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CNN: Trump At Odds With Preferred Candidates Over Vaccines; Public Health Experts Call For New Pandemic Strategy; Top Meadows Aide Sent "It's Completely Insane" Text On 1/6. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 28, 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]

GABBY ORR, CNN REPORTER: 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, quote, wants to pick winners. And he 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 with his base support, he needs to pick candidates who have expressed some degree of vaccine skepticism.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: It could be helpful if he would weigh in, but your reporting suggests he probably won't. Gabby Orr, grateful for the important reporting.

Let's bring back our political reporters, our panel to talk about this. Toluse, we went through this conversation many times when Trump was still president. He was often almost daily at odds with science. Here's a place where finally the former president of the United States is in the right place. Tens of millions of doses have been administered, the vaccine works, it keeps you out of the hospital, it keeps you safe. But the idea that so much of his base is skeptical, so he doesn't want to get into fights, doesn't want to try to pull his people back. What does that tell you?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, one of the biggest quandaries of the Trump's -- Trump administration's last year is the President's unwillingness to really tout science and tout the vaccine that his administration came up with, he talked about Operation Warp Speed, they did deliver that vaccine. But then he was very quiet about it, we didn't see him take the vaccine on camera. We didn't see him telling his base to get behind the vaccine.

And when he finally decided to come out in favor of it, it was a little bit too late. It was at a point where he had already primed his voters to be skeptical of science and skeptical of his own administration scientists. So it's very difficult now for him to try to get his base back on board. I remember when he tried to talk about the vaccine at a rally and he received foods from members of his own base people who support him on everything else, we're not willing to follow him when it comes to the vaccine.

So I would be, it is likely that he's going to continue to kind of stay away from kind of embracing this issue and get onto more comfortable terrain on talking about things like election integrity and other things that his voters would support him on. Whereas on the vaccine, he's likely just to be silent and even allow the people that he has endorsed to continue to be vaccine skeptics and not do anything about it.

KING: And we're watching other examples of what you might call COVID politics, COVID exhaustion play out. One of them right across the river from Washington, D.C., in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Laura Barron-Lopez, more than half of Virginia School Districts are defying Youngkin's mask-optional order. The new governor, the Republican governor says parents should make this decision not local school districts, that is now going to go through the courts. And it's going to go through the courts. It's an important question for parents and for government. But it's also a question that's going to go through the courts and you see another states as well in the middle of a midterm election year?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right. I mean, look, I just want to pick up on something that Toluse said, which is that the President helped prime his voters and his supporters for this environment, the former president helped spread, create, you know, in further conspiracy theories about the vaccine and about science around this pandemic.

And so it's no surprise that Republican voters that Trump's followers are so adamantly against masking in states like Virginia, they're so adamantly against getting vaccinated. And, you know, you're hearing from Republicans in Congress that when they think that they take control, potentially, after the midterms, that they aren't going to be requiring masks, that they aren't going to be telling people when they're vaccinated. So, look, it's -- the pandemic of the unvaccinated, which is what the current President Joe Biden calls it is not going away anytime soon, because there is still this very strong resistance among a core segment of the Republican Party in the Republican base to fight mask and to fight vaccines.

KING: It's a critical point, Phil, that Laura makes in the sense that the former President Trump may disagree with those particular candidates on the issue of vaccines now. But there's no question, he planted the seeds of distrust in science, distrust in institutions attacking any institution or any study that doesn't have the conclusion that you support. We see this in polling. Here's one for you right now. Are you confident in Anthony Fauci, who was Donald Trump's top adviser, one of his top advisors on this issue, now is the President Biden's top advisor? I look especially among Republicans confidence in Fauci just since April, down from 47 to 36 percent, down a little bit among Democrats remarkably steady line there among independents.

But this is a challenge, this idea that who do you trust is a challenge for President Biden, as again, he's on the road today trying to talk about the economy. He knows that COVID exhaustion is the biggest wind in his face right now. And even there, we look at Biden's handling of COVID. If you look at the March numbers, you know, he was up at 65 percent. Now it's down to 44. Again, a drop there, even among Democrats and a giant drop among Republicans. People are exhausted, and they just, they don't know who to listen to anymore.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And look, when you talk to White House officials about their polling, the President may have said at his press conference, he doesn't believe the polls or he doesn't read the polls. His team very much does. And I think almost to a person on in amongst his top advisors. It's COVID. COVID is driving the drop. COVID is why he's in the low 40s right now and why it has been for several months and it's that combination of exhaustion people who had a brief moment of light in June in July who had it ripped away from them over the course of the last several months.

[12:35:10]

And then I think tied to that is the fact that there's a 25 to 30 percent of the country that simply won't get vaccinated, won't do the things that the administration has made very clear. And science has made very clear, would help put an end at an earlier level to this persistent pandemic. It is a real problem. And I think when you talk to White House officials, part of the reason why there's no, you know, hair on fire panic at the moment, while they're concerned about the numbers is, they look into the months in the future. And they say, look, inflation should start to decelerate as some of the supply chain issues start to unlock.

Once Omicron fades perhaps move into an endemic phase, COVID is in a much better place. There's a very real possibility that by the end of the second quarter start of the third quarter that the country is in a much different place right now. But it's not yet and they've made bets along those lines, whether it was in July, before Delta really started raging, calling inflation temporary or transitory that haven't worked out in their favor. Can you make that bet now given all the dynamics in the country to some degree, it's the bet they have to make, they only can control so much, but it also leaves a lot to chance in the months ahead.

KING: It doesn't leave a lot to chance, but you're helping me perfectly there with the art of the segue, if you will.

Up next, a map you very much want to see. COVID cases are finally trending down. And as they do, the President faces calls for new strategy for the next phase of the fight.

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[12:41:08]

KING: There are a lot of partisan divides on the issue of fighting COVID over masks, over vaccines, and so forth. But today, one somewhat sad or at least sobering source of bipartisan agreement. Let's take a look. This is a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 77 percent of Americans think, yes, it's inevitable, inevitable that most people in this country will get COVID-19, 77 percent say yes, 20 percent say, no.

Now, is it a big divide between Democrats, Republicans, Independents, look, look, everybody believes this, 74 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of Independents, 78 percent of Republicans think this is inevitable. Well, is it? Let me show you something I want you to dwell on a little bit. Look at all that green. Look at all that green. It's been a long time since I've been able to show you a map like this. Still high case numbers but only in eight states, they are reporting more new COVID infections this week, compared to last week, only in eight states, eight states holding steady, 34 states, the clear majority, see all that green, a clear majority of states reporting fewer new COVID infections this week, compared to last week. That is good news.

Now, the good news is from a high baseline, this is the peak of Omicron. Thursday, 576,000 nearly 570,000 new cases, that's a big number, but it's down 28 percent from the January peak, the seven day average of new cases which the experts say this should continue down, Omicron shall recede, time for the Biden administration. If you look at the headlines, a number of the experts have said this in recent days. What next? Please tell us what next. Among them, the former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: The situation right now is we have much more immunity in the population and a much broader composition of immunity, our immunity is deeper, it comprises Delta immunity, people have been infected with Delta, people who now have been infected with Omicron and upwards of 50 percent of population will have been infected with Omicron by the time this wave is over. I think we need to prescribe very clear goalposts for how we take these mitigation measures up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's get some expertise and insights now from Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's Professor of Medicine and Surgery at George Washington University, Dr. Reiner grateful to see you. I just want to put up the map again, because it is nice to see 34 states trending down but trending down, you see this in hospital every day, from a very high baseline. What do you make of the all the public health experts say? Please, Mr. President, please Biden COVID Team explain this next chapter?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it's very important. But I think it's also important to note that the country is going to come out of Omicron in a wave. So we're seeing the Mid- Atlantic where I live, and the Northeast, the areas in this country that were hit first, now dropping dramatically. D.C. is more than halfway down on now on the backside of the curve, following a, you know, really the highest levels of infection we saw throughout the entire pandemic.

George Washington University where I work announced that as of Monday, you know, all meeting restrictions will be lifted. And now for instance, basketball games can be attended by students and visitors. So things are getting better. And I think we're going to start to see in waves this happened across the country. I've always thought that sort of the dogmatic restrictions of either locking down the whole country, or saying that we won't, we'll never lock down was really two sort of binary and that we needed to be nimble and flexible. And parts of this country where case rates is still high, still really need to remain with very sort of important stringent mitigation measures, indoor masking, perhaps limiting the size of indoor events, places where the virus is really dramatically waning can and should relax, so they're really, it's more of a dimmer switch than an off-on switch. And it'd be great if our leaders basically said exactly that to the population that, look, things are getting better, we're going to ease up a bit.

[12:45:02]

KING: Right. And I agree with the perspective there. It would be great if our leaders. And I like the dimmer switch analogy. Part of the challenge for our leaders though is to convince people who still haven't been vaccinated, please, please, give it up and get a shot. And if you look at this data right now, this is hospitalizations among vaccination status. If you see up top here, see unvaccinated, that's the orange. See how high it is among, this is vaccinated way down here, vaccinated with a booster. The data Dr. Reiner is overwhelming. If you are vaccinated and your booster is up to date, you're flat line down here, almost impossible, least likely to be hospitalized. If you're unvaccinated, you're way up here. And yet we still have a giant chunk of the country that won't listen.

REINER: That's right. And I think, I don't think it's inevitable that everyone in this country is going to get infected with Omicron. I do think it's inevitable that that most people will encounter Omicron. And so the choice is to encounter it armed, vaccinated and boosted in which case, you're likely either not to get infected or not to get sick. Or on the other hand, if you encounter the vaccine, unarmed, you are extraordinarily likely, basically, you will inevitably get infected and you are much more likely to get sick, need to be hospitalized or even die.

Look, we're still seeing on average about 2,500 deaths in the United States every day. By and large, the vast majority, about 90 percent of those folks, more than 90 percent of those folks are unvaccinated. So the choice is up to our population. How do you want to meet the enemy? I prefer to meet the enemy armed.

KING: Excellent perspective. I just showed the latest death numbers as you made that point right there. That's -- that one is still trending up hopefully, hopefully --

REINER: Right.

KING: As cases trend down. That one follows up pretty quickly. Dr. Reiner as always grateful for your perspective, sir.

Coming up for us, some damning new details from the January 6th Committee about a nearly seven hour meeting with a top Trump White House staffer who unlike many others in the Trump off orbit did not plead the Fifth.

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[12:51:44]

KING: Don't forget, if you missed the show or just want to revisit it you can catch our podcast. To listen, scan the QR code, you see it right down there on the corner of your screen or search Inside Politics wherever you get your podcasts.

Some brand new details today about a nearly seven hour meeting between the Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection, and a former top Trump White House aide. CNN is learning Ben Williamson met with the panel on Wednesday and he did not plead the Fifth. Williamson was a top aide to the White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows at the time of the insurrection. His testimony and important piece of the Committee effort to build its evidence timeline using witnesses who worked closely with Trump's inner circle aides who themselves are refusing to cooperate. Let's get the CNN's Ryan Nobles up on Capitol Hill with more. Ryan?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. Ben Williamson's cooperation with the Committee is very significant for a number of reasons. But the most obvious being that his boss, Mark Meadows is not cooperating with the Committee, not cooperating so much that he is facing a criminal contempt charge from the January 6th Select Committee that has now in the hands of the Department of Justice. So the fact that Williamson was willing to sit with the Committee for almost seven hours, the fact that he also had conversations with the Committee about the events that were taking place in the Oval Office and in the west wing on January 6th, are also very important.

We're told that he talked about the process of getting the President to create that video that was eventually posted hours after the violence had started here at the Capitol and also talked about conversations that he had with both Meadows and the former president. And there's also this, John, this text exchange that we now know became was between Williamson and Alyssa Farah, a former White House staffer that talked about what was going on at that time. And this was part of the letter that the committee sent to Ivanka Trump requesting that she come before the Committee.

This is what the text read. Farah texted Williamson, is someone getting to POTUS? He has to tell protesters to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed. And Williamson responded, I've been trying for the last 30 minutes. Literally stormed in outer Oval to get him to put out the first one. It's completely insane. So what this text exchange reveals, John, is just how much Williamson knew about what was going on in those rooms on that day. And it also shows that even though Mark Meadows may not be willing to cooperate with the Committee, that they're still finding ways to get access to this information as they build this investigation. John?

KING: And so quickly, to the same -- on the same theory, you find the number twos and the number threes if the number one won't cooperate, where do we stand with Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department official who was trying to help the President cook the books? NOBLES: Yes, that seems that there's a lot less progress, John. Jeffrey Clark, of course, has been threatened with criminal contempt of Congress because he said that he was going to plead the Fifth and not answer the questions that the Committee is looking for. We're told that there have been no communications between Clark and the Committee. Since that day, Clark was scheduled to have a deposition was forced to be cancelled because of a medical condition. Since then, John, they just simply haven't spoke. The Committee does say that they're hoping to schedule something soon. John?

KING: Ryan Nobles, grateful for the live reporting of Capitol Hill. We close this Friday with a sad story, sad story. Thousands of police officers minding Fifth Avenue this morning outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral, there to pay their respects to the fallen New York City Police Officer Jason Rivera. Officer Rivera shot and killed one week ago while responding to a domestic dispute. You can see a youthful face. He was only 22 years old. Rivera's widow, Dominique, sharing some powerful heartbreaking words at that service.

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[12:55:16]

DOMINIQUE LUZURIAGA, WIDOW OF NYPD OFFICER JASON RIVERA: The system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore. Not even the members of the service. I know you were tired of these laws, especially the ones from the new DA. I hope he's watching you speak through me right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Our best wishes for the family heading forward. Our best wishes for you heading into the weekend. We'll see you on Monday. Thanks for joining Inside Politics. Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage after the break.

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