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Biden Says Bringing Prices Down a Priority; Uvalde School Police Chief Defends Himself Over Response to School Shooting; Students Writes Letters to Teachers, Lawmakers About Uvalde Shooting. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 10, 2022 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIAN DEESE, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Inflation right now around the world is elevated, the highest levels in 40 years in Europe, highest levels on record in the U.K. Unlike those other countries, we have some of the strongest labor market performance, strong consumption at the household level and business investment, and we need to build on those strengths while focusing very clearly on what the president has made his top priority, which is taking every step that we can to help bring prices down.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: So what are those steps? Listen, we've heard from the president, from the White House over the last several months, the limit of executive power here. You need Congress, the Fed is independent. I get that. The president gets it, the U.S. is uniquely positioned to tackle it, what's the play to tackle it?

DEESE: Absolutely. So the play is doing everything we can to lower prices for families in the everyday items that they face in their lives. So first, when it comes to gas, we have tools, and we are using them in historic ways, a million barrels out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But we don't stop there. We also look at what is actually going into the costs that you're paying in the grocery store or you're paying in the department store.

One of those things is that it costs so much to ship goods, particularly across water. The president talked about that today. Shipping companies have raised their prices by as much as a thousand percent. There's a piece of legislation in Congress. The president has been working with Democrats and Republicans. We hope that that will pass in the coming weeks and the president will be able to sign that into law.

And beyond that, we're looking to lower the cost of internet, lower the cost of housing, lower the cost of prescription drugs. In some of these places we can take action on our own right now. In other places we need Congress's help. But every single one of these is about trying to make things more affordable to families as we are in this transition.

BLACKWELL: So in those places where you can take action right now, are you? DEESE: Absolutely. So I'll give you a concrete example. Internet

bills, we have now put in place a system where up to 50 million households in America can get reduced or in cases free high-speed internet. That could save families $50, $100 a month. So you can go to www.getinternet.gov and you can see if you're eligible. We're seeing in just the last several weeks more than a million people went and signed up and got that benefit. We're encouraging more to do.

On housing, we've taken extraordinary executive action to build more affordable housing, which is important so people have opportunities to move to where there are jobs but also because with more supply on the market, that will bring down prices.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

DEESE: So where we can, we're going to take those actions. We're going to keep doing that, while also making sure that Congress is prioritizing things that would actually bring down prices as well.

BLACKWELL: So let's talk about one more thing that repeatedly economic advisers to the president have said is on the table. Candidate Biden said in August 2020 that as president his administration would reevaluate the Chinese tariffs on Chinese imports into the U.S. I know a lot was going on. You had a pandemic, and getting those pieces of legislation through, but how long is that evaluation going to take? Is that going to be something that's decided over the next 30, 60, 90 days?

DEESE: Well, as the president has spoken to, we're looking carefully at that issue, and I anticipate that the president will have more decision and something to say on that in the coming weeks. But with respect to our trading relationship with China, we have not been standing still. This president has been clear that the prior administration's approach didn't actually focus on where do we face strategic challenges and where is the Chinese state taking actions, nonmarket actions that actually threaten our manufacturing capacity, our ability to create jobs and create production here in the United States.

So we have focused on those areas and that is part of this review with respect to tariffs, but you could anticipate that the president will have more to say on that in the coming weeks.

BLACKWELL: All right. Brian Deese, joining us from the White House. Thank you, Brian.

DEESE: Thank you.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: So how do fourth graders across the country feel about the school shooting in Uvalde, and what do they want to see happen? Two teachers had their students write about it, and they're going to share those letters ahead.

BLACKWELL: Plus, Uvalde school district embattled police chief speaks to the "Texas Tribune." How he's defending his school shooting response. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:38:36]

BLACKWELL: The Uvalde school police chief who is being criticized for that response to last month's deadly mass shooting is defending some of his choices. Pete Arredondo, he spoke by phone through written responses as well, submitted by his attorney to the "Texas Tribune." Now, Arredondo said that he did not consider himself the person in charge on the scene there, and that he had no radio communications during the massacre. There's also this new reporting from the "New York Times" that indicates officers on scene knew that there were children inside who were injured. The "Times" cites a transcript of body cam footage where an officer is heard saying people are going to ask why we're taking so long. We're trying to preserve the rest of the life. We've learned from you and others in these situations there should be no delay.

CNN's Omar Jimenez is in Uvalde with more of the chief's comments. So what else did he say?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, for starters, all of these new details provide some key insight to what has become the central question at the heart of multiple overlapping investigations, what took so long? Well, Pete Arredondo told the "Texas Tribune" specifically regarding who he believed was in charge. He didn't believe it was him. That he thought some other officer or official had taken control of a larger response as he transitioned to the role of a frontline responder.

He also said he never considered himself the scene's incident commander and didn't give any instruction that police should not attempt to breach the building.

[15:40:03]

And that's significant because that goes contrary to what Texas Department of Public Safety officials have described him as in regards to his relationship with this investigation. He also told the "Tribune" that he did not have his radios on him, and that because of that, even if he'd had his radios, his lawyer said, he would have turned them off in the hallway to avoid giving away their locations, that they passed information in whispers for fear of drawing another round of gunfire from this shooter, but because of that, Arredondo told the "Tribune" he was unaware of any 911 calls and that no one relayed that information to him.

Other factors he told the "Tribune" about was that school safety measures in some cases were working against officers that they had difficulty pinpointing the precise location of the shooter because the lights were turned off in classrooms, as is typical in these lockdowns, but also that this door was steel reinforced, designed to keep outside attackers from getting inside, but Arredondo said in this case, it prevents officers from being able to kick down the door immediately as he describes and get to this particular shooter. I should mention we've reached out to Arredondo's lawyer. He told us

he's not giving anymore interviews. We reached out to the school district and state officials on this but haven't gotten a response.

BLACKWELL: All right. Omar there in Uvalde, thank you.

CAMEROTA: So teachers across the country have been trying to find ways to help their students deal with the school shooting in Uvalde. Some have encouraged their classes to write letters to the families of the victims, and to lawmakers, including Texas Governor Greg Abbott. That's what the fourth graders in a New York City classroom wanted to do and their teachers Bess Murad and Carolina Hernandez join us now.

Ladies, thank you so much for being here. Before we get to the letters, and they have been fascinating to read through, and I will share them with the viewers.

Bess, what's it been like to be in a classroom with fourth graders for these past couple of weeks. I mean, the very same age kids of the 19 who were killed in Uvalde?

BESS MURAD, 4TH GRADE TEACHER ZETA CHARTER SCHOOL: As a teacher of fourth graders, hearing about this shooting, as Americans, I feel as if we're almost numb to hearing about these mass shootings, but when I got the notification that 19 fourth graders went to school and two teachers and they never came home, it's really an indescribable feeling. Immediately we thought of our kids, I thought of my co- teacher, and what we were going to say to them.

Walking into school the next day when we spoke to them, we saw heartbreak on their faces, and as a teacher, all we want to do is keep our kids safe and make our classroom a safe environment, and in that moment, and in the moment now, to feel like that's out of our control is making us extremely angry, disappointed and our students felt very similarly.

CAMEROTA: And so, Carolina, how did you come up with the exercise to have them write letters?

CAROLINA HERNANDEZ, 4TH GRADE TEACHER, ZETA CHARGER SCHOOL: Yes, so, you know, overall in like our classroom and our class we've really worked this year on striving to create like a very safe environment where kids can express their emotion, and another thing that we've been working on is like agency with our kids, like realizing that we have power within this, and that we have choice in a lot of situations, so when it came down to it, after we had that initial discussion, you know, our kid are very sad, upset, and, you know, just disappointed.

And I just realized, I'm like, I don't want them to sit in despair and sit in that sadness. I want them to realize that they can -- they have agency in this moment to change the systems that have not worked to protect them. So when it came down to it, I wanted to empower them, to share their thoughts and opinions and their feelings. So that's why I created that letter writing activity so that they could identify their feelings, explain why, and also to provide solutions because they're really big only talking about our emotions in class.

We're not just talking about it. It's like now what are we doing next about it. What can we do to help solve this emotion and work through it so that we can have better results later on.

CAMEROTA: Yes. So let's take a look at some of these because they're fascinating. Here's one fourth grader named Samantha, just talking about her anger at basically Governor Abbott. She says, you should care about -- well, the question was you should care about these concerns because, and she writes, the little kids who were killed were innocent. You just didn't care and took no action. All you did was mope and be irresponsible.

And then here is another kid, and he writes about the solution and what he thinks that is, and he says it is to have a special card to even enter the gun store. They also need a background check and a psychological test to even own a gun or a weapon. And I mean, it's, you know, just -- it's so touching to see how they try to spell these things.

[15:45:05]

I mean, as, you know, psychological, S-I-C-O-L-G-I-C-O, you know, they're just, they're trying to express themselves.

But, Bess, how much help did you give them with this? How do they know who Governor Abbott is? How do they know how to express this stuff?

HERNANDEZ: Yes, I can jump in there. So, you know, after like our initial discussion, and I presented this activity, you know, we talked about -- we talked about, like, OK, well, they're like -- the big question is like how did this happen, like why did this happen, so, we, you know, told them about like, you know, we talked about gun laws and how certain states gun laws are a little bit more lax, and that in particular in the state of Texas where this incident happened and also the state where I am from.

I told them about how the governor like has enabled for guns to be much more easily accessible and so that was like all we told them. We told them that, you know, like each state has different laws regarding this. Some people are a little bit more stricter, some people are more looser and then from there, you know, they started asking questions, right. They brainstormed their own ideas. Like we barely did anything. All we did is we got up to the board because every five seconds they're like, so how do you spell capitalism, how do you spell responsibility, how do you spell psychological, how do you spell greedy.

You know, they were asking how to spell things. So by the end of the first 10 minutes, we had our board marked up with all these words that they themselves came up with, and the ideas that they themselves, like also a word like churning in their brain, you know, best how to explain why governors couldn't be fired because they're like, well, if he doesn't do a good job in protecting kids, like why is he in office?

I'm like, well, you know, and then we kind of had to discuss a little bit more about like, you know, voting and like the process of voting and so in that regard like, you know, we gave them the basic information and then they just went with it.

And so, Carolina, we have five seconds left, did it make them feel better, this letter writing exercise?

MURAD: I think what we wanted to take out of this is that kids are so optimistic, and that's why they were so confused because they were so hopeful. They were like, well, I came up with the solution, and it's so simple, so we, I guess, our message is that if it is so simple to 9 and 10-year-olds, why is it not so simple to lawmakers? And why --

CAMEROTA: That is -- yes, I got that, too. That is really interesting that you say that. When you read their letters, it does seem very simple to them, and it is logical and makes sense.

Bess and Carolina, thank you very much. We're out of time. But I really appreciate you sharing the letters with us. And we'll be right back.

HERNANDEZ: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:52:43]

CAMEROTA: Russian president Vladimir Putin is attempting to justify his war in Ukraine and compare himself to Peter the Great. Putin attempted to compare Peter the Great's conquests of Sweden in the 18th Century to his own modern-day military invasion of Ukraine.

BLACKWELL: He argued that Peter the Great was not conquering Sweden but rather fighting over territory that rightfully belonged to Russia. Obviously, Putin does not believe it, but the truth is Ukraine is as we all know a sovereign nation.

CAMEROTA: So this week's CNN Hero is a rabbi from Texas who saw a need that many overlook, and that's underwear for children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RABBI AMY WEISS, CNN HERO: Underwear is just an overlooked item and it's super expensive. So the parents who are struggling financially tend to think, you can't see the underwear, so it will be OK.

There is a crisis for this very essential need that really makes a big difference in their social and academic world.

Kids who need underwear don't want used underwear, right, that's gross, isn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

WEISS: We only give away new underwear.

Kids, they want what all of us wants, security and dignity. We want to increase these kids' self-esteem and confidence. That's

really what it is all about. Helping fill that gap when no one else is doing it. And to keep them in school when they've got underwear. It's just easier to be a kid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Fantastic work. And you can learn more about the rabbi's full story at CNNheroes.com. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:59:14]

CAMEROTA: Well, Britney Spears is a married woman. She tied the knot last night with longtime boyfriend Sam Asghari, but there was one hiccup -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Spears' first ex-husband, Jason Alexander, crashed the wedding at Spears' home hours before the ceremony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON ALEXANDER, BRITNEY SPEARS' EX-HUSBAND: So here's inside scoop, guys. (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Jason Alexander. What's up? You love roses? Who are you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael.

ALEXANDER: Michael, that's Michael, guys. It's Jason. First husband, here to crash it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: He is really not over Britney.

BLACKWELL: Let it go, bro.

CAMEROTA: I mean, they were married for 55 hours. And I feel like he wants more.

BLACKWELL: Well, listen, there was a scuffle between Alexander and some security guards. Alexander was arrested for trespassing, battery, vandalism.

CAMEROTA: That's going overboard. I mean, that's not what wedding crashers do. They just drink all the booze.