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Cuomo Under Fire Over Alleged Cover-Up of Nursing Home COVID Toll; U.S. Seeing Sharp Decline in Cases and Hospitalizations for Coronavirus; Trump's Acquittal Deepens Rift Within Republican Party; CDC Says Teachers Should Get Vaccine but Not Required to Reopen Schools. Aired 3:30-4p ET.

Aired February 15, 2021 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, if I could just add on top of that, so we received this inquiry on August 26, it was just a request for information, but it was public nursing homes which are five state-run facilities as well as a number of county-run facilities. And so data had to be collected and reviewed for a number of nursing homes. I believe it was 26 nursing homes that we provided voluminous documentation, and all that have had to be verified.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Dennis, you had a second question?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, just going back to the story that we had today about the budget negotiations and some lawmakers talking about the threat of subpoena or, you know, rescinding your emergency powers. You kind of touched on this earlier. But I'm kind of curious your response to that and have you spoken to the legislative leaders about this?

CUOMO: Yes. Dennis, that is -- that is a crime. You can't say I'm a former assistant district attorney. You can't use a subpoena or the threat of an investigation to leverage a person. That's a crime. It's called abuse of process. It's called extortion.

So, the question before was is that raw politics, no, it's not raw politics. That's criminal, and there are -- I don't know the facts. I wasn't in the room, but in the room, you have lawyers. You have former prosecutors who are in that room. They know it's illegal, but, no, I didn't talk to the leaders about it. Next question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Next up we have Marcia Kramer from WCBS-TV. Marcia, your line is now open. Please unmute your microphone.

MARCIA KRAMER, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, WCBS-TV: Governor, can you hear me?

CUOMO: Hey, Marcia, how are you? Happy Valentine's Day.

KRAMER: So my question to you is this. The members -- several members of the legislature, some Republicans, some Democrats, have asked that there be an investigation of what happened. If that investigation was done, it might be, for example, be done by the Attorney General. You're a former Attorney General. If you were in this situation and looked at this fact pattern, would you open an investigation of what has happened so far?

And my second part of the question is do you think if there was an investigation and the Attorney General agreed with everything that you said that it would help clear the air?

CUOMO: Marcia, I don't think there's anything to clear here. It is a fact that the state legislature did a request. We told them we were not going to address the request at that time, that we were going to honor the DOJ request first. We said that.

That's a fact. There's nothing to investigate there, and then we provided information to DOJ so there's no -- there is nothing to investigate.

I am telling you I agree to the legislature's point. They sent the letter and we said that we would deal with the DOJ first. I agree. I said that. They were told that, and by the way, they could have objected. You know, they can send a demand letter. They're not talking about subpoenas. They could have sent the subpoena and said we don't want to wait for DOJ, we want to send you a subpoena. They didn't do that.

They understood that we were dealing with a pandemic and that we were giving DOJ precedence. And by the way I think they were right in that. All the numbers we produced were exactly right. We didn't provide all the information that was requested that did create a void and misinformation did fill the void and that misinformation gave people aggravation and confused people, and confused people who lost a loved one. And allowed conspiracy theories to fester, and that aggravated people who lost a loved one because now you don't know who to believe and that is the last thing anyone wanted to create. But it's not a legal question.

KRAMER: So are you really saying that this is sort of the creation of a toxic --

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You've been listening to Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York and let's just zoom out for a second. So the governor there, really the embattled governor, could be in a bit of trouble.

[15:35:00]

He has really come under fire, and you heard question, after question, after question about this nursing home issue. He's come under fire because the allegations are that he, his administration covered up, hid, undercounted the number of nursing home deaths in the state of New York.

You think back to New York, the epicenter of the pandemic last spring. A lot of eyeballs on him and his leadership in the state. And so there are now calls for him to resign. Specifically Democratic state legislators are calling for the appeal of his emergency executive powers. He's pushing back. You just heard him say emergency powers have nothing to do with nursing homes.

So let's get some context and talk about his defense. Brynn Gingras is our correspondent who has really been in the weeds in all of this, she is there in Albany and Elizabeth Cohen is our senior medical correspondent and we'll come to you in a second, Elizabeth.

But Brynn, to you. We've been listening to the governor for the better part of a half, you know, an hour. What do you make of his defense?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's a lot to unpack there, Brooke, that's for sure.

BALDWIN: Yes.

GINGRAS: I will tell you that I don't know if it's going to please a lot of people. This is very Andrew Cuomo. If you talk to people that know him or worked for him, they'll say that he doesn't apologize for anything. You just won't get an apology from him.

This may be the closest anyone will ever get from an apology when it comes to this issue, but, again, there's still so many questions out there that I think that people won't necessarily be satisfied with this explanation of a lot of topics.

One thing I really do want to point out though is that this issue with the nursing homes, right, the whole issue is that they were being counted in a way that, like you said, they were underreported according to the Attorney General who did a whole investigation into it. They weren't clear about how many actual elderly people in nursing homes, long-term care facilities died from COVID-19. They're being separated into all these different categories and it was creating this confusion.

The governor admitted to that, right, and he said the void put out disinformation, put out confusion. Well, the whole reason Governor Cuomo was lauded globally really for his response to this pandemic was because he was so clear, he was so forthcoming and yet now he's saying that he really wasn't that forthcoming. He actually could have done better. They should have prioritized who they gave this information to. So he was criticizing, you know, the Trump administration, different politicians across this country about how they put forth this information but he was doing the same thing.

So I think that's so frustrating for people who for months have been just trying to get information as to where their loved one's number is. Sure, we know that the state counted the totals. They had the totals according to them correct. It's just how they were categorized.

And so that's the whole issue that I think that people are still going to want answers to. Another thing that, of course, this all is just becoming a boiling point, right, because of that -- that phone call, zoom phone call that his top aide Melissa DeRosa had with Democratic lawmakers where she explained what you just heard from the governor that they prioritized this DOJ request about these nursing numbers over the legislature's request and the public's -- the press request.

And in that phone call the text it says we didn't want those numbers used against us. Well, what does that mean? There was no explanation of what that used against us really means when we're talking about this. So that's where this whole cover-up allegation came about, that's where all the investigation calls come about. So I think there's a little bit of clarity. There's an explanation but very much in an Andrew Cuomo way and I think a lot of people aren't going to be totally satisfied with what they heard today.

BALDWIN: Yes, just hearing all of that there's just so much to pick through and I think at end of the day -- Elizabeth Cohen to you -- for people who are watching this and wondering, well, why does it matter how deaths are counted? What's your answer to that?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So it does matter how deaths are counted. There's a reason why states and counties and cities count deaths in nursing homes versus deaths in other places or deaths, men versus women. All these categories matter.

Part of what have gets to the heart of this is the counting of people who died in nursing homes, like literally died in the nursing home versus people who became ill who contracted COVID in the nursing home and then died later in hospitals.

And this is not the first time, nor will it be the last time that there is confusion over a point like that. For example, sometimes in other places you'll see somebody becomes sick in a hospital. They are transferred to another hospital where they die. Where should you count that death?

So you we're sort of watching the sausages get made here, and I think it gets -- this is one of the reasons why it gets confusing. It does matter where deaths are counted, but you also want to take a step back and say, look, this was an extremely confusing time. I mean, Brooke, you're in New York. You remember what it was like.

BALDWIN: Yes.

COHEN: And so we have to think, you know, how much could they have delineated that at the time versus sort of fixed it later?

[15:40:00]

BALDWIN: Elizabeth and Brynn, ladies thank you so much for all of that on Governor Cuomo.

Let's stay on COVID. And coming up, scientists discovering more variants of the coronavirus here in the U.S., but here's the good news today. Cases are still dropping dramatically. We have those new details ahead.

Also, the pressure is growing on President Biden to pass a new COVID relief bill as millions of Americans are inching closer to losing their crucial jobless benefits. And Senator Lindsey Graham says former President Trump's daughter-in- law Lara is the future of the GOP. Let's discuss. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

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[15:45:00]

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

To politics now. And while former President Trump may have been acquitted by the Senate of incitement of an insurrection, it is the Republican Party as a whole really that may be suffering the most political damage.

With me now CNN's senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, He's a senior editor over at "The Atlantic" and Doug Heye is a Republican strategist and the former communications at the RNC.

So gentlemen, good to see you both. And Doug, to you first, tar heel. I know you want in on so let's just dive in. You know, we're seeing all these examples of the divide in GOP and now with the North Carolina Republican Party they're moving to censure Senator Richard Burr tonight, he was one of the seven Republican Senators who voted to convict Trump.

Are state Republican parties just basically looking for brownie points from the former president here? Like what's the point of this?

DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think there really is a point other than appeasing Donald Trump. In full disclosure I worked for Richard Burr in his first campaign and then in the United States Senate and agree wholeheartedly with his vote. I was really proud of him.

This is about what we've seen Republicans do for four years now. They always hustle to score points with Donald Trump. The reality is he doesn't give points, he only takes them away one at a time. And I would tell Michael Whatley who's my friend who's the state party chair, a bigger problem for Republicans in North Carolina than Richard Burr who's an asset for the party, not a problem by any stretch, is the fact that since January 6th Republicans, more than 15,000 Republicans have left the party and reregistered as unaffiliated. That number has probably increased in recent days as well. And if you're losing 15,000 people in January and February of an off year, you've got a real problem that you need to address.

BALDWIN: No and I would love to hear your friend, the state party chair's response to that. There is now, Ron, a significant minority, Senator Burr and the six other Republican Senators whose views just clearly are not compatible with Donald Trump.

Add to that Trump's former ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley who is rumored to have eyes on 2024 who made this calculated political risk this past week to distance herself from Trump.

Now Senator Lindsey Graham says his fellow South Carolinian is wrong and offered this instead about Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): He's ready to move on and rebuild the Republican Party. He's excited about 2022, and I'm going to go down to talk with him next week, play a little golf in Florida. And I said, Mr. President, this MAGA movement needs to continue. We need to unite the party. Trump Plus is the way back in 2022.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Playing golf with him next week. He said he was done on the night of the insurrection. I digress. Ron Brownstein, how will we know, will 2022 really be the litmus test for Trumpism?

RON BROWNSTEIN, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, I think Lindsey Graham is more right than wrong in this -- in this regard. I mean, Donald Trump has accelerated an ongoing reconfiguration of the Republican coalition.

In the '80s they talked about the Republican coalition and Ronald Reagan being kind of a three-legged stool, national security, conservatives, economic conservatives, cultural conservatives. Now the core of the party are the voters who are the most uneasy about the way the country is changing demographically and culturally.

New polling out from American Enterprises to us, we have a conservative think tanks, three-quarters of Republicans say that whites face as much discrimination as minorities.

New polling out from another conservative think, the Ethics in Public Policy Institute last week. Two-thirds of Republicans say Christianity is under assault in the U.S. 60 percent say whites face growing bias and only 10 percent say there is systematic racism is a serious problem in the U.S.

This is the core of the Republican Party and what's especially ominous, I think, Brooke, is that those attitudes have been shown in multiple studies, those concerns about the way the country is changing demographically and culturally, are the voters who hold those views are also the ones who are most likely to express anti-democratic thoughts, anti-democratic sentiments and support for the kind of conspiracy theories like QAnon.

So this is a real challenge for mainstream Republican leaders to try to get ahold -- to contain this movement when it is such a big portion of their base at this point.

BALDWIN: Well, listen, I mean speaking of maybe containing it or not. Doug, this is for you. Lindsey Graham also said really the biggest winner out of this whole impeachment trial was Lara Trump. His direct quote was, if she runs, I will certainly be behind her because I think she represents the future of the Republican Party.

What do you think of that, Doug, and how many Trumps could we see on a 2022 ballot? HEYE: Well, look, I think Lindsey Graham has gone from enough is

enough on January 6th to quoting Billy Idol that too much is never enough and whatever Trump he can get, whether he's playing golf with them or trying to have them win in other states he'll do.

[15:50:00]

But look, Mark Walker, the former Congressman is a very strong candidate running in North Carolina, and the party remains with real divisions. Lindsey Graham admitted that the party needs to be rebuilt, and it needs to be rebuilt because we have the struggle that we saw in the House Republican conference meeting where Liz Cheney beat back a challenge overwhelmingly so. While at the same time, Republican members of the conference were applauding Marjorie Taylor Greene. Those two things can't really stand on their own at the same time together.

BALDWIN: I think the test will be two years from now. Ron and Doug, we'll continue it another day. Guys, thank you so much. Good to see both of you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, Brooke.

HEYE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up, coronavirus cases dropping in a big way nationwide but scientists also discovering more and more variants of the virus. What that means for all of us next.

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[15:55:00]

BALDWIN: Some truly encouraging news today. The new numbers in the coronavirus pandemic, the CDC reports cases and hospitalizations are declining sharply in the U.S. The country is now averaging fewer than 100,000 new cases per day and more than half of the states' report a 20 percent drop in new cases from the week before.

Yes, there is still a ways to go. The nation's vaccine rollout is progressing, albeit slowly. Only 4 percent of the country has been fully vaccinated. And health officials warn Americans not to expect vaccines to be widely available until late spring or summer.

Another concern there are several new homegrown variants being detected right here in the U.S. Nick Watt is our CNN national correspondent, he reports from Los Angeles where vaccines are in short supply.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Thermal cameras in Loudoun County, Virginia, ready to scan for students with high temperatures when they return to school later this week. When can all schools reopen? DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Somewhere around 60 percent of

students are reliably masking. That has to be universal. So we have work to do.

WATT (voice over): And debate on one key issue rolls on.

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Of course, teacher vaccinations are essential.

WALENSKY: I'm a strong advocate of teachers receiving their vaccinations, but we don't believe it's a prerequisite for schools to reopen.

WATT (voice over): In 22 states, teacher is still not an eligible category. Today, many places, this is the problem.

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): This weather is going to slow down our vaccinations some.

WATT (voice over): Here in Los Angeles, in the 60s, partly sunny. But the vaccination site at Dodger Stadium remains closed. Lack of supply. Team Biden says they're playing catch up.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was no national strategy or plan for vaccinations. We were leaving it to the states and local leaders to try and figure it out. And so in many ways, we are come -- we are starting from scratch on something that's been raging for almost an entire year.

WATT (voice over): Good news, nationwide in just a month, the average daily COVID-19 case count has fallen more than 50 percent. And for the first time since mid-November, fewer than 70,000 are in the hospital, fighting the virus.

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY: I know a bunch of states are relaxing their restrictions. That makes me nervous. It's those mutations give me pause.

WATT (voice over): Nearly 1,200 cases now confirmed here of those more contagious variants first found in the U.K., South Africa and Brazil.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Now they're on our radar screen. And now that we're looking for them, we're finding them.

WATT (voice over): Seven homegrown U.S. variants also now identified. So far, no evidence they evade vaccines, but signs they may be more transmissible. The research goes on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT (on camera): So, the variants and the vaccines, that is one of the big questions right now. Now Novavax, their vaccine is still in trials here in the U.S., but the company says that their researchers have begun lab tests on a different version of that vaccine specifically targeting that variant first found in South Africa. They will still need to figure out whether that would be a booster

shot or if it would be a one shot covers all. The wild strain and the South African variant -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: I do have one quick question for you. I've got 60 seconds left. I want to ask about kids. Because we just got this news in that the 89 percent of U.S. children live in what's considered a red zone under the new CDC guidelines for school reopenings.

WATT: Yes.

BALDWIN: What does that mean? Tell us more about that.

WATT: Well, Brooke, you're now hitting on the second -- one of the second biggest -- the second biggest question probably right now, which is when can most kids get back into school?

Now when the CDC released those guidelines Friday, 99 percent of kids were living in those red zones. That's now dropped to 89. We are moving in the right direction.

But what it means if you are in one of those zones is that middle school and high school should remain virtual, should remain virtual. And for elementary schools, they also need to take some pretty serious mitigation measures. Heading in the right direction but still no answer, particularly here in California, when kids can go back.

BALDWIN: Got it. Nick, thank you so much, in Los Angeles for us this afternoon.

And just a quick programming note for all of you. President Joe Biden will be joining Anderson Cooper live from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in this exclusive presidential town hall. So, make sure you tune in tomorrow night, 9:00 Eastern, only here on CNN.

I'm Brooke Baldwin here in New York. Thank you so much for being with me.

To Washington, we go. "THE LEAD" starts right now.

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