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Biden to Address Joint Session of Congress Tonight; New Video Shows Moments Before Andrew Brown Jr. Shooting; Daily Vaccinations Level Off As White House Battles Hesitancy. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 28, 2021 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Really laid it all out on the line. And 53 years later, I think he's still teaching us a lesson.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

BERMAN: Great interview.

KEILAR: CNN's coverage continues right now with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. A very good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

Just hours from now President Biden delivers his first speech to a Joint Session of Congress. And this one is going to be a speech like no president before him. Largely, of course, due to the pandemic, but also due to the historic nature of this address. For the first time in history, two women -- two women will be seated on the rostrum behind him. A striking image as he gears up to make his next big pitch to lawmakers and to the American people.

That is a $1.8 trillion bill aimed at American families. A potential game-changer for millions of working mothers and fathers but again, another one with a big price tag.

SCIUTTO: Today is day 99 in office for Biden. And remember, the president set some very big 100-day goals. Did he meet those goals? The latest CNN report card is in. 53 percent approval. A majority. But notably lower historically when you look at this graphic comparing him to past presidents at the 100-day mark. Save Donald Trump who was lower.

The big question now is for the next 100 days. Is bipartisanship really possible as demand grows for President Biden to take significant action on a number of things? Police reform, health care, the border crisis as well, and other priorities?

We begin at the White House. Jeremy Diamond has a preview of what we'll hear in tonight's speech.

What does he plan to promise, Jeremy?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Jim and Poppy, this is going to be a broad, wide-ranging speech from the president talking about the state of the country. What he has been able to accomplish in his nearly 100 days in office. And there will be, of course, a major focus on what has defined all of our lives over the last year and a half. And that is the coronavirus pandemic.

First of all, because this speech will look different than what we have seen in previous years. There will be just 200 people in the audience versus the normal 1,000 people that there are because of social distancing. And so it will be a major portion of the speech but he will also address other issues like the Capitol insurrection, which, of course, took place on Capitol Hill where the president will be addressing members of Congress and the country.

He'll also talk, of course, about his jobs and infrastructure plan. A centerpiece of this speech tonight, I'm told, will be unveiling this American Families Plan. This $1.8 trillion proposal which focuses on education and child care. Paid family leave. All of this paid for through taxes on the wealthiest of Americans. And you're also going to hear the president talk about issues like police reform and other priorities that he has not yet been able to accomplish.

And as you mentioned, Poppy, there will also be different optics. For the first time in history, two women standing behind the president of the United States as he delivers this joint address. That's because there is a woman speaker of the House and the first female vice president of the United States.

HARLOW: Well, it took a while, but it happened. And tonight will be a mark of that. Before you go, let's talk about these poll numbers for Biden. What stands out to you?

DIAMOND: Well, look, the president has the approval of a majority of the country, which is better than President Trump could say at this point in his presidency, but other than that, President Biden does rank lower than most presidents at this point in their presidencies. President Biden coming in with a 53 percent approval, according to the latest CNN poll. And one of the reasons why you are seeing this number not be higher is because of the bitter, bitter partisan divide that still exists in this country.

As you can see, 93 percent of Democrats approving of President Biden's handling of his job as president compared to just 7 percent of Republicans. We saw similar splits, of course, with former President Trump when he was in office. Where President Biden does get high marks, though, about two-thirds of Americans say they approve of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic -- Jim, Poppy.

HARLOW: Thank you, Jeremy.

All right. Let's talk big picture. We are happy to have CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod with us. Of course he served as senior adviser to President Obama which means he also worked very closely with Joe Biden.

Good to have you.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to be with you, guys.

HARLOW: As someone who has had so many years working side by side with Biden in the White House, I wonder if his bold moves surprise you and what you expect tonight on that front.

AXELROD: Well, he had the value of experience. He spent eight years in the White House, as you mentioned, at President Obama's side, really as a partner in that administration. And he saw how events unfolded in that administration. And I think that he was determined to strike quickly and to strike as large as he could in his first -- in this first year and in the first half of his term.

[09:05:04]

You know, there's no guarantee, Poppy, that there will be a Democratic Congress in 2023. And Biden knows that. With redistricting and the census. So, you know, he needs to get done what he needs to get done now. He's probably at the peak of his popularity right now. And he's taking advantage of that. And the fact that we had a crisis. And that crisis created a mentality that we needed to move. So all of that is at play here. So I'm not surprised. He had the value of experience and he is acting on it.

SCIUTTO: David, you know what's interesting about these numbers is they're almost a mirror image of Donald Trump's numbers, right? High approval rating, around 90 percent among his own party. Razor thin approval among the opposite party. Of course I know the difference here is independents and that's where the difference was between Biden and Trump, and their overall approval rating.

But I wonder, do we underestimate, based on figures like this, how polarizing a figure Biden actually is for all the talk of -- you know, here's a bipartisan guy, by the way, he won the presidency, and again, I'm granting the number among independents, but is he a more polarizing figure than we realize?

AXELROD: Look, I think we're in deeply polarized times, as you mentioned. Any Democratic president would probably be in the same position that Biden is. I think the thing that we can't overestimate is just how much Donald Trump set Joe Biden up for the successes that he's had. You know, the two things that struck me in this poll were the highest marks he got were for caring. He cares about people like me, and competence. Just the way he's running the government.

That to me is a reflection of people's feelings about the past administration and the sense of relief that Biden is a lower key, more empathetic figure, that he does seem to know what he's doing. The other thing about this speech that's interesting to me, you guys, is the timing of it. You know, this is rather late for a president to make his first speech to Congress and it was very deliberate. They've known for months they had this week circled on their calendar. They wanted to score some wins before he stood before the country. And

they have. And you can see in this poll he's highly rated for his work on the virus, which is, of course, a primary issue. So, you know, the timing is very interesting to me. Their whole -- they've been very deliberate and I think that has paid off for them.

HARLOW: David, you were in the White House when then-Vice President Biden was trying over and over again to convince then-President Obama to pull troops from Afghanistan. Even sending him -- faxing him that memo from vacation in Nantucket, pleading with him to make this decision. Well, now Biden got to make that decision. And I wonder what you think it tells us about his presidency and what is to come, right?

The willingness to go against top military generals' advice. Some of your own advisers' advice and to say I believe this in my gut. This is right, and I'm going to do it.

AXELROD: Yes, I sat through nine meetings in the situation room back in 2009 when the policy on Afghanistan was being reviewed. And the vice president -- then vice president was an emphatic voice that we should focus on counterterrorism and not try and engage in a larger project of sort of nation building in Afghanistan. He didn't call for the withdrawal of troops but he called for much smaller numbers --

HARLOW: Yes. I should have said against the surge. No, you're right. Yes.

AXELROD: Yes. Exactly. But, you know, the -- it does not surprise me that he's taken the position that he's taken. He understood what the commitment of the large numbers of troops were, and that was a very tough decision for the president. He ultimately compromised on the number with an agreement that we would taper down the troops.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

AXELROD: And a path on the way out of Afghanistan. Now Biden is finishing that job.

SCIUTTO: David, question. We're going to hear of another new, more than trillion-dollar plan tonight from the president on family. This follows the more than trillion-dollar plan to infrastructure and the more than trillion-dollar COVID relief plan. I mean, to paraphrase Everett Dirksen, right.

AXELROD: Yes.

SCIUTTO: A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money, although he said billion. So one thousandth of that.

AXELROD: Yes, you've got --

SCIUTTO: I mean, I'm having trouble --

AXELROD: -- adjust for inflation.

SCIUTTO: I'm having trouble keeping track of these. I just wonder, is he overshooting on cost here?

AXELROD: You know, that's what the Republicans will say, for sure. And I think if there's a reason why he's staged these things the way he did in three tranches because if you look at the whole number, it's a very large number. The Republicans will focus on that large number.

Tonight he will focus on the individual components of that package. Most of which are quite popular. The Republicans will focus on the fact that he wants to raise taxes in order to pay for this. He will focus on who he is raising taxes on to make clear to the majority of Americans, the vast majority of Americans that they're not going to be touched by those taxes.

[09:10:08]

But that is the battle of definition that we're going to see ensue from the moment he leaves that stage tonight.

HARLOW: For sure. It's like the biggest legislative challenges are ahead of him.

David, thanks.

AXELROD: Yes. Yes.

HARLOW: Very much.

AXELROD: Good to see you, guys.

HARLOW: Next hour, a judge in North Carolina will hear arguments on whether to release police body camera video of the deadly police shooting of Andrew Brown. Demonstrators gathered in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, for a seventh straight day calling for transparency and answers on what led to that fatal shooting.

SCIUTTO: CNN has also obtained new video from the moments just before Brown was shot and killed. CNN's Joe Johns is following the latest from Elizabeth City.

So, Joe, walk us through what we see, what this new video shows.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, we got that video from a source. The source says it shows sheriff's deputies arriving to serve that warrant on Andrew Brown last week. They are in a pickup truck. There are commands that you can hear on the audio. It's not clear everything that is said, but we know the result at the end of the day even though we can't hear the shots being fired. The result is that Andrew Brown ended up dead in his car.

Now that is not the video that is the source of a hearing today here in Elizabeth City. That hearing is about the release of the body camera video from the sheriff's deputies who were on the scene. As you know, the law provides here in North Carolina that officers and sheriff's deputies may have privacy rights in such videos. And so the question is, who will object if anyone, to the release of this video, to the community and to the family. The other headline here from Elizabeth City is that the Charlotte

office of the FBI has decided that it will launch an investigation into any -- whether any federal rights were violated in this situation. Back to you.

SCIUTTO: That's potentially a big step. Joe Johns there in North Carolina, thanks very much.

Still to come, this hour, the CDC is easing mask guidelines for outdoors, but do they go far enough to convince those Americans still hesitant to get the vaccine?

HARLOW: Also, a juror who served in the Derek Chauvin murder trial is speaking out this morning. Why he compared every day in that courtroom to a funeral. Stay with us.

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[09:15:00]

SCIUTTO: President Biden, of course, set to address Congress for the first time as commander-in-chief tonight. He is expected to tout his administration's handling of the pandemic. That includes surpassing his original goal of 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days. In fact, the administration met a new goal of twice that, 200 million vaccinations, they met that goal last week.

HARLOW: Tonight's address also comes as the CDC issues new guidelines for fully-vaccinated people. The agency now says those who are vaccinated don't need to wear masks at small outdoor gatherings or when eating outside or with friends from multiple households. So let's talk about it.

SCIUTTO: Joined now by Dr. Carlos del Rio; he is the executive associate dean of Emory University School of Medicine at Grady Health System. Dr. del Rio, welcome back.

CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Glad to be here, Jim.

SCIUTTO: All right, so there are a lot of reasons to get vaccinated, primarily, you know, keep yourself from getting sick, keep others from getting sick, stopping the pandemic and so on. We know that, that's the sign.

But we also know people are people and they want to get out and live again, we're already seeing this all over the country. Did the CDC undershoot here by saying, all right, what you could do now is just be outside without masks. I mean, does the science, does the medicine back being more liberal, more open about this now for people who have been vaccinated?

DEL RIO: You know, Jim, I think so. I think that increasingly, we're learning that people who have been fully vaccinated are not only at very low risk of getting -- you know, getting into the hospital, dying, but also at very low risk of getting infected with the virus and therefore of transmitting the virus.

And that's why the CDC has said you can be masked, you know, inside with fully vaccinated individuals. The problem is we only have about, you know, 35 percent, 40 percent of the U.S. population fully vaccinated. So, if I'm in a -- if I'm in a big -- let's say I go to a shopping mall, I don't know who is vaccinated and who is not.

Chances are there's more unvaccinated people than vaccinated people. And therefore, if I'm going to be in that shopping mall, I will still continue wearing my mask. But if I'm going to be in my house with people I know who are fully vaccinated, I don't need to be masked.

SCIUTTO: So what should they say, right? I mean, what could they reasonably say now? I mean, I'm thinking, why not tell people they could travel, right? Hop on a plane, go to Disney world, right, if you've been vaccinated, that sort of thing. I mean, is that -- would that be too risky?

DEL RIO: Well, I think we're moving in that direction. I think that, you know, fully-vaccinated people can clearly travel. I think airlines will continue to have you mask. The biggest concern when you travel is not what you do in the plane or in the train.

SCIUTTO: Right --

DEL RIO: It's actually -- it's actually what happens when you get to the destination place and you go to a bar or you go to a crowded place. I do think so that the most common question I get asked, Jim, is when can I take my mask off? And what I like about this new CDC guidance is they're beginning to peel off masking.

[09:20:00]

And I think that a good way -- you know, many young people are saying, why do I need to get vaccinated? Well, being able to take your mask off is a great reason to get vaccinated. So, I think we need to really play up the fact that if you get vaccinated you're not -- you don't need your mask all the time.

SCIUTTO: OK, that's from a doctor. All right. Big picture, we tend to get nervous whenever we see an uptick, even a small one in new cases -- new infections rather, new deaths. After a brief uptick a number of weeks ago, we're back on a downward trend.

We have the numbers, we can throw these up on the screen both in terms of new infections, you see that blip, now it's coming down again, but also crucially deaths here, and that a sharper decline. I wonder, one, how significant is that and hopeful? And two, does this show that vaccinations are, you know, stemming the outbreak now?

DEL RIO: I think, without doubt, vaccinations are making a big difference. The drop in mortality is really directly the result of great vaccination campaign we've had. You know, most people over 65 are now fully vaccinated. But we still have a lot of people between the ages of 20 and 49 who are not vaccinated. And it's in fact, the 20 to 49s that are driving most of the new

infections and most of the epidemic. If you look at Michigan, a lot of the hospitalizations are also in people that are 30, 40 years old. So, it really emphasizes the need to vaccinate people. You know, right now, anybody 16 and older can get vaccinated. And I --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

DEL RIO: Really encourage anybody who is 16 and older to get vaccinated. It will really --

SCIUTTO: OK --

DEL RIO: Change the face of this pandemic.

SCIUTTO: So you do. The science seems to show that, but the fact is there's a lot of disinformation out there. Joe Rogan, I mean, he's got one of the most popular podcasts in the country. He speaks to tens of millions of people and he said, you know, he didn't say vaccines were unsafe, but he did say if I was a young person, you know, I don't see why you really need -- have the need to get vaccinated.

I mean, that defies the science because to stop a pandemic, you've got to reach herd immunity regardless of your risk of death. That sort of thing. How do you fight that kind of disinformation successfully? It's a challenge for the administration.

DEL RIO: It's a real challenge, and I think, again, it's not just about you. It's about others, right? I mean, you may as a 20-year-old, you may not say, I don't need the vaccine, but you will need the vaccine to do multiple things. I can tell you that there will be increasingly requirements to be vaccinated to do things like travel, to attend certain events.

So, in my mind, it's going to be an important way to access events that otherwise you will not have access to. So, the reality is, do your part and get vaccinated. I really think that, you know, we really need to get people, 20 to 49 years old vaccinated because they are the ones driving the pandemic right now in our country.

SCIUTTO: Yes, if only do your part was enough, right? Dr. Carlos del Rio, thanks very much.

DEL RIO: Delighted to be with you.

HARLOW: Well, the White House says now is the time to be bold when it comes to this administration's agenda. Can, though, President Biden sell the public another nearly $2 trillion plan? He'll try his best tonight. And we're also moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street.

Take a look at futures here, pretty mixed, investors focused on big tech earnings from several companies, including Google's blockbuster numbers that came yesterday after the close. The Dow and S&P 500 flat, at the closing, the S&P almost clinching another time high. We'll keep an eye on markets. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

HARLOW: Welcome back. Tonight, President Biden will deliver his first primetime address to a joint session of Congress. He is expected to unveil his $1.8 trillion American families plan that would pour funds into education, child care and paid family leave.

And it comes just a month after introducing his over $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs package, something Republican lawmakers have already rejected and counter-offered with a much scaled-down plan of their own. Let's talk about all of this with assistant house speaker Katherine Clark, Democrat of Massachusetts. Good morning, congresswoman, good to have you.

REP. KATHERINE CLARK (D-MA): Good morning, Poppy, good to be with you.

HARLOW: I'd like to begin actually with the optics of what the American people will see tonight. And that is, for the first time, an American president with two women behind him at the rostrum, Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Harris. What does that mean to you?

CLARK: You know, it is going to be an exciting visual tonight. And it represents women being at the table, women of color, being in the second highest office in our country.

And what it means is that these policies that the president will lay out tonight in the American families plan are representative of the struggles that women have had in our economy and the devastation that the economic fallout from this pandemic has had in women's participation in the workforce. So whether we are looking at the child care plans, the investment in paid leave so families don't have to make a choice between putting food on the table and staying home to care for a loved one or themselves.

Two years of free community college. All these policies that are going to lift up families, and are issues that I've been fighting for and women in Congress have been bringing to the leadership table.

[09:30:00]