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Biden Administration Announces New Steps To Speed Vaccinations; Biden Outlines Path To Some Normalcy By July 4th; Joe Biden Maps Out "Help Is Here" Tour To Sell COVID Rescue Plan; Joe Biden: Attacks Against Asian Americans "Must Stop"; New Calls For New York Governor Cuomo To Resign Amid Harassment Allegations And Nursing Home Scandal. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 12, 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]

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing another very busy news day with us today.

Today a new threat to the New York Governor's political survival 13 of New York's 19 Democrats in the congress say Andrew Cuomo must resign. The Governor also faces an impeachment investigation from the democratic control state assembly.

Those lawmakers will now have subpoena power and the authority to interview witnesses both about Cuomo's handling of the COVID-19 nursing home deaths and about allegations of sexual harassment.

Up first this hour though, President Joe Biden holds out new pandemic hope, a faster path to ball games and backyard barbecues. A vaccine the president says will be available to everyone in 50 days; May 1 that is an ambitious promise so as this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But I need you. I need every American to do their part. We do this together. By July the fourth there's a good chance you your families and friends will be able to get together in your backyard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout and a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Empathy is a singular Biden strength that is primetime address underlined the great American sorrow of a trying pandemic here. Hate against Asian Americans the president says must stop the president's big message that togetherness and truth off of the country a way forward.

In his words, a light in the darkness here is where the - I need you part comes into play. The president says that cookout in July is dependent on Americans keeping their distance and their masks on in the meantime, travel now the CDC director worries rivals travel back around Thanksgiving.

That of course we all remember was the gateway to the painful horrific winter surge. An update just last hour from the Biden Coronavirus team highlights new steps to make sure every American will soon get a shot in the arm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZIENTS, BIDEN COVID RESPONSE COORDINATOR: We need to make it easier for every American to get vaccinated. The administration will launch a federally supported website that will show the locations near them that have available vaccines.

DR. MARCELLA NUNEZ-SMITH, CHAIRWOMAN, COVID-19 HEALTH EQUITY TASK FORCE: And with today's announcement up to 700 new community health centers coming online, a doubling of pharmacy locations and the surge in vaccinators were ensuring that equity remains at the center of our response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You hear the optimistic tone from team Biden they're mirroring. What the president said last night that a good future is out there back to near normal is out there if everyone's careful in the meantime, let's walk through the latest numbers.

This is the case timeline. The president talks about maybe being able to be in your backyard with friends and family for a barbecue on July 4. Remember where we were last July 4th 45,000 new infections as we started to go up what was then a very painful summer search.

The winter surge dramatically eclipsed it. Yesterday 49,536 so we are still above where we were back on that July 4 plateauing right now around 50,000 new cases way down from the horrific winter surge but still at a high level. The worry is if people let down their guard, you can go back up.

But the president's optimism based on the fact in part that more Americans are getting vaccinated. 20 percent of Americans have been partially vaccinated. We're above 10 percent now in double digits fully vaccinated more than 10 percent and those numbers are increasing, increasing in part.

This is a state by state look at it. Alaska leading the pack 16 percent of Alaskans has been fully vaccinated. You see 12 percent in Oklahoma 15 percent in New Mexico, lagging a bit Texas at 8 percent, Pennsylvania at 9 percent. You see the single digits the darker the green, the better your state is doing.

If you live here in the United States, the vaccination rate have upped dramatically from when the Biden administration took power averaging 2.2 million is the seven day average. Right now you see the yellow line, you see individual days jumping up, the yellow line is your average it is going up. There's no question about that.

The question is the president says by May 1 everyone, everyone go online and registers to get your vaccine any adults in the United States of America. Only 11 states are already doing that if you will vaccinate people under the age of 65.

You see four states, the lighter yellow vaccinating people 55 and older, six states 50. And up is the guideline right now and only one Alaska all adults right now in Alaska. If you're 16 or older in Alaska, you can line up to get your vaccine. The question is can the administration pull this off?

Well, let's get some expertise and insights. Dr. Ashish Jha is the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Dr. Jha it's great to see you again, an optimistic tone with some caveats from the president and his team.

When you hear May 1, all adults can sign up to get a vaccine. When you hear them say they believe they can get the supply out there and they can deal with the acuity challenges. Are you convinced they have all the pieces in place?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: So John first of all, thanks for having me on. I am convinced that those are all achievable. They're going to be hard.

There's a bunch of work that needs to happen between now and then for that to get pulled off. But do I think we'll have the supplies the number of vaccines I do. We've got to build up distribution. We've got to make sure we're doing it equitably.

[12:05:00]

DR. JHA: So large swaths of our population are not left behind. I think it's doable. Just there's a lot of hard work ahead.

KING: You say a lot of hard work ahead. I just want to look; one of the questions is the supply doses right now this week about just shy of 16 million. This is just Pfizer and Moderna. Remember there were Johnson & Johnson vaccines, the single shot vaccines in a warehouse, they went out.

Now they're waiting for the supplies to come in here but just shy of 16 million going out this week. That's up from 15.2 million last week by the end of March of these two of the three vaccines, 220 million doses. Dr. Jha I want you to listen here.

There's Jeff Zients who's the coordinator of this White House COVID task where he says the reason the president can make this promise is that they believe they have the commitments to fill the supply chain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZIENTS: If you take the 200 million doses by the end of May of Moderna plus the 200 million doses of Pfizer plus the - at or near 100 million completion of the Johnson & Johnson first contract that is more than enough supply to vaccinate, vaccine supply to vaccinate all adult Americans by the end of May. Now we need to ramp up the number of vaccinators as we've been talking about and the number of places where Americans can get vaccinated. So that when all adults are Americans are eligible on May 1, we can accelerate and move very quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: If they're right about the first part, the supply chain that they have that problem solves and they have the numbers and they believe they can do this. I want to focus on the last two parts of that more vaccinators and getting the vaccine to the right places, if you will.

Because we know as of today, there's still the equity problem, more white Americans are getting fully vaccinated and a population - ahead of their place in the population if you will. And one of the concerns is if everyone can sign up on May 1.

Well people with access to technology the internet people access easier access to travel are going to sign up and get in line. Are you convinced with the community health center moves with more doses to pharmacies that they will get into the communities of color in the rural communities that right now will being a little shortchanged?

DR. JHA: So, John I am convinced that we can achieve those things. But we've got to, for instance, if we're setting up large vaccination sites, we should be setting them up in communities where people who have been traditionally disadvantaged can access that much more easily.

So, we've got to be very, very deliberate about this that default always privileges, those who already have advantages. We've got to make sure that we are very deliberate about this. One of the things that still bothers me is we're not even collecting data on race and ethnicity for at least a dozen states, if not more.

And until we're really tracking this stuff, it's going to be hard for us to know whether we're achieving equity or not. So that's why I say there's a lot of work ahead, this is not going to happen naturally. I like the Biden plan. But I want to see more of that actually getting carried out.

KING: And help me I'm going to - this is the wrong term I'm sure, but on the psychology of this if you will, that you have a president who says I want you in your backyard or in your community somewhere having a picnic on July 4.

You should be able to see your family and friends. But I need you to hang in there with me you know through April and through May to get there. If you look right now at some of the new data this is from IHME about mobility.

22 states have mobility levels right now within 10 percent of the pre COVID error baseline. That means more people are getting out and moving around and interacting. Some of these states including Texas and Mississippi have dropped their mask mandates. Are you worried that you tell people July - by July 4 we should be

back to close to normal? But will they listen to the part that says only if you behave in the meantime?

DR. JHA: Yes I you know and actually on this one, I was feeling like the Biden administration was being too pessimistic a couple of months ago when they said it might not be till Christmas of this year, when things are back to normal. I feel like this timeline is much more realistic.

It gives people something to hold on to. It says you don't have to keep these public health measures in place for many more months; we're really talking about sort of four to six weeks. That's the critical time period that we hold on then.

All the high-risk people should have gotten vaccinated by then. We'll have dealt with - will have a much better sense of these variants and how much effect they're having. I think May and June are going to be really good months and July is going to be terrific. But we do have to get through the next six weeks.

And I think if you explain it to people that way, my hope is most Americans will understand that and follow through.

KING: It's from my perspective, great to hear the optimism and your voice because we've had so many conversations over the past year where at times you were trying to tell people to slow down.

It's great. It's great to hear the optimist. I hope it holds up Dr. Jha grateful for your time and your insights. We'll continue the conversation. Up next for us the primetime speech gives way to the Biden COVID relief road show.

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[12:10:00]

KING: President Biden's primetime message last night that his rescue plan is the roadmap to get the country vaccinated the economy back to full speed and your children back in school. Now the president plans to play traveling salesman, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico and Georgia all on plan stop somewhat the Biden administration is branding its help us here tour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: In the coming weeks and months I'll be traveling along with the First Lady, the Vice President the Second Gentlemen, members of my cabinet to speak directly to you to tell you the truth about how the American rescue plan meets the moment. And if it fails at any - I will acknowledge that it failed. But it will not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With me to share their reporting and their insights CNN's Manu Raju and Julie Pace of the Associated Press. Julie let me start with you. Is that president's first primetime address traditional presidential trappings out of it, you and your cabinet hit the road you try to make the make the case for your plan?

The plan has passed. He has signed it into law. The pieces of the plan most of them tend to be pretty popular out there. So, what is challenge one for the new president right now?

JULIE PACE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": I think the challenge to keep up that level of popularity. We now go into a space where this plan is going to be dissected for the impact and from the Republican standpoint for the need.

[12:15:00]

PACE: That is part of what Republicans are arguing here is that the economy at a macro level isn't even as bad of shape as a lot of people had expected for a lot of people, the economy is actually doing pretty well.

And so Biden wants to inoculate himself against the Republican attempts to really try to downplay the necessity for doing this in the first place. And he's taking it and he's talking quite openly about this.

He's taking a lesson from his experience in the Obama administration after they passed the big economic stimulus. And really didn't spend as much time trying to sell it trying to convince people after passage of why it was necessary and why it was impacting their lives.

And so he wants to do this differently and spend the next couple of weeks and probably a couple of months. Are you in the political case for why he took this step early in his administration?

KING: Well unless you some numbers to back up the key points you make because the polarized political environment is still with us. Even though pieces of the Biden plan most of them are quite popular.

The family tax credits for example, pull it like 85 percent, they're off the charts. But Manu look at Democrats - they feel better about where we are the worst behind us in the Coronavirus outbreak. 66 of Republicans said yes in January now 84 percent Independents were at 47 percent in January 77 percent now.

Democrats were 38 percent back in January 75 percent now. So, the country is in a much better mood. And that coincides with Biden's first 50 days in office. There's no doubt about it. But look at how people view the economy. Even the economy now is viewed through political polarization.

Is the economy starting to recover? Back in October only 9 percent of Democrats said that. Donald Trump was President now 26 percent say that back in October more than half nearly 60 percent of Republicans said that Donald Trump was President, now only 27 percent.

Even on an issue of the economy, people view it through who's the president? What party do I belong to? MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And the

interesting thing will be the salesmanship that the Republicans do to try to convince voters that Biden does not deserve credit for an improving economy. And to argue that the blue leaf bill that was just an act, it is not - has nothing to do - argument may take shape today.

This week Mitch McConnell told reporters he said, the reason why this is improving has nothing to do with this relief bill. Of course the report has not even been implemented yet. That just was enacted and there is money that is going to be spent doing this economy.

But it also presents the challenges facing the administration. They have to make sure the implementation of this goes smoothly. $1.9 trillion is a ton of money, it does take a lot of time for that to be spent it is very complicated.

So, getting that into the - into the economy beyond the immediate infusion of cash that be on people's pockets, that's going to be a challenge for them. But one big difference though with the last stimulus package in the first Obama year is that people are seeing - going to see an immediate impact, they are going to get those stimulus checks right away.

That's different than the last time when it was mostly projects, infrastructure projects. That took a lot of time to spend and give Republicans an opportunity to really define what that bill was.

KING: And so, Julie as I noticed the first prime time address for this president, and you get to obviously make the comparison to the prior president. Number one, Biden said I'm going to make government work. Number two, he said you can trust the government after it was very hard to believe anything President Trump said during the pandemic because he was wrong so often.

And also, President Trump many times I'm not going to repeat them. I used racist terms or race baiting terms when he described the virus and its origins. President Biden last night taking time in his first primetime address to say look, there's some hate out there in America and it has to stop.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Too often. We've turned against one another, a mask, the easiest thing to do to save lives. Sometimes it divides us. States pitted against one another, instead of working with each other. Vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans, who've been attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoat. It's wrong. It's un-American, and it must stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It is his DNA. But it was interesting to link a fight over masks to this hatred against Asian Americans, bringing them together under the theme of hey; we got to do this together.

PACE: And that rhetoric was so intentional on Biden's part, particularly his condemnation of these escalating attacks that we've seen on Asian Americans. That is such a sea change from the rhetoric that we heard from the previous president and the previous administration.

And he wanted to make that point very clearly in that address. And I think broadly, what he's really trying to do is just try to take the temperature down. Trying to make the administration's response to the pandemic about public health, not about politics, not about how Democrats view an issue like mask wearing versus how a Republican would view an issue like mask wearing.

And just simply saying, hey, this isn't about your political affiliation. This is about protecting yourself and your fellow Americans from this virus. I think so far he's had some success on that front just trying to remove the raw politics out of this debate, certainly not lately. But that has been again a very intentional effort by his administration.

[12:20:00]

KING: And I think that critical piece of that is outside of Washington people are having different conversations Republican Governors and Republican Mayors for the most part of Republican voters having a somewhat different conversation than what we have here in Washington.

The question now is Manu with temperatures, all Republicans voted no on this. There's a partisan divide Republicans see they see this as trying to recreate 2010 if you will. They said no to just about everything Barack Obama did, they want a lot of seats in 2010.

They're going to say no to everything Joe Biden did, they're going to try to win in the midterm elections. The question is what do the Democrats do next? You have some great reporting today about Democrats are divided on what issues should we go to next?

And how many family feuds can we have the AFL-CIO jumping into this as well today saying get rid of - get rid of the filibuster? It's an artifact of Jim Crow, a creature of white supremacy, a procedure that was said to encourage robust debate but has turned into an instrument of government paralysis.

Richard Trumka saying, I don't want to hear oh, my god, we don't have 60 votes, woe is we. Figure out a way to do it. Let's figure out a way to do it. Richard Trumka can say that. Will they do it?

RAJU: No, because they don't have the votes. And I talked to Joe Manchin yesterday about this exact issue. The centrist Democrat from West Virginia, someone who has - says the 60-vote threshold needs to stay in the United States Senate.

I said the progressives are saying very clearly, the bills that you guys are trying to push are not getting passed because of the 60 vote threshold, expanding background checks and dealing with voting rights, legislation, helping labor unions organize things that they're put that passed the House have no chance of getting 60 votes. He said, "Tell them what goes around comes around", that was the

message that he wanted to send to the progressive saying that we changed the rules. Now it's going to come back and bite us when we are in the minority. And that does not going to change at least anytime soon.

So, there's going to be a lot of frustration because those bills are just going to pile up in the democratic controlled Senate. Meantime, the big-ticket items like infrastructure, there's going to take some time to play out that are still divisions about how to fund such a massive package and immigration, another key issue division about exactly how to pursue that.

So, the next phase of the Biden agenda will be messier. It's going to be complicated. They'll be internal feuds much different than the quick passage of this bill.

KING: It makes it a lot easier to understand. Number one, they need to sell it in the country. But number two, why the president wants to take some time to focus on this first big win first big accomplishment down the road bit a little bit dicey or messy you might say.

Julie Pace, very much appreciative of the reporting and insights. Manu is going to stay with us for one more conversation. Up next new troubles for Andrew Cuomo. An impeachment inquiry in Albany and here in Washington, a growing list of New York Democrats. And the congress says the Governor should resign.

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[12:25:00]

KING: Big new problems today for the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a growing number of House Democrats from New York say Cuomo should resign this amid allegations of sexual harassment and questionable handling of nursing home Coronavirus death data.

14 House members are now on record calling for Cuomo's resignation ranging from older guard members like the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to newer progressive members including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamal Bowman, Mondaire Jones.

Troubling Albany for the Governor too, New York state lawmakers have now launched an impeachment inquiry with the power to issue subpoenas and to call witnesses. More than 50 state democratic lawmakers' legislators signed on to a letter yesterday also calling on Cuomo to resign.

The state lawmakers writing this, he has lost the confidence of the public and the state legislature rendering him ineffective in this time of most urgent need. This morning's cover of the New York Post highlights the pressure the Governor now faces, I pull that up for you right here. That's - must go. That's not a good day for the Governor.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz joining us now live, from Albany. Manu Raju with us here in studio. Shimon let's start with the pressure at home a new impeachment inquiry the power of subpoena the power to call witnesses and more and more state Democrats saying Governor, no room here.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and more and more, now a majority of the Senate Democrats here, the state Senate Democrats are calling on him to resign. He's continually losing members of his own party certainly in this state.

Now as you said there is this impeachment proceeding that is going to take place by members of the assembly. They're putting together the impeachment hearings, it's going to be members of the assembly that out of committee, they're going to be looking at different information that has come out they have as you said subpoena power.

They have other capabilities to call witnesses. This is all going to come out of the judiciary committee here at the state assembly. Now also for the first time since all of this the impeachment and then this growing list of Democrats calling for the Governor to resign for the first time we are going to hear from the Governor today at around one o'clock in a press call.

This is his normal press call with reporters about COVID. And they say that that is where he's going to potentially take some questions, talk about COVID. But in a lot of these calls John, these kinds of questions have come up.

And that is where he insists, he has insisted previously that he has had - he has no intention of resigning.