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Biden Focused on Fighting Pandemic, Economic Crisis; Biden Administration Seeks Bipartisan Support for COVID Relief; U.S. House to Deliver Article of Impeachment to Senate Today; Senate Republicans Divided Over Trial Proceedings; New Variant of COVID-19 Could Cause More Damage; Federal Health Experts Worries Over Vaccine Supplies. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired January 25, 2021 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, President Biden focuses on supporting U.S. industry through an economic crisis brought on by the pandemic while simultaneously pushing to get millions more COVID vaccines administered.

Washington is consumed by Donald Trump's second impeachment, and Republicans can't even agree whether the process is constitutional.

Then the sobering reality of 25 million coronavirus cases in the U.S. and the possibility that one new variant could be even deadlier.

Good to have you with us. Well U.S. President Joe Biden's first full week in the White House kicks off today and already his administration is facing huge challenges as it pushes forward with an ambitious goal for the first 100 days. Mr. Biden and his team will have to battle a raging pandemic and an economic crisis and look to unite Americans and even lawmakers in an effort to combat both.

But political compromise may prove difficult. We're already seeing disagreement over COVID relief and debate over holding a Senate impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump. Amid all of this, President Biden is still hoping to build support from both sides of the aisle when it comes to a COVID relief package. CNN's Arlette Saenz has the details now from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: The White House is trying to drum up bipartisan support for President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief package. And over the weekend the president dispatched his top economic adviser, Brian Deese to speak with a group of 16 senators, eight Republicans and eight Democrats as they're looking to get more bipartisan sign on, on to this bill. Now some Republicans have expressed unease about the size of this package and Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine who was part of that call, said that she thinks it's too premature to be talking about a $2 trillion package, and if she believes that bipartisan group of senators could find a more targeted approach.

Now one item that was deemed a priority on that call was money for COVID vaccinations, but many of these senators wanted to see more details and find ways to ensure that Americans who needed the money most would be the ones receiving it.

Now Biden has been clear. He wants this to be tackled in a bipartisan manner, but some Democrats are pushing for him to pass the measure through reconciliation, which would only require a simple majority. Now this was just one of many meetings the White House is having on this topic as they've made it clear as a top ticket item for them in the early days of the administration.

Now on Monday, President Biden will reinstate some COVID travel restrictions on non-U.S. citizens coming from Brazil, the U.K., Ireland and other European countries. And he will also extend those restrictions to those who have recently traveled from South Africa. This is just the latest attempts from the Biden administration to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which they have said is a top priority.

Arlette Saenz, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Today the U.S. House of Representatives will formally deliver the article of impeachment against former President Donald Trump to the Senate. Democrats are united in convicting Trump over his role in inciting the deadly riot at the Capitol. But Republicans are at odds with each other about the proceedings. CNN's Senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns has our report.

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JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Its history in the making once again as Capitol Hill prepares for the second Donald Trump impeachment trial. A bit different from the first, he is now out of office. He is out of town and he is off Twitter, very different from last time. Nonetheless, there are still some similarities.

[04:05:00]

For example, once again, the House impeachment managers will take the long walk across the United States Capitol to deliver the one article of impeachment to the United States Senate and read the article before the United States Senate.

Normally, after such things occur, the impeachment trial is supposed to start in earnest at one p.m. the next afternoon. But the United States Senate has bought itself some time. In fact, they are going to stay out two weeks before they begin the trial in earnest coming back on February 9th.

There's been a lot of suggestion that this trial will be quicker than the last one, but that's not clear, simply because Republicans are all over the place on what to do.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): I think the trial is stupid. I think it's counterproductive. We already have a flaming fire in this country. And it's like taking a bunch of gasoline and pouring it on top of the fire.

SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R-SD): I think it's a mood point. Because I think right now Donald Trump is no longer the president. He is a former president. Constitution, and I think, and I know that there are other people out there that may disagree with me, but article one, section, I think it's three -- or six and seven, specifically point out that you can impeach the president and it does not indicate that you can impeach someone who is not in office.

ROMNEY: The preponderance of the legal opinion is that an impeachment trial after someone has left office is constitutional. I believe that's the case. I'll of course hear what the lawyers have to say for each side, but I think it's pretty clear that the effort is constitutional.

JOHNS (on camera): The United States Senate is divided 50/50 between Democrats and Republicans. two thirds of the majority is required to convict. That means if all Democrats vote to convict the former president, 17 Republicans will also have to vote with them. Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Thanks for that report.

As you just heard, some Republicans are against this impeachment. CNN's senior political correspondent Abby Phillip who is the new anchor of "INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY" spoke with Senate Democrat Elizabeth Warren about the Republican push back. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): I can't imagine how Republican opposition to insurrection would fade over the space of a couple of weeks. We are talking about a president who stood in front of a mob and told them to go to the Capitol and invade, told them to go to the Capitol and stop the lawful business of government so that he could try to stay in the White House.

That is so fundamentally wrong. I just -- we have to think about what's at issue here. You know, Donald Trump, for years, has broken so many norms, has had people say over and over that they are shocked by what he does.

But this one, insurrection, this is the first time since the Civil War that we have seen someone, a politician, encourage people to take up arms against the United States government and its lawful actions. We need accountability, accountability for Donald Trump and accountability for everyone who participated in that insurrection.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY: You know, now Republicans are talking about unity. That was also a big theme of President Biden's inauguration address. They also seem to think that unity means compromising, specifically on policy. How do you see it?

WARREN: Well let me start with, how about if we're unified against insurrection? How about if we're unified for accountability? Unity starts with accountability. And then unity is about doing the work that the American people want done.

It's not about ideology. It's not about helping just the richest Americans or some interest group. Unity is about doing things that the American people want to see us do. Like a $15 an hour minimum wage, like canceling student loan debt, like expanding social security, like giving us more universal childcare and universal pre-k. Things that are popular across this country, things that are needed across this country.

We want to have unity, then get on board for the things that the American people want to see us do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And as lawmakers brace for the upcoming impeachment trial, we are learning more details about just how far Donald Trump appeared to be willing to go to try to overturn the election. CNN's Shimon Prokupecz explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHIMON PROKUPECZ CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: "The Wall Street Journal" reporting that the former president tried to put pressure on top Department of Justice officials to file a lawsuit with the Supreme Court to try and get the election overturned. The top officials at the time, the former Attorney General Bill Barr, his deputy and another top official, the solicitor general all resisted the pressure and so the lawsuit was never filed.

[04:10:00]

The journal even says that one of the former president's private attorneys even drafted a brief to try and give it to the Department of Justice to file top officials resisting all those efforts and so nothing was ever filed.

Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And as we mentioned, U.S. Senate Democrats will need more than a dozen Republican colleagues, 17 in fact, in order to convict former President Trump. That prospect is fading by the day as more Republican Senators push back against the trial proceedings. And I asked CNN's senior political analyst David Gergen about the likelihood of a Senate conviction. DAVID GERGEN CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It was a steep hill to

climb. But in the last few days it's been disappointing if not disturbing to see that the base of Donald Trump's political fortunes is really reacting very negatively to what happened with the impeachment and is putting a lot of pressure on the senators, on this Republican side to break with -- to break with whatever comes out on the trial and vote for Donald Trump almost without even asking any questions, hard questions.

There are some of the Republicans we know are going to challenge the constitutionality of even having this proceeding, because Donald Trump is no longer in office. Can you really -- can you convict someone who is no longer in the office that you are talking about? The lawyers believe you can. Experts believe you can. But the Republicans are going to use that as a cudgel to say we are not going to vote for it -- we're not going to vote on the merits because we never get to the merits by -- on it's unconstitutional to do this.

CHURCH: And we're also learning that Donald Trump pressured the Department of Justice to file a case with the Supreme Court to overturn the election results. Should information like this be part of the case against him?

GERGEN: Yes, and I think it will be, Rosemary. and indeed, one, I think negative for the Republicans in delaying the trial for two weeks to let them get their lawyers organized is it that more will come out and the likely in the next two weeks. It will add credibility add strength to the argument that Donald Trump went way over the line, violated the unwritten rules of politics in trying to pressure people around him.

Listen, it's not the only time he has been pressured somebody. It's not in the Justice Department. He also pressured the attorney general in the state of Georgia as well as the governor of Georgia. So, we know that -- we know he's been doing these things. We are likely to get more stories of where he's been doing it. I think his culpability will be even more obvious.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH (on camera): And many thanks to David Gergen joining me earlier.

One of Donald Trump's former press secretaries is expected to return to politics as a candidate. A source says Sarah Sanders will announce Monday that she is running for governor of Arkansas. A number of Republicans have already announced their bids, but she is seen as an early favorite. Sanders was Trump's second press secretary and left the White House in 2019. Her father, Mike Huckabee, was governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007.

Well the U.S. is making progress fighting the coronavirus, but experts are concerned about the pace of the vaccine rollout. Are the goals set by the Biden administration enough? We will hear from a medical analyst next.

[04:15:00]

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CHURCH: Health experts are becoming more concerned about emerging coronavirus variants like the ones discovered in Brazil, the U.K., and South Africa. Some recent data suggests they may be more contagious and possibly more deadly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR U.S. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We need to assume now that what has been circulating dominantly in the U.K. does have a certain degree of increase in what we call virulence, namely the power of the virus to cause more damage, including death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Officials are hoping that more vaccinations and continued mitigation measures will keep the spread of variants in check. But as Natasha Chen reports, it's slow going.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The U.S. has now surpassed 25 million coronavirus cases and the death toll continues to climb and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects a total of 569,000 Americans will have died from coronavirus by May 1st. Xavier Becerra President Biden's nominee to run Health and Human Services described this on Sunday.

XAVIER BECERRA, NOMINEE, U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: The plane is in a nosedive. We got to pull it up. And you're not going to do that overnight. But we're going to pull it up. We have to pull it up. Failure is not an option here.

CHEN (voice-over): But there has been some good news. The same model that predicted 549,000 deaths also shows nearly 43,000 people's lives may be saved in the same time frame thanks to vaccination. And the seven day moving average of new cases in the U.S. is starting to drop after an aggressive post-holiday peak. And the positivity rate stayed low enough in Chicago for restaurants and bars to restart limited indoor dining.

CASEY CORA, SPOKESPERSON, FRONTERA GRILL: When the rumors started swirling around our staff that it was going to be able to happen, there was a spark in everybody's eyes to be able to know that we are going to be able to do what we do best once again. And that's an exciting thing for us in the hospitality confection.

CHEN (voice-over): That same look of excitement and gratitude.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, they're for me, how sweet. That's so very kind.

CHEN (voice-over): Is in the eyes of millions of people lining up to be vaccinated around the country, including now mobile and pop-up vaccination sites run by companies like Amazon. The challenge is getting more supply districted to what's currently a patch work of local health providers who are sometimes battling website crashes and scheduling mishaps.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one knew what the hell they were doing so they sent everybody home.

VELA MCCLAM MITCHELL THOMAS, STRUGGLED TO SCHEDULE VACCINE APPOINTMENT: This is happening to me, and I'm well-educated. My husband is a State Senator, if this is happening to me, what's happening to people who don't have what I have?

[04:20:00]

And don't have the access that I have?

CHEN (voice-over): Meanwhile, officials have their eye on coronavirus variants and how well the vaccine may hold up as the virus changes.

DR. VIVEK MURTHY, FORMER U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: It means we've got to number one; do much better, genomic surveillance so can identify variant when they arise. It means we have to double down on public health measures, like masking and avoiding indoor gatherings. The bottom line is we're in a race against these variants. The virus is going to change and it's up to us to adapt and to make sure that we're staying ahead.

CHEN (voice-over): Natasha Chen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And as Natasha just explained, U.S. officials are trying to ramp up vaccinations as quickly as possible. But even as millions of doses get distributed, there is a lag at getting shots into arms. Take New York state, for instance, more than 2 million doses have been distributed but only 1.3 million have been administered. And only 6 percent have even received the first dose. States say supply issues are hampering the process. CNN's Evan McMorris-Santoro explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A couple of weeks ago the mayor of New York said this baseball stadium behind me -- usually the home of the New York Mets -- will become the home of the largest vaccine distribution site in this city starting this coming week.

But now the mayor's office says that plan is contingent upon the availability of the vaccine, something very much in question in New York state right now. Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday that this state is running out of vaccine and isn't expected to get more until mid-week.

That's a real challenge for people trying to get the vaccine into people's arms. The governor said he has the capacity to give 100,000 doses of the vaccine a day if he can just get the vaccine, he needs to do it. He's urging the federal government to get the vaccine out and get it out faster.

Evan McMorris-Santoro, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And supply problems are worrying federal health officials as well as more states begin running out of vaccine. Experts say the states need more logistical help from the government.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: The current supply crunch is the one I'm most worried about. We have every indication that over time we'll get more and more vaccine. So we certainly can't predict any of the obstacles that would come our way here, but from the data that I've seen so far, I'm hopeful that we'll actually get an increasing amount of supply, not a stagnating one.

BECERRA: You can't just tell the states and the local governments, here's some vaccines, now you go do it. No, we have to coordinate. We have to provide the resources. Many of these states, as you know, are suffering through massive budget deficits. They're trying to figure out where to get the resources to help these overburdened and tired health workers.

President Biden's plan provides for 100,000 new health care workers to get out there to all the states to help. It's a plan that can work if we all get -- you know, put our muscle to it together.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And president Biden has set a goal for his administration to deliver 100 million vaccine doses into the arms of Americans within the first 100 days of his term. Earlier I spoke with CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner and I asked him if that's enough and if the pace of the vaccine rollout will hamper those efforts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: As the weeks go on, the percent of new vaccinations is going to drop until every day, half of the vaccinations are new vaccinations and half of the vaccinations are the second dose. This is at least until the Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine becomes available.

So, we're actually going to be vaccinating fewer new people going forward than we are today. In order to get to herd immunity by this summer, or certainly by the fall, we need to do much better, and I think we need to vaccinate about two million people per day. Now people are worried about the supply of vaccine, but what we've learned this weekend is that Moderna and Pfizer have been shipping every week about 12 to 18 million doses of vaccine. We are only giving about nine million doses of vaccine.

So, as of today 21 million shots had been administered. There are 41 million -- about 41 million doses had been delivered. We should be administering every week as many doses as are delivered. We're nowhere near that.

CHURCH: So you mentioned the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. When would you expect that to be available and ready to administer to Americans?

REINER: Tony Fauci has said this weekend he believes we could have an approved J&J vaccine within about two weeks, and that would be a huge boost and adding more vaccine to the pipeline. And then the trick going forward is to stand up mass vaccination centers.

[04:25:00]

Maybe on the National Guard, bring on FEMA. Every city should have a big place delivering thousands of vaccines -- of vaccinations per day. That's how we're going to do it. And then getting vaccine out to the pharmacies around the country who have promised a very, very robust effort to vaccinate people.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH (on camera): And our thanks to Dr. Jonathan Reiner talking to me earlier.

Well the former coordinator for Donald Trump's White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, says she always considered quitting the job because her colleagues believe she had become too political. In an interview with CBS News Birx also said she had no idea where Trump was getting some of his information from.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made. so I know that someone or someone out there or someone inside was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president. I know what I sent up and I know that what was in his hands was different from that. You can't do that. You have to use the entire --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who was doing that?

BIRX: To this day I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Dr. Birx says contradicting statements from political leaders derailed her team's response to the virus, which is why she began traveling across the U.S. to spread accurate information without being censored.

And still to come on CNN, how the White House is trying to get lawmakers to back a nearly $2 trillion COVID relief package. Can Joe Biden's administration pull it off?

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