Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Fed Signals Interest Rate Hikes; Will DOJ Prosecute Mark Meadows?; President Biden Surveys Tornado Destruction; COVID Cases Surging. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 15, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: It's a brand-new hour. Happy to be with you. I'm Victor Blackwell.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

The protocol of two shots, plus a booster, will protect Americans from getting severe cases of COVID-19. That's the word today from Dr. Anthony Fauci.

BLACKWELL: And, for now, he does not see any reason to alter the vaccines to protect against the fast-moving Omicron variant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: Our booster vaccine regimens work against Omicron. At this point, there is no need for a variant-specific booster.

And so the message remains clear. If you are unvaccinated, get vaccinated, and particularly in the arena of Omicron, if you are fully vaccinated, get your booster shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And then Dr. Fauci laid out some new data on how our current vaccines are working. And he said that Pfizer and Moderna boosters both offers substantial protection compared to just two doses.

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is with us now.

Elizabeth, break down what we heard from Fauci, please.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think the bottom line here is that two doses of Moderna and Pfizer are good. They do provide some protection against Omicron, or certainly will protect you from ending up in the hospital. And a booster is even better.

So let's take a look at some of the data that Dr. Fauci went over today. He said the two doses, the neutralizing activity is substantially low. What that sort of translates to is that if you have two doses of Pfizer or Moderna, you still stand a pretty good chance of getting Omicron. You might not get terribly sick, but you could get infected.

For three doses, he says that the protection is 20 times better than two doses, and well within the range of neutralizing Omicron. So, again, bottom line here, everybody agrees the first two doses are the most important. Get that. And then, once you have gotten that, and you are six months past, you should then go and get your booster. That will be helpful against Delta and also helpful against Omicron.

Now, because of all the COVID that is going on in the United States right now, the rates are continuing to climb, we are seeing hospital shortages -- staffing shortages at hospitals.

So let's take a look at what's going on in America's hospitals. So hospitalizations are up 43 percent from just one month ago. That is a huge jump in just one month; 85 percent of hospital beds are occupied in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Nationwide, ICU beds are 78 percent full. And one in five of those patients in ICUs has COVID-19.

So you see staffing shortages because you see more people in the hospital. You just have too many people to take care of in the same way. And also, unfortunately, a lot of people are choosing to leave health care because it has become so difficult during the pandemic -- Victor, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Elizabeth, we talk a lot about Moderna and Pfizer. What about J&J, the J&J vaccine? What does the CDC say about that?

COHEN: Yes, the CDC today says that their advisers will be meeting tomorrow to talk about the side effects of Johnson & Johnson.

If you remember, months ago, we learned that there was a very rare, but very dangerous blood clotting issue that was happening with a small number, but a substantial number of people who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. And so we're expected to hear updated numbers on that.

And, also, we know the advisers are going to vote on something about J&J. We don't know exactly what. But a source tells me that it could very well be a vote to limit its use in some way. For example, women under the age of 50 are the ones most likely to get these blood clots. Perhaps the advisers will vote that it should be recommended that women that age not get this vaccine.

We will have to see, but this is going to be more information about that very deadly, but very rare side effect from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

CAMEROTA: OK, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much.

OK, so the number of new infections is up roughly 50 percent from just a month ago. And the CDC is warning that COVID deaths will also likely increase over the next month.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Tom Foreman is with us now with a look at the state of the pandemic with the holidays just around the corner -- Tom. TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, just around the corner, all

those gatherings indoors. And the numbers are terrible. We have passed a milestone of 800,000 coronavirus deaths.

This is the Tuesday number. The deaths out there on Tuesday, think about. This is slightly more than one person every minute dying from this terrible virus out there, and hospitalizations, of course, up, as Elizabeth just mentioned there.

So it's no wonder the transmission map right now looks awful as well, high level of transmission everywhere that's red. There's virtually no place that is good right now in terms of transmission out there, a lot of it because of Omicron.

[15:05:10]

We only have a tiny measure of what Omicron has really done right now, because we're trying to figure out where it is. But for the week ending December 4, it was less than 1 percent of the cases out there. Now here we are at almost 3 percent now. This could very well become the dominant strain in this country. And it transmits easily. We don't know how terrible it is when you get it.

We're still sorting that out. But we know it transmits easily. And so, as Elizabeth mentioned, look at the hospitalizations out here. No, it's not as high as it has been further back, but it's going completely in the wrong direction. That's why there's so much talk about this notion of getting vaccinations.

And the numbers don't look good there either. Look at this. We had these big spikes, but we sort of ran into a wall. Around 60, 61 percent of the population gets vaccinated. And then we run into all these people who for all sorts of reasons don't want to get vaccinated or won't get vaccinated.

The simple truth is, this isn't about your politics. It's not about your social views. This is biology and science. If you don't want to get sick, if you don't want to get your family and friends sick, go get vaccinated. That's all there is to it.

BLACKWELL: Well said. Tom Foreman, thank you.

CAMEROTA: So, the pandemic has strange so many hospitals and demoralized so many health care workers in Minnesota that a group of doctors and health care officials took out a full-page ad in "The Minneapolis Star Tribune" on Sunday.

The headline: "We're Heartbroken. We're Overwhelmed."

It went on to say -- quote -- "At any time, you or a loved one might need our support, heart attacks, car accidents, cancer, stroke, appendicitis. Now an ominous question looms. Will you be able to get care from your local community hospital without delay? Today, that is uncertain."

One of the doctors behind that ad is Dr. Ken Holmes -- Holmen -- sorry. He is the president and CEO of CentraCare in Central Minnesota. And he joins us now.

Dr. Holmen, thanks so much for being here. When I saw that headline, "We're Heartbroken, We're Overwhelmed," who do you want to see this ad?

DR. KEN HOLMEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTRACARE: As you know, the pandemic has hit certain parts of our country quite viciously.

And that's true for Minnesota. You have seen the numbers. Tom just referenced them. In Minnesota, we are having another really prominent surge. And the purpose of the ad was to have health care leaders in the state of Minnesota -- and they were listed on the ad -- come together to achieve a couple of objectives.

One, to our staff, give evidence to them that we're working as hard as we can to give the message to the public, please join us in this war against COVID. Get vaccinated and public health measures.

So it's aimed at our employees to thank them and to spread the message around vaccination, which, again, Tom just covered. And the second thing was to give a message to the community. Please help us.

As we have gone through the pandemic, we have two groups of patients and a simple way of looking at it, of handling it. One is COVID; 25 percent of our volume now is COVID-related. And the other volume we have take care of is the other normative work of health care, heart surgery, neurosurgery, and all the other things that are really important in people's lives.

And that, when we have so much COVID, we are unable to provide the level of support for those other disease classifications and for the patients who desperately need help. So, not only is it about COVID;. It's about everybody else that has other health care challenges.

CAMEROTA: I hear that loud and clearly in your ad.

But when you say the COVID patients are taking up 25 percent of the resources, do you mean the unvaccinated, or are you seeing people who are fully vaccinated that are also in hospital beds?

HOLMEN: Vaccination has a couple of very important attributes to it.

Number one, it helps prevent significant illness and hospitalization and death. But 90 percent of our ICU patients are unvaccinated. Are there a few that are vaccinated? Yes.

But the value of vaccination is to minimize the impact of the disease, helping to avoid hospitalization, ICU stays and death.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HOLMEN: And that is our objective.

CAMEROTA: Yes, it is.

And I was so struck by something that a different -- a doctor in a different hospital said to reporters yesterday. He said, this is Dr. John Hick from Hennepin Healthcare. He said: "It feels like you're drinking from a fire hose with no way to control that flow. Our work force shortages are extreme. And I think it's been extraordinarily hard on the work force to go from being heroes, to being questioned, to being distrusted, to, you know, feeling like they're not only under the gun, but also sometimes being assaulted by patients."

Have you, Doctor, seen that with your doctors? Are they being assaulted verbally or physically by patients?

HOLMEN: Yes, and I think you have put your finger, Alisyn, on something that's very important.

[15:10:01]

So, not only is that at the overwhelming work of caring for a sick patient population -- and COVID patients are very sick, they are the sickest of the sick -- but also to deal with a cultural movement which denies the basics around care and actively confronts us.

We have arrested folks who have assaulted some of our vaccination clinics that are in the public. We have had physical altercations in the hospital, in family members who want a different kind of treatment than what is commonly accepted as standard best care.

So, indeed, not only is it about the demand of this work, but also the political and social environment among some subsets of patients and their families.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

HOLMEN: It is heartbreaking.

CAMEROTA: It is heartbreaking and sort of disgusting, frankly, Dr. Holmen, to hear that that's what your doctors are subjected to.

And I just want to ask you about something that is controversial, but I have heard it mentioned a few times in the past couple of months from primary care doctors, as well as celebrities. And that is, why not have the unvaccinated go to the back of the line in terms of hospital care?

When you say that people with cancer and heart attacks and strokes may not have a hospital bed, why not give them first preference and make the unvaccinated maybe not have a hospital bed?

HOLMEN: Well, I certainly understand the emotion behind some of that.

I think all of us that went into health care have an understanding that we're here to serve everybody. In medical school, we frequently talk about the Hippocratic oath. And so we are committed to take care of our population and our communities. They depend on us, no matter what the disease process is.

We could also -- someone could also make a similar argument, for example, somebody with a self-inflicted disease of some other sort. And so we are here for communities. We take care of everybody. We take care of COVID patients who are vaccinated, and we take care of COVID patients that are unvaccinated.

It is who we are. It's part of our community. And as a not-for-profit organization, we are the community. We are the resource to take care of all sorts of illnesses, whether it's COVID, to heart disease, to newborn babies.

CAMEROTA: That's such an important perspective, Dr. Ken Holmen, even at great personal cost to you and some of your doctors.

We appreciate all that you're doing. Thanks for giving us a status report. It's really disheartening, but we're thinking of you.

HOLMEN: And thank you kindly.

And a large shout-out to all of our health care workers who -- the term hero is used a lot, but I'm not certain that the public understands not only the emotional stress involved -- remember, these people have families too. And, every day, they are willingly putting themselves out to take care of our fellow citizens in a very challenging environment.

And they go home every day as well. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. Thank you for that reminder and that message. We will talk to you again.

BLACKWELL: Such an important point that the doctor makes there is that, one, they're exhausted, but they take this home with them. I mean, you can't separate emotionally from what happens there at the hospital and then go home to your family.

CAMEROTA: And that they're having to deal with being accosted by patients who don't believe in the treatment that they're offering.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

Let's turn now to the Federal Reserve and making moves to fight inflation. In a new policy statement, the Fed says it will likely raise interest rates above current rock-bottom levels. And that signals as many as three interest rate hikes early next year.

CAMEROTA: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell also explained why they're choosing to speed up the end of the pandemic era stimulus program.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: We are phasing out our purchases more rapidly because, with elevated inflation pressures and a rapidly strengthening labor market, the economy no longer needs increasing amounts of policy support.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CAMEROTA: Here now to discuss is CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar. She's a global business columnist and associate editor at "The Financial Times."

OK, so tell us about this announcement today.

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Well, the Fed has been walking a really tight line for some time.

It needs to keep inflation under control, but it hasn't been long sure how long it's going to be around, right? We keep hearing the word transitory, inflation is going to go away, the supply chain issues are going to clear up, the labor market issues are going to abate, but we just keep getting another wave after wave of the virus.

And these things are not going away. And so what you're hearing now is the Fed saying we are serious about fighting inflation. This is priority number one right now.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

What I have learned here, that Powell says that Omicron didn't factor into the thinking on winding down stimulus. Delta dramatically changed the environment, right?

FOROOHAR: Yes, 100 percent.

BLACKWELL: So, could how you make this decision without considering Omicron?

FOROOHAR: The Fed policy language is sort of its own science.

And I think that by not mentioning the virus specifically, they're saying, look, that's not our primary worry right now. But it's always all about the virus. I mean, the fact is, if you see vaccines being able to really keep this up to control, as you are, that's a good thing.

[15:15:03]

If you see another wave coming and really tightening up that labor market and creating kind of juxtapositions that make it really hard for the Fed to make policy, on the one hand, tight labor markets, on the other hand, sometimes, the economy shutting down, I think they're trying to walk a really fine line here.

CAMEROTA: Can I ask you about this Twitter spat between Elon Musk and Senator Elizabeth Warren?

Because I am fascinated by what the right answer is here. So, Elizabeth Warren, tweeted: "Let's change the rigged tax code so the person of the year, Elon Musk, will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else."

He then responded a few hours later: "You remind me of when I was a kid, and my friend's angry mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason."

FOROOHAR: Mature.

CAMEROTA: And then he went on to say: "And if you opened your eyes for two seconds, you would realize I paid more taxes than any American in history this year."

Which one is it? Does he pay no taxes, or does he pay the most in American history?

FOROOHAR: Well, he hasn't had a lot of earned income in recent years, which sounds crazy, right? I mean, this is a guy who was on paper worth well over $200 billion.

But a lot of that is in stock. He's not exercising the stock. This gets to issues which Senator Warren and many others have been complaining about for some time, which is the people that make their money by getting a paycheck, like most of us, are paying high rates, and people that make it from money are paying lower rates.

CAMEROTA: But when he said, I haven't paid -- I will pay more taxes than any American history this year, that's disingenuous.

FOROOHAR: That's disingenuous.

I mean, it's possible that he's going to exercise some of those stock options, in which case he would have to pay pretty high levels of tax, not percentage-wise, but overall.

But you know what? It remains to be seen, and Mr. Musk never shies away from a Twitter fight, as we know.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

Let's talk about this new polling that David Chalian just brought us; 45 percent of respondents say that the president's policies have actually worsen their economic condition.

FOROOHAR: yes.

BLACKWELL: But people are spending money. The stock market is high.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BLACKWELL: I mean, what's the disconnect here? I mean, imagine if you're paying $3.30 per gallon, that's what you see every day.

FOROOHAR: Well, 100 percent.

It's kitchen table economics. If fuel is going up, if food is going up, that hurts in the wallet. And people tend to blame the president or give the president credit sometimes more than he deserves for what's going on in the economy.

Frankly, a lot of the government stimulus, aside from that initial COVID stimulus, has yet to flush through the system. So what's happening with inflation now really has more to do with things like the supply chain issues, the fact that we have had low interest rates and really easy money for a decade now, right?

This is not just a Biden thing. We're probably due to hike those rates. You have stock prices that are way up here. These are really the factors that are driving these right now. I do think the inflation picture is going to be really volatile. I mean, I think that I could be on here with you all next month talking about inflation rates being lower, and then the next month after that higher.

I think volatility is the only constant.

BLACKWELL: So when the president says we're at the peak, you don't buy that?

FOROOHAR: I don't buy that. I think it's going to be up and down for the next year.

BLACKWELL: OK.

CAMEROTA: For a year?

FOROOHAR: I do.

BLACKWELL: Wow.

CAMEROTA: OK, Rana Foroohar, thank you very much.

(LAUGHTER)

FOROOHAR: I will see you soon.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Thank you.

So the focus now shifts to attorney Merrick Garland and whether or not he will take up the House's contempt referral from Mark Meadows. We will have more on that ahead.

CAMEROTA: Also this hour, President Biden is in Kentucky surveying the damage caused by those deadly tornadoes.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:22:55]

CAMEROTA: Attorney General Merrick Garland must decide if he will indict Mark Meadows.

If so, Meadows would become the first White House chief of staff to face criminal charges since Watergate.

Last night, the House voted in favor of the referral, holding Meadows in contempt of Congress for failing to appear for a deposition.

BLACKWELL: Now, just before last night's vote, the panel read more text messages sent to Meadows.

There was one from an unnamed lawmaker which revealed discussions to overturn the election November 4. That was the day after the election. Here's part of that text message.

"Why can't the states of Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania and other Republican-controlled statehouses declare this as B.S. and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the Supreme Court?"

With us now is Olivia Troye. She's a former aide to former Vice President Pence and she is now the director of the Republican Accountability Project.

Olivia, welcome back.

And it's right there. We don't know if this is the first text of its kind one day after the election. But this is a web that is stretching to include a significant number of members of Congress.

OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: Yes, clear and plain evidence of members of Congress being completely complicit in an attempt to overturn a fair and free election and undermine our entire electoral process and democracy. Incredibly disturbing.

BLACKWELL: And you think, once we get these names -- and the chairman of the committee, Bennie Thompson, says they will make a decision in a week or so -- that there will even be a consequence, though, in this Republican Party for members who tried to steal this election?

TROYE: I don't believe so, because, when you actually stand up for truth, like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and others who have tried to stand for the truth along the way, especially in the aftermath of January 6, you get pushed out of the party or you get ostracized or you get threatened or you get bullied and intimidated.

So I think that is where the party is right now. They support those that do everything to cover up and obscure the truth, even on one of the events that led to one of the darkest days of our entire democracy.

CAMEROTA: Well, if that's the case, then let me ask you a 30,000- foot-perspective question.

[15:25:03]

The Democrats seem very focused on accountability for what happened on January 6. And we do need to know the answers to where Trump was during those hours, why he wasn't calling in the National Guard for help. All of that needs to be answered, for sure.

Republicans seem to be focused on installing cronies at the state and local level into important election oversight positions. From your perspective, which one is more important right now?

TROYE: I think I'm a supporter of both. I think that there needs to be accountability. I think that if people were complicit in this entire thing, I think this is an incredibly dangerous precedent to be seeing.

And I think they should be charged. People like Mark Meadows should be held in contempt of not cooperating with Congress. This is a whole entire group of people who think that they are above the rule of law. And they do this repeatedly. And they use sort of the judicial system to drag things out in the process.

But on the other hand, I think what's happening at state and local level is incredibly concerning, because they are laying the groundwork to be able to overturn the will of the people, the will of what the people decide. And that is actually exactly how democracy really dies. And I feel like it's not an overstatement. I think people at times hear that, and they think it's hyperbole.

And it is not. This is rigging the system at the state and local level, so that, the next time around, if they get the results, and they don't agree with the results, they will have hyperpartisan people in place that will actively work to overturn election results.

And I think that is a very concerning trend for our country.

BLACKWELL: To that point of the direction of both the party and your characterization there of the country, former President Trump is on a tour with Bill O'Reilly.

And the man who you used to work for, former Vice President Pence, came up. And this is what former President Trump said about his future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think I think Mike has been very badly hurt by what took place with respect to January 6.

I think he's been -- I think he's been mortally wounded, frankly, because I see the reaction he's getting from people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: In this party, it's the twice-impeached former president who asked people to find votes for him in Georgia who's determining who's in and out.

But do you think he's right?

TROYE: Look, I do think that there's an entire segment of the population who, after being lied to repeatedly day after day about the 2020 election being stolen and the big lie, they believe Donald Trump and they think Mike Pence is a traitor. They think he's a traitor to their cause.

And that's an interesting choice of words by Donald Trump, right, mortally wounded or something like that. I mean, I think about that, I'm like, yes, Mike Pence was almost hurt. He was almost killed, at the direction of you. And so I think this is just a kind of -- a perfect picture of describing this group of people who continue to spread this disinformation that continues to be pervasive, whether it's FOX News and those texts.

And you see the cover-up afterwards, which I think is -- just shows complicitness across the board by these people. And then you have Mike Pence, who did do the right thing that day. He did his role. He did his job, and he certified the election, under tremendous pressure by the lead -- the former leader of our country in that moment.

CAMEROTA: Olivia Troye, always great to talk to you. Thank you.

President Biden is in Kentucky right now. He's continuing his tour of several towns that were just devastated by last week's deadly tornadoes. These are live pictures we're looking at right now.

BLACKWELL: Yes, he's in Dawson Springs. He was in Mayfield earlier.

You see he's conversing with some members of law enforcement.

Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins is there with the president.

So what do we expect to hear from the president today?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's going to make remarks here. And this comes after he's had several briefings today, including with the governor of Kentucky, several local officials as well, in addition to the administrator of FEMA, his DHS secretary, all these officials you're talking about, overall, what the effort is going to look like.

And you saw just a few moments ago President Biden actually amended that disaster declaration for the state of Kentucky.

That is something that frees up federal funding to help clean up issues like what you're seeing behind me and to help rebuild in these communities in times when they so desperately need it, where it's not just right in the aftermath, of course, where it's clearing debris, it's finding people temporary housing, all of those matters that are incredibly important to people right now who have lost their entire homes, some of them, but also going forward and what that looks like, and the disaster declaration that helps states with the resources to pay for it.

But I also think part of what President Biden is doing here today -- and you see him there just touring the damage, just seeing it up close, because it does make it more real to see it in person and to actually walk around this damage -- is, President Biden said he also wants to listen to people.

[15:30:00]