HHS Sec. Becerra on bipartisanship, health care and immigration

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• Judy Woodruff:

  Yesterday, the Biden administration laid out the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which focuses on childcare and education.

  As President Biden pushes these sweeping new policies, he's relying on his Cabinet secretaries to help in that effort.

  Amna Nawaz sat down with one of them earlier today.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And the secretary for Health and Human Services joins me now.

  Secretary Xavier Becerra, welcome back to the "NewsHour," and thanks for being here.

  You, we should mention, are one of five Cabinet officials the president has tapped to lead the negotiations on Capitol Hill, push forward this ambitious American Families Plan.

  Here's what you're up against. Senator Susan Collins has already said she's concerned about the cost. Senator Mitt Romney told our colleague Lisa Desjardins he wants to childcare money to go directly to families instead. And he called universal pre-K a federal incursion.

  So ,how do you change their minds?

• Sec. Xavier Becerra:

  Amna, first, thanks for having me.

  Secondly, we do it the way the president did it with the American Rescue Plan that people didn't think we could get across the table. We do it the same way that the president got 200 million shots in arms for vaccinations, the way people probably didn't think he couldn't even get to the 100 million.

  You just believe it. And you have a president who's going to just work the heck out of this. And so we're going to join with the president, because we know it's important. You can't just rescue the American public. You can't just create more jobs for the American people. You have to also give the American family a chance.

  And so these three legs of the stool are critical for America to come back.

• Amna Nawaz:

  You are dealing, we should mention, with Republicans, among whom there's some discontent already, right, that there's — they say the administration hasn't been working with them as much as they'd like.

  Some even say that you have been dismissive of the work done before President Biden. Last night, after the joint address, Senator Lisa Murkowski said this — quote — "There needs to be recognition of the success of Operation Warp Speed created under the previous administration and their work on vaccine development."

  What would you say to Senator Murkowski?

• Xavier Becerra:

  We absolutely need to acknowledge the successes that we have had in this country. We have to build on those. We have to give credit where it's due, and then we have to keep going.

  But I think President Biden's message was very clear. We want to build on all those successes and keep going, because we have got a lot to do. The president's going to move, and he's going to look for those people he can reach out to and make this a bipartisan bill.

  But he made it very clear, we need to move. The American people are counting on it.

• Amna Nawaz:

  You're also still moving on getting those shots into arms. And we should mention, among people who self-identify as Republicans, 40 percent say they do not plan to get the shot.

  So, I want to ask you about your plan there, because they won't listen to you. They won't listen to President Biden. They don't listen to Dr. Fauci in many cases.

  What's your plan? Are you recruiting Republicans to help you get the message to them?

• Xavier Becerra:

  Well, first, we have to remember COVID doesn't discriminate. It doesn't care if you're red or blue, Republican or Democrat. COVID kills.

  And we want to make sure that you stay alive. And so we want all Americans — we don't worry about stripes. We want all Americans to be healthy,because, when you're healthy, your family is safe.

  And when you and your family are safe, we can get back to work. And that's what we're going to do, is make sure that that can happen.

  And so what we're going to do is going to — we're going to partner up with those people that are respected in all those different communities, so that we go to trusted messengers and use them to help us, whether it's your faith leaders, whether it's the wrestling coach in college or in high school, or whether it's your neighborhood watch leader.

  We're going to go where we can.

• Amna Nawaz:

  But, given that there is still so much reluctance among people who self-identify as conservatives, should you be working more with prominent people in that party?

  You mentioned yourself recently, if President Trump were to do some kind of PSA, it could be effective. Have you talked to him about that?

• Xavier Becerra:

  Any trusted leader, we will turn to.

  I have not myself reached out to former President Trump, but any — anyone who has the connection and the confidence of the American people, especially communities that haven't yet been vaccinated, we would love to partner up with them to help us, because the message is very clear. The vaccine saves lives.

  Talk to the seniors in America today, who are now seeing the lowest rates of death that they have seen since COVID really started hitting us hard. They are the perfect proof that the vaccine works and why the rest of America should follow suit.

• Amna Nawaz:

  I want to ask you about something else the president mentioned last night, which was the work to lower prescription drug prices.

  He made it clear it's not going to be part of the American Families Plan, that it's going to be left to Medicare, to you to negotiate. And the critics so far have called that a cop-out. They say they have — we have seen this before. An administration doesn't make it a legislative priority. It gets delayed and it doesn't get fixed.

  Can you pledge that it will be different this time?

• Xavier Becerra:

  Not only can I pledge it'll be different, but I think the results today in these first 100 days are different.

  We have already lowered the cost of health care. There are 800,000 Americans today who just acquired health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. And when it comes to drug prices, I guarantee you, working with the White House, Health and Human Services is going to work really hard to lower the cost of those prescription drugs.

  And we're going to do this on a bipartisan basis with Congress to try to reduce drug prices, because, again, I don't think it's Republicans or Democrats alone who are saying we got to reduce drug prices. It's Americans who are saying it's time that we lower the price of prescription medication.

• Amna Nawaz:

  But specifically, Mr. Secretary, how would you plan on doing that? What kinds of steps would you want to take?

  For example, would you want to put into place the same kind of price caps on brand name drugs that Medicaid uses right now?

• Xavier Becerra:

  We haven't taken a particular approach yet.

  But I will say to you all of the above, and let's work on what will get past Congress to make it happen, or what we can do at the Department of Health and Human Services through the regulatory process.

  I wish I could give you the details. And I think the president would have given them to you if we had decided exactly how to do it. But what I can tell you is, there will be action in this regard.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Mr. Secretary, your agency is also responsible for the care and custody of the unaccompanied minors, the migrant children who are crossing the border in growing numbers, an average of about 400-plus a day.

  The latest numbers show your agency has about 22,000 in your care right now. And you have stood up thousands of emergency shelters and beds to try to safely house them. I should tell you, even a former Trump administration official said to me today what you have done so far is impressive.

  But it costs a lot of money. Those beds are $750, at least, per bed, per child per day; $60 million a week is my understanding of what you're spending on the effort. How sustainable is that? How much longer can you do that? And will you need more money from Congress?

• Xavier Becerra:

  Amna, see, you just struck the right chords here on this one.

  This is what happens when you have a broken immigration system, when Congress doesn't act to fix the system. President Biden, one of the first things he did was, he sent a bill to reform our immigration system, to finally fix it. We need Congress to act, because, otherwise, this is what you encounter.

  This is not the way we should be doing it. And because these are children that we have under our care, it's even tougher, and when you add COVID to the mix, because now we have fewer kids that we can put in any one facility to protect those kids against COVID.

  And when you put on top of that the fact that the previous administration had begun to wind down the infrastructure that was in place to deal with this, it's all made it very difficult. But we're doing what we have to do because it's the law and because we feel a responsibility to care for any child in a responsible way.

  And so it is not — it is not easy. It is absolutely a challenge. But we're going to do this the right way, because all of us who have kids, who know what it means to parent recognize that it makes no difference whose child it is. This is a child.

  And in our country, at least, we have laws that respect children, and we're going to follow those laws.

• Amna Nawaz:

  But your strategy so far has been to expand capacity, expand capacity. How sustainable is that? How much longer can you do that?

• Xavier Becerra:

  Well, we're going to do everything we must to make sure that we stay within the law and protect these children.

  What we do is, we provide them with the custodial care that we would want to have for any child, or perhaps find the custodian who can watch that child during the time, that temporary period where they're going through their immigration status review.

  And so what we try to do is make sure that we handle them responsibly, whether because we find a responsible custodian, in many cases, a family member, or we provide them with the care they need within our custody.

  And it's tough, but we will do it the right way.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Mr. Secretary, we will have to leave it there, but we hope you come back soon.

  That is the secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, joining us tonight.

  Thank you for your time.

• Xavier Becerra:

  Thanks, Amna.