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Reports: Gov. Cuomo Aides Altered Data To Hide Nursing Home Deaths; U.S. Economy Adds 379,000 Jobs In February; Biden Faces Growing Migrant "Challenge" At U.S.-Mexico Border. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 5, 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]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLOTTE BENNETT, FORMER AIDE TO GOV. ANDREW CUOMO: He asked me a few questions about how to use his iPhone, and then sends me back to wait. And then finally he calls me in and he asks, if I found him a girlfriend yet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He asked you again?

BENNETT: Yes, I say not yet. And I said, not yet. I said I was working on it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Governor Cuomo said in a statement on Sunday, that he was just being playful. Was it playful?

BENNETT: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He says he was joking.

BENNETT: I wasn't laughing. And he wasn't laughing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You mentioned the context in your first comments there, the Governor is not supposed to be asking a staff member to find him a girlfriend, and not supposed to be playful.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The thing about all of this is that he knows this. You know, this is someone who was a political figure during the Me Too movement, who spoke about sexual harassment publicly, who talked about it as if he understood the gravity of the situation, but also the nuances of it, the power dynamic, and why questions like that, in the context of a work environment between a boss and their -- the person that who works for them, does not work. It's not a joke when it's in a power dynamic like that. So what's disturbing about all of this is that the idea that all of this is happening with someone who actually knows that this has crossed the line, and yet exhibited this behavior anyway, that is the part of this that is in some ways, a little different from some of the other cases of public figures who maybe they're being confronted with behavior that of 10 years ago, 15 years ago, maybe they could make an argument times were different, times were not different when this was going on.

KING: Six months ago, seven months ago. Abby Phillip, grateful for the reporting. As I said, again, the Governor is entitled for the investigation and entitled for the fact finding, but that's a very compelling presentation from suspended. Abby, thank you. And now to the other big Cuomo controversy reports detailing that senior aides altered data to dramatically downplay the number of COVID related deaths inside New York nursing homes. CNN's Athena Jones is here with that piece of the story. Athena?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, this is yet another damaging revelation for Governor Cuomo. "The New York Times" spoke to six people with direct knowledge of this. This all started with a report last summer by the state's Department of Health that focused on deaths from COVID-19 in long term care facilities. Now the original version of that report, which was never made public, it listed the number of nursing home deaths at nearly 10,000.

But "The Times" and "The Wall Street Journal" are reporting that senior aides to Governor Cuomo we wrote that report, cutting the number of deaths nearly in half. That meant the state was not counting those nursing home residents or long term care facility residents whose conditions worsen, they were ended up being transferred to hospitals and dying there.

Now the tension over the death count stems or dates back to last March when the Governor put out an order that prevented long term care facilities from turning away anyone who had been treated for COVID at a hospital. Critics say that policy led to a surge in infections at those long term care facilities.

Now Cuomo has said he was following federal guidelines, and that these facilities if they weren't equipped to handle these patients should not have accepted them back. Now, in response to these reports, the special counsel for Governor Cuomo said, the out of facility data was omitted after DOH, the Department of Health, could not confirm it had been adequately verified.

This did not change the conclusion of the report, which was and is that the March 25th order was not a driver of nursing home infections or fatalities. The statement goes on to say, COVID Task Force officials did not request that the report conclude the March 25th order played no role.

Now, the state's Health Department is also responding. Here's what they said, while early versions of the report included out of facility deaths, the COVID Task Force was not satisfied that the data had been verified against hospital data and so the final report used only data for in facility deaths, which was disclosed in the report. DOH was comfortable with the final report and believes fully in its conclusion that the primary driver that introduced COVID into the nursing homes was spread brought in by staff.

Now, we know from the State Attorney General's report in January, she found that the Cuomo administration severely under counted deaths in these facilities that led Cuomo to, just in the last few weeks, release the full picture of that data.

At the time he said it had been held back because of concerns about preliminary investigation by the Trump administration. Cuomo has said he regrets the way this was handled and should have done a better job handling the information. And we know that the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York are looking into the handling of this COVID data. John?

KING: Another controversy. You're going to be with us for some time as we watch those investigations, the legislature look at it as well. Athena Jones, grateful for the important reporting there, thank you so much.

[12:34:50]

Up next for us, an update from the Senate floor in the battle over raising the minimum wage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: More details now about -- we told you about the top of the hour, an amendment to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We now have a fuller picture of who voted no. Let's go back up to Capitol Hill, let's bring in CNN's Lauren Fox. Lauren?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John. That's right. So we have here eight individuals who caucus with the Democrats. I want to be careful here because Senator Angus King voted against this amendment.

He is an independent technically from the state of Maine but caucuses with the Democrats. You also had people like Senator Jon Tester, you had Senator Tom Carper, Senator Chris Coons from the state of Delaware, Senator Maggie Hassan from the State of New Hampshire, all those individuals voting against the increase in this minimum wage.

[12:40:04]

And I want to set the scene a little bit because it's important to remember here that this amendment essentially was a point of order. That's a little in the weeds. But it's important distinction here, because the parliamentarian has already ruled, John, that this could not be included in the bill. And so in order to add it, essentially, Democrats were making a decision about whether or not they wanted to try and force this issue further.

Many Democrats argued that this was not something they wanted to do. There are also just generally some rural and urban divides over whether or not there's interest in raising the minimum wage to the number of $15 an hour. There's some interest from people like Senator Joe Manchin to still increase the minimum wage, but it's not going to happen on this COVID relief bill. This is really the final death knell and what we have known was not going to be in the bill here. This $15 minimum wage just isn't going to make it through this COVID relief package. John?

KING: One of the early amendments and a long process. Lauren Fox, appreciate the breaking news off the Hill. We'll keep track as the debate continues throughout the day.

And when we come back, the economy is finally gaining steam, but the COVID damage runs deep. Up next, a closer look at the impact on women.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:45:57]

KING: Today numbers to tell us the economy is gaining steam but still has a long way to go on the path to full COVID recovery. The economy added 379,000 jobs in February beating expectations. The unemployment rate dropped a tick from 6.3 percent to 6.2 percent. But the United States is still as you can see down 9.5 million jobs from when COVID hit a year ago. Look deeper into this data and some disparities just jump out.

Our next guest notes this one, big unemployment gap among women, Black and Hispanic women, 8.9 percent and 8.5 percent respectively, white women, 5.2 percent. It's a sheet session, hitting women of color hardest. That tweet from C. Nicole Mason. She's the president and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Thank you so much for being with us today. I was trying to read through the report this morning in the context of what you have looked at in these economic disparities. Is it fair to say better but still not great?

C. NICOLE MASON, PRESIDENT & CEO, INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN'S POLICY RESEARCH: It's a little bit better, but not great. We still have a long way to go since the start of the pandemic. Women have lost more than 5 million jobs. And this month we gained about 245,000 jobs. We have a long way to go to recover. And as you mentioned Black and Latina women are struggling with big unemployment losses that have not budged.

KING: So I want to read, this is a separate report yesterday from the Census Bureau, but it's just -- it's a two by four to the head when you read the language. Last spring, between March and April, some 3.5 million mothers living with school-aged children left active work, either shifting into paid or unpaid leave, losing their job or exiting the labor force altogether. Almost one in two mothers of school-aged children were not actively working last April.

That is the thump that COVID brought to women in the workforce because they had to get home, help with their children, help with their -- deal with the school issues in the pandemic. Here's where we are now if you look at the unemployment stats. The unemployment rate among women spiked female adult unemployment at 15.5 percent last April. In this new report, it's down to 5.9 percent. So it is improving. But again, when you dig deeper into the important parts of the numbers, where are they still the most critical and your view crisis points?

MASON: So the critical crisis points are in the sectors where we've seen the most enormous job loss. So the service sector, leisure, hospitality, education, healthcare services, women are over represented in those sectors and women of color particularly. So when we think about recovery, we have to understand that many of those jobs are gone forever, there will not be a one for one recovery. So job creation efforts must focus and target those sectors and also focus on education and training opportunities for women.

KING: The stats tell us one thing, the humanity of this tells us a lot more. I want you to just listen here. This is Brooke Gasaway. And it's stunning when you listen to this a woman who left the workforce because of COVID now trying to get back into the workforce. Listen how she describes the challenge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE GASAWAY, UNEMPLOYED MOTHER: Sometime I am scared to say I'm a mom when I'm applying, especially with so much in the news about families having to balance, you know, work, life, and their children. And then there's something about telling an employer that I'm going to be one of those people that are -- that's going to have to balance those two things. I found myself at this moment applying for a lot of roles that are more junior than I would typically apply for simply because it feels safe that I know I'm overqualified. So it almost feels safer to secure that interview.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: How widespread is that? It's stunning to hear somebody I'm scared to say I'm a mom, scared to say what makes her awesome, a great mom who also wants to work, who wants to juggle, and be the miracle worker of the American economy and the American family afraid to say so.

MASON: So this is the reality for many working moms across the country is particularly those who have exited the workforce because of -- due to caretaking demands and the child -- the schools closures. And so you're right, women are afraid to say they are moms because they're afraid they won't be hired and in this competitive market where jobs are scarce, you know, they make a calculated decision and the decision might not -- may be to not disclose.

[12:50:13]

Look, we need to really figure out what we need to do to support moms. I think the recovery package is a step in the right direction, especially for women who are not able to reenter the workforce because of caretaking responsibilities. But there's still so much more that we have to do to make sure that women are able to not only reenter the workforce but sustain employment.

KING: C. Nicole Mason, grateful for your help and your insights understanding this, say let's continue the conversation as we wander through the challenging months ahead. Appreciate it.

Up next for us, Biden and the border reality check, the White House says it is reversing the tragedies of Trump, Republicans see a crisis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:55:30]

KING: Immigration is emerging as a giant early test of the big Biden policy reset, the White House now sending a team to the U.S.-Mexico border in the coming days, that team to get a firsthand look at problems that include an influx of unaccompanied children. President Biden wants to reverse or significantly change the Trump immigration approach from top to bottom. He calls it a challenge. His critics on the right are already up in arms about what they call a new Biden border crisis.

Let's get a reality check now from CNN immigration and politics policy reporter Priscilla Alvarez. Priscilla, let's start. Here's the big question. Is there a crisis at the southern border? And within the question within the question, if you will, are more migrants crossing the border than before?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: So the short answer, John, is that yes. We are seeing an increase of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and trends indicate that that number is probably going to grow in the coming weeks. Now, as you mentioned, the Biden administration is maintaining that this is a challenge. But clearly some level of concern here with President Biden asking senior members of his team to go to the border to assess what is happening on the ground.

KING: And we went through this in the Trump administration. Now we're going to go through in the Biden ministration in terms of when you look at the apprehensions, 75,198 most recently. If you go back to January was 29,000, January a year ago. It's then down to 21,000. The why, put that into context for us, why the jump?

ALVAREZ: So remember, when looking at this data, we're living through a pandemic. So the fluctuations we'd seen a normal year looked different last year. And critically, the Trump administration took the unprecedented move of invoking a public health law. So what that did was that border agents were able to turn away migrants encountered at the border, so that included families, children, and single adults. So if they were encountered by Border Patrol, they can be turned back to Mexico or returned to their country of origin.

Now, this is important when looking at the number in January. You have over 75,000 encounters. But critically, because of that policy, that doesn't necessarily mean 75,000 individuals rather, that can take into account someone who crossed the border more than once, because again, because of that Trump era policy, there was no penalty for doing that. So we are seeing people cross more than once and a recidivism rate as Border Patrol calls it at about 38 percent, which is higher than we may have seen in other years.

KING: Thirty-eight percent recidivism rate, we have that here. And so now we move on to another question within it, who's crossing, right, who is crossing and why does it matter? And I just want to bring up this pie chart to show. These are the 75,198 apprehensions border crossing in January. Help put into context, why this pie chart matters?

ALVAREZ: So remember, looking at the single adults, that still makes up the majority of arrests. And again, single adults are the ones who are most likely to try to cross the border more than one. So we don't know if those are individuals or whether it's someone who's crossing several times. But the number that we're looking at is the unaccompanied children and the families.

When we're talking to officials that is their biggest concern is how that number grows. So for example, we reviewed documents this week that showed that there is an average, a 21-day average of border patrol arresting more than 340 migrant children a day. That's concerning, that's levels not seen since 2019. So it's that slice of the unaccompanied children that we're keeping an eye on.

KING: And that's one of the reasons the Biden team senior officials going down to the border, try to get a firsthand look to ask questions. And not only a federal officials, but state officials as well and try to sort it out. And that is the question why are there more children and where are they going? And in that context, the government tells us about 7,700, 7,700 children, unaccompanied children in custody at the moment. Why is that number significant?

ALVAREZ: So there's a number of reasons why children may cross the border. I think when we're looking at previous months, the critical change here is that the Trump administration took a policy that they would return children in Canada at the border, they push them back to Mexico or again, their country of origin.

The Biden administration has said they will not do that, they will take children into custody, they will not expel them. So that means that we're going to see more children come into custody. And again, that number you reference, the 7,700, of kids in HHS custody, that is where they go, where they stay at shelters, and case managers will work with them to relocate them with family in the United States. So 7,700 that's not the most we've ever seen. But it's certainly concerning when we're working under limited capacity because of COVID precautions.

KING: Priscilla Alvarez, grateful for the reality check as we walk through this. A lot of dust and a lot of politics about this issue from time to time, we'll step back and go through the numbers and try to give you the real perspective. Priscilla, grateful for that.

[13:00:05]

And thank you grateful for your time today. Thanks for joining us in inside politics.