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Travel Hits Pandemic High As White House Team Warns Of Possible Surge; Dr. Fauci: We Shouldn't Get Fixated On Elusive Number Of Herd Immunity; Officials, Medical Experts Concerned About Vaccine Hesitancy; Governor Andrew Cuomo Tours Mass Vaccination Site Amid Sexual Harassment Scandal; Washington Post: NY's Vaccine CZAR Called County Officials To Gauge Loyalty To Cuomo. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 15, 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: Hello to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing another busy news day with us. See what it brings us those words of the President of the United States. He opts for patience and due process.

As the calls for the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to resign grow and new details of an ethics complaint aimed at a longtime Cuomo friend who right now is in charge of New York's vaccine distribution that friend calling around to county Democrats to gauge their loyalty to the Governor.

Next hour the president speaks about the American rescue plan and his push now to get trillions in federal help into the communities that need it. The administration now undertaking a giant sales tour to sell the country on a plan the White House says will pave the road back to normal, but which Republican critics say is too expensive and focuses in their view on too much besides COVID.

Last hour, a new pandemic briefing from the Biden health team and the message quite stark yes, some optimism but we are again at a trigger wire moment cases remained out. One in five Americans have now had at least one vaccine shot in the arm.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia will allow teachers to get the vaccine starting today. That's a critical benchmark for the president's back to school by 100 days promise that's all good. This though is concerning.

Travel hit a pandemic high this past weekend nearly 5 million Americans transiting through airports since Thursday. Spring breakers you see them there on beaches out in bars all but ignoring pandemic precaution that should be basic.

Now by now to every American Italy, the CDC Director says office the latest example of what variants can do if public health pullback happens too soon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: They simply took their eye off the ball. I'm pleading with you for the sake of our nation's health. These should be warning signs for all of us. Cases climbed last spring they climbed again in the summer. They will climb now if we stopped taking precautions when we continue to get more and more people vaccinated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Here the emphasis again there on getting more and more people vaccinated. Let's walk through the numbers and see exactly where we are right now. If you look at the state by state case trends, we've used this map for about a year now 11 states in orange trending up.

More new COVID infections right now compared to the data one week ago 11 states trending up 20 states that's the base holding steady, 19 states that's the green trending down so some progress but largely a holding pattern. When you look right now this is a better way to look at it.

If you look at cases over the past week, the Sunday number below 40,000. It's been a long time since we've been below 40,000 new infections. We will see if this is a weekend blip or if it actually stays down. And you see over the past week, more likely 50,000 and above that is a plateau.

That's why the Director of the CDC Dr. Walensky is worried. She says that's too high of a plateau you need to push this down before you can be more optimistic. One of the concerns the spread of these variants just the UK variant on Thursday was 3300 cases in 47 states and here in the District of Columbia.

Today 4700 cases in 48 states plus DC, so the UK variant is everywhere just put it that way it is everywhere. And the case count is growing as it comes up travel. You heard Dr. Walensky voicing some concern Americans think we're back to normal already.

5.2 million people flew since Thursday, a busy weekend including 1.4 million screened on Friday by the TSA. That is a record during this pandemic 1.4 million. The vaccine numbers are getting better. More than one in five Americans have had at least one shot partially vaccinated.

More than 11 percent were in double digits now have been fully vaccinated. Those are good signs. People are getting the second dose a new survey shows only 3.4 percent so far have missed their second dose that leaves public health officials optimistic.

People are getting the first dose coming back to the second they do caution. These are largely health care workers, frontline workers so they might have easier access. See if that number holds up as we move out. Now you walk through some of the vaccines.

The Biden Administration has the right to be optimistic about what it's doing Saturday 3.2 million shots in arms that's a record. You see the average is up now just shy of about 3 million. When you seven day average about 2.3 million, 2.4 million excuse me, the seven day average the administration trying to push that even higher.

This is a concern. If you look at it here 23 percent of white Americans 23 percent of black Americans 20 percent of Hispanic Americans say they might not get this vaccine. Look at the numbers by partisan will not get the vaccine when available.

33 percent of Republicans say that. So there's some concern about access and attitude when it comes to getting a vaccine, especially among that you've heard for months, when will we reach herd immunity? When will we return immunity?

Dr. Fauci today saying stop worrying about that just please go out and get a vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: We should not get so fixated on this elusive number of herd immunity. We should just be concerned about getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as we possibly can because herd immunity is still somewhat of an elusive number.

We made a projection of it would likely be I've said many times, somewhere between 70 and 85 percent. But we don't know that for sure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's continue the conversation. Joining us is Dr. Mark McClellan, the former FDA Commissioner and the current Director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.

[12:05:00]

KING: Dr. McClellan also serves on the board of Johnson & Johnson, one of the vaccine makers here. Dr. McClellan, it's great to see you. When you hear Dr. Fauci say that what is your take away from that? But I might take away as he doesn't want people to get caught up in a statistic, he just wants them to go out and get a vaccine.

DR. MARK MCCLELLAN, DIRECTOR, DUKE-MARGOLIS CENTER FOR HEALTH POLICY: That's right, John, go out and get a vaccine as soon as it's available. And for people, who want to get vaccinated, keep in mind that is not going to be too long.

So you're going to have a chance to do that. We were up to about as you said two and a half million shots per day that we're getting out.

Now the supply of all the vaccines is going up in the days and weeks to come. So we should be able to get to three and a half million or more shots per day with the supply that's coming.

We're already over 100 million Americans who have gotten shots in arms at least once or at least 100 million shots over a million shots in arms, that number is going to increase significantly.

So that's why we're seeing I think some of this reduction in the spread of cases despite people going back out some more, but this is still a period when we need to be very cautious. We are not at high levels of immunity yet.

KING: You know from your days of the federal government especially if you have a big public health challenge like this, you're dealing with 810 sometimes 12 or more issues at once.

One of the big issues for the administration as it tries to ramp up vaccinations as it tries to get the money and the rescue plan out is a big decision about children in schools. The current guidelines are CDC guidelines are keep children six feet apart.

There's some new research that suggests you can move them to three feet apart. School admin has to tell you - school administrators, excuse me tell you that's a game changer, especially at the public school level because they don't have the space.

They simply don't have the space to spread people out. Dr. Walensky says close but not there yet. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALENSKY: --demonstrated that students when there was 100 percent mask wearing had similar infection rates when at six feet versus three feet, we are looking at these data carefully. The question actually prompted more studies to be done.

So we know more forthcoming, we're taking all of those data carefully and revisiting our guidance in that context.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: How critical would that be in terms of if you're trying to whether you're the Biden Administration or any administration, you're a local mayor or a local school administrator trying to get more kids in the classroom ASAP?

MCCLELLAN: Yes, it's absolutely critical. And I do see us getting there, John for the fall. So in fall semester, we're going to have many more people vaccinated maybe even some high school kids won't be all kids will still need to take some measures like distancing and other precautions.

But three feet, good circulation, all the health is coming to schools in the coming weeks should make fall reopening very good for schools. The question is John, what can we do in the near term? And there are many districts already reopening now with a combination of that increase vaccination for teachers that you mentioned is happening around the country.

Also with more ventilation with other steps that we know - we saw in Massachusetts. Some of my colleagues in North Carolina are finding similar things that it is possible to reopen pretty widely even right now.

And there's so much at stake for kids education for getting our economy back going also to add using testing in this context that's more available. We've been working with the Rockefeller Foundation on making test more widely available in the near term. I think we can make some real progress well before fall on increase school reopening safely.

KING: Wish you the best in that regard. I want to help - help me now if you can with a little bit of the politics of this if you will. We've talked for months about vaccine hesitancy and overall the numbers are actually getting better.

When I showed you that poll 33 percent of Republicans, Republicans say they were not going to - they're not planning to get the vaccine. Watch or listen to the Governor of Arkansas who says yes, in my state that means trouble.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON (R-AR): In Arkansas, it's a very pro Trump state in terms of the last election. And so we see that resistance whenever we are opening up eligibility for the vaccine. We're moving through it very quickly because we're not having everybody sign up to take it.

FAUCI: This is not a political issue. This is a public health issue. I just don't get it Chris, why they don't want to get vaccinated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Dr. Fauci may say he doesn't get it that we could go back and rewind the tape, if you will and have some guesses why people don't get it. But what should be done now?

MCCLELLAN: It's very important to increase our outreach and education with accurate information about the vaccines that people can get from those they trust. It looks like high on that list of trust is your physician, your pharmacist, somebody that you know in your community knows about health care not the politicians.

There is still a good deal politics around all of this, but giving people information on just how safe and effective the vaccines are. And as they see more examples of people getting vaccinated, I think that'll make a difference.

You know, even former President Trump said recently that people should get their shots when they get a chance, Dolly Parton and others let's get going with those advertising and outreach efforts.

[12:10:00]

MCCLELLAN: There's a group called the COVID collaborate working with the ad council trying to make sure that people can hear from someone they trust in their neighborhoods about the vaccines. And that's so important.

Now we shouldn't wait so April when we've got excess vaccines available. We will start working on that right now.

KING: Dr. Mark McClellan grateful as always sir, for your insights and expertise. I appreciate it.

MCCLELLAN: Good to be with you.

KING: Let's move to the politics now. In a big presidential speech just next hour, President Biden kicking off a salesmanship tour, they'll start it right here in Washington. And make the case for how Americans will see trillions of federal dollars show up in their everyday lives.

With us to share her reporting and insights, our Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins, nice to see you in the building thanks for joining us. Let's put up - just put up the map here, the White House here help us here tour. You see the Vice President is out today. The First Lady is out today.

The Vice President and her husband Colorado, Nevada, he goes on to New Mexico. The president will be in Pennsylvania, the president and vice president will go to Georgia this week. What is the main message here?

The bill has been passed; the checks are starting to move. If you look at the polling 70 percent of Americans support the American relief plan. What is the goal now?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well they want to make sure it stays around there and that Republicans aren't successful in these criticisms that you've seen of it.

And so they want to make sure that people not only understand what's in this bill beyond just the stimulus checks that's really digestible and easy for people to know they're getting it in their bank account over $1,000 for many of these people.

But they also want them to understand the other major aspects of it. The child tax credit portion what's going to schools - helping businesses? What this is really going to look like, it's important for them to be able to sell to people.

And that's why you're seeing them fanning out I think across the country this week, because they want to make sure they get that part right since they already have gotten over this hump of actually getting it passed through congress.

KING: And they seem to get again, President Biden, vice president during the Obama stimulus rollout back in 2009. Vice president when Obamacare rolled out, Democrats got hammered in the midterms in 2010 even though they thought they had two big achievements there bringing in Gene Sperling, who dates back to the Bill Clinton Administration also served in the Obama administration.

He's going to oversee the rollout here. And you see there, some of the bullet points; he'll oversee the implementation here twice. He was the White House Director of the National Economic Council.

Also his top treasury official back during when Obama came into office or the great recession. Why do they think it was important to get somebody who understands the mechanics of government so well? COLLINS: Well, Gene Sperling is a longtime Democratic economic policy

expert. So they're putting him in charge of this I think, because President Biden when he was vice president played such a crucial role in overseeing that 2009 stimulus bill. He understands how important this is.

And so that's why they've picked this person which Gene Sperling, they're going to announce him later this afternoon. This implementation is not going to be easy. It is a really big bill which they are touting and they are proud of. But now actually getting that into place is not going to be simple.

It's not all going to fall to Gene Sterling, a lot of it will also fall to the IRS, but he's basically overseeing it. And you don't really have any room for error here because they want to keep it popular as we were just talking about.

But also Republicans will be looking for any mess ups that they have and wanting to seize on them because they need to find a criticism of this bill. And so far they haven't had any successful lines of attack really.

And just to note what a challenge this is going to be those relief bills that passed under former President Trump, a lot of that money still has not been spent. It certainly speaks to the work here that you've got to get under to actually get this money out there. So Gene Sperling has a really big task ahead of him. And I think the White House realizes that.

KING: Right. If we could show that map again this final question, I just want to show Nevada, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Georgia, something in common with all those states in that the Biden/Harris ticket won them all.

One of the criticisms of the Trump Administration was President Trump didn't go into the blue areas. He didn't try to make his case to his skeptics. Will we see some of that? And as we as we watch the president, his team travel this week, one of the questions is, in this bill, families get a pretty generous child tax credit.

It expires though. Listen to the White House Chief of Staff says when he's asked, you got to try to make this permanent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the White House going to be pushing to make it permanent before it expires?

RON KLAIN, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We're certainly going to work for them embedding some of the policy in it hopefully lays the groundwork for what follows.

And of course dealing with the child poverty problem on a permanent basis is an important objective for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: It's an important policy objective. It's also an idea that you get Republicans heading into the midterm have to choose do we extend this tax credit, which they believe will be very popular or do you take it away?

COLLINS: Exactly. It's temporary, but it lasts for about a year. So it would be coming up right before those midterms. And so what they're counting on with selling this and if it's successful and if Republicans do like what they're seeing and they can win voters over with that and have it actually be popular to Republicans can't campaign on it.

They think it's going to be really tough for Republicans to go after them in the 2020 midterms. Typically you would see some losses there. Now the new Democratic President for Democrats, they're hoping to change that trajectory given what's going on with the economy and how this bill will help be a cash infusion.

[12:15:00]

KING: Say 55, interesting time. Watch the president try to sell this including we hear from the next hour Kaitlan Collins, thanks again for coming to see us. Up next President Biden is asked about the Andrew Cuomo allegations and he takes the cautious path.

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KING: The New York Governor Andrew Cuomo visiting a mass vaccination site this hour. You see him right there. Business as usual is his message as a growing list of critics says; he can no longer govern effectively.

Cuomo facing multiple sexual harassment allegations and criticism over his handling of COVID deaths in New York state nursing homes. The Governor says he will not resign and ask their people let the investigations run their course. President Biden agrees.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think Governor Andrew Cuomo should resign?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think the investigation is underway and we should see what it brings us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We heard the president right there. He wants caution but New York's two Senators are among the fellow Democrats who say enough.

[12:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): It's clear that Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners as well as the people of New York. That's why I believe that the governor has to resign. SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): There are multiple, serious, credible

allegations of abuse, so that Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners and of so many New Yorkers. So for the good of the state, he should resign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Kaitlan Collins is back with us. And joining the conversation, Anna Gronewold, she's Co-Author of POLITICO's New York Playbook. Anna let me start with you. And you raise an interesting question in a tweet today. So I want to read it and see if we have an answer.

An interesting question about this moment in Albany that many are grappling with, is momentum based in starting to believe women or rather disliking Andrew Cuomo? Do we know the answer or are that what reporters like yourself are trying to sort out?

ANNA GRONEWOLD, CO-AUTHOR, POLITICO'S NEW YORK PLAYBOOK: I think those who have been in Albany - reporting in a Capitol making policy for a number of years are not necessarily surprised about this culture that's being reported. These are things that have been known for a while about Albany in general.

But even a couple of years ago, that there was a big push to really to change the law to change the interactions between women and the men in power who dominate the space. And those started pretty strong, but they never got this much snowballing momentum.

And now there's less - there's less pushback if someone wants to agree and move forward with these sort of allegations because a lot of people have a lot of access to grind against home over the past 10 years.

KING: Interesting to watch the plays out. It's an excellent point. And Kaitlan Collins to the national conversation, you heard the president last night saying, let's just run its course the investigations are out there.

You know, he's the President of the United States, he's going to get asked these questions because Cuomo, such a prominent Democrat of the Chairman of the National Governors Association. If you go back in time, Vice President Harris is on the road this week. She's going to likely do some local interviews, it'll be interesting.

See what she says about this because if we go back in time, this is Senator Kamala Harris back in 2017. Sexual harassment and misconduct should not be allowed by anyone and should not occur anywhere. I believe the best thing for Senator Franken to do is to step down. That would be a good question for the vice president, what does she think now?

COLLINS: And Franken was accused of far less and stepped down. Ultimately, I think this has been a big question even inside the White House of whether or not the vice president would have this position where she has not really weighed in if she was still on Capitol hill. And so of course, I think the nature of being vice president is you do

not want to get ahead of the president. We heard what President Biden said yesterday; he did not call for him to resign and instead called for the investigation to play out.

And so I think that's a big factor, but she is likely going to be asked about it. I think our staff is aware that that's going to happen. She's out on the road; she's in earshot of reporters. This is going to be something that faces not just her but also the White House depending on the trajectory of this week for Governor Cuomo.

And so I think it's notable that you have all of these Senators and Democrats high ranking ones calling for him to step down. But notably, we do not have President Biden yet, we do not have House Speaker Pelosi either calling for him to step down.

Instead they've pointed to the investigation being conducted. And so whether or not that maintains in that stays is another question because of course, if President Biden were to call for him to step down that would really change the trajectory of this I think.

KING: He says the President of the United States, a leader of the Democratic Party that would be a big deal. So Anna Grunewold back to that culture you talked about because every government wants to be feared. But there's a line between sort of legitimate political fear and power and abusing that power in the use of it.

And the report in the Washington Post today about Larry Schwartz New York's vaccines czar, longtime adviser to Governor Andrew Cuomo phoned county officials in the past two weeks and attempts to gauge their loyalty to the embattled governor.

Schwartz who is working in a volunteer capacity to run New York's vaccine distribution, acknowledged making the calls in response to an inquiry by The Post, but said he did so as a 30 year friend of Cuomo and did not discuss vaccines in the conversations.

OK, maybe you don't discuss vaccines in the conversation. But it's excellent reporting in that piece about the proximity of the Schwartz calls to actual calls about vaccine supply. That would seem Mr. Schwartz will have a chance to answer I suspect this will come up in the investigations, but that would seem like intimidation.

GRONEWOLD: Well, Larry Schwartz has been in and around the Cuomo administration, even before Cuomo was Governor for 30 years when he knew his father. And I think that the calls from Larry are not something that is a new concept.

It's long been regarded as if you get a call from Larry or getting that call from the administration regardless of whether or not he's officially employed by the administration.

And some of the bullying or threatening tactics are also the kind of calls from Larry that people have gotten over a number of years and so I don't know what those conversations were.

[12:25:00]

GRONEWOLD: But the idea of Larry's words calling you and asking you specifically how you feel about the governor or kind of gauging your views there would for anyone who's been around New York politics would be something to think very carefully about.

KING: All right. And sometimes something like that, that works for you for years, comes back to bite you at a very sensitive moment. Anna Gronewold, Kaitlan Collins, appreciate the reporting and insights. We'll stay on top of the story.

Up next for us, the Republican Senator says the Capitol insurrection riders didn't worry him. But it might have been different if they were part of a Black Lives Matter march.

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