Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Biden Fields Questions on COVID-19, Economy and Division; Biden: A Vaccine for Every American By July; Biden Pitches His Massive Pandemic Relief Plan; Millions Without Power as Winter Storms Sweep U.S.; Mass Protest Against Coup Underway in Myanmar. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired February 17, 2021 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Rosemary Church.
Just ahead, President Joe Biden takes questions from the public for the first time since taking office and pledges a coronavirus vaccine for every American by July.
Plus, shivering in the dark, millions of people are still without power as winter weather takes a deadly toll.
And living in fear. Why many Asian-Americans believe they have become targets for hate.
Good to have you with us. Well from COVID-19 to economic relief to domestic terrorism, U.S. President Joe Biden fielded a wide range of questions from voters for the first time since taking office during CNN's Town Hall hosted by Anderson Cooper. The topic that dominated the night, the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Biden was asked about the availability of vaccines.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: When is every American who wants it, going to be able to get a vaccine?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: By the end of July of this year. We have -- we came into office, there was only 50 million doses that were available. We have now, by the end of July, we'll have over 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate every single American.
We got in office and found out the supply -- there was no backlog -- I mean, there was nothing in the refrigerator, figuratively and literally speaking. And there were 10 million doses a day that were available. We've upped that in the first three weeks in office to significantly more than that. We've moved out, went to the Pfizer and Moderna and said can you produce more vaccine and more rapidly. And not only agreed to go from 200 to 400 and they've agreed to go to 600 million doses. And we got them to move up the time because we used the National Defense Act to be able to help the manufacturing piece of it. To get more equipment and so on.
COOPER: So, if end of April -- excuse me, end of July, they're available to actually get them in the arms of people who want them that will take, what, a couple more months?
BIDEN: Well, no, a lot will be vaccinated in the meantime.
COOPER: OK.
BIDEN: In other words, it's not like all of a sudden 600 million doses are going to appear. And what's going to happen is, it's going to continue to increase as we move along.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Mr. Biden spoke to the key questions on the minds of so many, when might life finally get back to normal. Here was his take.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BIDEN: It's a high probability that the vaccinations that are available today and the new one, Johnson & Johnson -- God-willing, will prove to be useful -- that with those vaccinations, the ability to continue to spread the disease is going to diminish considerably because of they call herd immunity.
And now they're saying, somewhere around 70 percent of the people have to constitute, some people said 50, 60, but a significant number have to be in a position where they are -- they have been vaccinated and/or they've been through it or --
COOPER: Have antibodies.
BIDEN: -- and have antibodies.
And so if that works that way, as my mother would say with the grace of God and the goodwill of the neighbors, that by next Christmas, I think we'll be in a very different circumstance, God-willing, than we are today.
I think a year from now, when it's 22 below zero here -- no, a year from now, I think that there will be significantly fewer people having to be socially distanced, have to wear a mask, instead of -- but we don't know.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: And CNN's Kaitlan Collins was in Milwaukee for the president's town hall. She has more on Mr. Biden's plan for combatting and ending the pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This is President Biden's first time interacting directly with voters since taking office. [04:05:00]
He was here in Milwaukee for that first town hall with CNN. And of course, the number one topic was the COVID pandemic ranging still throughout the country. And President Biden said he believes that that deadline for when every American who wants to get a vaccine will be able to get one is the end of July.
Now he had this really important caveat, but that does not mean every American will have had one by then, but he said by the end of July they will have those 600 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine. And, of course, the next challenge for that is getting those administered in the arms of Americans dealing with the challenge of vaccinators and also vaccine hesitancy.
And so, you heard him tonight, he was talking about his COVID-19 relief plan that's making its ways through the hall of Congress, but also the other major topic in the country right now which is the reopening of schools. And president Biden said it was a miscommunication when you heard an official from his White House recently say that their goal of having a majority of schools open by the end of his first 100 days in office meant kids being in school one day a week at a minimum.
He said that is not his goal, he wants it to be K through 8, a majority of those schools open five days a week by the end of his first 100 days in office. He said he believes that is something he can achieve. But he said high school is a different story. And he also said while he was talking about this, there's a chance summer school could be an option.
And so not a ton of clarity there. There are still going to be questions for the health officials in his administration about what exactly that's going to look like and whether or not schools should be open right now. But there was President Bided clarifying that timeline there tonight.
And so, those are the big questions as the big headlines coming out of this when it comes to the pandemic. Of course, he was asked several other topics, foreign policy, China, domestic terrorism here at home. Something that's also been a major conversation in recent days, ever since that January 6th riot.
And so this was his first time taking questions from voters. But we should note he is hitting the road again this week when he goes to Michigan on Thursday as he continues to try to sell this big $1.9 trillion plan directly to voters, instead of just to lawmakers in Washington, D.C.
Kaitlan Collins, CNN, traveling with the president in Milwaukee.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Joining us now is CNN White House correspondent John Harwood. Good to see you, John. So President Biden went to his Town Hall with the aim of selling $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill to the public. How did he go with that?
JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He did quite well. He was selling himself which he did by connecting in a skillful way with the audience, including a second grader who was on hand. Making sure that he connected with the individual stories of the people does asking him questions and also making the case for that COVID relief bill, which is already pretty popular, if you look at the polling. But he was making that argument in a swing state Wisconsin.
Like the Republican lawyers for Donald Trump in the impeachment trial, he needs only to appeal to his own side right now. Because it appears that he's going to do this with Democratic folks only. So, he's trying to unite his party. And in fact, when he got a question about Donald Trump impeachment, he said he didn't even want to talk about President Trump. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Before the Senate voted to acquit the former president in the impeachment trial, you said you were anxious to see if Republican Senators would stand up. Only seven did. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the rest cowards. Do you agree with her?
BIDEN: I'm not going to call names out, I -- look, I for four years, all that's been in the news is Trump. The next four years, I want to make sure all of the news is the American people. I'm tired of that. It's done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARWOOD (on camera): And Rosemary, that's part of the key appeal of Joe Biden during the campaign. He wanted to convey a calmer, more stable, more sober presence than Donald Trump. And he certainly exerted a lot of effort to do that tonight. And I think he succeeded.
CHURCH: CNN White House correspondent John Harwood, many thanks.
Well, we will have much more on the Biden Town Hall with CNN later this hour. But first, let's get to our other top story. America's deep freeze.
About 105 million Americans are under winter storm alerts, as dangerous, frigid temperatures grip much of the country. The weather is blamed for at least 26 deaths and widespread power outages. Almost three quarters of the mainland U.S. was covered in snow in the past 24 hours. And millions of people are dealing with how to stay warm right now, without electricity.
[04:10:00]
And you can see the windchill has plunged temperatures to arctic levels, many of those without power are in Texas, a state not used to such brutal cold. The governor of Texas is slamming the agency that over oversees the bulk of the state's electrical grid.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): The power generators froze up, and their equipment was incapable of generating power. And then on top of that, the natural gas that flows into those powered generators, that has frozen up also. So that is an act of nature. However, what ERCOT should have been able to do is have backup systems in place. They have provided zero explanation why they didn't have backup system in place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: And Texas officials warn the wintry conditions could get even worse. CNN's Ed Lavandera has more now from Dallas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Millions of Texans are once again spending a brutal and dangerously cold night in their homes. This is because there are still millions of people without electrical power in their homes. This is the third night in a row that power is still out to millions of homes across the state because of this winter storm that blew in Sunday night into the state.
There is another storm expected to come through on Wednesday as well. But the question remains when will the electrical system be back up to full strength to get people the ability to warm up their homes. And as hard as it may seem to believe, we just don't have a clear answer at this point.
We spoke with the chief executive of the Texas power grid on Tuesday, who said that they'd hoped to restore power on Tuesday and Wednesday. But that is not clear that that's going to happen. We've heard from local and state officials who seem to suggest that there are other issues at play here. The governor is saying that natural gas pipelines are frozen. So it could take longer to restore that power. And get that power into the system, so that people can warm up their homes.
The bottom line is here, we just don't have any answers as to when the full strength of the Texas electrical system will be back up and running so that millions of people don't have to spend another night in the dangerous cold once again.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: And CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri is tracking all of this weather. He joins us now. Pedram, people are suffering with this deep freeze. And when will it likely be over?
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, it looks like we're finally getting towards the midpoint of this extensive cold weather trend that we've seen over the last week or so. And over the next three to four days, gradually you're going to see a shift in warmer temperatures, and then in the next seven to ten days potentially getting above average across a large area of the U.S. So we'll end with that here in about two minutes. But I want to show you what we're dealing with at this hour with
temperatures widespread running from 15 to 40 degrees below average for this time of year. In fact, by Wednesday afternoon, Oklahoma City they'll be about 38 degrees below what is normal for this time of year, with high temperatures only in the single digits in some of these others. And of course, the damage has done.
You take a look at 45 of the lower 48 states across the U.S. have snow on the ground. And you look at the ground area, the coverage area of this, about 73 percent of the lower 48 states with snow on the ground which is an all-time record since the record began for this particular data in 2003.
And again, parts of eight states dealing with widespread outages, some nearly 4 million customers. So you take that number, and you kind of taking into account, generally three to four people per customer. Possibly as much as 10 to 16 million people without power. A large number of those comes out of areas across the Lone Star state. And unfortunately, that is exactly where the next weathermaker is in place. And anytime you see that color predictions here of white, into pink and purple, that's indicative of another round of freezing rain.
And of course, north of that is white. That's all snow coming down. But the broader scale here shows you there are over 100 million Americans still underneath these winter weather alerts. So essentially the same pattern that led us to where we are here with arctic air, freezing rain, record snows and very cold temperatures are all in place here for another system to essentially produce this, yet again, across the very similar area.
So another quarter inch to maybe half an inch. Some areas potentially getting close to one inch of ice secretion here as we go in from later on Wednesday night into Thursday morning. And notice a lot of these same areas that have seen historic temperatures and also historic snowfall, continue to see that through at least the next two days.
But really, where conditions are set to improve is when we get to, say, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This system does eventually produce some snow showers around portions of the northeast. But notice the forecast models here. You kind of get that hint of yellow, maybe even some orange in the forecast, that's indicative of temperatures climbing up into the 60s, maybe even the 70s. And Rosemary, we go to Houston from about 36 and snow showers today to close to middle 60s by Tuesday of next week.
[04:15:00]
So big time warming potentially as you go in towards next week.
CHURCH: That is more like it, right? We like those temperatures.
JAVAHERI: Yes.
CHURCH: Pedram Javaheri, many thanks for bringing us up to date on the situation. In Myanmar, a defiant rejection of the military coup. Thousands of
protesters are jamming the streets and there are growing fears of violence.
And later, we will have more from CNN's Town Hall with President Joe Biden, including his pitch for big stimulus spending. Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: This just into CNN. Following up on our report on Texas's devastating winter weather. The city of Galveston's water supply is now said to be critically low. The city is under stage five water restrictions due to major water line breaks and system failures caused by below freezing temperatures. And we will, of course, continue to follow this story and bring you any developments as they come into us.
Well, demonstrators in Myanmar are defying the threat of violence to protest the military coup earlier this month. They have gathered in Yangon for a massive show of opposition.
[04:20:00]
But the U.N. special rapporteur for Myanmar said he is terrified of the potential for violence if the protesters and troops confront each other.
Our Paula Hancocks is following this story. She joins us live from Seoul. Good to see you, Paula. So, a lot of concern, of course, about what the military might do next. What more are you learning about what's happening on the ground there?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, from protesters that we're talking to and from live streams that we can see of what's happening on the ground there are massive crowds in Yangon. Activists have been calling for millions to come out and call for Aung San Suu Kyi, the ousted leader, to be released from detention, among other detainees. But there is, as you say, this concern that given are so many people out on the streets, and we know that there is an increased military presence that there could be some force used later.
Now, you mentioned the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews. He did talk about the fear that there was a potential for violence on a greater scale. Pointing out that he's heard reports that there are troops that have been brought into Yangon from the outlying areas. And he said, when that's happened in the past that has led to violence. So certainly, there are concerns.
We spoke to one protester on the ground. A 26-year-old male who doesn't want to be identified for fear of repercussions. And he said that he is constantly angry at this point, at what has happened, this military coup that has displaced the democratically elected government. Also saying that he is sleeping in different houses every single night for fear of being arrested.
There are these nighttime arrests as the internet is being shut down that have really spooked people in many of these cities. And also saying that he actually has more fear of being arrested than of being shot.
So what we've also seen on the streets is not just the increased military presence, but the but the nature of the troops that are there. Now it is the light infantry division which human right activists say have been accused of human rights abuses over the years. They are believed to be the ones that were heavily involved in the crackdown back in 2017. That violent crackdown also involved up in Rakhine state with Rohingya militants -- sorry, the Rohingya Muslims.
And what we're hearing form Human Rights Watch is that they are worried that this could turn nasty. They are saying that they have a very nasty reputation. So that's adding to the fear on the streets that you have these military elements, this particular battalion under the military chief Min Aung Hlaing as well -- Rosemary.
CHURCH: All right, many thanks to our Paula Hancocks joining us there live.
We have more news just coming into CNN. Armed men have raided a school in Nigeria's Niger state. At least one person is dead and it's feared dozens of students have been abducted. The raid took place at a secondary school in Rafi District. It happened at about 2:00 a.m. local time. It's not known how many students are missing but the school's boarding facility was known to house hundreds of school children. A local resident told CNN one student was killed by gunmen. And we will, of course, bring you more details on this story as they come in.
America's economic crisis and President Biden's proposed $1.9 trillion COVID relief package were key topics during last night's CNN Town Hall. Mr. Biden explained the urgency of taking swift action now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BIDEN: ... Overwhelming consensus is, in order to grow the economy a year, two, three, and four down the line, we can't spend too much. Now is the time we should be spending. Now is the time to go big.
Look at all the people. You have over 10 million people unemployed. We need unemployment insurance. We need to make sure that, you know, you have 40 percent of the children in America -- talk about food shortage, 60 percent of -- did you ever think you'd see a day in Milwaukee, you'd see in the last six months people lining up in their automobiles for an hour or for as far as you could see to get a bag of food?
What -- I mean, this is the United States of America for God's sake. We can't deal with that.
We promise -- look at all the people who are on the verge of being kicked out of their apartments because they cannot afford -- they cannot afford the rent. What happens when that happens?
[04:25:00] Everything -- look at all the mom and pop landlords that are in real trouble if we don't subsidize this in the meantime.
Look at all the people who are on the verge of missing and how many people have missed their last two mortgage payments and are able to be foreclosed on. That's why I took executive action to say they cannot be foreclosed on in the meantime, because look at what the impact on the economy would be.
You think it's bad now, let all that happen.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: And the U.S. has now administered more than 55 million COVID vaccine doses nationwide. And President Biden says the rollout will continue to improve. But this week, the vaccine drive faced significant setbacks because of severe winter storms that delayed shipments. CNN's Nick Watt has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a little bit of a shock.
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Snow and sub-zero temperatures, slowing vaccination from Illinois to Texas, and delaying the delivery of doses
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes by a day, sometimes by two days.
WATT (voice-over): A momentary blip.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, U.S. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The critical issue is that the demand far outweighs the supply. That's the issue.
WATT (voice-over): Dr. Fauci had said everyone would be eligible for a shot by the end of April, now says Johnson & Johnson will deliver fewer initial doses than the administration thought. So --
FAUCI: That timeline will probably be prolonged, maybe into mid to late May and early June, but it may take until June, July and August to finally get everyone vaccinated.
WATT (voice-over): New case counts, and hospitalizations are falling faster now than at any point in this pandemic.
FAUCI: We just got to be careful about getting too excited about that, because we do have a challenge of variants.
WATT (voice-over): That faster spreading variant first identified in South Africa now detected in eight U.S. States. The variant first found in the U.K., now confirmed in 40.
We are told masks and mitigation still required to keep overall case counts falling.
FAUCI: We've got to continue until we get it so low that it's no longer a threat.
WATT (voice-over): But is complacency creeping in? Despite warnings not to, more than 5 million people flew in the five days over the holiday weekend.
WATT: This newly-opened vaccination site in East Los Angeles, run jointly by FEMA and the Governor of California's office, they hope when they are up to capacity later this week to be delivering 6,000 shots a day into people's arms. This is what it looks like on the ground when President Biden and his team say they want to speed up the vaccine rollout.
Nick, Watt CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Just ahead on CNN, President Biden addresses major concerns about coronavirus variants. And their potential impact on vaccines. Back with that in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
