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Inside Politics

U.S. Olympic Athlete on Why She's Still Going to Tokyo Despite COVID; Biden: Unvaccinated Americans Remain at Serious Risk From COVID; Biden Unveils New Incentives to Get 70 Percent Americans Vaccinated; White House and Republicans Remain Far Apart on Infrastructure; Defendant in Capitol Riot Case Pleads Guilty, Likely to Get 15-21 Months in Prison. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 03, 2021 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you all so much for joining me at this hour. I'm Kate Bolduan. John King picks up our coverage right now.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello, everybody welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm John King in Washington. New CNN reporting this hour finds Donald Trump more obsessed than ever with the 2020 election and his big lie that it was stolen from him.

A police officer assaulted during the Capitol insurrection warned such talk might trigger more violence. President Biden and the key Republicans swap new infrastructure ideas. Yes, they are moving closer, but liberals are losing patience and worried the president is wasting precious time.

And the race is on now to get 70 percent of adults at least one COVID vaccine shot by the Fourth of July. The president says the reward is well worth rolling up your sleeve a summer of freedom. We begin the hour though with new details just moments ago about a Biden White House effort to now dramatically increase the U.S. contribution to the global COVID vaccine effort.

The White House now plans to share at least 80 million doses by the end of June with immediate steps to send 25 million doses. Let's bring in CNN's Jeff Zeleny with more of these important details, Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: John, we do know that the White House says they will be sharing these doses, as you said 80 million by the end of June and 25 million immediately right now. We can take a look at where some of these doses will be going to?

South and Central America to Asia to Africa, as well as 6 million left behind for regional partners in priorities. And that is the interesting allotment here. We just saw a few moments ago in a statement from the president. He said they are not sharing these doses to extract concessions or build friendships with these countries.

They are doing it to save lives and be a leading example for the world. But John as we know this is just a drop in the bucket for the doses needed around the world. But it is a sign that the U.S. is seeing some excess doses here of Johnson & Johnson of Moderna and Pfizer that they will be shared with the rest of the world.

And this indeed has been something that world has been waiting for so today this announcement from the White House from the president, they'll be sharing some of those doses starting right now John.

KING: Jeff Zeleny, I appreciate the live reporting out of the White House briefing. Let's look at some of the numbers behind this. The administration more confident it can share doses because of the improving situation here in the United States. But there are still a few flashing lights.

Let's just go through. First the overall trends map green is good. Greens mean fewer COVID cases this week compared to last week. And you see a lot of green on the map. 44 states when you add up 42 states I'm sorry, when you add them up 42 states trending down five states holding steady only two states reporting more new COVID infections today looking back at a week ago.

So the map overall is improving dramatically. Here's another way to look at it. A month ago, a month ago 27,219 cases was the average were at 16,239 right now. So that's where we were a month ago. Go back to the beginning of the year, five months ago in January 215,000 new infections a day.

You have to go way back even July 2020. We were higher than this. So it's the first time that way down now way down since a long time ago. If you look at the vaccine snapshot, well, this is why the cases are down. This is why hospitalizations are down because 41 percent of Americans more than 136 million Americans are fully vaccinated.

More than half 51 percent of Americans now partially vaccinated. That's one reason is the case count is down. Deaths are down and hospitalizations are down. If you look at it from this perspective, though, the vaccine rollout has slowed some right?

This is the follow the yellow line that is the averages right? Right now the United States is averaging 615,000 people reaching full vaccination every day. If you go back in April, that was 2.5 billion. So yes, Americans early on got vaccines. Now you're in a bit of a lag, a bit of a lag. That's the fully picture.

This is the partially vaccinated picture. And you see the same thing if you just follow the yellow line. It is down. People who wanted to vaccines eager vaccines rushed out to get them now it's tougher sell convincing people to come out that is part of the administration challenge right now.

And again, here's another way to look at it the peak 3.4 million vaccine shots a day it has leveled off now it has leveled off to 1.1 million is the average right now for the administration. And if you bring it up from a map perspective here, you want to be dark.

The darker you are on this map, the better. This is the percent of the people fully vaccinated by population. You see Maine at 55 percent and then you come down to Alabama and Mississippi 27 and 29 percent. That is part of the issue.

Let's bring it at this point to share his expertise and insights Dr. Ashish Jha he's the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. And Dr. Jha, I want to start here on this map. When you look at the disparities, Maine at 55 percent Mississippi and Alabama at 27 and 29 percent you move out to Utah at 33 percent.

Listen to the President of the United States. He talks about the push to get more Americans vaccinated because yes, it's getting warmer out now. Yes, the case counts are down. The president wants this map took a whole lot better by fall. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: All the progress we're making as a country. If you're unvaccinated, you are still at risk of getting seriously ill or dying or spreading disease to others especially when Americans spend more time indoors again, closely gathered in the fall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:05:00]

KING: How daunting is that challenge getting states, especially states where if you look at the map, there are states that did not vote for President Biden, to listen? How do you reach them and say, take this opportunity?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yes. So John thanks for having me back. I think it is a challenge. The president has set the goal of 70 percent of Americans getting their first shot by July 4th.

I think it's going to be tough to hit that I think we can. But it's going to be all ground game. It is going to be about making these vaccines far more accessible. Yes, everybody can go out and get it if they want it. But people sometimes can't take time off of work.

Sometimes they can't get to the places. Sometimes they don't have good trusted voices telling them to get it. So there's a lot of work ahead. I think if we do that work, I think we'll get a vast majority of Americans. But it's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be quick.

KING: Another issue on the table that Dr. Fauci sounded reasonably optimistic this morning is what about younger children now? Anyone over the age of 12 can get vaccinated which changes to summer camp perspective for many teenagers.

It changes the back to school in August and September for many families, but people with younger children age 2 up to 12 are still wondering one kid my child get a shot? Listen to this perspective this morning. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTFIED MALE: If you're a parent of a 12-year-old or someone 12 or younger right now, how hopeful should you be that they will get a vaccine dose before say Thanksgiving?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You know I'm cautiously optimistic about that. We hope that as we approach the end of this calendar year, we'll have enough information to vaccinate children of any age. So I'm cautiously optimistic we might be there by the end of the year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The end of the year sound right to you anyway to move that up? Or do you need more time for the studies?

DR. JHA: Well, we do need the time for the studies. And it's always hard to predict. But you know, if you and I were speaking three months ago, I would have said 12 to 15 year olds, probably by mid to late summer. Turned out I was wrong turned out that I was faster because the clinical trials came in earlier.

So I'm hoping that we're going to be wrong again. Or let's say we're being too pessimistic. And maybe the data will come in by the end of the summer or early fall. We don't know the clinical trials have to be done. Most important, we got to get it right.

We got to make sure these things are safe in younger kids; I think they will be but we're going to have to let the data drive that.

KING: Help me with the context of what we just heard from the White House that U.S. accelerating its contribution to the global vaccine rollout. The United States' perspective right now, things are going pretty well here. When you look around the world there are a lot of hotspots still. 80 million doses by the end of June 25 million doses immediately. What is the impact there?

DR. JHA: It's a good start, John. It's great to see the administration doing this. We have a glut of vaccines in the United States. We have more vaccines, and we know what to do with and you do have people dying around the world. I think there are huge humanitarian payoffs for us doing this.

I think there are large geopolitical payoffs of us doing this. I think we can do a lot more than 80 million doses. Certainly as we get into the summer months we'll have a lot. So I'm hoping the administration will ramp up much further.

KING: Dr. Jha grateful for your insights it is great to see you.

DR. JHA: Thank you.

KING: Take care, sir. Joining us now are Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash NPR White House Correspondent Ayesha Rascoe "POLITICO" Playbook Co-Author Rachel Bade and CNN's Senior Political Analyst Nia- Malika Henderson.

The president trying to push and push and push part of it is from a public health perspective; get 70 percent of Americans vaccinated. Get children vaccinated as soon as you can. I want you to listen to one of the president's takes on this. He says getting a vaccine should not be partisan?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. FAUCI: Fairly certain, you're not going to see the kind of searches we've seen in the past. What I am concerned about are those states in which the level of vaccination is low, that you may continue to see higher levels of cases as we get into the summer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's Dr. Fauci not the president, although in the past few months - past few months, that's become an issue from time to time. I've raised the point though, and you hear Dr. Fauci there. It's the same point though talking about you're not going to see giant surges this summer, because the vaccinations, but he's worried about pockets. I just want to put up on the screen here.

You look at the states where the vaccine rollout is lagging right now West Virginia. They're using cash incentives to try to get people to go out. Alabama has incentives, including cars. In Arkansas, they have incentives as well. But those states are trailing in the vaccine role.

They're also states that Donald Trump won quite convincingly. So as President Biden tries to convince these people, please go get a vaccine. He needs help, because he is not - he just does not have the influence there that he would have in a blue state.

AYESHA RASCOE, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, NPR: He absolutely doesn't. And so he has to figure out how can you convince these people? He gave a little nod to saying, look, this was developed under a Republican President, that Republican President is Trump.

I don't know that just him saying Trump, Trump's name or giving him credit is going to get people to go out and get vaccinated. They really need to find those people who can be influential to those Republican men, whether it's their doctor saying they got vaccinated, so you know, to get some of that out of the - that skepticism, push that away.

[12:10:00]

RASCOE: But yes, they're going to need to find people who can convince those Republican men that they should go out and get vaccinated.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: But it's not just Republican men the real kind of divide in terms of vaccine hesitancy is a class divide. You put those states up those states have a lot of people who are non college Americans, both black and white. And those are the folks who are least likely to get the vaccine--

KING: Striking - look at the data--

HENDERSON: --vaccination rate as among African American college educated folks, and then I think its white Americans, and then Latino Americans. So you are going to need a real influencers in those communities, which you see the Biden Administration trying to do with this going into barbershops and beauty salons having pastors who have a real connection with their parishioners really try to talk to them one on one.

I think that's much more important than getting celebrities or even politicians, even if it's Trump want to get these folks to change opinions.

KING: And the public health benefit is the main reason driving this. Let's get people vaccinated. Let's keep them safe. You reduce hospitalizations, you reduce deaths, you open businesses, and you open schools, and so on and so forth. But that's also not to ignore the politics.

You can do that by looking at the seven day average of new Coronavirus cases. You know, if you go back to Inauguration Day, we're averaging about 194,000 cases a day. On the 100th day, 51,000 case a day yesterday 16,000 cases. So that has come down that politically benefits anyone who is president at the moment.

The President right now is Joe Biden, who promised move Trump out, move me in things will get better. The concern about these states that are lagging though is in the fall that if you start seeing even if it's in red states, a spike in cases across the country in the fall just before the midterm election. Joe Biden is President.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no, that's exactly right. And that is why you're exactly right. I mean, I've talked to people who have looked at just even political polling who say that what it has shown them is that, you know, it's better for people to hear it from their pastor, their doctor, people they really trust in the local community.

But the bigger question is how are you going to get? You know, whether it's a mobile unit into those communities, and so forth, but it's also a global community. We know the reason - the Coronavirus is and was a global pandemic is because that's the way the world works right now which is why what President Biden the administration is doing right now is so significant.

Yes, it is important to find people at home first. But if you don't deal with India, or parts of Africa or parts of you know, anywhere else, it is going to come back to the United States--

KING: Just Mexico--

BASH: --to the South of Brazil, exactly it is going to mute - continue to mutate, and come back here. And we're going to have a different problem.

KING: And yet it was interesting, the administration is accelerating this today. But they took their time and faced some criticism for people around the world, you know, saying that they should have been more generous sooner. The president was saying I'm going to make sure I have the situation at home handled first before he did this.

RACHAEL BADE, POLITICO PLAYBOOK CO-AUTHOR: Yes. I mean, look Biden, early on, he sort of tried to tamp down expectations. And there's very clearly a political component as much as the health component. You just said this.

He tried to very much lower expectations, so that when he was very successful in getting, you know, more than half of Americans vaccinated, that he could have that sort of political windfall. And so, you know, I think clearly he wanted to see that at home first, if things do pick up and people start to see, you know, these numbers take off people getting sick, who are not vaccinated in the fall that could blow back on him. But obviously, he wanted to take care of the United States first America First.

KING: And he's about to go on his first big international trip too. So the timing of this helps as he moves around the world as well. Everybody sit put up next for us some new reporting interesting reporting on Donald Trump and the big lie. Even some longtime Trump allies now worried about where the Former President is turning for information and advice?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

KING: Let's hear some news CNN reporting now in the Former President Donald Trump being more obsessed than ever with pushing his big lie. A Former Advisor tells CNN Trump is listening to "The bottom of the bottom of the crazies in the barrel".

"The bottom of the bottom of the crazies in the barrel" meaning those who ignore the facts and the math and keep insisting Trump won. Retired General and Trump Confidant Michael Flynn, for example, just this week, not only repeated the lie that Trump won, but he said a Myanmar style coup to return Trump to power could happen here.

General Flynn later tried to walk back the coup comments. One of the officers assaulted at the Capitol on January 6th says such reckless talk could incite more violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL FANONE, DC METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICER ASSAULTED IN JAN 6 RIOT: Oh, absolutely. I mean, again, this is the exact type of rhetoric which were ultimately resulted in, you know, the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Officer Fanone, very importantly, gets to the stakes of all this. Keep inciting people with reckless lies and bad information. This is your reporting about the Former President listening to the bottom of the bottom of the crazies in the barrel. He will not let go.

BASH: He won't let go and to be totally transparent. I'm talking to people around the Former President, as do many of our colleagues a lot. And I'm sometimes reluctant to kind of put it forward because, you know, he is obsessed with that.

But we have a new president. And we have a not so new president who has been there for a long time and he's dealing with the pandemic and infrastructure and so forth. Having said that, what Officer Fanone said is the reason that we as the objective media need to keep focusing on this.

Because it's not just him sitting in Mar-a-Lago, you know, spewing things to people in and around him, it is him talking to people who have access to a very specific channel of information, misinformation, disinformation, who reach the kind of people who take it seriously and can act on it in a very, very dangerous way, which is why it is important for us to keep shining a light on it in context, but keep the light on it.

KING: Right. If he was talking to the portraits at Mar-a-Lago, we could roll our eyes and ignore it.

BASH: Exactly.

KING: When we know - we now know, a lot - a lot of people raise flags about this. But now we know from January 6th, that potential action of all of this, which is why again, you have to watch what the Former President says?

[12:20:00]

KING: And you have this you know why there isn't an independent bipartisan commission? New CNN reporting out today, new Senate report to detail security failures on January 6th, but will fuel fight for probe over Trump's role?

And again, there are several very good, credible congressional committees looking at this, but they're looking at narrow slices. You know, what do we need to do for the Capitol Police? What do we need to do for lawmakers' security?

They're not looking more broadly. Who are these people? What inspired them? What role did the president play? That fight is going to continue?

BADE: Yes. It absolutely will continue. I mean, they haven't talked to key witnesses who were in the White House who can speak to what Trump was doing and wasn't doing that day? So that's going to continue to be a problem.

I think this is going to really put the focus on Democrats and Pelosi, what exactly is she going to do? You know that this commission has failed in the Senate? I think, you know, regarding Trump's comments, and what he's saying about, you know, potentially being reinstated, I think the timing of this is particularly interesting, too, because Republicans right now are very much trying to, obviously pivot away from January 6th, they don't want to talk about it.

The reason they took out Liz Cheney from leadership. It's the reason they voted against this commission. And now you have, you know, Trump saying that he thinks he's going to be reinstated and saying all this crazy stuff. He's going to be out, you know, doing these rallies in a couple of days. And he's going to put this right at the focus, which is not what Republicans want, but they cannot silence him at all. So they have no--

KING: This is his litmus test as they try to recruit candidates in critical races up and down the ballot all across America, not just Congress, not just the House and Senate, but other races. So if you're watching and if you're listening to this kind of rhetoric, which it's just wrong, you can check it out yourself. It's just wrong.

There are some markers being laid down for those who were arrested in the marker. One of the people arrested at the Capitol Insurrection was Paul Hodgkins. And he is one of the - shall we say, good guys, among the bad guys. That's my terminology in the sense that he entered the Senate Chamber for about 15 minutes.

He originally faced five charges. He's not charged of any violence inside the Capitol. He's one of the people who follow the crowd. And that's what he says he was here for the rally and followed them all. I'm not excusing his behavior, but he did not do violent behavior. He wasn't building the gallows outside or anything like that.

There's likely recommendation now that he's pleaded guilty to one felony count is 15 to 21 months in prison 15 to 21 months in prison. There are 400 plus defendants in these cases now, across the country, this is what his attorney says.

The cement has hardened, it took prosecutors a while for them to get a full measure of the man, and the message is going to get sent to the other 449, meaning other people charged as of that interview with this. 15 to 21 months in prison that should be a message to people out there.

RASCOE: It should be unfortunately, when you have President Trump and all of or Former President Trump saying all of these things and putting forth all these ideas, you have people out there who are you know, being charged, who believe that Trump will come back and pardon them, like that's how deep this goes.

And so when you have all of this language talking about you're going to get reinstated. And all of this, there are real consequences. And when this does not materialize, you will once again see people act out or you can see people act out because what other recourse do they feel that they have?

And for Republicans who think that they can move on from this, they are going to have Trump out there saying he's going to be president again, all of this happened. I mean, he's at weddings and Mar-a-Lago talking about how the race was stolen from him? He is not going to make this easy for Republicans. KING: He's not going to make it easy. And to your point about the calendar, everybody's probably about the calendar, these trials will be playing out as well in every - just about every state just about every state that people are charged and this is a place out we shall see.

Up next, yes, there is some momentum some movement in bipartisan infrastructure talks, but please know, don't bet the ranch on a deal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

KING: Some positive economic news today. First time claims for unemployment benefits fell below 400,000. Last week that for the first time since the pandemic began below the 400,000 number. A bigger look at the economy comes tomorrow.

The May jobs report, tomorrow also the latest deadline for Republican counter offer on infrastructure. President Biden met yesterday with the Lead Republican Negotiator. He offered to slice his preferred price tag but only if Republicans also make some big concessions.

The panel is back with us now. So we can put up on the screen just a side by side. The key number here the president wants at least $1 trillion in new spending. The Republican plan on the table includes only $257 billion in new spending.

So there is still a huge gap. But the president says Rachael Bade he wants to get this done at a time - how long? How long can they do it? He's willing to give some on corporate taxes but not everything. He wants more money. How long?

BADE: I mean, how many deadlines have we missed so far? Look, I think Republicans and Democrats are realizing that this is coming to a head. It has been for a while. As a one Republican in the Senate said to me last night, you know, the music is great, but eventually it's going to stop or the dance is great but eventually the music is going to stop.

Nobody wants to be caught holding the bag. Nobody wants to be the one to walk away. But obviously Republicans are saying yesterday, Capito came - she left the White House and she briefed her fellow Republican negotiators and apparently, you know, there was a discussion about how they could never support $1 trillion in new spending?

They also don't like this new idea that Biden has floated about. You know a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations.

[12:30:00]