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Inside Politics

Pfizer Seeks Full FDA Approval Of COVID Vaccine For People 16 Plus; Four Ex-Cops Indicted On Civil Rights Charges In George Floyd's Death; AZ Dem Senators Walk Moderate Line Amid Partisan Turmoil. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 07, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Is that a more psychological benefit? Is it a public health benefit?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, MEMBER, FDA VACCINE ADVISORY COMMITTEE: I think it's more of a psychological benefit. There's actually not that big of a difference between approval through emergency use authorization or licensure. And I'll tell you why. The size of these trials, so the Moderna trial, the Pfizer trial, the J&J trial is the size of any typical adult or pediatric vaccine trial, the length of time for safety follow up which two months after the last dose is typical for any pediatric or adult vaccine trial.

The only real difference between emergency use authorization and full licensure is length of follow up for efficacy. So in other words, when the FDA approved these vaccines back in December, and then J&J at the end of February, they were saying that these vaccines were effective for a few months. The licensure is going to mean that it's effective for longer than that. That's really the only real difference.

But I wish there was another term than emergency use authorization, because when people hear that term, they think hydroxychloroquine, right, which was approved through EUA to treat COVID-19. It was later shown neither treat nor prevent the disease. And then the FDA removed its authorization. So I think it's more of a psychological difference than anything else. And it also made a difference in terms of the private sector, mandating the vaccine.

KING: Right. And so I want to come back for one second to the point you made about how to request hydroxychloroquine I can't pronounce it anymore, because I had to say it. That's a good thing. So when we walk back through, so if you look in the anti-vax community out there, a lot of them it's wrong. I know, you say they're wrong on the science, but they say, aha, emergency means it was rushed. It's not safe. Not true. But having full approval shoves that argument to the side, right?

OFFIT: It does and the vaccine story is so dramatically different from the hydroxychloroquine story that really the two are incomparable. KING: All right, so let's move on to some other reasons. I want you to listen to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, because one of the debates now, we were having a debate months and months ago about what restrictions, how restrictive to be in the COVID pandemic now because more Americans are getting vaccinated, because we know a lot more about it. The big debate state to state is how much can you lower the restrictions? Dr. Gottlieb says officials should be bullish, if you will, on lowering restrictions to preserve some credibility. Listen to the argument.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: I think public health officials need to preserve the credibility for future decision making. The criteria should be, is prevalence low? Is your vaccination rate high? And do you have in place good case based interventions, testing and tracing, so that if cases do emerge, you're going to be able to identify them. I think of a city or a state meets those conditions and a lot of the meet them right now. I think they can look at an aggressive relaxation of the provisions that have been put in place. We can slow roll this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It is an interesting perspective from someone, you know, a professional who was early on saying, hey, get your arms around this, be careful, have restrictions now saying, it's really critical to roll them back to tell people this is -- yes, we have a standard for doing this.

OFFIT: You know, it's a tough time. It sort of reminds me that scene in "Jaws" when the Robert Shaw character said the hardest time when he was in the water waiting for the helicopters to save him from the sharks, was that time. And that's where I fear we are now. We're almost there. We probably have about 100 million people who've been naturally infected with this virus, their immune. We have about 35 percent of people and there is overlap here who are fully vaccinated and they're immune.

But we're not there yet. As you see, I mean, you still have tens of thousands of cases a day. And those are just people who've been tested and found to be infected. You still have hundreds of deaths every day. So we're not there yet. And I just think we're in that sort of how do you move forward cautiously and we're doing it in fits and starts.

I mean, you know, I am fully vaccinated. I certainly don't wear a mask when I walk outside or walking the dog or whatever. But if I go to the Deli, a few blocks down the road, I wear a mask because I'm scared of the variants. I mean, the variants are still out there. And although I'm vaccinated, I'm not going to be all that well protected against milder low moderate disease with the variants. And when we get -- we can get to 80 percent population immunity by the end of the summer, then I think we can really start to relax but we're not quite there yet.

KING: And we're learning as we go through it. Dr. Offit as always grateful for your important expertise and insights, we'll continue the conversation.

[12:34:05]

Up next for us, a federal grand jury indicted Derek Chauvin and three other former police officers for violating George Floyd civil rights.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: The four former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd's death were indicted on federal civil rights charges today Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane, the four former officers now accused of deliberate indifference to George Floyd serious medical needs.

Now the timing of the new federal charges is interesting. Chauvin, you'll remember was convicted in state court just last month of murdering Floyd. He is in prison pending sentencing and legal challenges to that trial. The other three former officers face trial on state charges in August.

With us to share their reporting and their insights our CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and Areva Martin, CNN legal analyst and civil rights attorney. Omar let me start with you more legal trouble for these officers.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. Now in this federal indictment, there are three counts listed applying differently to each of these officers. And the first count for example, Derek Chauvin or it says that he robbed or willfully deprives George Floyd of his right to unreasonable seizure, which includes the right to be free from unreasonable use of force by a police officer.

Now specifically, this indictment reads that defendant Chauvin held his knee across George Floyd's neck and his right knee on Floyd's back and arm as George Floyd laid on the ground handcuffed and unresisting and kept his knees on Floyd's neck and body even after Floyd became unresponsive.

[12:40:12]

The second count singles out former officers Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng, specifically they were aware that defendant Chauvin was holding his knee across George Floyd's neck as Floyd lay handcuffed and unresisting.

The third count encompasses them all including former officer Thomas Lane and reads specifically, the defendant saw George Floyd lying on the ground and clear need of medical care and willfully failed to aid Floyd, thereby acting with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of harm to Floyd. This offense resulted in bodily injury to, and the death of George Floyd.

We've reached out to the attorneys for all four officers. We haven't heard back. The Minnesota Attorney General who's of course leading the state cases and this said, the move to federally prosecute on these civil rights violations is entirely appropriate. But we should also note that this federal indictment is separate from the state cases currently playing out including the reason conviction of Chauvin separate from a Department of Justice probe that was recently announced into patterns and practices that the Minneapolis Police Department.

And separate from a newly released federal indictment against Chauvin stemming from a 2017 incident where he allegedly hit a 14-year-old boy with a flashlight multiple times, and then allegedly put his knee on that teenager's neck for quite some time, even after this teenager was prone, handcuffed, and not resisting, John.

KING: Areva not a surprise that there would be federal charges here. We knew Feds were looking into this, but does the timing surprise you at all that the Feds are deciding to bring these new charges against the four officers, especially the three who are awaiting trial in August, I would assume their defense lawyers are now going to whether to ask for change of venue, ask for a continuance, say there's too much talk about this. We can't get a fair trial. Does the timing surprise you?

AREVA MARTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Not at all. John, when you think about what's happened here, what we saw is Derek Chauvin's attorney has made, you know, he's filed for a new trial side and several errors, including judicial errors as well as prosecutorial errors. And he also cited, you know, judicial -- errors by the jurors. He also has signaled that he's going to be filing for appeal.

I think the timing sends a serious message, a loud and clear message to Derek Chauvin and his defense team that whatever happens with regards to that sentencing that we know what's going to happen late June, if there's a light sentence, if there is success on appeal that he is going to be facing these very serious federal charges.

So by either the state conviction or by this new federal indictment Derek Chauvin is not likely to see the light of day.

KING: Areva Martin, Omar Jimenez, it's grateful, very important case. We'll continue to stay on top, grateful for your time today.

Up next for us, back to the jobs report, a closer look at those weak April numbers and a closer look at the pandemic toll on women in the workforce.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:23]

KING: The weaker than April jobs report includes more brutal numbers detailing the pandemic's painful impact on women in the workforce, the unemployment rate for women 16 and older, basically unchanged, 5.8 percent month to month. But female employment was down in April by 8,000. And labor force participation that's women working or seeking work, also down. You see the numbers there by 64,000.

Emily Oster is the professor of economics at Brown University and joins me now live from Providence. Emily, thank you for your time today. I want to read from something you wrote on Substack that I think gets to the debate many working women -- women who were working who now are on the sidelines because of this pandemic are thinking, you're talking about vaccines here.

It is an amazing triumph of science that the COVID-19 vaccines are so effective. What it means is that people who are vaccinated can start to get back to normal, like real normal. And a big part of that is not thinking through every f-ing activity to decide if it fits in today's risk budget. Many parents are experiencing basically decision fatigue induced vaccine jealousy. I just want to be able to make simple decisions about playdates and vaccinations and camp and extracurriculars without a calculator. Take us inside that stress. Yes, vaccines make things better. The economy is slowly improving, but it's still a mess for many women.

EMILY OSTER, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, BROWN UNIVERSITY: Yes. And I think that that parents are really feeling this, like, OK, it's getting better, but it doesn't feel like it's getting better for me. And schools are a big piece of this. You know, we're talking about it's so great, more kids are getting back in school and more kids are having access to school.

But when you dig into the numbers, there are a lot of places where access to school means 9:45 to 11:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And it's really hard to go back to a full time job when that's the kind of school access you have. And the rest of the time the kids are still at home. So I think there's a feeling of we're coming out but when is it going to be my turn to come out especially for a lot of working women.

KING: And I want to show our viewers a graphic, this is from Moody's Analytic but makes the point, it makes exactly the point you're making and how this is so hard on parents because some schools are hybrid. Some sports are back. Some things aren't, some things are. Monday is different from Tuesday, different from Wednesday. This is the percentage women back, if you look at women with this -- if you look at the left of your screen, you see women without kids and women with kids and the pre pandemic levels there, then you see both populations take a huge hit.

But the purple line are women without young kids. They're close. They're almost back to their pre pandemic participation in the economy. That green line, you don't need to even see the numbers. It just tells you what you need to see. Women with kids are still struggling to find their economic place because of all this.

OSTER: Yes. And I think that you know, we're wondering when that's going to end. You know, we're looking to the summer. People are looking to the fall. Some school districts are back in person full time. Everything is going fine. We should be, you know, doing that in the fall. But there are still school districts are saying, well, I'm not sure what the fall is going to look.

[12:50:11]

And that makes it really hard for parents to plan like, am I going to go back to work now only to find that in September, again, we're going to be in, you know, three days a week of hybrid school. And I think that to get these numbers back to where they were, we're going to need to start providing some certainty about where kids are going to be in the day.

KING: And that's in many ways a state by state challenge because of the school question, are local by local -- locality by locality challenged with school questions. This one look at the mood that what is this happened, your family's financial situation today versus pre pandemic, this is Washington Post, ABC polling, about 62 percent among women say it's the same, but the goal there 25 percent of women say their financial situation, the family financial situation is worse now. How does that impact the already considerable stress?

OSTER: Yes, I mean, I think people are, you know, now they have fewer resources to provide for their family to do these kind of things and also to think about providing childcare. So even as people think about going back to work, they're thinking, oh, you know, maybe that's going to cost me some money for childcare. And then that's, you know, yet another thing to add on top of an already incredibly stressful situation.

KING: Emily Oster, grateful for your help and insights on this. We'll stay on top of this in Washington, hopefully those numbers -- hopefully those look -- just looking at the chart again, and it's depressing. Hopefully those numbers get better in the months ahead, grateful for your time.

OSTER: Thank you.

KING: Up next for us, Arizona right now a laboratory in American politics, CNN's Jeff Zeleny, joins us live from Phoenix just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Arizona right now is a fascinating one state laboratory of America's tense and changing politics. Trump supporters are behind an unprecedented so called audit of last year's election results, hiring a private firm to question Joe Biden's 10,000 vote victory.

The state has a Republican governor but two Democratic senators. Proof if you needed any more, it is one of the most competitive of the battleground states. One of those Democratic senators is on the ballot next year. The other is a maverick moderate who has giant sway right now over the direction of the Biden agenda. So CNNs Jeff Zeleny decided good time to visit, joins us now live from Scottsdale, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, there's no question. The future of President Biden's agenda really rests on every Democratic senator but particularly these two here in Arizona. It is going to really determine the shape and the scope of the Biden agenda. It's the balance between pragmatism and progressive ideas. The White House has its eye on Arizona.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[12:55:19] MAYOR MILA BESICH (D), SUPERIOR, ARIZONA: I don't see it as too progressive.

ZELENY (voice-over): Mila Besich is talking about President Biden's agenda from her perspective as Mayor of Superior, Arizona.

BESICH: I think that he's had to be very bold to make sure the country can recover from the pandemic.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good evening my fellow Americans.

ZELENY (voice-over): The outlook for the President's ambitious plans run straight through Arizona and depends on the support from the state's two Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, they are clashing with some of the very people who helped elect them.

Latino groups are now voicing frustration over Kelly's comments on immigration and how he pointedly questioned whether the administration had a plan to address the immediate crisis at the border.

TOMAS ROBLES, CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LIVING UNITED FOR CHANGE IN ARIZONA: To build a statement like that we felt was not useful. And we saw someone play your typical politics from the last 10 years, so trying to work the middle.

ZELENY (voice-over): Kelly, who won a special election last fall but must run again next year is feeling the heat from both sides as Republicans in Washington are using these billboards to accuse him of being soft on immigration.

Six months after Biden turned Arizona blue by the slimmest of margins. The state's politics often seem upside down. The senators' pragmatic approach is stirring outrage among progressives.

FRED YAMASHITA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ARIZONA AFL-CIO: They are calculating their opportunities for reelection.

ZELENY (voice-over): Sinema and Kelly are two of only three Democrats in the Senate not supporting the protecting the right to Organize Act, which the White House and labor leaders call the most significant labor rights legislation in decades. But the balancing act is getting high marks from business leaders and mainstream Republicans.

MAYOR JOHN GILES (R), MESA, ARIZONA: My hope is that Senator Kelly and Sinema will reflect the sentiment that I think prevails in our state.

ZELENY (voice-over): John Giles is the Republican Mayor of Mesa. He believes the two Democratic senators represent the state's moderate sentiment well.

GILES: I think if they do take the temptation to go too far to the left or even too far to the right that they risk not being sent back to the Senate.

ZELENY (voice-over): While there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, Deborah Kay isn't convinced Biden actually won. But she likes her two senators.

DEBORAH KAY, ARIZONA RESIDENT: they're more on the conservative side. I mean, they're not far left and I'm OK with that.

ZELENY (voice-over): Such talk of bipartisanship rings hollow to many Democrats who point to the partisan driven review of ballots underway in Maricopa County as a sign many Republicans aren't honest brokers. Elected in 2018 as Arizona's first Democratic senator in 30 years, Sinema brushes aside the call from progressives to abolish the filibuster to pave the way for action on voting rights, gun control, and immigration.

SEN. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-AZ): I don't bend to pressure from either party. And I just stay focused on doing what I think is right and delivering for Arizonas.

ZELENY (voice-over): The centrist intention so both senators face a critical test, with Arizona emerging as a real world laboratory for some of the President's top priorities.

(on camera): The heart of the President Biden's green energy plan for electric vehicles sits right here.

BESICH: It is. It's right here. You know, this is North America's largest copper ore deposit.

ZELENY (voice-over): It's the copper here that is essential to making electric vehicles at the heart of the President's jobs and infrastructure plan. But Biden has put the mining project on hold amid concerns from environmentalists and Native Americans who are at odds with labor unions.

BESICH: The Biden administration has some very courageous decisions to make.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: Now, that is just one example of the difficult choices facing the Biden administration and these two Democratic senators. And John, if republican efforts fall short for bipartisanship, which we'll know in the coming weeks, it will be the negotiations among Democrats that will determine the scope of the President's agenda. That's why all eyes will be on Senator Sinema and Senator Kelly, who of course, is up again for reelection next year, so the politics of Arizona certainly fascinating, John.

KING: And so you're there at this strange moment where they're both critical in Washington, but Sinema gets more attention in Washington because she does -- she's, you know, says she's more centrist. She's been with matching on no rules changes. But Senator Kelly is the guy on the ballot right away. You've done this for a long time. What is your sense, was he active back home? Does he get it whether this is a test?

ZELENY: Oh, he gets it. He's raising money, John. And Republicans are after him on immigration. One challenge, they haven't found a candidate to run against him. The Republican Party is in turmoil here in Arizona. This ballot review if you want to call it that, it's just one example of all of that. So Mark Kelly, of course will have one of the toughest races but the GOP must find someone to challenge him, John.

KING: You are very polite my friend to say the Republican Party Arizona is in turmoil is a dramatic understatement from the always diplomatic. Jeff Zeleny grateful to have you there in the ground, Jeff.

[13:00:06]

And grateful for you joining us today and throughout the week. Have a great week. And don't go anywhere busy News Day. Ana Cabrera, picks up our coverage right now.