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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Brand New CNN Polls on Policing In America; Both Parties Express Cautious Optimism on Police Reform Deal; Biden: Vaccinated Americans No Longer Need a Mask Outdoors If Not In Large Crowd. Aired 4-4:30p ET
Aired April 27, 2021 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BLACKWELL: President Biden will give his first address to a joint session of Congress tomorrow, the first ever in the middle of a pandemic, and that has forced Senate Democrats to organize a lottery for tickets to be in the chamber.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Bet you have a ticket. CNN will bring you all the action from inside the room. Join us for live coverage tomorrow night at 8:00 Eastern.
BLACKWELL: THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts now.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Brand new CNN polls on policing in America.
THE LEAD starts right now.
Our poll finds most Americans think policing does need a major overhaul, but does America think the Chauvin conviction is the beginning of real change?
Breath of fresh air. The CDC gives new mask guidance for vaccinated Americans that's frankly good news for the summer.
Plus, Alaska meltdown. A lawmaker banned from flying for refusing to wear a mask. She will now have plenty to think about what she did on her 14 hour commute by car.
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Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
And we start with breaking news in our politics lead. Brand new CNN poll on policing in America in the wake of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin being found guilty of murdering George Floyd. The polls gauging not only public reaction to that verdict but how confident Americans are that real policing reform is actually on the horizon.
Let's get straight to CNN political director David Chalian for that poll.
David, let start with a guilty verdict. Are Americans satisfied with that outcome?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yeah. Broadly the answer to that question is yes, Jake. Take a look at these brand-new numbers out just now from CNN -- 77 percent of Americans in our brand-new poll are satisfied with that verdict. Only 16 percent say they are dissatisfied. Look at these results when you look at it by race. You'll see here that 95 percent of blacks in our poll say they are satisfied with the Chauvin verdict and 78 percent satisfied among Latinos and 47 percent among whites.
So, again, broad majorities across racial groups. Look as though broken out by party. A little bit of a different story. Ninety-seven percent of Democrats are satisfied and 77 percent of independents but just a slim majority of Republicans, 53 percent, say they are satisfied with the verdict there in Minneapolis.
TAPPER: David, what do Americans think about policing right now? Do they think it's working fine as it is, or do they support policing reform?
CHALIAN: Yeah. We've seen some divisions here, too. Let's look overall first, and you see 18 percent in our polls say a complete overhaul of policing in America is needed. 35 percent say major changes are needed and 32 percent say only minor changes are needed and 14 percent say policing in America works pretty well as it is right now.
Again, first look at it broken out by race. I think this is really interesting. Add up here 36 percent and 42 percent, 82 percent of blacks in our poll, Jake, say a complete over haul or major changes are needed.
How does that compare to white Americans in our poll? Only 47 percent of whites say a complete overhaul or major changes are needed. The differences are even more stark among party again, when you see how Democrats and Republicans are responding differently.
Add up the top two columns, 79 percent of Democrats say a complete overhaul or major changes are needed in policing in this country. Compare that down here, 45 percent of Republicans say minor changes and 29 percent of Republicans say policing in America worked pretty well as it is right now.
TAPPER: So, David, let's connect the two. How confident are Americans that what we're in right now this moment post-George Floyd that this is a real turning point for how black Americans, other minorities will be treated in this country?
CHALIAN: Yeah, it's a bit of a mixed result. A slim majority when you look overall. 53 percent say it is likely that there's going to be real change in how blacks and other racial minorities are treated in the U.S., but a chunky 43 percent here say they don't think change is likely.
And you can look at this by race also, Jake. You see, among Latinos, the optimism is sort of high, 61 percent among Latinos say there is going to be some change, 54 percent among blacks, and again, just a bare majority among whites, 51 percent say it's likely that treatments of blacks and other racial minorities will change now in America.
TAPPER: All right. David Chalian, thanks so much.
Let's discuss this with two journalists, CNN's Brian Nobles who covered Capitol Hill for us, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, the White House correspondent for "The New York times."
Zolan, let me start with you. Does it surprise you that only half of Americans think that there will be real changes in how people of color are treated in the U.S.?
ZOLAN KANNO, YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK TIMES: No. I mean, when you talk to criminal justice advocates, when you talk -- when you go out to the community and you talk to folks, you know, a lot of people just looking at the history of police reform and also the history where -- of inaction when it comes to Congress, they expect the status quo of many people when you speak to them.
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And you can also look at what's going on in Congress right now. For this White House, they have repeatedly said that they support the George Floyd Act. They want that to pass, but obviously you still have negotiations that are ongoing between Democrats and Republicans and some areas where, you know, Republicans are kind of drawing a red line. Especially when it comes to certain protections for police officers and whether or not they could be sued based off of any kind of civil suits.
But in the meantime, you are seeing the White House take some action here and utilizing the tools that they used during the Obama administration and that was curtailed by the Trump administration, both pattern and practice investigations as well as consent decrees.
TAPPER: And, Ryan, there is broad support for some changes at the very least, including among Republicans. More than 60 percent of Republicans in this poll said some changes need to be made to policing in America. The minority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, just said he's still optimistic bipartisan deal can be reached on policing reform.
Give us a reality check of where negotiations stand on the policing going in Congress.
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I think that poll does reflect the sentiment here in corporation but big question is when do those reforms look like. And I think the big difference between some of the negotiations here on Capitol Hill and this conversation about police reform is that while you have senators and members of the House saying that they want bipartisan negotiations on things like infrastructure and health care, a lot of those conversations are being made past each other.
This is a conversation that's actually being held face to face in closed door rooms with serious legislators that truly want to come up with a deal. I'm talking about Tim Scott the Republican from South Carolina, Karen Bass who is a member of Congress from California and also Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. These are three people that trust each other, that truly do want to come to some sort of resolution that can bring a bipartisan bill to the floor that can be passed, but there is still major sticking points to get them to that point.
You know, the biggest one being qualified immunity which we've already talked about and Senator Mitch McConnell today, the House -- Senate minority leader saying he's worried about police recruitment and retention if something like qualified immunity is implemented, but on the other side of the coin progressive members of Congress won't support a bill that doesn't include getting rid of qualified immunity.
So, there's still big obstacles here, but, Jake, you do get the sense that both Republicans and Democrats want to see something happen.
TAPPER: And, Zolan, Senator Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican who is handling most negotiations for Senate Republicans, he says he hasn't spoken to President Biden about policing reform. When asked if he planned to he said no really. What role is Biden actually playing here, if any?
KANNO-YOUNGS: Jake, from what I've heard is that in the last couple of weeks really for the White House it's actually Susan Rice as well as Cedric Richmond that have really taken the lead on speaking to both police union officials, FOP, speaking to members of Congress and backing that.
But this will be a question going forward. You know, as was just discussed, we have these negotiations going on really centering on qualified immunity with Senator Tim Scott as well as Senator Cory Booker and Senator Karen Bass. Will the president really put himself out there and try to push this forward? The momentum thus far in his duration and his attention has been on vaccines. It's been on responding to the pandemic.
But we're now at a stage where members of the public are really looking at this issue. It will be interesting to see both tomorrow during his address and going forward whether he prioritizes this not just through his words but also through action.
TAPPER: And, Ryan, Senator Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, he's not going to go along with getting rid of the filibuster so the senators need 60 votes, so they need ten Republicans. Don't they have to do what Tim Scott wants when it comes to qualified immunity if they want anything done?
NOBLES: I think that's exactly right, Jake. There's just not a path to passing this bill with only 51 votes in the Senate. You're going to need ten Republicans to get on board with any sort of substantive police reform. So, that's going to mean concessions from Democrats. Whether or not they are willing to go there to get something over the finish line is the big question on Capitol Hill right now.
TAPPER: All right. Ryan Nobles and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.
President Biden sweetens the pot hoping you'll get your shot. The new mask guidance from the CDC that will make vaccinated Americans very happy this summer.
And pro-Trump news. Deleting a B.S. story about Kamala Harris, the vice president, but not before it went viral, of course.
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TAPPER: In our health lead today, new incentives to get vaccinated from President Biden. This afternoon, he announced new guidelines from the CDC for those who have been fully vaccinated.
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JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For those who haven't gotten their vaccination yet, especially if you are younger or thinking you don't need it, this is another great reason to go get vaccinated, now, now.
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TAPPER: President Biden trying to personalize the benefits of getting vaccinated as the number of shots given out each day is dwindling, walking out to his press conference wearing a mask and then not putting it back on as he walked back to the Oval Office.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports from the White House.
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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Biden touting new CDC mask guidelines for the fully vaccinated.
BIDEN: Starting today, if you're fully vaccinated and you're outdoors, you need -- and not in a big crowd, you no longer need to wear a mask.
COLLINS: Those who are vaccinated can walk, run, bike, gather and dine outdoors in small groups safely without a mask.
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But the president and the CDC director stopped short of telling vaccinated Americans to drop their masks completely.
BIDEN: I want to be absolutely clear. If you're in a crowd, like a stadium or at a conference or a concert, you still need to wear a mask.
COLLINS: CDC Director Rochelle Walensky says that's because it's difficult to tell who is vaccinated and who isn't in a crowded setting.
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: As more people get vaccinated and the case rates continue to come down, we'll come up with further updates.
COLLINS: President Biden selling the new guidance as an incentive to get vaccinated.
BIDEN: Especially if you are younger or thinking you don't need it, this is another great reason to go get vaccinated, now. Now.
COLLINS: At least 26 states still have strict outdoor mask requirements in place. Asked if governors should change their mandates accordingly, Dr. Walensky agreed.
WALENSKY: If people are vaccinated we no longer feel that the vaccinated people require mask outdoors.
COLLINS: But as supply begins to outstrip demand in the U.S., federal health officials are trying to send a message to those who have hesitated to get vaccinated.
XAVIER BECERRA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: You're vaccinated. Guess what. You get to return to a more normal lifestyle. If you're not vaccinated, you're still a danger. You're still in danger as well. So get vaccinated.
COLLINS: President Biden hammering that message home today.
BIDEN: The bottom line is clear. If you're vaccinated, you can do more things, more safely, both outdoors as well as indoors.
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COLLINS (on camera): And, Jake, the White House says that President Biden himself will be following this new CDC guidance when it comes to not wearing a mask, when you're outdoors, depending on what size group. When it comes to tomorrow night and that address he's giving in front of Congress, there have been some questions about whether or not he has to follow the House rules about wearing a mask while he's in the chamber.
We are now being told that he will be wearing a mask when he arrives there tomorrow night. He's going to be still be wearing that mask as he walks down the aisle past members works of course, are seated there. The there will be a lot fewer than typically there and he'll take that mask off while he gives his speech and put it back on, Jake, as we walks back down the aisle to leave the building and go back to the White House.
TAPPER: Right, because he'll be indoors, of course.
Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.
I want to bring in Dr. Peter Hotez. He's the dean of the school of tropical medicine at Baylor College. He's also out with a new book called "Preventing the Next Pandemic".
Dr. Hotez, thanks for joining us.
So, many cities and states require its citizens, their citizens to wear mask outdoors based on prior recommendations from the CDC, but -- but people who are not vaccinated, they should -- should they still wear a mask outdoors if they're not vaccinated?
DR. PETER HOTEZ, CO-DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT, TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Certainly, if they are in close contact with other individuals, and, you know, sometimes you don't know. You could be outside, think you're in a relatively isolated area and then you come along with a group and they could be shedding virus so that's where the confusion lies.
I mean, Jake, I think the thing that I haven't really heard from the CDC and the federal government which I think would be really helpful for the American people is to put masks or no masks in context. By that I mean they need to basically explain that's what's happening is a gradual loosening of restrictions.
We heard about version 1.0. What happens if you're vaccinated a few weeks ago? Today, we came out with version 2.0. There's going to be a version 3.0 and a version 4.0.
And 4.0 version is going to be what happens after the American people are fully vaccinated if we can reach there, and then because of the performance features of the vaccine which not only halt symptomatic illness but asymptomatic transmission up to 90 percent or more. What that means, if we can fully vaccinate the American people, that means all of the adults and most of the adolescents, we can get back to a country that looks like it did in 2019, in terms of what our activities are in restaurants and being with friends and concert venues and sporting events and even domestic travel.
But the only exception is because there's so few countries like the U.S., that will be fully vaccinated by then, we'll have limits on our international travel. And that's where we have to project and explain that to the American people and then say we still have a pretty screaming high level of transmission in the country right now.
TAPPER: Right.
HOTEZ: We're still at the place where we were last summer, and that's why we're going in bits and pieces, and this is how there's going to be a gradual loosening, and I think that that would be more effective and really help people understand where we're heading.
TAPPER: So, CNN has a medical analyst named Dr. Leana Wen. She believes the public health guidance from the CDC has been disconnected from everyday reality. Take a listen.
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DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I can tell people here are all these activities that once were high risks, get vaccinated, they're now lower risk. But once you get vaccinated go and do things.
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We encourage you to do things like travel. We want you to do it safely but, please, go see your friends and family. I think that kind of message will have a lot more resonance than here are all the things you can't do.
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TAPPER: So, Dr. Wen wants to see guidelines tailored towards reducing risks, reduction of risks, rather than eliminating risks.
Do you agree?
HOTEZ: Yeah, and I think we're saying the same thing.
TAPPER: Yeah.
HOTEZ: What I just laid out they are not laying out a road map for the American people to follow. And by the way, even after the country's fully vaccinated, transmission is going to go way down. It may not disappear entirely. It may go close to containment mode, so the risk at least in the foreseeable future won't go down to zero and that has to be explained as well.
But that's okay. It doesn't mean that we can't get back to something that closely resembles a normal life. That's what I would like to see, the road map laid out, project where we're headed, why we're doing what we're doing. Instead, we kind of get these facts and factoids and bit and pieces of things. And there's no synthesis. There's no -- it's not tied together.
There's still -- we're still talking to the American people like they are in the fourth grade or sixth grade, and it's -- and we could do better than that.
TAPPER: There's a lot of companies who will give their employees paid time off to go get vaccinated. If you show your vaccine card, you can get a free donut at Krispy Kreme. There's a movie theater in Chicago that will give you free popcorn if you have proof of vaccine. There's a marijuana dispensary near Detroit that will give you a free joint if you can show proof that you were vaccinated.
Are these incentives good? Will this help people get vaccinated, so we get to the herd immunity phase?
HOTEZ: I think it will help a little bit. I don't think little trinkets like that do any harm, little modest gifts, kind of fun. I think doing something more extensive and giving big dollars, I think that would be a mistake. It also sends a terrible message to the rest of the world when others are clamoring for vaccines, so we don't want to be seen as having to give excessive bribes to people to get vaccinated. So we do have to keep in mind our stature in the world as well.
And, you know, how much those little incentives help, I don't know. I don't think they are so harmful.
But we need to lop off the big piece and really help and look at what the big segments of the country are that are refusing to get vaccinated and -- and start chipping away at that because that's the component that I really worry about, because remember, Jake, right now, we already know 20 percent of the country cannot get vaccinated. Those are people under the age of 12. We don't have -- they can't access vaccines and we don't have the safety and efficacy data for that.
So right away, we're down to 80 percent. That's about the level where we have to actually reach in order to interrupt transmission. So, effectively that means every adult and adolescent so we have to look at what the polls are saying in terms of who are the most vaccine hesitant groups and then concentrate our efforts to persuade those groups and work on our messaging there, and I don't know that we're doing that either.
TAPPER: According to CDC data, of those people getting COVID vaccines, more people are now getting their second shot versus those just getting their first shot. What do you make of the slowdown?
HOTEZ: Yeah. I mean, I am worried about it because we did peek at 3 been the 4 million a day and now we're going back down to around 2 been the 6 million immunizations a day. So I -- I'm worried that we haven't really addressed the groups that are already telling us they are not going to get vaccinated, and that's where we have to redouble our efforts and reach out to those groups and that's something that I'm trying to do now on a regular basis.
TAPPER: So -- and, Dr. Hotez, you also believe it's time to be more aggressive about confronting misinformation, disinformation, lies from anti-vaxxers, some of them in prominent perches in government and media. Who needs to take the lead on confronting this false information?
HOTEZ: Well, I think, first, we have to get our arms around it. Right now, it looks to me like there's three big buckets of anti-vaccine disinformation. One of them is dedicated anti-vaccine groups that now dominate the Internet, dominate social media, are peddling fake books on Amazon. I think that those are groups that have to be confronted. These are home grown groups in the U.S.
I think the second are -- we have political action committees coming out of extreme right that started here in Texas and Oklahoma and now this has expanded across the conservative elements of our society, and, unfortunately, across the Republican Party. We have foreign news polls from Monmouth University and Quinnipiac and Kaiser Family Foundation. We also have "PBS NewsHour" all pointing to 40 percent to 46 percent of people who identify as Republicans refuse to get vaccinated. We have to work on that.
Finally, not many people are aware of this is the Russian government. The Putin government, this is being report by U.S. and British intelligence, is launching -- has launched a very aggressive program of what's being called weaponized health communication to actually take advantage of this and destabilize our democracy, and they are doing it around vaccines, so those three have to be confronted.
TAPPER: All right. Dr. Peter Hotez, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
One state lawmaker's mask meltdown result in an airline suspending her. Now it takes her more than half a day to drive to work. Stay with us.
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