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Lawmakers Looking At Stimulus Deal Close To $900B; Weekly Jobless Claims Increase Again, 885K Filed For Unemployment; L.A. County Experiences Record-Breaking COVID-19 Surge. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 17, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:08]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Sticking points remain as leaders on Capitol Hill try to finalize a coronavirus relief deal before tomorrow's government shutdown deadline and before the deadline of people losing even more benefits. Here's what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had to say a short time ago about the state of negotiations.

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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MAJORITY LEADER: My judgment, we're very close to a point that arises in every major negotiation, it's the point where each side faces a fork in the road. We decided we're going to stay on the fast track or drift back toward business as usual.

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BASH: Joining me now is White House reporter for The Washington Post, Seung Min Kim. Thank you so much for joining me Seung Min. So we talked about the fast track or, you know, drifting back. And both sides have their tensions, that is the art of negotiation for sure. You had some reporting, in today's paper that there was tension between -- on the Democratic side between Bernie Sanders, who obviously is progressive and Joe Manchin, who is a part of the moderate group trying to come up with a compromise or did come up with a compromise.

And you reported Sanders push for the package to include more robust stimulus checks. Manchin has said unemployment benefits are more essential to approve. You know, this sounds pretty typical that the progressives and oddly in this case, it's Bernie Sanders, but then you have Josh Hawley all the way on the right who's joined forces with him to push for more robust direct payments. What's going on at this point on that particular issue?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, the issue of stimulus checks has become quite the interesting one in these final days of stimulus negotiations on Capitol Hill, because that moderate group that you just discussed earlier, that ModSquad, the gang of 908, or whatever you want to call them, did not include it in their immediate proposal. But you do have this unusual coalition from Bernie Sanders on the left and Josh Hawley on the right, with support from the administration.

The administration would like to see some sort of direct payments go out as part of this COVID relief package, kind of put this issue back on the radar for congressional negotiators. But there is a problem here that, you know, there for in the congressional negotiators zoo, there is not an infinite amount of money to spend. You know, Republicans that has been a constant tension for most of Republican senators who are getting, you know, more and more uneasy by the day about all the money, all the federal dollars that are going out the window.

So that's what - that's kind of where this tension came yesterday where Bernie Sanders is, you know, Bernie Sanders and his allies are saying it's a false choice. We can, you know, have robust stimulus checks and, you know, dole out, you know, enough unemployment benefits. But Manchin, who's been negotiating with Republicans, saying there is kind of a ceiling here for how much money you can spend.

And with the money that we have, we would much rather direct it towards unemployment benefits, where it's almost guaranteed that those dollars will be spent rather than checks for people who are not only unemployed, but also employed to do have a steady paycheck coming.

BASH: And you heard my colleague, Manu Raju, report earlier in the program that John Thune, the number two Senate Republican, is saying that there could be direct payments of about $600 per individual but maybe limited based on their income.

I want to turn quickly to the President-elect Cabinet and the fact that he still has a big pick outstanding and that's for attorney general. CNN is reporting that it's narrowing down. There's several people on the list including Alabama, Senator Doug Jones, who was defeated in November and former Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, who of course, never got even a hearing. Both are leading contenders.

You tweeted that when you asked Doug Jones about it yesterday, he laughed, which I guess what else is he supposed to do? What are you hearing?

KIM: Yes. And Senator Jones has been very good natured about all our questions. I'm sure he gets asked four times a day from various reporters from "The Post", CNN and others about his latest discussions with the Biden team. But you're right, as you know, Senator Doug Jones, Merrick Garland, perhaps another person or two are seen as the finalists for Biden's Attorney General pick, which is the most important kind of major Cabinet position that is outstanding on the list.

You know, Jones has several benefits going for him here, obviously, that he does have an extensive record on civil rights that is endorsed by civil rights leaders. And they have said so as much to the Biden administration and to the press. And he's someone who I mean, we could see being very easily confirmable in any sort of Senate configuration whether it's a Democratic Senate with Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker or in a Republican Senate.

[12:35:07]

And remember with Merrick Garland here, he is -- he does currently sit on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the second most powerful court in the country, if he leaves that post, there would be a vacancy. If Mitch McConnell is in charge, does he let Joe Biden fill that vacancy? We don't know.

BASH: We don't know. But there certainly is some poetry to the notion of Merrick Garland being Attorney General, which obviously is that in addition to his qualifications or reasons they're on the list, both of them. Seung Min, thank you so much for that.

And as lawmakers do try to hammer out a deal for coronavirus stimulus relief, new evidence of just how dire the real life economic impact of COVID-19 is rather, a staggering 885,000 people filed for first time unemployment benefits last week and increase from the week before. And my next guest says lawmakers really have to act quickly to stop a double dip recession.

Mark Zandi is chief economic or chief economist rather at Moody's Analytics. And Mark, thank you so much for joining me. I want to start with what is projected to be in this COVID plan that we've been talking about with Seung Min and others in the program.

A new round of stimulus checks and extra $300 a week and unemployment benefits, $300 billion dollars for small business loans, FEMA funding, money for vaccinations and schools. There's no corporate liability protections right now. Right now, no state or local aid, it is still a moving target. It is not done yet. But from what you see, these bones of a deal. Is it enough right now?

MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ANALYTICS: Yes, it's enough, I think to allow the economy which is struggling, today's unemployment, Trump's claims are testimonial to that. And we got a number yesterday on retail sales.

They declined in November after declining in October. So the economy is clearly on the edge of recession. And if lawmakers don't act, and that's the most important thing they need to sign on the bottom line, you know, in the next day or two. If they do that, with this $900 billion package, it will be enough but it will be just enough to get to the other side of the pandemic.

BASH: And we are not seeing stay at home orders on a nationwide level like we saw in March and April. Listen to how one former Disney employee described the situation.

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AMANDA JOHNSON, LAID OFF FROM DISNEY WORLD: Just because they see the news and see that Universal is open, Disney is open, SeaWorld is open, our economy is not open, our state is not open, people are not back to work, people are suffering. But everyone is sitting there suffering and silence. And it's horrible. And we're all just -- I feel like drowning here. And it's just the worst thing. People come here to have a good time and we're all suffering.

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BASH: Suffering indeed, what is driving job losses right now?

ZANDI: Boy, that's tough. I mean, clearly, the pandemic is people are nervous, you know, even if local officials aren't asking businesses to pull back for restaurants to stop serving indoors or at all in the northeast or other parts of the country where it's cold. You know, people are nervous about getting sick, rightfully so. And so they're not traveling, they're not going to restaurants, they're not going to movies, they're not going to Disney World, they're not doing the things that they typically do. And that's hard on the economy.

You know, there are a lot of jobs involved here. You know, in fact, if you take a look at total employment, we're still down 10 million jobs from where we were in February pre pandemic. And half of those jobs are people who say that they have permanently lost their, that's a lot of payments, financial pain and suffering.

BASH: It sure is. Thank you for putting that into perspective for us Mark Zandi, appreciate it.

ZANDI: Sure, thanks.

[12:39:10]

BASH: And up next, several European Prime Ministers canceled their schedules after a possible coronavirus exposure by the French president. Stay with us.

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BASH: The California Health Department reporting an alarming number of new coronavirus cases, a huge part of the state's surge is in L.A. County. A record breaking number of new cases, deaths, and hospitalizations, and ICU beds are running out. But behind the case numbers there are faces like this one. Marcia Santini a nurse at UCLA who is now infected.

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MARCIA SANTINI, ER NURSE INFECTED WITH COVID-19: This was like someone punched me in the gut and ripped my heart out. And I'm thinking how could this happen? We were so careful. I want people know that this is not a picnic in the park at all. You know and if you have mild symptoms, thank God, thank God. I get severe pain in different parts of my body. I've now lost my chase of smell. I have a lot of GI type symptoms.

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BASH: And joining me now is Barbara Ferrer who's the Director of L.A. County Department of Public Health. Thank you so much for joining me. So record number of cases, hospitalizations, deaths in your county. Is this a post-holiday surge or is there something more? BARBARA FERRER, DIRECTOR, L.A. COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yes, thanks so much Dana. And this is a post-holiday surge that doesn't need to be. So I think when we think about is this something more it's this is a lot of intermingling that needed to have happened. But it did happen. And it created for us an enormous increase in our cases.

[12:45:17]

Yesterday, we reported 22,000 new cases. It included about 7,000 backlog lab reports. But even at 15,000 new cases a day, that's overwhelming, our healthcare system at this point, and continues to overwhelm our healthcare system. You know, we've now seen that yesterday, about 65 percent of the day, the ambulances were on diversion at all of our hospitals.

This is untenable. We're going into a new holiday season. We really need people to stay home not mingle, not travel. This is the time to really be with your household members, and only with your household members, and only be going out if you're an essential worker or you need to get an essential service.

BASH: Such an important advice. We are going to put up on the screen that test positivity in L.A. and California. They are in double digits. Is it that we talked about the post-holiday surge, do you get the sense that people are just giving up that it's fatigue of dealing with this? Is there, again, what is your sense about why these numbers and statistics are going absolutely in the wrong direction?

FERRER: No, I think it's such an important question. I'm not sure there's a definitive answer. I would say there are probably three things that have been going on. The first is this sort of fatigue issue. But the real people who are fatigued are frontline healthcare workers, frankly.

And we all need to remember that as we feel sad that we might not be with our family. There's some people who will never see a family member again. And there are other people who will spend the entire holiday season working overtime shifts in our hospitals, because they're taking care of too many patients.

So I think we should all sort of think about our own fatigue, our own tiredness with all of the modifications we're asked to make. And put that in the context of people who have really had devastating losses and are continuing to try to take care of all of us during the surge.

I think the second issue is, I think there's a misunderstanding of sort of what's safe and what's not safe. And that debate unfortunately, became political, wearing a mask instead of really being how we take care of each other is now political statement about freedom. I'm not sure that we really want to be free to infect people and make people really sick. I don't think that's really our history here in the United States.

I think we really do best when we're caring and kind and taking care of each other. And that's what mask wearing is really about. So we need people to, you know, just put aside, you know, sort of these political issues and really understand how important it is to keep those masks on.

And I think the third issue is, we think that the people we know and love are safe, and that they can't infect us. You know, I would estimate at this point, probably one in 50 people in L.A. County may be infected. And that's going to include people you know and you care about and who are in your family or your extended family. So that myth we should, you know, sort of dispel at this point. Anybody can become infected and anybody may be infected. And you've got to keep your distance, wear your mask.

BASH: All important points. And I just want to underscore the fact that you talked about the fatigue, the most fatigue is being felt by the frontline workers, the healthcare workers, everybody in those hospitals. We thank you. And we thank you, Barbara Ferrer, for everything that you're doing. Thanks for joining me.

FERRER: The amazing team here and amazing work everywhere. And thank you for making sure that the viewers have accurate information. It's really important.

BASH: Thank you. Thanks.

[12:49:08]

And COVID vaccines are ready, but their skepticism in minority communities. What will it take to build trust in the science? The Color of COVID, The Vaccines airs tomorrow night at 10:00. We'll be right back.

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BASH: Right now a deep blanket of snow in the northeast, 40 inches deep in Binghamton, New York and across New York, snowplows worked through the night, trying to keep roads open. And now 18 counties in a state of emergency but it's not just New York and some parts of the region, there is more snow today than we saw all of last season. CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam is in Boston. Derek, it looks pretty.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, walking around in a real life snow globe this morning, Dana, wow, incredible to see those snow totals coming out of Central New York State. I mean, I have just never seen something like that in a storm to produce that much snow in a short period of time. It's just astounding.

We're in the north end of Boston. You can see this beautiful scene that we have behind us. I mean, this is a city that is no stranger to nor'easters and big snowstorms. They know how to handle these systems.

[12:55:02]

You can see some of the snowplows pushing through behind me here. They are quickly clearing the roads. There was a snow emergency declared by the mayor here, Marty Walsh, allowing for people to move off the roads, take their vehicles off the roads, so the plows could do their job this morning, 600 flight cancellations though along the eastern seaboard.

It's still snowing here. As you can see, we've got another three hours or so before. I think the sun will start to shine. And it'll change the landscape around here but really, really spectacular. Back to you, Dana.

BASH: And make it even prettier. I have to say I'm a little jealous. We got a little bit of snow, more of sleet and slot here. I was looking forward for making a snowman with my son, it didn't happen, maybe next time. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Derek. And thank you for joining us. Brianna Keilar picks up our coverage after a quick break.