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House GOP Leader McCarthy Endorses Primary Rival of Liz Cheney; Pence Softens Tone After Saying "Trump Is Wrong"; Utah & California Announce Plans to Move into "Endemic Phase" of COVID; Research Suggests Omicron Subvariant More Transmissible, May Be More Severe; Study Shows Ivermectin Does Not Prevent Severe Disease from COVID; Massive Storm Hammers U.S. with Heavy Snow, Rain, Tornadoes. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 18, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:33:19]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is actively trying to get rid of Liz Cheney, trying to kick her out of Congress.

Cheney, of course, is one of the two Republicans on the committee investigating the January 6th capitol attack and she backed impeachment of Donald Trump.

Now McCarthy is endorsing Cheney's pro-Trump primary opponent, Harriet Hageman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Wyoming deserves to have a representative who will deliver the accountability against the Biden administration.

Not a representative they have today that works closer with Nancy Pelosi, going after Republicans, instead of stopping these radical Democrats for what they're doing to this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Let's bring in now two Republicans, CNN political commentator, Scott Jennings, former special assistant to President George H.W. Bush, and CNN political commentator, Charlie Dent, former Congressman from Pennsylvania.

Welcome to you both.

And, Congressman, I want to start with you.

Because, for months, it appeared that McCarthy was going to resist the urge from the hardliners, the pressure from the hardliners to further punish Cheney -- Kinzinger is leaving.

But what do you think about this decision to endorse her primary opponent?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I'm not surprised by this. And I think you have to look at Kevin McCarthy's actions through the lens of his quest to become the next speaker.

By punishing Cheney, by going after her, he's helping himself with the Freedom Caucus and Donald Trump. And you may recall, it was the Freedom Caucus that prevented Kevin McCarthy from ascending to the speakership in 2015.

So I think he's doing this to protect his right flank because he knows they might try to take him down.

Having said that, I think it is terrible that this happened.

[14:35:00]

I don't have a problem with a leader going after one of his or her own members, if that member has brought discredit or shame or embarrassment upon the House or the party, say Marjorie Taylor Greene or Paul Gosar.

That's not what's happened here. He's going after someone, Liz Cheney, who is actually standing up accountability. And his behavior is not completely honorable.

And that is what is so troubling about this, punishing good honorable members when there actually are people who deserve the type of treatment that McCarthy has dished out on Cheney.

But it should have been dished out on some of the more radical extreme members.

BLACKWELL: Scott, what do you think? And does this mean anything in Wyoming? Anybody going to vote because now McCarthy is on board?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you know, Victor, a long time ago, somebody in politics told me that sometimes it is best to be for what is going to happen.

And I suspect what Kevin McCarthy has concluded is that Cheney is going to lose.

And that like Charlie said, to curry favor around in the next Congress and voting members on who the next speaker is, this is a good thing to do.

So I think McCarthy has made pretty clear that he's not going to tolerate any dissent on this matter inside of the conference.

And this was a way for him to signal that, once again, to the people that he's going to need most, if he wanted to become speaker after the likely outcome of Republicans winning the House.

Do endorsements matter? I think sometimes, they could drive a news cycle as a technical matter. Do I think anybody in Wyoming is walking into the voting booth and

saying, well, I was going to do this, but because Kevin McCarthy said that, I'm going to do something else? Unlikely.

But it certainly drives media for a day or two.

BLACKWELL: All right, well, let's move on. Not going to drive us any more in this conversation.

Scott, I'm going to stick with you on Vice President Pence spoke at Stanford and his tone has softened since, "President Trump is wrong," a couple of weeks ago.

He had an opportunity to double down in that exchange about January 6th and he's returned now to, "We're not going to see eye to eye on this."

Apparently, that boldness was short-lived.

JENNINGS: Well, look, he has to live with two things. One, what he did in that day, which was the correct thing to have done, as we've discussed many times.

And number two, his speech was a very clear statement that he believes Trump was wrong.

So from this point forward, I think the way it is best to interpret Mike Pence's statements and moves is through the lens of a political campaign because he's clearly going to run for president.

And he has to live with his actions, which again were the correct actions, but also try not to antagonize people, who may not agree with him on this, but certainly inclined to like Mike Pence otherwise.

So it is a real high-wire act that he's walking here.

But I think, at this point, it is less about explaining January 6th or his legacy, and more about, what do I have to do to be competitive in a presidential primary?

And he's concluded that he doesn't want to try to further antagonize or extend the remarks that he's already made and were widely covered, and we all know.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

Congressman, he also defended the RNC.

There was a lot of backlash for those three words in the censure resolution of Kinzinger and Cheney, calling what happened on January 6th "legitimate political discourse."

He said that that is not what the RNC meant.

Here is his defense of the committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think they made a very clear statement after the fact that said we -- when we're talking about what is happening in Washington today, with the January 6th committee.

And I believe them. They're good people. And I believe that is what they meant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Problem is that is not in the actual resolution. It is not clear here at all.

What do you make what we heard from the former vice president there?

DENT: Well, I think Mike Pence has to be pretty clear. He's trying to do one foot in and one foot out.

He's trying to be critical of Trump, on the one hand, and he was absolutely right to call out Trump and say that what he did was wrong as it related to the certification of the election.

And so Pence was in the right side now. And now he has blowback. And now he's trying to -- it seems like he's trying to walk it back.

If I were Mike Pence, I'd give some advice to the RNC, whose business is politics. And they're obviously not very good at it by putting out a statement like that, which was such an act of political malpractice and stupidity.

He should basically call Ronna McDaniel over there and tell her to open all of the doors and bring -- at the RNC -- bring in the fire hoses and blast away and clean the place out.

Because what they did was just beyond the pale. And Mike knows it. And we all know it.

And I think the RNC is so upset, I think, in part, because of the subpoenas issued by the January 6th committee that got very close to some of the RNC members and the roles they played as fake electors.

[14:39:59]

So I think Pence needs to be more clear. He's not going to be able to straddle this by trying to be critical of Trump, on the one hand, and walking it back later.

BLACKWELL: He's trying though. He's certainly walking a line there.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: Scott Jennings, Congressman Dent, thank you for being with me. Have a good weekend.

Utah's governor is following California now and other states shifting to an "endemic approach" on COVID-19, saying it is time to adapt, it is time to make the right change.

We'll see if others are doing it. We'll discuss it with an expert. That is next.

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[14:45:12]

BLACKWELL: U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy announced today that he and his family have tested positive for COVID.

On Twitter, he said that he and his wife and 5-year-old son has mild symptoms. Murthy said his 4-year-old daughter was the first in their family to contract the virus. He said everyone is in good spirits.

And he adds this, "When you've been as safe as you can, getting COVID- 19 could be frustrating and disappointing. Don't beat yourself up. A lot of us are doing best we can."

The governor of Utah just announced changes in how he's dealing with COVID. He said it is time to start treating it like every other respiratory virus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. SPENCER COX (R-UT): For our state's response to the pandemic to make the appropriate shift to better match where we are today, it is time to adapt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom laid out his strategy for moving into the next phase of managing COVID.

And more states have announced plans to start to roll back masking requirements in the next few weeks.

Joining me now is associate professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Perry Wilson.

Dr. Wilson, welcome back.

Let's start with California. They've this multi-phase strategy that focuses on vaccines, stockpiling mark and preparing for the next variant, including early detection.

In lieu of the federal guidance that so many states are waiting for, is this the path forward for states?

DR. F. PERRY WILSON, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: I really like this strategy.

I sort of consider it a "hope for the best, plan for the worst" strategy, where you're hoping that cases go down, they get to be at a relatively low level, something called endemic, but you're still planning for the worst, right? Future variants might come out. You have to have the masks available.

Importantly, you have to get vaccine into people's arms because, even with a low number of cases, deaths will accrue to people not yet vaccinated.

And there are still ways we could move that needle, so you want to continue the programs to get people vaccinated.

There's an anti-disinformation component to the California program, which I think is so important to just start telling people we have a lot of experience with the vaccines, their incredibly safe, and their so, so highly protective.

If we're going to live with it, let's live with it as safely as we possibly can.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk about the potential next variant, this subvariant of Omicron, BA.2.

There are some frequent studies, very preliminary, that suggest that it could be more severe, the symptoms could be as severe as we saw with Delta.

How worried should people be?

WILSON: It is hard to continue to worry about each new variant.

There's good news and bad news here.

The bad news is that, according to the study, the BA.2 variant, which is a subvariant of Omicron, has some behaviors in cell culture that look nastier than traditional Omicron.

It causes the cells to fuse together and into a conglomerate, which can cause a lot of inflammation and damage. That is not good.

The good news is we're not seeing much BA.2 in the United States at all.

Now is other parts of the world, it does seem to be more transmissible than BA.1, the Omicron variant we're living with now.

Why hasn't it taken over in the United States, like Omicron did from Delta? It may be because there's just so much immunity in the U.S. now between vaccines and a big wave of infections that BA.2 can't get a foot hold.

I think it is too soon to be too worried about BA.2. Let's see what the numbers do.

BLACKWELL: OK.

Ivermectin, let's talk about it.

There is new study that -- this is not preprint. This is the gold standard of randomized controlled study on the effectiveness of Ivermectin.

Close to 500 people, 50 and older, half given Ivermectin, half given a placebo. No difference in outcome, except the study points out that actually more people who received Ivermectin eventually needed oxygen than those who received the placebo.

It simply does not work as a treatment for COVID.

WILSON: No, and this is really -- this is not the first randomized trial that has shown this.

And I think so much damage was done by some early studies in glass tubes and test tubes that suggested it might be effective.

Followed by some trials that turned out to be fraudulent, which rarely gets reported, the trials that showed incredible effects of Ivermectin.

If people got ahold of the data and the data was copy and pasted from row to row, I mean, these were fraudulent, but it got into the mindset.

Now you have some good high-quality studies coming out and it shows that Ivermectin doesn't prevent progression of COVID -- this was in hospitalized patients -- to more sever COVID, COVID requiring oxygen.

This doesn't surprise anyone because Ivermectin is not an anti-viral medication. It is an anti-parasitic medication.

[14:50:04]

It's a wonderful medication for African river blindness. It's a decent medication for scabies and other parasites.

But there's no real reason it should work here. And it apparently, doesn't.

BLACKWELL: All right. Dr. Perry Wilson, appreciate the expertise. Thank you.

WILSON: Sure.

BLACKWELL: A storm stirred up tornadoes in the south and brought a wintry mix to the Midwest that left people stranded in their cars, caused a major pile up. Look at this. We've got more for you, next.

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[14:55:15]

BLACKWELL: Millions of people could not escape a massive storm that created a mess overnight.

Drivers in northwest Indiana are digging out after a snowstorm left them stranded overnight. In Illinois, a 30 mile stretch of highway was closed after a pile up involving more than 100 cars. Look at that mess.

CNN's Jennifer Gray joins us now.

So last night was rough. Is there more coming over the weekend?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, there's another system on the way. In fact, Victor, it's not going to impact as big of a chunk of the country as this last one did. But, yes, we have another one right on the heels.

Look at the current snow cover across the U.S. Really paints a picture of where most of that snow fell from that last system, anywhere from the planes, up to the Great Lakes, northern sections of New England.

Almost a foot of snow in Kansas. We receive anywhere from seven to nine inches anywhere from Ohio over to Illinois.

It was pretty significant. Not to mention the severe storms that rolled through the south as well. We're glad to get this one over with.

We do have another one starting to brew. Blizzard warnings in effect for portions of North Dakota and Minnesota as the system starts to get its act together.

We could see some very strong wind gusts, blowing snow, visibility very, very low. And the system will quickly push across the Great Lakes and the northeast through the weekend -- Victor?

BLACKWELL: At least it's moving quickly.

Jennifer Gray, thank you.

GRAY: Yes.

BLACKWELL: President Biden is set to speak soon on the situation in Ukraine. We have new reporting on his message, ahead.

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