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Biden Pitches Trillions In Spending To Transform Economy; Federal Agents Raid Rudy Giuliani's Home And Office; Cheney On Shaky Ground With GOP Conference She Helps Lead; GOP Leaders Who Defy Trump Feel The Heat From His Base; Biden Models Stringent Behavior Despite New CDC Guidance; Warren Writes About Sexism During 2020 Presidential Bid. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired May 02, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[08:00:18]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice-over): The next hundred days, President Biden's big bet on big government.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have to prove democracy still works and we can deliver for our people.

SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Even more taxing, even more spending to put Washington even more in the middle of your life.

PHILLIP: A COVID era address to Congress has public health experts asking, is it dangerous to be too cautious?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It's really underselling the power of the vaccine.

PHILLIP: The Republican rift widens, is there room in the GOP for Liz Cheney?

And federal agents raided Rudy Giuliani's home and office. What does it mean for his most important client?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP (on camera): Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Abby Phillip.

This week, Joe Biden is ripping up the script that presidents have followed since Ronald Reagan and he says that big government is back and better than ever.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Trickle down, trickle down economics has never worked. It's time to grow the economy from the bottom and middle out. We the people are the government. You and I. Not some force in a distant capital. Not some powerful force that we

have no control over. It's us. It's we the people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The total price tag for Biden's ambitions, $6 trillion over ten years. That cost isn't sitting well with Republican lawmakers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: Our president will not secure a lasting legacy through go it alone radicalism.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): If you pay taxes, if you're working, your taxes are going up.

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): They think debt doesn't matter. They think that nobody has to pay it back. This is how you end up with socialism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The president insists he is willing to compromise, but there's no indication just yet about what he will be willing to sacrifice.

And joining us now, around the INSIDE POLITICS table for the first time since the pandemic, CNN's Phil Mattingly, Jonathan Martin of the "New York Times," Anna Palmer of Punchbowl News and CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson.

All of us here are vaccinated. We're ready to go. Thanks for being here this morning.

So, you know, what Joe Biden is trying to do, Nia, is really not something to be taken lightly. We've had three decades, basically, of Democrats and Republicans operating under a model of the government is too big, we need to make the government smaller. Democrats being afraid to make the government bigger, which is what they want to do philosophically.

What does it matter that Joe Biden is trying to do this now?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it matters because I think this giant sea change that we've seen with our politics and also where we are in this country. You have had for years, as you said, Democrats not wanting to be seen as big government politicians but also not wanting to be seen as tax and spend liberals, right?

If you look at this in terms of the taxes, there's a lot of hike in terms of taxes and a lot of spending as well. He's also, I think, focusing on working class Americans in a way that I think typically you have people focus in terms of policy on middle class Americans.

So you're focusing on people who are, like, day-care center workers, people who work in elder care facilities and trying to do something with community college, trying to give people a leg up from the working class to the middle class. It's surprising for progressives that he would be more of a moderate. But this is a very progressive plan.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, J-Mart, something has actually changed in American politics. There's an NBC poll out that asks about whether people think the government should solve their problems by doing more or is the government doing too many things?

Between 2009 and today, you have a 10-point shift in the direction of more people thinking the government should solve their problems. Was it Trump's incompetence in the COVID era, especially, that got us to this point and is the Biden administration trying to take advantage of us?

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think COVID is a factor. I think the rising tide of younger Americans who have come into their 20s and 30s. They're a lot more progressive and a lot more willing to see the government use to improve people's lives, because their experience has been pretty negative so far growing up and sort of seeing crisis after crisis in this country and they are turning to the government for some kind of help. So I think that's part of the issue.

[08:05:00]

What we have not really seen yet is how this applies in a political season, necessarily, where you put this stuff to the test of the voters. I think in a vacuum, it polls really well, especially in separate parts. What I'm curious about is collectively how this is going to play.

PHILLIP: The ads are already on the airwaves, right? Using this to Biden's advantage, this idea that Americans want the government to work better for them.

MARTIN: Yeah, and the Biden folks who have allies airing ads touting his platform and policies so far. And I think -- if you look at the polling, I think a lot of these programs are very popular. At least in theory.

And I think what's going to be really fascinating is when folks are feeling better, they're vaccinated, back to work, life is picking back up again, does Biden get a kind of good times credit politically for that, could he run on America is back effectively, Abby.

PHILLIP: So, you know, Phil, what is happening on the congressional side? A lot of big talk in that joint address this week. Are you seeing anything different in the White House's actual approach to trying to get Republican votes, trying to get an actual negotiation going that's different from how they approached the COVID relief bill?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, look, I think it's a very, very different approach right now. With COVID relief, they felt like it needed to be fast, they knew they could keep Democrats together on the policy side, big picture-wise, and I think on the politics side, nobody wanted the president to lose his first major legislative battle. So, they thought they could push ahead with Democrats only.

They were right, pretty significant legislative victory. This is a very, very different legislative beast, right? You're including health care policy, tax policy, energy policy, every single Democrat has their own views on these things. It's an unwieldy process, which is why, one, it's going to take more time and it's going to take real work to see if Republicans can come on board.

So, we've had -- behind the scenes there's been a ton of work from the legislative affairs team, dozens from the NSC, from the Domestic Policy Council, trying to lay the groundwork a little but also the president himself. He's had the meetings in the Oval Office but he's had phone calls with Shelley Moore Capito, the Republican from West Virginia who is behind the infrastructure proposal that has been put on the table up to this point. They want to keep the conversation going.

Is there a pathway to partisanship? Not on $4 trillion.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: It kind of reads me on that one. But I think he big question is, are Democrats -- is the White House willing to scale back on physical infrastructure, allow that to go on a piece by piece basis and push everything else further.

My understanding right now is the president is amenable and open to that idea. Those who aren't, Democrats on Capitol Hill who don't want to take the time and are very wary in the wake of 2009, 2010 of engaging in any negotiation that would slow things down that won't come to anything.

ANNA PALMER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS FOUNDER & CEO: I just think, I mean, to your point, that we're in the beginning of this debate. And so this is going to be a months-long slog. And I think almost that the American people, because of the last four years with Trump, you just kind of flat dash legislatively.

You didn't have this process which is messy where you're going to have these negotiations go on. But most Democrats, if you put them on truth serum would say this is going to be a partisan reconciliation bill at the end of the day and we're going to spend the four to six months debating this --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: After all of this, Democrats think they will end up with a partisan reconciliation bill?

PALMER: If they put them in truth serum, they're not going to see that publicly right now, because they have to go through the motions, but it's going to be difficult to find some kind of bipartisanship.

HENDERSON: Yeah, the idea being it's better to be caught trying to reach out to Shelley Moore Capito and, you know, sort of a bipartisan plan, but who do you get? Shelley Moore Capito? Really? Can you imagine her voting for this?

Even though she's from West Virginia, a fairly poor state, we'll see what Joe Manchin, obviously, he's somebody to look at, and Kyrsten Sinema, those moderates, but it's really hard to think -- who is the list of Republicans that you can come up with who would vote for this?

MATTINGLY: Can I make --

(CROSSTALK)

PALMER: That's a good point.

MARTIN: Is this $800 billion infrastructure bill that is just infrastructure itself? I think you can probably get well over 60 votes on that.

MATTINGLY: Depends on the pay-fors, right? When you go down the pathway --

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: Pay for, sure, but it's not going to be paid for, Phil. It's going to be a credit card.

PHILLIP: I wonder, especially after listening to Joe Biden's speech this week, where is Joe Biden's head really at on this? I mean, David Axelrod this week says, in his heart, he probably still would love to forge bipartisan deals, but he knows he's not going to be judged not on style points, but on what he gets done and he knows that.

So, it kind of sounds like Joe Biden thinks that there are these, quote/unquote, reasonable Republicans who are all over Capitol Hill willing to strike a deal with him, but he's battling himself a little bit on this. He does really want to get this done.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, and I think -- look, it's not a secret that he has very much enjoyed the idea of big legacy items starting to come to the forefront right now, right?

[08:10:02]

He likes that and I think that the possibility of not just COVID relief plan but transformative economic proposals in terms of how the government operates would be a significant legacy item. That said, I think he -- in his gut and I hear this from people who meet with him, both Republican lawmakers but also staff, really naturally leans is there a bipartisan way to do this right now?

And I think two points that I think are important, one, they have to pursue bipartisanship because they can't get every Democratic vote if they don't. Senator Joe Manchin had made that clear. You have to work towards bipartisanship so that's the level to that --

PHILLIP: Is the bar -- is the bar for Manchin one Republican vote? MATTINGLY: No, I think the bar for Manchin --

MARTIN: He wants an effort.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: But I want to make another point that I think is key. Every White House official, or a lot of White House officials I've spoken to made clear that the president got credit for bipartisan outreach during the COVID relief plan, even though the White House did not come off their top line at all.

So, what they're doing right now, they recognize the president gets credit for things, that matters too. Whether or not there's a bipartisan deal or not, that plays a role in that.

PHILLIP: We'll be back with a little bit more with all of you.

Coming up next, what does the raid on Rudy Giuliani mean for President Trump's inner circle.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:30]

PHILLIP: Federal agents' raid of Rudy Giuliani's home and office has some Trump allies looking over their shoulders. One Trump adviser told CNN this was a show of force that sent a strong message to a lot of people in Trump's world that other things may be coming down the pipeline. Investigators are looking into whether Giuliani illegally lobbied on behalf of Ukrainian officials while serving as Trump's personal attorney.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: I can't believe that these people would actually think I would do something like this. But, obviously, the assistant U.S. attorneys hate me and they hate Trump which is probably -- which is probably the whole thing. I believe that my client, Donald Trump, was completely innocent of what they were framing him for and proved it. I think they hate me for that.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

PHILLIP: CNN legal analyst Carrie Cordero joins the conversation.

Carrie, whether they hate Giuliani or not, what is he really facing with -- what does the raid tell us about what he might be facing and what is the potential out there for people in Trump's orbit or even President Trump himself?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So, I don't think there's any indication that the motivation for the prosecutors or the FBI agents who were involved in the search of Rudy Giuliani's home and office are politically motivated. That seems to be just sort of a baseless allegation from his part. What it does look based on the information that's been publicly

reported about the search warrant that was executed is that they are looking at him for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act which means, was he lobbying the U.S. government, including the president, on behalf of Ukrainian officials, so foreign officials or what's called in the statute, foreign principal, in order to have the ambassador, Maria Yovanovitch, removed from her position. And so, the investigation they're looking at, what was the motivation and in whose interests was he acting on behalf of.

So far, I don't think there's any indication that this means something for other individuals in the former president's orbit or even the former president himself. The conduct pertains to Rudy Giuliani and what activities he was involved in.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I think that the implication maybe in Trump world is that maybe the Biden Justice Department is more open to going forward with these really high profile raids.

For Trump himself, though, he's got other problems. He's got investigations in Georgia about his conduct during the election. He's got a tax investigation. He's got investigations about his conduct around the insurrection.

In Trump's world, is there a warning sign for the Republican Party that is still kind of like, this guy is our standard-bearer? He has a lot of legal exposure it seems.

HENDERSON: Yeah, I mean, if there is a warning sign, they don't seem to be heeding it, right? They are kibitzing with him in Florida, using him for fund-raising purposes, but he in this odd way I think is much more low key in many ways than people expected him to be. He's given a few speeches here, he's obviously not on Twitter.

He seems to be worried about this, seeing the warning signs, seeing the kind of collection of legal problems that he's facing in these different states. So far, if you're Republican, you haven't yet wanted to, you know, give him the Heisman completely.

PALMER: Trump having legal problems is nothing new. This has dogged him in different eras throughout his entire last 30 years of life. I do think the Republican Party, they are bear hugging him closer than they have when you look at what's happening at a congressional level, potential presidential candidates. I mean, the Republican Party is fully behind him, full stop.

Unless he goes to jail, I don't see that changing, even if these legal battles become more directly centered on him instead of just Rudy Giuliani.

PHILLIP: And then there's Matt Gaetz who's involved in a different world of allegations. There was a letter obtained by "The Daily Beast" from his associate that alleges that Matt Gaetz had sex with a 17- year-old at the time and paid for things -- or paid Greenberg so he could pay for things for these girls. The letter says: On more than one occasion, the 17-year-old was

involved in sexual activities with several of the other girls, gas money, gifts, rent or partial tuition payments were made to several of these girls, including the individual who was not yet 18.

[08:20:14]

The letter -- first of all, Matt Gaetz' attorney deny that ever happened say that the letter is hearsay, and it is hearsay, right, Carrie? But what is Matt Gaetz potentially facing?

CORDERO: So, neither Rudy Giuliani or Matt Gaetz have been charged with anything. What's different about the Gaetz case compared to Giuliani is that we know even less about the investigation, there has not been a search that has been publicly evident, that has been conducted against him. What we have is allegations, including from individuals, for example, Mr. Greenberg, who has been charged on multiple counts himself.

So I do take, perhaps, with a pound of salt, individuals who are charged with multiple crimes who have their own interest, particularly when they're leaking information to a news outlet to try to give allegations against someone else.

However, given the allegations that are being made against Congressman Gaetz, human trafficking is a crime that is very seriously taken by the Justice Department. Just this week, this past week, there was a case in the Eastern District of Virginia where they charged an individual for commercial sex, paying for sex with girls and it involved gifts and payments and travel. And those facts sound an awful lot like the types of facts that we are hearing with respect to Matt Gaetz.

PHILLIP: Yeah. I mean, these are serious allegations but they are allegations, we should be clear about that. In another world, you would imagine that a major political party would be running far away from this kind of thing. And the Republican Party is absolutely not.

They are allowing Matt Gaetz to continue as a member of the Republican Party in good standing, many other Democrats or Republicans have been ousted from their positions for far less, far fewer allegations.

I think it really does tell you something. Thank you, all, for joining in this conversation.

We'll be watching the Matt Gaetz situation because I think, obviously, Matt Gaetz doesn't feel like he has to go too. And that is a major, major Trump legacy.

Coming up next, a standoff between two top House Republicans and the price Liz Cheney could pay.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:26:57] PHILLIP: There's a growing rift between two top House Republicans prompting chatter that Congresswoman Liz Cheney may lose her leadership post. Cheney's persistent, outspoken criticism of former President Donald Trump has infuriated her colleagues. That and moments like this, a fist bump with President Joe Biden ahead of his address to Congress.

And compare that to the body language between Cheney and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy from minutes early.

This week, McCarthy did absolutely nothing to tamp down questions about Cheney's future in party leadership.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Is Cheney still a good fit for your leadership team, do you believe?

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), MINORITY LEADER: That's a question for the conference.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: That's a question for this roundtable.

So, Anna, will she survive?

PALMER: I mean, I think, basically, you just saw Kevin McCarthy open the door up for anyone who wants to cause a snap election and he's not going to stand in the way and defend her like he did before. I would not be surprised if that happens sooner rather than later.

I think there's a ton of frustration among senior Republican lawmakers who feel like she's not on the message that they want to be talking about. They felt like she's talking about January 6 more than Democrats are, and that her role is supposed the message person of the House Republican Conference, and she is not in step with the rest of the entire leadership.

PHILLIP: Yeah, she's rowing against the current for sure. And it's been interesting to see the comments from anonymous lawmakers, but moderates are saying what is she doing?

MARTIN: I thought the two House members, neither of whom are fire breathers, both of them very much supported Liz Cheney who are frustrated, because they think she's not helping her own cause, that she's saying and doing things not just on Trump but other areas too that are undermining her position.

And that she's not being active enough in making friends and trying to cultivate relationships inside the House that could help her withstand some of the challenges from the far right corners of the GOP conference.

Look, I think this is going to be a fascinating year for Cheney both in the House and back home in Wyoming. It is going to tell us a lot about the party. But to the earlier segment, what happens if they throw Liz Cheney overboard for a departed and disgraced former president and that president gets indicted at some point this year.

I mean, you have to think about how these things are going to look.

PHILLIP: But, of course, it doesn't seem like anybody in the Republican Party is thinking about that right now.

MARTIN: Perhaps right now, but down the road, those perceptions matter, you know?

PHILLIP: Yeah. I mean, speaking of, you know, this divide between the sort of Trumpism mold and the kind of pushback from the likes of Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, this weekend, Mitt Romney went home to Utah and this is the reception that he got.

[08:29:58]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): Oh, yes. You can boo all you like, but I've been a Republican all my life. My dad was the governor of Michigan. My dad worked for Republican candidates that he believed in. I worked for Republicans across the country. And if you don't recall, I was a Republican nominee for president in 2012.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Remember that? I ran for president and was the nominee.

You know, on the other side of that, you have Mitch McConnell this week. As you know, Trump goes on the radio or TV and says, we got to get rid of Mitch McConnell. And then Mitch McConnell comes around and starts talking culture wars. He's talking about, you know, banning the 1619 project.

So is McConnell changing his tune about how much he wants to be kind of in the Cheney/Romney mold maybe because he realizes that that's not going to be the way to keep his leadership post.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, I think the contrast between Congresswoman Cheney and Senator McConnell is fascinating, right. because if you get to the core of their beliefs on the former president, they're almost identical. They both, I think, loathe the former president. I think McConnell's advisers will make clear he will likely never talk to President Trump again, doesn't want to talk about President Trump.

But whereas Congresswoman Cheney continues to talk about the issue, and she's asked about it a lot, that's been part of it. Senator McConnell who is also asked about it a lot, will not talk about it at all. All he will talk about is moving forward to the future.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Right. There's context here, right. McConnell tried to move the party away from Trump. He made that effort. He made that bet and he lost. And I think what McConnell recognized early on which is kind of part of the attribute that made McConnell the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate is, ok, my conference is in a different place. The Republican party is in a different place. I'm going to shift to that place.

His beliefs about Trump haven't changed but a recognition of the politics and a recognition that if Mitch McConnell wants to be majority leader again, he needs to keep Trump within the folds.

He's not going to talk about him. He's not going to prop him up. But he will pursue some of the issues like culture wars that the president has made more relevant perhaps.

JONATHAN MARTIN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Yes.

MATTINGLY: And he will stick with his conference which very clearly does not want to cast Trump aside.

PHILLIP: And what -- go ahead.

HENDERSON: I was going to say yes. I mean Mitch McConnell essentially said, right, if Donald Trump is the nominee in 2024, he will back Donald Trump. Liz Cheney has, of course, not said that.

I think it's been a surprise, at least to me, that Liz Cheney has been so persistent and vocal and bold in her criticism of Donald Trump. It seems like she made -- you know, if you were watching her, she made her point and maybe she would move on.

But she keeps making her point and keeps making her point.

MARTIN: Yes.

PHILLIP: Yes.

HENDERSON: She has talked about maybe running for president in 2024, whether or not there's any sort of Liz Cheney wing of the Republican Party is a big question.

It's actually an easy question, no, there isn't a real Liz Cheney wing. But she's certainly trying to find one. But it's very difficult and we saw what the reaction was to Mitt Romney as well.

PHILLIP: And what happens -- what happens to Mitt Romney? You heard him talking a lot about his father --

MARTIN: Yes. Oh my God.

PHILLIP: -- a lot about the past, what happens to him now?

MARTIN: That was a fascinating moment on so many levels for those of us who have covered Mitt Romney over the years, you know, invoking his father's service to the party and sort of real, real anger. You could sort of see there, as he was booed well into his speech. Romney has the liberty of being over the age of 70 and independently wealthy and he's not up until 2024. He could serve out his term and then call it a career and enjoy his grandkids. Or he could try to come back in '24 and see where the party is.

Because Abby, who knows in '24 where the party is, especially in Utah. And don't forget, his stature in Utah with the general election, not to poke in that room, is pretty --

PHILLIP: Totally different scenario.

MARTIN: Yes.

PHILLIP: I do want to get to Tim Scott who this week gave the Republican response to Joe Biden's address.

His speech was part -- top part about policy, schools, et cetera. But the bottom part was all culture war. It was about race in particular.

He says -- well actually, let's play what he said on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Today kids are being taught that the color of their skin defines them again. And if they look a certain way, they're an oppressor. From colleges to corporations to our culture, people are making money and gaining power by pretending we haven't made any progress at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So he's -- if you really listen to what he's saying, a lot of this is actually about reverse racism which you hear from a lot of other people being repackaged by Tim Scott?

HENDERSON: No, I think that's right. And repackaged then, I thought in a fairly sort of charming way. I thought his presentation was good and the details do get at what a lot of Republican voters think and that is to say that they are the real victims of racism and discrimination. That white people, not African-Americans and people of color.

And so that's what he was talking about. It was a sort of an odd thing because on the one hand he said America is not a racist country and then he proceeded to sort of list examples of racism that he faced himself --

MARTIN: Yes.

[08:34:51]

HENDERSON: -- as he was talking about the police reform, something that he's pushing for. And that's going to be the fascinating thing, right. Whether or not he can use his juice and his position as the only black Republican on the Senate side to actually get police reforms -- PHILLIP: He seemed to really throw Democrats under the bus on police

reform in this speech saying that he doesn't think they really want to make a deal and yet he is in the room --

MARTIN: Right.

PHILLIP: -- making the negotiations.

MARTIN: Right. And this is going to be a fascinating test of both right and left, Abby. You know, is the GOP going to be willing to effectively give away an issue, politically by compromising on police reform.

And then, you know, are Democrats going to be willing to compromise themselves on what's going to have to be a more watered-down version of police reform?

So can it, you know, attract the left in the House that wants a tougher bill? And can it also sort of keep the GOP intact (ph) -- it doesn't want to do much of anything on police reform, if we're being candid.

It's a big test of both Tim Scott and the sort of faith the GOP has in him and Karen Bass who is the House negotiator who was passed over for VP and the U.S. Senate and who right now has a sort of rising star in the House. This is her moment too to watch.

PHILLIP: But do you think it's better for Tim Scott to have a deal or no deal? Deal or no deal?

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: He wants a win. His colleagues want to give him a win, at least some of them do. Now, for his personal interest, absolutely better to have a win.

PHILLIP: All right. So we'll see about that.

Coming up next, a socially distant address to Congress. Did President Biden miss a chance to show off what vaccines can do?

[08:36:20]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: This week the CDC announced expanded guidance for vaccinated people. They can be outside without masks and inside without masks with other vaccinated people.

But here's what the country saw from President Biden -- a masked, socially-distant first address to congress. And walking across the south lawn with the first lady both masked, both vaccinated.

The CDC's guidelines are conservative, to be sure, but apparently not cautious enough for the administration which has been modeling even more stringent behavior. CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner joins our conversation. So Dr. Reiner, there's been a lot of conversation about what should have happened at that joint address. A lot of Congress is masked -- or is vaccinated.

Should this have been an opportunity to show, hey, guys, vaccines work? We can all be in this room if we're all vaccinated.

DR. JONAHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Absolutely. Look, the problem Abby is -- first of all, we don't know how many members of Congress are actually vaccinated because about 100 members have refused to disclose their vaccine status.

PHILLIP: Right.

DR. REINER: Presumably most of those members have been vaccinate but are pandering to some of the sensibilities in their districts. But it would have been terrific to have a fully vaccinated crowd in the House chamber, have the president come out, take off his mask, you know, show the American public what is possible when we all embrace vaccines.

But the problem is, just like in politics, vaccine America is two Americas. There's the America of vaccines and the America of the unvaccinated. Vaccinated America is immune. And the latest data from the CDC shows that only 0.055 percent of people who were vaccinated became infected.

And then there is the America that is not vaccinated and those are the people who are dying.

PHILLIP: Right.

But there's also this reality that if you take a look at what is going on in the country, if you walk the streets of towns and cities, if you look at what happened at the Kentucky Derby over this weekend, we can play some of this video -- people are outside.

We don't know if they're vaccinated. They're not wearing masks. They're walking around in a very crowded area. The CDC's guidelines could very well be behind where people already are in terms of their actual behavior. I mean is there a risk here that the CDC could become basically obsolete on this issue.

DR. REINER: Well, they've been both very competent since the new administration took over and very cautious, and I think too cautious. Look, there was no more really stringent about masks than I was for the first 12 months of this pandemic. But what I know now with certainty is that if you have received both doses of an RNA vaccine or you're a couple weeks out from the J&J vaccine, you are very well immune.

And you no longer need masks in public. You can go into places without masks. And it's time for the CDC to start embracing this kind of bifurcated strategy and perhaps giving the unvaccinated a hint of what life can be like if they become vaccinated. PHILLIP: Yes. And Phil, you know, I mean I've talked to people in and

around the White House who I know are privately having these conversations about, when are they going to be ready to kind of take that next step? What's the conversation like inside the White House on this?

MATTINGLY: Look, I think it's a running conversation. But I think what you've seen over the course of the last probably 10 to 15 days, there's been a messaging shift, very clear messaging shift.

The fact the president came out to give public remarks in the wake of the CDC shift in the guidance underscores the reality that they need -- they have recognized that there need to be more carrots here, right.

They have gotten -- with the supply at the level it is with the vaccine right now, with the availability at the level it is, vaccination -- people who want to get vaccinated can get vaccinated. They need to push into the group.

Hesitancy isn't necessarily it. It's more of what's the rationale for needing to get this, particularly if you're younger, particularly if you believe your risk factors are lower.

And part of that is adding carrots. I think the issue right now that the White House is facing is what Dr. Reiner is pointing out. There are people inside the White House saying we can do more. We can go further in terms of what we offer those, from a guidance perspective, that are vaccinated.

The counter to that, which is where I think the White House is still sitting right now, is there are still 40,000 -- 50,000 cases per week -- or per day right now. We need to recognize that there are still large segments of the country that have not been vaccinated and therefore they need to mask up.

[08:44:56]

MATTINGLY: I think what's lacking and I think what they're trying to figure out how to manage here is you can trust the American people if you give them the proper guidance to operate on things that aren't just straight forward black or white. There can be some nuance there.

How to grasp at that, how to get at that is one of the things they're trying to figure out right now.

PHILLIP: And President Biden was asked about his approach to his own behavior when it comes to masking. And, you know, he gave a little bit of a convoluted response that was part about wanting to push this idea of patriotism and mask wearing and also partly because of the reality that he faces as a president who is dealing with a lot of vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The likelihood of my being able to be outside and people not come up to me is not very high. So it's like, look, you and I took our masks off when I came in because look at the distance we are. But if we were in fact sitting there talking to one another close, I would have my mask on and I would ask you to have a mask, even though we've both vaccinated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: You see, the part of that that I don't understand is there are both vaccinated, so the CDC guidelines say they don't actually need to keep a distance from each other. It seems like there's just a little bit of unwillingness there from Biden personally and perhaps the administration to even go as far as the CDC has gone.

DR. REINER: Right. And the question really is, do the vaccines work, Mr. President, or don't they work?

PHILLIP: Right.

DR. REINER: And if the president has been vaccinated and he has, and anyone who comes around him have been vaccinated, everyone is protected. Even if the -- even if the visitor to the president or someone who comes up to him has not been vaccinated, the president is still protected.

And that's really the -- that's really the message. And the message to the public is, yes, if you get vaccinated, you will not die from this virus, you will not transmit the virus to someone either you love or just a random stranger, that's your patriotic duty.

Your patriotic duty now is really no longer to wear a mask if you've already done your patriotic duty which is to get vaccinated.

PHILLIP: Right. There is a degree to which a lot of Americans are willing to accept, you know, a small amount of risk because by and large these vaccines do work and they feel like, yes, they can go around.

And the White House is not necessarily signaling that. They seem to be focusing on the small amount of risk that exists and not on the large amount of protection that people actually get.

DR. REINER: Right.

PHILLIP: Coming up next, Elizabeth Warren is about to provoke a new debate about sexism in politics.

[08:47:23]

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PHILLIP: Senator Elizabeth Warren's new book "Persist" comes out this week and in it she recounts her 2020 bid for the presidency and candidly discusses the role that sexism played.

According to an excerpt in "The New York Times", Warren writes that she was really running against the shadow of Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss. She says, "I wondered whether anyone said to Bernie Sanders when he asked for their support, Gore lost so how can you win. I wondered whether anyone said to Joe Biden, Kerry lost. So clearly America just isn't ready for a man to be president."

So Nia, I mean obviously shocker. We all heard this from voters ourselves. But what do you make of her saying --

HENDERSON: I think that is right. You talk to voters on the stump back then and they said they were essentially afraid, right, to nominate another woman because of what happened to Hillary Clinton. And listen, they look around at American culture and history and see there are not a lot of women who have ascended to the heights of governorship or Fortune 500 CEOs.

I think there are eight woman governors now. So that is what they were looking. They, I think fled to the safety of an older white man and not Bernie Sanders, obviously.

ANNA PALMER, FOUNDER/CEO, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: And she also just struggled right after Hillary Clinton to have a lane for herself. She was with Bernie Sanders in that real liberal progressive lane. You have that happening.

At the same time look who ended up being the nominee -- Joe Biden, not in that same vein. Whether she's a women or a man.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean -- and she did say that, you know, her inability to explain how she was going to pay for her health care plan contributed. But there was this -- there is this resistance in the American -- you know, even among liberals, right, to think about women in --

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: I mean we all picked it up on the campaign trail time and time again. The one animating impulse of the 2020 primary, Abby, was beat Donald Trump. That was the only issue for the vast majority of the electorate.

And that is why Biden won the way he did with Bernie, you know, winning a handful of states and it flipped just like that because people were focused on just that. And anything that they worried to challenge the possibility of well, is this too risky, they shied away from.

PHILLIP: I mean do you -- is it surprising though to hear Elizabeth Warren get to this point where she's willing to talk about it explicitly because she alluded to it as she was leaving the race in 2020? We had her on the show a couple of months ago and now she's kind of really putting it out that there is this barrier and it is a Democratic primary barrier, not just the broader electorate.

MATTINGLY: Yes. I don't think Senator Warren's ever really been considered a shrinking violet so I'm not surprised and I think that this is kind of her view of what occurred and I think putting it out there -- I think, if you talk to people who are involved in that primary, if you talk to people who are involved in terms of how women operate in democratic politics, they believe actually bringing it out there, making clear this is what they believe happened will perhaps help change things the next time around. Every single election cycle perhaps they get a little bit further along.

The one point I'd make though is on a policy perspective, when you look across the Biden administration, when you look across not just the White House but across the administration writ large, President Biden may be president right now but Elizabeth Warren's ideological views on things and Elizabeth Warren's policies and her personality --

MARTIN: I know.

[08:54:59]

MATTINGLY: -- personality and the brains behind a lot of --

MARTIN: Personality, right.

MATTINGLY: -- during the campaign are pervasive inside this administration. She had a very significant impact. She's just not in the White House.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean I think, for sure progressives are extremely happy. Happier than they thought they would be.

And then we have a vice president who is a woman which changes the optics of the whole situation.

Jay Martin, Nia-Malika, Anna Palmer, Phil Mattingly, thanks for being with us this morning.

And that is it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. Join us back here every Sunday at 8:00 Eastern time and the week day show as well at noon Eastern time.

Coming up with next with Jake Tapper, with "STATE OF THE UNION". Jake's guests include senior White House adviser Anita Dunn and Maine GOP Senator Susan Collins.

Thank you again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. Have a great rest of your day.

[08:55:45]

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