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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Interview With Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI); Republican Governors Eliminating COVID Safety Measures; Interview With National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired March 04, 2021 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:02]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: That's it for me at this hour.

"THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.

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

And we begin today with the health lead.

Health officials are alarmed, as some states are lifting mask mandates and allowing all -- almost all businesses to operate at 100 percent capacity.

President Biden called these moves by various governors -- quote -- "Neanderthal thinking." And his chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci says that these moves by governors are inexplicable.

Fauci will join me in just minutes. He is warning this will only set the U.S. back in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Yet, as CNN's Nick Watt reports for us now, today, yet another state announced that it will end its mask mandate as well.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOV. KAY IVEY (R-AL): While I'm convinced that a match mandate has been the right thing to do, I also respect those who object and believe that this was a step too far in government overreach.

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): So, Alabama's governor says their mask mandate will end April 9, even though her top medical adviser says this:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe that evidence supports your use and that they prevent disease and they prevent death.

WATT: Right now, no mask mandate in 15 states.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really just truly see this as sabotage.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: This is not the time to do it, not with the U.K. variant starting to accelerate, which we know is so much more transmissible.

WATT: Joining the maskless club next week, Texas, where average case counts and death tolls are already back on the rise and the governor is, without any proof, trying to blame the White House.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): The Biden administration was releasing illegal immigrants into our communities who had COVID. The Biden administration was spreading COVID.

WATT: Meantime, doctors in Cypress, Texas, say there's nothing more they can do for Victoria Gallardo, a young mom of 5.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I sit here and wait for my wife to die. I don't know what to do.

WATT: Vaccines are what to do for the country.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't like needles.

WATT: On average, more than two million doses now going into American arms every day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to tell everybody, do not be afraid.

WATT: Some states want to see more of this before thinking about less of this.

GOV. JIM JUSTICE (R-WV): And if we continue to vaccinate more and more and more, we will get rid of the mask. But I don't know really what the big rush to get rid of the mask is, because these masks have saved a lot, a lot of lives. And if we don't watch out, we can make some mistakes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: And it's not just numbers. It's also vaccinating the right people. In 38 states, teachers are now eligible. And that is a good thing.

And here in California, they are now going to earmark 40 percent of doses for underserved and the hardest-hit communities -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Nick Watt, thanks so much.

Dr. Anthony Fauci joins us now. He is the chief medical adviser to President Biden.

Dr. Fauci, thanks so much for joining us.

I want to start with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Today, he defended his decision to lift the state's mask mandate. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBOTT: The last spike occurred during Christmas and New Year's, at a time when people were not transmitting it when they went to restaurants or businesses. The lead area of transmission at the time was in the home setting, where people were not wearing masks in the first place. And no one has ever mandated wearing masks in the home setting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your response, sir?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Well, I think that could be a little bit misleading.

We know that what we have right now, unfortunately, with the cases coming down, that we have reached a situation over the last week where it seems to have plateaued at a level of somewhere around 60,000 to 70,000 infections per day.

With that amount of virus circulation at the community level, Jake, it really is quite risky to completely remove all of the public health measures and just act like there's no virus in the community, when we know it is at an unacceptably high level.

I thought, and I said that yesterday, and I will say it again, I think that's ill-advised.

TAPPER: Governor Abbott also questioned, when would be the right time to reopen businesses at full capacity? When would be the right time to remove masks?

What do you think? What would you want to see first, before states like Texas end restrictions?

FAUCI: Well, I wouldn't want to see a light switch go on and off with regard to restrictions, Jake.

I would like to see, as we get the level of virus in the community to a very low level, well, well below the 60,000 to 70,000 new infections, somewhere -- I will just pick a number, even though there's not a good model there yet -- but I would say less than 10,000, and maybe even considerably less than that.

[16:05:16]

Also, I would like to see a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated. Now, that doesn't mean you won't be able to pull back on some of the restrictions. You can gradually get people into back again to outdoor dining, indoor dining with certain capacity restrictions, et cetera.

You don't want to go from very stringent public health restrictions to just turning it off and say, that's it, let just anybody do what they want. You particularly don't want to do that when you have a high level of community spread, which is what we have now, 60,000 to 70,000 new infections per day. Those numbers don't lie.

So, I want us all to start getting back to some degree of normality. But we want to do that gradually, and not all of a sudden, abruptly.

TAPPER: The CDC director says it's up to individuals in places like Texas to keep wearing masks, even if they are not mandated to. But that wouldn't really work if you're, for instance, an employee at a grocery store, right, and you have customers and colleagues without masks.

It might offer you some protection, but it really won't do that much.

FAUCI: Yes, and that's the reason why I felt it was unfortunate to pull back at this particular time.

We will be pulling back because there is good news. As was mentioned on your own clip just a moment ago, we're now up to about two million vaccinations per day. That means every day that goes by, every week that goes by, you have more and more people protected. And with that, there will be the decreased dynamics.

The other thing that bothers me and worries me somewhat, Jake, is that we have circulating variants in the community. We know that. We know we have it in various parts of the country. Some of them have increased capacity to transmit, and some are less protected by the vaccines, which means you want a person to get vaccinated to get that level of antibody high enough, so that you can have a cushion against the variant, if you happen to get infected with the variant.

So, there are so many reasons why you don't want to pull back just now. You want a plan that you will be able within a reasonable time to pull back, but not at a time when we have circulating variants and when you have what looks like a plateauing of the decline in the cases on a daily basis.

TAPPER: Let's talk about one of the variants, the U.K. variant.

A new study found that a person infected with a U.K. variant can infect anywhere from 43 to 90 percent more individuals that they come in contact with than the older variants of the coronavirus. What might this mean in the U.S.?

Are we going to enter a period now where more people are getting infected because of the U.K. variant?

FAUCI: Well, that's certainly possible.

And I believe, if you pull back on public health measures, that possible might become likely. And that's one of the reasons why I keep saying now is not the time to pull back. Some of the encouraging news, that it looks like the vaccines that are being currently distributed now, the two million or so per day, work really quite well against the 117 U.K. isolate, as we call it, which means further incentive for people, when their turn comes up, to please get vaccinated.

There are two things we can do to continue a downward trend and not have us plateau, one, abide by public health measures that I have been talking about and others have, and, two, get vaccinated when your time comes up. That's what we need to do right now. We will be able to open up the

country, open up the economy. But right now, we want to get that level of virus much, much lower than it currently is.

TAPPER: After some mixed messages, President Biden has now directed states to make vaccinating teachers a priority, even though CDC guidance says schools can reopen safely with mitigating measures, masking and ventilation and more, without teachers vaccinated.

So, why recommend that teachers get vaccinated in a priority -- prioritized way?

FAUCI: Jack, you don't -- Jake, you don't want to mix up the message, in the sense of, yes, we say that we can open schools without necessarily having every teacher vaccinated. It is a sine qua non.

[16:10:01]

However, everyone can agree that if you can get teachers vaccinated, get them in a higher priority, they will feel much more comfortable about coming back, and they will be safer coming back.

So, each of those messages don't necessarily contradict each other. You don't have to get vaccinated, but it is better if you can get more teachers vaccinated.

TAPPER: So, the largest group of vaccine skeptics right now that I can discern are Republicans, according to a poll showing 28 percent of Republicans say they will definitely not get the vaccine.

There's been a lot of talk about minorities being skeptical, but 28 percent is significantly more than the 14 percent of black respondents who say they're not going to get the vaccine, 12 percent of Hispanics.

How should the Biden administration and states convince these Americans, Republicans? Should Trump do public service announcements, now that we know he got the vaccine in January, even though he inexplicably kept it a secret?

FAUCI: Well, there are a couple of questions in there, Jake.

The ones with the minorities, it's understandable, in some respects, of their skepticism. We are trying very hard, and with some success, of reaching out to brown and black people, understanding their skepticism, not confronting them with it, but explaining to them why we have a safe and effective vaccine and why we got it so quickly.

If you look at the statistics, we're doing much better now than we were a couple of months ago about removing some of that skepticism.

The question with Republicans is a different story. I hope that Republicans will notice that the former president of the United States did get vaccinated, which means he believes in vaccinations. So, follow his lead. He's a very popular person among tens of millions of people. So, even though he hasn't come out publicly to endorse in a proactive

way vaccination, what he's done by his own example was to endorse vaccination. So, for the very strong followers of former President Trump, I would say, look at what the person who you seem to be following in other areas. He got vaccinated.

TAPPER: Yes.

FAUCI: It would be very helpful if a lot more Republicans got vaccinated.

TAPPER: Yes, that was a real missed opportunity for President Trump to do some good and encourage some people to get vaccines.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, thanks so much. Really appreciate your time today.

FAUCI: Thank you. Good to be with you, Jake.

TAPPER: President Biden's COVID relief bill now being read on the Senate floor, part of a Republican stall tactic. And that's not the only trick they have up their sleeves.

But first: With Capitol security on the highest alert right now, we have some breaking news. Investigators could be looking into certain members of Congress in connection with the January 6 MAGA terrorist attack.

We will have the details next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:17:13]

TAPPER: We have some breaking news for you now in our politics lead.

Investigators are now looking into communications between U.S. lawmakers and members of the pro-Trump insurrectionist mob who stormed the Capitol on January 6. That's according to a U.S. official, who tells Evan Perez that investigators could examine whether lawmakers wittingly or unwittingly helped the insurrectionists.

Let's get straight to CNN's Evan Perez, who is breaking this news for us.

Evan, this official told you that there are already indications that some of these rioters had contact with lawmakers around that date?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, look, this is one of the big questions that has been, frankly, overhanging this entire investigation, which is, were lawmakers who were inside the Capitol, some of them who are aiding -- who were propelling the big lie that got some of these people from the rally to try to interrupt what Congress was trying to do to, certify the victory of Joe Biden, whether any of them knew what was about to happen.

And so what we understand investigators are doing is, they have gone through some of these subjects of the investigation, the rioters, the insurrection is. And in looking through their devices, they have found some indications that they were in touch, some of them were in touch with members of Congress in the days around January 6, the insurrection.

And so the question then, is what is that about? Now, there's no indication at this point that members of Congress are actually under active investigation. We don't know exactly what these communications show. We don't know whether they're just people who -- there's some indication that some of them claimed that they were acting as a security for the lawmakers who were involved in planning or attending the rally at the Ellipse.

So, there's a lot of open questions here, a lot of smoke, so to speak, according to one official I talked to. But it is -- gets to the bigger question of whether lawmakers were at all involved and when prosecutors and the FBI will get around to try to unearth what happened there.

TAPPER: All right, Evan Perez, thanks for bringing that breaking news.

Joining us to discuss is Republican Congressman Peter Meijer of Michigan. He's on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. I hope you're well.

What's your reaction to what we just heard from Evan, investigators looking into possible communications between some of your colleagues in Congress and the insurrectionists? We don't know that there was anything untoward. But this is certainly of concern.

REP. PETER MEIJER (R-MI): Well, thank you, Jake.

And, absolutely, we need to make sure that we're not jumping to conclusions, first and foremost. But following every lead to have as full a picture of what's going on as possible in what happened in the days leading up to January 6, what happened on January 6 is essential.

[16:20:03]

Now, this is also the first I'm hearing about it. Obviously, it would not surprise me that there was some communication. I had a constituent who was joining the rally give me a call. It was an innocent call, told that constituent to stay safe.

So there's plenty of very logical, rational reasons as well. So, I just would caution against jumping to conclusions. But we also need to invest every angle.

TAPPER: There is increased security at the Capitol today because of concerns that some of these right-wing extremists were plotting another possible attack on the Capitol. It's all based on this crazy QAnon conspiracy theory that somehow Donald Trump is going to be re- inaugurated today. Obviously, that is not happening.

Are you worried for your safety?

MEIJER: Well, the House actually had final votes late last night. So, we -- we're not in session today. Many of us have already gone back to our districts.

I think the threat of a massive additional violent mobilization at the Capitol is pretty low. Obviously, there's chatter that we're not being made aware of, or that decisions are being based off of. But I do think there is a decent likelihood and the long-range risk that I see is of individual motivated political violence, folks who are dead- enders, who believe in a lost cause.

And when you see some of the alternate realities that have been constructed, and some of the insane theories going out there, it wouldn't be surprising if additional folks sought violent ends.

TAPPER: You, along with a handful of your colleagues, have been very outspoken in shooting down these lies and conspiracy theories, you Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney.

But, honestly, it's kind of a small group. Why have so many Republicans been quiet about this?

MEIJER: That's a question I ask every day.

We saw immediately after January 6 folks starting to pin the blame on Antifa, on BLM, trying to deflect and avoid taking responsibility or avoid having the actual accountability that we need in order to move past this moment, in order to hold those who held responsibility to account, and come to grips with what happened and where we go from here.

Instead, you see a continuing refusal to acknowledge that President Biden won the election on November 3. You see some backpedaling, starting to retreat from statements they made shortly after the insurrection in order to curry favor. And it's extremely disappointing.

TAPPER: Yes.

And I want to ask you. The head of the National Republican Congressional Committee told Politico that he does not want President Trump to try to primary you or Liz Cheney or other House Republicans who voted to impeach him.

The NRCC finance chair went as far to say that they they're going to help your campaign and the campaigns of others, Republicans, who supported impeachment. Have you heard from the NRCC?

MEIJER: This is something that we have been obviously monitoring very carefully and closely, because there may be calls for unity in some quarters, but when that call is only coming from one side, it's hard to move forward as a united party.

TAPPER: But have -- but just to be clear, have you -- has the NRCC reached out to you to say, we're going to support you, we're going to help you?

MEIJER: We are members of the NRCC. We are dues-paying members. And we, of course, expect that organizations that we are a part of wouldn't abandon us in a moment of need.

TAPPER: The Senate is set to vote on President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief deal, which you voted against in the House, as did every other Republican.

You're proposing an alternative plan. It includes $2,400 checks to some Americans. Why do you think your way is the right way?

MEIJER: The proposal, the direct dollars over government access that I put forward, it's based on the plan that Susan Collins put forward with a group of bipartisan members of the Senate, and really trying to say, listen, the COVID relief plan, the American Rescue Plan that was put forward through the budget reconciliation process flew in the face of all the bipartisan negotiations that have taken place before.

And at the end of the day, there's a lot of spending that really can't be accounted for or that I think the American people don't fully appreciate won't go towards targeted, direct needs.

And the fact that I can put together a proposal that's been scored that is a trillion dollars less than what was put forward and is able to give folks earning under $50,000 for single filers or $100,000 for joint filers checks that are $1,000 more begs the question of where the additional money is going, and if that's being spent in as judicious a way as possible.

TAPPER: All right, Republican Congressman Peter Meijer of Michigan, always nice to have you on the show, sir. Thanks so much.

MEIJER: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: Senate Republicans today plan to give Democrats a run for their money on their COVID relief bill, the negotiations happening behind the scenes and what this might mean for those stimulus checks you might be waiting for.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:29:40]

TAPPER: In our politics lead: Moments ago, the Senate voted to open debate on President Biden's COVID relief bill, $1.9 trillion, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote in the 50/50 Senate.

This includes new income restrictions, meaning fewer people will get those $1,400 checks. One Republican senator is vowing to drag out the debate by forcing a full reading of the 600-page bill, which is happening, and could take up to 10 hours.