sat on the committee that oversees our electric utility system. I filed a bill that call for the public utility commission to ensure that ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council, that they would have enough reserve generation to prevent blackouts.

[16:10:07]

Ironically, that bill that I filed was not heard in committee. But in this case, recognizing that we were going to have a major winter storm coming to Texas, we should have had enough reserve power ahead of time in order to be able to deal with the increased demand.

And then the system needs to be weatherized, because what happened here -- and I don't want anybody to blame this on renewables. Let's not do that, because we had natural gas plants that froze and had to come offline, coal plants had to come offline, windmill turbines froze.

So, the system does need to be weatherized to take into account these type of weather conditions. Lastly, when I talked to the head of ERCOT on yesterday morning, he acknowledged that the system that we have here in Texas is designed primarily for summer heat.

It is not necessarily designed for winter storms and deep freeze elements like we have experienced of the past four days. Things are changing. Climate change is real. And so you have to build a system that's more resilient and more sustainable, regardless of the weather conditions.

TAPPER: As you know, many Americans were already struggling quite a bit because of the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis.

One mother in McAllen, Texas, Sylvia Cerda Salinas, talked to CNN about this last night. I want you to take a listen.

TURNER: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SYLVIA CERDA SALINAS, TEXAS RESIDENT: Times were already tough. I wasn't working because of the pandemic. So, financially, I mean, we don't have the options to go out and buy a generator or to purchase fast food even.

So it's hard. It's tough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your message, Mr. Mayor, to Texans such as Sylvia going through all of this extreme hardship right now?

TURNER: I hear you and I feel you, and I feel your pain.

There were a lot of Texans, a lot of Houstonians even before this winter challenge that were already living on the margins. They were living in homes that were already in need of repair and needed to be reconstructed.

What this event has done, it has made it even more challenging for these families. Many of these families, for example, when the power went out, they didn't have the means, for example, to go to a hotel, like thousands of people did.

They didn't have the means. They didn't have the ability, for example, to just be in their homes and just bear that cold. And so many of them got in their cars and tried to warm up in that means. And even in those cases, many of them ran the risk of life-threatening situations because some have died because of carbon monoxide.

And now, for example, when the weather is improving, or when the power is now on, many homes are finding themselves where the pipes of bursting.

TAPPER: Yes.

TURNER: And literally their ceilings are falling down, and they don't have insurance or they don't have the financial means to make the repairs.

They were already stressed out and on the margins, because they may have lost their jobs.

TAPPER: Yes.

TURNER: But now their situation is even worse.

So, I clearly understand and empathize with their situation.

TAPPER: Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, thank you so much. We're all thinking about our friends and family in Texas right now. Our thoughts, prayers, and all support going to the Lone Star State right now. Thanks for your time, sir.

TURNER: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: And you can check out CNN.com/Impact to find out how you can help Texans in need.

Coming up: why the timeline for everyone getting a coronavirus vaccine keeps moving and what that means for you.

And she survived a nine-month nightmare, tortured and raped in a detention camp because of her religion. Now she's sharing her story with CNN. That's coming up.

Stay with us.

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TAPPER: In our health late today: The life expectancy in the U.S. dropped a full year in the first half of 2020, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control, U.S. life expectancy now at 77.8 years. That's the lowest it's been since 2006.

Experts say this decline has much to do with the ongoing pandemic.

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joins us now.

Sanjay, how big a deal is, this drop of a year in life expectancy in the U.S.?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, it's a huge deal, Jake. This is one of the things that we measure the progress and sort of how well we did as a society from a health care standpoint, and we're going in the wrong direction.

I mean, almost since we started really measuring life expectancy regularly, the numbers have been going up, certainly in the developed world. There were some blips here over the last few years because of opioids had a significant impact. But a full-year drop, Jake, if you start to apply that across the population, you're talking about millions of life years that have been lost now because of this.

And we have to see, is this a trend now or does it go back up in a few years from now?

TAPPER: And this report also found, even more troublingly, the life expectancy for black Americans dropped 2.7 years. Why?

GUPTA: Right.

Yes, I mean, well, it's the same disparities that we have been talking about. All the things that have led to life expectancy dropping overall in our society have been amplified in black and brown Americans. So you're right, 2.7 years for African-Americans. Life expectancy has dropped nearly two years now for Hispanics as well.

So this is going to be something we need to follow. We spend so much money on health care. If life expectancy is going in the wrong direction. We obviously have to, again, see, is this going to be a trend? And this was just the first half of 2020 that was taken into account, Jake, so we get to see what the final numbers are, and if that's a trend or we can reverse that.

TAPPER: Take a listen to Dr. Fauci talking about the timeline in the U.S. to get everyone vaccinated.

[16:20:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: How long it will take to vaccinate people will really depend upon the efficiency with which you get doses into people's arms.

So, they will be available in July. It may take an additional couple of months, actually, maybe towards the end of the summer, to get everybody vaccinated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: It just feels as though the benchmark timeline for any sort of return to normalcy keeps getting pushed back further and further.

GUPTA: It's interesting, Jake, because I think, as we have talked about, a year ago or six months ago, it was always sort of dialing back some of the aspirations. Things were being overpromised.

And I think it almost seems like there's a little bit of a deliberate effort in the messaging now to sort of underpromise. And so, look, I think we have done the back-of-the-envelope calculations on this. We have talked to vaccine manufacturers.

There's a humility because things can go wrong. But when we look at this and say, to get to that point of herd immunity, what are we talking about here, taking into account the existing vaccines, Johnson & Johnson possibly coming online, and also a lot of people who already have some immunity because they have been infected?

Still look at sort of end of June to get to that time frame. Everyone that wants a vaccine getting one, remember, 70 percent of the country wants one. About 30 percent say they don't want one still. So that likely is going to be sort of end of June/July time frame.

TAPPER: The CDC plans to invest $200 million in genetically sequencing samples of the virus. Is that a smart allocation of resources?

GUPTA: Yes.

I mean, Jake, we have been sort of blindsided by some of these new strains. We hear about them and by the time we actually start to get eyes on them, they're already pretty widespread. I mean, the variant that emanated from the U.K., I mean, it's in so many states now around the country. And it's doubling almost every seven to 10 days.

We want to know ahead of time for two reasons, so you can identify it. But, also, if it is one of these strains that may require new vaccines or boosters or something like that, we want to know that early as well.

So, it's important money. They're spending about, I think, a billion- and-a-half on testing overall, $200 million, as you mentioned, for this, a lot of money towards just getting more testing out there, developing new tests.

We talk about vaccines all the time. Testing remains very important, Jake.

TAPPER: And, Sanjay, Pfizer just announced they have administered first vaccine doses to pregnant women as part of a global trial. Tell us more about that. What do they hope to learn?

GUPTA: So, this is the first actual trial now.

You remember, in the original trials, pregnant women were not part of those trials. There were women who became pregnant during the trial. And then, since the vaccine has been released, there are women who are pregnant who said, I know there's no data, but I'd still like to go ahead and get the vaccine. And about 20,000 women have done that.

And the data -- and there hasn't been really any significant side effects. But now you want an actual trial. They're going to look for safety. They're going to look for efficacy, meaning, are pregnant women generating the same antibody response? But they're also going to look at the fetus and baby and follow the baby six months afterwards for safety, but also to see, do antibodies then go to baby and provide protection for baby after pregnancy?

TAPPER: Interesting.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much. Appreciate it. A big unveiling at the White House today, a next major legislative priority, and the president may already be open to compromise. I'm going to talk to the key Democratic senator behind the Biden plan for immigration.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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TAPPER: In our politics lead today: the White House today turning up the pressure on lawmakers to pass President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan.

The Biden administration is also unveiling a far-reaching, perhaps even radical immigration bill, perhaps too ambitious to get through Congress as is, offering, for instance, a path to citizenship within eight years for most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country, including the so-called dreamers.

The bill has comparatively little emphasis on border security. And there are many other sweeping changes.

As Kaitlan Collins reports, President Biden has already signaled he's open to compromise.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Biden preparing to take a crack at his next legislative battle.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is a reasonable path to citizenship.

COLLINS: Today Democratic lawmakers unveiled what he believes that reasonable path is, introducing the most far-reaching immigration overhaul attempted in three decades, while acknowledging how other efforts have crashed and burned.

REP. LINDA SANCHEZ (D-CA): Sometimes, it seems that cynicism can defeat us before we even try. I get it. I really do. Congress has tried and failed in the past. And we aren't naive about the challenges that we face.

COLLINS: Biden's plan would offer an eight-year path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, while expanding worker visas and reducing restrictions on family immigration.

It would also remove the word alien from immigration laws and replace it with non-citizen.

BIDEN: Everyone is entitled to be treated with decency, with dignity.

COLLINS: But passing immigration legislation in Washington is like landing on the moon. It rarely happens. And politics have only become more polarized since the last time lawmakers tried.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I think 2013 is the year of immigration reform. I really do believe it.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): We all wish we didn't have this problem, but we do. And we have to fix it.

COLLINS: With a slim majority in the Senate, Democrats have acknowledged it'll be tough to get the 10 Republicans needed on board, leading some

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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