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SolarWinds Investigation Will Take Months; President Biden Clarifies Policies at Town Hall; Interview with Texas Resident as Power Outages Continue. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 17, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It is the top of the hour, I am Brianna Keilar.

And just in, the U.S. government's investigation into the devastating Russian hack of the U.S. government is likely to take, quote, "several months" at least, according to the top White House cyber-security official. Let's get more now on this from our senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt.

I mean, months, Alex? What is the holdup here?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna. Well, when Biden took office, he tasked the intelligence community with delving into various things that Russia has been doing, nefarious activities. And one of them was this SolarWinds attack that was only -- that only came to light in December, but we know has been going on since at least March and is still ongoing.

So this was specifically about SolarWinds. They brought out the deputy national security advisor, Anne Neuberger, who, to date, is the most senior cyber official. And we got some of the most specific details so far from the Biden administration. As you noted, she said that it's going to take several months for this investigation to play out.

In addition, we now know, according to Neuberger, that nine different federal agencies were affected by the SolarWinds attack. That's a more specific number than we'd been given in the past. We also know that around 100 companies were compromised.

Now, that does seem -- that is very significant, but at the same time, there were around 18,000 SolarWinds clients that were using the software. So relatively speaking, that is far fewer a number of potential victims than there actually could have been.

Neuberger went on to say that they are working on an executive order to address the gaps that are being identified in this investigation. But because of the scale and scope, Neuberger said, there is a lot that they could still learn about the access that the hackers, who are believed to be connected to Russian intelligence, have had in these companies and these federal agencies -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Alex Marquardt, thank you so much for that report.

Joe Biden, taking center stage as he sticks to his centrist approach during his first town hall as president. He's resetting expectations about the pandemic, predicting that life could be back to normal -- mostly -- by Christmas.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, adding this just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are not in a place where we can predict exactly when everybody will feel normal again. And it has -- there are a number of reasons. One is even though we will have enough doses for every person in this country, as you all know -- because we've talked about it in here -- vaccine hesitancy remains a challenge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: President Biden also told the town hall attendees that there will be 600 million doses of the vaccine by July. But today, his administration also had to own up to a serious setback when it comes to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is expected to be the first single-dose vaccine in the U.S.

The rollout of it will be much slower than expected, and that is due to a miscommunication, the White House COVID-19 Response Team addressing the issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: I want to be clear that Johnson & Johnson has 100 million commitment for the end of June, of doses. At the same time, we're going to be starting with only a few million in inventory, and we're doing everything we can, working with the company to accelerate their delivery schedule.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins is with us now.

I know, Kaitlan, that you've been listening to the briefing, which is still going on at this point, and the White House was really pressed on whether teachers should be vaccinated for schools to reopen safely.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, because so far, the White House had not fully endorsed that part of the guidance. It came out last Friday from the CDC. We had a hint, Brianna, that it was coming because the CDC director had said that they were leaning in that direction before that guidance came out.

But so far, since it has, we have not had officials come out and directly endorse it. But we did just probably get the most direct answer yet that we've gotten from the White House on whether or not they agree with this aspect of the CDC guidance, when Jen Psaki was asked about it at the briefing. And this is how she responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: The president and the vice president both believe that teachers should be prioritized. And as you all know, that's up to states to determine. There are federal recommendations. About half of the country, half -- about half of the states in the country have prioritized teachers.

And they both feel that's important, including child health care workers and they both feel that that's something that is impacting working women and moms who are trying to go back to work and trying to make sure that their kids have the attention and child care they need. So it's not a requirement to reopen schools, but they believe that teachers should be prioritized.

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[14:05:03]

COLLINS: Now, Brianna, the reason this is so important is because this is an administration that said they were going to base their decisions and their recommendations on the science. They were -- that was a criticism of the Trump era, where they did not believe that was always the case, they did not always follow the science. And so they said they were going to.

But after the CDC guidance came out, saying that teachers did not have to be vaccinated as a prerequisite for schools to open, officials had kind of more focused on the fact that they believe teachers should be a priority for vaccinations, than they had on saying yes, we agree, they don't all have to be vaccinated for schools to reopen.

Of course, that is a critical decision, about whether or not schools are going to reopen, can start reopening now as teachers are making their way into the vaccination list.

And so you saw that answer there, that comes after Vice President Harris had been pressed on this multiple times this morning during an interview with "The Today Show" where she also was focusing on prioritizing teachers, not necessarily fully endorsing the guidance.

But there, Jen Psaki is saying that the president and the vice president do agree with this, this guidance, that teachers do not have to be vaccinated in order to return to the classroom.

KEILAR: They also, Kaitlan -- I mean, they seem to be in a bind here, right? Because we know that there are tons of teachers -- I'm related to one of them -- who's teaching full-time and has not been vaccinated, and this is for months, right?

So you have teachers who have already been doing this. If the administration were to say that they should be vaccinated -- which I'll tell you, as a family member, I would be much more comfortable with -- they're going to be in a bind with all these teachers already in the classroom.

COLLINS: And I think one of the sticking points for them is not just the battle between teachers' unions that is -- in localities that is happening over whether or not these vaccinations should happen, it's also that states are determining what their priority list are, who is on them, who is getting vaccinated.

I'm from Alabama, teachers are on that list. A family member of mine is a teacher, and they've actually gotten vaccinated already, they've received their first dose because of that. But there are some states where they are not prioritizing teachers as much as frontline workers and others, so that's the other aspect of this that the administration is having to deal with.

But now, by saying this, that will be one factor that goes with this, where the White House is endorsing the CDC guidance that teachers don't have to get vaccinated in order to go back.

KEILAR: Yes. And just because they are prioritized doesn't mean they've gotten it yet. That's the case in California for sure, but --

COLLINS: Yes.

KEILAR: -- Kaitlan, thank you so much, this is so important to so many Americans. Thanks for bringing us this report.

Biden also made some news at the CNN town hall when it comes to student loan forgiveness. He swiftly rejected a proposal by top Democrats to cancel $50,000 of student debt per borrower.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need student loan forgiveness beyond the potential $10,000 your administration has proposed. We need at least a $50,000 minimum. What will you do to make that happen?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will not make that happen. It depends on whether or not you go to a private university or a public university.

Here's what I think. I think everyone -- and I've been proposing this for four years -- everyone should be able to go to community college for free, for free.

(APPLAUSE)

That's -- that costs $9 billion and we should pay for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So Biden, there, is drawing this clear line in the sand. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and many progressive Democrats have been amping up the pressure on this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: We are very hopeful that the cry from one end of America to the other, take this student loan debt off our backs, will be heard in the White House and we can accomplish this goal.

And I'll tell you one thing, we are not going to let up until we accomplish it, until $50,000 of debt is forgiven for every student in the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I'm joined now by CNN economics and political commentator Catherine Rampell.

Right now, Catherine, there are about 45 million Americans with student loan debts. We know that Senator Schumer has been really trying to, I think, listen to what progressives are saying. This is a very serious political concern for him personally and for the party. But he's pushing back here, saying that cancelling $50,000 in student loan debt will help close the racial wealth gap and stimulate the economy. Where is the right policy here?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, there are a couple of things to separate out here. One is can Biden forgive any amount of debt unilaterally with the stroke of the pen, which Senator Schumer, Senator Warren and others have argued that he can?

Other people that I've spoken with, who actually wrote some of the relevant regulations that are being cited under that authority, have argued no, that this would probably require an act of Congress. So Schumer could put forward legislation that would do this, for example.

But the bigger question is, is this a good policy. Now, it's a little bit counterintuitive, but when you forgive a huge amount of student loan debt, the biggest benefits of that policy will end up going to people with higher incomes.

And the reason for that is that people with lower incomes are less likely to have gone to college, and the people who have the highest student loan balances are disproportionately people who have graduate and professional debt. So people who went to law school, business school, dental school, medical school, et cetera.

[14:10:13]

And there was actually a study that came out last year, that looked at if you forgave up to 50 grand in debt per person, what would be the distribution of the benefits? And for people in the bottom decile, it would be about $700. For people in the top decile, it would be about $5,000.

So it's not really clear, like, why you want to forgive the student loan debt for orthodontists, let's say, you know, given that their student loans were effectively an investment that they made, and they're getting a return on that investment. That said --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: That's a very -- yes.

RAMPELL: -- they're -- yes. I was going to say, that said, there are a lot of people who are lower income who are struggling with student loan debt. They tend to be lower balances, they might be people who were defrauded, they might be people who never got the return on their investment because they never graduated, for example.

And there are policies that could be more targeted to help those people so that they can, you know, come out from under this burden.

KEILAR: It's such a good point that you make, Catherine, thank you so much for making it so clear for us. Catherine Rampell.

And President Biden was also asked about political polarization in this country, and this is what he said about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: The nation is not divided. You go out there and take a look and talk to people, you have fringes on both ends. But it's not nearly as divided as we make it out to be. And we have to bring it together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I'm joined now by CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger.

I don't know, Gloria, what did you think about that assessment?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Joe Biden is a glass-half-full kind of guy, and there was a recent Gallup poll that said when you ask Americans how do you identify as a political party? Half of Americans said they identify as independents, which would make what Biden is saying true.

The problem for him is that 25 percent also identify as Republicans, and 25 percent identify as Democrats. So you do have a divided country. But what he is looking at -- and he said this a little bit last night -- he said, you know, you have the wings of each party that are the real problem, the 25 percent Republican-Democrat.

And I think that, you know, his feeling is that he'll be able to make that slice in the middle larger if he can potentially do that, and there is some polling that shows that when he was elected, 80 percent of people in both parties said we'd like you to try and unify the country. So I think that's what he's speaking to. We don't know at this point if he's completely accurate.

KEILAR: But I mean, we look at what happened, say, with the Senate --

BORGER: Right. KEILAR: -- and we can see that there is this outsized influence of

the extremes when it comes to electoral politics, even if there was this rejection of Donald Trump.

BORGER: Right.

KEILAR: Doesn't he have -- isn't it important for the president to have a -- I get that he's optimistic, it seems very important to have a very clear-eyed assessment of the division in the country before you can address it.

BORGER: Yes, and I think the way he looks at it -- because he was in the Senate for 36 years -- is that if he has to choose Republicans at this point, he's going to be a McConnell guy as opposed to being a Ted Cruz guy.

And that he knows there's a small group of Republicans that he can work with, those 10 or so who went to him on COVID relief, et cetera, and they'll maybe be there on infrastructure reform. So it's limited, but he believes it's workable. And he also believes, of course, that as he said last night, about 70 percent of the American public believes you ought to pass some kind of COVID relief. So he believes he's representing them that way.

Presidents always like to say they have more of a mandate than they really have, and I think this is Joe Biden's way of doing that.

KEILAR: Yes, this is going to be a big test, perhaps the biggest test, of his presidency --

BORGER: Absolutely.

KEILAR: Gloria, great to see you, thank you.

BORGER: Good to see you.

KEILAR: Next, millions of families in Texas are dealing with power outages. Many of them are also without water as temperatures inside homes plummet. I'll be speaking to a mom who spent the night in her car with her two-year-old, just to stay warm.

Plus, Texas politicians who once claimed California's energy system was a disaster, now have egg on their face -- and it's frozen. We'll roll the tape.

[14:14:35]

And later, North Korea accused of trying to hack Pfizer to get vaccine information: details on what we know.

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KEILAR: Freezing temperatures are crippling the power grid in Texas. A rare winter storm is knocking out power to more than 3 million homes across the state, and the situation is not expected to improve for several days. It is scary right now. The temperatures are so cold that water pipes

are bursting. Officials in Harris County, Texas, where Houston is located, say first responders, firefighters and hospitals are all bring impacted by these water shortages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINA HIDALGO, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS JUDGE: Because of the generators that are out, there is now low water pressure, and some pipes have burst as well due to the weather. So our hospitals, our firefighters are facing low water pressure and it's an enormous problem for them.

I ask folks to do a couple things. First, we need folks to stop dripping their faucets. Right now, the weather is at a temperature that it's OK if you don't drip them, and you do need to protect that water pressure for our hospitals and for our firefighters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:20:02]

KEILAR: Joining me now on the phone is Jordan Orta, who is in San Antonio. And, Jordan, I understand that your power has been going in and out for days? You had to sleep in the car with your two-year-old to stay warm last night. Is that right?

JORDAN ORTA, TEXAS RESIDENT (via telephone): Yes, ma'am.

KEILAR: Do you have power or water right now?

ORTA (via telephone): We have water. It kind of goes on and off as well. We do not have power. It came on at about 5:00 this morning, and then went back out about 8:30 in the morning, and it's been out ever since.

KEILAR: And what's the temperature in your house? Why did you have to go to the car?

ORTA (via telephone): It's a lot warmer today. Last night, I want to say it probably got to about 25ish degrees, which, for San Antonio, we are not used to. And I was worried that my son, being that he's only two, he's tiny (ph). I just wanted to make sure he was OK, so we made the decision to start up the car and sit in the heater for a little while.

KEILAR: And so what are your challenges right now? Do you have food, do you have consistent cell service? What's going on for you?

ORTA (via telephone): We do not have consistent cell service. The only thing consistent is going to be being on the phone. I don't have cell data. I can rarely send text messages.

We have a little bit of food left over. Going to the grocery stores was like COVID starting all over again, and there was nothing, the shelves were bare. So we have sandwich stuff, we have leftovers. Luckily we have a gas stove, so we can still heat up some food. But it's kind of slim pickings now, kind of --

KEILAR: Yes.

ORTA (via telephone): -- just whatever we can find.

KEILAR: I mean, we're looking at the lines outside of an HEB there in Texas, and it's crazy what people are doing just to get their groceries. What are you hearing, what are your expectations for how things might resolve here? Are you hearing from power company, the power company? Are you hearing from local leaders?

ORTA (via telephone): Nothing. We don't know if they're putting messages out just because we don't have reliable cell data right now, we can't connect to the news. The one thing that works here and there is going to be like Facebook and Twitter, but they're super slow.

We haven't heard anything from our power company. We received an e- mail early this morning from our water company, saying that they would not be shutting off water and if we do lose water it's because the pipes are either frozen or just out in our area. But absolutely nothing from the power company.

KEILAR: Jordan, we're so sorry you're dealing with this. I'll tell you, as the mother of a two-year-old, my heart hurt when I heard about your story this morning. And you're doing a great job, hang in there and we're hoping that you get relief very soon. Jordan Orta, thank you.

ORTA (via telephone): Thank you.

KEILAR: There are millions of people who are living without power right now in Texas, as we told you. They are cold, some are even dying. This is a debacle of historic proportions after the severe winter storm knocked out the power grid. So what is the state's governor doing about this, in the middle of this crisis? He's tilting at windmills.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Our wind and our solar, they got shut down and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power in a statewide basis.

It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas, as well as other states to make sure that we'll be able to heat our homes in the wintertime and cool our homes in the summertime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It's all the windmills' fault, Governor Greg Abbott says, not missing the chance to spin a yarn for political gain in the middle of a crisis. He blames renewable energy for the rolling power outages that have Texans seeking refuge in their cars as the temperatures in their homes drop into the 40s. But he's wrong. Experts say that it is a garden variety of reasons.

But in Texas, which predominantly relies on natural gas, solar and wind sources are not even close to being the main factor here.

First, Texas operates its own power grid, refusing the help of the federal system, which every other state relies upon, allowing them to more easily borrow power when it's needed, like during a disaster. But Texas makes like Fleetwood Mac and goes its own way.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the architects of the climate legislation, responded, quote, "The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you don't pursue a Green New Deal."

Now, second here for the real story of the power debacle in Texas right now, we direct you to the explanation of someone whose counsel Governor Abbott relies heavily on? Governor Abbott. Quote, "The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen. This includes the natural gas and coal generators," he said.

Abbott is on the hotseat and that means he's generating a lot of hot air, though unfortunately not enough natural gas, which is what Texas relies on most, especially when power is in high demand -- like right now, when more Texans need their heating systems on than usual.

[14:25:10]

Abbott is not the only Texas leader in the spotlight today, as the blame game escalates. Some tweets are coming back to bite them in their compost piles.

Like last year, heat waves in California sparked massive power outages that impacted nearly 50 percent of the state's counties. It was a disaster indeed. And many Texas Republicans, they couldn't help but doing a dance of Schadenfreude. Look at some of their tweets, mocking the blue state.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said, quote, "This is what happens when Democrats are left in charge. Why California's liberal climate policies are causing electricity blackouts."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said, quote, "California's politicians did this, not the heat."

Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw, responding to the mayor of L.A. imploring people to conserve energy, quote, "Alexa, show me what happens when you let Democrats control energy policy."

And Ted Cruz chimed in after California's governor called on folks to help conserve energy. Quote, "California is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilization, like having reliable electricity." Democrats "want to make California's failed energy policy the standard nationwide. Hope you don't like air conditioning!"

Can you imagine a California senator tweeting about Texas right now, "Hope you don't like heat"? When called out on his newly relevant cruel tweet, Cruz said last night that he has no defense, and he did the Twitter equivalent of a shrug. "Not good," is how he described his state coming to a complete standstill. "Stay safe," he added.

And maybe I would add? Don't mock people going through a disaster. Just a thought.

Next, Johnson & Johnson admits it won't be able to meet the target that it set to have 20 million doses of its vaccine by April.

Plus, former Biden medical advisers are now urging him to ramp up production of more effective N95 masks, and encourage people to wear them. We're going to ask a doctor about it all, next.

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