CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Interview

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REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL): What I think explains high infection rate is that we have a governor who has not taken COVID seriously from the very beginning. You know, he has essentially right now treating it like a joke. He's got campaign merchandise on his Web site saying "Don't Fauci My Florida." And we've had nearly 40,000 Floridians die of COVID. We have -- we are contributing 20 percent of the COVID diagnosis in the country right now and we're on the rise.

And look, I would rather see us Fauci our Florida than have people go through death by DeSantis. And that's what we're facing right now. He actually had a law passed in Florida to prohibit local governments from being able to enact measures like mask requirements and social distancing to keep people safe. You just can't make this up. So that's where the blame lies. At his feet.

BROWN: And the question is, what more would you have him do? As you well know, he has defended his handling. He said the government shouldn't be meddling in this. It's people's personal choice. They should have the freedom to decide how they want to live, what they should do. What would you say to him? What more should be doing?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: He should join President Biden, join our congressional delegation, join Democratic legislators, join public health experts across the state who have gone through an all-out, full-court press to educate people who have not been willing to become vaccinated.

We are below the average. We really have a problem with, as our CDC director said, a pandemic of the unvaccinated now. Every single person that's died in this last month in this country of COVID has died without being vaccinated, because they were not vaccinated. And that's how they got COVID.

So we have to make sure that we're stopping the spread of disinformation like it's spreading rampant on Facebook. Some of which is propagated by Ron DeSantis himself and FOX News which he spends a lot of time on.

So, you know, look, we all have to pull together and try to make sure we can do everything we can to get everyone vaccinated because that is the key as we've seen to making sure that we bring the numbers down and make sure people don't get sick and die.

BROWN: Florida is a deep red state. We're seeing this trend. In the red states, there is a lower number of people being vaccinated. So in your state, I mean, these are people are individuals, seeing what is out there and choosing for themselves not to get the vaccine. How much responsibility can you really put on one individual, the governor of the state, for all of these people choosing not to get vaccinated?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: We have a governor that likes to take credit for things. And so, you know, you can't take credit for the good things and then not be accountable for the things that aren't going so well. When you pass a law through the state legislature and sign it to say that businesses can't require vaccinations, to say that local governments can't take steps to keep their own people safe, that ignores public health, who really through the whole pandemic did everything he could to really stiff arm the pandemic, and taking care of people.

At the end of the day, when we're now facing the largest rise in the country, then, you know, the responsibility lies with you. And all he has to do is exercise his leadership and use his bully pulpit to encourage people to get vaccinated. He's been vaccinated. It's important that we make sure that we work hard to get to those tough people who really have been either impacted by disinformation spread by him or who simply just need a little bit more of a nudge to make them comfortable. That's our job as public --

BROWN: Yes. I mean, I had a lawmaker on earlier, a Republican, who is a pharmacist. And he's out there saying, look, you should take vaccine. We're seeing Republicans in Congress who have been out there on the forefront putting out PSAs saying take the vaccine. It is safe.

I want to listen to what Dr. Fauci said yesterday on CNN.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If we had had the pushback for vaccines the way we're seeing on certain media, I don't think it would have been possible at all to not only eradicate smallpox, we probably would still have smallpox and we probably would still have polio in this country if we had the kind of false information that's being spread now. If we had that back decades ago, I would be certain that we'd still have polio in this country.

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BROWN: So in light of that, should the Biden White House mandate vaccines?

[19:30:03]

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: What we need to do is make sure that we continue to educate people with the facts, use our public health experts, our public health network, make sure that every elected official is doing our best to act, to reach out to our constituents, and make sure we fight to submit this information.

And by the way, I agree with President Biden, Facebook needs to do a lot more and our social media companies need to do a lot more to take down these disinformation websites, take down the false information that their own algorithms allow to spread.

Yes, they've promoted vaccinations and gotten the truth out there. But you know, what happens with their algorithms, the faster -- the disinformation spreads much faster, and it is infecting people. It is ensuring that people don't get the vaccination, and those are the people that are dying right now.

I mean, the proof is in the pudding. The people that are dying now are the ones who aren't vaccinated. There is not a single person who has died that has been vaccinated in the last month.

BROWN: That's true.

SCHULTZ: That tells you the way it is.

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