Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Biden's Economic Agenda on the Line; Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is Interviewed about the Infrastructure Vote; Staffing Shortages Expected across New York; Pfizer to Submit for EUA for Kids. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 27, 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: Maybe one of the most amazing things you will ever see in sports, bouncing off the crossbar to go in. Just stunning.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: I always wonder have they have the confidence to say, I'm going to try something like this. It's crazy.

BERMAN: All right, CNN's coverage continues right now.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good Monday morning. I'm Erica Hill.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

It is a critical week in Washington. Lawmakers facing key votes on the debt ceiling, infrastructure, and the multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation bill, what could be a make-or-break week for President Biden's agenda. Today's vote on the infrastructure bill, scrapped. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delaying it until this Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I'll never bring a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): The speaker is an incredibly good vote counter, and she knows exactly where her caucus stands. And we've been really clear on that.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "STATE OF THE UNION": The votes aren't there? She's not going to bring it up?

JAYAPAL: The votes aren't there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Fights within the Democratic Party. Progressives adamant they will not let infrastructure pass until the House takes up the $3.5 trillion spending plan. CNN also learning that House Republicans are urging their members to oppose the infrastructure deal. Though, remember, got a lot of Republican votes in the Senate.

HILL: Indeed it did. All of this, though, meantime, playing out against the backdrop of another looming crisis, a lapse in government funding and a potential government shutdown. The U.S. could default on its debt if borrowing isn't increased by Friday. That would spell disaster for millions of Americans. Federal workers wouldn't get a paycheck. The child tax credit would be halted. Social Security checks wouldn't hit bank accounts. There is a lot at stake this morning.

CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill buckling in for a busy week. White House correspondent Jeremey Diamond also with us.

So, Lauren, let's start with you first.

We just heard, right, from the speaker there saying she wouldn't bring -- bring this if she didn't have a vote. Infrastructure now set for Thursday. Is that a sign she does have the votes?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it's a sign that she's going to be working to try to get the votes, Erica. Like you noted, that vote was supposed to be scheduled for today. That was a promise that she made to her moderate members.

But, instead, tonight at 5:30, House Democrats are going to huddle for really what is a family meeting. An airing of grievances. An opportunity for leadership to hit home once again that this is the moment where Democrats really face a choice between getting something or getting nothing as part of Biden's agenda.

But she still has a lot of work to do with those progressives. On Friday, I asked Representative Jayapal whether or not she was going to be supporting that bipartisan infrastructure bill given the fact the leadership has tried to rush through that bigger $3.5 trillion proposal in an attempt to make sure that progressives feel comfortable voting for the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Jayapal told me, no, unless she got assurances from Senate Democrats, like Manchin or Sinema, that they were going to be supportive of that, she wasn't going to be voting for it. That's a sign of the trouble ahead because she really represents a caucus that's much bigger than just a few Democrats. It's dozens of Democrats.

Now, there's a bigger issue of a potential government shutdown at the end of the week despite the fact the Democrats and leadership would like to see Biden's agenda on infrastructure and that social safety net bill passed by the end of the week. The reality is, if nothing happens on those items, nothing happens to the rest of the country. If nothing happens on government funding, you have a shutdown at the end of the week.

So Senate Democrats are going to attempt to bring up the bill today that would fund the government through early December, as well as raise the country's debt ceiling. Republicans expected to reject that en masse. Therefore Democrats are going to face a decision, are they going to decouple these two items in an effort to pass that government funding bill as a standalone, or are they going to keep digging in? And we just don't have the answer on what their a plan b is publicly right now, although Republicans saying they're getting nervous that Democrats aren't airing that publicly just yet.

Jim and Erica.

SCIUTTO: Jeremy, at the White House, President Biden says he is, quote, optimistic about negotiations. We've heard that before. Why is he optimistic now? Is that realistic?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, listen, President Biden is always going to be on the optimistic side, at least publicly. And from his White House, that is also the sense that we're getting is that ultimately the stakes are too high here for failure to be even an option. And that the Democratic Party at large, heading into the 2022 midterms, is going to need these big agenda items to be able to run on something heading into those midterms.

We know that President Biden was on the phone all weekend with lawmakers. His staff was also doing that. And there is a sense of cautious optimism from several White House officials we've spoken to this morning after those weekend talks.

But beyond meeting with lawmakers and talking to them, cajoling them, another role we've seen President Biden play is try and reshape the message. We saw him do that on Friday as he tried to get the party away from this focus of this top-line number of $3.5 trillion, insisting the number is actually going to be zero because he said it's going to be paid for by revenue raisers, including tax increases on the wealthiest and on corporations.

[09:05:12]

The White House continuing that effort this morning, circulating a new memo in which they talk about the broad public support for some of the key pieces of President Biden's agenda that are included in this reconciliation package, an effort to try and remind all of these Democrats from the moderate and progressive factions not only of what is at stake, but also of how popular some of the items in this reconciliation package are, not only among Democrats, but among the public at large.

HILL: Jeremy Diamond, Lauren Fox, appreciate the reporting. Thank you both.

SCIUTTO: Joining me now, California Congressman Ro Khanna. He's a member of the House Oversight and Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, thanks for taking the time this morning.

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Thank you for having me on.

SCIUTTO: All right, so Democrats locked in a pretty dangerous game of chicken here. Already delaying deadlines and you're up against a wall with the debt limit.

A senior administration official tells CNN, quote, we will have to cut a lot and drop some things, but I think we can get the big pieces.

You have said you'll willing to negotiate. What specifically are you and other progressives willing to give up to sign this deal, vote yes?

KHANNA: We first need an offer from Senator Sinema and other centrists who object to the $3.5 trillion. That's what the president has said. We are for passing the president's agenda. We are for passing the full president's agenda. If others want to cut things, it's their responsibility to say, here is what we want to cut and then we can negotiate. The problem right now is that we don't have any number on --

SCIUTTO: I mean you also have to say -- you also have to say what you're willing to give up. I mean is it -- it is raises in Medicare spending? Is it free college education or junior college education for all? What specifically is negotiable for you and other progressives?

KHANNA: I think the timeline of how long we cover things is negotiable. But the point is, we have already -- we made a starting offer. They haven't reciprocated. And how can you have a negotiation when the other side doesn't even have a proposal.

Now, we can say, should we cover this five years, seven years, and Jayapal, our chair of the Progressive Caucus has said, we can have those conversations.

If there are things that they believe shouldn't be in there, let us know. But the challenge right now, and I -- I think this whole thing could be solved if we got a number from their side, we sit down with the president, you know, have the senators who were opposed to it, have us in there and say, OK, let's negotiate it. That conversation can't happen until we have a number on the table.

SCIUTTO: Well, that's a pretty remarkable position to be in on Monday with now a delayed vote until Thursday and a deadline for the debt limit. You're saying you haven't even begun the horse trading on this? That makes it seem to me that a successful vote on Thursday even for the infrastructure bill might be in danger.

KHANNA: Well, here's the situation. You have about 48 senators out of 50 who are for the president's agenda. You have about 210 members of the House who are for the president's agenda. So you're really looking at about two senators and eight House members who are holding everything up.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KHANNA: I mean it's not like you have --

SCIUTTO: Well, that's the nature of having a thin -- that's the nature of having thin majorities in both -- I mean that's a -- that's been a fact for months now. I mean you can cite that again. I'm just curious how you're going to get those two senators and other moderate House members onboard for a deal or you're telling me it's still very much in danger.

KHANNA: I don't think I'm very optimistic it will happen. I think the president made a very compelling case. He showed great leadership in saying, give them a number. I mean I think that was his message in all of the conversations. That's his staff's message.

As soon as we get a number, I actually think the contours of the deal are there because a lot of the things that we want in terms of a clean energy standard, climate provisions, universal preschool, expansion of Medicare, these are very popular. And I actually think some of -- even the holdouts will be for it. But we have to have a number. And that's what the president keeps emphasizing. And they'll find a reasonable party on the progressive side.

SCIUTTO: Are you nervous about what this says to voters, particularly as we get closer to next year's midterms, about Democratic Party leadership and management. The whole message was, we've got three -- we've got three branches, right? We've got the House, the Senate, we've got the White House. We're going to show that government works. We have this ambitious agenda.

But here we are in September. You passed a COVID relief bill, but nothing else. And a real danger this week that the core of Biden's legislative agenda doesn't pass. What's your -- what message are you sending to voters right now?

KHANNA: Well -- I think the president's been off to a strong start. We passed COVID relief. People around this country got checks from the government. We had the child tax credit. The president's gotten out of Afghanistan.

But, yes, we have to get this done. We absolutely have to show that this is something we can do.

[09:10:02]

It's unfortunate that not a single Republican is willing to increase the debt ceiling, that not a single Republican is willing to help give us funding to keep the government open. But, obviously, we're -- we have to be the responsible party, and we will be. I am optimistic that we will get to consensus. And I agree with you that we have to deliver on the president's agenda and that the voters expect that of us.

SCIUTTO: Will the figure be lower than $3.5 trillion by the end of this week?

KHANNA: I'm sure. I mean the speaker has said that's self-evidence. I've said we have to negotiate. No one has said the $3.5 trillion is a red line. And I could understand if that was the position, people saying, oh, the progressives have to compromise, negotiate. We're saying we're willing to. Give us something to work with.

And, Jim, the people who say, well, why can't you just vote for the bipartisan infrastructure deal? That bill, if you look at it, says you can't have electric buses, you can't have any clean energy standards. How can you invest in the traditional economy, in more roads and bridges with more CO2 emission when progressives don't have a single input into that bill without climate standards? And we're saying we need those climate standards.

SCIUTTO: I'm just saying, but before you go, and just quickly, based on what you're telling me, you haven't gotten a number. Here we are on Monday. I -- I just don't see how you are optimistic that you reach a deal unless there's -- unless there's something, you know, some sort of magic that occurs in the next 72 hours?

KHANNA: Well, maybe this interview will be the catalyst. Maybe we'll get a number in an hour or so. I think everyone is giving the same message, let's get a number. And once we get that number, I actually think it will be a very quick process to get consensus. I'm optimistic about the caucus meeting this evening as you reported. Everyone knows we have to get this done.

SCIUTTO: OK. We'll be watching for that number. Congressman Ro Khanna, thanks very much.

KHANNA: Thank you.

HILL: Just ahead, Pfizer's CEO says the company will submit data to -- vaccine trial data for younger children in a matter of days for Emergency Use Authorization. So we're going to speak with former FDA commissioner, a member of Pfizer's board, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, after the break.

Plus, the FBI back at Brian Laundrie's house over the weekend. Dog The Bounty Hunter also showing up and says he's now joining the manhunt.

SCIUTTO: Also ahead, the man who used to run the intelligence branch of the Department of Homeland Security is speaking out. How he says Trump era officials insisted on downplayed Russian election interference, as well as the threat of white supremacy so as not to embarrass the president.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:59]

HILL: Hospitals across New York bracing for the possibility of staffing shortages as the state's vaccine mandate takes effect. All health care workers at New York hospitals and nursing homes are now required to have at least one dose of a COVID vaccine by today.

SCIUTTO: But, New York's governor says she is prepared to deploy medically trained National Guard members to help out or allow recent graduates, retired and out-of-state health care workers to practice in the place of those who are unable to.

CNN's senior national correspondent Miguel Marquez joins us now.

So, Miguel, the majority of health care workers in the state are vaccinated, but there's a significant number. And the state not taking chances here. I mean some of them, even, have been striking outside hospitals, right, to oppose these vaccine mandates. How big is that number?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it would be in the thousands, despite the fact that the vast majority of those who work in hospitals, adult care facilities or in nursing homes, they are vaccinated. The vast majority. But it is a small but significant number of individuals in all three of those industries that are not. And that is a problem in New York state, because unlike other states, there's no option. You either get vaccinated or you don't have a job. Some hospitals have said they're going to put employees on paid leave for a while to see if they get vaccinated and then they can come back to work.

But unlike other states that have an option to test say once a week, New York doesn't have that. So this is going to be a real test of the governor's will to force this vaccine mandate into existence. She has said she is ready to sign an executive order that would allow her to call up medically trained National Guardsmen, hire nurses, those traveling nurses that so many have gone to during the pandemic. They're much more expensive and more difficult to get in because there's such a need across the country right now, or bringing people in from overseas to work here as well.

But whether it's nurses, teachers, police officers, firefighters, public employees, it's the same thing, that inscrutable situation where we have a vaccine, we have a defense, and some, especially in public facing situations refuse to take it.

Back to you.

SCIUTTO: Miguel Marquez there in New York. Thanks so much.

Well, it could be a matter of weeks before children under 12 are eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Just a matter of weeks. It's getting close. Pfizer's CEO says the company ready to ask the FDA for Emergency Use Authorization of the vaccine, give the FDA the data it needs within days. This is for children five to 11.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERT BOURLA, CEO, PFIZER: I think we are going to submit this data pretty soon. It's a question of days, not weeks. And then it is up to FDA to be able to review the data and come to their conclusions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Joining us now, Dr. Scott Gottlieb. He is a former FDA commissioner. He is also a member of Pfizer's board and author of the new book "Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic."

Dr. Gottlieb, good to have you with us.

[09:20:02]

So, what we just heard there, the data could be submitted in a matter of days for an EUA for kids five to 11. Are you still sticking with that same timeline that we could potentially see the first shots in arms in those kids in that age group by Halloween? DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: Yes, look, I think that

that's right. And Dr. Bourla said the application is likely to go in this week. It's a matter of days, not weeks. That would suggest that we could get it in -- in the company could get it in this week.

The FDA has said previously that the review of this application is going to be a matter of weeks, not months. Having been at the agency, I interpret that to mean that it's probably a four to six week review.

So I think it's possible that the agency could review the application in four weeks, in which case you could have the vaccine available by the end of the month, end of October. If it slips a little bit, it could be a mid-November event. But I think that's the timeframe you're looking at.

Assuming all goes well, and the data package supports the authorization of the vaccine, I feel confident in a data package, having been briefed on it. But, ultimately, this is going to be up to FDA and their independent assessment of that package.

SCIUTTO: We, as you know, Dr. Gottlieb, have been watching new infections -- and you can see it on our screen now -- dropping, down 19 percent from a week ago. You said you think this current waive will be the final major surge of the pandemic. Remarkable. You're not alone in that view. I wonder, how quickly do you see this turn and does that mean for folks watching now that in perhaps a matter of weeks they will return finally to a sense of normalcy?

GOTTLIEB: Well, look, I don't think it's a matter of weeks nationally. This has been a highly regionalized epidemic all the way through. And what's happening nationally right now is that cases are coming down when you look at the national averages. But that's being driven by sharp declines in the south where this delta wave has swept through very aggressively.

But you're seeing other parts of the country start to light up. Certainly the Midwest. Parts of the Pacific Northwest. The Northeast also may be vulnerable to some form of a delta wave. So this delta infection is going to sweep across the country in different increments. I think by Thanksgiving it's probably going to have run its course across the whole country. But it's, you know, going to seep into the northern parts of the country, in the Northeast, a little bit later than certainly in the south and even in the Midwest.

On the back end of this delta wave, I do think this is the last major surge of infection barring something unexpected, like a new variant coming along that pierces the immunity offered by a vaccination of prior infection. So prevalence should decline on the back end of this delta wave and hopefully we get back to more of a semblance of normalcy, especially when vaccines hopefully will be availability for children as well and people will feel more comforted by the fact that they can protect their kids also.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: It will make a big difference when -- when they are available for younger children.

I wonder, as we look at -- you know, as Miguel Marquez just laid out for us in his report, what we're seeing in terms of the backlash to some vaccine mandates, whether it be among health care workers, concern among teachers here in New York City as well for the mandate that was put in place for them. Do you believe, though, that vaccine mandates are the way forward in terms of really getting the largest number of people vaccinated and boosting that, you know, so-called herd immunity?

GOTTLIEB: Yes, look, I think that they're going to certainly help.

I -- first of all, we should recognize that we've made great progress. About 78 percent of adults over the age of 18 have been vaccinated with at least one dose. Most of them will complete the series. That's very good progress. And the administration has done a good job rolling out this vaccine.

Getting the next 1 percent or 2 percent vaccinated is going to be a lot harder than getting the first 20 percent vaccinated. So this is going to be a slow effort to get the people who are holdouts vaccinated, people holding out for all different kinds of reasons. I think the mandates will help. Certainly health care workers I believe should be getting vaccinated. We mandate Hepatitis B vaccination, chicken pox vaccination, flu vaccination in health care workers. This isn't just a question of protecting them, but their ability to protect their patients. I think the federal government's well within its right to mandate vaccination among federal workers and contractors for the federal government.

I think when this becomes more touchy is when you're mandating vaccination for smaller businesses, the private businesses. I don't think governors should be preventing private businesses from mandating vaccines. But when the federal government steps in to do that, to actually mandate it, it's going to turn something that's been a furtively political debate around vaccination into something that's objectively political. You're literally going to have politicians running against these mandates.

And I think, in the long run, that could be a little bit corrosive to try to get more people to voluntarily seek out vaccination if this becomes something as subjectively political.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I mean, you outsource enforcement kind of the way you outsource enforcement of mask mandates, like to restaurant owners.

In your book, which we should note again is out, "Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic," you argue that the U.S. did have a pandemic plan in place but it was not adequate for this pandemic.

I wonder, one of the challenges through this has been consistent messaging and information to people so they know what the guidance is. And, by the way, I personally give a lot of allowance for changes because we learn as we go.

[09:25:00]

But I wonder, have you seen that as a major mistake here, particularly, for instance, on the question of boosters, right? I mean a few months ago the Biden administration had a whole plan and now it's been back and forth and we ended up in a different place. Is information a key part of this?

GOTTLIEB: Well, look. at a high level -- if you look back at all the pandemic planning, and I was a part of that in 2005 and I talk about this in the book, risk communication wasn't a key element of how we planned for this. And when we planned for a pandemic, we planned for a pandemic involving influenza. And the plans that we had in place weren't applicable to a coronavirus. So even if those plans had been executed flawlessly, which they weren't, they weren't applicable to this virus.

And the bottom line is, we just didn't have the capabilities that we thought we had. It was sort of a technocratic illusion what we had put in place. And this is what I go through in a lot of -- in a lot of detail in the book.

Look. I think the Biden administration did the right thing backing into an approximate timeframe for when these boosters would be available because they needed to plan for it. If you remember in the Trump administration, the vaccine, I think, was authorized on December 12th. It took four weeks to start vaccinating the 1.34 million residents of the nursing homes. And this was a time when we were losing 7,000 people a week in the nursing homes because they hadn't planned to roll these vaccines out in the nursing homes in advance.

So the Biden administration wanted to be ready to administer the boosters once they were authorized. And they were able to start administering them within 24 hours. I think the fundamental problem was that a process that is intended to create conflict between the FDA and CDC in terms of how you make a decision about who should be eligible for a vaccine, that's the way the process normally works, wasn't really well suited to this kind of an effort where you wanted to have a more cohesive, more seamless process, where there didn't -- there wasn't this sort of appearance of disharmony between the different public health authorities that needed to weigh in. So we used the wrong process. I think that -- that was the fundamental problem.

HILL: Dr. Scott Gottlieb, good to have you with us today. Thank you.

GOTTLIEB: Thanks a lot.

SCIUTTO: Well, the manhunt for Brian Laundrie seems to have moved away from that Florida nature reserve where officials were conducting a massive and difficult search. So where is the FBI looking now? Do they have an idea? We're going to be live in North Port, Florida, next.

HILL: And we are moments away now form the opening bell on Wall Street. Stock futures mixed as investors watch for a potential government shutdown this week if Congress doesn't act. Energy stocks appear set to make some gains. Tech stocks, though, are lower in pre- market trading.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell also set to testify in front of the Senate Banking Committee tomorrow.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)