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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Ohio School Safely Reopens with Mask Wearing, Teacher Vaccinations and Just 3-Foot Social Distancing; Tomorrow: House to Vote on Biden's $1.9T Stimulus Plan; Trump Planning Political Comeback, Mulling Presidential Run; New York Governor Cuomo Denies Sexual Harassment Allegations Made By Former Aide. Aired 4:30-5p ET
Aired February 25, 2021 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Vice President Kamala Harris visiting a local D.C. pharmacy.
[16:30:03]
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good morning. Good morning, Doctor.
HILL: A new push to address vaccine hesitancy.
Also out today, a new ad campaign.
UNKNOWN: Getting back to the moments we miss starts with getting informed.
HILL: Access still a major concern. More states working to meet people where they are, though eligibility is another hurdle. Some grocery store employees in Michigan not included and expanded eligibility for agricultural and food processing workers.
PAUL PETROS, MIDTOWN FRESH MARKET STORE DIRECTOR: We've been on the front line since it started and we've been interacting with customers. I'm not saying we're the most important people but during the pandemic, we were.
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HILL (on camera): Just to note, overall, when we look at the pandemic, the benchmarks over the last month average new cases down 57 percent, hospitalizations dropping more than 50 percent and deaths little bit slower with those two, down about 30 percent, Jake, in the last month.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Erica Hill in New York, thank you so much.
Continuing to cover COVID in our national lead, today, New York City middle schoolers are back in class, in person, and city officials say more than 30,000 teachers have been vaccinated.
In California, officials are mandating that counties set aside 10 percent of their vaccine doses for teachers to try to finally get back to in person learning, but there's no time frame.
And there's a deadline in Ohio for students to get back into the classroom.
CNN's Bianna Golodryga picks up the latest installment of our series on schools in the time of coronavirus with a tale of two different districts in Ohio.
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BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 9:48 a.m., and time for students at Watkins Memorial High School to get to their next class.
I have to say, this is surreal for me to be inside of a high school.
Besides mask and social distancing, it's almost like school before the pandemic hit in Licking County, outside of Columbus, Ohio.
MELISSA LADOWITZ, PRINCIPAL, WATKINS MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL: High schoolers typically have a lot more freedom than students in the elementary level. But we knew that we could teach them the new routines and procedures and that is what it is really all come down to.
GOLODRYGA: Less freedom but they're here in school, in person five days a week since August.
A lower middle class Rust Belt town where currently 75 percent of the district's 4,500 K-12 students are in school full time. To get here, overcrowded hallways are now one way. Students go outside to change classes and allow in fresh air. They implemented some of the CDC's guidelines, such as masking, cleaning and contact tracing.
But under the guidance of local health officials, they foregone other recommendations, most significantly, cutting the recommended six feet of separation in half.
ALISHA SLEEPER, INSTRUCTIONAL COACH, SOUTHWEST LICKING, OHIO: I'm going to be honest, in the fall I didn't know what to expect. We're going to be all in. We're going to see what happens. The guidance was six feet and here we are going with three feet. I was scared. And now over time, I've seen that the spread is not there like we thought it would be.
GOLODRYGA: K through 12 math coach and vice president of the local teachers union, Alicia Sleeper, is frustrated that her own two children who attend a nearby district don't have a full in-person option like her students do in Licking County.
SLEEPER: I would love to see my kids in school because they can -- they can use these mitigation strategies.
GOLODRYGA: What is your response to many who argue that you're doing this at the expense of teachers and their lives?
SLEEPER: I would ask for teachers to look at the data to really dive in.
GOLODRGYA: Current enrollment at Watkins Middle School is over- capacity so they've gotten creative with their use of space.
RYAN BROWN, PRINCIPAL, WATKINS MIDDLE SCHOOL, OHIO: We're currently in our media center but we have to use it multitask. We turned the back half of it into a classroom.
GOLODRYGA: The district has been vaccinating teachers since mid- February. So far, more than 70 percent have received their first dose.
LADOWITZ: I don't think that vaccines are required in order to open schools safely.
GOLODRYGA: They have seen positive COVID cases in schools. The school district says it has a less than a 2 percent positivity infection rate of students and staff. And superintendent Casey Perkins was confident in her decision to open her schools and keep them open.
SUPERINTENDENT KASEY PERKINS, SOUTHWEST LICKING, OHIO: We haven't had one case all year that has spread from being in school.
GOLODRYGA: Her message to other school districts still hesitant to reopen -- call me.
PERKINS: Come take a look. Come, you know, to our schools. See our transition times. Take a look at our classrooms. See our cafeteria, look at what we've done and we've had success with so you could model it for yourself.
GOLODRYGA: A message fully endorsed by sophomore D'Mya Brown.
D'MYA BROWN, SOPHOMORE, WATKINS MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL: I'm really, really grateful that our district was able to open up and allowed us back in the school building because I can't imagine how hard it must be for students who are online to not be able to interact with their peers or get one-on-one help from their teachers. They somehow made it work pretty seamlessly.
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[16:35:02]
GOLODRYGA (on camera): They did make it work. And, Jake, in addition to the governor of Ohio, the governors of Virginia and Maryland are also pushing for their schools to reopen to offer some in-person learning next month. I was floored, as you could see, to see high schoolers acting like normal high schoolers in school, in class. The only thing they were doing was wearing a mask, that was really the only difference, Jake. It can be done. It takes work, but it can be done.
TAPPER: Right. But the key is all of -- you know, those implementation measures, walking outside, wearing masks and the distancing. It can't just be ignored. You can't just go back to normal but it can be done. Bianna Golodryga with our latest installment of school in the time of
COVID -- thank you so much. Appreciate it.
They say revenge is a dish best served cold. But in this case, it may be well done with ketchup. How Donald Trump is planning to get back at some of the Republicans who did not support him.
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TAPPER: In our politics lead -- tomorrow, the House of Representatives will vote on President Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus plan but it is not clear if the $15 federal minimum wage increase will be included when it gets the Senate. And with 730,000 American workers filing for unemployment benefits for the first time last week, help is needed, as CNN's Phil Mattingly now reports.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I hope Congress passes the American Rescue Plan which I've been pushing.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Joe Biden on the eve of the most important vote of his young administration.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The opportunity is there, and the precision of this legislation to directly address the needs of the American people.
MATTINGLY: The House set to vote on his $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, which would include $1,400 stimulus checks, $170 billion for schools, $160 billion to expand vaccine development and infrastructure and extensions of crucial unemployment benefits. House Democrats expect to pass the bill on party lines, with Senate Democrats ready to move.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Democrats are preparing to proceed with the urgency urgently needed President Biden American Rescue Plan.
MATTINGLY: But with a major fight looming over the $15 minimum wage.
PELOSI: We will pass a minimum wage bill. We must pass a minimum wage bill.
MATTINGLY: Two Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema opposed to the provision. The White House with no margin for error in a chamber divided 50/50. For now, all eyes on someone most Americans have never even heard of, the Senate parliamentarian will decide whether the proposal runs afoul of Senate rules.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: That is the next step and we'll have to go from there.
MATTINGLY: For now, a waiting game, with Biden sticking to his support.
PSAKI: The president included an increase in the minimum wage because he believes it should be -- it's long overdue.
MATTINGLY: The intraparty high wire act the White House faces on Senate votes on full display this week with Biden's budget director nominee.
PSAKI: As a daughter of a single parent and somebody who benefited from food stamps at certain points in time, she would bring a new perspective to the role.
MATTINGLY: Neera Tanden still short of the votes and the White House still standing by the nomination.
PSAKI: That's why he nominated her to the job and why we're continuing to fight for her confirmation.
MATTINGLY: White House officials holding out for two, Sinema and Republican Lisa Murkowski, a heavy lift, with Biden's chief of staff making clear Tanden will have a role in the White House.
RON KLAIN, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: If Neera Tanden is not confirmed, she will not become the budget director. We'll find some other place to deserve in the administration that doesn't require Senate confirmation.
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MATTINGLY (on camera): And, Jake, we are just now learning that a long awaited phone call between President Biden and Saudi Arabia's King Salman has occurred. A source confirmed to our colleague Nic Robertson. This call has been long awaited for a couple of reasons. Obviously, the U.S. is looking to reset the relationship with Saudi Arabia with the new administration. But this call was also expected to be a precursor to the release of a U.S. intelligence report into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a report that is expected to identify King Salman's son Mohammed bin Salman as one of the reasons for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. This call was supposed to happen before the release of the report, that is expected to come soon now that the call has occurred, Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks so much.
Those tax returns that former President Trump has tried to, for years, to keep secret are now in the hands of the New York district attorney. Millions, millions of pages of Trump's tax returns from January of 2011 to August of 2019. And yet at the same time, this is all going on, Trump is busy plotting his political comeback.
CNN's Kate Bennett joins us now.
And, Kate, before Trump can even get to a possible another presidential run in 2024, he's got a lot of revenge he wants to exact on people. KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRRESPONDENT: Right. And he's
probably going to serve it lukewarm and not cold. He's going to serve it a little bit before.
I mean, listen, Donald Trump is a person who acts on a theory of you owe me, I owe you, you owe me, I owe you, whether it's fair or not. So he's certainly in Florida taking his time, receiving members of the Republican Party to taking his temperature to see whether or not he will back them and whether or not in this divided Republican Party, Donald Trump really is the puppet master. And quite frankly, he appears to be.
Now, looking ahead, he is thinking about 2024. He wants to run. He's told those close to him, he's told family members and close friends that he intends to run. Of course, it could be just pie in the sky considering what you just said about his tax returns, a number of other investigations happening.
But in his mind, this is something that he thinks is achievable. This is something that he wants to move forward with. And considering the state of the party and midterms and Donald Trump Jr. helping Trump push the message, this is certainly something on the former president's mind -- Jake.
[16:45:08]
TAPPER: All right. Kate Bennett, thanks so much.
The last time this was successful, the Terminator took office. California's Democratic governor could face a recall election. He's fighting for his political life and he's not the only Democratic governor whose early pandemic praise is not aging well.
Stay with us.
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TAPPER: Problems are piling up for Democratic governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. His former secretary Steven Cohen issuing a statement ahead of a state budget hearing that the Department of Justice inquiry into COVID nursing home deaths is a political, quote, game of gotcha. And Cohen insisting there was no cover-up. Despite one of Cuomo's top aides confirming in a private phone call a few weeks ago that there was, in fact, a delay in reporting the data to state lawmakers, what some might call a cover-up.
[16:50:03]
All this while Cuomo is denying new sexual harassment allegations made by former aide Lindsey Boylan who worked for the state's economic development agency and is now running for Manhattan borough president. Boylan alleges that Governor Cuomo made unwanted advances towards her, including kissing her in 2018 and asking her to play strip poker in 2017.
Cuomo's office says Boylan's claims are, quote, quite simply false. CNN has been unable to corroborate her allegations and she has refused
to give further comment on the record.
Also in the politics lead today, Republicans in California believe that their well on the way toward collects the 1.5 million signatures needed to force a recall election to unseat the state's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. They're using the pandemic to fuel their campaign, accusing Newsom of keeping California in lockdown mode.
But it's not just Republicans who say Newsom has gone too far, as CNN's Kyung Lah reports.
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KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The fuel for these mailers, for the volunteers trying to recall California's governor, frustration.
STACY EDWARDS, VOLUNTEER, RECALL GAVIN NEWSOM 2020: I reached my final straw when I lost my job for the third time in November.
LAH: Stacy Edwards works in restaurants, an industry devastated in the pandemic. The object of her ire, Governor Gavin Newsom who has mandated statewide restrictions on businesses to stop the spread of COVID.
What do you want to tell the governor about the kind of pain that you're in?
EDWARDS: Oh, gosh, yeah, that's an interesting question. Yeah, it's been very hard. You're going to make me emotional. But we're talking about starting a family and buying a house and those are all things that are having to wait because of this.
LAH: On the other side of the table --
ANDREA HEDSTROM, VOLUNTEER, RECALL GAVIN NEWSOM 2020: I voted for Gavin Newsom.
LAH: Andrea Hedstrom. She says she's a life-long Democrat who so admired Newsom that she named her son Gavin.
Do you blame the governor for the condition that the state is in?
HEDSTROM: I do at this point. Newsom is the one that's running California right now with an iron fist.
LAH: These Californians seething after a year of shut downs have found a political outlet.
ORRIN HEATLIE, LEAD PROPONENT, RECALL GAVIN NEWSOM 2020: These look like three valid signatures on this form.
LAH: The recall petition.
This is just in one day. HEATLIE: This is only part of one day.
LAH: Petitions sorted by county, then delivered to be officially counted.
Orrin Heatlie launched the Recall Gavin 2020 campaign, the sixth recall attempt. The other five failed to qualify for the ballot, against the Democratic governor who won by a landslide in 2018.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is your five-star spot for a smorgasbord of information.
LAH: Public records show this recall is dominated by conservative donors. Money that pays for this radio program broadcast from the heart of liberal Los Angeles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's Friday night at the French laundry.
LAH: That's a dig at Governor Newsom's blunder, caught dining maskless at this exclusive restaurant while telling his residents to stay home.
He since apologized but it is dinged his popularity. But with California's COVID case numbers dropping, Newsom is pushing to reopen schools, easing restrictions on outdoor dining and opening the first mass vaccination sites in the country. And in a sign of Newsom's political strength -- Napa Valley restaurant owners like Cynthia Ariosta who says she lost half a million dollars in wage production and sued Newsom for the shutdown is not willing to sign on to the recall.
CYNTHIA ARIOSTA, NAPA VALLEY RESTAURANTA OWNER: What would take his place anyway? I would like to see this as a real wakeup call that I've got some things to fix.
LAH: The recall leader says his group hasn't backed a replacement. First up, getting enough signatures.
HEATLIE: We don't know who will take the seat. We feel very strongly that somebody more confident is going to take that position.
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LAH (on camera): Now this is one of the tables that you see around the state as they try to collect more signatures, organizers claim they have 1.8 million signatures so far. But, Jake, they have to verify all of those signatures and then just because they make the ballot didn't mean that this governor would be recalled, where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one in the state of California when you look at voter registrations, Jake.
TAPPER: That's right. Kyung Lah, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Coming up, a warning about a new threat from the MAGA terrorists involving explosives, Congress, and the president.
Stay with us.
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[16:59:21]
TAPPER: Finally from us today, there are now more than 507,000 American lives lost to coronavirus. And we want to take a moment to remember one of them.
A family friend to a member of THE LEAD's staff, Bertha Pretlow Brown. She was from Surry, Virginia. She was a 70-year-old widow and mother of two surrounded by love. She had six siblings and spoke to her three sisters by phone every single day. She had 17 nieces and nephews and loved to organize movie nights, talent shows and other family gatherings.
Her family says she raised two daughters, to treat others with kindness and to excel in school and in life. To the Pretlow family, our deepest condolences. May her memory be a blessing.
You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @JakeTapper. You can tweet the show @TheLeadCNN.
Our coverage on CNN continues right now. I'll see you tomorrow.
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