Biden adviser Brian Deese: Investing 2T will make huge difference, economy still has ‘long way to go’
National Economic Council Director Brian Deese joins ‘Fox News Sunday’ to discuss President Biden’s $2 trillion spending plan.
This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," April 4, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I'm Chris Wallace.
President Biden's push for a massive infrastructure and spending plan runs
up against questions in Congress at a recovering economy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's the largest American
job investment since World War II.
WALLACE (voice-over): The president's proposal, not just investing in
roads and bridges, but green energy and care for the elderly and facing
opposition from the right, left, and center.
We'll talk with Brian Deese, the top White House economic advisor and
architect of the bill, only on "FOX News Sunday."
And we'll discuss Republican opposition with Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri.
Then, COVID vaccinations on the rise, lockdowns being lifted, but --
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Right now, I'm scared.
WALLACE: What has the nation's top public health officials so worried?
We'll ask Dr. Michael Osterholm, a leading infectious disease expert about
the chances of a fourth wave.
Plus --
JERRY BLACKWELL, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: On May 25th of 2020, Mr. Derek
Chauvin betrayed his badge.
WALLACE: A former Minneapolis police officer on trial for the death of
George Floyd.
We'll ask our Sunday panel how the trial is going.
And our "Power Player of the Week".
BARRY BLACK, SENATE CHAPLAIN: When we speak angry words, we stir up
divisiveness.
WALLACE: This Easter Sunday, Senate Chaplain Barry Black on how to heal a
divided nation.
All, right now, on "FOX News Sunday".
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE (on camera): Hello again and happy Easter from FOX News in
Washington.
What President Biden calls a once in a generation spending plan faces big
challenges on Capitol Hill. Republicans call the president's proposal a
Trojan horse, hiding liberal social programs and massive tax hikes.
Progressives say the $2 trillion plan is too small and moderates have their
own demands.
Meanwhile, a new jobs report signals a strong recovery and raises questions
whether the country needs trillions more in government spending.
This hour, we'll drill down on all this with Brian Deese, the president's
top White House economic advisor and Republican Senator Roy Blunt.
But first, let's turn to Mark Meredith at the White House with a look at
how the president plans to overcome the opposition -- Mark.
MARK MEREDITH, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Chris, President Biden says he's
going to be inviting Republicans over to the White House to talk about his
spending bill, but before this meeting is even get schedule, GOP lawmakers
are fighting back, vowing to block any efforts to raise taxes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MEREDITH (voice-over): President Biden says spending significantly on
infrastructure now will pay off for decades to come.
BIDEN: This is an eight year program that invests in our roads, our
bridges, broadband, airports, ports, and fixing our water systems.
MEREDITH: Republicans say the country can't afford it.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: I am concerned above
the level of our national debt. We've reached a critical point here.
MEREDITH: The White House wants Congress to rewrite the tax code to pay
for 2 trillion in new spending, that includes raising the corporate tax
rate to 28 percent.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We can pay for this once in a
century investment in jobs and growth by asking corporations to pay their
fair share.
MEREDITH: Republicans argue tax increases could kill post-pandemic
economic growth. Those concerns aren't stopping some Democrats though from
urging the White House to spend even more money.
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): In order for us to realize this
inspiring vision, we need to go way higher.
MEREDITH: House Democrats say they hope to pass the plan around the Fourth
of July.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MEREDITH (on camera): The president is spending his Easter weekend at Camp
David. But in the weeks ahead, he is expected to address Congress directly
not only about infrastructure but also about plans to spend a lot more
money on other programs like education and social programs -- Chris.
WALLACE: Mark Meredith reporting from the White House, Mark, thank you.
And joining us now, Brian Deese, head of the president's National Economic
Council.
Brian, welcome back to "FOX News Sunday".
BRIAN DEESE, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Thanks for having
me, Chris. Happy Easter.
WALLACE: Happy Easter to you, sir.
Let's start with the latest jobs numbers. In March, the economy added
916,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 6 percent flat, and that
was before the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill and the spike in
vaccinations.
Question, given all that, does the country need another $2 trillion in
federal spending in this bill and trillions more in another bill that the
president is going to lay out sometime in the next few weeks? We're talking
about another, at least, $4 trillion in more government spending.
DEESE: Well, the jobs numbers in March were certainly a welcome sign. It's
good to see the economy starting to improve and we certainly think that
it's a sign that the economic and vaccination strategy that the said
administration has put into place from day one is starting to have an
impact.
But we have a long way to go. We still are down in 8.4 million jobs from
where we were a year ago. We have millions of people out of work. More than
2 million women have left the labor force because they had to choose
between caring for their family members and their jobs. So we have a long
way to go.
What our plan says is let's keep the economy going, let's see more job
creation. That's a really good thing for the economy. But let's also think
to the longer-term but where these investments that we could make that will
really drive not just more job growth, but better job growth. Not just job
growth in the short term but job growth in the long term by investing in
our infrastructure, by investing in our researching and development, in a
way that we haven't since the 1960s.
If we do that we think we cannot have a job rebound this year, but we could
sustain it over many years. That's the goal.
WALLACE: Let's talk about this, the White House basically calls this an
infrastructure bill, and yes, there are hundreds of billions of dollars for
roads and highways and bridges and some other things I think you can argue
our infrastructure like expanding broadband.
But there are also some other parts of this bill, and I want to put them
up: $213 billion for housing, $400 billion for taking care of the elderly
and disabled.
Brian, those may well be worthy projects, but they're not infrastructure.
DEESE: Well, look, I think we really need to update what we mean by
infrastructure in the 21st century. If you look at that number on housing,
what we're talking about is construction, building housing all along the
country to help make sure that there are more affordable housing units for
people to access jobs and access economic opportunities. We're talking
about construction to build things like V.A. facilities, our schools, and
community colleges, putting people to work, construction work that really
needs to be done to be commitments that we have to our veterans and others.
We believe that the infrastructure of our care economy is something we have
to take very seriously. If anybody out there, many of your viewers who are
parents, who are taking care of an elderly parent or an adult child with
disabilities, they know that if you don't have an infrastructure of care to
support your loved ones, you can't effectively work. You can't effectively
interact in the 21st century economy.
So, I think investing in the infrastructure of care --
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: Brian, I'm not going to argue about whether or not it's a worthy
project, but the infrastructure of care, you're really stretching the word
beyond all meaning. What you're doing is you're going pay people to take
care of the elderly and disabled. I mean, it's a social program.
DEESE: Well, we're going to invest in building child care facilities.
We're going to invest in upgrading home and community-based care
facilities. We're going to invest in our V.A. hospitals.
We're going to invest in putting people to work, building and addressing
deferred maintenance and addressing the lack of access to this type of care
that keeps parents from being able to work, that keeps families from being
able to work. That will create more jobs. It will create more opportunity
for people to get into the workforce. It will expand our economy's
potential.
WALLACE: The president says that this bill is paid for with $2 trillion in
increased corporate taxes. But you pay for eight years of spending with 15
years of taxes and, Brian, this is -- as you well know, this is a classic
Washington gimmick because when you're paying for eight years of spending
with 15 years of taxes, the fact is the Biden administration will be long
gone and a new president will be in and a new Congress will be in, and
often times, they repeal those tax increases.
DEESE: I think it's just the opposite. This is a capital investment. What
we're talking about with the infrastructure plan is a one-time eight-year
capital investment. And just like any good business or even family would
make a capital investment, you make that up front and then you pay for it
over time.
What we're saying is we would pay for it over a 15-year period and in fact,
it's fiscally responsible over the long term because we would actually
reduce debt after that 15-year period as well.
We get that we're going to have a conversation about how we need to pay for
this investment and other investments. The president laid out his plan.
One thing was very clear on this week is he would like to hear other
people's ideas. If people think that this is too aggressive, then we'd like
to hear with their plans are. It's something we want to have a conversation
about. But this is a responsible way to pay for significant capital
investment which itself will return multiples in terms of the private
investment it will unlock.
We'll see analysts from across the spectrum saying that we make investments
in things like our ports and airports. We'll unleash significant private
investment as well. We think it's a reasonable thing to pay for that across
time but you don't have to do it year for year.
WALLACE: I want to pick up on exactly your point because the president
made it clear he's willing to negotiate. He's willing to compromise.
Here he is this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to bring
Republicans into the Oval Office, listen to them, what they have to say,
and be open to their ideas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Is the president willing -- you say he's willing to compromise,
is he willing to come down? And if he so, how far from the $2.25 trillion
spending bill that he's talking about here from the price tag? And in terms
of paying for it, is he willing instead of corporate taxes to do what
usually is done with infrastructure, which is to base it on user fees,
whether it's increasing the gas tax or a new mileage tax?
DEESE: The president has put forward his plan. Some people have said it's
too much, some people have said it's too little. We think it's just right,
about $2 trillion over eight years, investing in core drivers of growth
like our roads and bridges, like high-speed Internet, like research and
development.
And what he said and as you say, we want to have this conversation. We're
starting the outreach already. I've talked to dozens of members of Congress
over the course of this week --
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: But I'm trying to get a sense, Brian, how far is he willing --
how far is he willing to go down? I mean, when he talked about COVID relief
it was $1.9 trillion, that's where he began, that's where he ended.
Is he really willing to come down substantially below $2.25 trillion? Is he
willing to consider other pay-fors like -- instead of corporate taxes?
DEESE: I'm not going to negotiate that on this show. I would say he --
this is a good-faith effort, we want to hear what other people are, we want
to get people's reactions to this package both in the specifics and in the
overall.
On the tax side, the president has laid out what he believes to be a very
common sense and reasonable way to do this. Our corporate tax system is
broken. It remains broken. The 2017 tax law made things works. There's a
lot of sensible reform we could do, though, that would also generate
revenue across time.
If people have different approaches to that, he's open to doing it. The one
thing that he's been very clear about is he does not believe that we should
raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year and he doesn't
believe we should fund investments on the backs of working people in the
bottom half of the income distribution, many of whom have been hit terribly
hard through this COVID crisis.
WALLACE: Right.
DEESE: So, those are his -- those are his principles --
WALLACE: Let me --
DEESE: -- and he wants to hear what other people's ideas are.
WALLACE: Let me talk to you about another aspect of this, which is you've
got a lot of opposition inside the Democratic Party. And in the House, you
can only lose three votes. In the Senate, you can't lose any votes and pass
this measure.
Moderate Democrats in the House are saying they will not vote for this
package unless that you're willing to lift the cap on deductions for state
and local taxes. And then you've got people on the left who say this isn't
big enough. Take a look at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): We're the wealthiest nation in the
history of the world, so we can do $10 trillion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Are those negotiable, not $2 trillion, $10 trillion, the cap on
deductions for state and local taxes?
DEESE: Look, we've said we want to hear people's ideas and this is the
beginning of the process. We were just talking about how to pay for it.
Those are both ideas that would cost more, so we would want to hear all
people are thinking about how they would offset those ideas.
So what I would say is the -- this is a good faith effort. We want to hear
people's ideas. We think that investing about $2 trillion over this period
would make a huge difference.
You look at just the analyses we've seen this week, Moody's suggests it
would create 19 million jobs. Goldman Sachs is projecting more than 7
percent growth this year if we passed the investment and the corporate tax
plan.
So we think we have a real opportunity to do something big here and we've
got to get into that and listen to people's ideas and that's something
we're going to be open to.
WALLACE: Well, we got a lot of time to discuss it -- you and Congress and
us on this show.
Brian, thank you. Thanks for your time this weekend. Please come back.
Up next, Republicans pushed back that most of the president's
infrastructure plan has nothing to do with infrastructure. We'll sit down
with Senator Roy Blunt when we come right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: Congressional Republicans are united in opposition to Joe Biden's
$2 trillion infrastructure bill.
Joining us now, Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the GOP Senate leadership.
Senator, welcome back.
SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO): Chris, great to be with you today.
WALLACE: So you just heard my conversation with Brian Deese. And here was
President Biden this week selling his plan.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not a plan that tinkers
around the edges, it's a once in a generation investment in America.
Unlike anything we've seen or done since we built the interstate highway
system and the space race decades ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: President Trump talked about an infrastructure program for years
of his presidency, even though he never actually offered one.
Doesn't the country need a significant infrastructure upgrade?
BLUNT: Oh, absolutely. You know, location, geography, one of our great
advantages. We need that. It was sort of the great white whale of the last
ten years, frankly. Neither President Obama or President Trump could seem
to get this moving in the right direction.
I think there's an easy win here for the White House if they would take
that win, which is make this an infrastructure package, which is about 30
percent. Even if you stretch the definition of infrastructure some, it's
about 30 percent of the $2.25 trillion they're talking about spending.
My advice to the White House has been, take that bipartisan win, do this in
a more traditional infrastructure way and then if you want to force the
rest of the package on Republicans in the Congress and the country, you can
certainly do that. You'd still have all the tools available for what is
clearly going to turn out to be another purely partisan exercise.
I think it's a big mistake for the administration. They know I think it's a
mistake. And I also think it would be an easy victory if we go back and
look at roads and bridges and ports and airports and maybe even underground
water systems and broadband. You'd still be talking about less than 30
percent of this entire package and it's an easily doable 30 percent, I
think, Chris.
WALLACE: So -- so, Senator, are you saying that you and perhaps some of
your colleagues in the Republican Party up on Capitol Hill would support,
I'm just quickly doing the math here, $700 billion, $800 billion in
infrastructure?
BLUNT: Well, I think 30 percent is about $615 billion or so dollars. I
think you could even -- you can do that and with some innovative things
like looking at how we're going to deal with the electric vehicle use of
the highway system, what we can do with public, private partnerships. In
past congresses, Senator Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, and I have
introduced that kind of legislation, as Senator Warner from Virginia and I
have, where you could get the traditional funding sources and add a few
things to them and have a real infrastructure package.
We need that. It will have huge economic impact. I thought it was
interesting this whole concept, well, we also need an infrastructure of
care. Obviously, Democrats have figured out that infrastructure is
something we need and something that's popular. And so they're trying to
take 70 percent of this bill and call it infrastructure in a new way than
we've ever talked about infrastructure before. And that -- that means
you're looking at another partisan package, just like we had with COVID,
which, by the way only, a fairly small percentage of that package really
dealt with COVID. It was income to states, it was lots of things, but not
what the much-needed title of the bill said they wanted to do.
WALLACE: Well, OK. So let's say it's $600 billion, $700 billion. One of
the questions they're asking at the White House, because Republicans have
come out against raising the corporate tax rate, how would you pay for it?
BLUNT: Well, I think I just answered that. You know, we've traditionally
paid for infrastructure in some kind of reasonable user structure that
everybody's very familiar with, the gasoline tax. As we have more electric
vehicles, we're going to have to figure out some way that those electric
vehicles pay their fair share. We may even have to figure out a different
way that driverless vehicles pay for the increased kind of monitoring that
needs to happen with the highway system itself you have with that. And then
you can look again at private-public partnerships today. Some version of an
infrastructure bank where you take a federal investment and leverage it
pretty dynamically. All of those things are possible. Plus the basis you
have in the current gas tax structure that produces $300 billion or so
dollars in that -- in that time period. And I think it's very doable of
whatever it would be, it would be a true bipartisan discussion.
WALLACE: Right.
BLUNT: As opposed to asking every Republican in the Senate who was there
in 2017 to change their mind on a tax package that, frankly, I think had a
lot to do with that 3.5 percent unemployment rate we had a year ago when
COVID started.
WALLACE: But let me push back on what I think would be the White House
argument. They would say, look, we're talking about raising the corporate
tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. When President Trump came in it was
35 percent. So it's still a tax cut from where it was in 2017. And,
instead, Senator Blunt and the Republicans are saying, instead of raising
taxes for big corporations, let's -- let's tell the average person, the
working-class person, you're going to have to pay more for taxes. If you
drive more in the road, you're going to have to pay more in a mileage fee
or you're going to have to pay more in tolls. They're going to say they're
protecting the fat cats and putting it on the backs of the working class.
BLUNT: Well, I think people have always expected the user tax concept of
the transportation system. And on the -- the tax bill itself, you know, the
proof were in -- were in the numbers. We saw the economy growing in a
dynamic and dramatic way. We saw businesses thinking about how they could
restructure themselves back into American corporations with a more strong
basis in this country and the supply chain. All those things were
happening. We had a 3.5 percent unemployment rate as we were a couple of
years into that tax package.
And, remember, the corporate rate we did just got us in the mid-level of
the corporate rate for the countries around the world. If we went back to
28 percent, we'd be, I think, number two in the world in -- in corporate
taxes. Other countries saw the success we were having and many other
countries that we compete with reduced their corporate rate to try to keep
their jobs at home rather than seeing those jobs come to the United States
of America.
WALLACE: Senator, I've got less than two minutes left. I want to squeeze
one more question in.
I haven't heard you say it today, but some of your colleagues in the
Republican Party are complaining about, this is going to explode debt, this
is going to explode deficits. And I want to put up what the -- what the
Republican record is on those.
During the Trump presidency, even before the pandemic, the national debt
increased by more than $3 trillion. And in 2017, every Republican in the
Senate, including you, voted for the big Trump tax cuts, which cut revenue
by almost $1.5 trillion.
So I guess the question is, when -- when -- when I hear, for instance,
Mitch McConnell talking now about, well, debt and deficits, hasn't the
Republican Party -- haven't you lost your credibility on this issues?
BLUNT: Well, I don't think anybody has a very good record for the last
decade on this. I think the -- the -- the deficit under the Obama years and
the Trump years are very similar. The tax cuts, however, in real revenue
produced more revenue and static revenue. They wouldn't because you
couldn't anticipate the kind of -- the kind of growth we had.
And, remember, the -- after the pandemic did occur, we did five, not one,
not two, not three, not four but five bipartisan bills trying to be sure we
stabilize this economy so we'd have a stable economy that would pay that
debt off as we came out of COVID.
WALLACE: Right.
BLUNT: Now we've seen one incredibly partisan bill from the new
administration followed by what it appears to be -- will be another
incredibly partisan bill. You can't spread that blame around if you decide
you're going to do it all by yourself.
WALLACE: Well, yes, I suppose that's true.
I just want to make it clear, when I talked about the increase in debt
during the -- the Trump years, it was -- I -- I did it purposely before the
pandemic started.
Senator Blunt, thank you.
BLUNT: Right.
WALLACE: Thanks for coming in this Easter Sunday. Always good to talk with
you, sir.
BLUNT: Great to be with you, Chris. Happy Easter to you and your family.
WALLACE: Thank you. Same to you, sir.
Up next, public health officials sound the alarm over the prospects of a
fourth wave of the coronavirus. We'll ask a top infectious disease doctor
where things stand.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: Coming up, public health officials warned we're not out of the
woods with COVID.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALENSKY: For the health of our country, we must work together now to
prevent a fourth surge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: We'll ask a top infectious disease doctor, Michael Osterholm,
about the state of the pandemic, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Even as millions of Americans get
vaccinated and governors move to relax restrictions, the Biden
administration sounded new warnings about COVID this week, saying the
country is letting down its guard too soon.
Joining us now, Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for
Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
I want to start with a dramatic warning this week from the head of the CDC,
Dr. Rochelle Walensky. Here she is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL: I'm going to
reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much
to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so
much reason for hope. But right now I'm scared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Doctor, was that an overreaction? How serious is the situation
we're in right now with the virus? And how close are we to a fourth wave?
DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH &
POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: Well, first of all, Dr. Walensky was being
a truth teller. What she said is exactly right scientifically. And what
we're doing in terms of our response to this virus is, in fact, a major
challenge right now. So I congratulate her for her honestly with the
public.
We are the only country in the world right now experiencing this increasing
number of cases due to this variant. And at the same time, opening up, not
closing down. And the two basically are going to collide. And we are going
to see substantially increased number of cases. If I think anyone
in Michigan had thought that they would see 8,400 new cases on Saturday
like they did, no one would have believed that a month ago.
WALLACE: I want to talk to you about that, because we are seeing a 19
percent increase in cases over two weeks ago, and cases are going up in 24
states.
Here is President Biden this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm reiterating my call for
every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask
mandate. Please, this is not politics, reinstate the mandate if you let it
down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: But, Doctor, the places that we're seeing the biggest spikes right
now, you pointed out Michigan, in the Northeast, are not the places that
have relaxed mask mandates and relaxed lockdowns the most. States
like Texas.
So what's the colorization between lockdown and new cases because they
don't seem to -- to correlate?
OSTERHOLM: Actually, there's really a very good explanation for this. If
you look at the history of this pandemic and start way back last April,
when we saw a house on fire in New York and other cities around the
country, and then follow that, from this to Memorial Day when the
upper Midwest had a big increase in cases, that dropped. And then the
south, basically from southern California to Georgia had a big increase in
cases in July, 70,000 cases a day, that dropped. And then we saw another
big surge of cases in the upper Midwest and the Northeast in that time
period around November, where we got to 200,000 cases, then those numbers
dropped. And then the south lit up again, from
southern California to Georgia in January and we got to 300,000 cases. We
seem to be in a cycle of regional activity. And right now the
upper Midwest is lighting up with the Northeast and it won't be long before
the rest of the country will be following behind.
WALLACE: So are we in a fourth wave right now?
OSTERHOLM: Well, I believe we are. And I believe that in some ways we're
almost in a new pandemic. The only good news about this is that the current
vaccines are effective against this particular variant, B117. But in a
sense this is a virus that is now 50 to 100 percent more transmissible or
infectious than the previous viruses. This is a virus that causes 50 to 60
percent more severe illnesses. And so what -- what at one time wasn't as
much of a problem, for example, in cases in young adults are now becoming
very serious cases. And so that this is really a fourth wave, you might
call it, with somewhat of a different picture than we've seen in the past
waves of the pandemic.
WALLACE: The 117, B117, that's the U.K. variant.
Just before we came on the air, you were telling me about a spike in cases
in schools in Minnesota?
OSTERHOLM: There's a spike in cases all over. Kids, particularly those 8th
grade and younger, were not really much of -- part of the pandemic that we
saw in the past 10 months. Very few cases in terms of transmission. They
did not serve as important sources of the virus into the rest of the
community. That has completely turned on its head with B117. They are now,
as kids, getting infected at the same rate that adults do. They're very
effective at transmitting the virus. And right here alone, just
in Minnesota, in the last two weeks, we've had 749 schools with cases.
In Michigan, the same thing. Anywhere you look where you see this emerging,
you see that kids are playing a huge role in the transmission of this.
So all the things that we had planned for about kids in schools with this
virus are really no longer applicable. We've got to take a whole new look
at this issue.
WALLACE: So -- so where are we now? Are you saying that we need to close
schools back down, that we need to -- to put -- mandate that people wear
masks and lock down businesses and restaurants and gyms and all of that?
Where are we?
OSTERHOLM: Well, let's just, first of all, take a look at where the rest of
the world is, as an instruction to what we need to consider. There isn't a
country in the world right now that has seen a big increase in this B117
that is not locking down. We're the exception. And so the bottom line
message from all of these countries is, we could not control this virus
until we did lock down.
Now, I understand the absolute resistance in this country even to consider
that. And, you know, it's like of like trying to drink barbed wire. But the
bottom line message is, the virus is going to do what it's going to do and
we're going to have to respond somehow. Whether we do accept that if we
have large outbreaks in our communities we're willing to pull back on some
of the restrictions that we've loosened up on, are we going to reconsider
schools and school transmission as a new factor here that we didn't have
before. Nobody was wrong in trying to get schools reopened. Now we have new
data that says this virus is a game-changer So I think we are all going to
be looking carefully at what to do. And I think that's exactly what you're
getting the messaging right now from people like the director of the CDC.
WALLACE: Yes, but let me pick up on that, Doctor, because we're getting
mixed messaging from the CDC. On Friday the CDC put up a new travel
warning. And it said that people who are fully vaccinated can travel safely
within the U.S. But it also warned against non-essential travel. So,
frankly, as somebody -- I've gotten fully vaccinated, I don't know how to
make sense of that. If it's -- you know, if you're fully vaccinated, is it
safe to get on an airplane or not?
OSTERHOLM: You know, and that's a very, very fair critique. We do have a
problem right now, from a public health messaging standpoint, trying to
nuance that message. And exactly what you do does put you at increased risk
if you're around a lot more virus.
So, for example, traveling. If you're fully vaccinated, you have a lot of,
lot of protection from that vaccine. But it's not perfect. It's not 100
percent. So if you want to reduce your risk from even getting infected with
the kind of exposure you might have in the community where the virus level
is much higher right now, then avoid it if it's non-essential.
But we have to do a better job of helping the public understand, this is
short-term. All we're trying to do is get through this surge of cases that
are going to occur over the next six to eight to 10 weeks because of this
B117 variant. The future looks very bright this next summer if, in fact, we
can keep people from getting there.
Chris, nobody wants to be the person to die three days before they were
supposed to get their COVID shot. That's what we're trying to avoid right
now.
WALLACE: Dr. Osterholm, I wish it were a brighter picture, but thank you
for the straight talk.
OSTERHOLM: Thank you.
WALLACE: Thanks for coming in. Good to talk with you, sir.
OSTERHOLM: Thank you, Chris.
WALLACE: Up next, we'll bring in our Sunday group to discuss the trial of
former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George
Floyd.
But first, this month we celebrate the 25th anniversary of "FOX NEWS
SUNDAY." And ahead of that, we've been bringing you moments with some of
our most memorable guests.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: So you're done with elective office?
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE (NOVEMBER 2010): I am. I am very
happy doing what I'm doing. And I am not in any way interested in or
pursuing anything in elective office.
WALLACE: Senator McCain, aren't you in a world of trouble?
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Are we behind? Sure.
I'm the underdog. I've been on enough campaigns, my friend, to sense
enthusiasm and momentum. And we've got it.
WALLACE: After all you've gone through yourself, and your son, to have
another go son go through that.
GEORGE H.W. BUSH, 41ST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Absolutely.
Absolutely. It's (INAUDIBLE). It about service. Service to the greatest
country on the face of the earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ZIMMERMAN, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE LIEUTENANT: Pulling him down to the
ground, face down, and putting your knee on a neck for that amount of time
is just uncalled for.
CHARLES MCMILLIAN, WITNESS IN CHAUVIN TRIAL: Oh, my God.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: The chief homicide detective in Minneapolis and also a witness to
the arrest of George Floyd, both testifying for the prosecution in the
murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin.
And it's time now for our Sunday group, former RNC Communications Director
Doug Heye, pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, and Fox News political analyst
Juan Williams.
Juan, any reporter who's ever covered a trial knows that when the
prosecution is making its case, things seem one way and then when the
defense gets its turn your view of the case can sometimes change
dramatically. But what is your view of this case after the first week?
What's your view of how this trial is going?
JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Chris, I think this was a week
of powerful, emotional testimony from people who watched as George Floyd
died and heard his screams, his pleas for that nine minutes or so while he
was handcuffed. And they -- their accounts, and some of them were personal,
from his girlfriend, from people who were in the store that he had just
exited, all of their testimony humanized him, George Floyd, in a way that
blows a whole in a typical defense of police who are engaged in, you know,
some kind of harsh use of force, because, you know, you think of it,
usually the case is that they were dealing with a dangerous, threatening
black man, big guy and they had to deal with a dangerous situation.
You think back to the Rodney King Case, you think of the Michael Brown
case, or the Eric Garner case, that was a defense used in all those cases.
So -- but history shows, as in those cases, it's going to be hard to
convict police. Juries are very reluctant to do that. And the defense
coming up in the future weeks is going to make the case that there were
drugs in Floyd's system, that he had health problems that may have
complicated the situation and led to his death and finally that, as the
crowd gathered around, they felt they were dealing with an unruly mob.
But what was new this week was to see all the police breaking with the blue
line and willing to testify against Derek Chauvin. That's unprecedented.
Also emergency medical personnel. So now we're down to, can the system
deliver justice for George Floyd?
WALLACE: Yes. We should point out, we haven't heard any of the defense yet.
Kristen, I want to look sort of at thirty thousand feet above the courtroom
in Minneapolis. Where is public opinion on this topic? Can police support -
- can people -- can voters support the police, oppose ideas like defund the
police on the one hand and on the other hand still have real problems with
an individual case like this?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, ECHELON INSIGHTS AND FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.
And, frankly, that's where public opinion is, even if it's not where most
of our public debate winds up being. It often seems like people are forced
to the choice of either you support the police and you -- and -- and you
believe that in all cases they've done everything right and that there's no
injustice in this country, or you want to defund the police. And that's,
frankly, not where public opinion is.
You know, the video of that nine minutes where the police officer has his
knee on the neck of George Floyd was a real wake-up call to many Americans
who, I think, had previously thought, you know, this isn't -- it's not that
big a deal. Sometimes these cases get overblown. There's nothing overblown
about the horrors in that video.
But, at the same time, we know that, you know, particularly Republicans
feel that Democrats push for things like defund the police have given them
a political advantage.
So I think where you find most voters land is somewhere between the two
extremes that often dominate our political discourse on this issue.
WALLACE: Let's turn to another big story this week, and that was the
blowback to the new voting law in Georgia. And the biggest blowback came
from Major League Baseball, which announced that its pulling its all-star
game from Atlanta this July. Here was the reaction from Georgia Governor
Brian Kemp.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): This is unbelievable. I mean really, unfortunate
today, obviously, that Major League Baseball has folded up and caved to the
cancel culture and a bunch of liberal lies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Doug, a number of red states were moving or are moving to restrict
voting laws. Will the blowback from major corporations, we saw, what, Coca-
Cola and Delta and Major League Baseball did in Georgia, in Texas where
there's also a move to restrict -- make -- put new restrictions on voting,
you're seeing pushback from American Airlines and Dell Computers, is that,
you think, going to stop the move to reform voting?
DOUG HEYE, FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS: No, it looks like a lot of
Republicans will double down. And if you're Brian Kemp, you were worried
before this week about being primary because you had been on the wrong side
of Donald Trump a couple of times. One of the unintended consequences here
politically is that by Major League Baseball essentially going to the left
of Stacey Abrams has shored up Brian Kemp from her primary, something
Democrats, I think, would have avoided.
And here's, I think, one of the challenges that we have here, Chris, is
we've not really had an honest conversation about this bill or other bills.
And part of that is because, coming from the White House we've seen
rhetoric that just hasn't been true and extreme rhetoric. When you talk
about everything being compared to Jim Crow, you take facts out of the
situation and you make it a very emotional argument.
And even though the president has been fact-checked by "The Washington
Post," Declan Garvey at "The Dispatch" has written a real impressive piece
about what is in this bill and what's not in this bill. We're not having an
honest conversation about it.
If Donald Trump were spreading this kind of rhetoric and this kind of
disinformation, it would be the lead topic of every news show in the
country right now. But because it's Joe being Joe, we don't judge him at --
at the same way that we did the previous president.
WALLACE: Well, let's talk about a few of the things that are in the bill.
And I agree with you, Doug, that, for instance, President Biden's claim
that he's going to cut early voting hours or voting hours on Election Day
has been proven false.
But let's put up some provisions that are in the bill. There are new
restrictions on absentee voting. The republican-controlled legislature has
more control over the state election board. And, yes, it does make it a
crime for anyone who's not an election worker to give food and water to
voters waiting in line.
So, Juan, to Doug's point, does the new Georgia voting law, does it clean
up some of the -- some of the issues from the 2020 election or is it voter
suppression?
WILLIAMS: Well, I mean, your point, Chris, is very important. Let's stay
there for a second. This is all based on Trump's big lie that the election
of 2020 was stolen from him and now you have state legislatures in Georgia
and elsewhere saying, oh, we're going to reassure voters in terms of the
integrity of that election system because they worry about what happened in
2020. Well, there was no election fraud in 2020.
So now, you know, to my mind, we can talk about the fact that they're not
going to allow water and food to be given to people standing in line. But,
to me, the big problem here is, you are giving power to a Republican
majority legislature in Georgia, taking power away from the secretary of
state, the one courageous person who stood up to Trump, and also taking
power away from local county election boards and giving it all to the
Republicans. They're trying to assure that they win every election in the
future. Talk about corruption.
WALLACE: Kristen, we've got about a minute left. Would do you think has the
political advantage here, Republicans who say that there were excesses with
COVID, with the -- all of the absentee ballots being mailed out, that there
were problems in the election that need to be cleaned up, or Democrats who
say this is Republicans trying to prevent a lot of people, particularly
people of color, from voting?
ANDERSON: Well, it varies greatly based on which piece of the law you're
talking about. For instance, things like voter ID, while they tend to be
real political hot buttons, also tend to have vast majority support from
voters.
On the other hand, provision saying you can't give food and water to people
in line, even if there are some justifications of, well, you can't give
anything to people waiting in line, it just -- it's a very bad look and
it's the sort of thing that just sets you up for political attack.
What I think is particularly astounding in all of this is, for instance,
the one thing that Stacey Abrams and Republicans agree on is that Major
League Baseball shouldn't have moved the game out of Georgia. So if you are
a corporation trying to become a co-combatant in a political battle, you've
got to find a better way to do it than what Major League Baseball did.
WALLACE: Thank you, panel, see you next Sunday.
Up next, our "Power Player of the Week." On this Easter Sunday, a
conversation with a Senate chaplain about division and faith on Capitol
Hill.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: This is the third time we've gone to see him. Each time when the
country, especially Congress, seems hopelessly divided. Once again, on this
Easter Sunday, he's our "Power Player of the Week."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARRY BLACK, SENATE CHAPLAIN: I believe there was evil at the Capital on
January 6th, but I also believe that there was a greater power of goodness
and that good triumphed over evil.
WALLACE (voice over): Senate Chaplain Barry Black on the riot that engulfed
the Capitol as lawmakers debated certifying the 2020 election.
WALLACE (on camera): Did you fear for your life? Did you fear for the life
of the people that you work with in the Capitol?
BLACK: I'm a realist. And so I knew that there was a possibility that there
could be a loss of life.
WALLACE (voice over): Past 3:00 a.m. the next morning, Congress finally
made Biden's win official. It was Chaplain Black whose prayer concluded a
sad day for the country.
BLACK: These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the
power of life and death is in the tongue.
WALLACE (on camera): What did you mean by that?
BLACK: Words have power. And so when we speak soft words, Proverbs 15,
Verse 1 says, we turn away anger. When we speak angry words, we stir up
divisiveness.
WALLACE (voice over): We first met Chaplain Black ten years ago.
BLACK: The Apostle Paul in Philippians Chapter 4 said, there are saints in
Caesar's household.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dr. Barry Black will lead us in prayer.
WALLACE: These days, Black's opening prayer seems especially meaningful.
During the second Trump impeachment trial.
BLACK: Lord, touch and move them to believe that the end does not justify
the means.
WALLACE: And just last month.
BLACK: Make our senators custodians of truth. Remind them that when people
call a lie the truth they tamper with their value judgment.
WALLACE (on camera): What is your counsel to the Senate, what is your
counsel to the nation as we go through these hard times?
BLACK: God has brought America through far more than this, through far more
than a global pandemic, as catastrophic as that has been. And that same God
will bring our nation and our world to a desired destination.
Chris, the best is yet to be.
WALLACE: Happy Easter, sir.
BLACK: Same to you, my friend.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: We talked with Chaplain Black this week, the day before the
attack, just outside the Capitol, that killed one police officer. We need
his faith that things will be all right now more than ever.
And that's it for today. From all of us, have a Happy Easter and a great
week and we'll see you next FOX NEWS SUNDAY.
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