opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service. along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up, white house press secretary jen psaki will brief reporters on the u.s. response to the russian invasion of ukraine and other biden administration policies. we'll have live coverage when the briefing gets under way. it's expected to begin shortly. live here on c-span. >> washingt. host: joining us now is paul mango. author of the forthcoming book, warp speed. thanks for being on the show this morning. >> it's my pleasure. thanks for having me.

host: can you explain to the audience what you did specifically? >> titles went by the wayside on january 3, 2020 when we learned that we had a problem in china. basically it was all hands on deck. my role was on behalf of secretary azar to oversee the operation warp speed initiative which brought hundreds of millions of safe and effective vaccines to the american people in record time. it was a round-the-clock effort and really quite fulfilling in terms of its impact. host: in a recent op-ed, he wrote, when one examines biden victory in detail to include the tally of covid cases and fatalities and related behavioral health issues and inflation and deficits that are

now at the highest in decades, it's hard to distinguish from defeat. if the biden teams covid response strategy had any positive out comes, admiration would be in order. particularly when it comes to the actual development of the vaccines, what do you mean by that? what are you trying to say? >> what i mean is that on a per day basis, there were 100% more cases and 20% more fatalities than under the time during which the trump administration was managing the pandemic and this would have been tragic under any administration. i think the response the biden administration took created created a number of collateral damage items that were unnecessary and that's what i talk about in the op-ed. the learning loss is now at 10% in terms of standardized test scores. you have larry summers, the

former obama treasury secretary saying that the american rescue act in march of 2021 was the least responsible macroeconomic policy in four years. and the third thing i talked about was really drug overdoses. they spiked over the last 12 months. humans are social animals and when you lock them up in their homes, when they don't go to work or restaurants, they have real behavioral health challenges. what i was really trying to express in that op-ed was public health is more than just covid. there's a whole bunch of other issues associated with public health and you can't destroy those others by trying to eradicate a virus that you cannot eradicate. that's the difference between the administrations.

the biden administration tried to eradicate the virus at any cost and those costs were enormous. and by the way, they didn't eradicate the virus. host: the tally of specific covid cases and fatalities, what do you attribute those numbers to? >> we were pursuing a very aggressive policy toward developing therapeutics. when they came into office they dropped that and put all their marbles behind vaccines and vaccinations. so it was really a very singular approach to the virus. we thought the other measures would matter. i will just give you an example. pfizer issued, we got in emergency use authorization for a pill in december and we still don't have product.

the whole purpose of operation warp speed was to manufacture in parallel with the development of the drug or vaccine so that on day one we could ship millions of doses of vaccines. they failed to do that so we are not going to get these therapeutics into the market until later this summer. my guess is there won't be many covid cases at that time. it's a bit too little too late. host: those you work with had issues with pfizer from the get go as well. >> yes we did. they were a critical part of operation warp speed. but boy were they difficult to work with. they just weren't as transparent and not as cooperative as many of our other private sector partners. we got over it, but it could have been easier. host: when you say not as

cooperative, can you elaborate? >> we had a senior manufacturing expert as part of our team. he created this program called persons and plans. we deployed multidisciplinary teams out to these vaccine manufacturing plants to identify any problems and immediately respond with all of the resources of the federal government so that we could get them manufactured and out to the american people. pfizer precluded us from putting a team and their plant in kalamazoo. when it came time to deliver the number of vaccine doses that they promised in november and december of 2020, they delivered less than 50% of what they promised. it's one thing not to cooperate and then deliver the goods. it's another thing not to cooperate and then you don't deliver the goods. host: our guest with us until

10:00 if you want to ask questions. (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8002 independents. during the state of the union last week, the president himself talked about his administration's efforts on covid. >> we know how incredibly effective vaccines are. if you are vaccinated and boosted, you have the highest degree of protection and we will never give up on vaccinating more americans. i know parents of kids under five are eager to see vaccines for their children. scientists are working hard to get that done. we are also ready with antiviral treatments. if you get covid-19, the pfizer pill reduces your chances of ending up in the hospital right 90% i have ordered more pills

than anyone in the world has. pfizer is working overtime to get us a million pills this month and more than double that next month. and now we are launching the test to treat initiative. so people can get tested at a pharmacy and receive the antiviral pills on the spot at no cost. host: that is the administrations take on its own efforts. what do you think? >> the most protected persons in the country are not those who are vaccinated and boosted, those who have recovered from covid and are vaccinated. so this acquired immunity plus the vaccine is what all of the research suggests is the most protective in terms of the antibodies. i think the second point was as i mentioned, the pfizer pills are coming. but under president trump's operation warp speed, the pfizer

pills would have been here already. on test and then treat, there has already been a lot of controversy over that policy because if someone goes to cbs, gets tested and then walks over to the pharmacy counter to get the pill, you're cutting that individual's physician out of the equation and that's very dangerous because the fda has stated explicitly that there could be serious drug interactions associated with this pill. if you are on cholesterol-lowering drugs and you take this pill, you could have very adverse effects. that's not a policy that the american medical association is going to support, nor should patients go directly to the pharmacist without their physician weighing in on whether this could be dangerous or not. host: matthew in new york. go ahead. you are on. caller: good morning guys.

mr. mango, i don't even know where to begin. you would like to rewrite history and have the american people believe that the previous administration isn't responsible for over 600,000 deaths under the previous administration. you might have come up with operation warp speed, but unfortunately you did nothing to push the vaccinations and get people to use them. you had the protocol set up, injection of bleach perhaps. hydroxychloroquine. or whatever homespun remedy you thought was cool or fun at the time. but you and the previous administration are responsible for so many deaths. you ought to be ashamed of yourself. really. truly. host: that's matthew in new york. >> thanks matthew.

i actually have the facts on fatalities. the day we left office january 20 20 21, there were 405,000 fatalities. that's a tragedy for sure. under the, the fatalities were 20% higher. in terms of vaccine, i can tell you when we were developing the vaccine in the fall of 2020, comments that struck us as unusual and disappointing came from then candidate joe biden and vice president candidate kamala harris who both said they don't trust any vaccine developed under the trump administration and then they wonder why in the spring of 2021 not as many folks wanted it. i can tell you what we did do. we set up all of the distribution and logistics to administer hundreds of millions of vaccines and we enrolled

70,000 vaccination sites ant and information technology system. we shipped 20 million doses of vaccines before the end of december without missing a beat. the biden administration took our distribution plan and executed it to the letter and that's why it was successful. i don't want to claim that we did everything perfectly, but let's come back to some of the facts. more fatalities per day under the biden administration. the folks bad mouthing the vaccines and creating hesitancy were candidate joe biden and kamala harris. host: was at the vaccines themselves or the president's administration of the vaccines that they said as candidates? >> say again? host: was it the vaccines themselves or the administration themselves developing?

more than the vaccine itself. >> i think what the exact words were was american people should not trust vaccine developed under donald trump. host: the washington post took a look at this and some of these things say the comparison between 2020 and 2021, the president was still in office early 2021 and the biggest wave of coronavirus in this country peeked around the same time that president biden was inaugurated on january 20, and hurting a trendline that shows 3000 deaths per day.

it was a terrible surge in january of 21. but it wasn't much better in december of january 22. people can say that's a new variant or whatever. my point point is this is a very difficult virus to inhibit the spread of. the real issue is did the policies and the response create additional collateral damage that was unnecessary. and that's the main point. we think the learning loss, the drug overdose, inflation, the deferred care. people who did not go in for

over two years. their focus was on eradicating the virus at any cost and that was a fools errand as far as we are concerned. host: this is jack from florida. independent line. caller: i just wanted to say to mr. mango, you've seriously ignored the fact that you blew the whole testing concept early on. as you recall, your administration said there was going to be a test for everyone who wanted it and you never did anything. he couldn't get testing. as far as economic growth, growth collapsed under the trump administration because you did nothing about testing, nothing

to protect people. and yet hunter biden, growth is back -- under biden, growth is back. employment is way up. unemployment is way down. unemployment grew dramatically under your administration. and finally, it was unfortunate that we fell behind, the policy to do remote learning was to protect teachers. teachers that in many cases had immunocompromised or had health issues. but the idea was to protect teachers, staff from dying. while kids admittedly, they had difficulties learning. i think you should consider all these before you do the absolutes that the biden administration blew it and that you did it perfect. host: that's jack in florida. >> thanks for those comments. if i implied that we did things perfectly, i misspoke because we didn't.

testing was one of our biggest shortcomings because in january and february of 2020, the centers for disease control and prevention had a real problem with contaminated test kits and we lost three to five weeks and that was critical timing. the testings are after that, by the late summer of 2020 we had built the capacity to conduct millions of tests per day. so it did come back, but it was a serious shortcoming early in the pandemic. as far as getting kids back to school, of course we have to protect those teachers who are potentially immunocompromised. i will tell you a few things that most states did. they prioritized teachers to get vaccinated first. we issued $130 billion to schools for additional masks, testing, ventilation and so forth. i wish the biden administration

had been a little bit more courageous and confronted the teachers unions when they didn't want the teachers back in schools after all the safety measures had been taken. it's just really i think a generation of our children will be behind because of some of those actions and that's a real disappointment. host: from georgia on the republican line. david. hello. caller: can i say just one thing first, it is so wonderful that we can look back and see our capital behind you every morning. and paul, you had the pleasure of working there. you came through a very difficult period. but the facts sort of got muddled. and our republican friends have paid the price for it.

i can remember in december hearing that this monster had gotten loose over there in china. we got muddled up, balled up. you know how politics is. nothing happened overnight. so you were chief of staff of policy. now was that policy coming from your office or was that policy handed down to you and you had to administrate it and give it down to the american public? that's my question. and thank you very much for all your work. >> thank you. it was a real privilege and an honor to serve the nation during that period of time. my role as the deputy chief of staff for policy was to coordinate all of the policy coming out of health and human services. but during the pandemic, and there was a body called the white house coronavirus task force led by vice president mike pence. and that had a number of different cabinet

representatives on it. hhs, department of labor, department of transportation, department of state. and all the policy associated with covid and the covid response came out of the white house coronavirus task force because it was multiagency. it wasn't just hhs. travel bans from china that involve the department of transportation, the department of state and so forth. we had significant input into all of those policies. that's where policy was made as it related to the covid response and not over at hhs. host: there are several reports over the last couple of weeks that pfizer is expected to make $100 billion from covid and treatments. what do you think about getting because of that?

the financial gains because of that. >> i talk about this in my book. i am so inspired by american industry and how it mobilized its dexterity, talent, resources. i would never criticize any company for earning a profit off of serving the american people. many companies did that. i think we should stay focused on the unbelievable achievement of ringing hundreds of millions of safe and effective vaccines to this country faster than any other country in the world and faster than any time in history. if these companies earn a profit from that, god bless them. they need to attract the talent and capabilities for the next pandemic. i don't criticize them for that at all. host: the idea of intellectual property behind the development

of these vaccines, if they were released it would allow more countries to get access to the vaccines. what do you think of that argument? >> there are some muddled messages in there. because i kept statistics from all of the manufacturers and what they were doing. they had scores of contracts for manufacturing vaccines outside the country. so they were issuing those licenses to manufacture them. we didn't have the capacity to manufacture all those vaccines so they spread their licenses around. i can tell you that most of them were selling their vaccines at cost to third world countries. pfizer was selling to the third

world for seven dollars a dose whereas we were paying $19 and $.50 a dose. sure they want to keep track of their intellectual property, but they weren't importing it and they weren't preventing other countries from manufacturing their vaccines at cost. host: on the democrat line. good morning. caller: you've got these former trump officials coming on here trying to rehabilitate the reputation. mr. mango, let me ask you this year. where was your divorce -- your voice at when the former president stood in front of the american people and told them to drink chlorine and take a fluorescent light and put it up there rectum and it would eradicate the virus. would you please explain to me where was your voice been? >> i had my head down developing

vaccines for the american people. i'm not going to say we did everything perfectly or our communication was 100% accurate. i think we made mistakes. i'm focusing right now on the terrific work that a small group of individuals did on behalf of the american people which was operation warp speed. i'm not disputing whether or not there were some communications errors early on at all. host: in washington state. we will hear from laura on the republican line. caller: nice to meet you. i'm calling because i'm hardly concerned about the way in which the democratic party has blamed it on to our previous president who actually in reality saved the world with his ability to get things done.

and what i don't like really is the fact that our vice president harris and presley went to the fda and the cdc and told them that if they were to give hospitals medicine for covid, they had to discriminate against white males and elderly people. and i know that for a fact. host: where'd you get that fact from? >> it's in the law. if you read it in the law, it says we only service certain people -- only if you service -- what do you call it. host: which law do you mean? caller: well, i don't have it in front of me right now. but go look at it. this marxist garbage that's coming into our country. equity.

host: continue on with your question for our guest then. caller: ok. my question is this. you know, i think i lost it. i am so upset about this whole turn of hatred from a marxist ideology into our country. host: ok. that's laura in washington state. mr. mango, go ahead. >> i didn't see or read about what you are describing but i can tell you that we were meticulous in our distribution of vaccines and therapeutics when they were there. one of the things we did was retain a firm to help us understand where the most vulnerable americans were. we knew in the fall of 2020 who was most vulnerable to covid and it was obviously the elderly and those with certain underlying conditions. we retained a company that told us by zip code where those individuals were concentrated.

that permitted us to communicate with the governors and say you are going to get an allocation of vaccines. here is the zip code where there is a disproportionate number of individuals who will be vulnerable to the covid virus. obviously it was their decision, it wasn't ours. we did the same thing with some of our therapeutics. we made sure that we had control over the distribution of that because supply was very limited and we didn't want disproportionate amount of that going to places that could for instance just pay more money. so we were very meticulous about understanding the vulnerability of americans to this virus and making sure that the critical vaccines and therapeutics got to the most vulnerable first. regardless of their race, location or religion.

we wanted it going to the most vulnerable americans first. host: tampa, florida. this is mark. caller: one of the problems with trump's response is he downplayed the virus from the very beginning. there is clear reports that he knew early on from his national security team and others how deadly it was, yet even right after receiving those reports he still goes on tv and tells the american public that it will be over soon, no big deal. i think not just being upfront with the american people and telling them the truth, he could have cost a lot of people their lives. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] jen: i have two items for all of you at the top. this week we are marking one