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Pittsburgh Bridge Collapses Ahead of Biden Visit on Infrastructure; U.S. Economy Grew 5.7 Percent in 2021, Fastest Growth Since 1984; Today in PA: Biden to Promote His Vision for Economy, Tout Bipartisan Infrastructure Law; Zelensky: Ukraine Does not Need "This Panic"; CNN: Trump at Odds with Preferred Candidates over Vaccines. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired January 28, 2022 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Hello and welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing your day with us. Drivers collide with a near death experience in Pittsburgh a bridge collapses in the middle of the morning commute somehow, no one died even as cars went over the edge and piled up in the rubble.
Plus Pittsburgh also the backdrop today for President Biden he will talk jobs and point to solid evidence. The economy is bouncing back. But it's a hard sell for Americans dealing with high inflation and COVID exhaustion and no misunderstandings, Ukraine's President response to reports of new friction with the United States over Russia's intent to invade.
We begin the hour in Pittsburgh where emergency responders as you can see still on the scene of a bridge collapse that happened during the morning commute. These pictures were taken right after the collapse and they are just stunning look a bus dangling over one portion of that snow covered bridge.
And you can see the bridge buckled multiple points and its split into pieces. And here you see several cars at the bottom of a ravine below. Fire crews use ropes and chains to get to the victims stuck in their cars on the bridge. Three were taken to the hospital 10 injuries and all but amazingly none life threatening.
No deaths have been reported. Several vehicles were crossing over that bridge at the time, the collapse severed what's being described as a major artery in the city. It also caused a natural gas line in the area to break and families initially evacuated the area this taking place just hours before President bide was doing the city in part to discuss infrastructure.
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MAYOR ED GAINEY, PITTSBURGH: Today is significant in that. You know at the end of the day, we could have had some serious injuries at the end of the day. This is critical that we get this funding.
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KING: That bridge last inspected back in September 2021 and was given an overall poor rating by Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation. As noted President Biden will arrive in the area later this hour. He's on the way right now. His visit was scheduled before the bridge collapse.
And the White House kept it on the schedule after consulting with local officials. The stop is part of a Biden promise to get out in the country more and part of an urgent White House effort to ask Americans to take a second look at the administration accomplishments like the big infrastructure bill and an economy that is roaring back, even though inflation remains a major problem. CNN's White House Correspondent John Harwood is right there live in Pittsburgh for us, John.
JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John, we're here at Mill 19, which is a symbol of the new economy that Pittsburgh in particular in Pennsylvania and the country in general are trying to embrace that is this is the place they used to make metal now they work on artificial intelligence here.
But this is a remarkable moment for President Biden, when you think John about the president's you and I have covered and their records on the economy, Joe Biden has got the hottest economy since Ronald Reagan in 1984. And yet, he's underwater on the issue for reasons that are all related to the pandemic. Pandemic turned the economy upside down.
Tremendous fiscal support, both under the Trump Administration and Joe Biden with the rescue plan last March that has helped to bring the economy back roaring back. But pandemic effects and the effects of that extra demand surged into the economy with that fiscal support has created inflation.
And that's has people feeling upset about the economy, both the pandemic and the inflation. So what Joe Biden is trying to do today, emphasize what he has done, the infrastructure bill that passed with support from Senators in both parties, and tout that all the more underscored the need for that underscored by the bridge collapse in Pittsburgh this morning.
And he's also going to talk about the steps that the administration is trying to take, both with the Build Back Better plan, and with the work on supply chains to bring costs down to temporary inflation. It's mostly the job of the Fed.
But it comes back to Joe Biden like any incumbent president, and he's got to try to help talk the American people out of it and hope that improving conditions later this year, including reduced inflation, helped make voters feel better about his record.
KING: Critical point there at the end. We're having this conversation in late January the president certainly hoping that people feel better as the year stretches on the midterm election year, John Harwood, grateful for the kickoff straight from Pittsburgh.
Well, you'll see the president in a few minutes and with us now to share their reporting and their insights Jeanna Smialek of "The New York Times", CNN's Phil Mattingly, POLITICO's Laura Barron-Lopez and Toluse Olorunnipa of "The Washington Post".
Jeanna, I want to start you've been covering this issue for some time you wrote a piece the other day with one of your colleagues, growth is surging in Biden's economy. Why don't voters feel better? That's the president's challenge in the sense that most of the numbers about the economy now are quite strong, but people are exhausted from the pandemic.
They're still paying more when they go to the grocery store when they go to the gas station. The president is hoping that by the middle of the year what the future is now promising to do and inflation kicks in will it?
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JEANNA SMIALEK, FEDERAL RESERVE AND ECONOMY REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I think it's an open question. I think we know that demand should fade a little bit as people have, you know, fewer dollars coming in from government stimulus checks and from unemployment insurance.
And it's clearly the case that the Fed is preparing to react here. I think the big question for the administration is does that relief happen in time for the midterms in November? You know, we know inflation is likely to fade at some point. But does it do it quickly enough?
And is it palpable enough to consumers to really matter to confidence data? And economists just aren't sure yet. You know, quite how quickly this can happen.
KING: Right. And so that's it, you're looking to track the data. And so Phil Mattingly, Jeff Zeleny, other members of our White House team in Pennsylvania, talking to voters, here's one, here's one, listen here, who actually gives the president the benefit of the doubt says, yes, things are bad. But look, come on, don't just blame Joe Biden.
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SALLY BISSEY, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Inflation is frustrating filling your tank is expensive. Everything's expensive. I think he's done as good a job as he could, anybody really could have done, and I don't care who would have been in his possession. No Republican would have liked him. It's just we're just like that now.
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KING: If you're a president, or if you're a Democrat, you're grateful for a voter who thinks it through like that, who says this polarization and he's doing the best he can. But this is about how voters feel in November. Here's a standard I use all the time, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, and you see the drop.
You see the drop in the one year of the Biden presidency, if 79, it was at the beginning started to go up a little bit, but then bam, Delta hits that Omicron hits, here we are 10 points lower as he begins to your to the challenge, Phil, is you can't lecture people to say, hey, the economy's doing great. You have to ask them look, again, look, again, give me time.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And also demonstrate that the concerns that they have you believe they are very real, you understand them, you feel them and you're trying to address them.
Look at one of the most interesting elements of that sound bite from Jeff's piece was that that was somebody who actually had a pretty positive take on the president. And yet, you could hear that kind of resigned in difference to this moment, which is something that I've been told by several White House officials they've seen in their polling that's been most concerning when they look at the internal numbers.
It's that nothing breaks through because everyone is tuned out even Democrats who support the president, everybody's so exhausted, so tired and so used to just negative headlines, negative news on a regular basis that they can't get a message to break through. And I think that's part of the issue that they're dealing with right now.
And part of why the president is planning to be out of the White House more in the days and weeks ahead and trying to deliver a message about what they're doing. Yes, the numbers on the top line related to economic indicators, aside from inflation, very positive, but when it comes to inflation, a new legislative push that's directly tied to the inflation issues.
It's a China competitive this legislation. I don't think you're going to hear the president talk about that specifically. But the elements of this bill and why they're getting behind it right now, the way it was described to me.
We recognize it scratches, several itches that we people have been complaining about it directly ties to inflation directly ties to manufacturing directly ties to competing with China, those are issues that pull very well, they hope they resonate, they hope they break through, but they have a real problem there based on what they're seeing internally.
KING: And that Phil gets Toluse at one of the challenges and that you know, you have progressive saying, hey, let's get back to the Build Back Better the Biden social safety net agenda.
You have the president pushing this China competitiveness bill, that's Washington speak, even though these are things that might actually help people down the road in their real lives. People living in America are dealing with meat costs, more chicken costs, more gas costs more, and my legs are just tired from two years at COVID.
How does the president and his fellow Democrats, how do they try to find the sweet spot of this conversation?
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: One of President Biden's top political strength is his ability to empathize with American voters. And I think that's one of the reasons he's going out on the road is because he wants to have some of those one on one magical moments with voters and say.
I hear you I hear the frustrations you have with some of the things you're seeing with the prices that you're seeing at the gas station at the grocery store, and then talk about what he's done, including, you know, the infrastructure bill including the American rescue plan, which puts the money in Americans pockets.
And then also what he still wants to do. Now it's going to be a scaled back version of the bill backs better plan but still talking about the elements that he thinks can pass between now and November and other things.
He's also not only focusing on those harder, hard things that may be difficult to pass like the full build back better, multitrillion dollar deal, but also other things that are on his agenda, including this program to sort of increase American competitiveness with China, talking about things that he can get done between now and November will make it easier for him to show that he's on the case and that he's actually doing something about the frustrations that Americans are feeling at the gas pump and in the grocery stores.
KING: It is a challenge. Laura Lopez, but it's also an opportunity and that we have had weeks if not months of these numbers are bad for Biden. Biden's approval ratings down look at this. Look at this. Look at this. Well, if you're the president of the United States in January of a midterm election year, look at this.
The economy grew at 5.7 percent last year. That's the strongest since 1984. We have low unemployment we have a record number of jobs created in the first year of the Biden Administration not back yet to where we were to be a pandemic.
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KING: But there is a lot of good news for the president to have finally canned on a Friday says I had a pretty good week. The question is can you build on it?
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. And the other question is also how much - how many of the American public actually understands that the economy is improving? Albeit yes, they are dealing with higher prices at the gas station and at the grocery store, but Biden is trying to communicate to the public.
Look, there are other indicators that are showing that we are increasingly getting out of this pandemic that we are increasingly recovering from the impact that it's had on the country, you know, to the point of Americans being tired and Americans feeling as though they aren't getting much from the administration. You know, the White House right now is also trying to look towards, you know, renewing the Child Tax Credit, Biden said he didn't think that he could do that. That's another thing that a lot of Americans were relying on throughout this pandemic that we saw expire in December.
And so Democrats really don't want to give up on that even though as a part of the larger conversation around Build Back Better. It's something that they may have to push further down the road. So again, there are a lot of things that the White House is trying to get done.
Despite the fact that in recent months there's been trouble to get it passed Congress because a democratic inviting.
KING: Again president its way to Pittsburgh, interesting to hear how he pitches this how he tries to find that sweet spot in the conversation. Everybody stand by more politics to come. Up next, the latest on the Ukraine crisis, the Kremlin says there is no reason for optimism. But Ukraine some European allies now discounting White House talk of an imminent Russian invasion.
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KING: Today and on the record denial of sorts from Ukraine's President to reports of new friction between the United States and Ukraine over just how to read Vladimir Putin.
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PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINE: They're saying that we have some misunderstanding. We don't have any misunderstandings with President Biden. I just deeply understand what is going on in my country just as he understands perfectly well what's going on in the United States. That's it.
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KING: That comment this morning following a Thursday call between the Ukrainian and the American Presidents to discuss the Russian threat and two very different accounts of that call. A senior Ukrainian official says the Biden/Zelensky call did not go well. And that's Zelensky does not share the White House view that a Russian invasion is imminent.
The source also said the American President drew some clear red lines, Biden according to the Ukrainian prospective promise no troops, no sophisticated weapon systems and no pre-emptive sanctions against Putin.
The White House pushback though was immediate and National Security Council Spokesperson saying President Biden communicated to Zelensky exactly what he's communicated in public for months. Let's bring in our Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan what happened? KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's a great question, John. It seems the only thing that everyone agrees on is this call was very long. I'm told it clocked in at about an hour and 20 minutes between President Biden and President Zelensky yesterday afternoon.
And that line from Zelensky there saying that there are no disagreements, I just understand what's happening in Ukraine. And he understands what's happening in the U.S. seem to suggest that he believes he knows better what's happening in Ukraine than maybe some American officials have suggested.
And of course, we know that during this call, one point of contention was whether or not a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent. President Biden has said publicly he does think eventually, that is what Russian President Putin will do that he will go into Ukraine.
He said that in front of the world watching at his press conference here at the White House. But the disagreement from yesterday's call seems to stem from the fact that a senior Ukrainian official told Matthew Chance who is in Ukraine, the President Biden said they basically believe it is virtually guaranteed to happen.
And they pointed to the month of February, I'm told by national security official that that is not what President Biden said that instead, the he told him that basically, U.S. intelligence is assess that if an invasion does occur, they believe February is when that's going to happen citing weather conditions on the ground.
And the truth build up that the Pentagon says it's very much still happening. And so I think that has been a point of contention. But you also saw the Ukrainian leader in that press conference today complaining about the fact that the U.S. embassies, in addition to other governments embassies in Ukraine have told some of their voluntary staff to leave, they've ordered family members of staffers to leave.
And of course, that comes as there is that level four travel advisory for Ukraine telling Americans not to go there because if something does happen, the U.S. government is not going to be able to help them get out. And so I think that is really what plays a factor into all of this.
But clearly, it's a very tense time there have been these ongoing efforts to try to defuse the situation. And right now they have not been successful.
KING: Well, they have not to say the least. Kaitlan Collins lives from the White House. Let's bring it for some perspective our veteran CNN International Correspondent, Sam Kiley, who's in Kyiv right now. Sam, it is unusual to hear allies publicly discussing differences, some of them nuanced, some of the more significant in the middle of a war and peace question.
You heard Zelensky there saying I just understand Ukraine better than Joe Biden. It's not a big deal. But I just understand my country better here he's answering a question from our colleague Matthew Chance, and he again lays out some disagreement listen.
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ZELENSKY: The sanctions are not designed for our country to help our country this because this is to stop the full-fledged aggression towards the European Union. But this cannot be done at the expense of our country. That's not the way to do it. We had 15,000 deaths in the war and many countries of the world discuss the sanctions which will be applied only after the fact. And I'm being very honest and that's what I mean.
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KING: Help me through that but it says he seems to be saying I see what the United States the European Union the NATO allies are doing it helps them maybe not me.
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KING: Is that right?
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. John, what he's saying there is very, very clear. He's saying, if you're threatening punitive sanctions, now is the time to impose them to get the Russians to back off.
Once they're rolling tanks across my borders, it's too late for us. And it may suit the - may suit the east Europeans, particularly the Baltic states, he also went on to warn that they would then find a frontline war, they would find themselves on the front line of a war between Ukraine and Russia, and likely get sucked in.
But what he's saying there is, come on, let's see some sanctions imposed now, because it's not going to, it's not going to be a disincentive after the fact, in Ukraine. And that has been a position that they've been maintaining all the way through, and clearly one that he made loud and clear in his phone call to Mr. Biden.
KING: And at this fascinating and consequential moment, what people say matters, especially what senior people say matters. You've covered many international crises; diplomats have a way of using their language to say almost nothing, when we have important questions at key moments.
But listen to the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, John Sullivan, who takes a very different approach you might expect, especially the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, to try to talk in diplomatic gobbly-gook instead, this.
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JOHN SULLIVAN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: It is extraordinary. It can't be explained as an ordinary military exercise. I understand what the Russian government has said publicly, that it has no intention to invade Ukraine, but the facts on the ground tell a much different story.
It's the equivalent of if you and I were, were having a discussion or negotiation if I put a gun on the table and say that I come in peace. You know, that's, that's, that's threatening. And that's what we see now.
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KING: That may or may all well be true, but it is remarkable to hear it come on the record on camera from a senior U.S. diplomat in Moscow.
KILEY: Yes, we seeing this scratchy kind of language coming, as we've heard just from Zelensky, President of Ukraine, now the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, they're trying to signal pretty obviously not in a very un-nuanced way, the position of the United States and her allies in Europe, which is to the Kremlin, we know what you're up to.
The difference of interpretation as to whether the Russians are poised for an invasion now or maybe late in February or later on in the year are kind of moot if you look at the wider issue, which is that the Russians are saying we do not want to see NATO absorbing Ukraine or indeed, subtext Georgia which has also got Russian troops in occupation of Georgian territory ever.
And that for them is a red line. They haven't said the or else because they don't need to and that's what the Russian the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow is saying you don't need to show it say the or else because you're doing a massive show and tell you've got troops now in Belarus in you on the Ukrainian eastern border, and of course, Russian Navy exercises in the Black Sea.
KING: Sam Kiley grateful we're lucky to have you there at this very consequential moment. Appreciate it very much. Up next, Donald Trump and some not so loyal followers new CNN reporting details how several Trump back candidates are ignoring his advice on COVID vaccines.
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KING: New CNN reporting now and a big difference between Donald Trump and some of the candidates he is backing this year. The former president is vaccinated and he is boosted.
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DONALD TRUMP, 45TH U.S PRESIDENT: The vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So people are questioning how--
TRUMP: How the vaccines work? But some people aren't taking the ones, the ones that get very sick and go to the hospital or the ones that don't take the vaccine.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: But a number of Republican candidates with Trump's blessing have a very, very different take on the COVID vaccine and they are not shy about pushing it. CNN's Gabby Orr is tracking this with some fascinating new reporting. Gabby, what are you learning?
GABBY ORR, CNN REPORTER: Well, John, there's a number of candidates that Donald Trump has endorsed who are out there on the campaign trail actively contradicting his pro vaccine views ranging from Joe Kent in Washington who was running from Congress to Carrie Lake who's running for governor in Arizona.
They have said a number of things that could be considered backed vaccines skepticism. At a recent campaign trail stop in Vancouver, Washington, for instance, Kent said that vaccines don't work that masks don't work, and that "The American people have been lied to".
So this is actively contradicting what Donald Trump has said on the campaign trail, telling Bill O'Reilly that he has been boosted and obviously in that interview clip you just played telling Candace Owens that he is very much in favor of the COVID-19 vaccines.
KING: The question then becomes, well, Donald Trump tried to do anything about it. Well, he tried to say stop this will he tried to say vaccines work boosters work, or will he just go along to get along?
ORR: Well, what's interesting is he hasn't done anything so far to distance him from these candidates or even to actively criticize them and say, hey, look, you're wrong about this. My administration developed these vaccines, they are working for Americans.
He hasn't done any of that. And part of the reason for that is due to the political reality that he is facing. I talked to one Trump Advisor who said that he "Wants to pick winners and he really realizes that right now that his base supporters are very skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccines" and so to go out there and endorse candidates who can win primaries.
