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Dems Worry White House Is Unprepared For Midterms; Blinken: Ukrainian Leaders Should Prepare For "Difficult Days"; Biden Battles Multiple Crises As He Closes First Year. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired January 19, 2022 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:30:00]
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And that, you know, they can't possibly answer everyone. But that this is just whining from, you know, either House Democrats that don't understand what their priorities are or that need to just suck it up. I mean, they take a pretty hard line with them.
But this is something that we've been hearing from Democrats for a while now, which is that they want to see Biden be out there and be more forceful, and be on the stump and to just go out and make the entire case and go into districts where Republicans didn't vote for the infrastructure bill, or Republicans didn't vote for the stimulus package early on, and to say that, that this Republican didn't vote for all this help for you in the middle of the pandemic.
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: And you heard Isaac lay this out Seung Min and Michael Bennet, the senator from Colorado talks about in his piece, he says Biden would be a lot better off if we wouldn't be having him spend his time out in the country talking to people than stuck in Washington talking to people about legislating. That's fine and good. And it makes sense to a degree. But number one, Democrats do have an ambitious agenda, should the President be here trying to shepherd? And number two, this is not the President's, you know, President's -- not the President's choice, we live in the middle of a pandemic, and it is hard to travel.
SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, right. And what has happened and what's become one of the Democratic Party's biggest problems for the past year or so is that they are just mired in process, a process narrative, a process stories, and they aren't. So their accomplishments of which they do have many aren't kind of breaking through to the broader narrative. And I think that's what partly what President Biden's going to try to do later today to kind of sell the story of his presidency and the accomplishments of his first year.
And I do think, one thing I found remarkable in Isaac's story that we've been discussing is just how much Democrats really want the President and the White House to make a bigger contrast with Republicans and call out Republicans for their positions for their reluctance to get on board with Democratic initiatives. It's something that I have heard from Democratic lawmakers frequently
and I think that's why President Biden's January 6th speech was such a hit with the party because he made that forceful contrast with his predecessor. And I think as the as the midterm year goes on, just by the natural contours of an election year, you will hear President Biden make that contrast more and more.
KING: Right. And one of the challenges though, Astead, is who you're talking to at any given moment in the sense that the President can talk COVID, COVID exhaustion to the entire country. At the moment he hasn't, you spent a lot of time covering constituency groups within the party. They are frustrated with the lack of progress and voting rights, lack of progress on criminal justice reform, I could go on and on. Listen to how James Carville, the former Clinton strategist puts it. And the language not as polite as Seung Min and Laura just used.
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JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Run on what you got. You don't run on what you didn't get. Quit being a whiny party and get out there and fight and tell people what you did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Carville says go out and tell people what you did. But a lot of the pressure in the party right now is about what they haven't gotten.
ASTEAD HERNDON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Exactly. The Biden administration is sandwiched between the people who want them to get as much as they can, even that piecemeal legislation to say that you can just talk about a COVID relief, talk about the infrastructure. And that should be the pitch for the midterms and another wing of the party that says that simply not enough that going bigger was absolutely necessary, because that was the baseline of what they have promised to voters.
And the administration is trying to walk the tightrope between both of those worlds. I mean, in some ways this week is remarkable, because you have the culmination of the party putting pressure on people like Senator Manchin and Sinema. But in other ways, let's remember that this has been the state of play for a long time. They have not changed their position on the filibuster. This was true back in May, when I was in Mississippi talking to folks about voting rights. They were talking about the filibuster and that then.
The question is, did the administration should reflect that type of urgency and prioritizing the right issues? That's going to be what the question of folks have going through the summer and into the midterm. So you're right, John, that Democrats are increasingly nervous, you're hearing those jitters turn from kind of a whisper to a larger crescendo.
KING: And we'll return to this topic a bit later when we discussed the big stakes on the present today at that news conference.
[12:34:07] But next for us, the Secretary of State Tony Blinken in Ukraine right now with a warning. Russia appears poised to invade. And after a decade of support, a powerful political group resends its support of Senator Kyrsten Sinema.
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KING: Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Ukraine today and he is there with a sober warning, U.S. intelligence is that Russia is planning to increase its troop buildup and that an invasion could come at any time. CNN's Kylie Atwood joins us live from the State Department. Kylie?
KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: John, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said today that there are 100,000 troops along the Russia-Ukraine border that we knew. But he went a step further. He also said that it is possible that Russia could amass double that number on relatively short order. Now the Secretary's trip to Ukraine is largely symbolic. He talked about a lot of things we have heard from U.S. officials continued U.S. economic and military support to Ukraine, defending Ukraine's territorial sovereignty. And here was his message to Ukrainians about the tough days that could be ahead.
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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Leaders inside and outside Ukraine's government have to put aside their differences in favor of the shared national interest and work together to prepare for what could be difficult days. But in doing that, the United States wants you to know this, as you stand up to efforts to divide to intimidate to threaten, the United States stands with you, resolutely.
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[12:40:12]
ATWOOD: Now a lot of ominous signals, John, that Russia continues to build up its military presence along the Ukrainian border. But Foreign Minister Lavrov is meeting with Secretary Tony Blinken on Friday. That is something that Blinken discussed with his Ukrainian counterpart today. We don't know there'll be any diplomatic breakthroughs. But a senior administration official said that the fact that they even scheduled that meeting means that maybe diplomacy is not dead. John?
KING: Maybe. We'll watch as that meeting place out. Kelly Atwood, appreciate important update there. Tonight, another important update, a Senate vote to put on the record what we already know, Democrats do not have the votes to pass new voting rights bills because they do not have the votes to change Senate rules to get around Republican opposition.
Senators Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema are the two Democrats very public about their refusal to change those rules. And they are facing what one Senate Democrat calls quote, a great deal of resentment, not to mention, talk about potential primary challenges and other political payback. Let's get to our chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju with more. Manu?
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. In fact, one senator, Senator Sanders of Vermont, told me earlier this morning that he is open to supporting the primary challenger to both Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema when they are facing voters come 2024. Now Manchin has indicated that he plans to run in 2024, who at least at the moment, and he's running in a state of course that has Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points.
So the follow up for him politically may not be as bad as it will could potentially be for Kyrsten Sinema. Just yesterday, a list of vote group that supports female candidates who so who back abortion rights came out and indicated that it would withdraw its support for Kyrsten Sinema if she does not get along on the same page as Democrats to advance this voting rights bill saying in a statement, we've joined with many others to impress upon Sinema, the importance of passing this bill.
They said this, their concerns have not been addressed. And John, Sinema herself could also face that challenge from one of our members of our delegation, Ruben Gallego in 2024. And John there's also possible follow up this fall from Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator who is voting for this bill and voting to change the Senate filibuster rules. Republicans are planning to use Sinema's opposition to this against Mark Kelly saying she supports bipartisanship but he does not. John?
KING: It's a remarkable moment today and we will see what the ramifications are going forward, Manu Raju, grateful for the live report.
Up next for us, a closer look at President Biden's big moment today, a news conference at the one year mark and a dizzying list of frustrating challenges.
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[12:47:22]
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We'll press forward with speed and urgency for we have much to do in this winter apparel, and significant possibilities, much to repair, much to restore, much to heal, much to build, and much to gain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Today, the President will give his take on whether his first year in office met that optimistic Inaugural Address test. And then he will take questions about a daunting list of second year challenges, including yet another COVID winter, a stalled domestic agenda, and several pressing global challenges.
Our reporters are back with us to discuss. And that Astead is what makes this moment the challenge for the President so significant. And it's not one thing. COVID is the overwhelming funk in the country. But there are so many, just look at the headlines in recent days, the Secretary of State right now is traveling overseas warning about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The President, you know, a year ago, 200-page plan to defeat COVID still with us, inflation and the like. It's not one thing the President needs to do. So how do you hit the reset button?
HERNDON: Exactly. And that's the challenge for him. I mean, this is a window of time that Democrats knew would be a fleeting one, the year in which they had control of the White House, Congress, and were able to execute on that agenda. And coming ahead to the midterms, they know that this is the fourth quarter, this is the reset button. I think this is going to be the White House faking the play that they have made big accomplishments, but also that they should get credit for the effort and pushing on the larger agenda, even if it's currently stalled.
KING: And so you can look at this a number of ways, Seung Min, one is the President's approval rating, which we know is underwater, and it's gotten worse as the year ended. Here's another way to look at it, right track, wrong track. Americans when Biden took office 26 percent said, 27 percent said we were on the right track that's static essentially. It's gone down one point. It's the wrong track. It has gone up from 54 percent, a year ago to 60 percent now. So just by that metric, the country's not happy when you're in.
KIM: Right, certainly. And White House officials know that they have to do two things, they have to get COVID under control, and they have to get the economy bouncing back again. And nothing is really going to change in terms of the politics for President Biden and his approval ratings and that right track, wrong track number or the fate of the Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate.
Until those two factors change, which is why you are seeing a lot of aggressive moves, particularly in the COVID front you have free masks being distributed. Obviously the COVID tests, COVID website is up and running today. But it is also a lot about again, like we talked earlier about selling the narrative and selling the accomplishments of his presidency that often can get drowned out by the process chatter here in Washington. So how much that changes and how much President Biden really goes and forcefully redefines his presidency especially his first year will be something definitely to watch.
[12:50:02]
KING: And you mentioned the masks and the new testing which are important but it also fits into one of the criticisms. This is from Bret Stephens in the "New York Times." Now, Bret is right of center. But he's often quite fair to the president says Americans have spent the past two years suffering from the government's inability to meet basic needs, the President needs to communicate that he's a step ahead of these problems.
So far, he's been a perpetual step behind. Important to note, Stephens either says two years, the last year of the Trump administration as well through this pandemic. But Laura, the point being, especially when it comes to things like testing, when it comes to these masks, the administration did get ahead on vaccines, but they seem a bit reactionary on some of these other big tests.
BARRON-LOPEZ: Right. And last summer was when President Biden said that the country was about to be free of the pandemic. And since then, it appears as though they have been playing catch up to a lot of these incidents. And there's been frustrations from Democrats wanting to see from the White House more pressure to either get boosters, you know, approved at the end of last year, or to really just be ahead of everything in terms of tests, in terms of mask, and also explaining it to the public.
We saw Biden has repeatedly in the past few months try to explain what his administration is doing and what they expect him to prepare the public for coming waves.
KING: And so one of the many questions come up, Seung Min Kim, one could be you know, do you have a staff shakeup, two could be you get more confrontational with Republicans, which is not Joe Biden's DNA. What are they thinking about debating inside the White House?
KIM: There is a lot of, there's certainly a lot of questions that could arise and I would argue also you could get a question the other way did you for example, your recent more confrontational tone undercut the message of unity that you had at your inauguration? So there's a lot of preparation for all sorts of questions. Obviously, a lot on the foreign policy challenges as well that we are facing on so many fronts around the world and certainly a lot to discuss and debate later today.
KING: Fascinating moment for the President. We will all watch it together appreciate, Seung Min, Astead, Laura Barron-Lopez for coming in.
Up next for us, a rare joint statement, a very rare joint statement from two Supreme Court justices about masking. We'll explain just a moment.
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[12:56:46]
KING: Don't forget if you missed the show, or maybe you just want to listen again, you can catch our podcast. To listen, scan the QR code, you see it right down there in the corner of your screen or search Inside Politics wherever you get your podcast.
Topping our Political Radar today, a most unusual step in Florida for the Governor Ron DeSantis now pushing a map of his own, a new Florida congressional map, shock is heavily favors Republicans. On DeSantis's map, Republicans have the advantage in at least 18 of the state's 28 congressional districts. Let's get to CNN's Steve Contorno. He covers Republican. He covers Florida politics for us. Steve, this was a surprise even to the Republicans.
STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: It was, John. When I had a conversation earlier this week with the top Republican on the Senate Redistricting Committee, he said he learned about it himself from reading the news. Democrats have said they believe this map is not constitutional. And it won't pass the Voting Rights Act. And they expect a long legal fight over this map.
So the question becomes are Republicans in Florida willing to follow DeSantis into a long legal battle? If you remember redistricting in Florida last decade, it took four years for a map to be produced and went all the way to the state Supreme Court. Is that a battle Republicans here want to fight again?
KING: We will see as that plays out. And as we wait for that one, Steve, the governor also wants to establish a special police force with the job of monitoring elections and he's asking the Republican grow legislature to allocate $6 million for that. What's the deal here?
CONTORNO: The governor first proposed this idea in November at a time when there were loud calls from many Trump supporters to investigate so called fraud in the elections. Now, obviously, we know in Florida, a state Trump won, there is no evidence of widespread fraud, and many Democrats are wondering why this is needed at all. Republicans have been noticeably quiet on whether they support this at this point. One thing worth noting is that the size of this force, 52 full time employees is larger than the police force for investigating homicides in many of Florida's largest cities.
KING: Steve Contorno, thanks so much. I think it's also worth noting, I think the governor wants to be part of a national conversation about some of these issues. I think we'll keep an eye on that one Steve in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
A rare joint statement today from a pair of Supreme Court justices, just today, the justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch say there is no tension between them that we quote our warm colleagues and friends and the Sotomayor did not ask her fellow justice to wear a mask. CNN and others reported Tuesday, you might remember, Justice Gorsuch refused to mask up on the bench, pushing Sotomayor to listen to arguments remotely from her chambers. The liberal Justice is diabetic, therefore at increased risk of COVID complications.
The Biden administration now making 400 million N95 masks available to the public, according to a White House official, the masks are coming from the Strategic National Stockpile. You can pick them up at pharmacies, community health centers beginning next week. The program will be fully up and running, the White House says by early February.
The White House website to order at home COVID test now also live, it's COVIDtests.gov. Every household can order up to four free tests. The government site says orders usually ship in seven to 12 days. Remember the President's news conference this afternoon at 4 o'clock. Join us for CNN special coverage.
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Thank you for joining Inside Politics as well. We'll see you back here this time tomorrow. Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.
