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COVID Relief Bill Includes Child Tax Credit Boost; House Democrats to Investigate Health Agencies; Malawi Battles South African COVID-19 Variant Without Vaccines. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired February 08, 2021 - 10:30   ET

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

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That this is all part of the same push that Democrats are making to try and ensure that that COVID relief bill can pass very quickly.

And I'll walk you through this specific proposal. Essentially what it would do is it would give families $3,000 a year for children between the ages of six and 17, and then $3,600 a year for children under the age of six. Now, this is a monthly payment that would start in July if it were to pass.

We also expect that it will be capped at certain incomes. So if you're a parent making $75,000, you get the full benefit. But if you make additional money beyond that, it starts to be phased out. If you're a couple making $150,000, again, you get the full benefit. But then if you make more than that, it starts to be phased out.

That is something that you're going to see a lot of in this COVID relief bill. Essentially, those markers of income thresholds, they want to make sure that this money is targeted. That is something you've heard a lot from Republicans, who are nervous about supporting something like this plan specifically.

But we should note that Mitt Romney, a Republican, came out with his own expanded Child Tax Credit last week. This provision is slightly different than that one, but I think it's important to note that Republicans are signaling some willingness to expand the Child Tax Credit.

This has been something that has been a top priority for Democrats for years. But of course because we're dealing with coronavirus and the effects that's had on the economy, now is an opportunity where Democrats view it as the time to push this piece of legislation -- Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: And as you've said, there have been Republicans -- Mitt Romney has his whole own legislation on it, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio had been supportive of the effort, so maybe they can get something done across the aisle, Lauren. Thank you.

Let's talk about that and a lot more -- and the future of the Republican Party with former Republican Congresswoman Mia Love of Utah.

It's great to have you, Congresswoman, thank you for being here.

MIA LOVE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: How are you, it's nice to see you again.

HARLOW: I'm all right. It's good to see you too.

I want to just start off on what Lauren just reported, because it's good to see this highlighted now. Nick Kristof wrote a really important column in the "Times" last week, saying the media -- and I think he's right -- that we haven't been covering this enough in terms of part of the stimulus, given that it could reduce child poverty in half according to Columbia University.

But then he wrote this. He wrote, "The most distressing part of the 10 Republican senators' counterproposal to Biden was their decision to drop the plan to curb child poverty... Is the supposedly 'pro-family' party battling to preserve child poverty?"

Do you think he's right, given the Democrats' push on this now, and notably, what Mitt Romney has done, what Mike Lee is supporting and what Rubio is supporting. They are behind efforts like this.

LOVE: Yes, they are behind efforts like this. And first of all, I'm actually happy that they are talking about this. This is one of the things that Washington is supposed to be doing, taking care of the American people.

So I think that it would be a great benefit to Democrats if they listen and they're able to give some of those -- some of the things that Republicans are asking for. I know Mitt Romney has been pushing to make sure that it is a targeted approach, that it actually helps families out.

And so I think that this is a time for members of Congress to show that they are focused on the right thing, focused on trying to help the American people, try to help feed families. And I think it is our responsibility to do what we can for children who are hungry, and children who are struggling throughout all of this. And still keep in mind how we're going to take care of the national debt when we come out of this.

Because at some point, the United States is going to have to come out of this and there are going to be some consequences that we need to make sure that we have a plan for.

What are the things that I could not -- that was difficult for me when I was in Washington, is that we tried to take care of the next year, next six months to a year, and forgot about what happens in the next four to five to six years after that. What does that look like.

HARLOW: As I tell my kids, if there's not -- money does not grow on trees, this is not free money --

LOVE: That's right.

HARLOW: -- it never is. LOVE: That's right.

HARLOW: Let's turn to the future of your party and these comments that I was really struck by yesterday, in the interview that Congresswoman Liz Cheney did with Chris Wallace. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): We need to make sure that we as Republicans are the party of truth, and that we're being honest about what really did happen in 2020. So we actually have a chance to win in 2022, and win the White House back in 2024.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: She says your party needs to be the party of truth. How do you get there when literally last week, polling from Quinnipiac showed that 76 percent of Republicans think there was widespread voter fraud in 2020? It's not true, but they think it. How do you become the party of truth?

LOVE: Well, I think one of the things that they have to stop doing is stop attacking each other. It does nothing to censure Liz Cheney, it did nothing in Arizona. All it did was -- look, Nancy Pelosi realizes that she has a narrow margin in the House of Representatives, and they're going to capitalize on every opportunity they can to widen that margin. That's fact. And what Republicans are doing by infighting is handing that over to her.

[10:35:14]

So I think when you talk about truth, you really need to get to the point and realize that people are going to vote differently than you. They're going to have a different opinion, and that's OK. They have to deal with that with their constituents. You don't go and fight within each other, and you start talking about the things that you are for.

You start talking about the limited government, the fiscal discipline, all of the things that Republicans actually stand for. And Republicans aren't talking about that right now, it's this purity test that no one's ever going to win. It's ridiculous, and the -- not only is the GOP going to lose, but they're going to lose big-time in two years if they don't cut it out.

HARLOW: That's quite a prediction, maybe more should be listening to you.

I mean, Liz Cheney also made an interesting point yesterday, Congresswoman, when she said, you know, we should have dealt with it as a party -- and by that I mean Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and her past comments. She did not vote to strip her of her committees because she thinks that it should have been dealt with by basically Kevin McCarthy, and not punted to the Democrats.

You at least, last week, were holding out some hope that McCarthy would stand up for what you believed in. Did he? LOVE: Well, I think -- I still think that the jury's out on that. I

still think he has time. What I was really upset about is, instead of taking care of what was going on in the House of Representatives, he went to Donald Trump. And I'm not sure if it was support, if it was money. Either way, it comes at a cost.

And so what I think it should be -- McCarthy has the responsibility of being the leader that the Republicans need in the House right now. You've got Matt Gaetz going to other people's districts, his own party's districts, fighting against them. That's not what we do.

I think that he has to do everything he can to make sure that he's bringing the party together and talking about the policies that we care about. And that's his job, that's the leadership that I'm expecting from him and I'm hoping that he will do that for us.

HARLOW: Former Republican congresswoman Mia Love, good to have you, thank you very much.

LOVE: Thank you.

HARLOW: Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Coming up next, House Democrats accuse the former Trump administration of playing politics during the pandemic with U.S. health agencies. This news is just breaking now, the details, disturbing. We'll have them, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:41:52]

HARLOW: All right, well this just in, House Democrats are asking the White House to hand over a lot of documents and presentations from the Trump administration. This is as they renew their investigation into what they call political influence in the coronavirus response.

SCIUTTO: Yes, there seems to be data, evidence to back this up. CNN national correspondent Kristen Holmes has been following this.

I mean, this gets to interfering with key health agencies -- HHS, CDC -- not only to hide data, it seems, but also to affect their guidelines. Tell us what the report shows.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jim and Poppy. And yes, that's exactly right. Look, a lot of this is stuff that we had been reporting, but there's also new information. So let's just start at the top.

We know that House Democrats have now sent a letter to the Biden administration -- specifically the chief of staff Ron Klain, as well as the acting HHS director -- asking them for documents from the Trump administration revolving around their response to the coronavirus pandemic. They say -- they allege -- that the Trump administration was not

forthcoming, and that they need this information to continue this investigation. But as you note, they also provide what they say is new evidence that alleges that the Trump administration really did three things.

They weakened CDC guidance to limit positive tests while promoting reopening. So remember that CDC, don't test asymptomatic people, that guidance that was so controversial. Manipulated public health information, and pressed the FDA director to approve treatments over objections of scientists. SO think convalescent plasma as well as hydroxychloroquine.

So again, they use a lot of the examples of our own reporting as well as e-mails that they obtained from a former Trump HHS adviser. But we're going to be watching this very closely because this is going to give us -- if they do get these documents and make them public -- those missing holes in what exactly the Trump administration was doing behind closed doors while all of this was going on.

SCIUTTO: Exactly, something to follow. Kristen Holmes, thanks very much.

Well, a second wave of COVID-19, driven by a new variant from South Africa, is bringing hospitals in nearby Malawi to their breaking point.

HARLOW: Our own David McKenzie went inside of a queen's hospital in Malawi where doctors are working around the clock -- truly -- to battle this virus, and they're dealing with a huge shortage of not only vaccine but also supplies. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here, too, COVID-19 is inflicting its most painful toll.

TAMARA PHIRI, PHYSICIAN, QUEEN ELIZABETH CENTRAL HOSPITAL: It went up, so they started treating it (INAUDIBLE).

Their emotions are very blurred. You don't know when to be the doctor that's lost patients, and then to be the family member or friend that's lost people and you're bereaved.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Dr. Tamara Phiri has a simple message for those who think COVID-19 is only severe in the Northern Hemisphere, or that vaccines are only urgently needed in Europe and the United States.

PHIRI: Now we're on to this second wave, which is a lot harder. So I think it's going to be a long year.

[10:45:01]

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Follow her on a round in Southern Malawi's largest hospital, where shifts are measured in days, not hours. PHIRI: This tent, here, is used to disinfect the dead bodies. And I

think that's one of the most traumatic things. We see people die all the time, but not like this. Like, not at this rate, not this many people who were well just a week or two ago. Yes, so it can get quite brutal.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): The last available space outside, plastic tents are being erected to handle this and future waves. These are the few extra resources.

PHIRI: We have basics. We don't have fancy treatment. We can't ventilate our patients, we don't have the capacity to ventilate.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): And there's no one else to step into the wards, just Dr. Phiri and her fellow Malawian doctors who, for months, have battled the virus that now, because of a new South African variant, is only getting worse.

PHIRI: I don't remember feeling like this in the first wave.

Maybe I'll just feel your pulse here.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Doctors Without Borders is fighting to get vaccines to Malawi. And at the very least, into the arms of health care workers like Phiri, one of just three remaining specialists covering four full COVID wards. The other five, all out sick with the virus.

PHIRI: Literally the country's bleeding and people are dying and, like, all the systems are, like, really strained with this particular wave.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Some countries have ordered many times the number of vaccines than the size of their population. What impact could that have?

MARION PECHAYRE, HEAD OF MISSION, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS: This issue right now is more a time issue than a quantity issue. The health system falls apart, you know, it's not only people dying from COVID that we're going to have here. We're going to have excess mortality related to other diseases.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Hope is still being kept alive, if only because of Dr. Phiri and the nurses and the workers constantly delivering precious oxygen tanks to the wards. But Phiri says to survive as a doctor at Queens also means being a realist.

PHIRI: We had to accept that our situation would (ph) have (ph) been (ph) different. You have to come in mentally prepared and you have to tell yourself that I'm going to be well, and I'm going to look after myself. And we'll do with what we have, but we'll do our best.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): After all, her skills as a doctor are honed by the years of never carrying a full arsenal of weapons.

MCKENZIE: Twenty-year-olds in Europe might get vaccines before you get a vaccine.

PHIRI: Sure.

MCKENZIE: How does that make you feel?

PHIRI: It's -- it's brutal, but it's reality.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Why would this moment be any different?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE: Well, here at this hospital, they have these tents here because they're expecting this wave to continue, and more waves to come, Jim and Poppy. What they want right now is some 40,000 vaccine doses, that's it. Forty thousand doses could come to this country, help health workers like Tamara Phiri to keep them safe so they can keep Malawians safe.

And otherwise, they say that it might buckle the health system here. That inequality around vaccines, where millions of people have already been vaccinated in the U.S., in Europe and elsewhere, not a single one has been vaccinated here in Malawi -- Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Oh my. David, that piece is -- is jaw-dropping. I mean, to hear her say it's brutal but it's the reality, when you asked her, a 20-year-old in Europe might get this before you would get it, you know saving lives. Do they feel like they have an ally now in the Biden administration, that at least they've joined COVAX and they've joined this effort to get vaccine to, you know, third-world countries?

MCKENZIE: Well, the symbolism is there, and that has heartened scientists across this region. But the reality is we don't see the vaccines in this part of Africa. And until you have that reality, all the talk is just talk. The talk of solidarity means nothing until the vaccine doses hit these shores.

SCIUTTO: Yes, 40,000 vaccine doses would be one-one thousandth, right? Of the number of people who have been vaccinated already in this country. I mean, it's amazing to watch.

HARLOW: David, we're so glad you did that reporting. Thank you for bringing it to us.

[10:49:19]

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Well, he's not done yet, if you can believe it. Tom Brady is promising he will be back, after winning his record seventh Super Bowl ring, fifth MVP, leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers past -- in case you might have heard -- the Kansas City Chiefs in a dominating --

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- performance.

HARLOW: Clearly, 43 is the new 30 -- at least for Tom Brady. Coy Wire was at the big game, he is in Tampa with a "Bleacher Report." How much fun did you have last night?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: It was a really surreal experience, being in that stadium, Poppy -- good to see you and Jim.

And, Jim, you mentioned those seven titles, his seven titles is more than any franchise in NFL history.

HARLOW: Wow.

WIRE: But what's impressive, it's his first season with the Bucs. And you can't buy a super team in football like you can in the NBA, where two or three stars will get you to the playoffs. Football rosters are huge, 11 guys on offense, 11 on defense, entire special teams units all having to click at a high level.

So it's so impressive, what Brady's teams have done over the last two decades. He brings (ph) everyone up around him, incorrigible work ethic, sacrificing family time.

His wife, Gisele, and the kids let him have the entire house to himself for 12 days before this game so he could have intense film study, study the playbooks and you know, those moments on the field after the win were probably so much sweeter because of that type of sacrifice.

[10:55:08]

You know, here he was again, the greatest of all time, solidifying that. And, Poppy, after Jim bet you five bucks that the Chiefs were going to win? I texted you afterwards, and I said, go ahead and tell Jim to pay you five bucks right now. I've got to know, did he do it?

SCIUTTO: Coy, I don't mind bets --

HARLOW: No --

SCIUTTO: -- and just for the record --

HARLOW: -- he's a total -- no. Cheapskate --

SCIUTTO: -- there's the five --

HARLOW: Give it to me, OK.

SCIUTTO: -- and I'm handing it across --

HARLOW: Oh, no. I got it.

SCIUTTO: We practiced this, Poppy.

HARLOW: Did we screw it up?

SCIUTTO: We practiced it.

HARLOW: We did this in the -- this is not my strength, Sciutto. But, Coy, he's only paying because you made him.

WIRE: Yes -- there's, like, Venmo now, you can digitally pass someone five bucks.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: Right.

WIRE: But you tried, good effort, A for effort.

HARLOW: That's what the kids do.

Thank you, Coy.

Thanks for the money, Sciutto. And --

SCIUTTO: Deserved.

HARLOW: -- thanks to all of you. You're taking me to lunch, next time you're here.

Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with Kate Bolduan starts right after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)