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CDC: 8 Percent Of Americans Have Missed Their 2nd COVID Vaccine Dose; McCarthy Dodges Question On Jan. 6 Conversation With Trump; Supreme Court Agrees To Take Up Major Second Amendment Case. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 26, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: The latest now in the coronavirus fight here in the United States. We are told President Biden expected to announce new CDC guidance for wearing masks outdoors, that announcement will come tomorrow.

Sources telling CNN, the final language that guidance still being drafted, it comes amid some warning signs the COVID vaccine supply might soon outpaced demand. Let's walk through latest numbers and we'll talk about the President's new policy. If you look at the state by state map now, the good news the encouraging news, only five states in orange, that means trending in the wrong direction.

[12:35:08]

Only five states reporting more new COVID infections now compared to a week ago. You see 17 states in beige, holding steady, 27 states in green, fewer new COVID infections right now compared to the data a week ago. If you look at it from the timeline perspective, this is the horror of the winter peak, we have come down quite a bit. The seven day average now 58,164 cases, that's still too high but it was above 70,000 just a few weeks back. It is down quite a bit over the course of the past two weeks. So progress when you look at it from that perspective, though the case count is still too high.

Right now more than 94 million Americans, almost 95 million Americans are fully vaccinated. You look on this map, you want your state to be the deeper green, the better, 34 percent, 33 percent in Alaska, you see 35 percent up here in Maine, 32 percent in South Dakota. The states that are lagging tend to be down here in the southeast 22, 21, and 20 across Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi there. These are states fully vaccinating their people, the percentage of people fully vaccinated.

If you look at the pace, the pace has slowed some. Some of this is access, some of this though is hesitancy, 2.7 million vaccine doses per day is the current average that was above 3 million if we were having this conversation a week or so ago. So the pace of vaccines has slowed a bit.

Which vaccines are Americans getting, of the people fully vaccinated? Most Pfizer, Moderna second, 8 million people the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Remember the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was paused for about 10 days on the market, which is part of one of the issues now. Johnson & Johnson is one shot. It is back on the market, Pfizer and Moderna require two shots.

Look at the numbers, back in March 3.4 percent of Americans were not showing up for the second shot, that percentage is now up to 8, 8 percent of Americans who need a second shot not showing up for the appointment to get it. Listen here. This is Andy Slavitt, one of the White House COVID coordinator saying, think again, folks, you need that second shot for your safety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY SLAVITT, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER FOR COVID RESPONSE: Ninety- two percent is not bad. But I want that other 8 percent to realize one thing, that the longevity of the vaccine is much stronger when you've had two doses. So you may find yourself with two doses being able to have immunity for quite a long time. But with one dose, we know that's not the case. So it's very important, even though you get some response that you keep -- you get your second dose, and that'll give you a long lasting response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's bring into the conversation, Dr. Kevin Ault. He's a member of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Dr. Ault, it's good to see you again. Follow up on what Mr. Slavitt was saying there, you now see 8 percent of Americans not showing up for the second appointment. A, what does that tell you? Is that hesitancy? Is it that people are busy? Is it that they just think the one shot is enough? And how important is it to get that second shot?

DR. KEVIN AULT, MEMBER, CDC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON IMMUNIZATION PRACTICES: Well, I'm sure it's a combination of a lot of the things you just mentioned. And also, you know, you do get a very sore arm from these vaccines and so that probably deters people from coming.

I agree with what Mr. Slavitt said, basically, and that's a very classic strategy for vaccine development. We call that prime boost, you know, you get exposed to the antigens or the proteins in the vaccine with the first dose then the immune response becomes much stronger with a second dose. So yes, that's a classic vaccine strategy.

KING: One way, especially in rural America, places that are hard to reach or people are skeptical and maybe won't come back for a second shot would be to use the J&J vaccine, which is one dose. But look at these polling numbers. Are you willing to get a Johnson & Johnson vaccine among these unvaccinated U.S. adults? Twenty-two percent are willing but 73 percent right now say they are not willing.

I assume a lot of that Dr. Ault is because there was the pause, there were some safety concerns. Number one, tell people anyone who's watching, answer the question. Is the J&J vaccine safe? And how would you try to address that skepticism? AULT: Well, I think we need to be very transparent about the risks and benefits of this particular vaccine. And a lot of that information is going to come out today and tomorrow from the CDC. Communicate that very well to local health departments, as well as, you know, physicians and patients.

So the side effect that we found the TSS, as we're calling it, or TTS, as we're calling it, is pretty rare. It's two to 12 per million doses. They're -- and it kind of clustered in younger women, women in their 30s. And so certainly, if you're not in one of those risk groups, you're down to a very low risk, as I said, two in a million doses.

And so, you know, you need to have that conversation and kind of weigh the risk and benefits for every person. But there are some populations that would certainly benefit from that one dose schedule that we have for the J&J vaccine. We talked about that quite a bit on Friday, when we met.

KING: When you look now I'm going to bring back some numbers here, just real quick. If you look at this, this is the vaccination map. Ninety-five million Americans almost vaccinated, many states above 30 percent or third of the population or more, other states coming in.

[12:40:07]

We're going to hear from the President tomorrow, Dr. Ault, apparently some new CDC recommendations about whether you should still be wearing a mask if you're outdoors, especially if you're vaccinated. How where would you draw that line? I've had both shots. Am I -- should I still wear a mask when I'm outdoors? Should somebody who has not been vaccinated wear a mask outdoors? What should the policy be?

AULT: Well, I'll be interested to hear what the President says as well. But, you know, the risk of getting infected after having two doses of the vaccine are quite low, and the risk of getting infected outdoors are quite low. So if you come up with those two combinations, we may be at a point where we can do that safely. You know, we are a data driven Committee when we're on these CDC Advisory Committees. I'd be curious to see the data tomorrow as well.

KING: When you say data driven, that's obviously critical, and it should be priority one, priority two, and priority three. How much does psychology come into decisions like this when Committees like yours are meeting where you have the data, if the data leads you in a direction, understanding that, you know, people want a sense of normalcy? How important is that?

AULT: Well, I mean, I think the public messaging from the CDC and from the President has been pretty clear, you know. There's hope but not time to relax. And so, you know, we need to keep up with vaccination. And we need to keep up with the other things that we know that work including wearing a mask.

KING: Dr. Ault, grateful as always for your time. And we'll watch to see what we get specifically from the President tomorrow on that question. And up next for us, the President at the 100-day mark, no morning tweet storms, several significant promises kept, and an ambitious to do list for the second 100 days.

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[12:46:10]

KING: President Biden's big speech to Congress and the American people Wednesday night is part 100-day victory lap and part sales pitch for the next 100 days. He approaches the 100-day mark with an approval rating higher than Donald Trump had at this point. And averaging recent polls as you see it there shows 55 percent of Americans approve of how Mr. Biden is handling the presidency. But there are several big tests just ahead on issues ranging from police reform and infrastructure to expensive new White House proposals dealing with child care, education, and other Democratic priorities.

With us now to share her reporting and her insights, Maggie Haberman, Washington correspondent for The New York Times. Maggie, it's great to see you. Looking for help, I was trying to think about this over the weekend. And how do we characterize this President's 100-day mark. His polling is a little better than Donald Trump's about 10 points better. It's not where bush or Obama or Clinton was if you go back and less polarized times, they tended to be in the 60s. But we're in the middle of a pandemic, trying to search myself for what is the right test for Joe Biden at 100 days?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's an interesting question, John. I think that the right test, frankly, for the first 100 days is how he was handling, how he has been handling the pandemic and getting the stimulus passed. I mean, those are his major accomplishments that his administration was focused on. It's what he ran on in large part throughout 2020. And I think that those are the benchmarks, certainly that they're judging themselves by.

He obviously faces a lot of big tests. I do think your point that less polarized times produced presidents with higher approval ratings in their first 100 days. We're just in a different era. And as years have gone on, the country has become more polarized, certainly, the end of the Donald Trump presidency added to that. So, I think that, look, he has, I think some of the desires to compare him historically to FDR or to LBJ or to figure out where he fits in terms of legacy, I think it's a little early because he is still only on day 99 or day 98.

But I do think that he has accomplished a great deal. And I think that there are reasons that they have to be able to point to accomplishments, especially as he's delivering this joint address sort of late in the first 100 days in the presidency.

KING: It is interesting that it is late part of that as the pandemic I think part of it is strategically. They thought it was better to wait out. I want to read you a little bit from a take of Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine, which I found really interesting. He says Biden advantage is that he's not just nice, he's also tedious. He is relentlessly enacting an ambitious domestic agenda, signing legislation that could cut child poverty by more than half, expanding Obamacare, and injecting the economy with a stimulus more than twice the size of Obama's Congress passed in 2009 while arousing hardly any controversy. There's nothing in Biden's vanilla-ice-cream bromides for his critics to hook on to. Republicans can't stop Biden because he is boring them to death.

There's something to the, I don't know if I would use boring them to death. But he has steered him -- he has kept himself personally out of the ideological dust ups, I think, to his benefit.

HABERMAN: No question, John. And I think that he's certainly flummoxing them, right? I mean, you're seeing a major controversy, quote unquote, that was emerging over the last couple of years -- days is entirely manufactured about some claim that Joe Biden had said something he didn't say restricting -- suggesting Americans restrict their meat consumption. This has, you know, consumed as the Republican Twitter verse for the last couple of days. It's just entirely not true.

And it speaks to sort of how hard it has been for Republicans to define him and to make him scary. I think that Biden has had the advantage of watching Republican lawmakers decline to work with President Obama and his administration he served as Vice President. I think they took lessons from that. I think they took lessons from watching what happened during the Trump years.

I also think that Biden is not needy in the way that previous presidents certainly Donald Trump needed a lot of attention. As we know, he is not the only president who ever did, but he practiced it in the extreme. But presidents have historically liked to put their imprints out there publicly. That's just not what Joe Biden does or what he has been doing, and I do think that that has been to his benefit.

[12:50:04]

KING: That's an interesting perspective. I agree completely. The Republicans also have to make their calculation in 100 days. You just mentioned the -- he flummoxed them. It's a great word. We know right now our House Republicans are in a retreat. They have one of the big debates in the party is what role for Donald Trump and what role for Trumpism as the party goes on. And we'll watch this play out in the midterm elections and then into 2024.

But yesterday, Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, was on "Fox News Sunday" and Chris Wallace was pressing him quite firmly about insurrection day and his conversation with then President Donald Trump. Listen to just this snippet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): What I talked to President Trump about, I was the first person to contact him when the riots was going on. He didn't see it. What he ended the call was saying, telling me he'll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that's what he did. He put a video out later. CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Quite a lot lighter. And it was a pretty weak video. But I'm asking you specifically did he say to you, I guess some people are more concerned about the election than you are?

MCCARTHY: Now listen, my conversations with the President are my conversations with the President.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: His conversation with Chris Wallace was going to be quasi polite. I tried to rewrite history.

HABERMAN: Yes, John. I mean, at minimum, he is trying to rewrite history. He is trying to save himself from having to answer a question that poses a problem for him in terms of his own political ambitions, not just holding the caucus but -- or holding the caucus together trying to retake the majority and then become speaker, which is what Kevin McCarthy wants.

But that is just not what any of the reporting was in real time. It is certainly not the reporting we have heard about that conversation that he had with former President Trump and he is trying very hard not to answer the question. My reporting, Kaitlan Collins reporting, a lot of people's reporting from that day was that, former President Trump was watching television was pleased to see the disruption to the certification of the vote.

McCarthy is a lighting edge quite a bit. And that video, as Chris Wallace pointed out, during that video, former President Trump told the rioters that, you know, you're very special, we love you. That was not rejecting what they were doing.

KING: No. It was not rejecting at all. Maggie Haberman, it's great to see you, appreciate the reporting and the insights as we walked through this very important week here in Washington.

Up next for us, a very important day at the Supreme Court, the Supreme justices today agreeing to take on several big issues, including the Second Amendment case.

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[12:57:00]

KING: Big news out of Supreme Court today. The justices announcing, they will take on a major gun rights case next term. The Court will hear a challenge to a New York State law that restricts people from carrying concealed handguns in public. It is the first time in more than a decade that the High Court will rule on a significant case relating to the Second Amendment. Our legal analyst, Joan Biskupic joins me now. Joan, this is the big deal.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It is John. Good afternoon. You know, it's not since 19 -- 2008, when the Supreme Court first declared an individual right to own firearms that they've weighed in in such a big way. And also John, it's not just more than a decade, it comes at a time of these mass shootings increasing and a lot of concern among public officials about, you know, increasing firearms regulations.

But this case gives the Supreme Court a chance to actually give gun owners more freedom. The 2008 case I mentioned involved ownership of a gun for self-defense in the home. And the justices have not made clear since then, what kind of right exists outside of the home. And the petitioners in this case really stressed that it's time for the justices to say what kinds of rights people have for self-defense beyond the home.

Now for years, the Court has sidestepped that question. And it's the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett that likely led to the court finally saying we're going to hear it. She is someone who has supported gun rights. She warned against the Second Amendment being a second class right. And I think the other conservatives feel like with her on the bench, there's a chance they could actually enhance the scope of the Second Amendment at this time, John.

KING: It'd be a fascinating case to watch. And Joan, among the other cases, there's arguments coming up this week. I'm going to call it the case that involves Snapchat, a cheerleader, and the First Amendment. Walk me through that one.

BISKUPIC: Sure. This is a young woman who didn't get on the cheerleading squad, she wanted to reach and put a picture up on Snapchat that involved her middle finger. And the question there for the justices has to do with, you know, free speech rights of students, high school students off campus, you know. And that's a really big important question, because, you know, with today's social media and going beyond campuses, that's one that they'll weigh on. And then -- that's on Wednesday, John.

And then Thursday, the Court will be back in with opinions. And as you know, we're waiting for major rulings on the fate of the Affordable Care Act, on religious freedom, on voting rights out of Arizona. So the justices have a big springing coming up, including with that major First Amendment case involving students and student free speech rights on Wednesday.

KING: It's fascinating time for this interesting new court. Joan Biskupic, grateful for the insights today and I suspect you're going to be back with us a lot in the days ahead as we wander through these decisions.

[13:00:03]

And thanks for your time today. Hope to see you back here this time tomorrow for Inside Politics. Don't go anywhere busy News Day, Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now. Have a good day.