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Congress Faces Government Shutdown; Interview with Restaurant Owners Calling for Restaurants Act Passage; Biden Announces More Nominees Today, Aims to Finish by Christmas. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired December 11, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Later this morning, Rush is (ph) going to do a test run with its staff. They want to practice the system that they have in place and see if any unforeseen issues pop up. That way, they won't be presented with challenges when the shipment of the vaccine actually arrives.

I spoke with a respiratory therapist earlier today, he said when he saw these vaccine stations, it felt like the beginning to the end of a painful chapter. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRADY SCOTT, RESPIRATORY THERAPIST, RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: When this pandemic first started, frankly, we weren't sure how many people were going to come off those ventilators. But when they did start coming off the ventilators, that was extremely rewarding.

So we were there at the times where we pulled the breathing tubes out, and so many of our patients were just so thankful that they made it through this scary time and you know, that's very rewarding for us and you know, that's been a really bright spot in a pretty dark time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: Indeed, we're also grateful for those frontline workers who have been treating COVID-19 patients. Here at Rush, Poppy and Jim, they will receive about 2,000 doses of the vaccine. Overall, the hospital has about 10,000 employees -- back to you.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Wow, wow, wow. Adrienne, thank you very much, big numbers.

Coming up, (INAUDIBLE) she went to college for a chance at a better life, and now her children are living off food stamps because of this pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGELA KEARNEY, FURLOUGHED DUE TO COVID-19: A lot of it was determination on my part to climb this mountain, and we got shoved off the mountain. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:36:18]

HARLOW: Welcome back. Well, Capitol Hill's failure to compromise on a stimulus deal has millions of Americans right now on the verge of a crisis. This Congress has a distinct possibility of ending up (ph) again in a government shutdown, this time during a pandemic.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the Senate has until midnight now to pass just a one-week stopgap bill. But as lawmakers fail to act, the pain for everyday Americans bleeding into the holidays. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell addressed that on the Senate floor just in the last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Struggling families, exhausted health workers and anxious small business owners are waiting -- waiting for the Senate to do what I've tried to accomplish over and over for months: pass a significant, targeted, COVID relief bill built on all the areas where a bipartisan consensus already exists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Well, Senate majority leader has a lot of power to do that. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich spoke to one woman about her struggle to keep her family just afloat. And here's her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEARNEY: I would describe this as the last nice memory that I had.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Angela Kearney stands in front of her tree at home in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, reminiscing with her aunt and longing for last Christmas.

KEARNEY: This was when I received the new job. I was going to be able to buy a home for my family.

YURKEVICH: The new job was as a paralegal after she put herself through school in her 40s while recovering from surgeries to fix a disability, racking up $63,000 in student loans. With a new salary of $55,000, she was finally able to provide for her children.

KEARNEY: That is more money than I've ever seen in my life. I promised them we would get a house. I promised them that they would be normal children. And then the pandemic hit, and I can't keep those promises any more.

It looks like everybody's dancing.

YURKEVICH: Just four months after landing that job, Kearney was furloughed in March and her weekly unemployment of $300 does little to cover the bills for her and her three children living at home. KEARNEY: I have to take the bills and throw them up and pick the ones

and hope that they total the amount that I have.

YURKEVICH: Her unemployment is slated to run out in January, along with 12 million other Americans, and dozens of programs designed to protect them will too.

AMY CASTRO BAKER, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL POLICY, UPENN: First, student loan, you know, payments have been halted. So once that expires, that's a new bill that's going to hit people quickly. You have local eviction bans that will expire, and then of course the expansion of unemployment insurance, as that's going away, we're seeing more people not put back to work.

YURKEVICH: For years, Kearney and her family were on several government assistance programs including disability and food stamps. Last year, she finally got off them.

KEARNEY: A lot of it was determination on my part to climb this mountain and we got shoved off the mountain.

YURKEVICH: Which sent them right back on food stamps.

YURKEVICH: How much money do you get on that card?

KEARNEY: We get $400 a month.

YURKEVICH: Does that cover it?

KEARNEY: It has to, right?

YURKEVICH: Congress is negotiating a stimulus bill that could drastically shape the next few months for families like the Kearneys, but significant long-term relief may not arrive until President-elect Biden is inaugurated in late January.

BAKER: For a lot of families, waiting until after the inauguration is just going to be too late.

YURKEVICH: Christmas will look different for many American families including the Kearneys.

[10:40:03]

KEARNEY: What do you think of our lights this year, huh?

YURKEVICH: This year, she's prioritizing paying the electric bill just to keep the lights and Christmas spirit alive.

KEARNEY: The bills won't be paid for December because Santa's coming to town. Santa will be here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YURKEVICH (on-camera): And Angela's story represents so many Americans and their families and what they're going through right now, having to choose between paying the bills and buying Christmas presents for their children.

And, Jim and Poppy, we've heard from so many Americans that this was the year they were finally getting out of debt, and now they're finding themselves right back in debt again. Angela wanted to buy that home, but now her credit is absolutely destroyed. She won't be able to buy a home any time soon.

And this next week, she said she's going to be getting ready for Christmas with her family but she's also, Jim and Poppy, getting ready to go to court because her creditors are calling, they're asking for their bills. She says, Jim and Poppy, she doesn't know where she's going to get the money to pay them.

HARLOW: Vanessa Yurkevich, such important reporting. Thank you very much.

Well, the restaurant industry, as you know, if just fighting to hand on, trying to survive as lawmakers keep fighting with each other over stimulus on Capitol Hill.

The Independent Restaurant Coalition estimates 85 percent of America's restaurants risk permanently closing without targeted relief, 85 percent. And a recent National Restaurant Association survey showed more than 110,000 of them are closed permanently or long-term.

Now, some of America's most famous chefs are calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to help get it done. They write in an open letter to her this week, quote, "Right now over 60,000 San Franciscans working in our dining rooms risk losing their jobs... The longer restaurants remain closed, the longer those families go without paychecks."

I'm so glad that we are joined now by two remarkable chefs and leaders in this cause, David Nayfeld, chef and co-owner of Che Fico and Dominique Crenn, chef and owner of Atelier Crenn. They've been friends for a decade, and friends who have come together for a very good cause. Thank you both for being with us.

DOMINIQUE CRENN, CHEF AND OWNER, ATELIER CRENN: Thank you for having us.

DAVID NAYFELD, CHEF AND CO-OWNER, CHE FICO: Thank you so much.

HARLOW: Of course. Chef Nayfeld, let me begin with you. This is the holiday season, it is when restaurants across America make the bulk of their money, and they're not going to this year. You are pleading with Congress to pass the RESTAURANTS Act, it's $120 billion, I get that it's a big price tag. But make the case, what would the result be in your mind?

NAYFELD: So honestly, as $120 billion does sound like a big number, it is actually the most efficiently spent money that Congress can spend. So you're talking about $120 billion to save 500,000 independently owned restaurants across America.

PPP as a program has shown not to be one that independent restaurants can utilize for very simple reasons: We're not able to bring our staff back safely in the space and serve people the way that PPP is constructed to.

So when you talk about $120 billion, what is that going to do, right? It's going to be able to bring back 2.1 million American workers, back to jobs that will be secured because of that money. We're going to be able to pay landlords, those people will be made whole. We're going to be able to keep the supply chain going, those people are going to be made whole.

We're also going to be able to add about $270 billion back into the economy. Just in Q2 of 2020, the economy lost $220 billion in GDP just because restaurants were shut. And if we don't get the RESTAURANTS Act passed right away, almost a third of restaurants could shut before New Year's.

HARLOW: Well, you know, Chef Nayfeld, I had the best pizza of my life at your restaurant a few years ago. And Chef Crenn, to you, you know how much I've been dreaming of traveling to get to go to yours, and one day that will happen.

Until then, Chef Crenn, what happens if Congress doesn't act on his? What happens to all the people that work for you guys?

CRENN: Well, I think we need to put in context what is the restaurant in America, the power of the restaurant in America. So the restaurant, first of all, America's second-largest private sector that employed about 11 million people. And about 5 million more people include farmers, bakers, suppliers that are part of these sectors. So this is give you kind of a context of -- that we're not a small part of the America economy, we are one of the biggest parts of the American economy.

You know, I mean, if it doesn't happen, that needs to happen. You know, every day, I see restaurants closing. And it's not just restaurants, it's also small businesses. And America's is going to be in big trouble. You know, I mean, you go every day, you like to go every day to a restaurant and we are a part of the fabric of any culture, you know? And it's going to be worse than we think, it's worse.

[10:45:15]

And I think David and I, we were talking yesterday. You really don't understand why there is not such an urgency to these politicians to pass something that is so important to this country obviously.

HARLOW: Well --

CRENN: And then we're not asking a lot, we're just asking to be taken care of, you know?

HARLOW: You make a good point. And I think, you know, do they understand what it is like to be a waiter or a waitress at a restaurant, a job that I've had, that you guys have had, and what it's like. Some of them, yes, but many of them, no. And how do you sustain yourself on that and then it gets pulled out from under you. Chef Nayfeld, to you, both of you turned your kitchens into places of

help for all sorts of folks for months over the pandemic, making hundreds, thousands of meals, taking them to people in need, feeding your employees who were laid off. Do you feel as though Congress is -- has turned its back on you guys even after doing that?

NAYFELD: In a short answer, certainly we do. I think that restaurants are always called upon to be, you know, the second responders, right? The first responders are the brave folks in uniform that get there and you know, secure the scene. The second responders are the ones that come and feed them.

You look at the brave efforts like my friends, you know, Dom (ph) Crenn (ph), like Jose Andres, you know, people like that who are out there feeding people in need, right?

HARLOW: Yes.

NAYFELD: We're being called upon to support our community. And at the end of the day, what we're looking for is we're not looking for a handout, we're looking for a lifeline, we're looking for something that will help us get back to where we were.

HARLOW: And --

NAYFELD: We were shut down through no fault of our own.

HARLOW: -- and Chef Crenn, just quickly to you, you are, I should note, America's only female three-Michelin-star chef. You have just battled and survived breast cancer, and now you are battling and surviving this. I just wonder what the most important thing is you've learned this year.

CRENN: I think the most important things that I learned this year is people came together, the community came together and I -- compassion and love and care. And I think I want the politicians to feel the same way. Because this is the deal, you know?

I mean, David and I spent a lot of free time doing a lot of fundraisers in the past for those people because they wanted to raise money. But guess what? We're not going to -- we're going to remember if that doesn't happen, you know?

HARLOW: Well, there you go.

CRENN: There we go. You know, we have a lot of power here and I hope they can hear us right now because we've been very patient, we've been very giving and -- but enough is enough.

HARLOW: We appreciate you being a voice on this. Good luck to you, and for all the people that count on your restaurants and your industry. Chef Nayfeld and Chef Crenn, thank you very much.

NAYFELD: Thank you, Poppy.

CRENN: Thank you very much. HARLOW: Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, that made me hungry.

(CROSSTALK)

[10:48:14]

SCIUTTO: Coming up next, President-elect Joe Biden is introducing new members of his cabinet later today, as Biden and Senator Kamala Harris receive a special honor -- there's a clue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Today, President-elect Joe Biden will make another round of nominations for key positions in his administration.

SCIUTTO: CNN's Jessica Dean joins us now. Jessica, listen, there are a lot of familiar names, almost without exception, on this list, many veterans of the Obama administration. Is that the plan?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is certainly shaping up to be true, Jim. We know that the Biden team says that they are looking for people who have experience, they have a variety of crises that they are facing as they enter office and they are looking for people with experience.

And Biden, we know, likes people that he has a relationship with, that he feels comfortable with and that he can trust. And while some have criticized them for saying, oh, this is just a repeat of the Obama administration, the Biden team would tell you that they are looking for leadership and experience but also they would remind you that this is an historic slate of nominees and appointees.

So let me show you a few of the people who will be formally introduced today at an event here in Wilmington with the president-elect and the vice president-elect. Denis McDonough, who was President Obama's former chief of staff, has been tapped to lead the Veteran Affairs Department.

You see there former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack has been tapped to lead the Agriculture Department, that's a position he's very familiar with because he held it for the entirety of the Obama administration.

Congresswoman Marcia Fudge tapped to lead the Housing and Urban Development Department, Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative. And then Susan Rice, this is a non-Senate confirmation position that they have put her into. You know, she was in the mix, of course, for -- as his running mate, also as secretary of state. She is also a veteran of the Obama administration, but they're going to bring her in to lead domestic policy, a lot of Biden's Build Back Better plan, guys.

And Biden is hoping, we're told, to have this all wrapped up, to have all his nominees announced by Christmas. We know his timelines can slide sometimes, but the goal is to have them announced by Christmas. Of course, attorney general is one of the big ones we're still waiting on.

SCIUTTO: No question, and lots of work to do on the pandemic, God knows. Jessica Dean, thanks very much.

[10:55:01]

HARLOW: Thank you, Jess.

And thanks to all of you for joining us today and all week, have a really nice and safe weekend. We'll see you here next week, I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: Please do, it's Friday. I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with Kate Bolduan starts after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone, I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us this hour.

Today, we are waiting and standing by. We are waiting for the FDA to officially announce emergency use authorization for Pfizer's COVID vaccine.

[11:00:08]