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Inside Politics

Prince Harry on Mental Health: I was "Willing to Drink, Take Drugs"; Democrats Urge Biden to Buck GOP Negotiations; Biden's Agenda Faces Uphill Climb in Narrowly Divided Congress; CDC Director: Not Everyone May Want to "Rip off Their Masks"; Trump Organization CFO's Ex-Daughter-In-Law: "Nothing Legal" There. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 21, 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]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE HARRY, THE DUKE OF SUSSEX: Probably drink a weeks' worth in one day on a Friday or a Saturday night.

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MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the same program Harry has also talked about a conspiracy - against his wife on behalf of the palace, the royal family and the media to undermine her with these allegations of bullying that have been leveled against so currently being investigated by a law firm.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Max, thank you very much for that. And thank you so much for joining us today, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. John King picks up now.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello, everybody. Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing a very busy Friday with us, the president meets with South Korea's President at the White House this hour.

Two big foreign policy questions top the agenda. One how is Biden different from Trump when it comes to North Korea and its nuclear program and two, should the United States share surplus COVID vaccine doses with friends first and everyone else later.

Plus the ceasefire pauses 11 days of fighting in Israel and Gaza. The president credits quiet and relentless diplomacy. But already there is a test Israeli police and Palestinian protests as you see it there clashing at one of the holiest sites in the Muslim world.

Up first this Friday though, a step back moment for President Biden. The White House holds more talks today with Republicans on infrastructure. But the divide over size and scope remains enormous and there is little evidence Republicans are willing to move much. Many Democrats outside the White House say it is time to go it alone. And they suggest this workweek offers all the clues the president should need to understand his goal of bipartisanship is simply unrealistic.

Those clues include to those progressives deep GOP opposition to the January 6 investigative commission. Police reform talks now unable to reach agreement by the President's deadline next week's one year anniversary of George Floyd's death.

63 Republican votes against a bill to combat hate crimes against Asian Americans take that full week in context. And progressives argue it tells you Republicans believe being the party of no is your best path to retaking Congress after the 2022 midterms.

Let's begin with our White House Correspondent, our Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan, the question is for the president. Is he listening to the progressives? Or does he think let's give it continue to give it a chance?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, and I think also, you have to keep in mind the deadline that the White House has set here for there to be significant progress, which is next weekend by Memorial Day, which is what the White House has said. But John, there is not that significant progress and at least not yet.

And so they've had these meetings with Republicans, they've talked about offers and counter offers and what that's going to look like. But I think the bottom line is ahead of another meeting with Republican Senators today is they still do not agree on what the top line number for an infrastructure package should be.

They don't even really agree on what infrastructure is. And they also do not agree on how to pay for this infrastructure plan and so, there are still several problems that have been plaguing them for weeks now that are still present.

And the question really of how they're going to work through this, you know, really remains to be seen, because it doesn't appear that these meetings they've been having have yielded a lot of progress in it.

You know, even when you saw several cabinet male or cabinet secretaries go up to Capitol Hill the other day to meet with Republicans on this, it didn't really go anywhere in the sense of here's what we want to look at.

Here's the number here's the exact definition of what we want to keep in this package. And so I think there's a lot of hope that the president says he wants to actually have a bipartisan agreement with Republicans.

But you're also hearing from progressive Democrats who were urging their democratic leaders to cut bait and move on basically, because they think that they're wasting too much time trying to find common ground with Republicans they don't ever think is going to materialize. And so John, they would like for them to go ahead and move on and pass

that massive infrastructure bill that President Biden had proposed initially.

KING: I guess we'll wait another week to see what the president's final decision if it's a final decision, we'll see Kaitlan Collins, grateful live reporting at the White House.

Let's bring it into the studio with me to share their reporting and their insights, Karoun Demirjian, Congressional Reporter for The Washington Post Jonathan Martin, and National Political Correspondent for The New York Times.

And Karoun, that's the challenge for the president, you know, from the Hill of continued frustration with the progressives who say they're just going to - Republicans going around the clock. They're not serious.

They're not going to come anywhere near Mr. President, where you need them to be here. Just some of the headlines from this past week hope fade for a bipartisan deal on gun background checks, key Democratic negotiator says. Policing deal remains out of reach on Capitol Hill on the - as the University of Georgia Floyd's approaches.

Liberals to Biden, ditch the infrastructure talks with Republicans, those are the headlines. Let's just listen here, some very important Democrats saying Mr. President, we're kind of running out of patience.

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REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): But we will not allow the cult to dictate the agenda. And we certainly will not engage in an unconditional surrender.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): To my Republican friends and I do have them take back your party. This is the grand old party.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Republicans in both chambers are trying to rewrite history in fealty to or in fear of the Former President Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Where are we in the sense that it's Joe Biden's DNA he says I want to try.

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Right.

KING: But he's got five votes to spare among House Democrats. They are getting increasingly frustrated with him.

[12:05:00]

KING: He has no votes despair among Senate Republicans, which makes it harder because you can annoy the Democrats. But it's hard because of the process rules. Where are we at this moment when you see so many items of the Biden agenda still sort of treading water?

DEMIRJIAN: Right. I mean, look, we're talking about a president who's got a background of trying to be a moderate centrist reach across the aisle friendly guy make that work. The problem is he doesn't have a cohesive partner on the other side of the aisle to actually say, well, that's the number of votes I get.

On the other side, when I actually make the deal with the Republicans because they're in a crisis shifting mode.

You see huge divisions, even this week, just in the - where the GOP, with their gut is, you know, yes, many of them are very much seeming like they're still in lockstep with the former president, but some are splintering off now.

And so you know, that creates a complicated sort of negotiating partner. But by the same token, shifting your focus to say, OK, well forget bipartisanship. I'm just dealing with the Democrats. It's not a completely cohesive party.

Anyway, you saw that even happen this week, where you know, the more left wing of the party, the squad has their own principled ideas of where they won't go and follow the leaders and when you're talking about just five votes to play with and staring down at - upcoming midterm election season, which usually doesn't break for the president that's in power for their party, that's not a lot of wiggle room to play with.

KING: Right, they see, they see a clock, a two year clock and say, let's do as much as we can as fast as we can.

JONATHAN MARTIN, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, I think Biden's skewed expectations, because he went so big, so fast on the stimulus and had early success.

I mean really early success with that bill, but entirely on a party line vote. I think that created expectations on the left of oh, well, maybe this is a different Joe Biden and he's going to go bigger than we thought.

And then it turns out, Joe Biden actually wants to try to get some bipartisan deals done. And that obviously has slowed things down. And so here we are coming up on, you know, Memorial Day and there's not obvious progress on a lot of these key bills.

I think the next two weeks are key in the Senate. I think if there's not a progress on infrastructure and Senator Capita has not come up on the offer, there's not so agreement I had to pay for the bill.

I think you're going to see enormous pressure on Biden even beyond what we're already seeing to just go you know, partisan and just jam it through.

KING: If you say go partisan and jam it through, you do see the Republican opposition to finding the truth about January 6 again with the Former President Trump saying that's a litmus test for loyalty and Republicans go with him.

62 House members plus one Republican the Senate voting against the anti aging hate crimes bill. Now some of them argue it's too much power in Washington, federal government should make this decision.

But because of all this abhorrent violence against Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders during the Coronavirus crisis, I'm sorry, you can swallow your principle of pride to join us, especially when you see the train leaving the station.

But as the president tries to deal with the Republicans this interesting interview with David Brooks in "The New York Times" today, progressives are getting anxious about the White House, will the President come our way?

And then the president is quoted as saying this. The progressives don't like me, because I'm not prepared to take on what I would say. And they would say is a socialist agenda.

DEMIRJIAN: Just put the GOP talking points right there in the president's mouth. I mean, look Biden is known for speaking off the cuff and sometimes creating more political problems. And he went into a conversation with.

And I think this might be, you know, one of those moments. But also, you know, it's - you do have Democrats in the party who would call it that. Unfortunately, it's a very, very broad spectrum of political opinions within the democratic tent right now from Joe Manchin to AOC. And you might have others who would agree with them.

KING: And how much Jonathan does this help as you try to navigate all this? You have a local Republican Party, Joe Biden was Vice President in 2008, 2009 into 2010 when they were the party of no, they believe that was the way to take the House back in the Obama years.

And they were right. It worked for them - year, Joe Biden's political standing his approval rating when he started 57 percent, his approval rating right now 54 percent.

MARTIN: Right.

KING: If you look at this, it's in a much better place than Donald Trump much higher. Yes, but essentially the same polarized world we live in where you're navigating a line. In for Trump, it was plus or minus 40. For Biden, it looks like it's going to be plus or minus 50.

MARTIN: It's what the political geeks would say is this sort of inelastic moment of our times, there's no band, right? I mean, by this sort of in that band between basically both 45 would be the low end and maybe the high 50s are going to be the high end because there's just not much - on the line, people are in their corners.

KING: And so in today's age, though, mid 50s is pretty, pretty good.

DEMIRJIAN: Right.

KING: You can use it Kenny use it.

DEMIRJIAN: That's exactly the thing, right because Trump didn't have the greatest numbers, but the people who were in his numbers really, really, really meant it right. And so like, do people feel the same passionate about Biden in that in that better number? And that's the big question.

MARTIN: Yes. And well, I think Biden being in the 50s is fine. It's not - it's not necessarily the kind of mandate that he'd prefer. But given this polarized you're in. It's not bad. I think sort of dangerous zone for Biden becomes he doesn't get stuff done.

He starts to lose a little bit with the Independents who are right now by and large kind of with him and Democrats start squawking more and he falls below that Mendoza line, which are basically 50. I think that's sort of the danger zone for him right now.

[12:10:00]

KING: And part of his credibility. We'll come back to this in a bit later, but part of his credibility right now is what we're going to get to next which is the COVID pandemic. Up next brand new numbers on the vaccine roll up among the newest group eligible for their shots, teenagers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: In encouraging new stats today from the CDC on COVID vaccinations for kids aged 12 to 15. Nearly a quarter of new vaccinations went to that age group last week. About one out of every 12 adolescents now has already had his or her first dose that's nearly 1.4 million.

Let's walk through some of the other important numbers here. And if you look at the new cases, if you've been with us the last 14 months you know this is significant progress the United States now averaging fewer than 30,000 new infections a day, 29,127 is the average. You saw the number yesterday here you see its 30,141 significantly down.

[12:15:00]

KING: This is Inauguration Day 183,000 plus new infections on that day. We are now on average below 30,000 yesterday just crossing 30,000 significant progresses in the case count that means hospitalizations are down. That means deaths are down.

If you look at the vaccines, this is a decrease. The administration does not like the peak nearly 3.4 million shots in arm a day back in April that has dropped nearly 46 percent 1.8 million yesterday; the administration would like that to stay up a bit higher to get more Americans vaccinated.

If you look at it by map this is percentage of people partially vaccinated, meaning at least one shot you see Maine at 60 percent, Vermont at 66 percent. The problem the issue the lagging states, if you will, a lot of them

down here in the Southeast 33 percent, Mississippi 35 percent, Alabama, 38 percent, Georgia, you see more problems out in the West as you go across there.

Let's look at it this way. For those who have received at least one dose 53 percent of those who have at least one dose for women 47 percent are men. Here's another way to look at it.

If you look at the Gold Line that is the percentage of the people of these demographic groups that have at least one dose the blue line is their percentage of the population.

So whites are getting a first dose at roughly the same percentage they are in the population. You see, among Hispanics the person getting a first dose trails the percentage of - in the population the same among black Americans, Asian Americans getting their first dose at roughly their percentage in the population.

If you look at just the last two weeks, you see more Latinos Hispanics are getting their doses. You see more Asian Americans getting their doses still a problem outreach to the black community here when it comes to vaccines.

Now at the White House briefing, they understand this people see this they see the overall case count is down. They're hearing that things are getting better. The Surgeon General today saying yes they are. But--

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DR. VIVEK MURTHY, SURGEON GENERAL: It will be easy to look at the circumstances right now with all of the improvements; Dr. Lyons laid out cases, hospitalizations, deaths and think we're out of this pandemic. We don't have to get vaccinated to take precautions anymore.

We are seeing improvements because people have in fact been vaccinated. And if we continue on this path and more people are vaccinated, we can sustain that decline in cases that we've seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's bring in Dr. Jessica Shepherd. She's the Chief Medical Officer at Verywell Health. Dr. Shepherd, thank you for being with us today. A lot of the numbers are encouraging. A lot of the numbers do show progress.

But when you look at pockets, some states are well behind in rolling out the vaccines and some demographic groups; you still have some outreach issues, whether it's access or overcoming hesitancy.

When you look at all the data, what would you say is I look at that and that's the one thing I worry about?

DR. JESSICA SHEPHERD, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, VERYWELL HEALTH: Yes, that's a great question. Now looking again, as we heard in the press briefing earlier, that vaccine hesitancy in the black and brown communities has much more to do with access than actual hesitation of getting the vaccine, you know, in a COVID-19 vaccine sentiment tracker by very well.

It showed that 60 percent of black - and 62 percent of Latino Americans have either been vaccinated or plan to get the vaccine. And just as you said, with Dr. Murthy was really looking at fair and equitable ways of distributing the vaccine in order for us to reach that herd immunity of 70 percent.

KING: And so we're at an interesting moment. Now, we've had several conversations over the past 14 months where we're at a moment of crisis, things are getting worse. And the question is, you know, what should we as individuals do?

What should government's tell us to do, what restrictions are good, what restrictions are bad? Now things are getting better. The CDC has relaxed, liberalized its mask mandates and there's some confusion. I want you to listen to a couple of the president's experts here saying yes, there's a little confusion. But that's because this is new, hang in there.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: You can understand that when people have been following a certain trend for a considerable period of time, that it may take time for them to adjust.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Not everybody is going to feel like it's time to rip off their masks for 16 months; we've been saying that it's important to wear these masks to protect yourselves. And now what we're saying is it's going to be hard to get back to, to you know, life as we knew it without these masks.

And we're going to do so tipping are dipping our toe in the water and having everybody move at their own pace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Everybody moving at their own pace also includes something odd though, let's say in the case of a baseball stadium that is now allowing full capacity. But the advisory to fans is if you're not vaccinated, you should wear a mask, but there's nobody to enforce that. It's essentially an honor system, right?

SHEPHERD: Exactly and that's exactly where the concern comes when you have people who have been vaccinated and have followed the rules for so long. We see that that trend in making people wear masks at all times indoors and outdoors, now taking that away.

That's where people become hesitant and wondering again, what is that honor system who's there to really find the unvaccinated persons and if they're wearing a mask or not. So this is going to take time to roll out to get back to what we were pre COVID.

But again, the numbers have shown, you know, Dr. Fauci showed significant amount of studies that have been, you know, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in The Lancet that are showing the effectiveness of the vaccine.

[12:20:00]

SHEPHERD: But now it comes to how do we live in communities and with each other between those that are vaccinated and unvaccinated. These are things that time will tell, but also taking into account continuing that message of the importance of vaccination.

KING: And just to that point, this is less of an issue less of a question, when more and more Americans are vaccinated, in your experience out in the real world, what works?

You talked about the hesitancy, again, sometimes it might be access, can you get a van, you know, into underserved neighborhood or something, but sometimes it is hesitancy. In your experience, what works when you meet a person in a brown community, a black community, who says I'm just not sure I can trust this vaccine?

SHEPHERD: And this is why representation matters and having people that look like people in those communities to be able to explain why the hesitancy might be there and being able to mitigate through those questions that people have in these communities.

Keeping the message consistent is always important and always being able to show the proof in the pudding. As we say, when we saw those studies earlier that were shown that's really going to help people make those decisions but also incentivizing communities as well as employers to find ways to allow people to have the access when it comes to getting the vaccine and not worrying about taking off of work and recovery.

KING: Dr. Jessica Shepherd, grateful for your time and insights today. I appreciate it very much.

SHEPHERD: Thank you.

KING: Thank you Take care. Up next Republicans just can't quit Trump even as they learned the former president's legal woes are growing Republicans in Washington and across the country line up to do his bidding.

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[12:25:00]

KING: Donald Trump wants you to know there will soon be a rally revival.

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DONALD TRUMP, 45TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Relatively soon we'll be doing one in Florida. We're going to do one in Ohio. We're going to do one in Georgia. We're going to do one in North Carolina. We'll be announcing them very soon over the next week or two. And I

think we'll probably start in Florida and Ohio. And we'll be announcing the rallies very shortly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: There you have it, though we should note for the record, this is important. We're still waiting for some of the things he promised to do in two weeks or so back when he was president.

But this was a telling week for the former president and for Republican Party still very much in his grip. New reporting of a criminal investigation that makes clear Trump's deepening legal woes yet clear new evidence here in Washington and in several states that for many Republicans staying in Trump's good graces remains rule number one.

With us to share her reporting and her insights Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, Maggie, it is great to see you. You tweeted this yesterday in response to a story about how Trump is still everywhere in stories about Republican politics.

Hard to make the GOP subject move past Trump when he is injecting himself into the GOP discussion repeatedly and he has done just that with a number of statements whether it's about the January 6 Commission, or whether it's repeating some of the big life stuff.

But a lot of people see Trump and they think it's just this sort of you know, undisciplined, toddler like guy rambling out statements Michael Garson writing in the Washington Post with that very different view. I want to see if you agree.

He writes in some ways, the Trump movement of authoritarian populism is forward looking. It eternally relitigate the 2020 election is preparation for the next compared with the utter chaos of previous efforts.

This time, there seems to be a strategy at work. First undermine Republican confidence in the electoral system and stoke the party's sense of grievance. Second, modify state election laws to try to discourage Democratic and particularly minority turnout.

Third, replace or intimidate state election officials who show any hints of independence or integrity. Is there a clear Trump strategy?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: No and I don't think that it is cohesive in the way that Garson writes it. But I do think that a bunch of different things are going on simultaneously, that could benefit Trump.

I think that the Republicans who are rewriting election laws in various states, many of them are not doing it, John, with the idea that Donald Trump can benefit from this in four years. Some of them certainly are. But by no means all.

There are a lot of Republicans who are hoping to curtail voting restrictions in a number of states so that other candidates can emerge in 2024. And then Trump has himself you've heard me say this for six years, does not really operate on strategy.

I also think that the rallies that he's doing are talking about doing as you said, we don't see them yet. But I don't think it's a coincidence that he is stepping up the conversation about this as the investigations into him in New York are also stepping up.

KING: Right stepping up so that A, he keeps his visibility but B, he uses these things to raise money and he may need money for legal fees. I want you to listen; this is Jennifer Weisselberg, who is the divorced. She's divorced from a deputy the son of Alan Weisselberg, who is the CFO of the Trump Organization.

She has turned over considerable documents to the investigators. We learned CNN, The New York Times, both reporting in recent days. This is now a criminal investigation by the New York State Attorney General listen to her take on this investigation.

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JENNIFER WEISSELBERG, FORMER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW OF TRUMP ORG. CFO ALLEN WEISSELBERG: Compensation and gift taxes for the organization for Donald Trump himself and for all the employees that the employees specifically the Trump family and the Weisberg family are - there's nothing legal going on there. They need to be accountable for what they've done.

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