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Lawmakers Increasingly Hostile Despite Biden's Call For Unity; Johnson & Johnson Vaccine 66 Percent Effective, 85 Percent For Severe Disease; CDC Director: Two SC Cases Of Variant First Seen In South Africa Involve People Who Apparently Had No Link To Each Other, Didn't Travel; Joe Biden: "The Risk Is Not Doing Too Much, The Risk Is Not Doing Enough"; FBI: Pipe Bombs Found Near Capitol Jan 6th Placed The Night Before. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 29, 2021 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: That's exactly right. Dana thanks for sticking with me throughout the show today. I really appreciate it.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Great to be here, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Great. Thank you all for being with us this hour. I'm Kate Bolduan. John King picks up our coverage right now.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Top of the hour. Hello, everybody, welcome to "Inside Politics." I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing a very busy news day with us.

Some very important Coronavirus news this hour, some of it encouraging some of it concerning and a new push just moments ago from President Biden, he says the economy is reeling from this pandemic and that congress needs to act quickly on his COVID relief plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, the choice couldn't be clearer. We have learned from past crises the risk is not doing too much; the risk is not doing enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We heard from the president there just moments after the latest briefing from his new COVID health care team. The encouraging news from that briefing is that there is a third vaccine now on the horizon. Dr. Anthony Fauci says the data on this Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine is encouraging.

Dr. Fauci says Americans should not be skeptical of reported 66 percent effective rate. Getting more shots in arms is taking on even greater urgency now because of the emergence of Coronavirus variants or mutations. Fauci calls that variance a wakeup call that will require he says on-the-fly adjustments to existing vaccines to keep up against the changing mutations. The new COVID briefings are night and day from the previous

administration. Science dominates and this was interesting too. A clear effort by the new democratic White House to include Republican Governors as it prays states that are doing a better job getting vaccines off the shelf and into their residents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY SLAVITT, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER FOR COVID RESPONSE: I want to call out seven states that have already provided first vaccinations to more than 10 percent of their adult populations Alaska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Connecticut, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota. Well done!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: A quick look at some of the latest numbers then we'll have a conversation about the important context from that briefing. But let's just look at the numbers, the case count right now somewhat encouraging. Again, from a horrific point case were up here.

You do see Thursday, 168,000 new infections that's a high number, 168,000 but you see it is down from days when we were counting 250,000 or even more. So, the case trend is in the right direction.

The hospitalization trend coming down in the right direction however, 4,000 deaths reported yesterday, 4,000 deaths. This is always a lagging indicator and it is a sad still an incredibly sad high number. From everyone at the briefing, the key to this they said, was getting the case count further down, hospitalizations more down and the way to do that is through the vaccinations.

But you see most states dealt in the single digits when it comes to the percentage of their populations with the first vaccine dose that's why today's conversation was so important. To share their reporting and their insights CNN's Abby Phillip, the Managing Editor of AXIOS, Margaret Talev and CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, I want to start with you. Dr. Fauci was going out of his way. We hear about this new Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Still has to go through the government approval process but in a couple of weeks there could a third vaccine in the marketplace. Pfizer and Moderna the two vaccines already out there have 90 percent plus efficiency.

So, when you hear 66 percent the worry is that some Americans people are on the world will say away I want the gold standard I don't want this, what otherwise would be considered a very good vaccine. Listen to Dr. Fauci saying don't focus on the numbers focus on how this will help you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Overall, in the United States, in South Africa and in Brazil, the overall efficacy for severe disease was 85 percent. And in fact, in the study including in the South African isolate, there were essentially no hospitalizations or deaths in the vaccine group whereas in the placebo group, they were.

So, this really tells us that we have now a value-added additional vaccine candidate that will, of course as happens with every candidate will present the details of their data to the FDA.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: How significant here Elizabeth Cohen? You can hear the caution in Dr. Fauci the caution in the some of the other experts. However, there are hundred million doses of this vaccine in a warehouse. Is this game changing?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is game changing because the more people that can get vaccinated, the better. And John, I'm just going to lay it out there like it is. I asked experts. They said listen, if you are looking for a vaccine would you make the effort to get a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine because it is more effective?

And they said absolutely, I want Pfizer or Moderna, the numbers are better. But if I couldn't get it I wouldn't hesitate to take Johnson & Johnson because it is also quite good. And let's take a look at the numbers John that explain what they mean?

So, when you're looking at preventing moderate to severe COVID, Johnson & Johnson 66 percent effective, Moderna and Pfizer around 95 percent effective. That is a big difference.

[12:05:00]

COHEN: When you are looking at preventing severe cases keeping people out of the hospital, keeping them out of a ventilator, keeping them alive, Johnson & Johnson was 85 percent effective Moderna and Pfizer 100 percent or nearly 100 percent effective.

So again, bottom line if you can get Johnson & Johnson and you can't get the other to get it, you can always see about getting Pfizer and Moderna later. Experts tell me that there is no reason you can't get both of them. Getting one doesn't mean that you shouldn't get the other one later on if you can.

KING: And that Abby, Elizabeth makes the compelling medical argument there. The political argument comes there is already skepticism out there. Some of it historical, some of it a hangover from the Trump Administration where there are mixed signals out of a lot of these briefings.

The new team understands not only they have to get more vaccines produced get more vaccines to the states, get the states do a better job getting them in arms. But there is a public relations part of this is going to be absolutely essential.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's really crucial because people might look at these numbers are saying why on earth would I want to get something that is less effective?

But based on what Dr. Fauci is saying if you want to prevent yourself from going to the hospital or dying from COVID-19 its better. It's a better alternative than doing nothing and it's so crucial for the message to be consistent from the top to the bottom.

That has not been the case really up until this point because you even have mixed messages for now Former President Trump about whether he himself would want to take the vaccine? And a lot of different potential reasons for that but it was not coming all the way from the top.

And I think this is going to be a completely different public relations effort to convince people that it's an all hands-on deck effort to get vaccines into arms as quickly as possible.

KING: And Margaret, you spent a lot of time on this. It is night and day when you listen to the Biden COVID team versus some of these Trump briefings. And one of the things that make it night and day is that A, the science is driving the conversations. And B, they are much more candid about the challenges they face. It's not hey; we're rounding the corner and things like that.

Just in the conversations today, they are talking about these new variants and the impacts they could have on transmission and on the vaccines. They are saying on the fly, we are going to have to be able to adjust these vaccines.

The vaccine state distribution issues, I thought Andy Slavitt was quite candid and going out of his way to praise West Virginia, the Dakotas for example states with Republican Governors who are doing a better job getting vaccines off the shelves.

The general vaccine hesitancy, and then there is still in this, you could still say there is still a work in progress on trying to deliver on the president's promise to reopen schools. As you listen to the new team and its approach what strikes you the most?

MARGARET TALEV, MANAGING EDITOR, AXIOS: John, what strikes me is that there is actually a strategy like messaging strategy but also an actual strategy. There are three things they're trying to do at the same time, right? One is to address the vaccinations to get a pipeline going so the states have certainty so that the states can make their plans to get vaccines in the arms of people, so as the health crisis.

The second thing that they are trying to do is the school's crisis, getting children back to school. The economy can't really restart and so children go back to school. Children go back - can't go back to school until teachers are vaccinated and perhaps still kids are vaccinated and that's part of what they're trying to get put together here.

And then third is dealing with the economy. And we're seeing now Biden's messaging with the meeting with the new Treasury Secretary Yellen whose mantra is think big do big things. And the messaging to congress from Biden and his team which is we want unity, but we'll do it ourselves if we have to.

These are three things that they're really juggling at the same time. And the effort to be bipartisan about it is not just for messaging and public consumption it's because at the state level while many of these Governors in Republican states really do have to deal with the pressures of Trumpism and the hangover and whether they'll get primaries and all that stuff?

They're also executives of their states. They know no matter what the politics are that they have to get clear supply and an implementation plan in place. And they can't do it unless they know how many doses they're going to get? And they can't do that unless there is a clear centralized federal plan.

And that is the three - I think the three-ring circus that's underway right now. And the Biden team is trying to make it as calm as possible but it's really complex messaging and kind of pipeline planning beneath that layer of the messaging that you see.

KING: And Elizabeth, we just talked about in the context of the vaccines. Let's have a broader conversation now about these variants. Again, if you listen to team Biden, number one, we had the first results.

We talked about this yesterday of the two cases in South Carolina people who are not connected, people who had no history of travel which tells you there is community spread of these variants in South Carolina.

So, the assumption Dr. Walensky says, treat every new case as if it's a variant. That means it's out there and it's spreading in the communities. Their big message was A, do the things we've been told to do for a long time.

Wear your mask, maybe double your mask if you think you need extra safety. Keep your distance. Don't travel and then rush out the vaccines. When you talk to other experts not tied to the government, do they get the sense that the administration as on top of this? I know they're behind and some of the screening or is that still a work in progress?

[12:10:00]

COHEN: You know they can't really be on top of it because as we've seen these people in South Carolina just got it. They didn't travel. It's spreading in the community. The horse has left the barn. Where we are truly not on top of it is in genomic surveillance.

This country has lots of resources, lots of brilliant scientists. We should be detecting these variants much better than we are. There are small countries with no resources that are doing better than we are at detecting these variants and that is a huge problem. The United States has to get better at this.

And speaking of the vaccines, what the Johnson & Johnson trial shows and the Novavax trial shows is their vaccines did not work as well against this variant that was first seen in South Africa as other variants.

I mean, we now have numbers that show that the vaccines don't work as well. They still work and they still work well but the South African variant has, it seems, figured out a way that kind of, to some extent outwit the vaccines and that's not good.

KING: Right, so now your tests says Andy Slavitt said at the end of that briefing is to work on the fly. Do a chick hand study these variants develop booster shots or changes to the formula of the vaccines as you produce them which will be a fascinating challenge if we walk ahead.

And Abby, I want to close with this. So, you heard the President of the United States say congress, the economy is suffering in addition to we need help resources to speed up the vaccine rollout give me my package. A key 100-day promise is to get the schools open as quickly as possible.

Dr. Walensky at the top of the call tried to address that. There is resistance out their Governors, Mayors, School Administrators worried about safety. Teachers unions saying they wait a minute. We want more testing and we want to be vaccinated before we'll go. Dr. Walensky trying to essentially almost be a cheerleader saying, this is safer than you think. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: CDC continues to recommend that K through 12 schools be the last setting to close after all other mitigations have measures have been employed and the first to reopen when they can do so safely. Accumulating data suggests school settings do not result in rapid spread of COVID-19 when mitigation measures are followed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: They understand though, the resistance, understandable. In some places people think it's exaggerated. But the teachers union want more testing. They want more vaccines. That's part of the push on congress too and one of the reasons I think we'll quickly see all this talk about bipartisanship turn into Democrats passing this with democratic votes.

PHILLIP: This is going to be a big test for Joe Biden's Administration because the CDC now is in a position where they need to put out recommendations. When is it safe for schools to be open at what positivity levels? Do community positivity levels even matter for schools?

Should vaccination be criteria at all, or can schools be reopened without everyone being vaccinated? Once they do that, will the Biden Administration follow that science and have some hard conversations at the local level with teachers and with teachers' unions about what it takes to reopen schools?

That's going to be the biggest challenge. Just this week, the Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, took a question from our Kaitlan Collins about whether the COVID relief bill is a requirement for getting to 100 days schools reopen.

And she basically dodged the question but it's a really critical one. Are they relying on this extra money in order to fulfill that promise? And if they are, that's a big promise to break for the economy, for American families, and for working women.

And I think it is going to be a huge challenge especially as schools are starting to reopen right now, whether the Biden Administration is going to say clearly this is what the science says and we should try to follow it to the extent that we can?

KING: A lot of pieces, lot of moving parts in an important puzzle. We'll try to stand on top with Abby Phillip, Margaret Talev and Elizabeth Cohen I appreciate the reporting and the insights. Importantly, we'll continue the conversation just a moment.

Just some moments ago, the President of the United States is at the White House saying congress should act fast, quickly as quickly as possible. He says the economy needs help and needs it now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

KING: A forceful White House push just last hour for the big Biden Coronavirus stimulus bill. There is a congressional stalemate over the $1.9 trillion price tag, but the president and his new Treasury Secretary argue the risk is in going too small, not too big.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET YELLEN, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: And economists agree that if there's not more help many more people will lose their small businesses, the roofs over their heads and the ability to feed their families.

BIDEN: Millions of people are out of work, unemployed, future millions are held back for no good reason other than our failure to act. So, the choice couldn't be clearer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's discuss now. CNN's White House Correspondent, Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins, our Chief Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju.

Kaitlan, I want to start with you. There is still talk from the White House that we would like bipartisanship that we hope Republicans will come on board. That's the public talk. But in their actions, they seem to understand where this is heading?

This is a little bit of the Vice President Kamala Harris doing local TV reviews in Arizona and West Virginia with both just happens to have moderate Democratic Senators. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: President and I feel very strongly that these are the moments when we are facing a crisis of unbelievable proportion, that the American people deserve their leaders to step up and stand up for them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It tells me they understand actually despite all the public talk of bipartisanship that in the end here they need Joe Manchin and Christian Cinema make sure they're on board because this is most likely to be a democratic enterprise, otherwise that would be an interview for Susan Collins in Maine or Mitt Romney in Utah and it's not.

[12:20:00]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, these were specifically targeted with the vice president of course in Arizona and in West Virginia that's the reason she is doing local TV interviews to pitch this package because they do wanted to have bipartisan support.

They've been claiming they believe they can get significant bipartisan support but John, we are nowhere near that. And just despite this lobbying effort that we're seeing where the president is weaving this pitch into basically every conversation that he is having with reporters as he did just there where he was meeting with the economic team, as the Treasury Secretary did, as the vice president is doing in these local interviews they have not gotten that yet.

And so, I think the concern is that Democrats seem like they are moving or preparing to move full ahead with or without Republican support here. If you listen to what House Speaker Pelosi was saying so despite these continued and renewed calls from the White House to get a bipartisan package that doesn't appear to be the case at least right now.

So whether or not these lobbying efforts work, we'll wait to see. We do know they continue to have multiple conversations ranging from Biden's top economic adviser to Biden himself calling some of these Senators to pitch this plan.

And so, the one thing that White House has not said yet is amid these calls for a bipartisan package what Biden will do if only Democrats pass this package? If they use that little-known method called reconciliation, if they use that they only have Democratic supports.

Is it still going to be a bill that the president signs and that he pushes for? Or do they change their ways - are they willing to pare this back some so they can get Republican support? But right now, they are calling for bipartisanship but they are not seeing it on this bill.

KING: Let me place a little safe, very safe way to hear. He will sign it. He will sign it if it comes from all Democrats. Manu Raju, to that very point, there is this group of 16. There is an alleged effort to reach. I shouldn't call it alleged, it's an honest effort to reach a bipartisan group, but we've seen this so often before.

How many weeks did we wait for the bipartisan group that was going to solve repeal and replace Obamacare back in the Trump Administration? So they get together and again I'm not questioning the genuineness of the spirit going in but history tells us and especially this moment tells us the new Biden Administration is probably going to have to do this with just about all Democratic votes.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no question about it. And they remember what happened in 2009, the first year of the Obama Presidency in which they spent a lot of time negotiating with Republicans. First, on the first stimulus package they eventually got a handful of Republicans to support that in the Senate and then for months on the actual Obamacare legislation.

They spent months negotiating with Republicans. Ultimately that bill passed with just democratic support. They are not going to wait this long this time to try to get Republican support which seems highly, highly unlikely at this point given the fact the White House is showing no indication of coming back from that $1.9 trillion price tag that even Susan Collins of Maine, someone who would be a key swing vote here is not anyone near embracing.

So while they are saying they want to go in the bipartisan route they are making it very clear they're going to push a program that will be bagged mostly if not all by Democrats but they have very little margin for era because they will use the budget process.

That process will kick off next week is going to take most of February to get it all done and go through the various procedural maneuvers in the House and the Senate. But in the Senate, they're going to have to pass this with all 50 Democrats.

So that does means Joe Manchin and Christian Cinema the two centrist Democrats will have to agree with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders get on the same page on this program and get it out of the Senate if they're not going to get any Republican support, get Kamala Harris to break a tie so no margin from error here but it's clear the direction they're going, John.

KING: Next week when they start that process. It will be interesting to see if anything moves by then. Manu Raju on the Hill, Kaitlan Collins at the White House, grateful for the reporting and insights and when we come back, House Republicans in a bit of turmoil right now. Their leader goes to make nice with President Trump; a ranking file member goes to Liz Cheney's state to challenge her.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

KING: The FBI now says those two pipe bombs found near the Democratic and Republican Party Headquarters on January 6th were actually put there the night before the Capitol insurrection. Let's get more now what we're learning? We bring in our CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent Shimon Prokupecz, Shimon?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so John, this is actually much more significant than probably we've known concerning these pipe bombs. The fact that they were placed there the night before the FBI just releasing this information saying that they believe that this was placed there sometime between 7:30 and 8:30 pm the night before.

They also released new surveillance photos, enhanced photos of the sneakers this person was wearing. They said that they are Nike Air Speed Yellow. The point of all this is it really seems right now for the FBI and the ATF which is also involved in this investigation have really nothing to go on. Their leads have grown cold.

They're now also offering - they've upped their reward where it was 50,000, then 75,000, now its $100,000. They're really trying to get this person because they really would have seemed at this point have no clue who this individual is.

And also, what's significant here is that there is a level of planning that went into this. This person went through great means to try and disguise themselves. What vehicle perhaps, they drove to this location? The fact that the FBI and ATF have so little to go on here tells you the level of planning here and also perhaps that this person was a little more sophisticated than we have initially thought.

The other thing of course a law enforcement thing that perhaps that these devices were placed there to try.