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Biden Meets Goal Of 100 Million Shots On 58th Day In Office; Biden Official Claims Admin Was Prepared For Border Surge; Asian- American Communities On Edge After Deadly Shootings; Interview With Mayor John Giles (R) Of Mesa, Arizona; Biden Signals He's Open To Reforming The Filibuster; Out Of Power, Republicans Embrace The Culture Wars. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired March 21, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:00:22]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tragedy in Georgia. The nation confronts a surge in anti-Asian violence.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Everyone has the right to be recognized as an American. Not as the other, not as them, but as us.

PHILLIP: Plus, 100 million shots in the first 100 days. Biden meets his goal with weeks to spare.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And shots in arms and money in pockets. The American Rescue Plan is doing what it was designed to do.

PHILLIP: And the fight over voting rights an the filibuster.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: Everything is on the table. Failure is not an option.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: Nobody can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like.

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(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP (voice-over): Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Abby Phillip and to our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for spending part of your weekend with us.

Eight weeks into his presidency, Joe Biden is grappling with a national tragedy in Georgia and a humanitarian crisis on the border. But he's also marking two big wins. The enactment of his nearly $2 trillion relief bill and now, smashing through his goal of 100 million shots in his first 100 days. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Behind these 100 million shots are millions of lives changed when people receive that dose of hope. Grandparents can hug their grandchildren again. Front line workers who could show up their jobs without the same fear they used to have. Teachers with the confidence to head back into the classroom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: With his first gold met and the pace of vaccinations picking up, the president told reporters on Friday that he's hoping to double it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Things may get worse as new variants of the virus spread. That is why we need to vaccinate as many people as quickly as we possibly can. Because the best thing we can do to fight back against these variants.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And while Biden focuses on the pandemic, his administration is also struggling to manage a huge surge of asylum-seeking migrants crossing over the border from Mexico including thousands of unaccompanied children. The Biden administration has no place to put them and Republicans say that president's policies encourage them to make this dangerous journey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS CHIEF ANCHOR: Do you have to say quite clearly, don't come?

BIDEN: Yes. I can say quite clearly, don't come, don't leave your town or city or community.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R), TEXAS: The Biden administration is unprepared for the size and the amount of number of people coming in as well as the COVID or the water or health challenges that all of these migrants are facing. So this is a total disaster by the Biden administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And joining us now with their reporting and their insights, Perry Bacon of FiveThirtyEight, and CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

Now, Kaitlan, I want to start with you on this because it is pretty extraordinary when we're seeing here on the border. And it is threatening to overshadow the real victory lap that the Biden administration should be taken. I want to read this quote from our colleagues on CNN.com who reported this from a Biden official who says: Were we prepared? Yes, the official said. Everybody wants to be like crisis, crisis, crisis, crisis, but things are going really well. Yes, we brought in FEMA, but you know what, that was the responsible thing to do.

Now, look, there's no question that bringing in FEMA was the responsible thing to do. But the idea that they were, A., prepared, and B., that things are going well on the border seems disconnected from reality.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It is, because you're seeing record numbers of these unaccompanied children coming across the border, and they don't have the space to put them. And so they say at the same time that they understood this is likely going to happen because they're approaching immigration from a very different way than former President Trump was.

But it doesn't appear they were prepared to have this influx and deal with them because the kids are being put in Border Patrol facilities where's they are not supposed to be longer than 72 days but you're seeing them spend hundreds of hours in the facilities. They're like jail-like facilities. They're not meant for children, at all, while the administration is struggling and searching for someone else to put them.

And the other is the lack of transparency for cameras to get inside of the facilities. At height of the 2019 crisis reporters got access and saw the conditions and now we're relying on accounts of lawmakers going while the administration is working on access and the pandemic does play a factor but it is been several weeks now and that hasn't changed.

[08:05:06]

PHILLIP: Yeah, no pictures from inside and even some Democratic senators saying that reporters should be let in sooner rather than later.

But, Perry, I do wonder, I mean, look, the border crisis is not entirely of Biden's making and it is two-month news his administration but do you get a sense they have a plan of how to deal with this? Here is one of the Democratic senators, Chris Murphy, who went down to the border and left with his jaw on the floor.

He wrote on Twitter: I just left the border processing facility. Hundreds of kids packed into big opened rooms. In a corner, I fought back tears as a 13-year-old girl sobbed uncontrollably, explaining through a translator how terrified she was having been separated from her grandmother and without her parents.

A more humane policy is the goal but do you have a sense of what that policy going to be going forward to deal with unaccompanied minors and these asylum-seekers come to the border.

PERRY BACON, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT SENIOR WRITER: It looks like they're struggling with a policy. You saw the language changed from don't come to don't come now. They show the language of it as well. Because I don't think -- the policy is clearly we want to have a more humane approach to the border than Trump but we don't want to encourage people to come until we set up our system the way we want it to. That is the general goal, is more humane but a real policy.

It looks like right now they have not figured out how to execute that in real life so far. We're two months in but I do think there is a real challenge at this point.

PHILLIP: You know, we are -- I think they wanted to close this week talking entirely about really a good news story here. I mean 100 million shots in 100 days. You've got the narrative about this virus really shifting where we're heading into possibly a potentially good summer, but there are some risks -- they are very concern about these risks.

Just take a look at what's been going on with travel in the United States, record numbers of people already going to airports and getting on planes and traveling even while the Biden administration, Kaitlan, is still trying to figure out what the travel guidance is going to be.

How are they managing the desire to give people a sense of hope and optimism, with the reality that people are going and doing these things already?

COLLINS: Well, and that is what I heard from health experts when we were talking about the CDC guidance on what vaccinated people can do, and that it came out and it was really limited. And they've said they're going to change it. They're going to update it, but health experts were saying they were worried. People are going to do things any way. They are going to try to return to their normal life.

PHILLIP: Take a look at spring break if Florida. It is a little bit of a mess.

COLLINS: Right. It's everyone is in Miami except us, right now. Thankfully.

But what they're struggling with is that the guidance was too limited and it came out kind of delayed. And it seemed to held with the health officials if they had put it out sooner, people would feel like they get good instructions, they actually feel like they have more mobility if they do get vaccinated.

And so I think that is something that they're balancing right now but they knew spring break would be a challenge for them, but I think summer travel threatens that as well because people want to return to their normal lives. So, how do they do that safely and don't risk reversing the progress.

PHILLIP: And do you get the sense that just quickly that this is coming soon, there were some reports that in may they could be revisiting some of the travel guidelines.

COLLINS: I think they faced a lot of pressure to do is sooner rather than later. Not even just from regular people, from health experts as well. So there is a chance it could change but the CDC moves slowly and methodically so don't expect it soon.

PHILLIP: And, Perry, on the flip side of this, you've got the issue of maybe supply with the vaccine is about no longer be a huge issue but the demand is becoming a real concern. Their polling is really stark here. You've got Republicans being more hesitant than probably any other group to want to get this vaccine.

And on top of that, you've got in Congress Republican lawmakers, we did some reporting at CNN, only 53 would say that they had been vaccinated, 13 said they weren't vaccinated. But look at that, 145 Republicans in the House would not say one way or another whether they have been vaccinated. I imagine many have been vaccinated but they want to seem to be playing footsy with this element of their base that is, frankly, a little anti-vaccine. They don't believe that the vaccine is safe and that people should take it.

BACON: Yeah, this is a huge problem. We saw this during the -- before the vaccines were released.

[08:10:01]

You saw a lot of evidence that there were a lot of groups, African- Americans for example, were weary of the vaccine and Republicans were too.

But you've seen the weariness number for African-Americans go down a lot because the messaging has worked and it helps and it is safe, et cetera. But on the Republican side you're not getting the same messaging. Donald Trump reluctantly said he took the vaccine and suggested that other people should.

But he's not been out right or forthright about that and other Republicans haven't either. So until the -- the Biden administration is not going to be able to move a lot of Republican opinion. You're going to need Republican leaders, Fox News hosts, President Trump, Mike Pence, you probably need Republicans validators to do that and say the vaccine works. But you have so much anti-vaxx sentiment in the base that you don't see Republicans who are eager to do that.

It is going to feed into the idea that Biden is trumpeting how much vaccines we get and other Republicans don't want to help Biden succeed on some level. So, they're worried for that reason too.

So, this is a huge problem. I don't know how we get around this. The vaccine numbers have to include the 40 percent of the country, the voting for Trump, those numbers have to go up. I do think the polling is capturing the weariness of saying you get the vaccine because that seems liberal.

But that said I think the numbers have to go up and I think they can. But it will require some Republican stakeholders to get more invested in this process, maybe a Mitt Romney or George W. Bush, people like that could become those validators.

PHILLIP: Well, you know, I mean, maybe Mitt Romney and George W. Bush can try, but at the end of the day, President Trump had an opportunity to do something and he went on fox news and did a radio interview saying get the vaccine but there is so much more obviously that he could do to right side these numbers. So, thank you, Perry, and Kaitlan Collins.

And coming up next, a reckoning with the surge in anti-Asian violence.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:19]

PHILLIP: The killings of eight people, six of them Asian women at a massage parlor in the Atlanta area has horrified the nation. Police say a 21-year-old man confessed to the shootings and blames it on a sex addiction, not racism.

But this is a stat that can't be ignored. Hate crimes against Asians rose 149 percent last year. And the pain is felt in communities across the country and on Capitol Hill where some Democrats are blaming Republican rhetoric about the pandemic for fostering a culture of hate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. GRACE MENG (D-NY): Your president and your party and your colleagues can talk about issues with any other country that you want. But you don't have to do it by putting a bull's eye on the back of Asian-Americans across this country, on our grandparents, on our kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And Kaitlan Collins is back with us, along with "New York Times" legal reporter Nicole Hong. Kaitlan, the president and the vice president traveled to Atlanta on Friday and they meet with Asian- American leaders and condemned the racist rhetoric that we've all been hearing frankly over the last several months.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Racism is real in America. And it has always been. Xenophobia is real in America, and always has been.

BIDEN: Hate and violence often hide in plain sight. And so, it is often met with silence, but that has to change, because our silence is complicity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And for Vice President Kamala Harris who is of South Asian descent, this was a particularly meaning moment. What was the objective for the Biden administration in changing the focus of this trip, this is supposed to be about the COVID relief bill and turning it into something that was very focused on this issue.

COLLINS: So, it is a political trip. So this is something that we often did not see with the last president, where in times of tragedy, he would have trouble striking the right note and I think they were trying to basically do the opposite of that. And they went down there and the vice president came out after a long meeting, it went longer than it was scheduled.

And so, I think you saw them trying to basically address the grief of the nation, the horror over what happened and still saying we don't have a motive from investigators but pointing to things like what you just showed with those numbers, that you can't ignore who the victims were, who owned these businesses and the response from Asian-Americans throughout the country saying yes, been trying to flag this all along and that is happening. It's an uptick in the violence and harassment, if it's not just the violence, and I think they were trying to get at that and to address that pain that people have felt in the country because of it.

PHILLIP: Right. And as you just referenced, there is some big legal debate happening about whether these murders should even be charged as hate crimes and local authorities and the FBI have said early indications are that race wasn't a motive. A lot of that has to do with what the alleged perpetrator has said. But take a listen to what the Atlanta mayor thinks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D), ATLANTA: It looked like a hate crime to me. This was targeted at Asian spas. Six of the women who were killed were Asian. So it is difficult to see this as anything but that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And, Nicole, you wrote in the times this week that Asian- Americans are being attacked, why are hate crime charges so rare? What is the answer to that question? Why are they so rare?

NICOLE HONG, NEW YORK TIMES LAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTER: So the answer is because there is a very high legal bar to bring evidence.

[08:20:04]

There is a gap that we're seeing now between the public's understanding of what a hate crime is and the actual proof that law enforcement officials need to present to a jury to present in court documents, they're going to be looking for verbal statements from gunman, they're going to be looking through their diaries, his journals, did he write anything that indicated some sort of racial motive.

They're going to be looking at his social media statements and many of the attacks that we've seen, there have been verbal statements. Many others there haven't been and prosecutors have said in those situations they just don't have the evidence to charge that as a hate crime.

But obviously, you know, that is of very little comfort to the victim and to many Asian-Americans hearing that. PHILLIP: And at the same time, this suspect has said that to --

allegedly to law enforcement that he had a sex addiction and AAPI groups say this is a clear example of racism that involves the fetishization of Asian women.

But can you prosecute that under the hate crime laws as they exist right now? Does it even recognize that as a form of bias?

HONG: Yeah, that's the issue. I think a lot of times, law enforcement officials are looking for a single motive. A clear story they could tell through a case at trial, and this shooting in particular is very complicated. It is at the intersection of race, of gender, of religion.

There is a lot going on here. And so, yeah, this is not the kind of case that has a clean story that law enforcement can tell. And so we'll just have to wait and see how they charge it.

PHILLIP: You know, Kaitlan, you heard there in the intro, Grace Meng really being passionate about what Asian-Americans have endured. This was what she was talking about the rhetoric from the last year largely driven by President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can name Kung Flu, I can name 19 different versions of names.

China plague. You call it the China virus, you could call it whatever you want to call it.

We will defeat the China virus. We're working very, very hard. We call it the China virus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: It almost feels like Republicans are actually even less to say that that is no longer acceptable. What kind of responsibility does the GOP have to address that?

COLLINS: Well, and look at what Kevin McCarthy, the top Republicans in the house, when he was asked did he regret calling it the China virus and he said, quote, I don't know.

PHILLIP: What does that even mean?

COLLINS: I don't know.

PHILLIP: Right.

COLLINS: But it is the sentiment of you huh how the words of a president matter and that is something that we repeatedly talked about during the Trump era and he said this even though he was pressed multiple times on why he was calling this.

We pressed Kayleigh McEnany from the White House podium on why he was using this language and how damaging that can be. And this is something that I heard from Trump advisers at the time which was they were arguing that he was trying to express his unhappiness with the Chinese government to how they responded to the outbreak of the pandemic but there is a way to do that as the congresswoman was saying without pillaring an entire group of people which was the result of this, by calling it the China virus, because these rise in attacks, of course, coincide with the outbreak of the pandemic.

And having the president of the United States use that language, that emboldens his supporters to use it and has them associate the virus with those people and even if you could blame the outbreak, you can blame on their government, on their officials, but not on the people who are actually just living and going to work every day and that is why you saw how damaging that was.

And that is the opposite of what President Biden and Vice President Harris are trying to do by saying that, you know, we could push for this but there is only so much legally that you could do and it starts with an individual changing the way that they're talking about this.

PHILLIP: Yeah, and but at the same time to your point, leadership matters on this issue and the tone that is set from the top matters as well.

Kaitlan Collins and Nicole Hong, thank you both for being with us this morning.

And the vaccine -- the vaccine -- the -- against the variants, a rush to vaccinate as some states surge and a view from the ground about what the relief act money will mean. The mayor of Mesa, Arizona, joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:14]

PHILLIP: President Biden and Vice President Harris hit the road this week to sell the American Rescue Plan. The plan is broadly popular among Americans but not with Republican senators. This senator, this is Senator Rick Scott of Florida on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): We are almost $30 trillion in debt. We've already given the states and locals $500 billion. So my view is any money in excess of what you need to cover COVID expenses, send it back. We're all American citizens. Don't waste the money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: It's a different story on ground in Mesa, Arizona, where Republican Mayor John Giles wrote a bipartisan op-ed with his neighboring Phoenix mayor, Kate Gallego, pushing for the $1.9 trillion Biden relief bill and praising the home state Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema once the bill was signed into law.

Mayor Giles joins us this morning bright and early from Mesa, Arizona.

Mayor Giles, thanks for being with us here.

Look, you know, your support for this bill really goes against what so many national Republicans are saying about it. But tell us, what does the $100 million that Mesa is getting mean to your city right now at this stage in the pandemic?

MAYOR JOHN GILES (R), MESA, ARIZONA: Well, Abby, I think it's obviously to those of us that are here on the ground that the pandemic is not over. We don't have money to send back to Washington as Senator Scott was suggesting because we've spent it on providing COVID relief to the residents of our community.

[08:29:47]

And that is what is being done in cities across the United States. Local government cities is what is the primary area where relief is being provided.

So we are -- we have spent and we will spend this money on food, on addressing the huge food insecurity problems that people are experiencing as a result of the pandemic. We'll spend it on devices so that our children can participate in online school. We'll spend it on small business grants, on eviction prevention and on utility assistance and we'll spend it on putting shots in arms.

That is where this money is going. It is not going anywhere else.

PHILLIP: Why do you think it is that not one Republican senator or either of the Congressmen that represent Mesa voted for this cash infusion given what you're talking about? I mean, it is not an abstract thing seeing people in food lines trying to get enough food to put on the table for their families.

GILES: Well, you know, it is unfortunate that in a time of a crisis, you don't see people circling the wagons and setting partisanship aside. And when we had a Republican president, it was ok to work on solutions and some people apparently think that that is no longer the case.

So I really can't give you a good explanation. I would invite all -- and I have invited all of our congressional delegation that want to debate this to come and stand, you know, shoulder to shoulder with us while we're dispensing this aid and then suggest that there is something that -- that this is some sort of an over reaction. It certainly is not.

PHILLIP: Right. And let's talk about the pandemic itself. The Arizona house passed a bill this month that would allow businesses to ignore mask mandates like the one that you have in Mesa. And this also happened in the senate this past week. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK) SENATOR RAND PAUL (R-KY): You're making policy based on conjecture.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGIES AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: No --

PAUL: You have.

DR. FAUCI: It is not based on conjecture.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: So you want people to wear a mask for another couple of years. You've been vaccinated and you parade around in two masks for show.

DR. FAUCI: No, masks are not theater. Masks are protective.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Now, I don't think you need to answer for Senator Paul there. But I mean, help us understand, why is this idea of masks still so political and encountering such resistance on your side of the aisle?

GILES: Great question. I think very unfortunately we all saw how masks became a symbol of a political statement a year or so ago. And a lot of folks that were so passionate about it then just refuse to listen to the science and refuse to change their mind.

So, I think you won't see rational Republicans taking that point of view. I think that is a pretty extreme point of view. Even in Republican strongholds like Arizona and in Mesa. I see most people are very compliant when it comes to requests to wear masks.

I think that is a pretty extreme point of view that you'll see among some diehard partisans but it doesn't reflect rational thought.

PHILLIP: We are heading into what could be a very good period of time for this country. We've hit 100 million vaccine doses in 100 days that the administration promised.

But vaccine hesitancy is still a problem and it is increasingly it seems a problem with Republicans. Why do you think this is and does Mesa specifically have a plan to combat that? Are you seeing that on the ground where you are?

GILES: I'm seeing a shift, actually. I mean even among our public safety workers. Initially they were -- some were expressing reluctance to do it but I think you're seeing tremendous momentum, not just in my community but across the nation as the vaccines become more available and as people see their peers, recognizing the importance of getting vaccinated, I think the reluctance to get vaccinated is becoming less and less.

And absolutely, what we are -- we've got huge vaccine distribution locations here in Arizona and in Phoenix. We're about to launch one in Mesa but because the weather is becoming so hot, now we're moving people, having people drive through warehouses. So we'll have a spot open next week that will have up to 10,000 vaccinations a day driving through the middle of a warehouse.

PHILLIP: Wow.

GILES: So we're trying to be inventive. We're trying to do everything we can to do what we can to get as many shots in arms as possible.

PHILLIP: That is great to hear. Look, I want to ask you quickly about, you know, south of where you are, along the border there is what seems to be a bigger and bigger crisis happening with immigration.

President Biden told ABC this past week that the message is don't come. But the U.S. is on pace to encounter more migrants at the border this year than in the last 20 years.

You know, how do you think that this president and this administration is handling this crisis? What needs to be done from now going forward?

[08:34:57]

GILES: You know, I've been the mayor for six years here in Mesa so I'm a veteran of the last border surge. And so we are very nervous about the surge that we see in refugees that are crossing the border.

I've been impressed so far with this administration. I have an opportunity to talk with Secretary Mayorkas. I told him the experience that we had a couple of years ago and he was very aware of it.

And so we've had boots on the ground from the administration here in Phoenix and in Mesa. We've got -- we've explained to them there are a lot of compassionate people in our community, faith groups and NGOs that are willing to partner with the federal government to respond to this.

But the cupboards are bare because over the last two years, they've been asked to shoulder this problem because the federal government wasn't capable of doing it without assistance.

So far we're getting good answers to the questions that we're asking and so far it looks like FEMA and other resources are being brought to help communities like mine that are close to the border and are being asked to provide a lot of assistance.

But we're going to need funding in order to provide the assistance that these folks need and that the federal government can't provide.

PHILLIP: Mayor John Giles from Mesa, Arizona, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

GILES: Thank you, Abby.

PHILLIP: And coming up next, President Biden suggests he's open to reforming the filibuster if it blocks his agenda. It is a very different tone than the one Senator Biden took 16 years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill, it is about compromise and moderation. That is what the founders put unlimited debate in.

That is what it is about. Engendering compromise and moderation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:36:53]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: In a shift, President Biden says he now supports a change to the longstanding senate institution, the filibuster.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I don't think you have to eliminate the filibuster. You have to do what it used to be when I first got to the senate and back in the old days, when you used to be around there. It almost is getting to a point where there is -- you know, democracy is having a hard time functioning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And that is happening as some senate Democrats including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer say it is time to lower the threshold for passing legislation from 60 votes to a simple majority.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has this warning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin -- can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched earth senate would look like.

Everything the Republican senate did to President Obama would be child's play compared to the disaster that Democrats would create for their own priorities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So we've got two experts here joining us now to talk about all of this.

Adam Jentleson, former deputy chief of staff for former Senator Harry Reid, and author of the book "Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy;" and Republican strategist and former Bush White House aide, Scott Jennings. Scott and Adam, thanks for being here.

Look, this is usually a seriously wonky topic. But it is all the rage in Washington this week. And Scott, I mean I have to ask you, I mean, what is wrong with the idea of returning to an actual talking filibuster. Isn't that a better compromise than getting rid of the filibuster altogether and something that hypothetically could help a future Republican administration as they're trying to pass legislation through Congress?

SCOTT JENNINGS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I don't know what is wrong with the current rules as they stand. I mean they have served our country quite well over the last several decades and as Joe Biden said, they drive moderation and bipartisanship in the legislative process in Washington.

I mean the results of the election are pretty clear. We have pretty relative equilibrium in Washington. The senate is 50/50, the Congress is almost 50/50. The House -- the presidential race was relatively close but it tilted toward Biden.

The American people didn't send a message that they wanted one side or the other to have full control. They sent a message that they wanted the sides to work together. The filibuster is the last rule that enforces working together, enforces bipartisanship and policy moderation.

So our Republican view is if it isn't broke, don't fix it and there is no reason to make a change.

PHILLIP: Well, I have some questions about whether there has been more bipartisanship and moderation in Congress as a result of the filibuster. But we'll get back to that in a second.

Adam, you know, take a look at this list of Democratic priorities for, you know, what they would do if they got rid of the filibuster: passing climate change legislation, immigration reform, et cetera. Will a changing to a talking filibuster, which is something that Joe Biden now says that he wants or he would be open to. Other people like Joe Manchin, Senator -- Senator Joe Manchin has said he's open to. Will it actually help Democrats accomplish any of those priorities?

ADAM JENTLESON, AUTHOR: Well, I think the answer is we don't know. Because we've never seen it enacted in this kind of polarized environment. The talking filibuster used to exist. I think it's what most people think of when they think of the filibuster, they think it's Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" on the floor, giving a long speech. That's the way it used to work.

But used to be very effective at holding up legislation, the one big catch is that it used to only really be applied to civil rights.

And so we've never seen what it looks like when you have to actually sustain a talking filibuster against everything that comes to the floor. I think that can get very exhausting very quickly and I think it could be effective in breaking some of the gridlock that you see in Washington.

[08:45:00]

JENTLESON: At the very least, I think reform is good, it is a good first step. I think if Democrats eventually have to go further, maybe they will. But I certainly would like to see that reform tried. PHILLIP: So Scott, getting back to this point that you were just

raising about whether the senate is actually working. Let's look at this, you may not be able to see this but our audience can see, it's a chart that shows how often cloture motions have been filed in Congress.

Now for people at home, this is basically how we kind of gauge how often the filibuster is being used. And this chart shows in the Obama era, a spike of 252 times. But then in the Trump era, 328 times. It seems to suggest that this is happening more and more over time.

Doesn't that suggest to you that something isn't functioning in the senate if this tool is being used hundreds of times over the course of a president's presidency?

JENNINGS: Well, what that charts suggests to me is that when Donald Trump was the president, Democrats were all too happy to use the filibuster to try to stifle his nominees and stifle his agenda and now that Joe Biden is the president they want to do away with it.

The blatant hypocrisy on display here is outrageous. We haven't had any filibusters, by the way, since Joe Biden became the president. The last four years of filibuster which are on your chart are all Democrat-led and now you have Democrats --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: But shouldn't that actually encourage Republicans to want to reform this?

JENNINGS: No. The Senate rules exist for a reason and they exist to protect the rights of the minority. And Mitch McConnell made a very, very important statement this week about what would happen if you take away the rights of the minority on the filibuster because then other rules would be used to grind the senate to a halt.

McConnell is a man of his word. Remember, when Harry Reid weakened the judicial filibuster before, McConnell said on the floor, you may regret this and sooner than you think. The same thing would happen if they eliminate the legislative filibuster. Democrats would soon regret it and it would be bad for the country to eliminate this rule that protects bipartisanship.

PHILLIP: And Adam, what is your response to that? If the shoe were on the other foot?

JENTLESON: Sure, sure. Well I thinks Scott is wrong about this rule being invented to encourage bipartisanship. This rule wasn't in the constitution. It wasn't something the framers envisioned of encouraging bipartisan. It came about much later to encourage obstruction and particularly to enforce white supremacy in the antebellum era and then again in civil rights era. It was the main tool which Southerner used to uphold Jim Crow.

This is a tool that has come about to create gridlock. It is the main reason our government is gridlocked today. I think that Democrats have used it for sure. They certainly used it when I was there.

But the fact is Republicans use it at almost twice the rate of Democrats. It is a tool that encourages gridlock, that allows the conservative party to prevent any progressive change from passing and it's something that, you know, what the framers wanted to do was create a balance between majority rule and minority rights.

In recent decades that balance has been tilted dramatically towards minority rights in a way that creates gridlock. And that is why Washington is gridlocked.

What progressives are trying to do is to tilt that balance back towards where you have a functioning government where things actually pass.

You saw that with the American Rescue Plan. This isn't a wild majority rule run amok piece of legislation, this is a piece of legislation that is supported by 75 percent of the American people, including a majority of Republicans.

So I don't think you're going to see, you know, wild mob rule here. You're going to see actually a government functioning and addressing some of the challenges we face.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Adam Jentleson --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I'm so sorry Scott, but we're out of time.

Scott Jennings, Adam Jentleson -- we'll do this for another hour next time, I promise. Thanks for being with us.

And Republicans would rather focus on cancel culture than policy. Will it pay off politically?

[08:48:51]

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PHILLIP: As Republicans aim to regain power in Washington, they're choosing the culture wars over policy plans. Listen to how two pro- Trump Republicans framed their state-wide candidacies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH MANDEL (R), OHIO SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, just like President Trump, I'm being cancelled by big tech. and I'm being canceled by the Silicon Valley power-hungry big tech executives who think they can restrict our freedom of speech.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS (R), ARKANSAS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Our state needs a leader with the courage to do what's right. Not what's politically correct or convenient. I will not bow down to the radical left, not now, not ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: From Ohio to Arkansas, you can hear a common theme there.

Perry Bacon is back with us to discuss this. He wrote a piece about this very same dynamic last week entitled, "Why attacking cancel culture and woke people is becoming the GOP's new political strategy".

And Perry, you know, it's really striking to me because one of the statistics that you pulled out in your poll shows just how united Republicans are on the issues that you might describe as cancel culture.

And I want to put this up on the screen and you can be forgiven for thinking that a lot of this is very vague. Things like -- you know, issues like there are more than two genders; it's a lot more difficult to be a black person; there are significant obstacles to women compared to men largely unite the Republican Party.

But when you take a look at some of the Republican policies, things that have defined the Republican party over the years. Look at their overall favorability in the American electorate. It's not that favorable.

There is a 26 percent gap in terms of people being more pro-abortion rights. A 23 percent gap for more government spending. And building the border wall is down 10 percent overall.

So it seems to me that it's pretty clear here, Republicans have decided that it's not going to be the policies that gets them to the majority in 2022 or the presidency of 2024, it's going to be all this other stuff.

BACON: I think that's right, Abby. Like there is a debate in America happening about sort of what our new -- what our cultural norms are and what you can say and how you should be adjudicated.

You saw there was like "The Bachelor" or with "Teen Vogue" this week. So there is a debate about, you know, that.

[08:54:58]

BACON: And this always happened in America. But you're seeing the term "cancel culture" in terms like the world (ph) which are actually being discussed in sort of a more sincere way in parts of our culture, has become this way for some Republican (INAUDIBLE) to say everything that they don't like is woke and anyone in the business (ph) is trying to cancel them. So they tend to use these -- they use these terms "cancel culture" and "woke" really broadly to critique anyone who, you know, critiques them.

And really what you are seeing is yes, there is a wave, there's an attempt to sort of talk less about. You saw this with the stimulus debate. The Republicans were sort of not really debating the stimulus bill itself, very much, particularly on Fox News, particularly and Republicans running for officer and instead moving to these kind of culture wars trying to say tech companies or Twitter is trying to cancel me.

Or, I saw Marjorie Taylor Greene had this e-mail. The e-mail she put out where she said, people are trying to cancel gender because there's a bill called the equality act that's moving. So just using canceling is a broad idea to talk about politics, something you are seeing it all over the right, right now.

PHILLIP: Right. I guess the question that is for the Democrats, will this work? I mean I think the premise of your piece is that it might actually work because it's so vague that a broad swath of people might actually agree with this idea that maybe PC culture has gone too far. Is there a risk here for the Democrats?

BACON: There absolutely is -- like you said the Republican policy agenda is not particularly popular. But these culture wars have sort of, you know, we've seen this a long time, the silent majority, law and order. Like a lot of these strategist are sort of Nixon, Reagan, you know, there is too many people asking for too many new rights, and trying to soak a backlash to them.

A lot of what we're seeing is sort of an old Republican strategy in new terms around sort of "woke" and new issues like transgender people but these things could work because they've worked in the past. And the Republican Party is divided on issues like the minimum wage, where the voters might like the minimum wage but the elites don't.

When you look at an issue like reparations, the Republican Party is very unified. Everyone opposes it. Whereas in the Democratic side there a lot of debate about racial and gender issues and how far the parties should go on this.

PHILLIP: Absolutely. But I think it's incredibly telling that you've got lawmakers in both the House and the Senate who are being paid to read Dr. Seuss in the halls of Congress to make some kind of political point.

Perry Bacon, with FiveThirtyEight, thank you so much for being with us today.

And that's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. Join us back here every Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time and the weekday show as well at noon Eastern time.

And coming up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Dana's guests this morning include Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Republican Congresswoman Young Kim and Michelle Steel.

Thanks again, for sharing your Sunday morning with us.

[08:57:52]

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