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COVID-19 Cases and Hospitalizations Rising in U.S.; Health Experts Recommend Getting Vaccination and Booster to Combat Omicron Variant of Coronavirus; Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) Interviewed on Continuing Negotiations over Build Back Better Legislation in Senate and Senate Parliamentarian Ruling Immigration Reform Must be Removed from Bill; House Probe: Trump Administration Deliberately Undermined COVID Response for Political Purposes. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 17, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Are now cracking down on the unvaccinated. And this is a big move. New Orleans, the public school system, just became the first in the nation to mandate vaccines for children five and up.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's huge for parents, and it starts next month, I believe. So that's going to be a big change for them.

And when it comes to all of this, you've got to look at the numbers here, because the U.S. is averaging 119,000 new cases each day. That is 40 percent higher than where we were a month ago. Coronavirus hospitalizations are also 40 percent higher, and more than 67,000 people. ICU cu beds are 78 percent full. One in five of those patients has COVID. Nationwide, 1,326 coronavirus deaths being reported on average each day. And the CDC is predicting that hospital admissions could reach record levels in the coming weeks.

And so with cases and deaths looking a lot like what we saw last winter, what is different is we're about to approach pre-pandemic levels of travel. President Biden during all of this is a period of people getting ready to travel for the holidays is appealing directly to people who have not yet gotten the vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for unvaccinated, for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they'll soon overwhelm. But there is good news. If you're vaccinated, you have your booster shot, you're protected from severe illness and death, period.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now is Dr. Ali Khan from the University of Nebraska Medical Center's College of Public Health. Dr. Khan, we're seeing lines around the block here in New York City to get tested this morning already before they were even open. We have seen the positivity rate shoot up in this city. We saw testing lines in Miami as well. These case numbers, the case numbers, I understand that's not hospitalizations and deaths, but the case numbers really seem to be shooting up. What's going on here?

DR. ALI KHAN, DEAN, COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER: So thank you, John. What's going on is more of Delta. So this is the wave that we started in the summer that started in Florida and now has moved its way into the Midwest and up into the northeast. And so that's what we're seeing right now. And what the focus on is the fact that we've got healthcare rationing, we've had healthcare rationing going on since the summer, and that continues as we have healthcare systems that basically can't accept patients anymore, have canceled surgeries, burnout, healthcare workers deciding not to work anymore.

So we -- but I want to be positive, right. We have the tools. With some science and trust, the end of the pandemic is here. And it involves exactly what you said. I liked the earlier segment. So we need to pull up from diving into the volcano here. So it's -- for those who are not vaccinated, and that's three times more Republicans than Democrats, they need to get vaccinated, right. This is that trust issue. Get vaccinated. And for those who have been vaccinated, please get your third dose. Test, yes. Test early if you're sick. Remember the value of masks, and if people want to do something that they have not done before, they can take the European approach and upgrade their mask to a better quality mask.

COLLINS: Dr. Khan, I wonder, because we talked so much about living with the pandemic, that it is something that now doctors have said this is going to be the new normal potentially, where you are just seeing more variants. But things are different, because as you noted, there are vaccines, there are boosters, there are new treatments. Testing is still not where a lot of officials say it should be. But is this kind of that phase of where you are learning to live with the pandemic in a different way than how we reacted to, say, the Delta variant, or the original strain of COVID?

KHAN: So, Kaitlan, you're spot on there. I don't like the word "pandemic" because it means two separate things. It means it's everywhere and it means it's severe. So we have a flu pandemic every year and we don't talk about it.

So the point is, why is this a pandemic? It's a pandemic because it is disrupting society. It will no longer be a pandemic when we don't have to have schools out, when we don't have to have businesses out, when you can go to the doctor and get admitted to a hospital, when we don't have COVID inflation of eight percent. That's when it's no longer a pandemic and you can deal with the cases that are occurring.

BERMAN: So, Dr. Khan, I'm looking at what the NFL has done overnight, and it sounds in some ways contradictory and incongruous, but I think you can explain how two things can be happening at the same time. On the one hand, strict new rules in place for players, need to be masked everywhere in the facilities, they don't want them leaving the hotels on road games, they're keeping them all separate as much as possible in the weight room, et cetera, et cetera.

On the other hand, they're trying to speed up the time that people who test positive and are asymptomatic can get back on the field. That sounds incongruous, but it might in some ways be a microcosm of where we are in the pandemic this morning.

KHAN: Absolutely. And that's what happens with flu. Routinely every year, everybody gets vaccinated, and we allow people who are sick to be out in the community.

[08:05:02]

So if there is consent here between all the players, if they're asymptomatic, fully vaccinated, that they interact with each other under those settings, that seems pretty reasonable.

COLLINS: And I took a question about boosters, because CNN analyzed some CDC data, and they said it is going to take at the current pace more than two months for just half of adults to get a booster. And so I do think some of this factors into what the decisions were from the CDC when they said everyone can get a booster, but they didn't recommend it for everyone. They only recommended it for certain groups. Of course, then as the Omicron variant surfaced, you saw the CDC come out, they made a small change to the language, but it was a big change, saying that everyone should get a booster. Of course, now that's the number one message coming from the White House. So do you think that is something that they should have been pushing earlier, that everyone should get a booster, not that everyone could get a booster?

KHAN: I don't believe so. The reason to get the booster is based on additional doses, and based on additional data that the Omicron variant requires three doses instead of two because of the mismatch between the new version of the virus and what the original version looked like. There is no agenda that people should get three, four, or five booster doses, right? It just depends on how the disease is unfolding. So it's appropriate now. But not just the boosters, we need the 50 million Americans with who have not gotten vaccinated to go out and get that first dose. That will make a bigger difference.

BERMAN: If people need to know, two things can be true. If you're vaccinated and boosted, you're going to be OK, even if you get infected. For the most part you're going to be OK. But, and our hospital system is overwhelmed as it is. So if these cases continue to rise and unvaccinated people end up at these hospitals, they're already overwhelmed. There is nowhere to go from here for some of these hospitals. So we're facing a real problem and a real challenge.

Dr. Khan, we appreciate you being with us. There is one message you always like to send, and that is --

KHAN: Get vaccinated and mask on, America!

BERMAN: Mask on, America. Captain America right there for us here. Dr. Ali Khan, thank you very much.

KHAN: Thank you very much. Be safe.

BERMAN: So how bad has this week been for Senate leadership and the president's agenda? Well, I suppose you could say this bad. President Biden had to officially acknowledge his Build Back Better plan will miss its Christmas deadline. Sources now tell CNN that Senator Chuck Schumer will probably punt the bill into 2022. It's not that long from now. He's basically acknowledging there's no way to get it done in the next week-and-a-half and we'll wait until 2022.

On top of that, the Senate parliamentarian rejected Democrats third attempt to include immigration reform in the bill. That could be their last attempt at providing protections to millions of undocumented immigrants without Republican votes. Then there's voting rights. The president tried to shift the focus this week and get Congress to pass voting rights protections after a slew of Republican state legislators passed restrictive voting laws, but Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, they have not budged on any kind of change to the filibuster rules, meaning that it cannot happen, no movement, because there is no Republican support.

COLLINS: So my next guest was among the group of senators who joined President Biden and Vice President Harris yesterday to talk about voting rights. Democratic Senator from California Alex Padilla joins us now. He is on the rules committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee as well. So Senator Padilla, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

And, first, just right off the bat, what did President Biden tell you during this meeting yesterday? We know it was over Zoom. But what did he say about voting rights right now?

SEN. ALEX PADILLA, (D-CA) JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Good morning, Kaitlan. And before I get to what the president said, let me just remind everybody, nobody said this was going to be easy. I didn't take this job because I thought it would be easy. I took this job because I thought these issues are all so important, and, yes, very urgent.

On the Zoom session yesterday, with the number of members, the president reiterated his commitment. We all understand the urgency with which we need to get this done. It is not just about the 2024 elections. I get that question a lot. We have the 2022 elections coming up. And I'm not just talking about next November. I'm talking about primaries that are just a matter of months away.

So the conversation was less the need for protecting the right to vote and more how do we massage the rules of the Senate to allow what we need to happen to move forward? And I think we're making progress.

COLLINS: And so, of course, on that call was Senator Manchin who that has been a critical component to whether or not those rules are going to change in the Senate. So what did President Biden say about changing the rules to get something like that passed?

PADILLA: Look, as much as he adores the time he spent in the Senate, he knows that it's the Senate that needs to take this step. He's certainly familiar with the rules and the procedures and has relationships that are being very helpful to my colleague from West Virginia. He's made it clear. He's not for eliminating the filibuster. I am. But he's not. So the conversation is now, well, how do we reform the filibuster and, frankly, restore the Senate to an era of productivity, because for too long the filibuster has been abused, to obstruct, and there are so many issues that can't wait anymore.

[08:10:15]

COLLINS: So were any decisions made during this call yesterday about how to change those rules?

PADILLA: A lot of ideas on the table. Won't get into the details of that as we try to negotiate something. But the hope, the plan is to, when we return in January, to make quick progress on there, because, like I said, it is not about 2024. It's not about November, 2022. It's about upcoming primaries, and all eligible Americans fundamental right to vote.

Given my experience as secretary of state in California, I can tell you that all the reforms that we have included in the freedom to vote act don't just make it easier for eligible people to register to vote and cast their ballots. It actually helps maintain and strengthen the integrity and security of our elections. It is not an either/or. We can and need to do both.

COLLINS: So, of course, this is something you're saying we could see movement on it in January.

I do want to get your take on something else, of course. Senator Manchin was on this call. We saw President Biden issue a statement yesterday, essentially acknowledging that he does not think that that expansive economic and climate bill that he wanted to get passed by Christmas is going to happen. And he did not put a new timeline on it when it comes to passing it in the new year. And so I do wonder, we were told by Senator Warren that the Senate Dem lunch yesterday was pretty intense. So were you at that lunch, and what happened behind the closed doors?

PADILLA: Absolutely intense, yes. I was there. And again, I think it is an acknowledgement of how important these measures are. We did pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill that President Biden signed into law. But we have known all along that that is not enough. And so negotiations continue on the Build Back Better act.

And let me actually take a step back and remind all of us why this Senate Democratic caucus palace intrigue is the center of attention. It's because Republicans are refusing to participate in a discussion in how we invest in our nation's healthcare infrastructure, how we invest in the care economy, with more people in need of childcare, elder care, everything in between. And how we not just invest in infrastructure, but tackle climate change. Extreme weather patterns are increasingly severe. We see it in hurricanes in the southeast, wildfires in the west, tornadoes in Kentucky when it is not tornado season. What more evidence do you need we need to take quick, aggressive action on climate? And, by the way, immigration reform must be in Build Back Better

because immigrants are an essential part of the workforce in every aspect of our infrastructure. So it only works when it all works together.

COLLINS: And I do want to ask you about the immigration aspect of this, but you're talking about how important it is to get something passed when it comes to climate change. But what is the new timeline for Build Back Better now?

PADILLA: Look, my timeline was months ago. And so if we need to take a few more weeks or whatever the timeframe is to actually get it done, then let's do that. I know that negotiations continue in real time. It's not shelved. I take issue with the characterization that it has been shelved. The deadline has been extended. We don't know the hard deadline, but the work and the negotiations absolutely continue.

COLLINS: Isn't this exactly what progressive Democrats were worried about, though, that they would vote for the infrastructure bill, it would get passed, it's been signed into law, and then when it comes to this other second part that they wanted to move together with it, now it is stalled? You don't want to say shelved, but it is certainly stalled. And there is no timeline for it right now. So wasn't this the worst nightmare, essentially, the outcome that progressive Democrats had predicted?

PADILLA: Well, certainly a concern. But actually, the bipartisan bill is very instructive here. Remember, the bipartisan infrastructure deal that there was a deal, then it fell apart, then there was an agreement again, then it fell apart. It happens a few times before you finally get to the finish line. That's exactly what's happening here.

And again, a reminder, the reason it is even more challenging to get to the finish line is because Republicans are refusing to participate. If you are looking forward to extending the child tax credit, if you're a parent that is trying to get back to work but need a safe place to leave your kid when they're not in school, if we learn nothing else from this pandemic, it is the need to invest in modernizing, expand capacity of our healthcare infrastructure. It's Democrats that are figuring out how to do that, and Republicans don't want to lift a finger.

COLLINS: Senator Padilla, we know the immigration aspect of this, which of course the Senate parliamentarian said cannot be included in this bill is something that you have been behind and you have said that you are going to keep fighting for that. Thank you so much for joining us this morning on all the latest.

PADILLA: Absolutely. Continue to stay safe.

COLLINS: We have breaking news with the House Oversight Committee releasing its investigation of the Trump administration's COVID-19 response --

[08:15:00]

SEN. ALEX PADILLA (D-CA): Continue to stay safe.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: We have breaking news with the House Oversight Committee releasing its investigation of the Trump administration's COVID-19 response with some damning results. That's next.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And hear what happened when a Parkland father finally got a meeting with a Biden administration after camping out in front of the White House for the past 15 days.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Released just moments ago, a House Oversight Committee report claims Trump administration officials made, quote, deliberate efforts to undermine the nation's coronavirus response for political purposes.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty just got her hands on this report.

Sunlen, I know you're pouring through it right now. But give us the top lines you've seen so far.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, John, this is, so far, a very damning report of how the Trump administration handled their COVID response. This is a report from the House Oversight Committee. They conducted months and months of interviews with former Trump administration officials who were there during the pandemic response.

And this report out of the committee concludes that, quote, Trump administration officials engaged in a staggering pattern of political interference in the pandemic response and failed to heed early warnings about the looming crisis. These decisions placed countless Americans' lives at risk, undermined the nation's public health institutions and contributed to one of the worst failures of leadership in American history.

[08:20:01]

And the report cites, according to the committee, many powerful anecdotes that they say they gathered over the course of the administration's response including Trump administration officials they say blocking numerous officials from speaking publicly about the state of the pandemic. In one case, the report cites that Trump was so angered by a briefing that he blocked CDC officials from briefing the public for three months.

Another anecdote, again, the committee states in this report, said another official wanted to hold a briefing about recommendations to wear face masks and also brief about the status of deaths and cases among pediatric cases, and that Trump specifically blocked that request.

This report also really does shine a light on the agony that the Trump officials were facing, they were concerned and frustrated on the directive they were receiving.

Dr. Jay Butler, then deputy director for the infectious diseases of the CDC, he says that he was directed in may 2020 to put an updated guidance about faith community and he says, according to the committee, he told the committee, quote, I was doing a lot of soul searching about whether or not I should have even agreed to make changes in the document. It was a directive, but a real struggle as I felt like they had been done -- had been done was not good public health practice.

And in another case, John, Dr. Debbie Birx, the head of the COVID response force, she said she specifically wanted to sit out a meeting at the White House because she said that there were fringe doctors included in that meeting lineup. So, all of this, again, painting a very concerning picture of what was going on in the early days of the pandemic.

Now, notably, CNN has of course reached out to the parties that were named in this committee document, a report and we have not independently yet confirmed these allegations -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Sunlen Serfaty, dig back into the report. Let us know what you learn. There is so much in there.

Joining us now, John King, CNN's chief national correspondent and anchor of "INSIDE POLITICS."

John, we're getting our first look at this. It is in line, I think, with some of the things we knew about before. But to hear things like the CDC not allowed to brief the public for three months because the president didn't like the political implications of it, it is just at this stage after 800,000 Americans dead is just so disheartening.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is depressing. And it is alarming and it is a warning sign. Remember, we're at 15 cases. We'll soon be down to zero. That was the former president of the United States deliberately -- deliberately mis-communicating to the American people about the stakes of the coronavirus pandemic. That was at the beginning.

As you note, we sometimes get numb to this and we forget it, more than the population of San Francisco has died in the COVID pandemic. And the former president of the United States bears some responsibility for it, plain and simple. Some people get mad I said that, but the former president of the United States bears responsibility for the size of that number plain and simple.

Let's connect the dots, because this is what's dangerous. A lot of people will say, there you go. The media is looking back at Trump again. The president of the United States put his re-election, he valued that more than American lives, more than the public safety, the public health of the American people. And this is important, people around him helped him, right?

That same former president then valued holding on to power more than the democratically results of the election and the people around him helped him. That is an autocrat -- a dangerous autocrat who is hurting his country and using his power for him, not for you and me and everybody watching.

COLLINS: And I'll tell you, seeing these -- the results of this report, it is not surprising to anyone who covered the White House at this time, talked to the officials, talked to their deputies. It was a really an effort that -- where they had to factor in political decisions into everything they said.

But, John, I wonder what you think about something else that happened yesterday. President Biden putting out the statement, acknowledging his economic and climate bill, the big package he wanted to get passed and signed into law before the Christmas holidays is not going to happen right now. It is stalled. He is saying they are continuing the negotiations. He also called out Senator Manchin by name and said in the statement that they have failed to reach an agreement.

KING: So this gets punted into early next year. And if the Democrats can pass it early next year, much more complicated in an election year, much more complicated if you continue to see high inflation numbers and Manchin won't come around. Sinema may find another reason to reject.

So, President Biden can end this first year saying yes, we passed a giant COVID relief package. Yes, you just talked to Senator Padilla, a landmark bipartisan infrastructure bill. That helped keep America safe, the COVID package, that will help create American jobs, the bipartisan package.

But remember his calling card when he ran. Trump's a talker, I'm a doer, right? So, these are the central Democratic promises, Build Back Better, the reconciliation bill, the social safety net, call it what you will.

Yes, he can say we have some significant accomplishments in first year, but next year is a midterm election year.

[08:25:04]

Next year is all about intensity. Next year is all about making sure your base comes out to vote, a challenge for the Democrats that is even harder because of the new restrictive voting laws Republicans have put in place in many places. If Democrats are demoralized because the president promised on climate, he promised on the child tax credit, he promised on home care.

I get that it is complicated. It is very hard. But he said he could do this and this is a giant governing challenge heading into what is going to be a very difficult year.

BERMAN: You are hearing from Democrats, they're really mad. Democrats are mad at each other right now in ways we haven't seen before. Some are saying, you know, maybe it is a good thing we're all going home for two weeks and not looking at each other. It is not going to get productive over the next few nights.

John, I want to go back to COVID now, where we are, because this poses challenges for the current administration, when you see this rise in cases, when you see omicron coming into the United States, it really -- you see a limited number of options, I think, on the table politically for an administration because the country is not going to go back into lockdown. It just politically can't happen. It makes very hard, I think, for a White House to navigate.

KING: This is a giant leadership challenge. It's very different. You have a president now who has a public health team that does share information with the American people that does talk about, you know, the data, does not try to hide the data and keep people from talking. It is very different from the Trump administration.

But the leadership challenge for the president is, he did give a speech back on July 4th that was overly optimistic about what would come next. You can criticize him for that. He's going into a new year where we know we have seen it in the last couple of days and we know how exponential math works.

Look where you are now in New York City, especially among the unvaccinated, but among everybody, omicron cases, the delta surge already. The combination of those two things, when we get to early January, all the smart people say we're going to see an explosion of cases again. That explosion is going to be bigger in red America.

The people who did not vote for Joe Biden, Joe Biden is going to be urging them, please, if you haven't done it by now, get a vaccine. Please, get a booster shot.

And the challenge for the president is going to be the case count is going up and he's -- you know, look, he's the president at this time. Again, there is the politics of it in a midterm election year. He wants to state economy is better. We're moving into the next chapter.

But then there is the public health challenge of it, of the president trying to persuade a whole bunch of people who have not listened to him so far, that -- yes, this is back again, it's different, but it's still a challenge, please help. The question is, will they listen.

COLLINS: It's a big struggle. And we should note, the White House picked up the COVID briefings again. They have been doing them once a week, maybe not always once a week, now another one today, the second one this week.

BERMAN: That's interesting.

COLLINS: Yeah.

BERMAN: All right. John King, you can watch John King at noon on "INSIDE POLITICS" and watch with John and me the Patriots play tomorrow night.

Thanks, John.

KING: Thank you.

BERMAN: So, we're going to be joined by the lawyer of a January 6th rally organizer. What his client just handed over to congressional investigators that he says should terrify members of Trump's orbit.

COLLINS: And the father of a parkland shooting victim has spent days outside the White House, trying to get a meeting with President Biden. He has a promising update that we'll share with you next.

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