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WH Defends Harris Amid "Whisper Campaign" On Office Dysfunction; WH to Deploy "Surge Response Teams" To Combat Delta Variant; U.S. Economy Adds 850,000 Jobs In June, Beating Predictions. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired July 02, 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]

CAROLINE POLISI, LECTURER IN LAW, COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL: But, you know, I would just note that, you know, even if the former president is not ultimately indicted here, the collateral consequences for the Trump Organization are quite significant here.

It is a highly leveraged company. Banks across America hold a lot of its debt. And likely they will see this indictment as some form of a breach of their lending covenants, and there is a serious threat that they're going to call in those loans. And you know, it's unclear whether or not the organization will survive. So whether or not, you know, there's more criminal exposure there, this is going to have an effect on the family.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Without a doubt, Caroline Polisi, grateful for your thoughts and insights. We'll continue to stay in touch as the case progresses through the courts and we will see if there is a next chapter. Caroline, grateful for that today.

Up next for us, why the White House Chief of Staff found it necessary to make clear the President thinks the world of the Vice President.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:35:28]

KING: I want to bring you an important and heartbreaking update out of Surfside Florida just now. The death toll in the condo collapse rising to 20 that after rescue crews recovered to more bodies. The number of unaccounted for still had 128. And this detail just a gut punch, a member of the Miami Fire Department lost his seven-year-old daughter in that condo disaster. Search and rescue teams found her last night. Our condolences to all involved in that tragedy.

I'm moving on now to politics back here in Washington. The President's inner circle trying to silence one of its members calls a quote whisper campaign critical of the Vice President. We all know it has been a rocky few weeks for Kamala Harris with talk of tension with the West Wing staff turmoil and other grumblings, that talk is almost exclusively attributed to anonymous sources. The White House Chief of Staff deciding it was time to offer an on the record review of sorts. Ron Klain telling Axios, the President's trust and confidence in her is obvious when you see them in the Oval Office together. The panel is back with us. Some of this is Washington drama, but some of it is real in the sense that if the White House Chief of Staff, other senior advisors to the President decide they need to go on the record and say the Vice President's fine. The President is fine with the Vice President. It tells us what?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's -- well it tells us that they felt the need that given after all these weeks of the back to back new cycles around Vice President Harris that they felt the need to clamp down on this to say this isn't what's happening and that they wanted to defend her. You saw this rallying around her today, in Axios. The rebuke of the political reporting that we had saying that there is turmoil in that office.

This also carries over from the campaign. She had similar issues during her campaign with staff. And so now you also saw the President today bring her up to the podium to show look, we are one united front and that he supports her.

KING: You mentioned the history here. Let's show some of the recent headlines. "POLITICO," not a healthy environment, Kamala Harris off is rife with dissent. "The Washington Examiner," repeat problem fingers point at Harris. "New York Post," she's number two report claims Kamala Harris' staff heels. And now let's go back in time because you're right, let's go back in time, this is November 2019. No discipline, no plan, no strategy, Kamala Harris campaign is in meltdown. Again, some of this gets overblown in Washington, some of this his rival egos, people who work in the Vice President's office who maybe want to jobs in the West Wing, who are still grumbling about it, but she is the CEO of her operation. And her operation continues to have problems.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And that's ultimately what this is about is that the pattern here is that the one thing that has carried over between the Senate campaign, her presidential campaign, and now her vice presidential office is the principal herself. And it's been, I think, really challenging for her at this national level to manage a staff, frankly. These reports of dysfunction have been pretty consistent. And therefor, all kinds of different reasons, and for some things, small some things large but at the end of the day, when you want -- if you are a principal, it's on you to create a no drama environment if that is what you want the reports to be about what's going on. She has not been able to do that. And that's just a fact.

And people in her world are watching this and hoping that it gets under control. But these stories only make a, create a bad narrative. And what you're seeing in the Axios story is concerned about the long tail of this, how will this affect her in maybe 2024 or 2020.

KING: And that's the key point the long tail of it because she's the Vice President right now, but she has ambition without a doubt. There's a question, does President Biden run for reelection in 2024, she note. Symone Sanders, her top advisor Kamala Harris saying this to "POLITICO," people are cowards to do this this way, meaning with anonymous quotes, I happen to agree, people are cowards to do this this way. We're not making rainbows and bunnies all day. What I hear is that people have hard jobs and I'm like, welcome to the club.

Symone Sanders pushing back there and again, people, news organizations, sometimes I think are too generous with giving people anonymous sources to attack people. Sometimes they're very necessary. The question is to Abby's point, Jonathan, the long term impact here in that Kamala Harris is a presidential aspirant, whether it's in 2024 or 2028. And Democrats do question, can she pull a team together? Can she consistently lead her team?

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. And this is nothing new. I think the history of V.P.'s impressions, there's often tension in so I think this doesn't really strike folks who have covered this stuff for a long time is new. I think what is different, John, is that this early in the presidency typical, you're thinking about the President's reelection. And that still could happen for Joe Biden. But given his age, it's totally possible that he's not going to be on the ballot in '24. That does make this much more consequential in the medium to longer term.

[12:40:18]

But I was struck by the back to back reports first and "POLITICO" and then "Axios." And the level of pushback involved in the second report said to me that clearly some folks in the V.P.s office and perhaps her -- Kamala Harris herself wanted a more robust defense, shall we say.

KING: And perhaps the President himself, we could show the video you mentioned that Laura, the President calling her up today at this event with the Dodgers, that she's from San Francisco. She's a Giants fan. But the President made a point of calling her up and then talking about the equity agenda of the White House of which he is involved. The President pays attention to the political press, trust me very much. And to Jonathan's point, look, I covered the Clinton White House, there's a lot of dysfunction with Al Gore. Dick Cheney had some dysfunction with George W. Bush. Joe Biden had a fair amount, especially early on of tension with Barack Obama. The dynamic itself is not new. It is because of Harris and the potential that she could be the heir apparent as early as 2024. That's I think you see Ron Klein going on the record. I needed done going on the record. The President -- the President senior staff trying to say, whoa, let's try to put this fire out.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And I think you've seen that been even before these stories are merged this week, you've seen this administration from the start knowing the dynamic that the President may not run again in 2024 to really ensure, to show in every single way possible that Biden and Harris are in lockstep with each other. They always say the Biden-Harris administration. They make a point of how she is not only the last in the room, but the first than the room for these major key decisions. They eat lunch regularly. She does the national security briefings with him on a daily basis.

So they really tried to show that unified front, but obviously with some of these anonymous sources coming out and detailing a turmoil in her office, clearly it's something that the Vice President will have to confront with just this, before this narrative builds like Abby said in the coming days and this is part of that with the White House officials coming out of defending her.

KING: This is days 164. We'll check back, yes, I say that because we're five months in and there's always transition bumps and bruises of a because this is a recurring theme. We'll check back in another 100 days and see what it looks like.

Up next for us, the Delta variant is spreading a new COVID infections are sadly again on the rise.

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[12:47:05]

KING: The Biden White House now deploying new COVID emergency teams to help combat the Delta variant which Dr. Fauci now calls the quote greatest threat to reversing pandemic progress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: These are dedicated teams working with communities at higher risk for are already experiencing outbreaks due to the spread of the Delta variant and their low vaccination rate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's walk through the latest numbers and show you just why the White House is so concerned about the Delta variant. Here are the overall case count, this was the horrific winter peak. And if you look down here, you say OK, that's pretty good, right? We looked down. It is down. It is way down. And that is significant progress. But look at just more recently, you see more recently, just go back to the middle of May and you come into June. Yes, this is down below 20,000, close to 10,000. You saw just, you know, Thursday 12,707. But look at the plateau essentially, a plateau even a slight increase in recent days official say the reason you can't shove it down more is because of the spread of the Delta variant. This puts that into context.

You go back to March, no Delta variant in the United States. Early May, it was 1.3 percent of the cases Delta variant here in the United States. Fast forward to where we are now, approaching 30 percent of the new infections in the United States attributed to the more nasty Delta variant. You can look at it this way as well on the map, this is CDC data on the region's, 12 percent of the cases down here Delta variant, 31 percent of the case, 32 up here. Look out here in the plains and out into the Mountain West 52 percent, 58 percent.

At that point, let's bring in to discuss share his expertise and insights Dr. Ashish Jha, the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Dr. Jha, essentially these are SWAT teams, the White House saying we're going to take public health experts and we're going to beam them across the country. You see on the map here, the regions that are being especially hard hit by the Delta variant, why is this so important? And what can these teams do?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yes, John, so thanks for having me back. This is really important. And the reason is where we're shifting to a new phase of the pandemic. We're not going to have nationwide outbreaks anymore. We have parts of the country that are very, very vaccinated, highly vaccinated, and they're going to largely, you know, be spared some of these things. So we need local efforts.

And what these teams will do is they will go in and augment what are really exhausted local public health entities, and help them fight the outbreaks that are going to be happening and sprouting up all across the country.

KING: Sometimes the science gets very complicated. Sometimes you can look at things and connect the dots. If you look at the map of vaccinations, this is the county approach. And when you see the gray states at home, these are states that are working on their data. So it's incomplete data that's why they're gray. But Dr. Jha, I just showed the map that showed some of these regions. You come up here in the plains, the Dakotas, come out here in the middle. A lot of these counties are very light. Meaning the percentage of vaccinated is down. So you see, you can overlay where there are fewer people vaccinated with where the Delta variant is taking deeper root. That's the problem, right?

JHA: Yes, I mean, that part is pretty straightforward. And it makes sense, right, where people are not vaccinated, people are still quite susceptible and this is the most contagious variant we've seen throughout the whole pandemic. So it's not a surprise that those are the counties that are most vulnerable and that's where this is really taking off.

[12:50:09]

KING: And what Dr. Walensky has stressed in recent days, the CDC director, she also says COVID deaths are way down. But when we are seeing COVID deaths, they are almost universally among the non- vaccinated. The data is pretty clear, vaccines not only protect you against the virus, but even against this variant.

JHA: Yes, this is actually one of the -- I have to say one of the most sort of pleasantly surprising things is how well, these vaccines are holding up against the variant, so far against all of them. Right now what we're seeing, John, across the country is essentially two pandemics. One among vaccinated people where it's mild, where it's largely going away, and another particularly in unvaccinated communities, which are still at substantial risk from this variant.

KING: Dr. Jha, grateful for your insights. We'll track these numbers. Sadly, we're in July now as we get closer to the fall, many think that numbers will start to go up some more. Dr. Jha, thank you very much.

Up next for us, the new jobs numbers are strong, and they tell us a lot about the COVID recovery.

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[12:55:40]

KING: The President today quick to celebrate new numbers showing the COVID recovery gaining significant steam. The United States added 850,000 jobs in June, that's the strongest month since August. The unemployment rate did tick up a bit to 5.9 percent. The labor market still down 6.8 million jobs compared with before the pandemic back in February 2020. But the signs of recovery are almost everywhere you look. And the President says he deserves some credit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Last time the economy grew at this rate was in 1984. And Ronald Reagan was telling us, it's morning in America. Well it's getting close to afternoon here, the sun is coming out. We're on the right track. Our plan is working. And we're not going to let up now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us to share his insights is Mark Zandi, he's chief economist at Moody's Analytics, Mark grateful for your time today. You look across the sector's leisure and hospitality a giant chunk, 343,000 jobs, retail up 67,000 jobs, business services up 72,000 jobs, manufacturing of 15,000 jobs. When you look at this report, is it all encouraging news or is there anything in there that gives you any pause?

MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ANALYTICS: It's pretty good news, John. I think the President has a lot to cheer about and a lot has to do with the American rescue plan that was passed in March. It really has provided a lot of support to the economy. The reopening is of the economy as the pandemic winds down is really kicking the economy into high gear, so a lot of good news, even the rise in unemployment went from 5.8 to 5.9, that's largely because we saw a surge in the number of people who quit their jobs.

And, you know, people don't do that, John, unless they're pretty comfortable that they're going to find another one. And they're right, they will, because there's a record number of open job positions. So then, you know, as an economist, I can always find that the dark cloud in the in the sunshine, but this feels pretty good.

KING: And to the point you just made people leaving their jobs. It sounds almost counterintuitive, right? Why is the economy doing so well, and people are quitting their jobs, we can just show the numbers of how that is increased. So you see these high number of people leaving their jobs, but you say it's because they see better opportunities, or maybe they shifted to one place during the pandemic, because they thought that was a safer place to work. And now they're willing to look at something else. Is that right?

ZANDI: Yes, exactly right. I mean, we know that there are 9.4 million open job positions across the country. That was the last data point we got back in May. That's a record number of open job positions, the previous record, which was set right before the pandemic, that was 6.3 million. So that gives you a sense of things. There's a lot of job opportunity and people are taking advantage of it. They're trading up in jobs. You know, if they didn't like what they were doing before, now they have the opportunity to find a job that's better. And that's exactly what they're doing. And so that's a good sign. That's a good thing for them, for their employer, for the economy.

KING: So a strong jobs report, good consumer confidence numbers this week, other data that seems to be encouraging when in your view will the economy be back to where it was when the pandemic opened the trap door?

ZANDI: Well, if everything sticks to script. And it feels like there's a lot of powerful tailwinds here behind the economy, so it feels pretty good. I think we'll get all those jobs we lost in the pandemic that close to 7 million, we're still down by, hey, this time next year. So for chatting next July 4th, I think we've gotten all those jobs back.

And then by the end of 2022, certainly no later than early 2023, I think we'll be back to full employment. That means an unemployment rate that's kind of where we were pre pandemic, 3.5 percent of much larger share of the workers are back in the labor force. So it'll feel like a rip worn economy, it will feel pretty good about. Wage growth will be strong. It will be back to, you know, the key issue will be -- for businesses will be, you know, finding workers, is finding the right kind of worker for that kind of job. So that's the script that I think is dead ahead of us and feel pretty good about it.

KING: Mark Zandi grateful for your insights today and encouraging jobs report. Hopefully the numbers continue to improve. We'll keep in touch about them. Thanks very much Mark. Enjoy your holiday weekend.

ZANDI: Of course, thanks.

KING: And this quick programming reminder about the holiday weekend, this July 4th, America is open. Yes, it is open and for most of us it is time to celebrate. Join Don Lemon, Dana Bash, Victor Blackwell, and Ana Cabrera for a star studded evening of music and fireworks. Make time in your day. The fun begins on July 4th at 7:00 p.m. only here on CNN.

[13:00:06]

Thanks for your time today on Inside Politics. Hope you have a safe and enjoyable 4th of July weekend. Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.