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Biden: "I'm Not Cutting The Size Of The Checks," They'll Be $1,400; Biden Admin. To Use Defense Production Act For Pfizer Vaccine Supplies, At-Home Tests And PPE That Workers "Desperately Need"; WH Holds Briefing As Congress Moves Forward On COVID Relief Package. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 05, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, just this week, the Congressional Budget Office projected that if we don't take action, it would take them to the year 2025 to return to full employment.

There's also a growing chorus of top economists, right, center, left, that say we should be less focused on the deficit and more focused on the investments we make and can make now in jobs, keeping families out of poverty, and preventing long term economic damage to our nation. The simple truth is, if we make these investments now, with interest rates at historic lows, will generate more growth, higher incomes, a stronger economy, and our nation's finances will be in a stronger position as well.

And the path won't just be in jobs, but in our global competitiveness as well, because we'll be regaining our economic strength faster. So, the way I see it, the biggest risks is not going to big if we go too small. We've been here before. When this nation hit the great recession that Barack and I inherited in 2009, I was asked to lead the effort on the Economic Recovery Act to get it passed. It was a big recovery package, roughly $800 billion.

I did everything I could to get it passed, including getting three Republicans to change their votes and vote for it. But it wasn't enough, it wasn't quite big enough. It stem the crisis, but the recovery could have been faster and even bigger. Today, we need an answer that meets the challenge of this crisis, not one that falls short. And that's the issue facing the country right now.

What Republicans have proposed is either to do nothing or not enough. All of a sudden, many more rediscovered fiscal restraint and the concern for the deficits, but don't kid yourself. This approach will come with a cost more pain for more people for longer than it has to be. Secretary Yellen talks about the scarring effect that comes with prolonged economic pain. We see that scarring effect and economic data. But more important, we can see it in the lives of people living with long term unemployment, living in hunger, at wit's end over how to keep their jobs, take care of their kids.

And then she talks about the need to alleviate long term suffering in the economy, we can do that. We don't have to wait for 2025 to get back to full employment, which will be the case if we don't do this. Again, independent analysis from places like Moody's, from Wall Street, Brookings Institution, the American rescue plan could achieve that by the beginning, the full employment, by the beginning of next year.

So to me, this is what this moment comes down to. Are we going to pass a big enough package to vaccinate people, to get people back to work, to alleviate the suffering in this country this year? That's what I want to do. Or are we going to say to millions of Americans who are out of work, many of whom have been out of work for six months or longer, who have been scarred by this economic and public health crisis. Don't worry, hang on, things are going to get better. We're going to go smaller. So this is going to take us a lot longer like until 2025. That's the Republican answer right now.

I can't in good conscience do that. Too many people in nation have already suffered for too long through this pandemic and economic crisis. And telling them we don't have the money to alleviate their suffering, to get the full employment sooner, to vaccinate America after $8 trillion in deficit spending over the past four years. Much of it having gone to the wealthiest people in the country, is neither true nor necessary.

We do have the resources to get to full employment sooner. We do have the tools to reduce a lot of suffering in this country. We just have to choose to use them. So it's time to act. We can reduce suffering in this country. We can put people back to work. We can control, gain control this virus. That's what the American rescue plan does. And that's what I'm determined to do. And that's what I hope we're going to be able to do in the near term.

So may God bless you all, and God protect our troops. And I truly believe real help is on the way. Thank you all so very much. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President --

[12:35:01]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: President of the United States, Joe Biden, that's the State Dining Room at the White House walking out not answering questions from reporters after delivering a speech, a forceful speech making the case for his version of a COVID recovery plan, a bigger version than many Republicans, than any Republicans in Congress want to support right now. The President making the case it was necessary to go big. He went through the details and he went through the Washington politics, but he tried to speak to the country saying a lot of folks out there are reaching the breaking point. A lot of folks out there are losing hope.

The President asking Congress to ask fast and he would love Republican support, but he is prepared to do this with just Democratic votes if that is the only way to get it done and get it done quickly. Still with me to help discuss this CNN's Phil Mattingly, CNN's Christine Romans, and Seung Min Kim of The Washington Post. Christine, to you first, again, that has been the conversation Republicans say we passed a another plan at the end of the Trump administration, let it take root, some Republicans saying that we shouldn't do anything at all right now to let that take root. Other say, Mr. President, let's do something but not 1.9 trillion. Well, the President there being emphatic saying no, not happening, talking about the scarring in the economy, not just people needing jobs, but people needing food, people worried about rent, go big is the Biden plan.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I'm struck by the two different Americans happening here right now. I mean, there's the Washington, Wall Street America where the standard of living is just fine. And there's Main Street, which has never endured something like this before. And if you were a low income earner on Main Street, it's depression level conditions that you're living under, you know, 20 percent unemployment for some people who are the lowest paid workers in this country and food insecurity.

This is a situation we've never been in. And this is the richest economy in the world with interest rates that are near zero, the political will to, you know, cut taxes in boom times for corporations and not worry about deficit spending, but now worried about deficit spending when people are literally hungry. So that's what the President is trying to beat home, right? He's trying to say, this isn't about Washington politics. It's not about Wall Street, which is doing great record highs this week in the stock market. This is about how people feel, and they feel pretty awful right now.

KING: And Seung Min, the President making clear he's willing to talk about the details, he's going to get it -- he says he's emphatic. It will be a big package. One thing we do know is changing is he's willing to back down from where the White House started originally on who gets a check. What is your -- what's the income level cut off there. But what he was emphatic about President Biden was that, sure, let's negotiate the income level at which we cut it off, but I'm not shrinking the size of the checks, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Here's what I won't do. I'm not cutting the size of the checks. They're going to be $1,400, period. That's what the American people were promised.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: One reason they're adamant about this, but then confident politically, is that that was something that former President Trump support. It was also something that was key central in the two Georgia Senate races that were conducted after the presidential election and essentially where a national referendum on this very question. Don't give Joe Biden the Democratic Senate. Don't give Joe Biden the ability to spend that money.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Exactly. And just for context, the 10 Republican senators who had been speaking with the administration have proposed cutting the size of the checks to about $1,000. So that's, you know, Joe Biden saying $1,400 is the absolute lowest he's going to go. And it makes sense that that he's -- that's not something he's willing to compromise on because in one sense, according to some on the left, he's kind of already compromising it.

There were, you know, progressive lawmakers and those on the left who are disappointed that that check amount in the Biden plan wasn't actually $2,000 because that was the rhetoric of the campaign from both at Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. And President Biden himself as they were campaigning for those two Georgia seats. So that is a promise, you know, $1,400 is the absolute minimum that he is willing to make.

And now, again, as we discussed earlier, he is willing to talk about making sure that the very affluent those who perhaps would save that money anyway and not spend it won't get those checks. But I think the speech earlier today was just the most forceful that he has in kind of going against this idea of compromising with Republicans and sacrificing the product that -- or sacrificing his product to get bipartisanship votes on this package.

And I think it really shows that not only our House and Senate Democrats preparing to move ahead with that Republicans but President Biden really is as well.

KING: Right. And that's the interesting point. This is day 17, Phil Mattingly, and so you're watching a new president, you're watching leadership style, you're watching, you know, his DNA, his bipartisanship, but his immediate challenges, get this go big and go bold and get it done as soon as possible. And you see him sort of giving up his history, if you will, understanding the challenge of the moment. And it's also fascinating, this is the defining test for this administration, the money he needs to accelerate the vaccine rollout, the money he needs he thinks to make school safe so that he can get schools reopen, the money he thinks is necessary to protect and help American families and to juice the economy.

But if you listen to the House Speaker today, she came out of the meeting saying, yes, this is critical. We're going to do this as quickly as possible. And guess what? They were coming back for more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:40:09]

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), HOUSE SPEAKER: This is the American rescue plan, the Biden American rescue plan. The next bill will be the recovery plan. And, again, even before any of us spoke and even the President addressed us, when we sat down, he said to Peter, you're next before anything else. We have the ingredients for what will come next. But we first have to get this done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Peter being Chairman DeFazio, that's infrastructure. That's the build back better part. This is a more COVID economic relief and COVID health care public health infrastructure in terms of vaccines and schools and the like. But then they -- this is going to be remarkable test of his leadership and Democratic discipline to come back with another plan in its heels.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This plan is building a bridge to their really big plan. And I'm not trying to kind of make it simplistic, but the reality is what they're planning next is going to be larger than $1.9 trillion. It's going to include infrastructure, it's going to include a lot of climate provisions as well. They're still working through it right now.

But what this underscores and I think I will acknowledge, I didn't recognize this in the opening days of the administration, given President Biden's willingness to talk to Republicans, given his kind of his own perception of his willingness to make deals is how different this White House is from the 2009 White House on how they look at economic policy, on how they viewed the politics of this, and how they view this moment as a convergence of how sharp that difference is.

Economically, they learn the lessons from 2009, where they feel like they undershot. The recession went significantly longer than it was supposed to. A number of their top economic advisors were in the Obama administration back then. They acknowledged. They felt like they plan that poorly. But they also think the politics are drastically different right now something they believe was proven out by the Georgia's Senate runoffs that spending money right now, people want to see relief. People want checks. People want to be able to tap into the unemployment insurance.

That tangible benefits are far more important right now to the American public than deficits given what the American public has gone through. So when you put the policy and the politics together, it underscores that, yes, the two-hour meeting President Biden had with Republicans was a very good meeting, by all accounts, Republicans and Democrats. But it doesn't change where President Biden or his team are on their overall view of things. And their overall view of things is, as the President laid out, it is far riskier to undershoot here than it is to overshoot, particularly when interest rates are where they are on the borrowing side of things right now.

So let's go big, and, oh, by the way, we're going to go bigger when this is over. And they're totally comfortable with that at this point in time. We'll see if Democrats in the House and Senate will be there at least enough to pass something. But that's what they think, that's what they feel, and that's where they're headed.

KING: A part of that is keeping the country. He believes he has the country with him. Now the numbers tend to support that. The question is, can you keep them as we go? Phil Mattingly, Christine Romans, Seung Min Kim, again, grateful for your patience and the reporting and the insights of the important speech from the President.

[12:43:04]

Again, up next for us, a piece of it, a continuing piece of it, the administration's new details about how it plans to use the Defense Production Act to help fight the pandemic.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Last hour we heard some important new details from the Biden administration's COVID response team. An update we're told later today some new masking guidelines. The team also announced three ways it plans now to use the Defense Production Act to get tools it says the United States still needs to fight the pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM MANNING, COVID-19 RESPONSE TEAM SUPPLY COORDINATOR: Our first action gets Pfizer more equipment and supplies that is -- that are enabling them to ramp up production and deliver more vaccines faster. Our second action will deliver more than 16 million point of care tests or at home tests by this summer. And that's an addition to the news Andy announced on Monday about the looming test. Our third action will help Americans produce more surgical gloves that our frontline workers desperately need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Sara Murray joins us now with more of the details. It's interesting, Sara, when you listen to this, again, day 17 of the new administration. Using the Defense Production Act and trying to do everything they can to ramp up vaccine, not only production, but distribution.

SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, I think there were a lot of questions about why some of this stuff didn't happen under the last administration, particularly things with at home tests and those gloves. But when it comes to vaccine distribution, it was interesting to see them laying out some more concrete steps about what they're doing to try to move Pfizer along.

I also asked them what they're going to do about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, assuming that gets an emergency use authorization. You know, it's a little bit less effective, but it is a one shot vaccine that can make a big difference, particularly in the face of these variants. Here's what Andy Slavitt at the White House had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY SLAVITT, SENIOR ADVISER, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE TEAM: You're correct that as is the case with other vaccines, we have not found that the level of manufacturing allows us to have as much vaccine as we think we need coming out of the gate. Every option is on the table to figure out how to accelerate manufacturing in the event that the FDA does approve the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now you see them being a little bit cautious there. Of course they don't get -- want to get ahead of any announcement before it's under contract. But this is the big thing they're looking at. You know, we're expecting less than 10 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be available immediately. The administration would like to see that be a much higher number to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible.

[12:50:11]

You know, the other thing that I asked him about today is how they're dealing with this issue of teachers potentially going back to the classroom. We saw the CDC Director previously say that she believed the teachers could go back essentially without getting vaccinated. That caused quite a stir to say the least. There are a lot of opinions from parents. There are a lot of opinions from teachers unions. And then of course, there's the White House, which is that it's going to follow the science on these issues. But also has made it clear that they want to see schools open. They want to see kids going back to school.

KING: Sara, sorry, I need to interrupt you. We're getting live to the White House press briefing and the Press Secretary Jen Psaki, my apologies, Sara.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We have another special visitor and guests with us here today. The January Jobs Report, which we all saw came out this morning, is disappointing and underscores the need to act swiftly to deliver immediate relief to American families. The bottom line is our economy is digging out of a hole worse than the depths of the great recession at a crawling -- and moving at a crawling pace.

Today we're joined by a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, Jared Bernstein, who will walk through the numbers reported today by the Department of Labor and how they serve to underline the urgency for the President's rescue plan. Go ahead Jared.

JARED BERNSTEIN, MEMBER, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Thanks so much to Jen and the team for helping me be here today.

This morning's employment report revealed a stall in the American job creation machine, and underscores how precarious a situation our economy is in. The lack of job growth is a result of our failure to act appropriately in response to this immense dual crisis, and our economy and our families can't afford for us to fail to act once again. Strong relief is urgently and quickly needed to control the virus, get vaccine shots in arms, and finally launch a robust, equitable, and racially-inclusive recovery.

Getting to the numbers of the report, the economy added 49,000 jobs in January after losing 227,000 jobs in December. The three month trend, I find it useful to smooth out these monthly numbers over a few months, and the three month trend is a week 29,000 jobs per month. Downward revisions to the data in November and December totaled 160,000. So were negative revisions to those months earlier gain -- earlier reports. And the economy, as I mentioned, has averaged 29, 000 jobs over the past three months.

Now, if you compare that to the trend over the prior three months, that trend was closer to 1 million. So you see a really very significant downshift in the pace of job creation. This pace is far below the rate necessary to pull us out of the pandemic jobs deficit. There are about 10 million fewer jobs now, relative to February.

The unemployment rate fell to 6.3 percent, which still remains almost three points above the rate in February 2020, of 3.5 percent before the pandemic. Over the same period, more than 4 million workers have dropped out of the labor force. If you drop out of the labor force, you're not counted in the unemployment rate. And those dropouts have been disproportionately women.

It's clear that there's a need for urgent and sustained action for the duration of this crisis. In January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, just under 15 million people reported they were quote, unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic. This number has been about the same since October after falling in the wake of the implementation of the CARES Act from May to September.

Long-term unemployment has risen, this is a great concern of the administration, reflecting the duration of the economic crisis, and the fact that the virus was unconstrained during most of last year. Almost 40 percent of the unemployed in January had been so for half a year, 27 weeks or more. This 40 percent, that's an elevated rate, and it represents a shift from temporary layoffs to permanent unemployment.

Workers of color have been more likely to lose their jobs than white workers. In January the unemployment rate for black workers was 9.2 percent, and was 8.6 percent for Hispanic workers, compared to 5.7 percent for whites, and 6.6 percent for Asian workers.

While the unemployment rate for men and women is relatively similar, women have left the labor force in numbers that are of great concern to us. The employment rate among what we call prime age workers, women 25 to 54, is down four percentage points, 2.6 million women since February. This larger decrease for women is unusual in recessions, and likely reflects both the industries that this pandemic has hit, tourism, services, face-to-face industries, leisure and hospitality, restaurants, and increased care responsibilities that have been pulling women out of the labor force.

[12:55:11]

Certain industries have been especially hard hit. As I mentioned, the unemployment rate for leisure and hospitality workers is around 16 percent. The elevation in long-term unemployment is especially salient since benefits for these workers will expire soon without further congressional action. Today's report is yet another reminder that our economy is still climbing out of a hole deeper than that of the great recession, and needs additional relief to ensure that the pandemic can be brought under control, that families and businesses can stay solvent and make it to the other side of this crisis, and that workers can feed their families and keep a roof over their head. With that --

PSAKI: All right, I'm going to be the moderator. Trevor?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks for that summary. So a couple of questions related to this. First, as far as the $1,400 checks, Jared, do you think that, I mean is there any economic argument for why those shouldn't go to a broader group of people? Is there any argument for raising the threshold that you would need to qualify for that? And then I have a follow-up as well.

BERNSTEIN: I think the key argument there is that there are families throughout, not just the lower part of the income scale, but in the middle part of the income scale that have been suffering and trying, doing everything they can to get through this crisis. The President has been very clear on an important point here, which is that if you look at teachers, if you look at folks who are in blue collar professions, if you look at retail workers, healthcare workers, if those folks are unemployed, they can get unemployment coverage and that helps them.

But many of those folks have kept their jobs, many of them are essential workers yet they've lost hours, they've lost wages, they're struggling to make ends meet. They face nutritional constraints. Often they face foreclosure or eviction moratoria, which by the way, forbearance, when it comes to mortgage, does not mean forgiveness. So, many of these families are accumulating significant debt that will come due.

Now, in terms of the parameters you've asked about this, let's do just a little bit of wonky policy analysis, if that's OK. There are three parameters in play here when we're talking about the checks, there's the threshold, where they come in. There's the level, the President has been firm on $1,400 as a level, which, you know, plus the 600 gets you to 2,000, and then there's the phase out. And it's the phase out range that I would say is a, that would say is a variable under discussion in negotiations that are ongoing. There hasn't been a conclusion, but as the President has said, he is open to that discussion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But just as far as what is the economic argument for changing that, those phase-out numbers is I mean, why shouldn't you just go with what you originally proposed?

BERNSTEIN: I think the argument is one that we've heard consistently from some critics, which say that those at the very top of the scale, when you get into the realm of, you know, $300,000 I think has been mentioned, you know, I think it's arguable that those folks don't need the checks.

I think what's important to the President is that we don't lose sight of people in the middle of the income scale, who continue to struggle with both the health and economic fallout from this crisis. And these checks target them effectively, and efficiently. By the way, this is an important thing that comes from some work by the group ITEP, Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy.

If you look at the distribution who gets the checks, it actually, virtually none of it goes to the very top of the scale. And the vast majority goes to the middle and the bottom. Their percentage gains in income from the checks are, you know, double digits compared to those at the top of the scale. So I think to, I think that we have to understand that targeting in this case means reaching families at the low end, at the middle end, families who have been hit and are struggling with this crisis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, super quick follow up to that, just one more. Do you think that just beyond this bill that there needs to be more reform around automatic stabilizers, unemployment insurance, like do you need to do more so that the next time we hit something like this, we have a solution?

BERNSTEIN: You know, the President has on occasion, talked about this point and said that if our automatic stabilizers are key to economic indicators or health indicators, that is a potentially useful policy advance. I know that Treasury Secretary Yellen has talked about that as well.

Right now, you know, kind of pass the stage of thinking about, you know, right now, we're really at a point where we have a package that is calibrated to meet the urgency of the moment, and that's the American rescue plan. So that's what we want to focus on. There are all kinds of interesting policy discussions we could and should have, and I think that's one of them.

[13:00:04]