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Fauci Says Do Not Get Complacent as COVID Numbers Go Down; CDC Says Variant in U.K. Could Be Dominant in U.S. by March; New Cases and Hospitalizations Down Across the U.S.; North Carolina GOP Censures Senator Burr for Impeachment Vote; McConnell Defends Vote to Acquit Trump; Wisconsin GOP Senator Downplays Deadly Attack on Capitol; Winter Storm Brings Massive Power Outages in Texas. Aired 3:30-4p ET.

Aired February 16, 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]

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ANDY SLAVITT, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR COVID-19 ADVISER: They said that we have it. It's going to be with B117 and that's something that I think everybody has to be even more cautious about.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): B117, the variant first identified in the U.K. is expected to be the dominant strain in the states by March.

JEREMY KAMIL, VIROLOGIST: And our country has really not done enough to keep up to date or keep up tabs on what the virus is doing. I think the bigger message is that we need to be doing a better job and a more even job sequencing the virus so we can know whether there are changes to be concerned about.

FIELD (voice over): Vaccine manufacturer Novavax says its scientists are currently testing a new version of its vaccine aimed specifically at the variant first identified in South Africa. And the vaccines currently available in the United States from Pfizer and Moderna are believed to be effective against the U.K. strain.

On average, 1.7 million shots are now making their way into arms, far more are needed.

PAUL FARROW, WAUKESHA COUNTY EXECUTIVE: Our goal is to provide a thousand vaccines a day, seven days a week, the only limitation we currently have is getting the vaccine.

FIELD (voice over): In a letter to the White House the National Governor's Association is calling for better coordination between the Biden administration and the states in distributing vaccines just as severe winter weather deals another blow to those working with what they do have. Officials in one Texas county managed to salvage 8,000 shots after the power went out. ROBERTA SCHWARTZ, EXECUTIVE VP, HOUSTON METHODIST HOSPITAL: We were

able to get these vaccines that need to be utilized very quickly into arms and not waste them.

FIELD (voice over): The federal government opening the first two federally administered vaccination sites today. They've promised a hundred such sites in Biden's first hundred day. Dr. Anthony Fauci now saying it could be May or June before vaccines are available to the general public, farther out than the previous April estimate.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We've got to continue with the public health measures as much as, you know, we've been doing it for a long time and people are fatigued with it. We've got to continue until we get it so low that it's no longer a threat.

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FIELD (on camera): And Brooke, while Dr. Anthony Fauci may be urging us all to proceed with cautions, the rush to return to normal is evident in America's airports. More than 5 million people flying in the last five days, that is the heaviest travel period we have seen since the holidays. The difference of course being that federal mask mandate now in place if you're on a plane or in an airport.

BALDWIN: Alex, thank you so much. Let's talk about this with Dr. Rod Davidson. He's an emergency room physician and the executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare. Dr. Davidson, good to have you back as always. Do you agree with Dr. Offit that, you know, we will continue to see these numbers decline and that we have turned a corner because of population immunity?

DR. ROD DAVIDSON, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: Well, I think we've certainly turned a corner. You know, why that is I think is up for debate. There's some degree of population immunity, some degree of vaccines getting in arms, some degree of measures that have worked over the holidays that we really clamped down in a lot of different places.

You know, but I think there's always a that potential like Andy Slavitt said that, you know, as we get the U.K. strain becoming the dominant strain, and its more transmissible, you know winter storms delaying vaccine doses, we have to be vigilant even though we see that light.

BALDWIN: Well what about the variants? Because, you know, there's been all this talk about how more contagious or how dangerous they are, obviously how fast they are spreading. How concerned are you about that, and will these vaccines protect us against them?

Did he freeze? Dr. Davidson? My question was that good. Dr. Davidson, all right, we'll try and make it another day.

Republicans again punishing one of their own for voting to convict former President Trump. How Senator Richard Burr is responding next.

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[15:35:00]

BALDWIN: The GOP, a party bitterly divided, and it doesn't look like that will end any time soon. North Carolina Senator -- Republican Senator Richard Burr is the latest to be censured by his own state GOP for voting to convict former President Trump of inciting that Capitol Hill insurrection. He is speaking out. This is what he is saying, quote --

It is truly a sad day for North Carolina Republicans. My party's leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the Republican Party and the founders of our great nation.

Joining me now former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent and Bill Kristol, director of Defending Democracy Together and editor-at-large of "The Bulwark." So gentlemen, good to have you both on here and let's hope technology works for us.

Bill, to you first. Senator Burr censured. Senator Cassidy of Louisiana also censured by his state GOP. Pennsylvania's Republican Party is planning a meeting to potentially censure Senator Toomey over his vote to convict Trump according to county party officials. My question is what is the point of all these state level censures? What does it get them?

BILL KRISTOL, DIRECTOR OF DEFENDING DEMOCRACY TOGETHER: I think it sends a signal to everyone else, you know, stay on the Trump train or you're going to get in trouble and some of these Senators like Burr are retiring and others might just ignore the censure.

But, you know, if you're a member of Congress, someone thinking of running for Congress next year, an open seat or a redistricted seat and you're thinking how pro-Trump do I have to be? You look at, and you think, you know what, in a Republican primary, it's probably safer to be pro-Trump.

And if we say the party is divided, but as Senator Burr said in his eloquent statement and implied 43 Senators were on the other side, only 7 were with Senator Burr. So it's an uneven, unfortunately, it's my point of view, a very uneven division of the party right now.

BALDWIN: You have Mitch McConnell -- Charlie for you -- Mitch McConnell who has basically done nothing to punish Trump other than give that floor speech.

[15:40:00]

And now he wrote this "Wall Street Journal" op-ed which he concludes, and I quote --

I was as outraged as any former member of -- or as any member of Congress but Senators take our own oaths. Our job wasn't to find some way, any way to inflict a punishment. The Senate's first and foundational duty was to protect the Constitution.

Mitch McConnell, you know, it seems like he's trying to play both sides of the Republican base. Will it work, Charlie?

CHARLIE DENT, FORMER CONGRESSMAN (R-PA): Well, what I think Senator McConnell is trying to do is he's trying to bring about had a clean break from Donald Trump. I don't think he wanted to get too far out in front of his own members by voting to convict. So I think he did everything short of voting to convict with that statement, so McConnell is a smart guy.

He understands what's going to happen. He saw what happened in 2010 after the tea party wave when some of these state and local committees started, you know, getting behind some really exotic candidates, you know, like Sharron Angle, Todd Akin, Christine O'Donnell, Richard Mourdock. They lost Senate seats.

Now I think McConnell is smart enough to realize he's going to lose seats again if the party continues to embrace Trump and Trumpism like this. We are going to get more wild candidates who -- that will be nominated and most of them will be defeated. They will be unelectable, and nobody is more concerned about that than Mitch McConnell.

BALDWIN: So he thinks -- I'm just going to stay with you for a second -- so he thinks by doing what he's doing and trying to placate both sides that there won't be, forgive me, Marjorie Taylor Greenes being elected?

DENT: I think that's partly what he's after. He is trying have a clean break from Trump and I think you can make a case and Marjorie Taylor Greene is, you know, one of Trump's legacy Congress people. And so I think he is really trying very hard to -- for a clean break. He wants to break it, but he's also -- he's constrained somewhat by his own conference. You know, there are only what? Seven Republicans in the Senate who voted to convict, so he can't get too far out in front.

BALDWIN: What about, Bill, to you, Senator Ron Johnson. I'm going to play this sound. If you haven't seen it. Apparently, he doesn't seem to know what an armed insurrection is. Watch this.

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SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): This didn't seem like an armed insurrection to me. I mean armed, when you hear arms, don't you think of firearms? Here's questions I would have liked to ask. How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired? I'm only aware of one, and I'll defend that law enforcement officer for taking that shot. It's -- it was a tragedy, OK, but I think there was only one. If that was a planned armed insurrection, man, you're really a bunch of idiots.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Bill, like what?

KRISTOL: One month ago, Brooke, as you recall, we all recall, January 6th was a horrible moment, tragedy, something we all had to come to grips with. Now it's, you know, I don't really think it was much an armed insurrection and one person got shot but sort of law enforcement personnel kind of defend. And anyway, let's move on and let's forget about it and maybe Antifa was kind of responsible and anyway Nancy Pelosi didn't do a very good job securing the Capitol.

I mean the degree -- if you had had said to us on January 7th, you know, that this is where a Republican Senator like Ron Johnson, who's been pretty bad from my point of view, pretty pro-Trump. But he's from Wisconsin, he's not, you know, he's in a competitive race in 2022. He's saying this because he's worried that he even could get primaried. So I agree with Charlie that in the Senate where your statewide races they could pay a price for this.

But if you look over at the House, they are looking at the primaries, they have to pick up only a few seats in an off-year election which is often bad for the party in power.

And Kevin McCarthy right now people like me think he's behaved disgracefully. Kevin McCarthy thinks, you know what, I kind of managed things pretty well this last month. I kind of snaked my way through. No clean break from Trump but I kept Liz Cheney there. Got everyone on board and now we can just attack the Biden administration and Nancy Pelosi for the next year and a half.

And I think Mitch McConnell is kind of in the same place. He's running the Senate, he's the Senate Minority Leader so he has a slightly different attitude and a different person than McCarthy honestly. But the degree to -- they do not want a clean break. They want sort of a muddy moving on from Trump where you don't alienate any of the Trump MAGA conspiracy theorists but maybe you don't alienate too many moderate voters either.

BALDWIN: Well, speaking of alienating, Congressman Adam Kinzinger who has been censured by his party has now been alienated, shunned by his own family.

He published this letter from 11 of his family members in the "New York Times" and this is in part what they say.

He was in cahoots with the devil's army for making a public break with the president.

And also this.

Oh, my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God. You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name.

Now Congressman to you.

[15:45:00]

You know, maybe you and maybe Bill and other Americans can relate to this and family issues and politics to some degree but, you know, this is a sitting member of Congress, and this is so public. I'm wondering what does this say about Donald Trump and the hold he has on the Kinzinger family and even some Americans in general even after he's left the White House?

DENT: Well, you know, Adam is a very good friend of mine. And, you know, thankfully, I never had to deal with too much that have type of issue with the family, and I've teased Adam about this. I never would have thought him the devil. Maybe Satan "C" but not devil.

But poor Adam, I mean it shows the state to which politics has been degraded in this country, that people have actually have a cult-like following of a man so defective in Donald Trump that they could actually, you know -- it's almost a religious thing for people obviously. This is about religion. I mean, people -- I mean, there's no balance it seems in some people's lives that they have elevated support of Donald Trump to, you know, as an article of faith.

That's where we are, and just to speak to, Brooke, you know, these censures that have been going on. As one who has censured by county committees for various acts of heresy, I've learned that a lot of these local and state committees have become to a point where they are more interested in punishing heretics and ex-communicating them than trying to get converts.

That's what they are about. It's just crazy. That's the world we live in now and poor Adam. But he's got big shoulders. He can take it.

BALDWIN: No. I'm sure. But still, but the way in which his family has totally shunned him, and then, you know, he's shared this. I'm sure people can relate to some degree. Bill, my last question is for you because my mind is on this President Biden Town Hall that we're hosting tonight. How does President Biden work with the -- with the Trump wing of the Republican Party moving forward?

KRISTOL: He just has to govern and get -- you know, get the virus under control, get the economy going, work with those Republicans who are willing to work with him, maybe on infrastructure or something. People leave aside their, you know, if you can deliver a bridge for your community somehow your Trump allegiance doesn't stop you from working with this administration.

But he can't spend too much time worrying about that. He has got to deliver results and I think he's doing a pretty good job of it.

BALDWIN: Bill Kristol and Charlie Dent, gentlemen, thank you.

Millions of Americans are without power right now even as the U.S. braces for another winter storm. We're live in Dallas where temperatures are below freezing, and families have no heat.

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BALDWIN: Texas is in the middle of this deadly deep freeze set off by a treacherous winter storm affecting so much of this country. Below- freezing temperatures and snow have blanketed the parts of the South and the Southwest.

Right now nearly three-quarters of the U.S. is covered in snow. That is a record. Millions have no electricity. At least five deaths have been reported in Houston. Three others were killed in North Carolina in the aftermath of an overnight tornado. Let's go straight to Dallas, to CNN's Ed Lavandera. And Ed, I mean I

know this storm has disrupted so many things. Tell me what you're hearing from folks and how bad is it?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, you know, as snow and ice blankets this state, a deep level of frustration also blankets this state as the political finger pointing continues today as right now 3.6 million Texans still remain without power.

You know, this is one of the thousands of substations that generate and move power to neighborhoods across the state. This particular one provides power to about 17,000 people. We're told by the local utility here that this is missing power to 1,500 people.

So this is the kind of frustration that people are dealing with well into this winter storm. And the finger pointing is going on. The governor of Texas, who has come under a great deal of fire because of the way he has handled this as well is saying that he's calling for an investigation of the state agency that runs the Texas power grid.

Just so people know, Texas runs on its own power grid, separate from the rest of the United States. And we spoke with the CEO of that power grid agency just a short while ago. And he told us that because of what ERCOT, which is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, that's the agency that runs everything. He says that what they did made things better, prevented this from being an even worse disaster than what we've already seen.

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BILL MAGNESS, CEO, THE ELECTRIC RELIABILITY COUNCIL OF TEXAS (ERCOT): I think from the perspective of the grid collapsing, I think what has happened here is a response that kept the grid from collapsing, that kept us from going into a blackout condition.

Now the difficulties that this has imposed on citizens of Texas, everybody in the state, have been enormous. And certainly we need to look at what has happened here. Once we get everybody back online, which is the number one priority.

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LAVANDERA (on camera): So the CEO there, pushing back on the heavy criticism that his agency has come under. And also says, you know, the real question and the bottom line here is when is the power going to be restored for millions of people who are living literally in freezing temperatures?

There are temperatures in people's homes down into the 30s. Incredibly dangerous situation. And the CEO says that the power, he hopes will be restored in the next day or two. But the question is just how much electricity can be generated at these power plants in various parts of the state, many of which have been damaged?

And there's been a lot of back and forth, Brooke, as to whether or not it was solar power that was damaged the most or oil and gas that was damaged the most. The CEO says it's been spread out among all those different sources of energy.

[15:55:00]

But a great many questions as to how this catastrophic collapse could have happened.

BALDWIN: And there's another storm heading your way tomorrow. We'll keep covering it, of course. Ed Lavandera, thanks to you and the crew being there in snowy Dallas.

President Biden will be leaving the White House shortly to travel to Milwaukee for CNN Town Hall, his very first since taking office and it comes as he fights to pass new COVID relief for millions of Americans. Stay with us.

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