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McCarthy Says He's A "Hell No" On Spending Deal As He Struggles To Shore Up Support For Speaker Bid; Most Republicans Want New Nominee For 2024 As DeSantis Gains On Trump; Club Q Shooting Survivors Testify Before Congress; Biden Signs "Respect For Marriage Act" Into Law; CDC: Long Covid Responsible For Thousands Of U.S. Deaths. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 14, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: And that is why you see McCarthy out there publicly railing against this spending deal.

And he took a public shot at McConnell, who has been trying to work behind the scenes to get this deal done. Sources tell us that McConnell was blindsided by that, and he was really caught off guard.

Now, McCarthy held a press conference not too long ago where he, again, talked about this spending deal and spoke out against it. He did not mention McConnell by name.

But he did criticize the Republican and Democratic Senator who helped broker this deal.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I propose that you have two Senators who are gone. You just had an election where we changed the course where the House is now going to be controlled by Republicans.

You have Democrats who controlled all and didn't do their job is going to jam us right before Christmas, a bill that funding the entire government that we don't have any input in.

It wouldn't have anything to do with being speaker. It has to do with the American public and what future of America is going to be when it comes to fiscal resources.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZANONA: Now, the divide between the House GOP and the Senate GOP is nothing new. It's a tale as old as time.

In fact, we've seen McCarthy and McConnell split over the last two years from everything from guns to infrastructure.

But if Kevin McCarthy does become speaker, this is going to be an interesting dynamic to watch -- Guys? BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: So politics as usual at play here.

Melanie Zanona, thank you.

Joining us now is political commentator, Alyssa Farah Griffin. She is a former White House communications director under President Trump.

What do you make of the strategy of Kevin McCarthy? Surely, he does not want to inherit a majority and a government shutdown at the same time?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNITY DIRECTOR UNDER PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right. That's where Melanie nailed it.

Listen, it wouldn't be the holidays if Capitol Hill wasn't scrambling to avert a government shutdown. We're used to this every December.

But this is very much Kevin McCarthy publicly saying something that is privately different than what he wants to see happen.

What's going to be interesting is, to get this across the finish line, it's going to take some moderate Republicans, if he's smart -- and he is -- Kevin is a strategically wise person.

Those are going to be the most important people to him if he becomes speaker, the moderate Republicans willing to cross over the aisle.

There's big priorities that come up next cycle, the national defense authorization, farm bill reauthorization, things he's not going to be able to pass on his slim Republican majority.

So this is a moment where he's saying, please vote for this, to a number of moderate Republicans while privately blasting it. Or publicly, I should say, blasting it.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: And that's for the consumption of the rest of the conference. He's trying to get to 218 to get the gavel, right?

GRIFFIN: The magic number.

BLACKWELL: So Pelosi had some holdouts in 2019. Boehner had holdouts in 2013. Almost went to a second ballot for the speaker's race.

What is McCarthy facing that they did not face that he could potentially go round after round in search of the votes to get there?

GRIFFIN: This is coming from the vintage Freedom Caucus playbook that they tried to run against John Boehner and Speaker Ryan back in 2015.

Keep in mind, they once blocked Kevin McCarthy from being speaker before and eventually Paul Ryan stepped up and put his name forward.

The same group, which looks different now, different members are saying we have four strong holdouts, but 31 voted against him in the private caucus meeting.

My guess is Kevin is doing whatever he can to twist two of those arms to get him to the number he needs to be at. That's a tough thing to do and they've been very public and outspoken, I think of Matt Gaetz and others. But I'm not sure you could switch their votes.

So what happens during the floor vote, they'll would vote for someone else, Andy Biggs. And it could go to multiple ballots.

The assumption is someone will emerge as the consensus candidate. Is it a Jim Jordan? Is it, you know, somebody more --

BLACKWELL: Scalise perhaps.

GRIFFIN: A Scalise, perhaps. Somebody more aligned with the conservative flank within the House.

The best argument Kevin McCarthy has is that they have not put up a viable alternative themselves who can get to 218.

And he has done a masterful job at wrangling the arms of his rank and file and getting a few of those very right-wring members, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, solidly in his corner.

We'll see. It's really an open question if he will get the speakership.

GOLODRYGA: What does it say to you that even the former president advocating for him to get the speakership role at this point and vouching for him publicly is not getting him to that place right now?

GRIFFIN: I think it shows Trump's weakened state within the party. I think if this was pre-midterms, that was pretty much -- McCarthy was banking on, if he had the Trump endorsement, he would get over the finish line.

But with Republicans not taking back the Senate and having such a slim majority in the House, I think that the power that Trump has, even within the conference itself -- and the House Republican conference is certainly more conservative than the Senate -- his voice just doesn't matter the way that it once did.

Frankly, I would be calling Ron DeSantis and asking for an endorsement if I were Kevin McCarthy.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk about Ron DeSantis. There's new CNN polling out, warm off the printer it's so fresh, and 62 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents want someone other than Donald Trump at the top of the ticket in 2024.

[14:35:01]

Most of those people who want someone else, want Ron DeSantis, Florida governor. No one else has more than a single percentage point in this.

If you are a Ted Cruz, if you're a Nikki Haley, does this matter so far out from Iowa? What do you see here?

GRIFFIN: Well, DeSantis is the consummate frontrunner right now, especially after having victory, what we would call victory during the midterms, when other Republicans just did not do as well as we anticipated.

My caution with the DeSantis momentum is he's peaking early. So it does mean all ire is going to be directed at his.

The former president is going to come at him much harder that he has. That's just by nature what Trump is going to do. But also this is his biggest rival right now.

I think all of that energy is going to come on trying to attack Ron DeSantis, which could open the field to other candidates.

I would keep my eyes on some governors, some people outside, you know former Trump cabinet secretaries, who may be thinking, seeing the midterms, hey, this might be an opening for me to run, whether it's an Asa Hutchinson or Chris Sununu in New Hampshire.

I think they have a good case to make for just kind of a change. We've run a state and done it effectively and kind of putting this Trump era behind us.

That could be formidable even against a Ron DeSantis.

GOLODRYGA: And Ron DeSantis hasn't been tested nationally.

GRIFFIN: Correct.

GOLODRYGA: That's a point he made as well.

Alyssa, great to have you on. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Thank you.

Survivors of the Club Q shooting delivered emotional testimony on Capitol Hill today. Hear their stories about the rise in violence and threats they're seeing. That's coming up next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Hate speech turns into hate action. And actions based on hate almost took my life from me at 25 years old.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:41:11]

GOLODRYGA: Survivors of the Colorado Springs Club Q shooting massacre were on Capitol Hill today to tell lawmakers firsthand how anti-LBGTQ rhetoric is fueling violence against their community. BLACKWELL: Witnesses told the House Oversight and Reform Committee

that it was past time to hold lawmakers accountable for their trafficking in venomous bigotry to score political points.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES SLAUGH, CLUB Q SHOOTING SURVIVOR: Hate starts with speech. The hateful rhetoric we've heard from elected leaders is the direct cause of the horrific shooting at Club Q.

We need elected leaders to demonstrate language that reflecting love and understanding, not hate and fear.

I urge LBGTQ-plus Americans and allies to join together today as one community. Hateful people want to drive us back into closets and live our lives in fear. But we cannot be afraid.

No bullets will stop us from being proud of who we are or will injure the support and love that exists in our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Kelley Robinson is president of the Human Rights Campaign. She testified at the hearing today.

Thank you for being with us.

Let's start with your message to the community. What was your primary goal in speaking with them today?

KELLEY ROBINSON, PRESIDENT, HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN: That we can't let these lives be lost in vain. Lives of our community were stolen and we know why.

It's a deadly combination of unfettered access to guns, extreme and violent political rhetoric matched with political attacks. This has to stop and our elected officials have a role to play.

GOLODRYGA: In your testimony, you cited the increase in threats to the community, including you mentioned California State Senator Scott Weiner who received a bomb threat this month.

You say all of this is a result of society sort of viewing this community and dehumanizing them as not equal.

What, in your view, can be done to change that?

ROBINSON: You know, this hate isn't happening in a vacuum. I'm reminded that one in five of all hate crimes are motivated by anti- LGBTQ-plus bias. We've got to think about this as a systemic issue that demands intervention.

There's so many things we can do, from actually getting protections in place for LBGTQ-plus people in this country against discrimination to making sure that social media companies are upholding their own community standards regardless hate speech online. But action has to be taken.

BLACKWELL: So let's go through this list a little more. What are the points of action that you want Congress to take?

I know we're switching to Republican leadership in just a few weeks, but you were sitting before a Democratically led committee today. What do you want them to tick through that will decrease this violence we're seeing?

ROBINSON: You know, one of the top things is to hold themselves and other elected accountable. Even people that were on that panel are guilty of this, guilty of proliferating hate speech that serves a purpose of dehumanizing my community.

Let's start there. Let's start by holding our elected officials to a higher standard on the language and rhetoric they're using.

From there, let's move positive legislation into place that actually protects our communities.

You know, 29 states don't have a nondiscrimination protection on the books for LBGTQ-plus. Even though the arm is in place, there are ways that discrimination is legal in this country against our community. Congress can do something about that.

GOLODRYGA: Let's talk about positive legislation. Because I know that you and your wife and your 1-year-old child were at that signing ceremony at the White House yesterday where the president signed the law, the Respect for Marriage Act.

I'm just curious what yesterday was like for you and your wife?

[14:44:58]

ROBINSON: You know, it was really powerful. I think, as a black queer woman, that was the first time in my adult life where I had actually seen members of Congress on both sides of the aisle stand up and tell stories about why my life and my community's lives mattered.

Then a law was actually signed into action. That was a powerful moment for me and my family in so many ways because we got to experience a joy and validation of who we are that everyone should get to experience.

Yesterday, too, some of the survivors of Club Q were there at the RMA ceremony. I talked to them and they said that was one of the first times they'd gotten to experience joy since that horrific attack.

We need that joy to fuel the fights ahead for all of us.

BLACKWELL: It must be difficult to reconcile the two within 24 hours. Yesterday, this moment of joy, this moment of confirmation. You're seeing Republicans and Democrats affirming your marriage.

And then the next day, sitting across from people who you say have demonized the LBGTQ-plus community in this country? ROBINSON: You know, I believe that we can feel joy and we can feel

grief in the same moment. We can feel hope and we can feel despair.

Especially for folks of color and queer folks and trans folks who live at the margins, this is our day-to-day lives sometimes.

Though I am inspired by the progress we're making. Because it was the same halls of Congress, not even 20 years ago, were voting to ban same-sex marriage. And we're sitting here now with it the law of the land.

I am hopeful with the progress but I know there's so much more work to be done. And I will never forget the people that we're fighting for. Until every person in my community is free, we'll keep this fight ahead.

BLACKWELL: Kelley Robinson, thank you.

ROBINSON: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: A new report shows that long COVID is responsible for thousands of deaths in the U.S. But some experts now warn the true numbers are much higher. We'll discuss with Dr. Sanjay Gupta straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:51:13]

BLACKWELL: U.S. health officials say RSV cases are finally starting to dip. Some good news there. But the steady rise in flu and COVID infections continues to overwhelm hospitals and health care providers.

GOLODRYGA: We have been talking about this for a few weeks now.

Meantime, a new study just released about long COVID highlights how dangerous this virus continues to be.

CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is here with more.

And we've talked about the impacts of long COVID for a while now. But what does this study show?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this was a really interesting study. And as I tell you about this, keep in mind that about 30 percent of people, about a third, develop symptoms of COVID that just last a long time. Weeks usually, but sometimes months.

What they did in a study is they looked at death certificates from January of 2020 to June of this year. And basically tried to find out, was long COVID one of the causes of death?

What they found was what you see there, about 3,544 deaths, where long haulers was listed in the death certificate.

They found that, in those death certificates, and that's about .3 percent of all COVID-related deaths, there was no specific diagnosis code for long haulers, long COVID up until recently.

So it's -- this number may be a pretty dramatic undercount because people didn't know what to call it for some time.

BLACKWELL: So, Sanjay, it's the two-year anniversary of the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine. You got a new essay about the data analyzing the deaths of those who were vaccinated versus those who were unvaccinated.

What's happening?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, if you look at the headlines or just look at the data and say, well, OK, how many people died in a certain month, and how many of those people were vaccinated versus unvaccinated?

The sort of headline you might read is that more were vaccinated than unvaccinated. And that is true in terms of absolute numbers.

But what I wanted to clarify -- and, you know, this is one of those things that's more of a statistical phenomenon than anything else.

But I'll show you, from September, for example, there were 13,000 people who died of COVID. What they find were 7,800 were vaccinated and vaccines seem to be the problem here.

What you have to do is actually look at the total number of people in each of these groups.

So if we look at the denominators here, you find that of the vaccinated group, you have 203 million, and the unvaccinated group, 55 million, and a very different picture emerges. And 39 deaths per a million in the vaccinated group versus 95 deaths per a million.

This is known as a base rate fallacy. As more and more people get vaccinated, more of the people who die of COVID will have been vaccinated.

It's like saying more right-handed people commit crimes. So 80 percent to 90 percent of people are right-handed. It's not your handedness. It's the specific crime in that case.

One other thing I'll point out, Simpson's Paradox. It's an interesting thing.

Again, if you look at it from a statistics standpoint, if you're someone who's died of COVID, you're more -- if you are older, you're more likely to have died of COVID, and you're more likely to have been vaccinated.

But it does not mean that vaccination is more likely to lead to death. That's a correlation, not a causation.

And that's what I wanted to get across in this essay.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, it's such an important point. You have to factor in that bottom line number. GUPTA: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: And the takeaway here is, hands down, it's safe, it's important, and it saves lives to get your vaccine.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

BLACKWELL: That's clear.

GUPTA: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: A surge in COVID cases in China has led to a craze for canned yellow peaches. Now panic buying there has reached a point that the state media has had to repeatedly warn people that peaches cannot cure COVID.

[14:55:02]

GOLODRYGA: Now canned peaches are known for their Vitamin C, longer shelf life, and as an at-home cold remedy. But, for the record, there's no evidence that peaches fight or cure the virus.

But this does speak to the crisis China is facing as cases are expected to skyrocket in the country. And they have a low vaccine rate, and they don't have effective vaccines at this point.

BLACKWELL: No.

All right, the Fed issues yet another rate hike, but smaller than in recent months. What that tells us about inflation, and maybe when prices will start to cool. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)