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FDA Expected to Authorize Pfizer Vaccine for 12-To-15-Year- Olds; GOP Support for Cheney Craters as McCarthy Steps Up Criticism; Mass Vaccination Sites in Georgia Closing Due to Low Demand. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired May 4, 2021 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:46]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us.

AT THIS HOUR, we are tracking a wave of good and promising news on the nation's vaccine front.

This morning, we're learning the FDA is expected to grant emergency use authorization as early as next week to the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 12 to 15. And Pfizer's also expected to submit for emergency use for its vaccine for children even younger than that, as young as two years old by September. Both of these would be major steps forward in the country's effort to get past the pandemic.

And soon, we will hear from President Biden. He is going to be talking about the nation's COVID-19 response and the government's current focus there. Much more on that ahead.

But rights now, joining me is CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

So, Elizabeth, what more are you hearing about Pfizer's plans here?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, I think the big picture here is by the fall it may be that anyone over the age of 2 or 2 and up I should say will be able to get Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.

Right now, of course, anyone 16 and older can get it. And let's take a look as we go down in the age group.

So, we are hearing that the FDA is likely to give emergency use authorization next week for 12 to 15-year-olds. And we're hearing that Pfizer is expected to file for emergency use authorization in September for 2 to 11 year olds.

Now, you notice that we've been talking about emergency use authorization. That's authorization to use an emergency but Pfizer we're hearing is going to apply this month for full FDA approval. So, that's approval like any other drugs. The drugs we all take every day.

So, let's take a look at what means and why that is significant that Pfizer is going to apply for full FDA approval. So, full approval could make employers and schools more comfortable requiring the vaccine. I'm told by lawyers they could do it with just emergency use authorization. But the full FDA approval will make them feel more comfortable requiring it.

Also, full approval could increase competency among those who are vaccine hesitant. Some folks who don't want to get the vaccine, and there are quite a few of them have said, oh, it is this emergency authorization. It wasn't the real thing. It wasn't the full thing.

Well, now, it looks like Pfizer soon will have the full thing -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Fascinating and important news ahead. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. I appreciate it.

So also this morning we're tracking the growing rift between Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the number three Republican in the courthouse, and her Republican colleagues. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, he's reportedly furious at Cheney, refusing, quote, to carry out the message. But here's the meeting, the message includes the massive lie that election was stolen.

So what this seems to have come down to is this -- this is Liz Cheney versus the big lie also known as the human standing for the truth versus a bunch of humans who want you to not believe reality, also known as something that you should not controversial, the truth versus a conspiracy theory that should be dismissed out of hand. Yet this is where politics is today, specifically Republican politics.

My colleagues Jamie Gangel and Michael Warren have learned this yesterday. Behind closed doors, Cheney said the idea that the 2020 election was stolen is, quote, poison in the bloodstream of our democracy. And the GOP should not whitewash the Capitol insurrection and Trump's role in causing it.

She apparently is now mostly on an island for saying things like this. One Republican Congressman Anthony Gonzalez put it this way to CNN's Manu Raju: If a prerequisite for leading our conference is lying to our voters, then Liz is not best fit. Liz is going to be honest, straight up and going to stand her own ground.

And we are seeing that right now.

CNN's Manu Raju, that very same Manu, is joining me right now from "The Hill".

Manu, it is clear what Liz Cheney stands for. That has not changed. But is it clear what Kevin McCarthy stands for?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's all about one thing, taking back the House majority in 2022, and the argument that he has been making is a party needs to essentially unite, including with the former President Donald Trump. And what we've seen from Liz is a war that has escalated with Donald Trump since her vote to impeach him after the January 6th insurrection, the former president's role in that riot, as well as the increasing feud with Liz Cheney and Donald Trump over Donald Trump's lie that he won the election.

[11:05:18]

As a result, McCarthy is hearing a lot of complaints, concerns from his members. McCarthy has not appeared with Cheney in a public press conference in more than two months. When they had been doing that and I've been told that he has been furious with her over all this fallout.

Now, unlike February when Republicans tried to push her out of the position, McCarthy at that point defended her behind closed doors. Now he's not offering any sort of olive branch. A sign that he could potentially call for a vote seeking her ouster as soon as next week.

So, this morning, when he was talking about Liz Cheney, he made clear, members have concerns about the jobs she's doing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): There's no concern about how she voted on impeachment. That decision has been made. I heard from members concerned about her ability to carry out the job as conference chair, to carry out the message. We all need to be working as one. It's more concerned about the job ability to do and what is our best step forward that we can all work together instead of attacking one another.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, Cheney is not backing off. In fact, he just got the response from Cheney's office to McCarthy's comments from a spokesperson saying this is about whether -- this is about whether the Republican Party is going to perpetuate lies about the 2020 election in an attempt to whitewash what happened on January 6th. Liz will not do that. That is the issue.

So she's not backing down. I'm also told she is not going to step down from the conference chair. So that means there may have to be a vote to push her out. And already behind the scenes, Kate, some members are seen as potential candidates to replace her. Republicans are expected if there is a replacement, most likely it will be a woman.

But that is going to be a secret ballot election. Elise Stefanik being one of them on the screen seen as a likely contender. But it is a secret ballot election, uncertain how it would turn out. It's here that Liz Cheney, her days appear to be numbered in this Republican conference and overwhelmingly supports the former president -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: That's the conference she has to be a leader of, maybe she does -- she clear knows what she's standing for. If it's truth being the number three Republican in the House, that's for sure.

It's good to see you, Manu. Thank you so much.

RAJU: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is Al Schmidt. She's a city commissioner in Philadelphia.

He is a Republican who was attacked by Donald Trump for very much the same thing that Liz Cheney is being attacked for now. Standing up for the truth of the election, for overseeing an election in one of the biggest cities in America that saw none of the election fraud that Trump, McCarthy and House Republicans are still lying about.

It's good to see you, Al. Thank you for being here.

AL SCHMIDT, CITY COMMISSIONER IN PHILADELPHIA: Yeah, thank you.

BOLDUAN: What do you think of the position that Liz Cheney is in now? She may lose her leadership post for simply refusing to push a lie.

SCHMIDT: Really. And you have the most conservative members of Congress from one of the most conservative states in America, being accused of not Republican enough. What we're seeing is how is a Republican going to be defined from here on out, and it's not whether you are in favor of increasing or decreasing taxes or more or less immigration, it's really willing to peddle the lie that the election was stolen or not.

BOLDUAN: Kevin McCarthy is allowing all this to happen in the House. He's not taking any responsibility for how this is devolved. He is talking about the need to come together.

And you heard Liz Cheney's office put out another statement. She is not going to perpetuate the lies to whitewash January 6th. And he -- Kevin McCarthy now -- is effectively inviting Cheney's removal, willing to do pretty much anything to stay in Trump's favor.

Al, what would you say to him?

SCHMIDT: I would say to him the same thing that I would say to all of my fellow Republicans, and that is the sooner we accept reality, the reality that the election was not stolen, the better our party will be. The better our country will be.

The last thing we should be doing is going down the road of purging people who are telling the truth about the election, and taking any action in any state to roll back voting rights. And the Republican Party has rightfully a -- some real accomplishments in the past. I'm not just talking about Abraham Lincoln and the 1960s and the Voting Rights Act as well.

But being on the wrong side democracy is not where any political party should be. It should be forward looking, not backward looking, especially backward looking to something that was a myth. That was never true to begin with.

BOLDUAN: And, look, from the standpoint of someone who was in charge of administering the election and one of -- as I said, one of the biggest cities in America.

[11:10:03]

I mean, I was there in Philadelphia. I was watching you at work, hounding you as you would be coming in and leaving every day.

What do you think when you see a poll that 70 percent of Republicans think that Joe Biden did not legitimately win the election?

SCHMIDT: You know, it's really a difficult question to answer, because there's no evidence at all that the election was stolen. There is no evidence of any sort of widespread voter fraud. And, in fact, the election wasn't close.

Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes. So people seem to believe this thing. And it's very difficult thing to comprehend, because there is no evidence of it at all.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. And I guess when you say it like that, it's -- people believe what they want to believe? Isn't that where leadership comes in, Al?

SCHMIDT: It is. So, when leadership is lying to people, lying to voters in an effort to delegitimize the outcome of the election and undermine confidence in it and our system of government because let's be clear. That is really what's on the line here.

It's not a debate about semantics. It's not a question of votes. It's about delegitimizing our most recent election and delegitimizing our system of government.

BOLDUAN: And delegitimizing democratic system which is in part of that, an important part of that is having two functioning parties. I mean, you talked about -- I heard you say a couple times just now our party, Republican Party.

And I'm just curious. As you lay all this out, Al, do you still see yourself as a Republican if this is what national Republicans are very fine with going along with?

SCHMIDT: So it's a little bit of a tricky question. I mean, I've been a Republican longer than Donald Trump has been a Republican. But when you have someone like Liz Cheney, you know, being derided as being RINO or Mitt Romney or any of the others, I'm sure it does create a little bit of an existential crisis.

But it's all the more important that we fight. And that we tell the truth about the election. One major reason -- a real irony of the last election was that our system held together. Our institutions held together, because of a handful Republicans across the country like Chris Krebs and like Secretary Raffensperger in Georgia.

This handful of Republicans in really critical positions were willing to tell the truth, which shouldn't be a controversial thing, and now they're being punished for it.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. Al, it's good to see you. Thank you for coming on.

SCHMIDT: Good to see you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you. Coming up for us, Georgia is closing mass vaccination sites. So,

what's the next step when the vaccine supply outpaces demand and so many still haven't gotten shots? That's coming up.

And also, a CNN exclusive. We're going to take you inside the dangerous world of human smuggling. Why migrants are risking it all to get to the U.S., and a rare look at what they're doing to get here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:17:41]

BOLDUAN: It is very clear that progress is made nationally in getting Americans vaccinated. We see the numbers. More shots in arms every day.

If the pictures state by state can be quite different. Some states especially in the south right now are grappling with having more supply than they have demand for shots.

Georgia, according to CDC data, ranks near the bottom of getting shots in arms. Number 46 out of all states for the percent of their population that is fully vaccinated. Mass vaccination sites in the state are being shut down as the demand is steadily decreasing.

So, now, local officials are trying to shift focus. So the vaccine effort doesn't completely stall.

Joining me now is Dr. Lynn Paxton. She's the health director for Fulton County, Georgia, one of the public health officials facing this problem right now.

Doctor, thank you for being here. How much you have seen demand decrease for vaccinations? How would you describe the change?

DR. LYNN PAXTON, FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA, HEALTH DIRECTOR: Well, we have definitely been seeing it start to drop off. Here in Fulton County, we have one of the largest populations in Georgia. We have one of the largest best functioning mass vaccination sites.

And at the very beginning when we opened up, we had very much a lot of pent-up demand and our appointments are going very quickly. Now, we reach to a point where appointments are not filing up as quickly.

So we even opened it up so that we can now accept walk ups. And so while I can't give you a quantifiable number of percentage drop-off. We still have people that want to get vaccinated. We are definitely seeing signs decreasing demand and we're responding to that.

BOLDUAN: Right. And what are you hearing from people? What's the single biggest factor kind of driving this do you think? Do you think it is a vaccine hesitancy. Is it access? What do you think it is?

PAXTON: You know, I wish I could say that I have one single thing that was causing this. But it really -- there really isn't. There is a number of factors. Some of which we are definitely able to correct now and others are going to take us a while to get over.

One, for example, is that access. Access has definitely been an issue, particularly for people who are in lower socioeconomic classes or maybe are not conversant with using the Internet and all that.

[11:20:01]

So, for those people, access was an issue. So, our initiatives to improve access are benefiting them. And we have seen an increase in vaccinations among those people.

There are, however, a number of people who are vaccine what we would call vaccine hesitant or an even vaccine resistant. And with the vaccine hesitancy, a number of people are really, they'll be up front and say, well, you know, I somewhat maybe possibly interested in getting vaccine, but I have some concerns. I really want to get the concerns answered before I get vaccinated.

Others need to see that other people are getting vaccinated and horrible things are not happening. They're not growing a third arm, they're not dropping dead.

Then I call the vaccine resistant, a very small minority, but a minority often times very vocal, who will say that I will under no circumstances get this vaccine. And we found that you need to take different approaches depending on what is the particular reason for that person's hesitancy. And so that's one thing we have learned from this.

If it's an issue of access, make it easier for them. We sent out mobile units to different communities. Now, people can walk up and get vaccinated. If it is that they need more information, then wonderful.

We set up webinars. We are having talks. We're giving people more information, doing campaigns and the like. If they're truly vaccine resistant, because it doesn't fit their political or whatever beliefs, then we try to work with that as well. We try -- because the important thing with public health and combating an epidemic is you have to meet the people where they are. You cannot --

BOLDUAN: That was exactly what I was thinking in my head. You're shifting the focus to meeting people on their level. Meeting them where they are and understanding them so you can get that information across, which makes me curious. Now that we see that authorization is coming soon for the Pfizer vaccine for 12 to 15-year-olds, do you think it's going to be easier or harder to reach out to these younger kids and convince their parents to get them vaccinated?

PAXTON: Well, that's a really interesting question. I was just thinking about that. Maybe this is our opportunity to enlist those kids to bug their parents that have not gotten vaccinated to get vaccinated.

Hey, it's worked with smoking. I managed to, decades ago, get my parents to stop smoking because I bothered them about it all day. So, maybe, we'll see a little bit of that. But I mean, all joking aside, we think it's very important that kids

get vaccinated, that everyone should be getting vaccinated, it becomes available to them. So, we're going to be -- we have been working with the school systems here in Fulton County.

Since the start of the pandemic, we have a very good relationship with them, and we work hand in hand to combat the epidemic and we've been working with them on vaccinations. So we're going to develop something with them in which we'll have vaccination clinics that bring in not only the children and their parents.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: That's a really good idea, yeah, and the one area that the doctor will say, kids, yes, you can start bugging your parents.

It's goods to see you, Dr. Paxton. Thank you very much for coming in.

PAXTON: Thanks so much. All right. Thank you.

BOLDUAN: That was really interesting.

Coming up for us, a CNN exclusive you don't want to miss on the ground as migrants are smuggled across the U.S. border.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:28:35]

BOLDUAN: Tragedy overnight in Mexico City. It was a moment caught on surveillance video.

Take a look at this, a typical roadway, cars driving by. And then boom. Subway overpass collapse, sending train cars plunging to the street below. At least 23 people were killed. The death toll also including some children.

Local officials say at least 70 people have been hospitalized and an investigation is very clearly now under way. That was overnight. And now, this morning the city is now trying to clear -- pick up the pieces and clear that roadway.

Also now to a CNN exclusive, also in Mexico. We're about to show you extraordinary video from Ciudad Juarez, a city just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

CNN correspondent Matt Rivers and his team met with and followed so- called pulgueros, human smugglers, and captured the moment they smuggled two migrants into the United States. It's video rarely seen from the perspective from the migrants' point of view.

Human smuggling is a crime. But CNN wanted to document this process because it's part of the reality of what is happening at the border every single day. It can be a terribly dangerous journey that hundreds of thousands of people are willing to make, desperate to get to the U.S. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As long that's say border wall, people tried to climb it, up from Mexico, down to the U.S., hopping for something better on the other side.

Today one such attempt starts here in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. We watch from afar. Two men carry a make shift.