Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Mixed Reaction To Trump Administration Coronavirus Briefing; Donald Trump Tone On Coronavirus Clashes With Administration Show Of Force; Donald Trump Defenders Rail Against Media & Democrats Over Coronavirus; Former Vice Preside Joe Biden: South Carolina Will Be Launching Pad For Me; Joe Biden Betting On South Carolina As New Poll Shows Bernie Sanders Ahead In Key Super Tuesday States California & Texas. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 28, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Welcome to "Inside Politics." I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us. Wall Street plummets for the seventh consecutive day as investors worry about the fast forwarding Coronavirus and mounting evidence it could cause a global recession

The Trump White House voicing confidence today in a bipartisan deal to expand and fund the U.S. response will be reached within days.

Plus South Carolina votes Saturday and it is a must win for Joe Biden especially because of brand new CNN poll numbers in next week's two biggest prizes. Bernie Sanders now has healthy leads in California and Texas. Clear proof he has A Super Tuesday chance to open up a big lead in the delegate chase.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP0

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I feel very good. I've worked hard to earn these votes, and I think I'll do well.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have made up a lot of ground, we're in striking distance. If there is a large voter turnout of working people, low income people come on out and vote. I think we have got a shot to win this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Back to 2020 politics in a few moments, but we begin the hour with the Coronavirus crisis. Day seven now of a market panic and the new Trump Administration show a force an effort at time still undermined by the President's dismissive tone.

The Vice President is in charge of the response and he's trying to show the full force of the federal government machinery is at work and at his disposal. An expanded task force, a morning briefing with lawmakers, calls with front line governors, daily sessions with reporters to give updates on the response. Top administration officials leading a Capitol Hill briefing a bit earlier today confident a bipartisan deal on a Coronavirus Response Plan will be reached by early next week. Members of Congress left those meetings grateful for what they were told but also complaining. There's a lot they don't know and a lot to be done.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): This is potentially an enormous issue for the country, and I do not think we're prepared.

REP. EMANUEL CLEAVER (D-MI): The government is not prepared. I don't think we ought to pretend that it is.

REP. FRED UPTON (R-MI): It needs to be all hands on deck. There is a lot of work that has to be done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone is scrambling for information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: There are still big holes that leave the United States exposed, including a lack of testing kits. There are also signs that not everything has gone according to plan. A whistleblower says the federal first responders treated Coronavirus patients without the right training or the right protective gear.

Health experts warn a pandemic seems inevitable. The only question is how severe will it be? But the flurry of action does suggest a new seriousness from the Trump Administration, despite this from the boss.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle. It will disappear, and from our shores, you know, it could get worse before it gets better, it could maybe go away. We'll see what happens. Nobody really knows.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's start with the markets. CNN's Alison Kosik is live at the New York Stock Exchange. Alison it has been a very tough week. The President's top economic adviser saying though, that the country will weather this.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know what I'm hearing from many people, I'm talking with John is, that there's just not a lot of confidence that the U.S. is prepared for a possible outbreak of the Coronavirus here in the U.S., and that's really underpinning why we've seen such a massive selloff all week, that lack of confidence and that uncertainty.

That's why we're seeing that material impact on companies across the board, and not just companies but world economies as well. Companies like Procter & Gamble coming out today. Procter & Gamble, the biggest consumer products company in the world saying that it's having supply issues, supply changes, disruption issues, which means that it won't be able to get its product out because it relies on China to ship those products out, products like Bounty and Pampers and Gillette Razors that there may be some availability issues.

And this is the kind of thing that we're hearing from a lot of companies across the board, these supply issues with China. So that's not giving a lot of confidence to investors. It's why we're seeing revenue forecasts for companies being ratcheted down, it's why we're seeing prices of stocks which are companies being ratcheted down as well?

Now that yes we did hear from Larry Kudlow. He pumped up Tim Cook, he pumped up Apple. We did see the NASDAQ come off its lows. But John, I'm still seeing a lot of red on the screen today.

KING: A lot of red on the screen still a lot of anxiety. Alison Kosik, appreciate it from Wall Street. Let's keep in touch this week into next week. With me here in the studio to share their reporting and their insights Maggie Haberman with "The New York Times" Seung Min Kim with "The Washington Post" Francesca Chambers with "McClatchy" and CNN's MJ Lee.

If you listen to the lawmakers coming out of the meetings this morning, it does appear that the administration is doing better, in the sense that you now have the briefings at the White House, you have an expanded task force. A lot of people complaining Mike Pence is not a medical professional, but they have brought over a global pandemic expert from the State Department.

Some of the Democrats still complaining they're not prepared but a lot of people saying we're grateful they're making this effort now. And Eric Dolan the Legislative Affairs Director believing they'll have an agreement on the money, some money package by early next week. Let's set the President's tone aside for a second. Is that proof of progress?

[12:05:00]

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it certainly is. And you started to see a little bit of the progress, at the President's at least when it comes to the funding issue, at the President's news conference on Wednesday, when while he kind of complained that Democrats would always ask for more money.

He was open to the idea of providing more than the roughly $2 billion that the administration allocated initially. Now we'll see at the end of the whether there is a bipartisan agreement. There are fiscal hawks in the administrations that are very careful with how much money is allocated in this emergency supplemental?

But there does seem to be this urgency on Capitol Hill to provide more than what the administration has laid out it not going to be the billion that Chuck Schumer has laid out but certainly most likely more than the initial administration request.

And I think the - some of the other encouraging things coming out of that briefing this morning was what Dr. Fauci the top NIH official had told lawmakers you know there is concern that with all the information being routed through the Vice President's office that may be perhaps some information would be left out or censored, but he reassured lawmakers that, no, I'm not being muzzled by this administration. I think that was a confronting point for lawmakers in the room.

KING: I that was a concern--

MAGGIE HABERMAN, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I just want to confirm that what Dr. Fauci said. What he said was I'm not being muzzled I do have to clear these various occurrences with them.

KIM: Correct, yes.

HABERMAN: I do think you have to take that all in totality. So while I think a lot of people certainly more encouraged to hear "They're not censoring me", they are still trying to control the message. And I think we have to see how that plays out.

KING: It's an excellent point. I want to read your reporting on this very subject because this is the issue at hand. The Vice President is taking charge of this, nothing wrong with that, it is actually a lot of things right with that to have one person with authority in charge of things.

The White House moved on Thursday to tighten control of Coronavirus messaging by government health official and scientists directing them to coordinate all statements and public appearances with the office of Vice President Mike Pence.

Dr. Fauci has told associates at the White House have instructed him not to say anything else without clearance. There was a Mick Mulvaney email also the Acting Chief of Staff saying everybody needs to go through the Vice President's office.

Again, that could be great. If they centralize control, any big organization at a time of crisis, you want it managed by one person. The question is, are they going to keep the public health professionals who have the facts, and who sometimes frequently say things the President does not like, that this is real, this is serious. We need to wrap our arms around this. This will be a pandemic, let's get serious. The President doesn't like that. Will they be muzzled?

HABERMAN: We look - we have to take Dr. Fauci at his word right? He's one of the reasons that I think people were concerned, is he had told people I have to clear everything through them. He actually reaffirmed that this morning with the lawmakers but he also said he is not going to have his - or he doesn't believe he's going to have his statements edited.

I think that we're going to face acid tests on that in the days going forward. I think you are correct that there is every reason for people to be happy that there is one person trying to be the focus of this. I think the administration is trying to show they're taking it more seriously. I think that Pence was sort of blindsided by this frankly. I don't think that there was extensive conversation about what this might look like?

And I think he's tried to do the best he can with what any administration official from any previous administrations will say is not a great hand when you have to have this kind of portfolio.

So I do think based on just what we've seen so far, that's what they're trying to do, but you have to counterbalance that against the fact that the President has, as you said, repeatedly downplayed this. Even the VP in his own statements yesterday in that public briefing, with Fauci at his side, the VP was trying to diminish it, too, and Fauci then said this is a serious virus.

So I think we just have to see what happens and this is where you want your credibility to be strong, and this administration has harmed its own credibility as much as it talks about the media has hurt its credibility, it does that frequently.

They have never acknowledged how frequently the President says things that are not true, and that doesn't inspire confidence among inside this.

KING: You have a President too at times that frequently has a very casual relationship with the truth. And then you have a moment of crisis where we need to be able to look to our leaders and trust them.

So to that very point the Vice President is trying to wrap his arms around this. May be the first day it wasn't perfect. Give him a chance. Let's see what happens. We'll watch how it plays out. We'll watch if the public health professionals get to tell the American people the truth.

Mike Pence went on Hannity last night, Fox News, normally a place where they beat up the other side, beat up our business beat up the Democrats. Listen to the tone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES: It's important to remember we're all in this together. This is not the time for partisanship. We want to push politics aside. We want to make sure we get the resources that we need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Some - speech there as well as an interview with Sean Hannity. That's the Vice President of the United States trying to say, everybody take a deep breath, let's work together, let's deal with this. The problem is the President's own tone is dismissive and listen here this is the President's son and the President's Chief of Staff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: While real news was happening and we were dealing with it in a way that I think you folks would be extraordinarily proud of, and it was serving the nation extraordinarily well, the press was covering their hopes of the day.

DONALD TRUMP JR., EVP OF DEVELOPMENT & ACQUISITIONS @THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Like you said, we've seen this play out for four years. Anything that they can use to try to hurt Trump, they will.

[12:10:00]

TRUMP JR.: For them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump's streak of winning is a new level of sickness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, that's a new level of just fear mongering and irresponsibility, I'm sorry. There is nobody who wants millions of people to die.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: There is nobody at this table and if they want to take issue with the Democratic response take issue with the substance of the Democrat response. There is no Democrat that wants millions of people to die. If you want to debate what they're saying or how they want to deal with this fine, have a policy debate.

But that, when again when the - again I feel for the Vice President, he is trying to pull this together. When you have the President and President's son minimizing it, and the President's son there saying that if you don't agree with the President you want millions of people to die?

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: We really are seeing in full force I think one of the most difficult and peculiar things about President Trump and for the people who work around him. When he sees negative national headlines, he really has this instinct and a tendency to treat those as sort of a personal attack either on him or his performance at the White House.

I think we saw this with the issue of Russian interference in the U.S. elections, even as his own intelligence officials were telling him, no this is a thing that is real, and this is a thing that is happening, his inclination often was to say this is fake news aimed at hurting me at the White House.

I think we're seeing this with the Coronavirus is spread and it coming to the U.S., I think he sees headlines about this disease and immediately sort of goes to the place of, will this hurt me and is there sort of an attempt to hurt me and how I look?

And it's sort of an optics play from my critics and people who don't like New York, people who want me to fail. I mean it really brings out sort of his worst instincts which include downplaying the reality or denying the reality or really going on the defensive, and obviously we end up seeing that from some of the people who are closest to him, including his own family members.

KING: And his Acting Chief of Staff who has sometimes been in hot water with the President of the United States. Let's be honest. He doesn't really have the full authority of a Chief of Staff at the White House. Let's be honest about that.

Was saying the press has their hoax of the day. Now we reported - what we have done here is report what the President says and compare it to what the public health professionals say and say there is a difference here.

(CROSSTALK)

HABERMAN: Well, this is the problem, though, right? This is why it is that there is an issue where people on the Hill in particular, Democratic lawmakers, have concerns about the kind of information that's coming out, because you have the Chief of Staff going to a conference that is all about the Trump base and is saying one set of information which is, this is a hoax, denouncing it.

And then you have officials trying to lead these serious health briefings at the White House. Those were not the same yesterday.

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, MCCLATCHY: And just objectively speaking the President is saying something even at that briefing that was very, very different than what those public health officials were saying.

He was, again, like you said downplaying it as they were saying that this could spread, this could get more serious. And when it comes to other issues, just besides the fact of how people could get sick in America, there are other serious issues that enter.

There's how it affects businesses? What Apple has said about it affects their supply chain? And for American who are looking for to travel. You know currently the restrictions on travel are expected to lift here in the spring, but for those people who could go into summer travel who are trying to decide what they're going to do.

The president's response was they need to be flexible and may be those stay in the United States But for people who have already bought plane tickets, they can't get a refund on those.

KING: Right, among the many people complaining airline industry officials at the White House the other day saying that it can't get straight information or different people giving different information. It would be nice if we had consistent. And again let's just see it is Friday. We'll see if they regroup here. When we come back, South Carolina votes tomorrow. If you're Joe Biden and you want to get back in the race, it is a must win.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00] KING: In a moment brand new CNN poll numbers out of California and Texas, two big Super Tuesday prizes that will make you say wow. First, though, South Carolina votes tomorrow and Joe Biden is quite honest about how it is a must win for his 2020 ambitions.

The Former Vice President says a big win there would prove that is what he says that he's the strongest alternate to Bernie Sanders. And Joe Biden says it would convince those may be who don't want Sanders at top of the ticket, that they need to coalesce around one person, and quickly, he says because 14 states vote next Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I'm confident about South Carolina because I've worked so hard over 30 more years here in South Carolina, not to run for President but to have relationships with the community. It's been a launching pad for Barack, and I believe it will be a launching pad for me. Since the debate, we've raised over $2 million. I got in this thing late I didn't have a fundraising base.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's get straight to the ground in South Carolina. Peter Hamby is the Host of Snapchat's "Good Luck America" and Contributing Writer for "Vanity Fair" he is also a CNN escapee, as I call him. Mr. Hamby, it's good to see you.

It is your home. You're on the ground there, help us out. A poll yesterday had Joe Biden with a giant lead the poll just the other day had Joe Biden with a 5 point lead. What's the feel on the ground? Is he going to get the big win that he still needs?

PETER HAMBY, HOST, SNAPCHAT'S "GOOD LUCK AMERICA": I mean the people here Democrats and Republicans all the smart people you introduced me to down here John back in the day. I really think this is going to be a blowout win for Joe Biden.

Obviously it is still early to make predictions like that but it does feel like there are black voters and white voters are coalescing around Joe Biden. Last time down here, you know Bernie Sanders got smoked by Hillary Clinton. Typically you would think a state with some white voters in it would move to Bernie, but that feels like it's not happening. And to your point, there is a 60-hour window between South Carolina and Super Tuesday.

[12:20:00]

And if Biden could show a 10-point, maybe even a 15-point win here, the money moves his way, maybe that puts a lot more pressure on Warren, on Pete, on Amy just to sort of drop out of the race, and Mike Bloomberg too because if you're a non-Bernie Democrat and you freaking out right now, Biden suddenly becomes the horse if he comes out of here with a big win.

KING: The question is can you raise the resources fact enough and do what he wants to take? We often in our business make the mistake of fighting the last war, if you will. And so we look at 2016 and we look at 2008 in South Carolina we look at the giant African-American constituency in the Democratic Primary.

There's no question it will be big. But you're right in a very smart piece in "Vanity Fair" about some changes. South Carolina is growing like many places in America. The suburbs are growing, there are more afternoon college educated whites moving into the state.

I just want to read a little bit from your piece, this year's contest could actually be whiter than any statewide primary in more than a decade. Early absentee ballots returns suggest as much. The reasons are many. None of the candidates inspire the kind of visceral excitement among black voters that propelled Obama's first historic campaign.

The Democrats have an open primary and Republicans have none, there's also the states rapidly changing demographics. How faster they changing and how much of an impact might that have on what we see tomorrow evening?

HAMBY: Yes, something about Bernie Sanders last time, the pattern released last time in 2016 was that Hillary Clinton did better in states that had more people with color, Bernie did better well in white states.

South Carolina is different, the white voters here you know older a little more moderate in suburban. Since 2016 almost a quarter million new people have come here, they're moving on places like Greenville Spartanburg, the suburbs of Charlotte up in York County and down on the coast in Charleston where we saw in 2018 was the same things play out that we saw in suburban House districts in 2018 all over the country.

You saw a surge in suburban turnout, a lot of those white moderates and white liberals who kind of discovered politics when Trump became President. A lot of people here think those voters are going to surge and make the primary may be look yes it is going to be a majority black everyone knows that here. But maybe a little more like 2008 when it was about 55 black 45 white rather than 2016 where it was more of a 60-40 thing.

And so again, I think those white voters surging, if Biden has momentum here, they could move in his direction. He's beating Bernie Sanders among white voters here, but the white vote is still divided. Pete Buttigieg, Warren, Amy are all doing well among the white vote. But Biden is winning both African-American vote here and white voters.

KING: We'll count them tomorrow. We'll see who it turns out? Peter Hamby I appreciate your prospective. Peter Hamby in South Carolina it looks like Jeff Zeleny in Iowa, their home, they're happy. You see it every time Nebraska kid goes over to Iowa in Zeleny's case.

Let's bring it in the room. We're going to get to a moment and I'm going to let the cat out of the bag a little bit. This is some polling we're building the graphics for it now that shows Bernie Sanders with a pretty healthy lead in Texas and California. I'm just going to tell people that so we don't hide it. We'll show you the numbers in a moment. It just emphasizes how important this is for Joe Biden if you want to make the case that somebody needs to stop Bernie Sanders, and that somebody is me, you have to come out of South Carolina with oomph, especially since you don't have a ton of money. You need to convince donors, send it and send it now.

LEE: When you look at the list of delegates that are up for grabs in all of the states including the early stage and then heading into Super Tuesday, it is such an important reminder of how miniscule the number of delegates up for grabs in the four early states are compared to what we have coming up on Super Tuesday.

I mean, just between California and Texas, you have 600-plus delegates and that is the reminder about how if Bernie Sanders does as well as polling has so far indicated, that is the moment when it will really sink in with people that Bernie Sanders could run away with it.

And if we have seen concerns bubbling up among the non-Bernie supporting candidates Democratic Party officials, those concerns are going to be on steroids after Super Tuesday, and sort of the need to consolidate the rest of the candidates that are not Bernie Sanders and sort of get behind one candidate, that is going to be sort of the biggest message, I think, coming out of Super Tuesday.

KING: And to your point, tomorrow night by the end of South Carolina count, hopefully, we will have allocated about 5 percent of the delegates. Then you get more than a third in one night. In one night you get more than a third, which makes the results out of South Carolina, again, if someone is going to get a slingshot to go against Sanders. If Joe Biden wants to make a bet that that's him, it better be a big win.

HABERMAN: Yes, look. I think it's hard to overstate how important tomorrow is for Joe Biden. I actually think that he can probably do okay if it's five points ahead of whoever comes in behind him. I don't think he needs a double digit win the way we saw, say, Donald Trump get one right in South Carolina and New Hampshire in 2016.

But I do think that Biden needs a clear victory, otherwise I think it remains an incredibly weird model and the only person who really benefits is Bernie Sanders. Look, I think the comparisons of 2016 and Trump, in that primary year, whatever year that was, 2020, on the Democrats is a minimal utility, but I do think that what we saw with Trump in 2016 is he started out in polls at like 25.

That was basically the ceiling. And then it inched up slowly over time if these polls are correct that we're seeing right now, where Bernie Sanders is in California and in Texas, according to CNN, it's around 30 to 35.

[12:25:00]

HABERMAN: That is that slow inching up. And so it won't necessarily get him, and probably won't, 50 percent of the delegates as he heads into the convention. It will remain a different kind of race. But he will be very, very hard to stop. You're looking at a protracted slog if something doesn't change on Tuesday.

KING: And so we're going to take a very quick break. We're going to come back to these poll numbers in just a minute. So I can lay them up for you in clear details. And just to note, tomorrow is South Carolina.

You can watch our Special Live Coverage of the South Carolina Primary right here on CNN. I'll be here with the espresso machine. It starts from hour at 4:00 am eastern. When we come back Texas and California Super Tuesday's two biggest prizes Bernie Sanders should be smiling.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)