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Winter Storms Slowing Vaccine Rollout?; Deep Freeze; Biden Pushes COVID Relief Plan. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 17, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: We begin with this enormous pledge from the president for normalcy.

President Biden says this country could get back to pre-pandemic life as we knew it by Christmas, and that any American who wants a vaccine should be able to get it by July.

As of now the numbers are encouraging. You have 45 states now reporting fewer cases and fewer hospitalizations; 39 million Americans have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 15 are -- 15 million are fully vaccinated.

But, today, vaccine sites across the country had to cancel some of those vaccine appointments because of this giant winter storm across Texas, getting slammed again today with ice and snow. The power grid is paralyzed. About three million customers are still without heat and electricity across the state, some families so cold, they are sleeping in their cars.

Also today, the former president is speaking out against Mitch McConnell, calling him -- and I quote -- "sullen, an unsmiling political hack," this after the Senate minority leader delivered that scathing floor speech blaming Trump for his role in the deadly Capitol riots.

Of course, that is after McConnell voted to acquit. We will talk tons more about that and the feud and what it really means for the growing divide within the Republican Party.

But, first, we're watching the White House this hour. The president and vice president are meeting with labor leaders to discuss their economic plan to combat this pandemic. And they're calling it the American Rescue Plan.

CNN's chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, joins me now.

And, Kaitlan, March 8, I know, is the deadline to get this thing passed. What does the plan address specifically?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's what Biden was talking about last night, that deadline for when he wants to get this actually on his desk -- the desk, the final text of it. So they're still crafting it to what it's actually going to look like, the final version.

We know what he's proposed. We know what more moderate Democrats want to see in this and we know what more progressive Democrats have wanted to see. So, right now, it is still that $1.9 trillion price tag. It doesn't sound as if Biden is going to come down on that at all, because, last night, you heard him, Brooke, saying that he feels this is the time to go big, not to go small.

So he sounds like he wants to stay within that top line. But there are several other aspects of it, of course, that he doesn't sound like they are going to change on either, those $1,400 stimulus checks. They have set the cap on those. And Biden told me in the Oval Office last week that he does agree with the cap that Democrats have set on that going forward to where, if you're making $75,000 or $150,000 for couples, you are going to get the full amount of those checks.

But, Brooke, where the sticking points are things like this $15 federal minimum wage increase that Biden proposed when he initially laid out this plan. But we have heard from moderate Democrats say they do not want it to be included in this.

And, in the Senate, they cannot afford to lose a single Democratic vote, given just how slim the majority is there. But that goes against what progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders want to see.

He is fighting, he says, with a roomful of attorneys to get that minimum wage increase in this bill. And so how that's going to come out in the wash, it's not clear yet, because the White House says they're letting the sausage be made.

They're going to wait to see how that works out on Capitol Hill. But without those two key moderate Democrats, Kristin -- or Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin going to be in favor of that, that's going to be a problem.

So we're waiting to see what that looks like. We do expect the House to finish up crafting this soon. Then it's going to go over to the Senate, and then final passage within the House just in a matter of weeks, and then it will be on Biden's desk after that -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: I really want to focus, though, on that of the -- so much of what he said last night, the promise of the vaccinations.

Kaitlan, thank you so much.

So, let me start there with CNN medical analyst Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, internal medicine and viral specialist, and also CNN political analyst Sabrina Siddiqui. She is White House reporter for "The Wall Street Journal."

So, welcome to both of you.

And, Doc, I'm starting with you, because watching our town hall last night, Biden said there will be enough vaccines available for every American by July. But when you look at the math and where we are now, only 4.5 percent of the population, 4.5 percent, is fully vaccinated right now. So how is he going to make that happen by July?

DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, in crunching the numbers, you would have to vaccinate one-and-a-half million people every day, including Saturday and Sundays, until we get to mid-July, for that to happen. Is it possible? Yes.

And I love the administration's optimism. But look what happened now. Natural changes happen, natural disasters, weather. Who knows. So, it really is going to take a concerted effort for this to happen. Can it? Absolutely.

BALDWIN: OK. I appreciate your optimism too.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: And I'm all for us Saturdays and Sundays.

Sabrina, President Biden has been facing all kinds of criticism from Republicans that he's willing to upset these -- unwilling to upset these teachers unions. The White House now says teacher vaccinations are not a requirement to reopen schools.

[15:05:01]

Does the Biden administration have a clear and comprehensive plan?

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think that we have seen some mixed messaging on the part of the White House. But they did come out clearly and state today during the press briefing that they agree with the CDC guidance that vaccinating teachers is not a prerequisite for reopening schools, although White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki did emphasize that she -- that the White House believes teachers should be a higher priority in terms of vaccinations.

Now, there are some states where teachers are part of that 1-B priority list, as the CDC guidance indicates, which puts them at the same category as people who are age 75 and older. But there are other states in which teachers fall lower down the priority list.

And so one question is, when the White House is saying they should be moved up the hierarchy, who should be moved down then in place of teachers, or do they plan to take any concrete steps to try and move teachers up that list?

And then, of course, the White House's emphasizing that there are other mitigation measures that couldn't be implemented in order for schools to reopen safely, but that they need funding. And so you see them again really try and drive home this point that, in order to reopen schools, they really need to pass this COVID relief plan, which includes new funding that should help them implement some of the safety standards that the CDC says is necessary to reopen.

But they did very much reiterate the goal is for President Biden to reopen schools as many days a week as possible, ideally, five days a week for K-8 at the end of his first 100 days in office. BALDWIN: But to your point about maybe pushing teachers up the

vaccination totem pole, I mean, Biden, Dr. Rodriguez, did advocate for pushing them to the front of the line.

Do you think that all teachers need to be vaccinated before going back into classrooms?

RODRIGUEZ: Absolutely.

And the reason I think that is because teachers think that they should be vaccinated before going into the classroom. And they are, as far as I'm concerned, essential workers, no teachers, no classrooms, no education. So we need to have our teachers feeling comfortable.

And if this is what it takes, they should get the vaccine. Listen, there are 30 percent, maybe 40 percent of the American public that doesn't want to get vaccinated. And here is a portion of the population that wants to get vaccinated that is essential, not only for our children's education, but for everything.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

RODRIGUEZ: So, yes, I think they should get vaccinated.

BALDWIN: Sabrina, what about the COVID relief bill? I know it's still very much in limbo.

There are parts of it that not all Democrats are on board with. But that money is needed for schools, speaking of, to reopen for vaccine distribution. How big of a problem is it politically, if Biden doesn't get this through?

SIDDIQUI: Well, I think it's essential for his administration to get this package through.

And we have heard some indication that the White House might be flexible on the overall number. Now, $1.9 trillion is still very much the package that Democrats are rallying behind. And there is that deadline of March that Kaitlan Collins was referring to, in part because this relief is critical, but also because of the expiration of unemployment benefits.

So, in some ways, they do see themselves as having a hard, set deadline. Of course, there's also a real urgency around getting more stimulus checks to the American public. I think a big part of this will really be, as Democrats move forward with the budget reconciliation process, passing this through a simple majority vote, are there some provisions that ultimately do not make it into the bill in order to buy support from party moderates like Joe Manchin, like Kyrsten Sinema?

Does that mean that they perhaps look at increasing the minimum wage through another vehicle, not through this bill? I think those are going to be some of the final details that we will see unfold as the negotiations continue in the coming weeks.

BALDWIN: We continue to watch that and see where that stands.

Last question to you, Dr. Rodriguez. And this has to do with this giant winter storm that's blanketed across the U.S. that has crippled Texas. And I'm talking to a couple of Texans in just a bit. But it's meant that a number of people can't go and get their second dose of the COVID vaccine.

And I'm wondering, is it a problem if your second dose is delayed even by a couple days?

RODRIGUEZ: It isn't a huge problem.

But, listen, my brother-in-law and his wife are supposed to get their second shots next week. So, it is a real problem. But some studies are...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Are they in Texas?

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, they're in Austin. They are.

BALDWIN: Wow.

RODRIGUEZ: And they're living out of their car, basically. They're not. They have a house.

BALDWIN: No kidding?

RODRIGUEZ: They're powering up out of their car all the time.

And what's happening is, you can probably delay it a couple of weeks to maybe even a month, but nobody knows for sure. So, they are going into a time crunch. Can it be delayed a week or two? Probably.

But, hey, things are pretty bad there.

BALDWIN: They are so bad.

Sending love to your family in their cars. They are not alone. And, as I mentioned, we're going to make sure we talk a lot about that in just a little bit.

Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, Sabrina Siddiqui, thank you both so much.

We just mentioned it. Millions of people in Texas, they are stuck in their freezing homes or, in some cases, cars, without power. They're going to dangerous lengths to stay warm. And another winter storm is on the way. So we need to focus on that.

[15:10:03]

Also, former President Trump today speaking out in his first TV interview since losing the election. And he is still promoting the big lie that sparked the deadly insurrection on Capitol Hill. We have that for you coming up. And we also have new details on Trump's scathing letter to Senator

Mitch McConnell. Sources say an earlier version was even nastier.

You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We will be right back.

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

No heat, no power, and, for many, no water. Millions of Texans right now are struggling, after this deadly winter storm ripped through the state, bringing with it freezing rain and crippling low temperatures. And it's not over yet, with another winter storm on the way.

With me now, Thomas Black. He lives in Upper Dallas, Texas.

And, Thomas, thank you so much for being with me.

And you, think goodness, are not all too terribly bundled, because your power is now back on. But I want to show this picture of your icicles.

Folks, this is Texas.

THOMAS BLACK, TEXAS RESIDENT: Yes, it's a crazy picture.

BALDWIN: Crazy picture.

BLACK: Yes.

BALDWIN: Icicles from a ceiling fan. Here's your pool.

How you doing? How are you? How's your family.

BLACK: Thankfully, right now, we're doing good. We're managing.

We haven't lost power for long, extended periods of time. But we have lost water. I have also recently posted some videos of -- our pipes are just busting all around the complex, and not even too far down the street, we're seeing waterfalls really coming from skyscrapers.

So it is a -- quite a weird situation being in Texas and having all this happen.

BALDWIN: Quite weird, indeed.

How -- when you were freezing cold, how did you even keep yourself warm?

BLACK: Lots of insulation, a lot of layers, a lot of blankets and just bundling up.

BALDWIN: Are you ready for more winter weather? Are you preparing?

BLACK: So, yes, that's the -- yes, that's the worrisome part.

As a lot of people have commented on my post, things are only going to get worse, as things start to thaw and refreeze. I don't know how prepared we are. We even see at a local and state level supply chains failing. So, even if I were to be able to make it to the grocery store, you know, what's what's really still left?

So, there's a lot of, what it looks like to me, failure on leadership fronts across the state.

BALDWIN: I'm about to get to that failure piece in just a second with my next guest.

Last question, though. I'm a dog owner.

BLACK: Sure.

BALDWIN: I hear you have pets. So, beyond you and your family members, are your pets all right?

BLACK: There's a cat right here. And I think the cat is doing OK. I think they're able to kind of take care of themselves.

But on the prospect of animals, we have actually had birds fly into our windows, I think, looking for heat.

BALDWIN: Oh.

BLACK: And I don't think they're making it out there right now.

So, that's kind of sad as well.

BALDWIN: Awful. Awful all the way around.

Thomas Black, we're thinking about you.

BLACK: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: Stay warm as possible. And, hopefully, that power stays on. Thank you, sir, very much.

BLACK: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: To Thomas' point there, Texas lawmakers, they are coming under fire for the state's power disaster that has imploded under the weight of this extreme winter storm.

And now, some Republicans are trying to blame green energy for the state's massive power outages. Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw tweeted -- quote -- "This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source."

And the state's own governor and agriculture commissioner even blasted the use of wind turbines. But experts say these missives are inaccurate. Michael Webber is an energy resources and mechanical engineering professor at U.T. Austin. He is also bundled up in his home, sans power and light and heat and anything that comes with that.

So, I'm thinking about you and your family. And I appreciate you putting on your professor hat with me. I know you're cold. So, Michael, welcome.

MICHAEL WEBBER, CHIEF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, ENGIE: Thank you so much for having me.

Yes, cold, so I'm wearing a turtleneck and we don't have any light. But it's good to be part of the conversation.

BALDWIN: This is just wild.

And help me understand. Help all of us understand Governor Abbott's argument that was contradicted by his own Energy Department. Like, you're the expert. Explain why blaming green energy on these power outages is just wrong.

WEBBER: It doesn't really add up.

If you look at Texas, we are a fossil fuel-heavy state. We're an oil and gas state. We also produce and use a lot of coal. And if we look just at the power sector alone, where we're having a lot of problems right now in Texas, 70 percent of our energy comes from coal and natural gas, about 20 percent from wind and solar, and about 10 percent from nuclear.

So, renewables are like 20 percent of the mix in the power sector. It's 80 percent conventional sources. And to say that renewables are the cause of the whole failure, it really doesn't make sense. Actually, what we're really having right now is a big natural gas problem.

We lost a substantial fraction of our gas capacity. The gas power plants have turned off because they can't get the gas they need. They're having trouble getting gas out of the ground and through the pipes to the power plants.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I was reading about lack of winterization of these plants. Is that the issue?

WEBBER: There are many failures. So, there's winterization issues.

So we had a nuclear power plant offline because of a frozen pond. Coal plants go offline because of frozen equipment or frozen coal piles. We have ice on wind turbine blades, snow on solar panels. They are all having trouble.

But the gas plants are really struggling the most, because they also have winterization effects at the gas plants. But we can't get the gas to them, because the gas wells or gas equipment for the natural gas industry is actually freezing.

[15:20:08]

There's something called freeze-offs, where water that comes up with the gas freezes, clogs equipment. So, we have a gas supply constraint and a winterization problem with the gas power plants.

BALDWIN: Got it. It's like a triple whammy.

WEBBER: Yes.

BALDWIN: Why is Texas struggling so much more than other parts of the country that are all being hit by the winter storm?

WEBBER: So, Texas is unique, in that it has its own grid. There are three grids in America, East, West and Texas.

And this sort of fits with our can-do, pioneering spirit, we can go it alone, we don't need other people to tell us what to do. And this is a part of our ethos. But it also means that, when times are tough, we can't lean on our neighbors for support.

So we had trouble getting power from neighboring states that have power to get it to us, because we have an isolated grid. And so we thrive on this many times. But we suffer sometimes the consequence of that isolation.

BALDWIN: Got you.

WEBBER: And that's what makes Texas unique in this case.

We have a lot of energy in the state. We're just having some constraints that we can't move it around very easily.

BALDWIN: You point out the Texas is the gas state. We're now learning that Texas wholesale electric prices spiked more than 10000 percent this week. So what happens to people like Thomas, who I just talked to, who could -- just anyone in Texas dealing are going to be forced to pay thousands of dollars just keep their power on?

How does this pricing happen?

WEBBER: So, generally, the prices we pay as residential consumers at our house are buffered from that. So, we might pay 10 cents a kilowatt hour. And when there's a price spike, usually, our power stays the same.

Some customers in Dallas and elsewhere actually agree to pay real-time prices, which will go up and down a lot more. My prices are more stable. So it depends on the consumer.

At the wholesale level, there is a lot more volatility that might be exposed to factories or the power generation companies themselves. Normally, they will be selling for $30 per megawatt hour. Now they can sell their power for $9,000 per megawatt hour. So, you would make a lot of money if you had a power plant online

right now. But that volatility usually doesn't pass through to people like me. It might be -- it might affect the local utilities or local factories and that kind of thing.

BALDWIN: Michael Webber, no power sitting there cold in Austin, using the juice on your smartphone to talk to me. It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary.

WEBBER: Exactly.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

WEBBER: It's an incredible time.

BALDWIN: Thank you so much.

WEBBER: Thank you very much.

BALDWIN: Good luck to you.

Fresh concerns today over the coronavirus variants, the new warning from the CDC about the potential of a rapid rise in cases.

Plus: Former President Trump breaks his silence with -- you guessed it -- more trash talk about lies about the election.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:27:13]

BALDWIN: This brutal winter weather that we have been talking about that's afflicting much of the country is starting to severely disrupt the nation's vaccine rollout.

The CDC says widespread delivery delays are expected. But President Biden is moving ahead full speed with his federal coronavirus plan. He's just announced more funding to expand testing, including in schools. And he is imploring Americans to get the vaccine whenever it is available.

Meantime, cases, hospitalizations, and now deaths are solidly down. But those variants, more experts are fearing they could likely spark another case surge.

Nick Watt is our CNN national correspondent. He has more on today's COVID headlines.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): That entire shipment is still yet to come.

BILL DE BLASIO (D), MAYOR OF NEW YORK: We're going to run out. Today, tomorrow, we're going to run out.

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Terrible weather is slowing vaccine shipments across the country.

KELLY GARCIA, DIRECTOR, IOWA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES: Because of where the distribution centers for both vaccine manufacturers are located, in the Southern part of the U.S.

WATT: Across the heartland, some vaccine locations are closed, but this weather the tip of an iceberg-sized supply issue.

DE BLASIO: We're in this ridiculous situation where we have massive ability to give people vaccination. We could be doing hundreds of thousands of more each week.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have acted aggressively to increase the vaccine supply.

WATT: The pace is picking up, but still only around 5 percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, more than nine weeks in.

The president's timeline? Enough doses available for 300 million Americans by end of July.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: By next Christmas, I think we will be in a very different circumstance, God willing, than we are today.

DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, FORMER DIRECTOR, DETROIT HEALTH DEPARTMENT: They're hedging here because they know that the variants could really mess up a lot of our best-laid plans.

WATT: Case counts here have been falling for five weeks, but that foster spreading variant first found in South Africa now detected in nine states, probably in many more.

The CDC director points to what happened when that variant arrived in Zambia. Average daily case counts went up 16-fold.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: I know these variants are concerning, especially as we're seeing signs of progress. I'm talking about them today because I am concerned too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: So, right now, between all the different variants, nearly 1,300 cases confirmed here in the U.S.

And the CDC warns that these variants could lead to a rapid rise in case counts, which is why, just this morning, Dr. Walensky from the CDC said it is more important now than ever to follow the measures that we know work, like masks -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: On the point of vaccines, I know some states are doing so much better than others when it comes to the vaccine rollout. What are you seeing?

WATT: Yes, it is very, very uneven.

Right now, Alaska is doing best

[15:30:00]