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THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER

Interview With Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI); Interview With Senior White House COVID Response Adviser Andy Slavitt; President Biden Touts 200 Million Vaccines Given; Taliban Threaten to Kill Afghans Who Helped U.S. During War. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired April 21, 2021 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:30:55]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Turning to our health lead today: President Biden is today touting 200 million coronavirus vaccine shots since he took office, but the pace of the shots being administered has been slowing.

In the last week, an average of three million doses per day were being administered. That's an 11 percent decrease from the week before. And now a new report says the supply may soon outpace the demand, which could indicate some serious challenges here.

Here to discuss, White House senior adviser for COVID responsibility response Andy Slavitt.

Andy, a Kaiser Family Foundation report says the U.S. may reach a tipping point in vaccine enthusiasm soon, in the next few weeks. Where is the most vaccine resistance?

ANDY SLAVITT, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISER FOR COVID RESPONSE: Well, one of the things that's changing most rapidly is, we have vaccinated the lion's share of people over 65. And we're doing pretty well with people over 50.

And this week, we have started to move in earnest to vaccinate working Americans. And I think most working Americans might remember when the vaccine rolled out and it was hard to get and there were no appointment times and there were no places to get vaccinated. And so they might still think it's really, really hard.

The reality is, 90 percent of the country is now within five miles of a vaccine. And so younger people are going to have to get involved. We have got -- we had a big announcement today to help employers make sure that people don't have to lose pay when it comes time to get vaccinated.

So I think our effort shifts, and it shifts to younger people who just don't think about COVID quite as much, but they're now -- they're now ready to go.

TAPPER: Well, just last week, a Monmouth University poll found that 43 percent of Republicans don't want to get the vaccine. That's compared to 5 percent of Democrats, 22 percent of independents. This would suggest it's not just an issue of people who don't think the vaccine is available or don't think that they're susceptible to COVID because they're young. This is about politics in some ways.

How are you reaching out to these individuals? How you changing this?

SLAVITT: One thing that's encouraging, and a bit puzzling in the context of those kinds of reports, is, with 82 percent of older people vaccinated, a lot of those were Trump supporters.

And so one of the things with this next group of people that seems to characterize them are -- well, two things. One is that these are people who have questions about the vaccine that they want answered. And we need to treat those questions with respect and -- legitimately, and get them straight answers, as opposed to having them get them on Facebook or somewhere where they're going to get less reliable information.

And the second is, they're people that just need it to be more convenient and more accessible, because they're not going to drive all over town, necessarily, like people -- like the first set of folks are. And so I think this is -- this characterizes virtually everybody in this next set, regardless of their kind of political affiliation.

So I don't doubt those studies, I'm not sure that the politics is the cause, or whether or not we're just in a situation where getting to the next level of people means we're going to have to listen differently and answer the questions differently.

But that's what we have set up. We have got 6,000, 7,000 people out there in part of a community corps who are living in communities who are talking to people locally.

TAPPER: Yes.

SLAVITT: That should hopefully help.

TAPPER: So, Andy, one of the things I'm wondering is if it's possible that the messaging about what you can do after you're vaccinated is a problem.

I have had two Pfizer shots, for example, OK, and longer than two weeks. How much longer do I need to wear a mask outdoors by myself? How does it make sense for me to wear a mask walking down the street by myself, go into a restaurant? It's at limited capacity. But in that indoor facility, I take my mask off to eat.

SLAVITT: Right.

TAPPER: I mean, a lot of this is confusing to people, I think. And they also don't -- they hear wait, I get vaccinated, and I still have to do all this stuff? Like, I still have to keep away from crowds and I still have to wear a mask, even if I'm driving a convertible by myself.

SLAVITT: Right. These are very reasonable questions that I know the country has. And I think they're in the process of being answered. I think the CDC has already taken the first steps to saying -- with what I call the hugging guidelines, which are basically allowing people to reunite after periods of time, to get to gather with people who are vaccinated.

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I think they're in the process of putting together further guidance. They're not always going to be as fast as everybody wants them to do, because they like to study the data and make sure that they're, generally speaking, not putting things out that they will have to take back.

But I'm quite confident that, over the next couple of weeks and months, those questions will be answered, those guidelines will absolutely loosen, and they're going to be science-based, but also hopefully very practical, like you said.

TAPPER: Guidelines are going to loosen in the next several weeks.

All right, Andy Slavitt, thank you so much. Appreciate your time today. Thanks for joining us.

SLAVITT: Thank you.

TAPPER: Coming up: the effort on Capitol Hill to try to prevent more incidents like the George Floyd incident.

I'm going to talk to a Democratic senator about the George Floyd Act. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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TAPPER: In our politics lead now: President Biden and Vice President Harris are calling on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would, among other things, ban choke holds, prohibit no-knock warrants in federal cases, create a national registry of police misconduct, and overhaul qualified immunity for officers.

The goal, the administration says, is to pass the bill by May 25, which would be the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's murder.

Democratic senator of Hawaii and author of the new book "Heart of Fire," Senator Mazie Hirono, joins me now.

Senator, thanks so much. And congratulations on the book.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): Thank you.

TAPPER: You're on the Senate Judiciary. You support this bill.

Are you confident you can get Senate Republicans on board? I mean, all House Republicans voted against it.

HIRONO: That gives you a pretty good answer of where the Senate Republicans may be, although, considering that they did have their own version of the Justice in Policing Act, with Tim Scott, perhaps we can come to some kind of a meeting of the minds.

But I do not know. On the other hand, the Democrats are very much in support of this way to address systemic racism and disparate policing that is going on in our country.

TAPPER: Let's talk about that.

Tim Scott's bill, Democrats voted against it in force. He serves with you on the Judiciary Committee. He has floated a compromise to get this bill passed. He says, if the burden of responsibility in court is shifted from individual officers to the police departments, instead of getting rid of qualified immunity altogether, is that a path forward?

Is that something you would consider, if it's the only way to get legislation passed?

HIRONO: The last time I looked at Tim's bill -- by the way, he doesn't serve on the Judiciary Committee.

TAPPER: Oh, I'm sorry.

HIRONO: It just didn't go -- it just didn't go for it far enough. And it didn't address the kinds of abuses and concerns that we have all seen.

And so, unless the bill matches the realities of the disparate policing, I don't know that it's going to get us very far.

TAPPER: This country has been grappling with issues of race and politics. Also, we have been talking quite a bit since COVID began about this rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans.

You have a separate piece of legislation addressing hate crimes against Asian Americans. You worked on it with Republican Senator Susan Collins. It's up for a vote likely this week. Will it pass? Do you have the votes?

HIRONO: I have high hope that it will, because the first procedural vote that it had to overcome got 92 votes and only six no's.

So I have worked very hard with Susan Collins and other Republicans to put some of their concerns into the bill, to broaden the support for the bill, while maintaining the purpose. And the purpose is really quite simple, I would say, that, one, it recognizes the rise in hate crimes against Asians.

This is a community that feels very much under attack and, in many cases, feels invisible. And this is an opportunity for the House and the Senate to stand up with this community and say, this kind of targeted, racist attacks has no place in America. So, that's one thing. I call this a pretty simple bill because what it does is ask the

Department of Justice to appoint a person to expedite review of these crimes and to work with local and state law enforcement to get online reporting of these kinds of crimes and make sure that people in this committed know that they should report these crimes.

TAPPER: Let's talk about your book.

You write about the fact that your brother was separated from your family for three years in the midst of -- when you and your mother immigrated from Japan to Hawaii. And you write about this giving you a deep personal connection to a lot of these immigration issues.

Tell us more about that. How has that experience and the difficulties there impacted your role as a senator?

HIRONO: When my mother brought me and my older brother to Hawaii, it was because we could go to school. My younger brother was left with my loving grandparents, who also raised me for a time.

And we did not know that the trauma of the separation would be with my younger brother for his life. And that is why, when Trump began to separate thousands of children from their parents, I knew the kind of trauma, the lasting impact, negative impact, these kind of actions would impose.

So, there are a lot of my immigrant experience that informs who I fight for and why.

TAPPER: And, obviously, it's very different, forced separation, from the migration, with all these kids coming to the United States, this crisis at the border right now.

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But how does it inform this new crisis with all these kids who have willingly been separated from their parents to come here to escape violence or worse?

HIRONO: There's no question that we need to have a humane immigration policy. What Biden got was a shredded immigration policy where being humane was the least of the considerations. So, to build a humane immigration policy is going to take time.

And one of the ways that we can approach it is that all of these children who are coming, they need to be placed with relatives or with adults who can take care of them after they have been vetted. They should not be kept in facilities and isolated in that way.

TAPPER: Yeah.

HIRONO: But we obviously have to do more. This is a multifaceted problem. We need to provide much more assistance to the countries from which these people are fleeing.

TAPPER: Yeah. Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, thanks so much. Congratulations again on your book.

HIRONO: Thank you.

TAPPER: Coming up next, Afghans who put their lives on the line to help U.S. service members and now thousands of them are desperately waiting for the U.S. government to fulfill its promise to them. Some fear the Taliban will kill them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can call you in front of your family and they just tell you that we will kill you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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TAPPER: In our world lead today, the Taliban will be a no-show at U.S.-backed Afghan peace talks that were supposed to start on Saturday. The Taliban will not come to the table until foreign forces completely withdraw from Afghanistan, they say. It's a blow to President Biden's plan to peacefully withdraw U.S. troops by September 11th and many Afghans frankly are afraid that after the U.S. leaves either way, the Taliban will kill those Afghans who helped the United States during this last almost 20 years of war.

Some of those Afghans whom America promised to help escape, have been frankly left, fearing for their lives. Let me tell you about some of them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABDUL, WORKED FOR U.S. GOVERNMENT IN AFGHANISTAN: I left everything.

TAPPER (voice-over): Forced to run for his life.

ABDUL: I left my family and my colleagues, and it was very painful for me.

TAPPER: This Afghan man fled his own country, fearing he might be killed, all because he worked as an engineer for the U.S. government in Afghanistan.

ABDUL: I don't regret for my service.

TAPPER: He requests we call him by an alias, Abdul, protecting his identity because he says his life is in danger from insurgents he fears are still hunting him down.

ABDUL: Two gunmen people step to my door and that was really the worst situation I faced. I was thinking I will be killed.

TAPPER: Abdul is like thousands of Afghans who helped American troops during the nearly 20-year war and who are now anxiously waiting for a special immigrant visa to come to the United States. A visa promised to them by the U.S. government, a promise that has turned into a nightmare for many, due, in part, to lots of red tape, and a years' long vetting process.

FMR. SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): The United States is not making good, certainly not rapidly enough on the issue of bringing these people who've helped us and literally saved American lives to this country.

TAPPER: The qualifications for a special immigration visa are clear on the State Department's website. You must be an Afghan national, you must've worked for the U.S. and Afghanistan for at least two years, and you must have experienced ongoing threats because of that work.

But the reality for Abdul who applied for the visa in 2016 not as clear.

ABDUL: I was thinking I was able to go and get my visa.

TAPPER: After years of waiting and being told he was nearing the finish line, Abdul was denied a visa on a technicality, and his story is not unique.

Right now, about 18,000 Afghans who helped U.S. troops are stuck in that bureaucratic pipeline waiting for visas according to a State Department official.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's time to end the forever war.

TAPPER: And now with President Biden vowing to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by September 11th, the U.S. is running out of time to approve all these requests.

MATT ZELLER, TRUMAN PROJECT FELLOW: They've got to be evacuated now.

TAPPER: Matt Zeller, a leading expert on this issue who served in Afghanistan, is not hopeful that'll happen.

ZELLER: The Taliban are going to do everything in their power to kill them, and they're doing it now.

TAPPER: He worked on a report released today, detailing the dangerous conditions for these Afghans, hoping to bring attention to this dire issue.

ZELLER: One of the first things that they ever teach you in basic training is that we don't leave anybody behind. We're leaving people behind.

TAPPER: Ramish Darwishi is one of the ones who was not left behind. He's now living in the United States after serving as an interpreter for U.S. forces for eight years. But that did not come without a price.

RAMISH DARWISHI, AGFHAN TRANSLATOR FOR U.S.: They can call you in front of your family and they just tell you that we will kill you in front of camera, and they will put it on YouTube so that your family can see it and suffer it all the time.

TAPPER: The Taliban harassed him and his family threatening to kill them if he kept up his work, but he refused.

DARWISHI: And I just pulled my family, myself, my friends even, my wife's family under threat of death because of working with U.S.

TAPPER: Ramish applied for a visa in 2015. His thankfully was approved and he moved here eight months ago.

Now, he's telling his story in hopes Washington will act to save people still in danger like Abdul.

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DARWISHI: If anyone can help, help those people whose left behind in Afghanistan. Help those interpreters, those translators, and those brothers and sisters.

TAPPER: As for Abdul, time is running out. He's still trying to make it to the U.S. waiting in a different country and worried he'll be sent back to Afghanistan where he may end up paying the ultimate price.

ABDUL: If I a going to be sent back to Afghanistan, it's clear I will be killed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Last week on a trip to Afghanistan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked about this. He said he's committed to working on this problem.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Thanks for watching. Our coverage on CNN continues right now.

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