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Vaccination Rates May Impact School Reopenings; Interview with White House Council of Economic Advisers Member Jared Bernstein; Pakistan Court Orders Release of Daniel Pearl Kidnappers. Aired 10:30- 11a ET
Aired January 28, 2021 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:30:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just outside New York City, a similar fight: plans to reopen schools scrapped when teachers refused to return.
In West Virginia, one of the state's largest teacher's unions is suing the Board of Education, which voted unanimously to resume in-person learning by the end of the month.
And in Los Angeles, the superintendent says all of its teachers should be vaccinated before returning to in-person instruction.
AUSTIN BEUTNER, SUPERINTENDENT, L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT: Once that's done, we'll be at the school front door with big smiles under our masks.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): But as both sides of the debate await a solution, parents and students await answers with the experiences of virtual school top of mind.
JEZENIAH KEYS, SEVENTH GRADER: We don't always have our cameras on, so the teacher don't know if you need help, struggling. So you have to really speak up for yourself.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): The Keys family in Chicago is still weighing their options.
MARIAH KEYS, SECOND GRADER: I want to stay home.
JIMENEZ: You want to stay home?
M. KEYS: Because I don't want to wear my mask all day.
STEVEN KEYS, FATHER: We want to make sure that we're not just, you know, expediting our children and putting them in a situation where we just want them out the house.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): While other families say it's time. ROSARIO ANACLETO, MOTHER: I'm that parent that's constantly like, put
your mask over your nose, do not touch this, do not touch that. And I believe that I've implemented (ph) that into their brains enough, and with the school's help they're going to do OK.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ: And as we just found out a few moments ago, a little over 10,000 students have newly opted out of in-person learning here in Chicago, between the last estimate and now.
And on the teaching front, while teachers are in the 1B vaccination phase, which we're in here in Chicago, it's going to be a while before supply meets demand and in the meantime, we're here at this stalemate -- Poppy, Jim.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Omar, thank you very much, it matters so much to so many people.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's bring in Dr. Ashish Jha, global health expert and the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
Dr. Jha, always good to have you on. So even the most conservative experts such as Dr. Fauci have been consistent for months that schools can reopen safely with mitigation. We have the new CDC director Rochelle Walensky, she told CNN last night schools should be the first to open, last to close.
I wonder, in your view, are teachers -- like the ones we just profiled, teachers' unions, overestimating the threat here?
ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Well first of all, thank you for having me on. You know, it's on a case-by- case basis, right? There are places that have not put in enough mitigation and don't have good rules about mask-wearing where I'd be very sympathetic to anybody -- kids or teachers -- who don't want to be in those schools. But there are other places that have done the work of putting in mitigation, at which point I think people should not be concerned.
So you know so that's the basic issue, right? Is that we want to get kids back in, remote learning has been a disaster for lots of children, particularly kids of poor background, kids who are from communities of color. And we've got to get kids back into schools, and we've got to get the mitigation efforts in .
And if we do that, the evidence is very clear that it's quite safe to have children back in school.
HARLOW: You heard from Omar, saying teachers in Chicago are now in the group that can get a vaccine but the supply just isn't there, right? And you were quoted in "The New York Times" earlier this week saying anything short of 2 million vaccinations a day would be, in your words, deeply disappointing. I just wonder if you could elaborate on that for us. JHA: Sure. Look, I'm trying to set a high bar for where we need to
be. We are in a difficult situation in the country right now. We've got these variants starting to spread, we've got infections heading in the right directions. And what I'm trying to do is say I would like for us to be doing 2 million vaccines a day, vaccinations a day.
Do I think we can achieve that? I do. Do I think it's going to be easy? No, but I do think that should eb the kind of bold goal that we should set as a country, obviously way better than the Trump administration did. And more than, I think, the Biden team thinks it should do, and I feel like we should push them to go even further.
SCIUTTO: OK, so a glass half full moment here. You know, I look at the screen, it's 25 million Americans have now been vaccinated, about a year after the first case was documented in this country, so coming up on 10 percent. And it does look that it's going to accelerate, right? You and others have said there's data it's going to accelerate. Could you say we're not doing that badly?
JHA: Yes, we're not doing that badly. By the way it's interesting, right? We have about 25 million people vaccinated, and about 25 million Americans have been infected. It's amazing how much more powerful vaccines are for generating immunity, that if you put in vaccination programs, you can generate a lot more immunity and keep people safe than letting the infection run wild, as many people were suggesting under the previous administration.
We're not doing badly, and we're doing better than many other countries. Again, my personal take is we're the United States of America, we should be leading, we should be doing a fabulous job. We're not yet doing a fabulous job, and I think we should be pushing our political leaders to do even better.
[10:35:03]
HARLOW: I like that glass half full, Jim Sciutto, we needed that --
SCIUTTO: Sometimes.
HARLOW: -- and you make a really good point, so thank you for that, I needed that this morning, Dr. Jha, thank you as well.
JHA: Thank you.
SCIUTTO: Well, a senior Biden administration official says that the president is willing to pare down somewhat his $1.9 trillion stimulus plan. A member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers will join us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:40:04]
HARLOW: Well, this morning, we just learned that the U.S. economy last year suffered its worst decline since 1946, this pandemic has been devastating. Now, the question is how do you pick up this economy off its knees?
Jared Bernstein serves on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and joins me this morning.
I'm so glad to have you on this. And let me just begin, Jared, with your reaction to what Democratic Senator Dick Durbin just told me last hour, and that is that he agrees with Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democrat Joe Manchin who both think the direct payments in the current $1.9 trillion bill are not targeted enough, and Durbin says that has to change. Will the Biden administration change that?
JARED BERNSTEIN, MEMBER, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Well, you heard the president the other day talking about his willingness to deal with whatever folks bring to him, given the urgency of getting this package across the legislative goal line.
Now, as you'd expect, I've looked very carefully at the distributional impact of these checks, and I can tell you that they have a better impact than some of this discussion would suggest. By better, I mean more targeted.
Remember, for single filers, they start to phase out at $75,000. Now, that may sound like, you know, a decent amount of money, but people in the middle class are struggling. They're facing rental issues, they're facing mortgage issues. Many of them are losing hours and jobs and wages still, this late in the game.
So we believe that this -- these direct payments are not only urgent and necessary, but if you look at the numbers, they disproportionately help those at the middle and the bottom.
HARLOW: You just said something interesting, you said get it across the legislative goal line. That's really different than pushing it through reconciliation, which seems to be where it's headed, is it not? Do you guys think that you're going to get this through on a bipartisan basis?
BERNSTEIN: Well, you know, we have a political team and an economics team, and I'm on the latter --
HARLOW: I know.
BERNSTEIN: -- but what I have heard people say is that -- including the president -- is that this is the kind -- these are the kinds of measures that people on both sides of the aisle not only should embrace, but do embrace.
So the American labor movement is very much in favor of the rescue plan, not a surprise. But so is the Business Roundtable, so is the Chamber of Commerce. I've heard Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell say very good things, for example, about the checks we were just talking about. I know that governors in red states, you know, they've got schools they're trying to open too. They need to see the production and the distribution of the vaccine ramp up.
So in my view, the bipartisan nature of the urgency here ought to point you toward regular order and quick passage.
HARLOW: Yes, OK. They like some parts of it, they don't like all of it.
But I want to move on to the really big picture here, as you take this critical new job and as this administration tries to lead us out of this devastating economy. It goes beyond this bill, it goes beyond job creation. It goes to the big question, Jared, I think, of wealth creation in this country for people who have not even had a fair shot at it.
When you looked at the report this week that said during the pandemic you have billionaires gaining a trillion more dollars since March, and in the last six months, 8 million more Americans falling into poverty. I wonder if you think, fundamentally, capitalism needs to change. And if you do, what the Biden administration plans to push for on that front.
BERNSTEIN: First of all, you're blowing my mind by taking me out of this very narrow -- very appropriately, this very narrow thing of like what's happening in the last five minutes, which is also important. But to this big picture that's so essential and in fact, at the core of the Biden presidency.
When he talks about building back better, he's not talking about just getting back to where we were, he's talking about dealing with structural inequities, including of course systemic racism. That's at the core, and you heard him talk about it earlier this week.
And that gets to the core of what you're saying. I don't think there's some sort of fundamental, you know, inherent problem with capitalism. I think the problem is --
HARLOW: You don't?
BERNSTEIN: -- that the structure -- no, I think the structure -- I think the problem is with the structure of the way this system is implemented in -- at this moment in time. That is, we have an economy that in normal times -- and by the way, our package is trying to get us back to better than normal times, sooner than later -- generates enough wealth for there to be prosperity for all, including the --
(CROSSTALK)
HARLOW: Yes --
BERNSTEIN: -- folks (ph) that have been left behind.
But the policy architecture, the connective tissue between overall growth and the prosperity of those in the middle class and below, has just eroded over the years because of such policy negligence that has favored those at the top --
(CROSSTALK)
HARLOW: Yes, and -- BERNSTEIN: -- at the expense of those at the bottom, and that's what we've got to fix.
[10:45:02]
HARLOW: And look, Jared, to your credit, you've written a lot about this. Let me quote you from just December. Quote, "There is something foundational in the structure of economics that is too accepting about embedded racial injustice... The problem is that it is impossible 'to observe the empirical record of black economic outcomes and not conclude that market failure is pervasive.'"
For more than 50 years, black families have not gained the kind of wealth white families have. In fact, it is 10 times as much for white households in America, still, according to the Fed. Can you guarantee that after the Biden administration, it's going to be any different?
BERNSTEIN: Well, of course no one can make that guarantee, but I appreciate your reading what I wrote, and I guess it's -- I don't want to be self-referential, but that still resonates, you know, very strongly with me. And it's just -- it's not brilliant insights, it's just a bunch of facts.
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: And the key word there is "market failure." For persons of color, this market has failed them not just in the recession, but in the expansion. And not the last expansion, but historical expansions. And yes, this is about building the connective tissue through the policy agenda that we've been articulating to finally bring folks who have been left behind along.
If you listen to Biden's executive orders this week, we're talking about for example in the area of housing, he's already talking about trying to chip away at the systemic racism reflected in those policies, and the agenda goes much deeper than that.
HARLOW: So --
BERNSTEIN: By the way, let me just say one thing. You asked for a --
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: -- guarantee? One reason you're not going to get a guarantee is because we need Congress to partner with us on this agenda.
HARLOW: OK, fair enough. We'll have many more conversations about this, going forward, I certainly hope.
You talk about --
(CROSSTALK)
BERNSTEIN: That's a great -- HARLOW: -- left behind, so let me just end on this. Do you believe that what we're seeing happen right now with GameStop and Wall Street bets on Reddit is much bigger than this one moment and these few stocks? Do you believe that this is a fundamental pushback against the establishment, saying, the system has not worked for us. And I wonder what your takeaway is, does it change our market and our economy, big picture?
BERNSTEIN: So I think what you're talking about, and specific stock and the specific markets as of today or yesterday, that's a question for our SEC. And they released a statement on this, about watching this development closely and addressing the market volatility therein.
I think for me and for the president, where this goes is that we're not going to measure our progress by the stock market. That is --
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: -- yes, the stock market is obviously something we keep an eye on, the SEC, in the spirit we were just talking about. But the stock market, you yourself said this a minute ago, it is -- you've got a booming stock market and you've got rising poverty. That is at the core of the problem that we are trying to solve --
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: -- and not just in the near term, but lastingly.
HARLOW: I think that's not exactly the question I was getting at, but we'll have you back because I think something really big is happening here that we saw happen in politics, and I think it's happening to Wall Street now --
(CROSSTALK)
BERNSTEIN: Well wait a second, I just want to say, you're raising structural issues, not just cyclical issues --
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: -- not just GDP of the (INAUDIBLE). And I'm with you all the way on that, and I want to come back and talk about the --
HARLOW: OK.
BERNSTEIN: -- structural reforms that are needed.
HARLOW: Come back. OK, come back, there's a lot going on here, we appreciate your time, Jared Bernstein. Thank you.
BERNSTEIN: My pleasure.
HARLOW: Jim.
[10:48:29] SCIUTTO: Breaking overnight, Pakistan's top court has ordered the release of the men convicted of kidnapping, murdering, beheading American journalist Daniel Pearl. We have reaction, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Pakistan's supreme court has just ordered the release of four men who were previously convicted in the 2002 kidnapping and beheading of "Wall Street Journal" reporter Daniel Pearl.
SCIUTTO: CNN senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt has been following. I mean, Alex, what was the justification for this? I can't imagine the Pearl family can handle the news.
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No, they're understandably very upset, this is a stunning turn of events. And, as you said, this was a grisly beheading on-camera that was seen around the world. The 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, claimed responsibility, but then four men in 2002 were arrested and charged with the murder.
And then that ruling was overturned last year, three men were acquitted; one man who had been sentenced to death, his sentence was reduced to seven years. And understandably, there were appeals by the Pearl family and the Pakistani authorities. And now we have just heard from the Pakistani supreme court, allowing these four men to be released.
Let me read you part of what the Pearl family lawyer said today. They said, "Today's decision is a complete travesty of justice and the release of these killers puts in danger journalists everywhere and the people of Pakistan. We urge the U.S. government to take all necessary actions under the law to correct this injustice... No amount of injustice will defeat our resolve to fight for justice for Daniel Pearl."
Now, Pearl had been in Karachi, Pakistan, doing a story on Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. The four men who have been acquitted have now -- are being barred from leaving the country. We've asked the State Department for a response, we have not yet heard back. We will see whether Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, says anything at her briefing later today -- Jim, Poppy.
HARLOW: I'm sure she will. Alex, thank you very, very much.
[10:55:00]
And thanks to all of you for being with us today -- quite a busy one -- we'll see you tomorrow morning, I'm Poppy Harlow.
SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with Kate Bolduan starts right after a short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Hello everyone, I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us this hour.
[10:59:55]
Moments from now, we are standing by for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she will be speaking with reporters in the Capitol. And there's a lot to ask her about.
