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Inside Politics

Biden Takes Office Amidst Deadly Pandemic, Faltering Economy; Trump's Second Impeachment Trial To Begin In Two Weeks; Interview With Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA); Pandemic Economy Hurting Women More Than Men; Coronavirus Pandemic. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired January 24, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:29]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice-over): President Biden pledges to be the uniter in chief.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must end this un-civil war that pits red against blue, conservative versus liberal. We must meet this moment as the United States of America.

PHILLIP: But Republicans say they want more than just talk.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: There's still plenty of time for President Biden to remember that he does not owe his election to the far left.

PHILLIP: Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren on the new president's first days.

Plus, out of sight but not out of mind. The Senate prepares for another Trump impeachment trial.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Senators will have to decide if Donald John Trump incited the insurrection.

PHILLIP: And the vaccine rollout. The new president says help is on the way.

BIDEN: This is a wartime undertaking. We will get through this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP (on camera): Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS Sunday. I'm Abby Phillip. Thank you for spending part of your weekend with us.

Last week, a new era dawned in Washington, the era of Joseph R. Biden Jr. It was an inauguration speech for these unprecedented times focused squarely on healing the nation after four years of the Trump administration and a deadly transition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BIDEN: Faith and reason show the way, the way of unity. We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature.

Without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Biden is inheriting unprecedented challenges. The top priority, ending the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed 417,000 Americans and counting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: The death toll will likely top 500,000 next month. The cases will continue to mount. We didn't get to this mess overnight. It's going to take months for us to turn things around. The honest truth is, we're still in a dark winter of this pandemic. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: He also got right to work reversing key parts of the Trump legacy using executive orders to end the travel ban that targeted mostly Muslim-majority countries, halt the border wall construction, and most deportations, rejoining the Paris climate accords and the World Health Organization and much more.

But ending the pandemic includes rescuing the badly battered economy. His top legislative priority is a $1.9 trillion rescue plan that he hopes will win bipartisan support.

Today, his top economic advisers will meet virtually with 15 senators from both parties who the White House will -- hopes will make a deal with him.

But former President Trump's impeachment trial is going to add to the difficulty of this. Many Republicans are arguing it's unrealistic to work toward bipartisan goals while the Democrats push what they consider to be a divisive impeachment trial.

So let's begin with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, CNN's Jeff Zeleny and Seung Min Kim from "The Washington Post" on this and a whole lot more.

So, Jeff, you've covered Presidents Obama, Trump and now Biden. How does this first week of the Biden era compare to his predecessors?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Abby, good morning.

I think it's different in so many ways because there is still this feeling that President Trump is still hanging over the Biden presidency very much unlike George W. Bush was hanging over the Obama administration at that point. But I think one thing is similar, as we talks about this $1.9 trillion spending bill, if you'll think back to the early days of the Obama administration, they had a similar economic stimulus bill and they wanted to get bipartisan support. Zero Republicans in the House voted for it and only three Republicans in the Senate voted for it.

And President Biden now, was vice president then, was key to try to get more bipartisanship on board. So that is why they're trying desperately to get some Republican buy-in on this $1.9 trillion bill. If it does not, it certainly will set the tone for the rest of this year, certainly and perhaps even longer, is bipartisanship possible?

[08:05:06]

But I think as you said in the opening, Abby, this is unprecedented challenges. The pandemic changes absolutely everything. But there is a sense, I believe, among Republicans, that they need to do something.

So the dynamic in the Senate with Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell is something we have not seen before recently, this 50/50 power share, and the impeachment coming up in two week's time. So, the next two weeks here in Washington are so urgent and critical for President Biden to get at least part of his agenda through and more importantly his nominees confirmed before that impeachment trial threatens to blow up everything.

PHILLIP: Yeah. There's not a -- there are a lot of differences between the Biden years now and the Obama years 12 years ago. But President Obama in his first month passed three pieces of legislation, major pieces of legislation within days of taking office, including his economic stimulus bill, and President Biden is taking a little bit of a different strategy. He's got this $1.9 trillion economic relief plan, that's more than twice the size of Obama's and it includes stimulus checks, jobless aids, ban on evictions, food stamps, housing aid, money to reopen schools and distribute vaccines plus a $15 minimum wage.

It's an all-in-one kind of approach. But is there a risk that putting so much into one bill could backfire and he ends up with nothing at the end of the day?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it's a huge risk. And White House officials know that. They know the end result is probably not going to look like what he's called on Congress to pass so far. But one thing he said last week as we were just getting into the early days of this was Joe Biden said that he knows his entire presidency is going to be judged on how they handle this crisis right out of the gate.

And I think so many presidency are set, the tone of them, the first year in office. But this is going to be so much more so than any other time we've seen. This is what he promised on the campaign trail that he could come together with Republicans, get something like this passed.

But Washington has changed a lot. We saw that, of course, with the insurrection that happened on Capitol Hill and how Republicans responded to that. So I think that's why you're seeing the meetings start to happen with lawmakers here at the White House.

There have been a lot of conversations behind the scenes and officials anticipate there are a lot more to come because they know a lot of it does hinge on this. You can't just govern by executive order as he spent largely the first few days doing. They're going to get some kind of legislation moving if they want to have a real effect on the economic side effects of this pandemic.

PHILLIP: So, over on Capitol Hill, of course, you're already hearing signs that Republicans are not happy.

And, Seung Min, you and your colleagues at "The Post" published this story yesterday, turned off by Biden's approach. GOP opposition to stimulus relief intensifies. I think a lot of people may not find that surprising.

But there was this from Susan Collins, who's a moderate, this past week, she said: We just passed $900 billion worth of assistance. Why would we have a package that big now? Maybe a couple of months from now the need will be evident and we'll need to do something significant. But I'm not seeing it right now.

You know, if that's the starting position of one of the key moderates in the Senate, do Biden officials think there's a real chance they can win over the 10 Republicans they need to avoid a filibuster to get this massive stimulus bill through?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, they're certainly trying at the outset and that's why you have this critical meeting with a bipartisan group later this afternoon led by Brian Deese, President Biden's top economic official. You're hearing a lot of pressure from Democrats on the White House and on their fellow Republicans saying, if you don't want to embrace a massive relief package that is needed by the American people right now, then we are prepared to go on it on our own in a process called reconciliation that's been used several times in Washington to pass major tax and spending legislation.

Democrats are prepared to go on their own and do it that way. They say, you shouldn't risk getting a great bill for the American people for the sake of picking up just a few Republican votes. And that's the posture of a lot of people right now. And the White House hasn't ruled that out either, ruling out using that process to get a massive relief package done.

But at the outset, they do want the semblance of bipartisanship, that's why they're talking with Republican senators later today. And for Republican senators, what they're hearing -- what they're hoping to hear from the administration later today is just why is this package needed? Show me the targets for relief and also their big question right now is there are hundreds of billions of dollars that have not yet been spent out of that massive package that Washington passed in December.

[08:10:00]

So tell us what the needs are. Show us what money has not gone out the door. So, it could be a very productive meeting later today or it could just be kind of a show and Democrats decide to go forward on their own.

PHILLIP: Yean, remains to be seen. If both sides are ready to have productive meetings, especially since this is a little bit of a different approach than what we've seen over the last four years. You know, Jeff, I want to shift gears a little bit to what we started with in this segment, this theme of unity that was such a central part of Biden's inaugural.

And you can see it just splashed all over these front pages from across the country. But he and Republicans seem to disagree fundamentally, frankly, on what unity actually means. Take a listen to what some Republicans have been saying.

(BEGIN VDIEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: The agenda and those executive orders he's signing are partisan, that's dividing.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): President Biden sounded a lot of notes of unity in his inaugural address. But, unfortunately, when we got back to the White House, he implemented a bunch of far-left policies.

SEN. STEVE DAINES (R-MT): They are yielding to the far left radical extremist. This is not the way to unify and heal the nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Jeff, is this what -- is this what President Biden meant when he talked about unity? It seems like Republicans have decided that they oppose what Biden is proposing?

ZELENY: No question about it. But, look, winning has consequences. I mean, there's gambling in the casino, surprise, surprise, some of these Republicans aren't going to embrace unity.

Look, I mean, the 2022 campaign has started, the 2024 campaign has started with Tom Cotton. These Republicans are not the audience, necessarily. But in his inaugural address last week, President Biden said he wants to work with Republicans who can come along and agree with this.

There are several members who want to get things done. They don't want to live in this era of obstructionist and us versus them and no progress. But I think unity is something that President Biden was talking about, you know, in a more aspirational way about healing.

He's not naive to know that all Republicans suddenly are going to come on board and, you know, embrace every piece of his legislation. He was around Capitol Hill for almost four decades and he knows that won't happen. But on the margins, on the edges on policy matters, some will come along, he believes.

That's the test of his presidency. Is Joe Biden's vision of Washington, is his vision of America still possible in this post-Trump era of deep polarization. But he also talked about truth, sticking to the facts and, you know, a semblance of truth here. And I think he will get more Republicans on board with that certainly.

PHILLIP: A lot has changed since Biden first came to Washington.

ZELENY: Sure.

PHILLIP: You know, Kaitlan, the other big theme this week, COVID. The president promising to vaccinate a hundred million people in the first 100 days, and that seems like a huge, lofty goal. But at this point, given where we are, it's the baseline. We're injecting a million people a day.

So, do you get a sense that this is a strategy to lower expectations or at least moderate expectations so maybe they can exceed them?

COLLINS: Well, what we've heard is they set this goal before people actually had started being vaccinated and so that's why they say, you know, when experts are calling it too modest, given they're already on track to reach that goal and they haven't changed anything. But I do think it helps them because they're not setting these standards and not meeting them, which is what we saw at the end of the Trump time in office, where you have the Operation Warp Speed officials explaining why they weren't where they were supposed to be initially.

So, I think we could potentially set them up this goal. Of course, experts are saying it's too modest of a plan, we should be on a lockout for that.

But one thing that set a stark contrast in the final days of Trump and the early days of Biden is look how much more involved the president has been in this, where he's giving daily speeches about coronavirus, talking about what they intend to do, at least what they hope to do. Also acknowledging the loss that we faced and acknowledging where we are in the country right now.

And that's what you saw from President Biden on Friday, where you hear he was saying, it's not going to get better immediately. We didn't get into this pandemic within a matter of days. It's going to take months for there to be real change.

So, I do think they are lowering expectations for what people should expect. They shouldn't expect the pandemic to just stop now that Joe Biden is in office. And so the question, of course, is once you're actually executing these things, do you actually make that much of a difference, given how critical their response is going to be.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I think the sea change in Washington has been obvious to pretty much anybody who's been paying attention. Kaitlan Collins, thank you so much for joining us.

Jeff and Seung Min, we'll talk to you just after the next break.

And up next, the Senate prepares for former President Donald Trump's second impeachment. Republicans saying that's no way to unify the country, but Speaker Pelosi begs to differ. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The fact is, the president of the United States committed an act of incitement of insurrection.

[08:15:07]

I don't think it's very unifying to say, oh, let's just forget it and move on. You don't say to a president, do whatever you want in the last months of your administration. You're going to get a get out of jail card free.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: It's official, the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump is set to begin the week of February 8th. The announcement coming after days of uncertainty about when Democrats might start the trial and if it would derail President Biden's ambitious 100-day agenda. Democrats opted to cut a deal with Republicans in a closely divided Senate, giving the Trump legal team more time to prepare and President Biden a chance to fill his cabinet.

[08:20:05]

Back with us, CNN's Jeff Zeleny and Seung Min Kim of "The Washington Post."

Jeff and Seung Min -- Jeff, this is a timeline that, you know, has emerged really very rapidly in the last couple of days. Is it what the Biden White House preferred?

ZELENY: Well, they would prefer to not have to deal with any of this, quite frankly, Abby, but that's not the reality. I mean, we've always seen that President Biden, for the last several weeks, did not have an appetite for impeachment. He knew he couldn't stop it, of course, but this is basically the best-case scenario.

They want to try and get at least some of their nominees confirmed over the next two-week period. It also allows -- it takes away the argument that this is being rushed and the president is not having time to build his team. So it was very interesting.

I mean, for a while now, the White House and the transition officials before that said Mr. Biden is not playing a role in this, not focusing on the timing. But Friday afternoon, he answered a question in the state dining room. He says he supports Senator McConnell's plan to start this in February. And then just a few hours later, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the floor of the Senate said, okay, the trial will start on February 9th.

So the next window of two weeks here is really an important time to try and get things done. So, it's the best timeline they could have hoped for. But, again, they wished this wasn't happening at all in the first 100 days.

PHILLIP: Jeff, what I love about that is that, you know, for four years, the president making comments that the White House would come as a surprise to people on Capitol Hill. I think this time, it sends a very clear message.

So, Seung Min, there are also at the same time that all this is happening, new revelations in the "New York Times" and the "Wall Street Journal" this weekend about how far president Trump has been willing to go to undo this election. And he almost replaced his acting attorney general with a loyalist who would have pursued his election fraud claims, and he pressed the Justice department to ask the Supreme Court outright to overturn the entire election.

If there's more like this that is going to come out between now and the trial, will that change the dynamic for Republicans?

KIM: It certainly could, depending on how damning those revelations are and also depending on how House impeachment managers decide to take that information when they present their case to the senators who are, again, the jurors in the impeachment trial, because we haven't heard too much yet from the House impeachment managers, from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on what their trial strategy will be. So will they call witnesses? Will they expand the scope into just beyond January 6th and look at all of the different actions that the president -- or the former president had taken before that day to sew this distrust in the election results.

We don't quite have a sense of that yet. So, all of the revelations from the "New York Times" and other outlets over the weekend could play a role in an actual trial. But certainly, it doesn't help President Trump when all of these news reports continue to come out and Democrats have told me one advantage to a delay is it gives time for a lot of the news stories to come out about the former president's behavior.

PHILLIP: Jeff, what do we know about the former president's mindset ahead of this trial? We know he's playing golf. But he's facing a lot of other post presidential legal and financial problems. Is he actually preparing for this?

ZELENY: He is now taking it much more seriously, we're told. You know, he has followed the advice of Senator Lindsey Graham and he's going to retain a South Carolina lawyer, Butch Bowers, who is really -- has never operated on this type of impeachment level. He's done some state impeachment cases.

But President Trump is very engaged. We saw him over the weekend sending a voice message essentially to Arizona Republicans with the election of their new state chair and they elected a very, very pro- Trump Republican.

So I think that, you know, in the early going, he's very involved with the shaping of what is still the Trump party. And the next few weeks are going to determine if the -- if this remains the Trump party or if it remains the Republican Party, if it can morph into a pre-Trump area.

But this impeachment trial in the Senate gives Republicans a chance to push him to the side. And we will see if they do it. At least at this point right now, on Capitol Hill, Manu Raju and the rest of our team have been surveying Republican senators and there are not 17 Republican senators by any stretch of the imagination to vote for this impeachment.

So, what is going to happen here is going to see how strong Mr. Trump emerges from the impeachment trial. He could emerge even stronger and that's a problem at least in the eyes of some Republicans in the years ahead. But he's watching all of this very carefully.

[08:25:01]

And, Abby, what if he decides to come to the Senate and essentially testify in his own defense. How dramatic would that be? He's been out of the spotlight for a while. He might just love to do that.

PHILLIP: So, Seung Min, quickly, you know, Kevin McCarthy during the impeachment proceedings in the House said the president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack. Now he's saying Trump should have done more before the riot started. But listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCARTHY: If you listen to what the president said at the rally, he said, demonstrate peacefully. And then I got a question later about whether did he incite them? I also think everybody across this country has some responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I think a lot of people reacted with, what?

So, Seung Min, what is going on in the Republican conference on Capitol Hill?

KIM: The House Republican conference has definitely been more decidedly pro-Trump during the Trump presidency and certainly still the case now. That's what you see from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, twisting himself in pretzels to walk back his forceful floor speech when he talked about the former president bearing some responsibility for what happened on January 6th. But that is kind of going to be this entire game for a lot of the members of the Republican Party going forward.

How much do they hang on, and how much do they defend -- continue to defend the president when he is in their rear-view mirror right now, how much power do they have with the voters when he has less of a microphone, when he doesn't have a public office position right now. That's going to be the question going forward, certainly.

PHILLIP: Well, clearly, he has not gone away based on what both you and Jeff are saying. Seung Min Kim, Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much for joining us this morning. ZELENY: Sure, Abby.

PHILLIP: And up next for us, what does Senator Elizabeth Warren think of President Biden's first days in office? We will ask her that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:11]

PHILLIP: Welcome back to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY.

Vice President Kamala Harris's swearing in, plus the two Georgia senators taking office this week now gives Democrats control of the 50/50 Senate, but the real challenge lies ahead.

Even in a divided chamber -- an evenly divided chamber means that bipartisanship is more than just a Washington buzz word, it may be a necessity. And the Senate already has a lot on its to-do list with only two of Biden's cabinet nominees confirmed, a looming impeachment trial, and the president's number one legislative priority -- the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan already getting pushback from Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We cannot, will not let people go hungry. We cannot let people be evicted because of nothing they did themselves. We cannot watch people lose their jobs and we have to act. We have to act now.

It's not just to meet the moral obligation to treat our fellow Americans with the dignity and respect they deserve, this is an economic imperative.

PHILLIP: And joining us now, one of the leading progressive voices in the Senate and the vice chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus, Senator Elizabeth Warren, also the woman with the plans. Senator Warren, thanks for being here.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Thank you. I'm glad to be with you this morning.

PHILLIP: So you know, we're five days into this Biden administration and already Republicans are calling the Biden agenda, quote, far-left wish list. Some of the proposals on immigration, on the economy -- they are sweeping, but what do you think about what he's unveiled so far? Should it satisfy progressives like yourself who have big ambitions for this administration?

WARREN: Look, what President Biden is communicating is the urgency of the moment. He acknowledges right up front that we're in the middle of a pandemic. We're in the middle of an economic crisis. We have just suffered through an insurrection. And we are in the heart of a racial reckoning.

And President Biden is saying he's ready to go. He's doing everything he can to respond to that. And I think that's exactly the right approach. We must deliver.

I would rather do it with Republicans. I hope they will come on board. But the main thing is, it's our responsibility to deliver. That's what we were elected to do.

PHILLIP: And speaking of bringing Republicans on board, there is a meeting at the White House today with a bipartisan group of 15 senators and the president's top economic adviser to talk about that $1.9 trillion relief bill. Are you worried at all that at the end of this process it will not include some of your big priorities like, for example, a $15 minimum wage? And have you talked to the president about it?

WARREN: So look, I think what we need to do as a nation are the things that Americans want us to do, a $15 an hour minimum wage. Remember, Florida just voted to increase their minimum wage to $15 an hour. That we need to get this pandemic under control. That we need to rescue this economy. That we need to deal with the fact that unemployment for the bottom quarter of earners in this country, unemployment is up 20 percent.

Those are the things we need to respond to and the American people want us to. It's the Republicans in the Senate who are behind. They're the ones who don't get what's happening in this country and what we need to do to get this country moving forward.

But will President Biden, do you think, negotiate away some of the things that you think are really critical? And, you know, what are you willing to lose in this negotiation?

WARREN: Look, the point is that President Biden is doing exactly what he needs to do. He is discussing the problem and he's laying out the solutions. We have a lot of tools for how to get those solutions done and it's our responsibility to meet them.

I will always be pushing for more. I want to see us as a nation make this economy work better for everyone. I think that's good for all of us.

It's not good when young people are crushed by student loan debt. It's not good when millions of Americans can't put a roof over their heads and food on the table with their social security checks. It's not good for the economy. It's not good for who we are as a people. So I'm always going to keep pushing.

But I know right now that President Biden feels the urgency of this moment and he is determined to get through actions that need to be done. Do them by executive order, do them through congress, but get them done.

[08:35:01]

PHILLIP: One quick follow on this, you know, there's been some bipartisan criticism that relief needs to be more targeted this time around. Not to people who haven't lost jobs or income, but when we're talking about direct payments, direct checks, do you think there's a need to get that money directly to people who have actually lost jobs and income in this pandemic?

WARREN: So, you know, I'm very concerned about the recent data out of the fed that shows that we have roughly about a 6.5 percent unemployment rate and that's bad. But it doesn't sound terrible until you break it apart and look at who is being affected.

The top slice of Americans, the unemployment rate is minuscule. But for the bottom quarter of Americans in this country, people who make modest incomes or low income earners, unemployment is clear up at 20 percent.

That means a big part of what we do needs to be targeted there. It needs to be targeted to those who are suffering most, those who are on the edge of losing their homes or their apartments, those who need to put food on the table and I think that President Biden is doing a good job of that. That's where we need to target.

But we also need to think about lifting this economy up overall and that means we need to get that money out, we need to get it in people's hands so they can spend it and get this economy going again.

PHILLIP: Senator Warren -- on impeachment, Leader Schumer last week agreed to that impeachment trial will start in two weeks. But is there a risk that Republican opposition to Trump will fade the longer you wait?

WARREN: I can't imagine how Republican opposition to insurrection would fade over the space of a couple of weeks. We're talking about a president who stood in front of a mob and told them to go to the Capitol and invade, told them to go to the Capitol and stop the lawful business of government so that he could try to stay in the White House.

That is so fundamentally wrong. I just -- we have to think about what's at issue here. You know, Donald Trump, for years, has broken so many norms, has had people say over and over that they're shocked by what he does.

But this one, insurrection, this is the first time since the Civil War that we have seen someone, a politician, encourage people to take up arms against the United States government and its lawful actions. We need accountability, accountability for Donald Trump and accountability for everyone who participated in that insurrection.

PHILLIP: You know, now Republicans are talking about unity. That was also a big theme of President Biden's inauguration address. They also seem to think that unity means compromising, specifically on policy. How do you see it?

WARREN: Let me start with, how about if we're unified against insurrection? How about if we're unified for accountability? Unity starts with accountability. And then unity is about doing the work that the American people want done.

It's not about ideology, it's not about helping just the richest Americans or some interest group. Unity is about doing things that the American people want to see us do. Like a $15 an hour minimum wage, like canceling student loan debt, like expanding social security, like giving us more universal childcare and universal pre-k. Things that are popular across this country, things that are needed across this country.

We want to have unity, then get on board for the things that the American people want to see us do.

P6: Well, we'll have much more to talk with you about, Senator Warren. Stick with us.

And coming up next with Senator Warren, we'll look at the pandemic economy and why it has been especially disastrous for women.

[08:39:13]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: The pandemic and the resulting economic crisis will soon enter their second year and it's clear now that the collapse in jobs is hurting women far more than men. In December, the economy shed jobs for the first time since last April and women accounted for all -- all of those job losses. Men actually gained jobs last month.

And in fact, since the pandemic began, the job losses have been deeper for women and slower to recover. Women have lost about one million more jobs than men.

And Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is back with us to discuss that and more. Those statistics are really stunning when you think about it. And you've been a champion of working women and moms throughout your career.

When you see those numbers, how far has this pandemic set women back and is enough being done to address it directly and specifically?

WARREN: So, the pandemic has really set women back and make no mistake, this is not something that women are going to recover from in just the space of a few months or even a few years. This will have lifetime consequences.

And women are getting hit in every direction. Women -- low-income women, moderate-income women have suffered from greater layoffs. They've struggled with childcare so that they can't get to work and therefore ended up with more job loss.

Women who have worked from home have picked up more of the responsibilities at home and cut back on their hours. That has long- term consequences for their career.

And that's going to be felt because it's just moving them backwards on the path of their work forward. And it will be felt even into their retirement years because it will have diminished work years and diminished income for those years.

So look, that's the nature of the problem. What we need to focus on is real structural solutions. First one, we need universal childcare in this country. We need to join the other high-income nations that make a real investment in letting parents work or in letting parents finish their education, universal childcare, universal pre-k. We also need to raise the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher in America. That's one way that we can help women.

PHILLIP: And Senator Warren, I do want to take a step back here and reflect because we're at the end of a historic week in this country. But actually, a historic season for you. You ran for president and -- in this last cycle and inspired a lot of women who thought they might finally see our first female president.

But I want you to listen to something that you said when you were the last woman to drop out of the race last year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: If you say, yes, there was sexism in this race, everyone says whiner. And if you say, no, there was no sexism, about a gazillion women think, what planet do you live on?

I promise you this, I will have a lot more to say on that subject later on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I remember being very intrigued by your candor in that moment. And now that we're later on with a woman as our vice president, do you think it will be easier to get to the top job, or is sexism still as much of an obstacle as it has been in the past?

[08:44:57]

WARREN: Look, it's tough out there. But I am so happy for Kamala. I was so happy when she was sworn in. And I know that millions of little girls across this country see themselves in her. With Kamala's swearing in, women are one step closer.

PHILLIP: And do you think that there has been some barrier-breaking, some changes made to how we deal with women in positions of high power as a result of this election?

WARREN: Yes, I hope so. And it's Kamala but also look at the number of women who will be heading up agencies. I'm so excited that Deb Haaland will be secretary of the Interior. She's terrific.

I was on the phone yesterday with Janet Yellen who is going to be the first person in history to be the head of the Fed and to be the secretary of the Treasury at two points in time.

They're just wonderful women, strong women around President Biden and that is a part of tapping into our strength as a nation. We need to hear from many voices.

And that means we need to hear from men and from women. We need to hear from people of color. We need to hear from people who grew up in poor backgrounds, people who grew up in other countries.

We need to hear from all of our people because that's what builds resilience. That's how we get good ideas and that's how we come together to build an America that works not just for a handful of rich people, but an America that works for everyone.

PHILLIP: I think we can agree probably bipartisanly even here in Washington that seeing more women in positions of power is something that is good for the country.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

WARREN: Thank you.

PHILLIP: And up next, President Biden vows to make the coronavirus vaccine more available and more accessible.

[08:47:10]

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PHILLIP: The U.S. is crossing over another grim milestone, 25 million confirmed coronavirus cases. But there is good news. It appears that we've bent the curve at least for now.

Cases have been falling for days after a fall and winter surge. Deaths may also have plateaued but at a high level. An average of nearly 3,000 people dying of COVID-19 every day and the CDC says as many as 90,000 more could lose their lives by mid-February as more contagious variants of the virus continue to spread rapidly around the country.

Vaccinations are starting to speed up but not fast enough to end the pandemic any time soon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: While the vaccine provides so much hope, the roll out has been a dismal failure thus far. We'll move heaven and earth to get more people vaccinated for free and create more places for them to get vaccinated. To mobilize more medical teams to get shots in people's arms. And to increase vaccine supply and get it out the door as fast as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And joining me now to sort all of this out is Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's Medical School. Dr. Jha, thanks for joining us today.

You know, cases are curving down. That seems to be a good sign of things to come but there is this new, more contagious variant that is thought to be at least 50 percent more contagious.

What does that mean for the future here? Are the variants or the vaccinations going to take hold first? DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY'S MEDICAL SCHOOL: Good morning.

Thank you for having me on.

It is first of all good news to see that curve bent down a little. We are still at a very high level of infections. I am very worried about whether we'll be able to sustain this or not.

If we move quickly on vaccination and get lots of people vaccinated quickly then we can keep that curve heading down. But if the variants take hold first, that curve will turn back up and things will get much worse.

So this is a race. Obviously I hope we win. And we're going to win by, really by vaccinating lots of people quickly.

PHILLIP: So we're getting to a point where we are close to averaging about a million vaccinations a day which is the Biden administration's goal to get us to 100,000 vaccinations within 100 days. But even at that speed it'll still take us until the end of the year to get to 75 percent of adults in the U.S. vaccinated.

But at a pace of 1.6 million vaccinations a day we would get there by the end of the summer. So what is your view of this? Is the new president and this administration -- are they aiming too low initially here?

DR. JHA: Well, you know, President Biden, he made that prediction or that goal back in early December. I do think that if supplies hold up and things continue to go well I expect that we're going to do better than a million a day. In some ways we need to do better than a million a day.

So I want to -- instead of setting goals which I think can be important, I think the key here is let's vaccinate people as quickly as we can as soon as we get the vaccines and one million a day should be our minimum. I think we should be able to do even better than that.

PHILLIP: You know, As people are looking around the country and seeing how these vaccinations are going, there are some huge differences it seems between how efficient some states are at administering vaccines and how inefficient other states seem to be.

California for example, the CDC says 41 percent of the doses that they have that have been distributed to them as of Friday have actually been injected into people's arms. In Texas that percentage is 57 percent. This is really frustrating to a lot of people.

Can you explain why there might be such a disparity between the states and what can be done about that?

DR. JHA: Yes, absolutely. There are large variations across the states. There are states like West Virginia and North Dakota that have done a fabulous job. There are other states that are struggling.

I think there are two parts of this, Abby. One is complexity. One set of states have just very, very complex rules for who gets vaccinated when and that has substantially slowed them down.

The other is capacity. A lot of states want to do it. They just don't have quite the personnel and the staffing and the resources and that's where the federal government can help.

So I think as a combination of factors, the federal government is going to have to get serious at helping these states that are lagging behind to get more people vaccinated.

PHILLIP: Do you -- just to follow up on that -- I mean do you have a sense that some states are being too stringent about who they are vaccinating at this early stage and should they start to loosen that up in the interest of just getting these vaccines out the door?

[08:54:55]

DR. JHA: Yes, absolutely. I think we should absolutely just relax some of the complexity. We should focus on age. We know older people are the ones who are at high risk.

I'd like to see everybody over 65 -- I've actually argued for everybody over 55 but hey, let's start where we can and get older people vaccinated first. That is going to be critically important. We already have already health care -- health care workers saying already now it's really time to focus on the elderly.

PHILLIP: Last weekend we marked one year since the first confirmed coronavirus case in the U.S. What is the most important thing that you think that we've learned in that year and, you know, where do you think we'll be a year from now? Will people be able to get back to their lives, to their families, you know, to what they used to be doing?

DR. JHA: Yes, I think the most important lesson of the last year is that when we put in smart policies and we do the things that we need to do individually we can really control the virus. And when we don't things get out of control.

I believe that a year from now things will be meaningfully different. They will be meaningfully different even well before a year from now. I think the vaccines are going to be enormously helpful.

I think the Biden administration's goals around testing and mask wearing will all help as well. And I expect that by late spring/summer life will begin to feel meaningfully different. And certainly by the fall and winter of next year we're going to see very different situation.

PHILLIP: Well, we're all looking forward to those days. Hopefully they will come sooner rather than later.

Dr. Ashish Jha, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

And that's it for INSIDE POLITICS Sunday. Join us back here every Sunday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time.

And we hope that you'll also catch the week day version of the show at noon Eastern time Monday through Friday.

Coming up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER" and a new co- host Dana Bash. Dana's guests include the HHS secretary nominee Xavier Becerra, Senators Mitt Romney an d Bernie Sanders, and impeachment manager Congresswoman Madeleine Dean.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. Have a great day.

[08:56:59]

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