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U.S. Senate Passes Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and $3.5 Trillion Budget Reconciliation Bill; COVID Cases Continue to Rise in States Among Unvaccinated; Texas and Florida Governors Continue Ban on Mask Mandates in Schools; 3 Major Airlines Won't Mandate Vaccines for Employees. Aired 8-8:30a ET.

Aired August 11, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:00:41]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm John Berman side by side with Brianna Keilar this morning. It is Wednesday, August 11th. And mark your calendar. The early morning hours of August 11th, and I mean way early when only people like us are up, during that time the Senate passed something which might indicate that what Joe Biden planned to do, he might just get done. And the results have the potential to be big, maybe historically big.

So, in the wee hours of the morning, the Senate approved a $3.5 trillion budget resolution. The measure passed by a 50-49 party line vote. Only Democrats voting yes. But for this, they don't need Republicans. Now, this was the first step toward final passage of a spending plan that would allow Democrats to make mammoth investments in fighting the climate crisis, funding new health care measures, education stuff. It would increase taxes, we should note, on wealthy Americans and corporations.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And the vote for the resolution comes just after the president scored a companion victory, which is Senate passage of that bipartisan infrastructure bill, the trillion dollar one. Let's bring in CNN's John Harwood live at the White House. Look, still, still steps that need to be taken here for this to move forward and be a success. But it keeps plodding along, and you can't really overstate what a big deal this is, John.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, there's lots that could still go wrong. Many steps to go in this from process, as you guys just indicated. But sometimes in the back and forth we forget about the magnitude of what President Biden is trying to accomplish.

And what we saw last night in those two votes, first to pass the infrastructure bill in the Senate, then to pass this budget resolution in the early hours this morning, what you see is a two-track strategy that is on track to succeed. And if it does, it has enormous ramifications for the Biden presidency and also for the country.

Remember, Joe Biden said he was going to try to get things done across party lines, and he did that yesterday in the Senate. But that's the lesser part of the bill, or the lesser part of the significance.

The greater part is a big upgrade to roads, bridges, broadband, coupled with aid to struggling families that is very large. Hundreds of dollars a month to people with young children, more than $1,000 a month for some people on Obamacare in new subsidies, aid to historically black colleges and universities, free community college, universal preschool. All these things are very large -- Medicare, dental, eye and hearing coverage. All those things are huge if they get done. And Joe Biden has a good shot to do them before the end of this year.

BERMAN: There is a lot of this book left to be written, John. But for a moment I want to skip past the Joe Manchin chapter, the Kyrsten Sinema chapter of this book, the Pramila Jayapal chapter of this book, all of which will be written, because up until this point Joe Biden has shown the ability to navigate very difficult waters. This two- track process that you're laying out here is incredibly complicated, but so far he's on the path to success.

But what I want you to do is turn to the last page of this book if it's at all successful, put these achievements if he gets them in historic perspective. If he gets these two bills, if they become law, how big are we talking? Are we talking New Deal-ish type stuff, are we talking Great Society type stuff? How big of a change would it be?

HARWOOD: It's hard to make direct comparisons. I think the New Deal by any stretch was a larger set of accomplishments. But you've got, of course, the interstate highway system with Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. You've got the advent of Medicare and Medicaid and other Great Society measures in the 1960s. You've got Obamacare, which was also a large accomplishment.

But Joe Biden is right up there in terms of social policy benefits he's going to get enacted. And when you've got 19 Republican votes for the bipartisan bill and you hold all 50 for the partisan spending, social benefit bill that's going to go through reconciliation, that tells you that at this moment, the strategy is working.

[08:05:04]

I want to remember one thing that we talked about a lot in late June. Remember when they first struck this deal on a bipartisan basis, Joe Biden came out and made comments echoing Nancy Pelosi that, well, I'm not going to sign this unless I get the other bill, too, and Republicans were spooked, and people said, oh, what a mistake that he made.

I talked a couple weeks ago to Ben Nelson, former senator from Nebraska. He said that wasn't a mistake. You needed to have a stress test for how strong the bipartisan commitment was to that infrastructure bill. That was a moment of stress test because everyone understood that they were linked. Joe Biden said it out loud. That deal ended up passing the stress test with a vote from Mitch McConnell, Senate Republican leader.

BERMAN: If this succeeds, and we have a long way to go, it may be that someone with the experience that Joe Biden has had could steer it through this very, very narrow path. John Harwood, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

HARWOOD: You bet.

BERMAN: So, YouTube has suspended Rand Paul for posting a video that was just riddled with misinformation. So the truth, we should tell you, is masks work to stop the spread of coronavirus. The lie is they are ineffective. And now for spreading that misinformation, the senator from Kentucky has been blocked by YouTube for seven days because he put out a video spreading that lie.

Most parents seem to disagree with Senator Paul. A new poll suggests nearly two-thirds of adults with school age children favor mask mandates for unvaccinated students and staff. While this is going on, Florida and Texas are now seeking help from other states and the federal government to fight deadly COVID surges.

This is happening as their Republican governors are trying to restrict the freedom of towns and schools from making their own decisions about how to protect children. Both states now have more kids hospitalized than ever before.

KEILAR: In Texas, Governor Abbott is requesting help from out of state nurses and delaying elective procedures to deal with an overwhelming surge in cases. A health official says only 329 ICU beds are available in the entire state, and that includes just 27 in the Houston area where there are 7 million people. And the source tells CNN that the federal government has recently sent hundreds of ventilators to Florida. Governor DeSantis, though, claims to know nothing about that.

Amara Walker is live for us in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where they are defying the government's ban on mask requirements. They are not being deterred there where you are, Amara.

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, they are not. And that's because the situation here in Florida, Brianna, is very concerning. As this mask fight continues to escalate in Florida, the state is dealing with one of the highest hospitalization rates in the country. And 90 percent -- 90 percent of ICU beds have already been taken as of last week.

This is according to the Florida Hospital Association. And some children's hospitals in Florida are saying they're overwhelmed by the significant increase in the number of children coming in with COVID. Many of them having to be hospitalized. And that was what was in mind when the Broward County Public School Board voted to require masks when school classes resume next week. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you going to bully him into wearing a mask?

WALKER: Despite some protesters and the governor's threat to withhold funding, the Broward County School Board still vote today require masks this year.

ROSALIND OSGOOD, CHAIR, BROWARD COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD: I'm just not willing or play Russian roulette with somebody's life, especially not a child.

LAURIE RICH LEVINSON, VICE CHAIR, BROWARD COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD: We did what was the right thing in the best interests of our children.

WALKER: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis standing by his order banning mask mandates in school.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Ultimately, my view is it's a parent's decision.

WALKER: But for health experts, there's no debate. It's about keeping children safe.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: We need to take the politics out of this and simply state, this is for the health and safety of students.

WALKER: Florida's facial covering fight reaching the White House.

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The reason children are becoming infected is because in most cases they live in low vaccination rate states and communities, and they're getting it from unvaccinated adults.

WALKER: The state is averaging 19,250 new infections in the latest seven-day average, and many hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.

DR. SANJAY PATTANI, ASSOCIATE CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, ADVENTHEALTH ORLANDO: We see more patients coming to the hospital that are actually very sick, requiring our highest level of care in a very time sensitive manner. We have a very large need for critical care beds with critical care resources.

WALKER: The federal government sending at least 200 ventilators to Florida to help address the surge. DeSantis saying he was unaware of the request.

DESANTIS: I did not know about that. So I've not heard about that, so I have to check to see whether that's true or not.

[08:10:02]

WALKER: Meantime in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott also will not enforce any mask mandates including in schools. But two districts are defying the order and requiring them anyway. Now two Texas judges putting the governor's order on hold, at least until a hearing scheduled later this month. One judge saying citizens will be damaged and injured by Abbott's decision. Texas state health officials say there are just 300 intensive care unit beds available. Health care workers warming most people ending up in one due to COVID-19 have this in common.

DR. EMMA DISHNER, NORTH TEXAS INFECTIOUS DISEASES CONSULTANTS: Almost exclusively those admitted to the ICU are unvaccinated.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WALKER: Brianna, there are a total of three school districts in Florida that have imposed mask mandates, universal mask mandates, without giving the parents the option to opt their children out. So as a result, the superintendents and school board members of these schools now risk losing their salaries as a result as announced by Governor Ron DeSantis. And as we heard from President Biden yesterday, he and his administration are now looking into whether or not he has the presidential authority to intervene in these states that have prohibited mask mandates. Brianna?

KEILAR: It's interesting to hear one superintendent saying essentially they can forego their pay, but they'll be able to live with themselves knowing that they protected their students. Amara Walker, thank you so much, live for us from Broward County.

BERMAN: So, kids sick with COVID are filling up children's hospitals in areas of the country that are seeing these spikes, talking about Louisiana, among other places. One children's hospital in Baton Rouge has been at capacity for weeks.

Joining us now is Dr. Kelechi Iheagwara. He's the medical director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital in Baton Rouge. I should say she is. Doctor, thank you so much for being with us this morning. I really appreciate all the work that you are doing. Talk to me about the situation with kids in your hospital. How many are you seeing at this point? Is it a rise? And what's the range of ages?

DR. KELECHI IHEAGWARA, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, PEDIATRIC ICU, OUR LADY OF THE LAKE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Thank you, John. We are unfortunately at war right now in the pediatric population in terms of viruses. We are currently battling rhinovirus, RSV, as well as COVID. We have seen a significant increase in the number of COVID positive children that come through our E.R. This is actually the highest we've ever seen since the beginning of the pandemic. We are seeing kids really from all ages, from three weeks of age up to 17.

BERMAN: The highest you have seen in the pandemic. Why?

IHEAGWARA: Just to give you an example, we do think this is from the Delta variant. We just have a large number of people who are unvaccinated, and we have unmasked in the past couple of months. So this has all contributed to our rise in numbers. We had in June 22 patients seen in our E.R. with COVID, and in July that number increased to 60 -- I'm sorry, 75. And just in the first one week of August alone, we have seen 63 patients come through our E.R. with COVID.

BERMAN: There's just no question you are seeing more kids. How sick?

IHEAGWARA: The severity ranges. We have kids that come in through the emergency department and are able to be discharged. A few of them end up in our ICU, but a significant number end up in the regular floor requiring just monitoring and oxygen. For example, yesterday we had a total of nine patients admitted to our hospital, and one of those patients -- two of them were in the ICU. The rest were on the pediatric floor requiring just oxygen and monitoring.

BERMAN: I've got to say any of that is terrifying as a parent. You never want to see your child in any of those instances.

IHEAGWARA: It really is.

BERMAN: How many of the patients --

IHEAGWARA: Absolutely not.

BERMAN: How many of these kids are vaccinated that you're seeing?

IHEAGWARA: Of all the patients that are admitted to the children's hospital, none have been vaccinated.

BERMAN: What does that tell you?

IHEAGWARA: It tells us that we are not doing a great job in keeping our kids safe. We need to do better.

BERMAN: The zero vaccinated patients yet in your ward. Listen, Dr. Iheagwara, we appreciate the work you are doing. We hope you get the help you need, and we hope these trends turn around.

IHEAGWARA: I hope so, too, John. Thank you very much.

BERMAN: Joining us now is Dr. Ashish Jha. He's the dean of Brown University School of Public Health. Dr. Jha, zero patients that they are seeing in that pediatric hospital, that children's hospital are vaccinated. They have seen an enormous increase in the number of kids getting COVID, but none of them are vaccinated. That seems to me to tell a very clear story.

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yes, good morning. It is sobering, right. And I bet that most of the kids who are getting admitted not only are they not vaccinated, their family members are probably not vaccinated, because kids get it from the adults around them.

[08:15:11]

And so, the best way to protect kids who can't get vaccinated, kids under 12, is to have adults around them vaccinated. What we are seeing is a huge spike in infections in kids largely because they are in unvaccinated communities and households. KEILAR: It seems like we are tailoring information to people in very

different circumstances -- the vaccinated, the unvaccinated, the vaccinated who may be around people who cannot get vaccinated. You know, now, the vaccination is or the lack of is causing people to fall into these different groups.

I wonder, though, for the vaccinated, those folks, do they just -- we heard from columnist Andrew Sullivan talking about how he has lived with HIV now for 28 years. We've heard obviously people talk about how they have adjusted to the flu and getting a booster every year.

Are we just to the point where for the vaccinated we have to accept that this is going to be around?

JHA: Yeah. So, look, it is going to be around. We're not eradicating this virus any time soon.

So the question for those of us who are vaccinated how do we learn to live with it? Is it a minor annoyance or are we going to see people we love get potentially sick and die? I think we can get to the virus -- no longer a minor annoyance. That's by making sure people we live with, people we love get vaccinated. That includes kids under 12.

We need to get younger children vaccinated. I worry we're going to have communities in America we're going do see a lot of suffering and deaths for weeks, months or even years if we don't get the vaccination numbers up.

BERMAN: Look, you talked about kids younger than 12 getting vaccinated. When we hear from a hospital like the one we did in Baton Rouge, the doctor is telling us they are seeing zero patients vaccinated.

Does that argue the FDA needs to speed up the authorization process for kids younger than 12?

JHA: Yeah, we heard from America's pediatricians. We heard from the American Academy of Pediatrics. They wrote a letter to the FDA about a week ago.

What they said, look, based on the data we've seen, FDA should move forward because there is a cost to the delay, right. This is not like there's no big deal, take your time.

We want to see the data. But, a, if he is right and the data is clear on this, yes, the FDA should move quickly. That to me is the critical issue here.

KEILAR: I want to listen to something that Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis has said go the current spike in cases and hospitalizations in his state.

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GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): These things come. We have summer season for whatever reason in the Sunbelt, particularly Florida. We'll nose over it and go. It will probably come back in the winter just like last year. Not as much as the Northeast, but we'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I wonder what you think of that. Look, we realize that when it's very cold someplace people go inside. When it's very hot someplace, people may go inside to seek respite with some air conditioning. Is there a seasonality to this? Is that a way to look at this, or is there also something else going on in Florida?

JHA: I think there are two or three things going on at once. There is a seasonality to the virus. We think that cooler, dryer air actually spreads the virus more efficiently. That's why we tended to see the huge spike in the winter months. We see that with other coronaviruses, too, by the way. That doesn't explain Florida right now.

Right now, I think it is a combination of bad policies and the fact that it is very hot and people are spending more time in indoors and we know the virus likes to spread indoors. I don't think we want to blame all of it on seasonality. I think the broader issue here is that we have policies that can mitigate this and we're not employing them.

BERMAN: Policies that mitigate it like companies, many companies are now requiring vaccinations. Some aren't, right? The CEOs of three major airlines, Southwest, American and Delta say they are not going to require their workers to get vaccinated. United has done that.

Do you think this is something that would be useful for these companies to do, or how comfortable would you be flying in a place where, you know, the people on the plane won't require you to be vaccinated?

JHA: Yeah, I found that decision by those companies really disappointing, partly because I fly Delta a lot and now I'm going to have to think about whether that makes sense. The idea that they're not going to protect their customers by asking employees to be vaccinated is baffling.

So I do think these companies should reconsider that decision. It's clearly the right thing to do. We're seeing more and more vaccine mandates from other employers, other industries. And airlines, which have always sort of led on safety, deciding that that's no longer a priority really strikes me as an odd decision.

KEILAR: Just real quick, Dr. Jha, would you recommend, and you in your case, fly one airline over another if that one airline required the vaccine for its employees?

JHA: Yeah, I really hadn't thought about it. I just assumed all the airlines would do this. When United did, I assumed everybody else would.

[08:20:05]

But, yeah, I don't really love being around people, adults who are unvaccinated. I think it puts everybody at risk. And if one airline is choosing to do that, I would start worrying about their broader safety policies. And certainly would make me think about who should I be flying.

KEILAR: Dr. Jha, it is great to see you. Thank you so much, it is great to see you this morning.

And there are warrants out for arrest for the Democrats who fled Texas to stop Republicans for making it harder to vote. We'll have live reaction from one of those Democrats next.

BERMAN: Plus, the COVID whistleblower demoted by former President Trump speaking out after a key development in his case.

Plus.

Who doesn't love Skid Row?

KEILAR: Who doesn't? I'm loving it right now.

BERMAN: So, the heavy metal front man now singing the praises of coronavirus vaccines.

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KEILAR: Overnight, Texas's statehouse speaker, a Republican, signed civil arrest warrants for 52 Democrats absent from a special legislative session. Those Democrats left the state to bust the statehouse's quorum hoping to prevent the overwhelmingly Republican legislature from passing bills that restricted voting. The state sergeant at arms should receive those warrants any minute now, and joining us to talk about them is one of those lawmakers facing arrest, Democratic Texas State Representative Ron Reynolds.

[08:25:08]

Sir, thank you so much for being with us. I should point out you are still in D.C. This would not apply to you unless you went back to Texas. There are some Democrats, as I understand it, who have gone back to Texas.

What would this process, as you understand it, look like if you or others are arrested?

RON REYNOLDS (D), TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Well, Brianna, it's great to be with you on NEW DAY this morning.

As you stated, I am in Washington, D.C. with some of my colleagues. Many of us have returned to Texas, and this applies to any of the 52 of us. If we are anywhere within the state that has jurisdiction over us with law enforcement, then we can be arrested on the spot, whether we're with our families, we're with constituents, no matter where we are, we can be hauled against our will and taken not to a jail facility, maybe unless we resist arrest but to the House floor chamber so we can make a quorum so they can ram down these voter suppression bills so they can get their legislative agenda accomplished.

So that is, in essence, what it does. It allows law enforcement officers across the state of Texas, it gives them jurisdiction over us, our bodies so that they can make us go to the house floor so that they can accomplish their goal of a quorum.

KEILAR: Do you want to be arrested? And I ask this because you recently were on the capitol protesting voting rights limits. Does this work as you see it to your advantage to be arrested?

REYNOLDS: No, none of us want to be arrested. We want to continue to advocate for our constituents. That's what we're doing. We're not trying to be martyrs. We're trying to protect the fundamental precious right to vote, the most precious right that we have as Americans. It is the bedrock of our democracy.

So, none of us wants to be arrested. We believe that this is a overstep by the Republican leadership, that we are simply exercising our rights as legislators to protect millions of Texans, to protect our democracy.

So, no, we don't want to be arrested. We want to continue to advocate for congress, specifically the U.S. Senate, to pass federal voting rights legislation. And there is not one single one of us that wants to be arrested.

But guess what, we're not cowering to the threat of arrest. We're going to continue to advocate and fight and speak truth to power. But if we are arrested, then that will be something that we're prepared for, but none of us are trying to get arrested intentionally.

KEILAR: Just real quickly before I let you go, I know that campaign funds were paying for this trip at the beginning. It has lasted awhile now. Are any taxpayer dollars paying for this?

REYNOLDS: Absolutely not. Not one single penny from taxpayer dollars. All of this is from private donations and from our own pockets, our own campaign funds. It is all private funds.

KEILAR: And, look, when will you return to Texas? Ultimately you have to.

REYNOLDS: Absolutely. We know that Congress is in session right now, the U.S. Senate. They just passed the infrastructure bill, and we know that we're dealing with a fierce urgency of now. We want to return to Texas, but not until the Senate recesses.

We are going to be on the Hill today advocating for passage of HR-1, the For the People Act. We are prepared to be in D.C. as long as the U.S. Senate is working. Hopefully, we'll be out of D.C. very soon, but not a moment sooner than the Senate recesses.

KEILAR: All right. August is slow in Washington as you know.

State Rep Ron Reynolds, thanks for being with us.

REYNOLDS: Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Up next, new developments on rick bright. He is the COVID whistleblower who was demoted by former President Donald Trump, and he is going to join us live. BERMAN: And the downside of the red hot U.S. economy, rising prices.

Is inflation getting worse?

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