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Thousands of U.S. Troops Heading to Eastern Europe; President Biden Relaunches Cancer Moonshot. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 02, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:25]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Victor Blackwell, and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

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

We begin with the first U.S. troop deployment to Eastern Europe in response to fears that Russia will invade Ukraine. The Pentagon announced 3,000 American forces will be heading to Romania, Poland and Germany in the coming days.

This is in addition to the 8,500 U.S. troops that were put on heightened alert, but are not in the region

BLACKWELL: A short time ago, the White House also said that it will no longer describe the Russian invasion as imminent, because that language sent an unintended message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I used that once. I think others have used that once. And then we stopped using it because I think it's sent a message that we weren't intending to send, which was that we knew that President Putin had made a decision.

I would say, the vast majority of times I have talked about it, we said he could invade at any time. That's true. We still don't know that he's made a decision.

QUESTION: OK, so you're not using that word?

PSAKI: I think I used it once last week.

QUESTION: But the decision now is that you're not describing it as imminent?

PSAKI: I haven't in over a week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, new satellite images show Russia continues its military buildup by Ukraine's border in Belarus, Crimea and Western Russia.

Now, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is with us now.

Barbara, first, the Pentagon press secretary, he said that these American troops will not go into Ukraine, made that clear. So what did he say is the purpose of these deployments?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's perhaps one of the most significant questions right now that people are asking, these U.S. troops not going into Ukraine unless maybe they have to help evacuate Americans out of the country, should it come to that, but it not anticipated, and certainly not anticipated that they will have any contact with any Russian forces.

So they're going to this eastern flank of NATO, Poland, Romania, and the Pentagon, holding open the option that additional troops could be going to other locations, aimed at trying to reassure these NATO allies that the alliance and that the U.S. is there for them, that the U.S. will help bolster them in the face of Russian aggression.

But asked the question, if the Russians are not anticipated to step across the border into NATO countries, what is it exactly these U.S. troops are going to be doing and why are they going now, listen to a bit of what the Pentagon press secretary had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We're not ruling anything in or out with this announcement, Barb. This isn't about making this -- I don't -- this isn't about an intel assessment about what Mr. Putin will or won't do.

As I said again in my opening statement, we still don't believe he's made a decision to further invade Ukraine. And if he does further invade Ukraine, obviously, there's going to be consequences for that. But he has many options and capabilities available to him as to how he might do that.

And we simply don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: So, these forces, which at the moment are generally land-based forces aimed at trying to shore up these allies and present a unified picture of improvement and backup to -- and reassurance, if you will, to their military capability, but with still the very sensitive point that not so much power is put into this region that somehow it gives Vladimir Putin an excuse that the U.S. is staging a provocation.

The U.S. is adamant these troops are there to bolster NATO allies -- Victor, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Barbara Starr, thank you very much for your reporting.

And later this hour, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby will join us live to discuss the troop movements.

All right, so any moment now, President Biden will announce the relaunch of the Cancer Moonshot. The goal of that initiative is to cut cancer deaths in half during the next 25 years.

President Biden originally led this program during his final year as vice president during the Obama administration.

John Harwood joins us now.

So, John, what do we expect to hear from the president?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we expect to hear the president enunciate the goal that you just mentioned, 50 percent decline in the cancer death rate over the next 25 years.

The White House estimates that the cancer death rate since this initiative was launched is down 25 percent. It involves a whole lot of medical research. It does not require new money, by the way. This money was passed during the Obama administration. There's still $400 million left to be spent this year, 2022, and next year.

And so there's research. There's a call to action cancer screenings to get more people aware of the need to go to the doctor and get checked out. It's going to involve more coordination within the government, different Cabinet departments on this effort, as well as bringing the private sector together with government.

[14:05:01]

This is something that I think we also need to point out politically is a topic that touches every single American family. And after a long period of time where the president's been bogged down in legislation in Congress, he can come forward and talk about this initiative as something that the executive branch can do on its own.

That touches pretty much every American family. And, of course, it's touched Joe Biden and Joe Biden very personally as well because of the loss of Beau Biden in 2015.

BLACKWELL: All right, John, stay with us.

We want to bring into this conversation CNN senior political correspondent Abby Phillip and oncologist, Dr. Zeke Emanuel. He also is the vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.

Welcome to you both.

Dr. Emanuel, let me start with you and what it takes to reach that goal of cutting mortality by 50 percent over the next 25 years. DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPECIAL ADVISER: Well, we

have about 600,000 deaths a year. That translates into about 150 deaths for every 100,000 Americans. We're actually down about 32 percent since 1991. That's a great achievement.

And we have a lot of advances, immunotherapies cell therapies, where we have got even vaccines for things like cervical cancer. So we are making a lot of advances. And we are very ready to make more advances.

So, I think it's..

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Dr. Emanuel, sorry to interrupt you. We want to go to the president, now who is going to be talking about this Cancer Moonshot. And of course, this is very personal to him. And so we will hear about his plans for this initiative.

(APPLAUSE)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm Joe Biden, Jill Biden's husband.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: I want to thank you, Doctor, for that introduction, but I want to thank you more for all the effort you have put into change, save, alter people's lives, your dedication to it.

And as we used to -- I used to say in the Senate, I think it's still said in the Senate -- excuse a point of personal privilege -- I'd like to see that doctor there. That's the man who spent 18 months trying to save our son's life.

Doctor, I love you. The whole family loves you.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Folks, the doctor's optimism and fearlessness embodies what our Cancer Moonshot is all about.

And, of course, I want to thank Jill and Kamala and Doug. They just shared how personal it is for them and their families. And like so many of you, every one of you have a story. Every one of you have a story.

And our message today is this. We can do this. I promise you, we can do this for all those we lost, for all those we miss. We can end cancer as we know it.

I committed to this fight when I was vice president. It's one of the reasons why, quite frankly, I ran for president. Let there be no doubt, now that I am president, this is a presidential White House priority, period. (APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: The bipartisan members of Congress -- and I -- and I don't want to start, because I will leave somebody out.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: But Congress is here. This is, they can tell you, one of the truly bipartisan issues in the United States Congress.

I know their votes, but that includes Senator Patrick Leahy, Michael Bennet, Amy Klobuchar, Chris Van Hollen, Sanford Bishop, Representative Joyce Beatty, Barbara Lee, Jim McGovern, Donald Payne, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Tom Cole, Brian Higgins. I said I wasn't going to do this.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: Terri Sewell .Terri Sewell.

And it can be truly an American moment for this -- I'm sure I have left somebody out for, which I apologize.

But this could really be an American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, to the world that we can do really big things. We have made enormous progress in the past 50 years, since Congress passed and President Nixon signed into law the National Cancer Act and declared war on cancer.

[14:10:05]

We learned cancer is not a single disease. We used to think at that time it was a single disease. There are over 200 -- as you all know, 200 different types of cancer caused by different genetic mutations in our cells.

We discovered new medicines, therapies, early detection, prevention measures that extend lives and save lives. In the first 25 years since the National Cancer Act, the death rate from cancer was largely unchanged. Then things began to change.

With progress over the last 25 years, the death rate has fallen by more than 25 percent. But here's the deal. Despite the progress of lives extended and lives saved, cancer is still the number two cause of death in America, second only to heart disease.

In the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken more than the -- the pandemic has taken more than 800,000 American lives. But that same period of time, cancer has claimed 1.2 million American lives, year in and year out.

For too many patients and their families diagnosed with cancer, instead of hope, there's also bewilderment.

I remember, Doc, you telling the family that you had -- we would be able to ask questions and you were available because it's a hard road to understand and to traverse.

The feeling of being on your own, a -- static adrift in a sea of patients, frustrated that hospitals and doctors can't easily share your medical records or help find answers, when there's -- minutes count, having to advocate for even the most basic care and attention for your loved one, a flood of information, completely different language, in many cases, with no one to help you decipher it, being within reach of a therapy, a therapy that's too expensive, or your insurance won't cover it.

Despite all the progress, there's still a sense of powerlessness, guilt that maybe you're not doing enough because you don't know enough, and fear.

So, when President Obama asked me to launch our Cancer Moonshot in our administration, our goal was to bring a new sense of urgency, to make the system of prevention, research, and patient care, to take advantage of the 21st century science and technology.

We began the process. Many of you in this room were part of that. We harnessed the resources of the federal government to change the culture, increase cooperation among scientists, and break down some of the silos.

I note parenthetically I remember I wanted to transfer a particular scan from a hospital in Pennsylvania to a hospital in D.C. And I was told I couldn't do it, wasn't able to do it. Can transfer just about anything else in the world, but I couldn't do it, because the hospitals didn't want the other hospitals to have access to their -- because patients could change their mind with all the records.

That included everything for making federally funded cancer research more accessible to the public, instead of hiding behind a pay wall. We launched trials.cancer.gov, so everyone can look up cancer clinical trials across the country and around the world.

I traveled the country, bringing together leaders of health care, technology, education, business and technology. I visited most of the major cancer centers literally in the world, met with heads of state in those countries, and decided how we could work together to try to make progress.

I remember a particularly good meeting in Australia. One of the final pieces of legislation that President Obama signed into law was the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, with the help of members of Congress, particularly -- I don't know -- is Fred Upton here? Fred, are you here?

Well, Fred Upton was part of it, and Diana DeGette in the House.

It streamlined the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, so that new cancer treatments can be evaluated faster, provided seven years of new funding, including research on cancer disparities, trial networks to discover new drugs and new efforts for childhood cancer.

[14:15:12] President of the Senate -- as president of the Senate, I presided over the overwhelming vote after the election had already taken place, the presidential election, when everything is supposed to come to a screeching halt, a bipartisan vote to fund over $6 billion.

And I watched my friend -- and he is my friend -- we disagree a lot -- Mitch McConnell stand there and ask unanimous consent to name the cancer provisions after our son Beau.

The Cancer Moonshot brought the country and the world closer together on this issue. And when we left office, Jill and I knew we had to keep going. So, we took a lot of you. We had five Nobel laureates and others who were involved through the Cancer -- the Biden Cancer Initiative. We focused on turning the Moonshot into a movement to create the cancer research and care system that most people think we already have and that they all deserve.

But they don't know they don't -- we don't have it until they try to deal with it.

And everywhere we go, people would share their stories, in grocery stores, airports, rope lines. And while we heard stories of loss and despair, the stories began to change just a little bit, a change of feeling, real hope, but not because of me and Jill, but because of all of you in this room and so many more at home, doctors, researchers, advocates, caregivers, patients, survivors.

And that's why, today, I'm proud to announce our plan to supercharge the Cancer Moonshot as a central effort of the Biden/Harris administration. It is bold. It's ambitious. But it's completely doable.

Just as we harnessed science to develop cutting-edge COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, we will bring a fierce sense of urgency to the fight against cancer. The goal is to cut the cancer death rate in half in the next 25 years at least by 50 percent, and to turn more cancer and death sentences into chronic diseases that people can live with, to create a more supportive experience for patients and their families, and, by doing these things and more, to end cancer as we know it.

And here's what we're fighting and how we know what cancer looks like today, a disease where we often diagnose it too late. We have too few effective ways to prevent it. The stark inequities based on race, disparities, zip code, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other factors still persist.

And we know too little about why treatments work in some patients, and the exact same -- that same patient with the exact same diagnosed cancer, it doesn't work in that patient, where we still lack strategies to develop treatments for some cancers, where we don't do enough to help patients and their families navigate through the process, where we don't learn enough from patients' experience -- experiences or their data.

In fact, when we first started this work, one of the first things we did was make sure that doctors and researchers work together, share information, allow patients to share their data with other doctors and researchers to help others.

But there's so much more to do. I remember when we were going through this in the Moonshot, and my saying that I was told, well, patients don't want to share their data.

They all want to share their data.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: Sometimes, you all don't want to share what you know.

And for each...

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: And for each of the ways we know cancer today, we know we can change its trajectory, for example, to prevent cancer.

Scientists are exploring if the new mRNA vaccine technology that brought us safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines could also be used to stop cancer cells when they fail -- when they first arrive, get them then, to target the right treatments to the right patients.

We're learning more about how to use genetics, immune response and other factors to tell which combinations of treatments are likely to work best for a particular industry.

[14:20:01]

To address inequities, we can target prevention, detection and treatment efforts, so that all Americans, whether they're urban, rural or tribal communities, have equal access to cancer diagnosis, therapeutics, clinical trials. There's so much more we can do.

As I said at the beginning, this is the presidential priority. I will do my part on funding and using my authorities as president to break logjams and speed breakthroughs.

I challenge and encourage all of you, all of you, to continue to do your part. This will be bipartisan. This will bring the country together, and, quite frankly, other nations as well.

Here are some of the actions that I'm announcing today. First, I formed a new Cancer Cabinet, which is convened in a couple -- will convene in the coming weeks to include members of the Cabinet who are here today, all the people sitting on the stage here. They will drive a whole-of-government effort to unleash every possibility within our power, within their jurisdictions.

The White House Office of Science and Technology policy led by senior scientist and adviser Dr. Eric Lander sitting on the end there will chart the path for the Cancer Moonshot for 2022 and beyond.

I'm calling on Congress to fund my proposed ARPA-H, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. This will be a new kind of entity within the National Institutes of Health, the NIH, with autonomy and authorities to drive unprecedented progress in biomedicine.

It's based on DARPA. Most everybody knows in this town with DARPA is. That's the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency that has led to breakthrough technologies that protect our national security, from the Internet, to GPS and so much more.

ARPA-H will have a singular purpose, to drive breakthroughs to prevent, detect and treat diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer's, and diabetes, and other diseases. And I think there's strong bipartisan support for this.

But it costs money. And this is the best -- these are the best dollars we could spend. So we got to get it done. We got to get it done now, and not wait any longer.

I'm also calling on the scientific and medical communities to bring the boldest thinking to this fight. I'm calling on the private sector to develop and test new treatments, make drugs more affordable, and share more data and knowledge that can inform the public and benefit every company's research.

And I'm respectfully calling on people living with cancer and caregivers and families to keep sharing their experience and pushing for progress. You will have a voice and a seat at the table, I promise you.

But here's the one thing we can all do. Americans missed more than 900 -- nine million cancer screenings in the last two years because of COVID, nine million. We have to get cancer screenings back on track and make sure that they're accessible to all Americans.

So, today, I'm announcing a call to action for cancer screening and early detection. If you were supposed to get a cancer screening during the pandemic, call your primary care doctor today. If you're that doctor, talk to your patients. Get a screening scheduled, whether it's in the office at home or through a telehealth visit, because the Affordable Care Act now will cover most private insurance plans, as well as Medicare and Medicaid, to cover the recommended preventive care screening free of charge.

I'm calling on companies, health care providers, nonprofits and others to step up, including developing mobile units and pop-up clinics to reach people where they live.

And if you're putting off screening because you're afraid of what you will find, they will find, let me say this. And so many people are -- put it off. Last November, I got a colon cancer screening. I'm glad I did. Trust me. I know cancer is scary.

Going to the doctor's can be scary. But screening is how you catch it early before it's too late. The earlier you get it, the better shot you have.

Let me close with this.

There's a quote that when I read -- made one of these speeches years ago, five, six years ago, attributed -- was attributed to Yo-Yo Ma. I later was informed it that was attributed to Vince Lombardi.

(LAUGHTER)

[14:25:00]

BIDEN: But whoever the hell gave the quote...

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: ... it makes sense.

Here's the quote practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect. My challenge to everyone involved in this fight against cancer, take a hard look at your practice. Ask yourself if you're practicing perfectly.

Am I practicing and to make the old way permanent. Old practices, they created data silos, minimized the role of patients, fostered the wrong kind of competition, instead of the right kind of collaboration.

I know we can get this right. I'm positive we can by not losing sight of the ultimate goal, the patient's health, and by not losing sight of something else I also believe. America is the single place on Earth, single country that can be defined, as I told Xi Jinping, by one word, possibilities, possibilities.

When we work together in America, there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity, nothing.

So let's show the world what's possible. Let's show the world that we're committed. Let's show that we can do big things in the United States of America. When we work together, there's nothing beyond our grasp. I mean nothing beyond our grasp.

And I know of nothing, as I think my colleagues would say, that's more bipartisan, than to take on this fight and fundamentally change cancer as we know it. It's a mission that can truly unify the nation. It shows us at our best working together, and rather than working against one another.

For every patient asking for one more day, I remember I have met -- I have met with over 3,000 researchers in the various organizations. And they're good. They're devoting their whole lives to try to save -- and they work really long hours.

But they're not practitioners. They have not had that patient come up and say, Doc, can you give me just two more weeks, so I can see my daughter married? Doc, all I need -- can you do anything to give me just six more months to see the baby born? That's all I'm asking for, Doc.

There's a sense of overwhelming urgency, overwhelming urgency if you're a patient or family member of a patient, every patient asking just for one more day. They're not going to cure me. One more day. One more week. Can I get another year to be able to do (INAUDIBLE). For survivors and caregivers who carry the physical and mental scars of treatments and recovery and for those who have lost and for the ones we can still save, let's end cancer as we know it.

I refuse to believe, I refuse to believe this is beyond our capacity. I refuse to believe it.

When I put together the Cancer Moonshot, I was vice president, and the president gave me authority to task anyone in the administration. When they found out I had the Department of Energy and Ernie Moniz, when they found out I had NASA and a lot of other agencies look to me like, what's the matter with you?

I said, guess what? NASA knows more about radiation than all of you.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: Seriously.

And Ernie Moniz, we're at a place where you get a billion billion calculations per second. And it goes on. Skills people never thought would impact on this can do it.

So, my plea to you scientists is, share data as best you can. My plea to my members in Congress is, let's fund this particular program and focus on it until we beat it. And to the American people, keep the hope alive. There is hope. There is hope.

And I'm confident, absolutely confident, if we make all our effort to deal with it, we can make fundamental changes in people's lives and change the families in this country in a much better position than they are today with regard to cancer.

Thank you all for being here. I appreciate it.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

CAMEROTA: OK, we have been listening there to President Biden relaunching his Cancer Moonshot initiative.