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Polis Said He Was "Excited" By RFK Jr. As HHS Pick, Drawing Condemnation From Fellow Democrats; Colorado K-12 Vaccination Rates Lag Behind State's Goal; Dem Sen. Bob Casey Concedes PA Senate Race To Dave McCormick; 3 Undecided House Races Will Determine Size Of Slim GOP Majority. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 22, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:32:22]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: When President-elect Trump announced Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be his pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, most Democrats said they were outraged because of his anti-vaccine crusade and conspiracy peddling. But a few had a different take. Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis quickly posted on X that he was excited and looked forward to partnering with him.

The condemnation from fellow Democrats was swift and the governor quickly clarified that he didn't mean his praise to suggest he agrees with Kennedy on vaccines. And there he is, Jared Polis, joining me now. Thank you so much for being here, sir.

So since that initial statement in RFK Jr., you said that you and your family are vaccinated and you will hold any HHS secretary to the same high standard of protecting and improving public health. And you hope RFK Jr. can separate his, quote, "incorrect personal beliefs from the work he does on chronic disease". What makes you think he would do that?

GOV. JARED POLIS (D), COLORADO: Well, look, like any American, I respect whatever decisions he personally makes. I think he said he's partially vaccinated or received some, but not all the vaccines. But what -- I think, you know, I'm always was raised in a way where I try to look at the glasses half full.

Last time Donald Trump was president, he appointed a pharmaceutical lobbyist in charge of that agency, Alex Azar. We were able to make no progress on prescription drug affordability, on improving health, on reducing chronic disease. These are things that RFK says he wants to do as HHS director, save people money on prescription drugs.

Colorado has an application to import prescription drugs from Canada sitting at the desk of HHS. I'm hopeful he'll approve it. So I think it's important during the confirmation process to, of course, make sure that this is somebody who won't make his personal utterings and sayings into official policy, but will pursue policies on behalf of the American people. So I try to remain optimistic where I can. BASH: Well, I think your optimism is definitely to be applauded. But I want to go through -- I know you know a lot of these things, but just for our audience, some of what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said and done. So public health experts across the board say one of his most dangerous positions is falsely claiming that vaccine -- vaccines cause autism. It's not true.

Rigorous peer reviewed studies, including some that analyze more than a million children have shown there's no link between autism and vaccines. He's claimed there's evidence. The 1918 influenza pandemic was vaccine induced. That is not true.

He suggests HIV is not the cause of AIDS. That is not true. He said COVID-19 was targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people and that Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people are most immune. That is also not true.

[12:35:11]

I'm an Ashkenazi Jew and I got COVID. I get that you believe, sir, that RFK Jr. does make important points on the negative impact of pesticides, terrible, processed foods, horrible, some of the ag policies in the United States. I totally get it.

But can you just explain why that outweighs just some of what I listed about the misinformation that has real life consequences if he would be in charge of HHS?

POLIS: To be clear, those things are completely false about vaccines causing autism. Vaccines have saved millions of lives. You can look at how a lot of diseases that were the scourge of prior generations are all but eliminated or eliminated today.

And, look, I supported Kamala Harris. I wish that we were talking about her appointments and how wonderful they were, including for Health and Human Services. But should it be any surprise that when we have a president-elect who himself says false utterances as well, again, if that was disqualified, we wouldn't have this president- elect.

So we have to find a way to, of course, rebut those things and say these are the facts, but also look for opportunities where we can. And if there is an opportunity to reduce harmful pesticide use with negative consequences on the ecosystem and our health, if there's a way to save people money on prescription drugs, if there's a way to improve nutrition, reducing consumption of processed foods and increasing health, I think we've got to find a way to work with anybody in the incoming administration.

And just on vaccines, I mean, in your home state, because of some of the rhetoric that we've heard from RFK Jr. and people like him, you've seen a decrease in vaccinations in the '23-'24 school year. 92.1 percent of the students were vaccinated.

Among kindergartners, it fell to 90.1 percent. It sounds like a lot, but it's certainly going down. Are you concerned about that? POLIS: You know, our goal and what the science advises is we want to keep it north of 90 percent to establish kind of herd immunity, reducing transmission. Parents who make what I consider to be an ill- informed decision, it is their decision not to vaccinate their child, are, of course, putting their child at greater risk.

So, again, I encourage everybody to look at the data. It's not something that people should do at the point of a gun, it's something people should do because it helps save the lives of those that they love the most.

BASH: I want to turn to the state of your party. There's a new poll from Pew that found Democrats are less optimistic about your party's future than they've been at any point in the past eight years. So how do you and other elected Democrats fix that?

POLIS: Well, some of that's natural because guess what? Democrats didn't win at the presidential election. Did we come close in the House? We did. Did we only lose a couple Senate seats? We did. But, look, I think it's a journey of self-discovery.

Democrats are always asking ourselves the questions, what can we do better? What can we do wrong? Of course, that's natural for this period. Of course, we need to get past that and show a proactive agenda to save people money, reduce costs, make life easier and better for every American family.

Increase social and economic mobility by making training and apprenticeships more available. You know, we need to lay out that vision, but I think it's totally understandable that for a period of weeks or months, we're really deeply introspective and trying to figure out what the heck happened.

BASH: What's sort of, in a minute or less, the most important thing looking forward, going forward, that Democrats need to do to get that feeling about your party back up?

POLIS: Look, I think we need to show that we're the party of everybody, right? It's not on class lines. It's not on race lines. It's not on gender lines. We represent your interest, the American people, to reduce costs, to save you money, to reduce the tax burden, to increase opportunity and jobs.

There's going to be a lot to take on in the next administration. If they go with tariffs, that's going to increase costs by 20 percent on nearly every household item. We should go hard at that and also talk about expanding markets across the world for Made in America products and produce.

And if we have that positive forward-looking agenda, I know we're going to win back the hearts and minds of the American people.

BASH: Governor Jared Polis, it's always good to talk to you. Please come back soon. Thank you so much.

POLIS: Thank you. BASH: And coming up, it's locked. Senate Republicans secured a 53-seat majority as House Republicans hang on to the gavel by a hair. We'll talk about that next.

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[12:44:07]

BASH: Seventeen days after Election Day, the last remaining Senate race is finally settled. Three-term Democratic incumbent Bob Casey conceded to his Republican challenger, businessman Dave McCormick. The next U.S. Senate will now have 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats.

Now, in the House, we know Republicans will retain control. The question is, how slim of a majority will they have? There are still three races yet to be decided. Two in California, one in Iowa. You see them there. They're separated by just a few hundred votes right now. Depending on how those races end up, Republicans could have a majority as small as two or three seats.

Our terrific reporters are back with us now. You are there every day, and you have seen a narrow majority in the past Congress, I guess the current Congress, in the Congress before when Democrats held the gavel. It certainly makes it hard to get things through.

[12:45:09]

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and here's where it's going to matter. You have a bunch of tax provisions that are going to expire at the end of 2025. They're going to move through with this process to allow them to pass a massive tax bill --

BASH: Oh, you can say reconciliation.

FOX: I was going to say, but I didn't want to.

BASH: This is a safe space for reconciliation.

FOX: Thank you. They're going to try to pass it with using reconciliation, which means that they are going to be doing this with Republican-only votes. And you are already starting to see this huge debate about what to try to include, what not to include.

And they're going to fight about this just like they did health care back in 2017. And that is where every single vote matters. So those guys are going to be watching very closely to see how many of their Republicans hold on.

BASH: Why don't you just listen to something that the former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said -- she was on the show yesterday -- about the party in general and how it does or does not translate outside. Trumpism does not translate outside of Trump himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RONNA MCDANIEL, FORMER RNC CHAIR: There were people who came in and they said, I'm voting for Trump, and then they walked away and didn't vote down ticket and down ballot. We're probably going to have either the same House majority or smaller than we had coming out of 2022.

Trump brings out an electorate that may not show up in a midterm if his name's not on the ballot. And that's going to be important for Republicans to recognize heading into these next midterms.

BASH: And what does that mean, just real quick, about getting things done?

MCDANIEL: I mean, I think they've got to get it done fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. And what does that mean for what they're able to do? What does that mean sort of for the post-Trump party, right, that sort of starts pretty soon. He's not going to be on the ballot again, even though he sort of teases that maybe he will be.

So what does that mean, not only in the House, what does it mean in the Senate for the midterms? And how do they gauge how closely to hang to Trump? And does that actually translate into anything when he's not really on the ballot in the next midterms? It's a real test for these folks.

I think more in the Senate than in the House, because the House is just much more Trumpian than the Senate is. But those folks, if you're a senator, you're saying there is a post -- they've been here long before Donald Trump, and they're going to be here long after Donald Trump. So what does that mean for how they engage with what he wants to do.

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE DISPATCH: But, you know, look, I think Lauren is absolutely right about the margins making things -- making it harder to do things. On the other hand, counterintuitively, right, Matt Gaetz, for instance, will not be in the House.

Other than Matt Gaetz, there's a couple left. But the smaller the majority is, in a way, nobody wants to be the person to stick their hand up and screw things up, not just for Mike Johnson, but for Donald Trump.

BASH: That's right.

WARREN: So there is a --

BASH: It was fine to do it for Joe Biden.

WARREN: Absolutely.

BASH: Yes.

WARREN: You can sort of mess around with things. And nobody liked Kevin McCarthy. So it's easy to throw him under the bus. I do think there is a period now that's sort of what Ronna McDaniel was alluded to, to get things done fast, because nobody wants to be the person who screwed things up when the majority is that narrow.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: When you were the person who screwed things up before, you know, as Biden, as president, you might win praise from Trump --

WARREN: Absolutely.

KANNO-YOUNGS: -- who was in Mar-a-Lago at the time. This time he's going to be in the White House, and you don't want that spotlight to be on you. I do think -- I mean, a slim majority is a good way to also expose the divisions of a party.

So you're going to see the different factions come out. And it's a good way to also put pressure on the Speaker. We're going to see pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson as well. And in the coming months after Trump comes into the White House, I think this means we're going to see a blitz of proposals, you know, going towards Congress as well.

BASH: I don't want to sound Pollyanna, so I recognize that this is pie in the sky. But historically, slim majorities also give way to some bipartisanship.

FOX: That is a very optimistic one (ph). It does have to lead to bipartisanship on appropriations bills, on spending bills, because you still have to get things through the Senate, right? You can do reconciliation with some tax proposals and some health care provisions and cutting the budget in some small ways.

But if you're going to do immigration in a real way, you have to have a bipartisan --

BASH: Absolutely.

FOX: -- backing for that.

WARREN: I'll be interested to see, by the way, you know, Kamala Harris said on the trail, I would sign that bill that Donald Trump killed. If the Republicans bring up a similar bill, I'd be interested to see how many Democrats get on board in the way that they were willing to get on board when Biden was president. Just be interesting to watch.

HENDERSON: Yes, we'll see. I mean, do they want to sort of get past this issue of immigration, which hasn't, you know, been good for the Democrats over these last years? They clearly have moved to the right. Was that just political expediency?

WARREN: Yes.

HENDERSON: Or will they hew to that going forward?

BASH: All right, everybody. Thanks for a great discussion.

Don't go anywhere, though, because up next, a polar bear on Inside Politics? Yes, stay tuned.

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[12:54:15]

BASH: After such a, let's say, contentious time in politics, we decided here at Inside Politics that we could all use a little palate cleanser to start the weekend. What's better than animals playing in the snow? Look at that.

It's Hudson, the polar bear, feeling right at home, loving the winter weather, playing a little ball at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo and also feeling right at home in the snow. It's the zoo's Siberian tiger, happily watching the people who came to watch him.

And those are some brown bears, Tim and Jess, also living it up.

[12:55:08]

We're just going to watch all the -- oh, there's a reindeer. Maybe he's getting ready for something we all know is coming in December.

Thank you so much for joining me on Inside Politics. Please join me on Sunday, Republican Senators James Lankford and Markwayne Mullen will be my guests, along with Democratic Senator and Iraq War Combat Veteran Tammy Duckworth. I hope to see you Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Stick with CNN. CNN News Central will start after the break.