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Inside Politics

Soon: President Biden To Address Nationwide Crime Spike; Right Now: CDC Group Meets On Heart Risks Linked To COVID Vaccine; CNN: Ivanka & Kushner Distance Themselves From Trump. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 23, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST: In off year elections like this one, political nerds like those of us here, like to look at what the results may portend if anything for the bigger national races coming up in the midterm elections next year. So what can we learn about the state of the Democratic Party right now from the very early New York City mayoral primary?

Well, former New York Police Captain Eric Adams as we mentioned in the last segment, he's currently leading the Democratic field beating out progresses with a tough on crime message and approach as that city like others across the country grapple with a spike in violent crime this summer. Again, there isn't a winner yet, but so far, the results show this race as an example of moderate candidates and that wing of the Democratic Party thriving. Another example was earlier this month, Terry McAuliffe won the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia beating out a field of progressive candidates attempting to frame him and his ideas as out of touch with voters.

[12:35:16]

So I'm back with our panel now, I'll give a little sneak into what we talked about during the break. Jeff Zeleny, repeat what you said about this.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Joe Biden's party.

BASH: Yes.

ZELENY: Again, every since he won the primary, obviously, there's a very progressive wing on the 2020 campaign, he won that. And right now, his wing of the party, his centrist view of the party is ascendant and winning. The progressive voices are the loudest ones on Twitter, you know, in other forms, but they're not the largest ones. So there is just one example after another, where there is a sense that the progressives have gone too far on crime exhibit A, the defund the police argument hurt Democrats in the 2020 campaign without question in Senate races and House races in particular. And this is something that, you know, is a warning sign for other Democrats who are running so for all of the, you know, loud, talk about the AOC wing of the party and other things, Joe Biden's moderate kind of lane is winning out at this moment. Will it be like that forever, who knows, but the loudest voices are not necessarily the most important.

BASH: I just have to follow up on that with a tweet that really struck me as relevant to that this morning. Dave Wasserman of The Cook Political Report tweeted, Eric Adams has less than 2 percent of Andrew Yang's Twitter followers, and is on track to win more than twice as many votes in New York City. Lol.

BRITTANY SHEPHERD, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: It's scathing. Well, I think it's important to realize exactly which voters the Eric Adams message is resonating with. I wish I had a magic wall right now. Let's imagine that I had a baby one right here. Adams in these early returns is doing really well with outer borough, more suburban, Queens, Staten Island, Bronx, Hispanic, and black people. Who votes for Democrats? Surprise, Hispanic and black people who we saw in 2020 felt that they were being looped in with progressives too heavily.

We saw a pushback let's look into Miami Dade where Republicans were able to go to rely be Democratic area and say, you know what, they don't really care about you. They're socialists, they're going to come into your house, they're going to take all your things. Granted or not that was message that resonated. And saw a very clutch tight race there and around the Atlanta suburban area.

And you have to wonder, OK, well, if I -- Joe Biden in the White House kind of trying to approach black and Hispanic voters, let's figure out the messaging that's working.

BASH: Well, that's true what you said. And I know we're talking about New York City broadly. And I do want to sort of talk about this as it pertains to the Democratic Party nationally. But as you're talking, I'm thinking of four years ago, AOC won a primary against Joe Crowley and she, yes, she did a lot, a lot of grassroots work. But she also was one of the first really successful social media candidates. You know, what does that, does that tell us anything? Does it tells anything about how the Democratic Party is shifting, if at all?

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, clearly social media, there's a huge progressive following on Twitter and AOC was able to harness that a lot of progressives are. You know, you mentioned the loudest voices, the progressives right now. But I think we also look at the times right now, I mean, Democrats control all of Washington. There's got to be some thinking going on in terms of what's going to happen in 2022.

Traditionally, whenever one party controls all the levers of power in Washington, you know, Republicans, you know, if past is prologue, are going to flip potentially as much as two dozen house seats. They're going to win back the house. They're going to win back potentially the Senate. And so, you know, I would think party leaders are probably also thinking about 2022.

BASH: Yes.

BADE: What sort of message is going to resonate specifically with people we need to try to hold on to these --

BASH: Well, let's talk about that. Because the message that Republicans think is resonating is the fact that crime is spiking across the country. And Seung Min, I want to get to you on this. But first, I want to play what Lisa Monaco, the Deputy Attorney General said about that.

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LISA MONACO, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: It is staggering. It is sobering. And it's something that DOJ is committed to do all we can to reverse what are profoundly troubling trends.

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BASH: Trends that people are seeing when they read the newspapers all over the country. We have just examples Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Tampa Bay, Philadelphia, and just as you're coming in Seung Min, just examples, New York, they cut the police budget, homicide rates are up 45 percent, L.A., Philadelphia, Minneapolis, similar trends.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And this is clearly a concern, as you heard Lisa Monaco layout. And as you will hear President Biden lay out this afternoon that this is a concern for the administration. This is where President Biden is using his kind of, you know, stature to project action and, you know, really focus on this issue.

[12:40:10]

And I think what you're also going to see happen this afternoon is not only President Biden focus his attention on the rising crime rates overall, but also really focus in on gun crimes. And this is an issue that obviously President Biden himself has focused on for a long time, his administration has already taken several executive actions, but he's really going to highlight that as a key issue for that. But as you say, Republicans are clearly looking at this as a political vulnerability next year.

ZELENY: I mean that's very important. He's going to talk about violence but gun violence, which spreads the blame and responsibility around a little bit more because Republicans have done zero on guns. So that's what they're trying to do. But the White House is worried about this, state and local officials sounding the alarm. This is the chief concern, it's really, you know, has a huge impact on the economy and other things. So that's why the President is coming out this afternoon.

SHEPHERD: And two bills already passed through the House and these two gun bills -- BASH: Yes.

SHEPHERD: -- that try to close loopholes are, you know, in the Senate with cluster --

BASH: Yes.

SHEPHERD: Right.

BASH: Exactly. OK. Everybody stand by.

Before we go, we want to say we're talking about the Democratic trends, well, in Buffalo, CNN is projecting a self-professed socialist will win the Democratic primary for Mayor there. India Walton is a nurse and community organizer. She left home at age 14, when she had her first child. She defeated four term incumbent Byron Brown and is now likely the winner in November's general election. So she told CNN this morning, her leadership style would be a complete 180 from the status quo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

INDIA WALTON (D), BUFFALO MAYORAL CANDIDATE: We have lived through decades of the trickledown theory, believing that if you build it, they will come. And we have not built anything many things at all, for the folks who have stuck out economic downturn, population and job loss in the Buffalo community. So we are looking forward to doing things differently.

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BASH: So again, this is a different in the trend that we were talking about here. Walton would be the first big city socialist mayor in 60 years.

And we have some breaking news just in the CNN. Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to the U.S. Mexico border on Friday. The trip will mark the first time Harris visits the southern border as Vice President heading to El Paso, Texas. And it comes of course after relentless criticism from Republicans and some border Democrats and elsewhere for not going earlier this spring amid a surge of migrants, including unaccompanied children.

And right now CDC advisors are meeting to talk about rare complications from COVID vaccines in kids, plus a timeline for booster shots. We're going to bring you the latest on both of those fronts just ahead.

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[12:47:35]

BASH: The CDC's vaccine advisors are meeting right now with two main topics on the agenda reports of heart inflammation in young people after getting their COVID vaccines and when and how to implement booster shots for the wider population. Dr. Seema Yasmin is a former disease detective for the CDC, and author of "Viral BS." She joins us now. I don't know which is a cooler title, your book or your former title at the CDC. Thank you so much. So let's talk about the reports that the CDC says it's getting 300 cases of heart inflammation among young people, mostly young men, teenage boys, after they had the vaccine, so explain what those conditions are and put it in perspective for us.

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, FORMER CDC DISEASE DETECTIVE: Sure, so the perspective part is really important. But let me explain what we're learning about these cases, Dana, they're typically teenage or young adult men who've received the second shot of a COVID vaccine, usually an mRNA vaccine. And what we're seeing and we still don't know if it's completely linked to the vaccine or not, is these two conditions either swelling of the heart muscle itself, or swelling of the sac that surrounds the heart.

Now, earlier this month, Israel said that they do believe that the vaccines might be linked to these heart conditions. But interestingly, and I think this is a really good public health decision, they've still gone forward with making sure that younger people, teens, young adults are still getting vaccinated.

So here in the U.S., this CDC Committee is meeting today, tomorrow, and Friday, to talk about this to really weigh the evidence and to do a risk of benefit calculation really to say, the perspective part especially we've had about 300 reports of these cases, we still need to figure out is it linked to the vaccines? If so, how is it linked? Who might be most at risk? And then also assessing the fact that of those 300 cases, they've happened out of 20 million teens and young adults who've gotten vaccinated, right?

So I really worry about this part that people will just hear about these reports. They may see, even see headlines that are quite misleading in terms of just talking about heart swelling --

BASH: Yes.

YASMIN: -- or pericarditis, and not understanding, look, the benefits of these vaccines can really outweigh those risks.

BASH: Yes, that's so important to talk about in terms of context. I want to touch quickly on booster shots, which the Committee is also discussing right now. What do we know about that?

YASMIN: So what we know is that we're still learning about how long the duration of immunity is from when you get your first and second COVID vaccine shots. We know that there's really good durability and more than 90 percent efficacy, more than six months out of getting those mRNA vaccines.

[12:50:15]

But we know that with many vaccines, you know, we've all had to go get our tetanus or typhoid booster shots or pertussis booster shots, because that vaccine duration, the strength of their protection that gives us does drop a little bit over time. So the Committee is trying to look at the data we have right now to say, look for how long people who've been vaccinated really have protection. And then should we be looking at booster shots in the next six months, maybe in the next year?

BASH: Fascinating. Dr. Yasmin, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

YASMIN: Thank you. Thanks.

BASH: And the more President Trump, former President Trump, writes about the election, the more his inner circle appears to be changing, new reporting on his relationship with his daughter Ivanka and son in law, Jared Kushner, that's next.

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[12:55:33]

BASH: Former President Donald Trump's constant complaints about the 2020 election are driving away his daughter Ivanka Trump and son in law Jared Kushner. That is according to new reporting by CNN Kate Bennett, who spoke to 12 former Trump White House officials and family friends. One Mar-a-Lago party goer says the couple was absent from usual spring and summer events, two acquaintances say it's all a strategic effort by Ivanka Trump to undo the entanglements caused by for years at her father's side.

I want to bring in Maggie Haberman, CNN political analyst and Washington correspondent for The New York Times. Hey, Maggie, so I want to bring you in on this and also on reporting from Kate, that the former President is really mad about his son in laws reported six figure book deal. One person who spoke with the former President in the last two weeks recounted a conversation in which Trump complained about Kushner inking a book deal that he thinks his son in law will use to take credit for some of his achievements. I'm guessing once we see your face on the screen, there will be no surprise on it.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Dana, I think that, look, I think that the former President, certainly just get the book piece out of the way. I had heard from multiple people that he was not thrilled with Mike Pence's book advance, which was supposed to be relatively large. I'm not surprised to hear that he is not thrilled with Jared Kushner getting an advance at least for a book where he will put his own stamp on the administration's accomplishments.

Look, it's been a complicated relationship. I think, frankly, throughout their time in the White House, I do think that there is something strategic about trying to be seen as moving away, because there's still so much controversy around the former President's behavior related to the election.

But I also think from my reporting that there is a fundamental disagreement between Jared Kushner and the former President, about what happened in the election or at least the aftermath and what should have been happening in those final 10 weeks. So I think there's one piece of that. But Kushner is still around. He was involved in, for instance, the effort to try to appeal the Facebook ban on former President Trump.

So he's there and he's not there. But there's no question that the former President's oldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., has sort of taken on a more signature role in trying to be involved in the former President's political decisions going forward. I think one thing that a lot of people took note of was the Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump had dinner with Nikki Haley the other night or lunch or some meeting with her in South Carolina. Nikki Haley she has an ally of theirs, but she's also a potential 2024 candidate, and that is going to raise attention.

BASH: Yes, absolutely. So we know that the former President has been stewing and then some about the 2020 election. He released this statement yesterday lying about what's going on in Georgia. Is there any sense that he is going, this is -- I know the answer to this question, but I want you to talk about your reporting about the frustration among people around him that he is not letting up on this?

HABERMAN: So there, look, there are a couple of people who do indulge his belief that in his repeated claim that the election was somehow stolen from him, he has made allegations, false allegations that there was widespread fraud, you know, enough fraud that would have would have completely overtaken the election.

There are a bunch of people who have gotten tired of hearing it or a bunch of people who have sort of given up on trying to push back. We also know that a couple of weeks ago, he was talking to a number of people about his belief that he could be reinstated, you know, as early as this summer, because he was insisting that these audits which have been heavily criticized were going to put him back in there. But yes, there is a level of frustration with a bunch of people around him about that kind of talk. Not everyone but a bunch.

BASH: Not everyone. That's a really good point. And, you know, not enough for Republican leaders here in Washington to distance themselves from him. That's an important point as well. Maggie Haberman always great to talk to you.

Before we go some really scary pictures just in the CNN here in Washington D.C., a bridge collapsing directly onto the interstate, look at this, a pedestrian bridge. It's in northeast D.C. and there's a pedestrian bridge that goes over. There you see the highway, it crumbled right on to I-295. Authorities are telling us at least three people are hurt this hour. We are -- it's minor injuries but we're obviously going to look at this these remarkable images and hope that nothing gets worse in terms of people getting more hurt.

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Thank you so much for joining us. Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.