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Interview With Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA); Joe Manchin Blows Up Build Back Better Bill; Omicron Rising. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 20, 2021 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Thank you so much for being with us.

This hour, President Biden is meeting with his COVID response team, as cases spike and the White House pushes back against criticism that this new variant caught them flat-footed. The U.S. is seeing a level of infections we haven't seen since the summer surge and a level of disruption that feels unfortunately like the chaotic early days of the pandemic.

Lines for COVID tests are snaking around city blocks. Professional sports leagues are canceling games. Major colleges are moving to remote learning.

And keep in mind we are still in the throes of the Delta wave. The Delta variant still accounts for 97 percent of reported infections here in the U.S. right now. But we know Omicron is more transmissible and it is spreading fast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: This virus is extraordinary. It has a doubling time of anywhere from two to three days.

Right now, in certain regions of the country. 50 percent of the isolates are Omicron, which means it's going to take over.

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Even if it has a somewhat lower risk of severity, we could be having a million cases a day if we're not really attentive to all of those mitigation strategies.

And a small fraction of a big number is still a really big number.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Here's the silver lining. The vaccines are working. CDC data shows, if you are unvaccinated, you are 20 times more likely to die of COVID than someone who is vaccinated and boosted.

That's not surprising. It's what we have been hearing from doctors all across the country on vaccinated people are predominantly the ones being hospitalized and dying from COVID.

Let's go to CNN's chief national affairs correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, live at the White House for us.

And, Jeff, the president is set to address the nation tomorrow on the pandemic and Omicron and what he foresees, but, first, he's going to meet with his COVID team today within the hour. What do we expect?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Ana, we do expect President Biden really-and-a-half-an-hour or so to be meeting with his COVID experts in the Oval Office, talking about many of the things that we have heard over the weekend Dr. Fauci speaking about.

Omicron is coming. It is soon to be the dominant variant here. That is likely to happen even before Christmas. So, look, this is not where the White House wanted to be. But the president, we are told, is going to try and issue another plea tomorrow as he addresses the nation to get vaccinated and get boosters.

That is going to be part of the requirement, if you will, to get the country out of this pandemic. Now, they know, the White House knows, the administration knows that there are likely to be some dark days ahead. In fact, President Biden sounded the alarm last week.

He gave a very stark warning. He said, for the unvaccinated, it will be a severe winter, so really some less-than-optimistic language before the holidays. But one challenge, of course, is testing. We have seen those long lines. That is something we are told that President Biden is going to address tomorrow.

But this has been a big challenge for this administration, getting enough tests available, both at the supermarket or your pharmacy, or just other testing spots. That's one of the challenges that they have really struggled with all year long, but look for the president tomorrow to try and issue a sense of calm, if you will, but also acknowledge there are some tough weeks likely ahead.

CABRERA: It's not over yet. That's for sure. We're still in the throes of it and another round coming up.

Right now, we, I understand, learned some new information about former President Trump's vaccination status. What did he say?

ZELENY: Ana, for the first time, the former president was speaking in a Dallas over the weekend, and he did acknowledge that for the first time that he has received a booster.

This is something that he initially said he was not going to get, but he did receive a booster but listen to the reaction from the crowd at a speech of his after he said that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O'REILLY, FORMER HOST, "THE O'REILLY FACTOR": Both the president and I are vaxxed.

And did you get the booster?

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes.

O'REILLY: I got it too.

(BOOING)

OK, so...

TRUMP: Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't. No, no, no. That's a very tiny group over there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So you heard some members of the crowd booing there.

And this was at a pro-Trump event where Bill O'Reilly has been on a tour with the former president. And, look, we have seen this at Trump rallies before, where his supporters are booing the fact that he is getting a booster or vaccinated.

Ana, this speaks to the exact problem here with which Americans to a large degree are still very resistant to getting these boosters or the vaccine in the first place.

CABRERA: Hopefully, his supporters let it sink in and go get boosted or go get that first vaccine, now that they know the formula president...

ZELENY: It didn't sound like it.

CABRERA: It didn't sound like it there. They'd like to resist.

[13:05:03]

OK, Jeff Zeleny, appreciate your update there.

Let's go to New York now, because you will recall New York was the epicenter last year. And now it is home to one out of every eight COVID infections in the U.S., meaning here we go again.

CNN's Jason Carroll is in New York City.

We saw huge lines for testing across the city this weekend, Jason. What's the scene like today?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Same thing today. Same thing this morning, and likely to be the same thing again tomorrow, Ana, the long lines, people waiting to get their vaccine shots.

It's just some of the problems that are being looked at here in New York City, as city officials and health officials continue to look at rising numbers here as well.

I mean, if you look at the latest numbers that we're getting here in New York City, COVID cases more than doubled compared to last week, most of those cases that we're seeing in terms of the data that we're looking at all coming from, for the most part, unvaccinated people.

Despite the rises in some of the cases here, we should also point out, just to give some perspective, officials have not seen a substantial rise in the number of hospitalizations. So, that's something to consider here as well.

Meanwhile, as I was saying, a number of people here trying to get their COVID tests, waiting sometimes hours in line in order to do that. Those going to grocery stores or out to drugstores to try to get some of those rapid tests are finding that they have been sold out.

Earlier today, New York City's mayor, Bill de Blasio, weighed in on this issue and talked about what the city is doing to try to meet that need.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL DE BLASIO (D), MAYOR OF NEW YORK: We are now testing, in fact, more people than ever, 130,000-plus daily in the city sites. That is double the number of tests just three weeks ago. That's how fast things are ramping up.

This intense effort will keep growing as long as we need it to grow to address the demand. And what we're trying to do as much as possible is get those in-home test kits in play, particularly where we're seeing long lines.

Wherever possible, we're trying to, particularly at our city-run sites, if there's a long line, offer people the alternative of giving them an in-home test that they can take home with them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: One more detail there, Ana.

The mayor also said that in addition, to try to help meet this need, the city is going to be opening 23 additional testing sites, in addition to the 89 that are already open here in the city, but his critics say not enough, that more sites need to be open, more tests need to be made available, and more staff, more labs in order to produce the results of those tests as well.

In addition to that, a lot of eyes, as you can imagine, on Times Square, what's going to be happening here. Will the ball drop, in fact, happen? For now, it is still a go, New York City's mayor basically saying that he's going to give it until Christmas to make a final decision on this.

In the meantime, organizers of the event say that anyone coming out here is going to have to prove that they are fully vaccinated. They're going to have to show I.D. as well. They are not requiring that people wear masks, but they're certainly encouraging it -- Ana.

CABRERA: And we're seeing other big cities cancel their plans for New Year's Day, but so far, so good, I guess, in New York City, you're telling us. Jason Carroll live at Times Square, thank you.

Right now, Delta remains the dominant variant in the U.S., but Omicron is spreading. And we have more information today on how vaccines are holding up, some promising news from Moderna today.

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here to break it down for us.

Elizabeth, what is Moderna saying about its data regarding Omicron?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, Moderna is saying that, indeed, their booster does increase antibodies.

What is unclear is, is it enough to give you the kind of protection against Omicron that their booster gave against, say, Delta or previous variants?

So let's take a look at what Moderna announced today. They said that their current booster, the one that you could go out and get right now, which is 50 micrograms, it boosted antibodies, but 100 micrograms, double the dose, boosted antibodies even higher.

But, the -- and the effectiveness of either dose against Omicron is actually unclear. This is lab data. And it's unclear what this will mean in the real world. How effective will it be? And how long will that effectiveness last?

Now, you might see this and think, well, why don't they just do the 100 micrograms? And it's a good question, because the first two doses are 100 micrograms. So, it's sitting on the shelves. And the president of Moderna said today, that's up to public health authorities. If they want to switch us from a 50-microgram to a 100-microgram booster, he said that would be up to them -- Ana.

CABRERA: And Moderna is also working on a booster specifically developed for Omicron, right? Tell us about that.

COHEN: That's right.

They say they're going to have clinical trials in the early part of next year to get a booster specifically aimed at Omicron. Now, before that, I want to say the bottom line here is, get vaccinated and get boosted.

[13:10:05]

Even if the Moderna booster doesn't work as well against Omicron as it did against previous variants, it is still boosting antibodies beyond what two shots will get you.

So, those first two shots the most important, but also that booster is increasing antibodies. And, hopefully, early next year, they will have another one that's even better against Omicron -- Ana.

CABRERA: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you. Obviously, there could be other variants to that happen between now and then.

COHEN: That's right.

CABRERA: Let's bring in viral researcher and internal medicine specialist Dr. Jorge Rodriguez and talk more about where we are right now.

It is Christmas week, Dr. Rodriguez. So I want to start with holiday travel and gatherings. People are thinking, what should I do? What's your advice? Should people reconsider their plans?

DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think people should reconsider their plans.

That doesn't mean that they should stop going to where they're going. But the first thing is, they need to be vaccinated. And I don't want to keep using the word booster. I think they need to be completely vaccinated, which involves three shots, unless it was the J&J and involves two.

That is the complete vaccination regimen. If you have somebody in your family that is elderly, if you have somebody in your family that is not vaccinated, you may want to reconsider your plans. But if you haven't gotten vaccinated, I would urge you not to travel, because you will eventually come down with COVID. There is no ifs, ands, or buts.

CABRERA: And we know there's still a small percentage of people who are eligible for that booster who've actually gotten it at this point.

The TSA, however, has screened over two million people a day for the past four days. That's close to pre-pandemic levels. So I wonder, two weeks from now, a month from now, are we going to be reliving or even surpassing the worst days of the pandemic?

RODRIGUEZ: I don't know if we're going to get to the worst days. But we're going to be pretty close.

There is no way that this wave, that this surge is not going to envelop the whole country. It is moving West and it's in the North now. And there -- I just don't see any two ways around it. It will be coming everywhere.

CABRERA: A cruise ship that just docked in Miami, we have learned, had an outbreak of 48 cases on board. And -- now, this is a Royal Caribbean ship.

It's carrying over 6,000 people, we are told; 95 percent of them were fully vaccinated. So what's the lesson here, do you think?

RODRIGUEZ: The lesson is that 5 percent were not.

And those people may have been the ones that brought it in. Those people may have been the ones that caught it. And perhaps an A-minus is not good enough anymore. And you really have to be fully vaccinated. I think we need to be a lot more strict with vaccination requirements on all forms of transportation, where people are in the same place for a prolonged period of time.

That includes airplanes. That includes railroads and that definitely includes cruise ships. you have to be 100 percent vaccinated. And if it were up to me, you would have to prove that you are COVID-negative within 24 hours of embarking.

CABRERA: As we touched on earlier in Jason Carroll's report, New York state broke case records three days in a row. And I hope we have the graphic where we can show.

Look at this. It's going up. And you can see, the last time we were in this round was last January, almost a full year ago. That was really at the beginning of vaccines. The good news here is, even though hospitalizations are ticking up, deaths are low, they are steady.

What does that tell you?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, that tells me that people are going to get COVID. It's probably going to be the Omicron variant.

And I don't want people to get a sense of relief about the fact that, oh, you know what, it's not as bad, South Africa says it's not as bad. South Africa is a completely different country that the United States. Their population skews a lot younger than ours. They are a lot more homogeneous, as opposed to the United States, where we have different pockets throughout this country of people that are vaccinated and not vaccinated, different terrains, different climates.

So, therefore, we don't know if Omicron in this country is indeed going to be less severe than in South Africa. That being said, if you become infected, you are endangering everybody else, because you are breeding a new variant. And the next one may not be Omicron, which is this little O.

It may be Omega, which is the big O, the big daddy of them all. So getting infected, all right, can lead to a prolonging of this pandemic.

CABRERA: Such important information there.

Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, it's great to have you with us. Thanks for joining us and thanks for all you do.

Senator Joe Manchin today explaining why he is a no on President Biden's Build Back Better plan. We will tell you who he's blaming.

Plus, the U.S. now seeing COVID hospitalizations at a level not seen since late 2020, and one doctor saying there's no medical school class that can prepare you for this level of death. She joins us live.

And a strange new twist in the case of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, who now says she never even accused anyone of sexual assault.

[13:15:06]

Stay with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: The White House is now scrambling to regroup after a devastating and potentially fatal blow to President Biden's agenda.

After months of negotiations, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin says he cannot support the president's Build Back Better plan. The West Virginia moderate has been the key holdout against the massive social policy bill, but his announcement, this abrupt announcement that he is officially a no seemed to catch the White House off-guard.

CNN's Jessica Dean joins us from Capitol Hill.

Jessica, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer now says he still plans to bring this bill to the floor for a vote next year. Why and where do things go from here?

[13:20:01]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, a couple things to keep in mind Ana.

He is going to bring this vote to the floor next year because he wants to put Senator Joe Manchin on record in front of everyone on the floor voting against this.

We did also hear from Senator Manchin on a West Virginia radio show earlier today, and it kind of illuminated some behind-the-scenes details we had not heard previously. Some key takeaways from that radio interview is that he really placed some blame on White House staff, not directly on President Biden himself, but he said that White House staff had done some things that were inexcusable.

And he said that he believed that they thought they could kind of badger him and wear him down and put enough pressure on him that they would ultimately get him to come to his to come -- to their side and vote for Build Back Better, but, ultimately, he simply could not get there.

And what is key also, Ana, is that he is not open, it seems like, at all, there does not seem to be much wiggle room at all for even revamping Build Back Better at this point. He talked about taking it back through the committee process, essentially pushing aside this mechanism that would allow them to move forward with just Democratic votes, and instead taking it back to the committee process, which would be more bipartisan.

So, potentially, could they parcel out different issues that had been included in Build Back Better? Maybe they can. But what is most likely, based on what we have heard from Manchin and what we're learning as these hours go by about the behind the scenes of all of this, is that he has no intention changing his mind.

He is very much set on a no-vote here. Schumer is going to try to push this to really put more pressure on him and make it public, Ana, but it doesn't seem like that is going to move the needle, so Democrats now and Democratic leadership, the White House going to have to go back and regroup to see what, if anything, they can get passed in 2022.

And, remember, it's going to now be an election year, which makes this all the more difficult -- Ana.

CABRERA: Even more complicated.

Jessica Dean, thank you.

Let's bring in Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania. She's a member of the House Financial Services Committee and also a member of the Progressive Caucus.

Thanks so much for joining us, Congresswoman.

This bill addressed everything from the climate crisis to the child tax credit to plans to lower prescription drugs. All of that is now essentially wiped out at this point. What's your biggest concern right now?

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): All of that and so much more.

How about hearing aides for seniors, affordable housing, addressing the climate crisis and so much more?

Mr. Manchin is at a low moment in his career. He misled the president, he misled the Senate colleagues, he misled us in the House when he promised to work and move forward on the framework that was agreed to a few weeks or a couple of months ago now.

We worked in earnest based on that promise, but he has gone back on his word.

And, Ana, I was thinking about it. The only thing that we have as legislator -- as legislators are our words, and the only thing of value we have is our word. Mr. Manchin has gone back on his word, throwing away his own credibility.

Where we go from here is, we keep fighting for Build Back Better, because we know it is in America's interests. It is for the greater good. It is for our children and our planet and our seniors. We're going to keep fighting.

I'm pleased with Senator Schumer, who will bring this bill to the floor to expose the -- all of the senators in terms of where they stand for this very popular investment in our future.

CABRERA: Words are one thing. Action is another, though, and it's the vote that really can make a difference for the American people. Right?

And I wonder, after all of these months of negotiating, what it was that changed for him to now say definitively no. Listen to what he's saying about his thinking today.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): You know me, always willing to work and listen and try. I just got to the wit's end. And they know the real reason what happened. They won't tell you.

And I'm not going to because I...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

MANCHIN: No.

QUESTION: Wait. Wait. You said you there is -- they know the real reason, they're not going to tell us, you're not going to tell us.

What do you mean? What's the real -- so there's...

MANCHIN: Well, the bottom line is, there was -- they're, basically -- and his staff. It's staff-driven.

I understand staff. It's not the president. It's the staff. And they drove some things and they put some things out that were absolutely inexcusable.

And they know what it is. And that's it.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CABRERA: What's your message to Manchin right now?

M. DEAN: Strange that this leader in the Senate, who has been working for scores of hours with the president on this incredibly important legislation, at the last minute, would blame it on White House staff.

And you notice the way that he made his announcement. He had a staffer go over to the White House before he was to go on the news yesterday and tell the White House. And then, when the White House called him prior to his going on the news to say he was going back on his word, he wouldn't take the call.

I think that tells you much more about Mr. Manchin than it does about any staffer. This is not a staffers issue. This is between Mr. Manchin, this administration and the Senate and House colleagues.

[13:25:08]

The big loser here, the American people.

CABRERA: You and other progressive Democrats made this deal to support the infrastructure plan and then pass the Build Back Better plan. Initially, you wanted them to go together. Do you feel betrayed?

M. DEAN: Certainly, we feel betrayed up, but we knew that that was a possibility. We have seen Mr. Manchin waffle before.

And so what I'd like to do now is to look past Mr. Manchin, of course, call him to be a man of his word. But let's look for Republican senators. They know that the measures in this bill will lift families out of poverty in their district, will provide housing for seniors in their district, would provide universal pre-K, would continue the expansion of the Affordable Care Act.

So I call upon other senators to go around Mr. Manchin, since he has waffled and flip-flopped so many times, he simply can't be trusted to be a man of his word. And let's get this thing done.

Thank you, Mr. Schumer for bringing it up. We're not giving up.

CABRERA: But is this just a Manchin problem? Because your colleague Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put less blame on Manchin and more on Democratic leaders and the president.

She tweeted this: "Where we need answers from are the leaders who promised a path on BBB if BIF passed," BIF being the infrastructure bill. "Biden and Dem leaders, they chose to move BIF alone, instead of with BBB, not Manchin. So they need to fix it."

Do you agree?

M. DEAN: Well, I never comment on the comments of a colleague. But what I do think is, let's look back.

CABRERA: OK, let me say this differently then, because President Biden ran on being a deal-maker, right, among lawmakers, even his decades in the Senate and as vice president.

And he did get the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed. But considering this was a member of his own party that effectively killed his key agenda item, an item that he promised to deliver Manchin's vote with mean, did the president just bite off more than he could chew here?

M. DEAN: I don't think so at all.

I think what we go back to is Mr. Manchin went back on his word. And you're going to see an extraordinary backlash for that, not just from progressives, but from the business community. You saw what Goldman Sachs said. This is going to be an economic engine when we pass it. And I believe we will still pass it.

And if we don't, Manchin will own that economic failure. So this isn't just about progressives. I'm also a member of the New Dem Caucus, and I'm a part of the American citizenry who call upon Mr. Manchin to stop making guesses as to how poor people might spend any resources that are returned to them for their hard work, and instead pass this legislation that is amazingly popular, but incredibly generationally important.

CABRERA: Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, thank you so much for joining us. Let's stay in touch and see where this goes from here, especially returning from the holidays. I appreciate your time.

M. DEAN: Thank you. Happy holidays to you, Ana. CABRERA: Right back at you.

The Omicron threat is prompting some countries to impose new restrictions, even lockdowns. The latest headlines from around the globe just ahead.

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