Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Biden Lays Out Economic Stimulus Proposal. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 22, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:03]

JITARTH JADEJA, FORMER QANON FOLLOWER: I thought that was proof. That's a unique phrase. I have never heard that phrase before. That must be a shout-out to the board.

Turns out, no, that's just something Trump says. He says it from time to time. He will say it again. And it was requested the day before the State of the Union. So, it wasn't even so much the -- what the proof was. It was the level of manipulation that was involved, that someone would be able to, A, pick up on, that Trump says this thing. They have to observe him very closely.

And then, B, find a way to use that as a proof, knowing people will only go one level deep. So that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. And I wrote that Reddit post about five minutes after I had that realization.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It's an amazing story.

Jitarth Jadeja, thank you for sharing it with us. We appreciate it.

JADEJA: You're most welcome. Thank you.

KEILAR: And our coverage begins now with Brooke Baldwin.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Brianna, thank you. We will take it from here.

Good to be with you on this Friday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

Just a heads-up. Any moment now, President Biden will be unveiling his economic relief plan. Millions of Americans are still struggling financially just to put food on the table, keep the roofs over their heads, of course, because of this pandemic.

And all of this comes just one day after the president unveiled his -- quote, unquote -- 'wartime strategy" to battle COVID-19. We do expect him to roll out some new executive orders and this huge push for a $1.9 trillion stimulus package.

And if he does take questions, this will officially be the first press conference of the Biden administration. So, obviously, we're keeping an eye out for that. We will bring it to you live.

I do want to begin with this, more on just what we're all expecting from these two executive orders that the president will be signing.

So let's begin with our chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, who's live for us there this afternoon.

And so, Kaitlan, let's just get straight to what the people want to know: Who benefits and how quickly?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's actually still a big question facing the Biden team, because one of these executive orders that he's going to be signing today is about speeding up those stimulus checks for eligible Americans who have not received them yet.

And they were asked earlier, how do you find those Americans? Because a lot of them are ones who aren't filing their taxes. That's been a big channel that, of course, people have gotten those stimulus checks through.

And so, basically, what this executive order is going to do, according to Biden's top economic adviser today, is speed up that process, use these other tools that the Treasury Department can have to actually get this money that's sitting there waiting for people actually into their hands and into their bank accounts.

The other executive order has to do with expanding food stamps. Of course, that has been one of the massive aspects of this pandemic, is you have seen food lines longer than they have ever been in the United States. And so you see they have the room ready there for President Biden to come in and sign these executive orders that are aimed at blunting the economic fallout that we are seeing from this pandemic.

But what we heard from Brian Deese, Biden's top economic adviser, in the Briefing Room just before this, Brooke, was that these executive orders, they do not see as a replacement for that bill that they want to come from Congress, that $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill. They were framing it as a rescue package, because they're saying that's where the relief is actually going to come from.

And as they were framing it earlier, that the hole is going to be bigger if they do not -- the hole the people are going to dig for themselves when it comes to finances is going to be bigger if they don't act now, if Congress doesn't do something now.

And so the natural question that is behind all of that is whether or not this looming impeachment trial for the former president is going to affect getting that relief bill passed and getting Biden's nominees confirmed, because, so far, he only has two of his Cabinet nominees confirmed.

And so that seems to be one of the big consternations here behind the scenes at the White House is whether or not that's going to affect the early days of the Biden agenda.

But we will see him here in a few minutes and see whether or not he takes questions on that, because, earlier, when they were asked, does President Biden believe that President Trump should be barred from ever holding office, public office, again, they said that it's up to the Senate to make that decision, not to President Biden.

BALDWIN: Right. That was noteworthy when Jen Psaki was asked about that.

I certainly imagine, if Biden takes questions, that would be one to head his way.

Staying on these executive actions, Kaitlan, as we believe we're pretty close to seeing the president there, how do they pay for all this?

COLLINS: Well, that's a big question, is, what -- where is this money going to come from that they're using for some of this? Of course, the money for the stimulus checks that is already waiting, that's already something that's been allocated.

That's another question facing them when they're looking at this next coronavirus relief package is, there's still a lot of unspent money from the last one. And so the question is, how does that start to get paid as well? Because that's really been the big pushback that you have heard from Republicans already over the price tag on this new bill is what that's going to look like.

[15:05:00]

And we're only on the second full day of a Joe Biden presidency. Of course, a lot of what we have seen so far is governing by executive order. There's only so much you can do with that. That's really been his primary channel so far, but he is going to have to lean on Congress.

And as you can see what's happening up on the Hill, they're still trying to work out a power-sharing agreement between the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate.

BALDWIN: Here he is. Let's go, Kaitlan. Here's the president, and there's the vice president.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just received a briefing from our economic team.

And we remain in a once-in-a-century public health crisis that's led to the most unequal job and economic crisis in modern history. And the crisis is only deepening. It's not getting better. It's deepening.

Yesterday, we learned that 900,000 more Americans filed for unemployment, 900,000. They joined millions of Americans who, through no fault of their own, have lost the dignity and respect that comes with a job and a paycheck.

So many of them never thought they would ever be out of work in the first place, and just like my dad did when he used to lie awake at night when I was a kid staring at the ceiling unable to sleep because he worried about whether or not he was about to lose his health care or whether we were -- going to be -- have the money to pay the mortgage because of the economic circumstance he was in,.

And now a lot of these folks are facing eviction. They're waiting hours in their cars, literally hours in their cars, waiting to be able to feed their children as they drive up to a food bank. This is the United States of America, and they are waiting to feed their kids.

Folks who were able to still keep their job, many have seen their paychecks reduced, and they have barely hanging on and wondering, what's next? Sometimes, the anxiety about what's going to happen next is more consequential than what actually happened.

But this is happening today in America, and this cannot be who we are as a country. These are not the values of our nation. We cannot, will not let people go hungry. We cannot let people be evicted because of nothing they did themselves. They cannot watch people lose their jobs, and we have to act. We have to act now.

It's not just to meet the moral obligation to treat our fellow American with the dignity respect they deserve. This is an economic imperative, a growing economic consensus that we must act decisively and boldly to grow the economy for all Americans, not just for tomorrow, but in the future.

There's a growing chorus of top economists that agree that, in this moment of crisis, with this -- with the interest rates as low as they are, historic lows, it is smart fiscal investment, including deficit spending, and they are more urgent than ever.

You know, and that return on these investments and jobs and racial equity is going to prevent long-term economic damage, and benefits that are going to far surpass their costs. If we don't act, the rest world is not standing still in terms of the competitive advantage or the competitive possibilities relative to us.

That our debt situation will be more stable and not less stable, according to these economists, and that such investments in our people is going to strengthen our economic competitiveness as a nation and help us outcompete our competitors in the global economy, because we're going to grow the economy with these investments.

While the COVID-19 package that passed in December was the first step, as I said at the time, it was just a down payment. We need more action and we need to move fast. Last week, I laid out a two-step plan of rescue and recovery, to get through the crisis and to a better and stronger and more secure America.

The first step of our American Rescue Plan is a plan to tackle the pandemic and get direct financial relief to Americans who need it the most. You know, in just a few days -- it's just been a few days since I outlined this plan -- and it's received bipartisan support from a majority of American mayors and governors.

Businesses and labor organizations have together welcomed it as the urgent action that's needed. Even Wall Street firms have underscored its importance. In fact, an analysis by Moody's estimates that if we pass our American Rescue Plan, the economy would create 7.5 million jobs just in this year alone.

That would be on the way to the more than 18 million -- I think it was 18,600,000 jobs that they believe would be create over the four-year period with our Build Back Better recovery plan. And with our American Rescue Plan, our economy would return to full employment a full year faster than without the plan.

[15:10:00]

Even President Trump's -- President Trump's now, not some liberal organization, President Trump's top former economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, said -- quote -- he "absolutely is in favor" of this rescue plan.

This almost doesn't have a partisan piece to it. We're seeing the support because this plan takes a step that we so urgently need, more than just a step, a number of steps. It funds big parts of the COVID- 19 national strategy they released yesterday, we released yesterday.

Our national strategy puts on -- us on a war footing to aggressively speed up our COVID-19 response, especially on vaccines and testing and reopening our schools. I found it fascinating. Yesterday, the press asked the question, is 100 million enough? A week before, they were saying, Biden, are you crazy? You can't do 100 million in 100 days.

Well, we're going to, God willing, not only do 100 million. We're going to do more than that. But this is -- we have to do this. We have to move.

The American Rescue Plan also includes economic relief for most Americans who are in need. We're going to finish the job of getting a total of $2,000 in direct payments to folks; $600, which was already passed, is simply not enough, if you still have to choose between paying your rent and putting food on the table.

We will extend unemployment insurance benefits for millions of workers beyond the deadline that's now set. It means that 16 million Americans who are currently relying on unemployment benefits while they look for work can count on these checks continuing to be there in the middle of this crisis.

The American Rescue Plan also addresses the growing housing crisis of America. Approximately, 14 million Americans, 14 million, have fallen behind on rent, and many risk eviction. If we fail to act, there will be a wave of evictions and foreclosures in the coming months, as this pandemic rages on, because there's nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.

So, look, this would overwhelm emergency shelters and increase COVID- 19 infections, as people have to -- have nowhere to go and are socially -- can't socially distance. The American Rescue Plan asks Congress to provide rental assistance for millions of hard-hit families and tenants.

This will also be a bridge to economic recovery for countless mom-and- pop landlords who can't afford not to have the rent. But they can't wait.

So, on Inauguration Day, I directed my administration to extend nationwide restrictions on evictions and foreclosures. These crises are straining the budgets of states and cities and tribal communities that are forced to consider layoffs and service reductions among essential workers.

Police officers, firefighters, first responders, nurses, they're all at the risk of losing their jobs. Over the last year, more than 600,000 educators have lost their jobs in cities and towns.

The American Rescue Plan would provide emergency funding to keep these essential workers on the job and maintain essential services. Look, it will also help small businesses that are the engines of our economic growth. When you say small business, most people think the major corporate entities are the ones who hire everybody.

These small businesses are the glue that hold -- and they're important, but these small businesses hold the community -- the glue that hold these communities together. They are hurting badly and they account for nearly half of the entire U.S. work force, nearly half.

Our rescue plan will provide flexible grants to help the hardest-hit small businesses to survive the pandemic and low-cost capital to help entrepreneurs of all backgrounds create and maintain jobs, plus provide essential goods and services that communities so desperately depend on.

Look, our recovery plan also calls for an increase in the minimum wage at $15, at least $15 an hour. No one in America should work 40 hours a week making below the poverty line; $15 gets people above the poverty line. We have so many millions of people working 40 hours a week, working, and some with two jobs, and they're still below the poverty line.

Our plan includes access to affordable child care. That's going to enable parents, particularly women, to get back to work, millions who are not working now because they don't have that care.

All told, the American Rescue Plan would lift 12 million Americans out of poverty and cut child poverty in half. That's five million children lifted out of poverty.

[15:15:00]

Our plan will reduce poverty in the black community by one-third and reduce poverty in the Hispanic community by almost 40 percent. I look forward to working with members of Congress of both parties to move quickly to get this American Rescue Plan to the American people.

And then we can move with equal urgency and bipartisanship to the second step of our economic plan, to Build Back Better, the recovery plan. It's a plan that's going to make historic investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, innovation, research and development, and clean energy and so much more that's going to create millions more jobs, good-paying jobs, not minimum wage jobs. While we work with members of both parties in the Congress, there are

steps that we can and must take right now. For example, on Inauguration Day, I directed my administration to pause student loan repayments for interest for -- the interest payments for Americans with federal student loans until at least September. So they're not going to have to pay until September. They still pay the bill as it stands now, but it will not accrue interest, and they don't have to pay, begin to pay until September.

And we may have to look beyond that, I might add. Today, I'm signing an executive order that directs the whole of government, a whole-of- government effort to help millions of Americans who are badly hurting. It requires all federal agencies to do what they can do to provide relief to families, small businesses and communities.

And in the days ahead, I expect agencies to act.

Let me touch on two ways these actions can help change Americans' lives. We need to tackle the growing hunger crisis in America. One in seven households in America, one in seven, more than one in five black and Latino households in America, report they do not have enough food to eat.

That includes nearly 30 million adults and as many as 12 million children. And, again, they're in this situation through no fault of their own. It's unconscionable. The American Rescue Plan provides additional emergency food and nutrition assistance for tens of millions of children and families to address this crisis.

But families literally can't wait another day. As a result of the executive order I'm going to shortly sign, the Department of Agriculture will consider taking immediate steps to make it easier for the hardest-hit families to enroll and claim more generous benefits in the critical food and nutrition assistance area.

It's going to help tens of millions of families, especially those who can't provide meals for their kids, who are learning remotely at home, are not receiving the regular meal plans that they have at school for breakfast or lunch.

It's going to also -- we also need to protect the health and safety of the American worker. Right now, approximately 40 percent of households in America have at least one member with a preexisting condition. Just imagine. You're out of work, through no fault of your own. You file for unemployment while you're looking for a job.

You find one. And you get an offer. But then you find out there's a high risk of your getting infected with COVID-19 because of your condition. And you and your loved ones have an even greater risk of death and serious illness because of preexisting conditions.

So, you turn it down. Right now, if you did that, you could be denied unemployment insurance, because you're offered a job, you didn't take it. It's wrong. No one should have to choose between their livelihoods and their own health or the health of their loved ones in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Because of the executive order I'm about to sign, I expect the

Department of Labor to guarantee the right to refuse unemployment -- the employment that will jeopardize your health, and if you do so, you will still be able to qualify for the insurance. That's a judgment the Labor Department will make.

Look, there are just two consequential ways that the action I'm taking today will help the people in need.

Another, another way to help approximately two million veterans maintain their financial footing, by pausing federal collections on overpayments and debts. Another makes sure that federal contractors who are receiving taxpayers' dollars to provide their workers with the pay and benefits they deserve.

These are places where federal tax dollars are administered, are being made available to build things from ships to staircases. And we let out the -- the federal government lets the contract. And we're going to make sure they buy American and are made in America.

[15:20:02]

And here's another. Right now, there are up to eight million people that are eligible for direct payments from the CARES Act and the relief bill passed in December. They're entitled to those payments, but there's not an easy way for those folks to assess that -- access them.

So, we're making it a priority today to fix that problem and get them relief they're entitled to.

Look, I'm going to close and summarize this way. A lot of America's hurting. The virus is surging. We're 400,000 dead, expected to reach well over 600,000. Families are going hungry. People are at risk of being evicted. Job losses are mounting again.

We need to act. No matter how you look at it, we need to act. If -- if we act now our economy will be stronger in both the short and long run. That's what economists left, right and center are telling us, both liberal and conservative. We will be better and stronger across the board.

If we act now, we will be better able to compete with the world. If we act now, we will be better able to meet our moral obligations to one another as Americans.

I don't believe the people of this country just want to stand by and watch their friends, their neighbors, co-workers, fellow Americans go hungry, lose their homes and lose their sense of dignity and hope and respect. I don't believe that, especially in the middle of a pandemic that's so weakened and wrecked so much havoc and caused so much pain on America. That's not who we are.

The bottom line is this. We're in a national emergency. We need to act like we're in a national emergency. So, we have got to move with everything we have got, and we have got to do it together. I don't believe Democrats or Republicans are going hungry and losing

jobs. I believe Americans are going hungry and losing their jobs. And we have the tools to fix it. We have the tools to get through this.

We have the tools to get this virus under control and our economy back on track. And we have the tools to help people. So, let's use the tools, all of them. Use them now.

So, I'm going to sign this executive order, but let me conclude again by saying, folks, this is one of the cases where business, labor, Wall Street, Main Street, liberal, conservative economists know we have to act now, not only to help people who are in need now, but to allow us to be in a competitive position worldwide and be the leader of the world economy in the next year and two and three and going forward.

So, thank you. I'm going to sign this executive order.

The first one is the economic relief related to COVID-19 pandemic that I referenced.

The second one is protection -- protecting your federal work force.

Thank you very much.

QUESTION: Mr. President, do you support Mitch McConnell's timeline for a February impeachment trial?

BIDEN: I haven't heard the detail of it, but I do think that having some time to get our administration up and running. We -- I want to thank the Senate for passing out secretary of defense. Looks like our secretary of Treasury and looks like our secretary of state's in place.

So, the more time we have to get up and running and to meet these crises, the better.

Thank you.

BALDWIN: OK, that's noteworthy. He didn't have an answer for that, the key question that Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, was also asked earlier about, looking ahead, Senate impeachment trial for former President Trump, and essentially President Biden saying, we got to get our feet on the ground, get our sea legs under us.

Wasn't a concrete answer on how he feels about a potential conviction for Donald Trump.

Let's talk economy, though. You heard the president there really saying, listen, Americans hurting. He really emphasized hungry Americans. One in seven Americans can't put food on the table. And when you look at black and brown communities, that's one in five. So he's trying to do something about it, taking these concrete action, signing things executive orders today.

CNN economics commentator Catherine Rampell is with. She's also a columnist for "The Washington Post." And Laura Barron-Lopez is a CNN political analyst and a national political reporter for Politico.

[15:25:08]

So, ladies, thank you both for diving in on this.

And, Catherine, just to you on what are the sort of real-life implications of these two executive actions, and how does he pay for them?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, the real-life implications are that he's going to help families put food on the table.

The bigger piece of his economic relief plan obviously has to go through Congress and requires additional appropriations. He has asked for $1.9 trillion. The executive order today that deals with economic relief, I am told, would not actually require any additional appropriations. They can do it within their existing authority.

And it would do things like make more people eligible for unemployment insurance, for example, if they turned down a job because it was risky. It would also expand the generosity of certain kinds of food assistance, for example, for schoolchildren who would normally be getting free or reduced-price meals at their school, but their school is shut down. So now they're getting an EBT card, essentially instead, increasing the value of that.

And some longer-run things as well, including directing his USDA to rethink how food stamps work, essentially, and whether the baseline level of food stamps is generous enough. It's basically been at the same level, indexed to inflation, since the '70s.

So there are these immediate pieces of the plan that will help families, that will make sure that they can -- or at least try to help them make ends meet and put food on the table. And then there are these longer-term investments in how the social safety net functions.

BALDWIN: I want to go back to your point about if he can get it through Congress, because -- and, Laura, forgive me, promotion alert, White House correspondent for Politico. Congratulations.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: The issue with Congress. We have already heard from some Republicans specifically, moderate Republicans. They have been signaling that they may not support the stimulus.

Your assessment of that. And do you think it's just because, this round, it's coming from a Democrat in the White House?

BARRON-LOPEZ: I mean, a lot of it does have to do with who is in the White House, Brooke.

It's also that there appears to be no honeymoon for -- at all for Biden as he's coming in, whether it's on COVID stimulus are also on the immigration bill he sent over. A lot of the signals from Republican senators so far has been that they don't like a lot of what his plan says, that there might be different elements of it that they're OK with, but, overall, they don't like the -- what he's pushing

Some of them, during the Trump administration, when they were willing to spend more money, be it on stimulus checks or other issues, are now reverting back to being supposed fiscal conservatives.

So Biden is facing a difficult road ahead with a slimmer majority in the House, as well as this 50/50 Senate. And so the big question, though, right now is whether or not he wants to get rid of that filibuster, which so far it's looking like he doesn't, and how much he's going to really push to try to steamroll Republicans.

Ever the institutionalist, right now, he's saying that he wants to work in a bipartisan way.

BALDWIN: We know, Catherine -- I'm just back to thinking of how the government pays for this, that President Biden has committed to only a partial rollback of the tax cuts that Trump put in place.

And we heard Biden on the trail saying a few different things about taxes. But he says he won't raise taxes immediately. He did talk about the possibility of doing that while he was out on the campaign trail. The deficits, as you know, are massive.

So how could he not raise taxes?

RAMPELL: Well, it's interesting.

One of the few ironclad political norms that was not broken, I think, in the past four years is the fact that, as soon as a Democrat enters the White House, Republicans pretend to care about deficits again. They didn't seem to mind when Trump was in office, right?

I mean, they passed an unfunded $2 trillion tax cut, which you were just talking about, which they are imploring the Biden administration to keep in place, including the tax cuts for corporations and wealthy people.

And while Trump was president, they also passed about $2 trillion in additional spending even before COVID, so while the economy was still doing well.

Now, the economy -- or, rather, the federal budget does have long-run structural problems that do need to be addressed. The time to address them -- as the expression goes, the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

So, the time that we should have been thinking about these long-run structural problems, things like the cost of Medicare, for example, how you get that more under control and not hurt older people who rely on those benefits, the time to think about that is when the economy is doing well.

The argument that the Biden administration has made, and Treasury secretary nominee in particular Janet Yellen has made, is that, if, indeed, you do care about fiscal responsibility.

[15:30:00]