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President Biden Details Plan to Lower Prescription Drug Costs; Michigan School Shooting Investigation; Biden to Hold Virtual Call With Putin. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired December 06, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:24]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us on NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell.

Any moment now, we expect to hear from President Biden at the White House. He will be addressing a crucial piece of his Build Back Better plan, lowering prescription drug prices.

But he is also confronting two foreign relations issues right now. Sources tell CNN that U.S. officials are considering a wide set of sanctions on Russia, including on members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

The goal here is to deter Putin from launching an invasion of Ukraine.

CAMEROTA: The president has a video call scheduled with Vladimir Putin tomorrow.

The Biden administration also just announcing a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing. No U.S. government officials will attend, but U.S. athletes will still be able to compete.

CNN senior White House correspondent Phil Mattingly joins us now.

Phil, a lot of high-stakes international issues right now.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no question about it.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki just publicly announcing that diplomatic boycott a short while ago and also addressing a series of questions about that looming phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And, guys, make no mistake about it. U.S. officials have grown increasingly concerned over the course of the last several weeks due to a buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border that could reach a level of 175,000. I think a lot of the question right now inside the administration is, what is President Putin's intent? That is a driving factor behind the decision to schedule that video call tomorrow. And I think what's going on, as well as trying to figure out what the Russian president's intentions are, are preparing for the possibility of anything that would come.

And that's where you get the sanctions package that's being drawn up. Sources and administration officials making clear it is a substantial sanctions package. It is one driven primarily by the idea of deterrence, trying to lay out what might come, so Russian officials do not take the step of moving further than just massing troops and in fact decide to back down, move some of those troops away.

Now, it's important to know President Putin has laid out some pretty clear red lines in terms of what he would want to see in terms of commitments, including a commitment that there would be no eastward move in terms of new countries into NATO, that there potentially would be no new weapon systems or even remove weapon systems that he would consider a threat to Russia.

Now, President Biden was asked about potential red lines. He made clear last week that he doesn't accept any red lines. Administration officials have repeated that as well. It's worth noting President Biden will have a call with some of his closest transatlantic allies here in a couple of hours.

The idea, officials say, is to both align on the messaging side, but also make clear they're unified going forward. And that is a critical piece of any type of sanctions action that they may pursue. If the United States has to move unilaterally, it certainly wouldn't have the effect or the bite that administration officials think is a necessity at this point in time.

However, the overall goal that has been made very clear, try and get President Putin to pull his troops back, not have to apply those sanctions at all, guys.

BLACKWELL: All right, let's turn now to China and the announcement you just said of this diplomatic boycott.

We know that China said there will be countermeasures. What's the response that we're getting from China overall to this?

MATTINGLY: Yes, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry's office saying there would be resolute countermeasures, attacking the U.S. action that they knew was coming, calling it sensationalist and politically manipulative.

I think the real question now is what those measures may look like at this point in time, but U.S. officials making very clear they're not backing down. And according to the White House press secretary, it was just clearly the right action, in their view.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: U.S. diplomatic or official representation would treat these Games as business as usual, in the face of the PRC's egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang. And we simply can't do that.

As the president has told President Xi, standing up for human rights is in the DNA of Americans. We have a fundamental commitment to promoting human rights. And we feel strongly in our position, and we will continue to take actions to advance human rights in China and beyond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, you guys laid out an important distinction. This is just diplomats. This is not athletes. This is not 1980.

And the real question now going forward is, will any other U.S. allies join them in this effort? There have been a lot of discussions behind the scenes about something like that. So far, it's just the U.S., but the U.S. making very clear they're not backing off this move that they finally announced publicly today, guys.

BLACKWELL: Phil Mattingly for us at the White House.

Phil, thank you very much.

Let's turn now to CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger. He's a correspondent for "The New York Times."

David, good to have you.

Let's start with this upcoming conversation between President Biden and President Putin.

You have some new reporting on potential off-ramps. What are the options the White House considering here?

[14:05:04]

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, when the President Biden talks to President Putin, Victor, what he wants to do is, on the one hand, as Phil suggested, show what the deterrents could be.

And that would be everything from the penalties on oligarchs to even consideration of disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT system, which is the financial transaction system that really connects nations to the world economy. That would be a pretty extreme measure.

On the other hand, he wants to show them a diplomatic out and basically say, OK, if you begin to de-escalate on the border, take your troops out, we will go and reopen in some way or another the negotiations that have been on now for many years since Russia went into Crimea. It's called the Minsk Accords.

And the problem is, Russia hasn't really abided by any of those agreements in the years since they were first reached after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

CAMEROTA: David, do we know what Putin's endgame is here? What does he want?

SANGER: It's a great question, Alisyn.

So, part one would be, of course, making sure that Ukraine does not join NATO. But it looks like he may want something more than that. He wants to reverse Ukraine's move toward the West. And he may well -- and on this issue, American intelligence officials, administration officials are divided.

He may well see this as his moment to begin to reconstitute elements of the Soviet Union. Remember, he's the one who said the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. And now he has Belarus moving slowly back into his orbit.

I think he'd be happy if just the government in Ukraine was run by something of a puppet that would move that back into its -- his orbit. And so he may think that, right now, President Biden is distracted by COVID, focused on China, that Germany's getting a new government, France is about to go into elections, and that there may be no better moment for him to move.

And that's what President Biden's got to discourage him from.

BLACKWELL: Let's turn to China and the announcement from the White House that there will be a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics.

David, the significance of this boycott and any indication that this will be a suitable deterrent for China?

SANGER: Well, in this case, you're not really deterring Chinese action. You're punishing Chinese action. And it's mostly about human rights in this case, although not limited to human rights.

But as I was listening to your description of these two things, Russia and now the diplomatic boycott and China, but if anything is going to feed that discussion in Washington about whether or not we are in the -- or falling into or at the risk of falling into a new Cold War with our two traditional main adversaries, you're really seeing it now, aren't you?

So, in the way that they have settled -- set this up, the athletes can go, but there will be no diplomatic presence. I'm not sure there would have been much of one, given COVID, in any case, but it's an interesting symbolic move.

With Russia, it's pretty high-stakes, because if this doesn't work, and those troops do move in, or there's more cyber activity against Ukraine, we could be in for a much bigger problem.

CAMEROTA: And does the complications now with China make it tougher for President Biden to deal with Russia, because the stakes are higher on both fronts?

SANGER: It may.

What we have seen in recent times, Alisyn, is the beginning of some tentative moves together by Russia and China. They have done some military exercises together. They have talked about trying to -- they have -- you have seen their ambassadors to the United States, the Russian ambassador and the Chinese ambassador, write a joint op-ed denouncing the coming democracy summit which President Biden plans to hold on Thursday and Friday.

So you're beginning to see them try to form a sort of alliance of convenience. Now, historically, that's never worked before. There's a lot of animosity between those two countries. But it's interesting if they see that this is a moment where they may have some common interests. And that could be the biggest complication.

CAMEROTA: David Sanger, thank you for explaining all of this.

SANGER: Great to be with you.

CAMEROTA: You too.

BLACKWELL: Well, Michigan's attorney general is criticizing the Oxford school district for what led up to the deadly school shooting, all the things they could have done differently. We will talk about those.

CAMEROTA: And shooter's parents are now in the same jail as their son.

More on that and what their attorney is trying to claim about why they missed that court date on Friday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:14:26]

BLACKWELL: We are learning some new details about last week's fatal shooting at a school in Michigan.

Now, right now, the accused shooter and his parents are sitting in the same jail, different cells, and all three under suicide watch.

CAMEROTA: The parents were arrested early Saturday morning after an intense manhunt. And we're learning more about their meeting with school officials and why those officials did not search the accused gunman's backpack.

CNN's Athena Jones is live in Michigan for us.

What's the latest, Athena?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn and Victor.

Ever since the shooting on Tuesday, there have been a lot of questions raised about how the school handled this incident with Ethan Crumbley in the days leading up to it, especially because we know of two complaints by two separate teachers or two concerns raised by two separate teachers about, on Monday, the fact they saw Ethan Crumbley searching for ammunition his cell phone, and, on Tuesday, another teacher alerting the school counselor about a disturbing drawing that Ethan Crumbley had done that depicted a semiautomatic handgun, a bullet, a body with bullet holes in it and bleeding.

[14:15:27]

And so the school or the superintendent has asked for an independent third-party review of the school's actions leading up to this. But one thing that they point out, the superintendent points out in that letter, is that, even Crumbley's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, did not at any point tell the school district that Ethan Crumbley had access to a weapon.

And that is one of the reasons that Oakland county prosecutor Karen McDonald cited for why she's doing an unusual thing, which is to charge the parents in a high school shooting case.

Listen to more of what she said about it to explain this, this morning on "NEW DAY."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN MCDONALD, OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN, PROSECUTOR: In this case, you can't possibly look at their actions, and say that they didn't have reason to believe that there was real concern about a violent act.

All of this could have been prevented if he hadn't had access, or if just one of those parents had said, I'm concerned about what I'm seeing right now. And I also want you to know we just bought him a gun for Christmas.

And that didn't happen. And I just can't let that go without holding somebody -- without holding them accountable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And so those are some of the reasons you're hearing from the prosecutor for why she's charging both Jennifer and James Crumbley each with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, a charge -- each of those charges is up to 15 years in prison.

And that is because she said they are criminally negligent, and if they had spoken up about the fact that Ethan had access to this gun, the deaths of these four teenagers and the injuries to the seven others could have been prevented.

So she acknowledges that not in every case would you bring such charges, but, in this case, she believes the facts are so egregious that they should have known that this could have happened -- Alisyn and victim.

BLACKWELL: Athena Jones, thank you for the reporting.

Joining us now is Dave Aronberg. He's the state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida.

Dave, thanks for being here.

Before we get to the parents' criminal liability, which we can talk about, I'm sure, at length, can we just talk about their defense attorney for a second? The defense attorney -- on Friday, we had the sheriff on, who said that they -- that the defense attorney had been trying to reach the parents to turn themselves in all morning on Friday, and was no longer in touch with them and couldn't reach them.

We now then later learned they became fugitives. They went on the run. She then on Saturday tried to explain where they were. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANNON SMITH, ATTORNEY FOR JAMES AND JENNIFER CRUMBLEY: Last night and throughout the day, we were in contact with our clients. They were scared. They were terrified. They were not at home.

They were figuring out what to do, getting finances in order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Dave, if you're trying to turn yourself in, you don't hide in an industrial warehouse 60 miles away from your home.

And so I'm just wondering, does that defense attorney covering for them like that, does she bear any liability at all?

DAVE ARONBERG, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA, STATE ATTORNEY: No, Alisyn, she's just defending her clients, as she is portraying this as this couple just chilling in a warehouse, getting their finances together, clearing their heads, maybe meditating, without any malicious intent.

Well, the evidence speaks otherwise, where they reportedly withdrew $4,000 from ATMs, and they turned off their phones so they wouldn't ping and tell authorities where their location is. You know that this was serious when the U.S. Marshals got involved, because they clearly thought that this couple was trying to flee.

And, in the end, they were found hiding in a warehouse. So, no, it doesn't hold water what the defense counsel said, but it's not it overt lie. She's not telling authorities one thing. If she did, that could get her in trouble. By the way, it's not a crime to lie to the media. Unfortunately, lawyers do it all the time, especially politicians.

So she's not going to be brought up on any charges or any bar complaints. She's just being a good lawyer for her clients.

BLACKWELL: Hey, Dave, there have been some legal analyst who said that this case will be tough to prove against the parents. I mean, this is something we have not seen before. Do you agree with that? ARONBERG: Well, Victor, it's an unprecedented case, because we have

never seen this before because we have never had facts like this before.

But I don't think just because it's unprecedented means that it's going to be super difficult to try in front of a jury. You remember, this is the community that is so outraged by the nonstop school shootings around the country that the prosecutor, who represents the sentiments of the community, she decided to think outside the box and charge the parents and also include a charge against the shooter of terrorism.

[14:20:01]

That's something we haven't seen before either. I think the key here is that the parents did more than just enable him. They seemed to encourage him. They bought him the gun. They didn't respond to school officials who called them about his disturbing Internet search for ammunition. Instead, the mother texted the son, "LOL, I'm not mad at you, and just don't just make sure you don't get caught."

And then, when they were brought to the principal's office, the administrative's office the next day, after he was discovered with this disturbing drawing, they knew he had access to a gun, but did not tell the school. They didn't ask to search the backpack. In fact, they didn't even want to take him home. They left him there to go back to class. And that's when the tragedy ensued.

CAMEROTA: And, Dave, how about that? What about the school officials, the fact that they didn't search his backpack, the fact that they didn't insist that he go home after they found those very disturbing drawings?

Do they face any legal liability?

ARONBERG: Alisyn, I think they're going to be sued civilly, but I do not expect them to be charged criminally.

And here's the difference between what they did and what the parents did. It's about the knowledge of the gun. The parents knew that their son had access to this gun. In fact, they're the ones who bought it for him. The school did not. The parents never told the school he had access to a gun.

And that's the difference here, in my mind, between criminal charges and civil liability. It doesn't take a lot to sue the school for negligence. It's just a violation of their duty of care. You just have to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence, which is more likely than not that negligence occurred.

You don't have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. But I think the school still has some questions they're going to have to answer, because they should never have sent that student back to class. They should have checked his backpack. They shouldn't have allowed him to stay in school at all by just saying, get him counseled within 48 hours. They clearly did not appreciate the clear and present danger here.

BLACKWELL: Dave, before we let you go here, there's one thing that just stands out to me after the sheriff said that these parents were missing, is that they just left their son.

CAMEROTA: Right.

BLACKWELL: They left their son.

They now have this attorney that they're paying for, this private attorney, who actually represented Larry Nassar. So I'm sure she's not cheap. Their son has a public defender, with the claim that they can't afford one.

Does a judge have any discretion there in determining, listen, if you can afford a lawyer for yourself, you can certainly afford one for your son?

ARONBERG: It's a good question, Victor. They look at the family's finances. And they see, does that family qualify for a public defender?

So I don't know what kind of documents they're submitting. The parents are going to have to put up significant money to get bond. Because they were fleeing, their bond is now $500,000 each, so they got to put up 10 percent of that to a bail bondsman.

But it is good question how they can get away with paying for a private attorney, while making public taxpayers pay for the defense of their son.

But all this is on brand for these parents. They have already hurt themselves in the court of public opinion. Think about it. They're the ones who bought the gun. They're the ones, when their son was sitting alone in jail, they fled. They left. And when their son was crying out for help, they LOLed all the warning signs.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: So, I'm sorry. We have to interrupt you here. We have got to go to the White House.

President Biden is giving remarks on the prescription drug clause of the Build Back Better plan.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today, I would like to talk about how we're going to help millions of Americans protect and preserve their health and live with the dignity of knowing that they can care for themselves and their loved ones, all by making the cost of prescription drugs much more reasonable.

At the outset, I want to be clear, we acknowledge the groundbreaking, lifesaving work that many pharmaceutical companies are doing. Look no further than the vaccines and the treatments they're manufacturing and delivering that are helping fight this pandemic.

Our miraculous therapies have in some cases turned diseases that were once considered death sentences into treatable conditions. But we can make a distinction between developing those breakthroughs and jacking up prices on a range of medicines which have been on the market for years without making a substantial and substantive change in the medication itself, the medicine itself.

Here in America, it will not surprise you to know that we pay the highest prescription drug prices of any developed nation in the world. Let me say that again. We pay the highest, highest prescription drug prices of any developed nation in the world. That may surprise you.

What may surprise you is, we pay about two to three times what other countries pay for the same drug. An example, one anti-cancer drug costs $14,000 in the United States. That same exact drug by the same manufacturer cost $6,000 in France.

Today, one in four Americans who take prescription drugs struggle to afford them. Nearly 30 percent, nearly 30 percent of these patients have skipped doses of essential drugs that they have to take. Others have simply not fulfilled -- filled a prescription, tried to use over- the-counter drug and cut pills in half or -- because they can't afford the cost of the prescription.

[14:25:22]

Even if you think it doesn't affect you, it does. Everyone has less money in their pockets because of high drug costs make health insurance more expensive for everyone. There aren't a lot of things that almost every American can agree on, but I think it is safe to say that all of us, all of us, whatever our background, our age, where we live, we can agree that prescription drugs are outrageously expensive in this country.

It doesn't need to be that way. Under my Build Back Better bill, there will be -- that we -- which has passed the House of Representatives, it won't be the same way. One of the most egregious examples of what is happening with drug prices regarding the treatment of diabetes and the cost of insulin, a drug that people with type 1 diabetes they need to take to control their diabetes and stay alive.

It is almost exactly 100 years ago that a 14-year-old boy in Canada dying of diabetes became the first person to receive an injection of insulin. Today, one bottle of this lifesaving liquid cost less than $10 to manufacture. But to create -- but in certain types of insulin, prices increased by 15 percent or more each year for the past decade.

Depending on the nature of someone's type 1 diabetes, the average sticker price for a month's supply of insulin is about $375. But some people, it could be as high as $1,000 a month because they need to take more.

I just met with two lovely women we see in front of me today here. And Sarah Skipper (ph) was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 5. She has a sister, Shelby (ph), who was diagnosed at age 8. She told me that affording insulin has been the challenge of her and her family's entire life. Sometimes, she and her sister ration doses.

In 2018, Sarah was no longer covered by her parent's policy. Although she was working two jobs, she hadn't met her health care plan's deductible, and insulin was about $1,000 a month supply for her. So she started sharing her sister's insulin from the same vial.

At one point, because Shelby thought Sarah had taken her dose, that Shelby cut a dose in half because the bottle was sitting there, and it would look like it was half-empty. Is that correct? And at that time, she thought, well, I -- guess what? I guess I -- she hadn't taken it yet. Shelby had to be hospitalized as a consequence for four days, working two jobs, sharing insulin from the same vial in America?

Shame on us as a nation if we can't do better than that. Sarah is about to start a new job and doesn't yet know what the insulin will cost. Sarah, "I wish I could" -- this is a quite -- "I would I could make a decision that didn't include diabetes." She shouldn't have to ask such a question.

I think about what just happened with Iesha (ph), who was diagnosed with diabetes three days before her 21st birthday, having to choose between rent and grocery and medication -- quote -- "relentlessly, without relief every day," was your quote to me.

Having to ration her supply, and feeling herself, as she says, slowly dying, she ended up in a coma. Think about that. The difference between nearly dying and thriving is the cost of one drug.

Sarah and Iesha are far, far from being alone. It is estimated that 34 million Americans, 10 percent of the population, have diabetes, including more than 1.5 million who have type 1 diabetes requiring daily doses of insulin in varying quantities.

Remember, all of this stress, hardship, suffering and sacrifice is due to a drug that costs just a few bucks to make. One study found that Americans pay 10 times as much as other countries for insulin. These price increases are about companies looking to maximize profits, and nobody standing up for the patients, nobody who has the power to do something about it.

It's enough, enough. Nobody has held the manufacturers accountable, until now. My Build Back Better bill takes three key steps to lower the cost for families dealing with diabetes.

First, we're going to cap cost-sharing of -- for insulin at $35