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Chuck Schumer: "We Are Not Going To Be Timid In The Face Of Big Challenges"; Senate Prepares For Tough Amendment Votes Amid COVID Relief Push; Senate Starts Its Marathon Effort Taking Up The COVID Relief Bill; CDC: U.S. Now Averaging 2 Million Vaccine Shots Administered Per Day; Bennett: New York Governor Cuomo Was "Trying To Sleep With Me". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 05, 2021 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Top of the hour, welcome to Inside Politics. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing a very busy news day with us. The Biden Coronavirus team issuing new warnings just last hour. Vaccine progress shots are now getting into American arms at the rate of 2 million vaccines per day.

But team Biden says variants now spreading quickly renewing concerns about a potential fourth wave of uncontrolled infection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY SLAVITT, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER FOR COVID-19 RESPONSE: Years of watching football on TV has shown me that it's better to spike the football once you're safely in the end zone not after you've made a couple of completions. Where I'm asked now, so we can get to a place where you don't have to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Also today the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is in crisis. Charlotte Bennett says in a televised interview that her former boss was a "textbook abuser" who strategically groomed her and then tried to sleep with her. Plus there are new questions today over why senior Cuomo aides reportedly altered data to hide the true toll of COVID nursing home deaths.

First though the economy one year into the COVID punch. New job numbers out today are mostly positive. Unemployment as you can see ticking down and there were 379,000 new hires across America last month. But the economy is still down more than 9 million jobs from one year ago.

A number the White House and its democratic allies say must be the focus now as the Biden COVID rescue package faces key votes today in the Senate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): We are not, we are not going to be timid in the face of big challenges. We are not, we are not going to delay when urgent action is called for. But we are going to power through and finish this bill however long it takes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The jobs report making clear unemployment remains a mega crisis. And while overall jobs numbers were up by a healthy number last month, the labor department data does detailed job cuts by state and local governments.

All new flashpoints now for the marathon Senate debate kicking into gear right now start with moments ago, a vote on whether to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour with us to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Abby Phillip, Christine Romans and Lauren Fox.

Christine I want to start with you. The jobs debate up on Capitol Hill, the COVID release debate is about where we are going to report out this morning tells us where we are 379,000 that's a healthy number. But there are some buts when you read deeply.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: A lot of those John, I mean, look, those are rehires. These are people who are brought back because of restaurant and bar reopenings. I mean, you can look at the sectors and see where the energy was in the labor market.

These are people low wage bar and restaurant jobs that were brought back because you're seeing these cautious reopenings across the country. And there's a big concern that if you've got the virus continuing to spread especially in states where people aren't wearing masks, that those jobs could end up being laid off.

Again some retail jobs, some entertainment jobs, movie theaters, a few jobs there, construction fell though that's probably because of the cold weather. But John you know, the context here is important. This looks more like a reverse square root than a super v recovery.

We're in a deep hole down nine and a half million jobs. You can see where we're going here at this pace. It's going to take a couple of years to get back the jobs that we lost, never mind the jobs we would have created. If there weren't the pandemic, this is still a real problem for working people.

Any recovery has been for the elites for people who make the most money in this country. You know low wage workers, regular Americans, there's been no recovery for them.

KING: And to that point Lauren Fox, Christine Roman says at the current pace it would take a couple of years to get back where we were last February. Team Biden says passed this COVID relief plan and we can get there more quickly.

We're going through a process called vote-a-rama in the Senate, a number of amendments including one progressive just tried even though they understood the math to include in this package, increasing the minimum wage. So where are we at this moment? LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well what you have seen

so far and of course we are still waiting on this final vote tally. But what you've seen so far is a number of moderate Democrats not supporting this amendment that Senator Sanders put forth. You had Democrats not just Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin who we expected not to be supportive of adding it to this bill.

You also saw people like Chris Coons, Tom Carper, and John Tester also voting against this provision in part because we already know that the Senate parliamentarian has argued that this is not going to be allowed in this bill because of these very specific budget rules John.

But it's significant still because this is something that progressives have been fighting for years this - of course the final death knell in this round of fights over the $15 minimum wage.

KING: its fascinating Abby the politics here. We're going to watch the Senate debate play out over these hours and we'll watch the votes as they come. Democrats believe they will pass this with only democratic votes. Just listen this morning.

The very different takes on this from the two leaders Chuck Schumer now the majority leader, Mitch McConnell and the Trumpers - pass some big COVID relief plans when he was the majority leader night and day.

[12:05:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): This is the pandemic rescue package. It's a parade of left wing pet projects that are ramming through - ramming through during a pandemic but now that the Democrats in the White House, now the Democrats control the Senate. Those same ideas which they supported when Trump was President, McConnell were majority leader or a liberal wish list.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It certainly is interesting and pretty much true at least so far that there are new Republican posture now that Trump has gone is it Biden's for it were against it?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And I think that that is what you're going to see for the next two years as they move into the midterms. Opposition is the strategy for the opposing party when the White House belongs to the Democrats and Republicans want to get back into power.

But at the same time I mean, you can't miss the irony of this situation where you know, I am old enough to remember. You know, President Trump wanting a tax deduction for the three martini lunch put into the COVID relief bill, never mind that restaurants around the country were saying, we don't need that.

We need more money for the PPP loans or for you know, for loans that will help small restaurants. So Republicans have a little bit of amnesia about this. And it's because at the end of the day, they have to appeal to their base and their base wants opposition to Biden.

And it doesn't matter what the details are because the details are not going to be litigated in the midterm elections which are all about the core faithful of your party. And that's a Trump party and the Trump party is, is the anti Biden party right now.

KING: And so Christine, when you look at the economic reports and when you talk to your sources about what's needed, what is most needed now and maybe what's not needed. You'll watch the debate in congress, the Democrats have already agreed to scale back for example, what income level you can beat and still get a stimulus payment.

They're now about this, they're about to scale back, it appears they have a deal to scale back level of unemployment benefits will continue going forward. In this bill though, we do know this. There's a March 14 deadline for some of these benefits.

Temporary unemployment benefits are part of these plan incentives to provide paid sick and family leave expanded food stamp benefits. Republicans are arguing and you can always find something in a big bill. They're arguing some of this is not necessary. It's liberal wish list.

When you talk to people who understand the nuts and bolts and the needs of the economy, what do they see as the pros in this? And are there any big cons?

ROMANS: Well so they say the most important thing is getting money for people to feed themselves. The most important thing is getting money to poor families. And let's be clear, there's a potentially sort of legacy building shift in that where we're talking about getting monthly money to low income families for children.

$250 per child every month refundable by the way, which means that you don't have to pay it back right. I mean, this is cash to families that's incredibly important for to attack a child poverty many people say and just getting money to people who've been sidelined by the jobs crisis, those unemployment benefits.

In this report today John, we saw that 13.3 million people say they can't go to work because their business closed or there no hours for them, there's not a job for them to go back to.

So that bridge for those out of work people from now until when we do have a strong economy and many people think the economy will be rolling by the end of this year or early next year. That bridge is what's incredibly important to keep families whole.

KING: And then that's the big picture if you will. The arc that team Biden says the American people want this. And Abby Phillip the polls tend to support them 62 percent in a Monmouth University poll say they need - they support a $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus package 34 percent oppose.

That doesn't mean that every American out there who says they support it more than six and 10 has read the bill or has read enough about it and knows every detail. They understand where I live, the economy is hurting. And if Washington wants to help, please.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I think you're not going to see a lot of political opposition from the - from the public to giving direct aid. I mean, I think the vast majority of Americans understand that it's needed even if they personally may not need it, they understand that it's needed.

So that I think is going to be popular. But again at the same time, the incentives are not aligned here. I don't think Republicans are looking at that number and saying well, we've got to support this. Obviously they're not because none of them voted for it in the house.

And I don't know that we can expect any of them to vote for it in the Senate. Because you know, opposition unfortunately, the political incentives incentivize opposition to the governing party. And that is going to rule the day.

And Republican base voters are not necessarily going to punish them even though they might be cashing the very same checks that these lawmakers that they're voting for are casting a ballot against in the Senate this weekend.

KING: That's a critical point and something to watch as we move forward. We will keep the tape of all these arguments and see where the economy goes and see where things go. So Lauren Fox back up to you.

Look on both sides, Republicans going to offer a lot of amendments knowing in most cases the Democrats are going to vote them down. Democrats are going to offer some amendments including Bernie Sanders today. I want you to listen to him on the floor.

He is the one who insisted even though he knows the math, I want to get everybody on record on whether or not you want to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour he says because of this.

[12:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): And here's the simple truth. And that is that in the richest country in the history of the world, we can no longer tolerate millions of our workers being unable to feed their families because they are working for starvation wages.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Am I right about the conversation up there that you'll go through this vote-a-rama amendment after amendment after amendment? And in the end, the Democrats think 50 votes plus the vice president is what it's going to take to send this back to the house.

FOX: Well, that's exactly right John. I mean look, we're going to be keeping our eye on someone like Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska who has not completely shut the door on potentially supporting this bill. We should note she did not vote yes, she voted against beginning

debate on this piece of legislation. But she has also said she's still reviewing the bill. That was what she said last night. So we're keeping an eye on her.

But at the end of the day, this is really at its core, a democratic priority up here on Capitol Hill. They are the ones who have been moving ahead to try to pass it. And we should know, this has been a difficult lift for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

That's because he can't lose a single Democrat. I will tell you on this amendment on the minimum wage, many moderate Democrats have told me this is one of the harder amendment votes are going to have to take. They're ready for those Republican poison pill amendments, many of them.

But this amendment in particular is difficult because it really divides Democrats sometimes along rural and urban divides not just between moderates and progressive. This is a hard issue for many Democrats back home depending on where you come from John.

So a lot of difficulty in having this votes today. And you can expect that some Democrats might be grumbling about one of their colleagues who forced this vote this afternoon.

KING: That's what happens in a process like this. Some people see a vote of principal others see a vote to - their politics will follow it as we play it out Lauren Fox, Christine Romans grateful. Abby Phillip is going to stay with us for a later conversation.

Up next for us the CDC Director last hour says the guidance on what fully vaccinated people can and should do is coming "soon".

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

KING: Just last hour, the White House COVID response team saying the CDC is still working on guidance for people who have been fully vaccinated promising that advice is coming soon and that they're focused on getting it right.

Meanwhile, new warnings from team Biden today about the growing temptation you see many Governors doing this to pull back on mask mandates and for people to pull back on wearing their mask and returning to their pre pandemic routines now Dr. Anthony Fauci warning that science and recent history tell us that could be dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: When you have that much of viral activity in a plateau, it almost invariably means that you are at risk for another spike.

Many countries in Europe have seen just that. They had a decrease in cases over a six week period. They plateaued. And now over the past week, they saw an increase in cases by 9 percent. Something we desperately want to avoid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us to share his expertise and his insights Dr. Amesh Adalja. He's a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security Dr. Adalja grateful to see you. We have been through, you and I have been over the past year as all Americans have been and people around the world what Dr. Fauci was just talking about.

The case count starts to come down hits a plateau. People think we've settled in and that OK, I can go back to normal now. When you see especially states like Texas and Mississippi saying, we don't need a mask mandate anymore. Is Dr. Fauci right, we're now at a plateau close to 60,000? We were at 40,000 when we had the horrific winter spike, where are we today?

DR. AMESH ADALJA, SENIOR SCHOLAR, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY CERTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: I think we don't quite know where we are. We have these variants out there that are the wild card.

And we've seen cases tick up over the last seven week average, but the 14 week average is declined. So we have to really sift through that data to see is this a reporting delay that caused that increase in the seven week average because of the storms and the weather?

Or is this a real upswing we're seeing? And I think because of that, because we still have 60, 70,000 cases a day. I think it's too early to say throw away your masks. I think that these have been shown throughout the pandemic to be able to keep cases to a manageable level.

So as Governors are looking at their reopening plans, I think they should think about masks as being critical to allowing that reopening to occur in the safest manner possible. Because if you're going to go to 100 percent capacity for your stores and other venues, you need people wearing masks to do that safely.

And even from a business operation standpoint, it's very important to have your customers, your employees wearing masks. And I think that's going to stay for some time until we get more control.

KING: In recent days, we've seen the President of the United States use the words Neanderthal Thinking about Texas and Mississippi driving their mask mandates. Now the White House is in a little back and forth with a Democratic Mayor.

The Mayor of Detroit saying yesterday that I think the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines are much better than Johnson and Johnson. So therefore as long as we have enough Pfizer and Moderna, I don't need Johnson and Johnson.

Now the Mayor - the White House says this is a bit of a misunderstanding. And the Mayor is now saying that if we have more people in line, then we have vaccines we use Johnson and Johnson. But how number one is it - is the Johnson and Johnson vaccine not as good? A lot of people are saying that because of some efficacy data that's been published. And number two, how helpful or hurtful is it if you have this mixed messaging about whether you should get the vaccine if it's either one of the three?

ADALJA: When it comes to what matters the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is highly effective, as effective as the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. And what I'm talking about there is serious disease, hospitalization and death. That's what these vaccines are designed to do.

And the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is tremendous. A single dose vaccine, it doesn't have onerous cold storage requirements. And I caution people when they look at those efficacy numbers for symptomatic disease, you can't just take those numbers and compare them apples to apples.

This wasn't one clinical trial that had three or four different arms with different vaccines. These trials were done at different time periods in different places of the world. So they're not one to one comparison. So it's not a valid way to look at these vaccines. And I do think it is harmful people maligning the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

[12:20:00]

ADALJA: And I think it does send a mixed message, not only because of the Mayor of Detroit, but also the U.S. conference of catholic bishops weighing in. All of that is sort of making the Johnson and Johnson vaccine appear to be not optimal when it actually is and people should get the first vaccine that they have access to.

And the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is a great vaccine and I recommend it to anybody who has the chance to get it.

KING: Appreciate you're saying that. Let me ask you lastly, just your observations of this. Is the NPR/IPSOS poll, the question a lot of parents are asking, is it safe to send my child back to school? Going forward how likely are you to have your child in remote learning indefinitely?

29 percent, so nearly three and ten parents say I'm going to keep my child in remote learning indefinitely. That reflects a fear, a safety fear about going back to school. One would imagine there might be some economic impact as well parents staying at home and the like. But does that number surprise you? And is it safe for kids to go back to school now?

ADALJA: The numbers surprises me. But I do think that the disruptions that people have seen with schools kind of being in hybrid and the difficulties of switching between the two has influenced parents choice there. But I do think that schools are something that can be done can be opened safely.

We have data from CDC - from the CDC showing that even when community spread is high, the spread inside schools is very low. There are best practices that we can use, we know to use masks and social distancing. And we know to kind of clamp down on the extracurricular activities

where there is more spread. So I think this is something that needs to be the default, schools should be the first thing to open the last thing to close. It should be what's open.

We have casinos open, we have people going to sporting events, mass gatherings, but we don't have schools open and it's actually harming children. So I think this is something we need to get right.

We need to hold the president to that 100 day, that 100 day promise that he said about schools opening for impersonal learning. This is something I think is very critical.

KING: Dr. Adalja grateful. As always, thank you very much.

ADALJA: Thank you.

KING: Thank you. Up next Charlotte Bennett in her own words and they are powerful. She calls New York Governor Andrew Cuomo a textbook abuser and says she was horrified, terrified to be in his office.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

KING: The New York Governor today confronts twin crises. One is about his management of the Coronavirus pandemic, both the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal now reporting Governor Andrew Cuomo senior aides rewrote a health department memo to hide data about the number of nursing home deaths in the early months of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The intervention came just as Governor Cuomo started writing something else. His book bragging about his crisis management the other crisis is also about how the Governor runs his office. Three women publicly accused Cuomo of inappropriate behavior.

Two of them worked in his administration and they say they were sexually harassed. In a new on camera interview, Charlotte Bennett calls the Governor "a textbook abuser".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLOTTE BENNETT, FORMER AIDE TO GOV. ANDREW CUOMO: He is a textbook abuser. He lets his temper and his anger rule the office. But he was very sweet to me for a year in the hopes that maybe one day when he came on to me, I would think we were friends or that it was appropriate or that it was OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Bennett worked as an Aid and Health Policy Adviser, she says she believes Governor Cuomo groomed her and then on June 5 of 2020 last year, crossed the line.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BENNETT: He's trying to sleep with me. The Governor is trying to sleep with me. And I'm deeply uncomfortable. And I have to get out of this room as soon as possible.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And to be clear, what made you think that he was trying to sleep with you?

BENNETT: Without explicitly saying it, he implied to me that I was old enough for him and he was lonely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Abbey Philip is here with me now. It is compelling when you hear it and it is incredibly disturbing.

PHILLIP: Yes. The whole context of the situation I think you laid it out. It's both things happening at the same time. Someone who feels apparently with all the - everything that's going on the fame, the attention also behaving in this really emboldened way in his office that made people like Charlotte Bennett apparently feel as if he was - it was a predatory situation that she couldn't speak up for herself.

He was not only her boss, but he was her boss in the spotlight. I think it's all of these different themes that we've been talking about with the "MeToo Movement" colliding. All in one story when really incredibly disturbing story.

KING: And if you listen to more of it, the Governor has not been specific in addressing what these women have laid out in detail. Clear recollection, dates, time's frames and everything like that.

He has said that he's apologizes if he was misunderstood. He says he was trying to be a mentor in Miss Bennett's case. And he says that some conduct that he believes that they took offense at in his view he was just trying to be playful listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENNETT: He asked me a few questions about how to use his iPhone and then sends me back to wait. And then finally he calls me in and he asks if I found him a girlfriend yet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He asked you again?

BENNETT: Yes and I say not yet. I said I was working on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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