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The Lead with Jake Tapper

President Biden Hits the Road to Sell Ambitious Economic Plans; Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) is Interviewed About Biden's Ambitious Economic Plans; Biden's First 100 Days Show Biggest Market Gains Since JFK; New CNN Poll: Sharp Divisions on Vaccines, Return to Public Life. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired April 29, 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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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: That's true. There are a lot of people still struggling. A lot of people have made a lot of money over this past year or so.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST:: That is true as well.

BLACKWELL: All right. THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: President Biden already hitting some bumps in the road. Isn't that what he's trying to fix?

THE LEAD starts right now.

Today, he's taking his multi-trillion dollar proposal to the American people with promises of transforming the economy and lifting millions out of poverty. There's already some pushback and very little wiggle room in the 50/50 Senate.

Let me out. Fresh new CNN poll showing how eager Americans are to get vaccinated and get back to normal.

Plus, a mystery attack with an alleged invisible energy wave. People falling ill near the White House. Who might be behind it? That's coming up.

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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

And we start today with our politics lead. And on his 100th day in office, President Biden hitting the road to promote his ambitious and quite expensive new economic plans. Any moment, he's landing in Gwinnett County, Georgia, suburban Atlanta, with the first lady, meeting with former President Jimmy Carter.

The Bidens will then hold a rally aimed at selling the American people on his nearly $4 trillion of new proposals. This is part of what the White House is calling the Getting America Back on Track Tour. Rallying public support will be crucial for the White House, given that just hours after his address to a joint session of Congress last night, Mr. Biden is already facing pushback, not just from Republicans but also from members of his own party.

Kaitlan Collins is live for us in Duluth, Georgia. And, Kaitlan, what are we expecting to hear from President Biden at

this rally this evening?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, first, I should say that the White House is not surprised by the pushback they are getting from Republicans. They were not exactly expecting them to embrace these trillions in spending that you're seeing President Biden roll out, even though he was trying to make the case in a way to blunt their criticism last night, talking about the jobs they would create.

And so I think here tonight what you're going to hear from the president just shortly at this drive-in rally -- notice you don't see people behind me. They are in their cars as these rallies that Biden has done during the pandemic. Everyone has stayed in their cars.

But what he's going to be talking about is the way that he wants to transform America with these plans. They are big and they are a lot of money, but that is the point. I don't think President Biden is shying away from that when he's making these arguments saying that following the pandemic and the economic devastation that came after that, this is what he believes America needs injected into it, not just as a form of the COVID relief we saw them get passed with only Democratic support earlier this year.

He is saying what was revealing from the economic -- or from the pandemic, what that revealed was just how fragile so many Americans' economic stability is. And so, he wants to change that by really changing the way that you think about government and the role of the government in education, in child care, in paid family leave. Really, in so many ways that people live their lives.

And so, expect him to sell it in that way here to Georgia voters in just a matter of hours. But we should also note, Jake, this is not the only stop that the president is going to make. He'll be in Pennsylvania tomorrow. The vice president will be in Ohio tomorrow. And then next week, they are also going to be making stops, as well as the first lady and the second gentleman and other top cabinet officials, trying to really build support for this plan out in the country if they're not going to get it in Washington.

TAPPER: And, Kaitlan, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is also expressing concerns, like the Republicans are, about the price tag on these new $4 trillion worth of proposals.

Is the White House ultimately prepared to compromise to get Manchin on board, to get Republicans on board?

COLLINS: I think they say that they are willing to compromise. What that actually looks like still remains to be seen, because there have been areas where President Biden has talked about wanting to listen to what these lawmakers propose. He even said last night, he said this is why I'm unveiling it here tonight before I get deep into the details so I can hear what lawmakers have to say.

But in other aspects, as he did with his COVID relief bill, he said there are some aspects he's not willing to bargain on. That will be a big question facing them. You're right, it is not just Republicans who are pushing back on this, it's some of those moderate Democrats who like Senator Manchin who say, if you want to spend this much money it's going to have a lot of scrutiny in Congress first, because he's looking at other aspects, the way the economy is picking back up, looking at those jobless numbers and asking if this is something that we need.

And so, this is going to be a big debate. It is far from over, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Kaitlan Collins in Duluth, Georgia, thank you so much.

And joining us now to discuss this all is the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine.

Governor DeWine, thanks so much for having -- for coming on today.

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GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R), OHIO: Good to be with you, Jake.

TAPPER: I want to get your reaction to what we're hearing from President Biden, these ambitious $4 trillion in new spending proposals that he is hoping that can garner some bipartisan support. Was there anything you heard in his agenda that you, as a Republican governor, can get behind? And how much spending numerically, are you willing to support?

DEWINE: Well, Jake, I'm going to leave that up to the senators and representatives. I spent 20 years there. And I'm, of course, governor now.

But let me just make a comment. I think there's a bipartisan bill, a truly bipartisan bill to be had here. I don't think there's any doubt that we neglected infrastructure in this country for a long time. So, I think Republicans understand that, Democrats understand it.

I think a focus on a bill that is truly focused on infrastructure and, you know, not as much money, I think there's clearly a bill that Republicans can support. I know we're focused here in Ohio on infrastructure. We started an area of broadband, in the area of sewers, water. These are basic things that we simply have to do.

TAPPER: So the new definition of infrastructure that the White House is using that includes infrastructure, support for workers is how they look at it. It deals with child care, deals with elder care, deals with community colleges. These are things that would benefit Ohioans as well, right?

DEWINE: Well, Jake, everything would benefit Ohioans, I'm sure, but at what cost is always the question. You know, you always have to say, how much can we spend? How much can we afford? And what is priority?

It's like in your own budget or any -- our state budget. You know, we can't deficit spend in Ohio. We don't want to be able to deficit spend. And so, we have to make priorities.

I spent the last two hours here meeting with our team in regard to, you know, how we're going to spend federal dollars that have already been passed by Congress and, you know, we're getting down to what's -- what is essential. You know, broadband, we're going to spend money on broadband. We're going to spend money on, you know, sewers, water, I mean, basic things where we have parts of Ohio that really, really need help in these areas.

So, it's all about priorities. And we can't do everything. You can't have everything. But I think there can be a very significant bill passed in Congress in a bipartisan fashion. And I think there's something to be said to try to pull people together on both sides of the aisle.

You pointed out that the Senate is split. It's 50/50. It's just, I think, good governing to be able to do that and I think the president can do that. But he's obviously not going to do it with the bill that he's presented.

TAPPER: Your fellow Ohio Republican, J.D. Vance, the author of "Hillbilly Elegy" and Senate candidate to take Rob Portman's seat, he is retiring, he expressed on Twitter today opposition to the Biden- promoted idea of universal pre-K.

He said, and I'm trying to paraphrase him here. He said that what the federal government should be doing or what government should be doing is encouraging policies in which instead of both parents being able to work and, thus, the need for universal pre-K, having the government support policies in which one parent would be home, taking care of the kids.

What's your take on his argument?

DEWINE: Well, I think that's individual choice of families. And, you know, obviously, what we want is people to have their choice in their ability to work or not have one spouse work. I mean, you would hope that the economy would be at that point. That's what you would be ultimately looking for, but that's individual -- ultimately individual family choices and how they -- how they work those things out.

I mean, look, I'm optimistic about what I'm seeing in Ohio, about our economy. You know, we're running under -- significantly under the national unemployment. I think there's a great pent-up desire for people to travel, people to spend money, people to go out to restaurants and bars.

You know, we've got 40 percent of our population now vaccinated in Ohio, and one of the things I tell people is, you get that vaccination and it's not only good for your health, but it really gets you excited. I know when Fran and I got our vaccine, our second dose, we waited a couple of weeks. You know, we've been able now to go out and travel around the state, and see people.

So, you know, I think there's a real sense of optimism. You know, we still have a variant out there that is very troubling, but I think people are optimistic. So, I'm optimistic. You're talking about the economy.

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I'm optimistic about Ohio's future and our economy.

TAPPER: All right. Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio, thank you, sir. Good to see you.

DEWINE: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: In our money lead, great news for the U.S. economy. Thanks to vaccinations, reopening businesses and the stimulus checks by some measures, Biden is on track for the strongest market performance since JFK's first 100 days. The biggest indicator of economic activity, the GDP, grew faster than predicted in the first three months of this year, a whopping 6.4 percent, the biggest increase in growth since Ronald Reagan.

CNN's Richard quest joins us.

Richard, to what do we owe this economic upswing? Is it the president, putting down the pandemic? What is it?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: It's both and more.

I made a list, Jake, of the sort of things that are fueling the economy at the moment. You've got the stimulus spending that Governor DeWine was talking about, the federal government and how the states are going to spend it. You've got the $120 billion a month in bond buy from the Fed, record-low interest rates. You had the unemployment checks, increased unemployment spending. You've got that pent-up demand that Ohio is talking about.

Jake, if you take all of that and then you multiply it across the economy of the United States, you see why the U.S. economy is doing so well and people are talking about a boom year. That 2021 will be better than most expect.

TAPPER: And, Richard, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said yesterday that the economy won't be fully back for some time, at least not until the pandemic is over.

How do we square Powell's characteristically sober warnings with this incredible first quarter growth we're seeing?

QUEST: Yeah, you do it by parsing his words, Jake. Yes, on the left hand, he said that there will be some time before the economy substantially strengthened further, but the markets have chosen to focus on the good bit in a sense that the economy has shown improvement and the indicators have strengthened. Now, from a low base, which is where we began, I would choose to take

his shown improvement and strengthening, because they indicate where we're going. Let's not worry about how bad the thing gets, he's basically saying, before we start worrying about inflation, or tapering on bond purchases. The train has left the station and is picking up speed is what the Fed is telling us.

TAPPER: Richard, before you go, quickly, what did you make of Biden saying yesterday the sweeping declaration, trickle down economics has never worked?

QUEST: There are those who believe in it passionately, and you can say till their dying breath it does work or it doesn't work. This is the one that the two sides simply -- Reaganomics versus the Bidenites, they will never agree, and I'm not getting in the middle.

TAPPER: OK, Richard Quest, thank you so much.

Brand new CNN polls on getting back to normal life after the pandemic, and some surprising numbers on people who plan to get a vaccine.

And after federal investigators search Rudy Giuliani's home, a grand jury subpoena in the investigation.

Stay with us.

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TAPPER: New this hour in our politics lead, a brand new CNN poll that gauges Americans' willingness and unwillingness to get a COVID vaccine and the eagerness nationwide to ease restrictions so as to be able to return to a more public life. Even dare I say, even a return to the office?

Let's get right over to CNN political director David Chalian.

David, let's start with Americans and their willingness to get a vaccine. This is timely, as we see vaccination rates starting to slow, which is alarming health officials.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Right. Let's look at the state of play as it is right now, according to this brand new CNN poll, looks very similar to the CDC data we talk about. Fifty-five percent of Americans tell us in the poll they received at least one dose of the vaccine, 45 percent have not received one dose of the vaccine.

We also asked folks, do you want to get the vaccine or are you hesitant to do so? Seventy-one percent, nearly seven in ten in this poll say they've gotten the vaccine or they want to get the vaccine, but 26 percent, a quarter of the American adult population, according to these poll numbers, they don't want the vaccine and they're not going to try.

This is the vaccine hesitancy group that concerns the administration, making sure that we get to herd immunity. And look how it breaks out by party, Jake.

Among Democrats, 90 percent say yes, they've gotten the vaccine or they want to get the vaccine, only 8 percent no. Independents, nearly seven in ten, 68 percent say they want the vaccine. But Republicans are more evenly divided, 51 percent say yes, they want the vaccine, they've tried to get it, 44 percent say no.

Again, this is going to be the challenge for the administration.

TAPPER: And this new CNN poll has surprising numbers on reopenings and who wants a vaccine before returning to public life. Break down those results.

CHALIAN: Yeah. When you talk about whether or not people feel comfortable returning to their normal life, their regular routine, OK, among those who got the vaccine, 58 percent of vaccinated people feel comfortable returning to their routine today, 63 percent of those that want the vaccine would feel comfortable returning to their routine today.

But how about this? The folks that don't want the vaccine today, 87 percent of them, well, they're ready to return to their routine even without the vaccine and the fact that they don't want it.

You can also take a look at how this breaks down in terms of whether or not a vaccine should be required to return and do some pretty key things that we do. So, in-person school attendance, going to college, let's say, 49 percent say yes, you should have a vaccine to do that, 49 percent say no.

How about to attend a sporting event or concert? Forty-seven percent say yes, a vaccine should be required. A slim majority of Americans say no, 51 percent.

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You mentioned returning to the workplace, returning to the office. Again, 46 percent say yes, a vaccine should be required, but again a slim majority, 52 percent, say no. The one thing people seem pretty agreed upon that you shouldn't need a vaccine to go to the grocery store. Only 26 percent of Americans think you should.

When you look at those that have been vaccinated or will get vaccinated and not, 67 percent of those vaccinated or will get vaccinated believe you should have a vaccine to go to school, 64 percent to attend a concert, 62 percent of the vaccinated or willing to go to the office and say, you should have a vaccine. And again, we see not so for grocery store.

But those that don't want a vaccine, they don't believe you should have a vaccine to do any of these things, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. David Chalian, thanks so much.

CHALIAN: Sure.

TAPPER: Let's bring in chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta now to talk about this.

Sanjay, President Biden has no real precedent for this modern day pandemic to this magnitude. The U.S. seems to be on the back end of it.

But what else do you think the Biden administration can do to help make the turn to get us out of this?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do need to get, you know, a larger percentage vaccinated. I think everyone has sort of realized that. The numbers are starting to sort of diminish because the percentages of people, as David was pointing out, that want the vaccine or are willing to get the vaccine, we're starting to get to those numbers at least first shot.

So, I doesn't -- it's not surprising that the numbers are starting to come down. That's gong to need to be a significant focus.

But I think there's -- it's a little more nuanced than that, Jake, in the sense that everyone talks about these variants. But we cannot be caught blindsided by these variants. It's very important.

We talk about genetic sequencing, which is like an early warning detection system for these variants. We weren't doing any of it really at the end of last year. We're doing a lot more of it now, more than 25,000 of these sequencings are being analyzed every week.

But that's going to need to be -- you know, that's going to need to be kept up for some time. So, all of a sudden, a new variant is not becoming dominant with us not really knowing about it.

And, finally, Jake, I'll say that we're talking about this pandemic. Things are looking very good. But we do have to be thinking about tomorrow, if possible, next pandemic, and replenishing stockpiles, thinking about investing in public health.

I know people's eyes glaze over when you say that. But part of the reason we got hit so hard is because we weren't ready in the way we could have been, had we invested in this preparation.

TAPPER: In the new CNN poll that David just presented, 26 percent of those polled still do not want to get a vaccine, 26 percent. Can we reach herd immunity, a safe place for the entire country if 26 percent of the country refuses?

GUPTA: I think it's going to be really challenging. I mean, you know, there's two things to consider beyond the obvious. One is that there is a certain amount of immunity that exists out there from people who have been previously infected, but have not received the vaccine. We don't know exactly what that number, what that percentage is, because those people were not tested, may not even know that they have antibodies.

But there is some immunity out there. I think that's why we're seeing case rates go down, hospitalizations go down, deaths go down because we're seeing the impact of broad immunity. Not herd immunity, but broad immunity. So, we don't know.

The second thing is, what's that percentage? What percentage as a country do we need to get to herd immunity? It's a moving target because it's based on the contagiousness of the virus.

Like with something as contagious as measles, you require 90 percent of the population to have immunity. This is not as contagious as measles but some of the variants are more contagious, so that means the target becomes a moving one. You see what I'm saying here?

You play catch-up, if you keep inspiring mutants, get more mutants, you'll have to get more of the country having some sort of immunity. So, right now, what we're doing is we're going younger, 12 to 15-year- olds will likely have the vaccine some time soon and they're doing trials on children younger than that. So, ultimately, they're just dipping into younger populations to try to get broader protection.

TAPPER: Many companies are creating plans to bring employees back to actual, physical workplace. This is obviously a touchy subject for many Americans who have been working at home for a year.

What can be done to convince people that they should, they could, that the office is safe?

TAPPER: Well, you know, we do have real-world data from places around the world that have been in similar positions, have had broad immunity, broad vaccination numbers around the country and have started to bring people back to work.

Frankly, Jake, even before the vaccine, there were places with good testing, good ventilation, all the things that we talked about pre- vaccine where they could bring people back to work.

So, it is possible. We had the same conversation about schools. There's a few main things. One is, what are you going to require in terms of vaccinations? You have to be transparent about that and defend that position.

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Are you still going to have testing available to get people another sort of sense of comfort that they're not surrounded by people who may carry the virus? Then focus on safety in the buildings. Ventilation, in particular, so critically important.

TAPPER: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.

George Floyd's brother goes to Capitol Hill to push policing reform. Could he bring Congress closer to passing a policing reform law in his brother's name?

And people sickened in a possible invisible energy attack. Scary anywhere but especially steps way from the White House.

Stay with us.

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