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Senate Approves Impeachment Trial Rules As Trump Rails Against Impeachment Trial In Davos; U.S. Case Of Coronavirus Confirmed In Washington State; Derek Jeter Heads To Hall Of Fame. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired January 22, 2020 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: One hundred senators will be there and they'll be exhausted. House managers prosecuting the case and the Trump defense team didn't finish sparring over the rules for the Senate trial until nearly 2:00 a.m., just 3 1/2 hours ago. After 13 hours, patience was wearing thin and tempers were hot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): So far, I'm sad to say I see a lot of senators voting for a cover-up -- voting to deny witnesses. And absolutely indefensible, though obviously, a treacherous vote. History will judge and so will the electorate.

JAY SEKULOW, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, at this body on the floor of this Senate, said executive privilege and other nonsense. Is that the way you view the United States Constitution? Because that's not the way it was written, that is not the way it's interpreted, and that's not the way the American people should have to live.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Things became so heated, perhaps the most notable moment of the long night came as Chief Justice John Roberts tried to cool things down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it is appropriate at this point for me to admonish both the House managers and the president's counsel in equal terms to remember that they are addressing the world's greatest deliberative body.

One reason it has earned that title is because its members avoid speaking in a manner and using language that is not conducive to civil discourse. I don't think we need to aspire to that high a standard, but I do think those addressing the Senate should remember where they are.

(END VIDEO CLIP) JARRETT: Democrats offered 11 amendments to the rules, all of them voted down -- 10 along straight party lines. Susan Collins, of Maine, crossed the aisle once to support more time to respond to motions.

Among the amendments rejected -- well, subpoenas for testimony or documents from the White House, the State Department, the Budget Office, Trump's chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and former national security adviser John Bolton.

ROMANS: At 1:50 a.m., senators adopted -- voted to adopt the rules which changed a bit from the initial proposal. CNN has learned moderate and conservative Republican senators have raised objections to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's original plan.

Under revised rules, both sides will now have three days for 24 hours of opening arguments instead of having it all packed into two days. And evidence from the House will automatically be entered into the Senate trial instead of requiring a separate vote.

JARRETT: To call this process partisan would be an understatement.

At Bill Clinton's Senate trial, Republicans and Democrats negotiated rules, which were then accepted by a vote of, get this, 100 to zero.

Well, this time, Republicans are standing in the way of new witnesses and documents despite what Sen. McConnell told CNN in 1999.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): My view was that we were entitled to witnesses. I voted for live witnesses, myself. Had my vote prevailed, there'd have been live witnesses. I would have been prepared to vote for whatever the House managers wanted in terms of putting on their trial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: And in a twist overnight, an e-mail dump from the Budget Office shows why Democrats are so bent on pushing for documents and witnesses. Republican lawmakers are shown asking about the Ukraine aid back in August when reports first emerged the aid was being held. Four Republicans would now have to join Democrats to subpoena any additional evidence.

ROMANS: All right. The president is ending his visit to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in just a few hours. That hasn't stopped him, of course, from railing against the impeachment trial.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond traveling with the president. He's live in Davos.

He's been tweeting, he's been talking, doing interviews. What's the president saying about impeachment, Jeremy?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christine, when the president woke up this morning that debate on the floor of the Senate between the president's legal team and those Democratic House impeachment managers -- well, it was still raging.

And the president was very quick to take to Twitter to comment on all of that. The president tweeting and retweeting more than 40 times this morning as he woke up here in Davos, Switzerland, criticizing the Democrats for pursuing this impeachment case and also, of course, parodying many of his surrogates and allies in the Senate -- those Senate Republicans who he is, of course, hoping will ultimately acquit him in this trial.

Now, we know that the president was focused yesterday on the economy as he addressed members of the World Economic Forum yesterday in Davos during his speech. And then he also had several bilateral meetings. He's continuing those bilateral meetings today.

But the president also did find time to still talk about impeachment. He was asked about it this morning on another news program and he said that he was able to actually watch some of the impeachment proceedings last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I had a busy day yesterday, as you know -- you were there. And we had the speech and we had lots of meetings with different leaders, including Pakistan and others -- other countries -- in addition to businessmen all over the place.

[05:35:02]

But I did get to see some of it. It's a hoax. It's a total hoax. It was a perfect conversation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you think your team performed?

TRUMP: I think the team was really good and the facts are all on our side. The Republican Party has never been this unified. You saw that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: But the president was also talking this morning. He told reporters that he was pleased with his legal team's performance. Of course, that is -- that performance is going to continue over several more days and the president will be returning back to Washington this afternoon.

Back to you guys.

ROMANS: All right, Jeremy. Thank you so much for that from Davos, Switzerland -- thanks.

JARRETT: OK, a lot to digest from a very late night in the Senate chamber. Who benefits from changes in the rules? Why did Democrats offer amendments that they knew wouldn't pass? And why do Republicans keep rejecting arguments for witnesses -- arguments they've supported before? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:40:12]

ROMANS: This is the first time in history the president's own party is trying him on impeachment charges and it shows. Republican senators voting down 11 Democratic amendments, mostly along straight party lines. In the end, the Senate approved trial rules but Democrats have a steep mountain to climb to get the new witnesses and the documents that they want.

JARRETT: Joining us live from Washington, CNN's Zach Wolf, who writes our "Impeachment Watch" newsletter, a must-read for everyone. Zach, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, made a big deal over the past couple of days about the rules that McConnell had proposed. He said that they were unfair. He said this was going to drag into the night and it did drag into the night -- 13 hours of debate.

I want to get your thoughts on whether you think Democrats gained anything with all of that debate. They knew going into it they didn't have the votes to change the rules.

ZACHARY WOLF, DIGITAL DIRECTOR, CNN POLITICS: Yes, I think what they did was -- you know, coming out of the first day of these impeachment proceedings -- the first serious day of this -- they are able to really drive home this idea that there's a cover-up because Republicans essentially closed ranks to protect the president and the White House from having to show any information from the State Department, from the White House, from the Pentagon.

And, Democrats were really able to illustrate, I think, the fact that there has been no cooperation whatsoever with this inquiry and how little information it's actually based on.

That will be, I think, a victory for them but, you know, to the extent that people are even paying attention to what happens after midnight. That's always a question to me, how effective these late-night sessions are.

JARRETT: Yes, the good stuff is what actually happened after midnight.

ROMANS: Yes.

JARRETT: That's when it actually got heated.

ROMANS: Just about 3 1/2 hours ago this whole thing ended, so that's remarkable.

So, the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell changed the impeachment rules in the end after a meeting with Republican senators who were concerned -- who were a little -- expressed some concern to him about the timing here. Now, the rules have changed a little bit.

What does it give the Democrats? Do they gain anything, really, here? And what does it say about, I guess, the thin margin in the Senate for how much control Mitch McConnell has over the -- over those senators?

WOLF: Yes, a lot -- a lot of people are making a big deal out of this, the fact that Mitch McConnell essentially quelled this revolt. You know, he -- they went into a lunch yesterday. There were a bunch of frustrated Republicans -- and then they changed the rules at the very last minute and they handwrote in the margins of the rules what the new things were going to be. But they didn't really change that much.

And I kind of take a different view. Adding a day of debate is not going to change too much, and adding all the evidence from the House, it's not going to change too much. What Republicans did, more importantly, was really ban together and reject any new information coming.

So the record that we have is the record we're kind of stuck with, at least for now. They could add witnesses later on but right now, Republicans seem pretty united to me on -- at least on the issue of not adding anything to this trial.

JARRETT: Zach, do you think that they were feeling any pressure at all from some of the new polls? There's a CNN poll out that shows the overwhelming majority of people want to hear from witnesses at the trial. Even a plurality of Republicans -- 48 percent there, you can see -- want to hear from witnesses.

Do you think they felt any pressure at all from that -- hearing things from folks back home?

WOLF: I think it's clear people like Susan Collins, people like Cory Gardner, are feeling the pressure back home from -- you know, those polls show, clearly, people want to hear more from this trial. They didn't vote, however, to add any witnesses and we can get to that later on. But at the end of the day, they might have lengthened this trial a little bit but they didn't add anything to it. So they essentially voted to protect the president or at least that's the way it seems to me.

ROMANS: Hillary Clinton gave an interesting interview in "The Hollywood Reporter" that got an awful lot of attention and sparked a little bit of a walk-back from her. I want to read you a little bit of what she said to "The Hollywood Reporter."

"I will say, however, that it's not only him, it's the culture around him." She's talking about Bernie Sanders. "It's his leadership team. It's his prominent supporters. It's his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women.

And I really hope people are paying attention to that because it should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture -- not only permitted it, he seems to really be very much supporting it." Then later she said, "Look, I thought everyone wanted my authentic, unvarnished views! But to be serious, the number one priority for our country and world is retiring Trump, and, as I always have, I will do whatever I can to support our nominee."

What does this mean for Bernie Sanders and for the progressives -- and particular, that you had Hillary Clinton -- at least it appeared the former Democratic nominee -- saying she couldn't get 100 percent behind him if he were the nominee?

[05:45:05]

WOLF: Yes. I think it's pretty clear the first thing she said is how she actually feels. So despite the fact that -- and there was never any question Hillary Clinton's going to ultimately support whoever is going up against Donald Trump, I think.

But when you pair what she said with his frustrations or his standoff, essentially, with Elizabeth Warren at the debate -- CNN debate last week -- gosh, was that last week?

JARRETT: Yes, it was.

WOLF: When you pair those things together you see this sort of frustration in elements of the Democratic Party with Sanders that I think has been there for a long time but it bubbling up as we get ready to see people start to cast their preference in Iowa, and it's coming next month. I mean, we're all focused on impeachment but people will start casting -- you know, they will --

ROMANS: Yes.

WOLF: -- caucus next month. They will vote in New Hampshire. This primary is happening, so it's something else to pay attention to, clearly.

JARRETT: Yes. People can brush this off as sour grapes on Clinton's part but this can happen again. Sanders has had to apologize three times for his surrogates in recent days. There's something there that she's tapped into that's larger, I think.

WOLF: Absolutely.

JARRETT: Zach, thanks so much. See you soon.

WOLF: Thank you.

JARRETT: All right.

The first case of the fast-spreading coronavirus confirmed in the United States. The patient is in Washington State.

The Centers for Disease Control activating an emergency operation center and has increased travel precautions as screenings are being stepped up in New York, Chicago, and Atlanta.

Here is the president, moments ago, on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: ... be handled very well. We've already handled it very well. The CDC has been terrific -- very great professionals -- and we're in very good shape. And I think China's in very good shape also.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Top officials at the World Health Organization holding an emergency meeting in Geneva today.

The death toll in China now up to nine with 440 people infected. Cases have already been confirmed in South Korea, Thailand, and Japan with suspected cases under investigation in Australia. This is sparking fears of a possible pandemic.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:51:40]

ROMANS: The frigid weather from the Deep South to the Canadian border. Thirty-six million people under cold weather and wind advisories.

Here's meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good Wednesday morning to you.

It is an incredibly cold morning across portions of the country. And, in fact, look at wind chills into the early-morning hours down in South Florida. On South Beach, in Miami, it feels like 37 degrees this morning.

And then, of course, you work your way toward the Gulf Coast states and temperatures in New Orleans feel like 38; Montgomery, 29; Atlanta, 27. And into the northeast, into the lower 20s and teens out of, say, Boston.

But you've got to look at the state of Florida, in particular, and nearly the entire state underneath wind chill advisories. Wind chills across parts of western Florida in and around, say, Tampa, down into the middle 20s. Temps by this afternoon only make it up to the middle- 60s in Miami. That's about 11 degrees below average for this time of year.

In Raleigh, your temps into the upper 40s, just a few notches below what is considered normal for this time of year.

But the bigger story moving forward will be the next system coming in and with it, some wintry weather possible. This includes places such as Tulsa and St. Louis. On into Omaha, we get a quick shot of wintry weather and maybe even some icy potential there.

But again, a very quick moving system here. So I think total accumulations at the most, across some of the bigger cities such as St. Louis and Chicago, could just be a couple of inches here as we go in from, say, Wednesday into Thursday -- guys.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: All right, Pedram. Thank you so much for that report.

Well, an unusual heads-up from the National Weather Service -- falling iguanas in South Florida. Forecasters warning people about frozen iguanas falling from trees due to extreme cold temperatures. They say iguanas often sleep in trees and they can't handle the cold. So when their bodies go dormant, they appear to fall from the sky onto streets, onto cars, pools or people just walking below them.

ROMANS: Falling iguana -- that's a good way to start your day.

JARRETT: Yes.

ROMANS: Surprise!

All right. Starbucks joining a growing list of companies committed to reducing their carbon footprint. The coffee giant hopes to cut carbon emissions by 50 percent by the year 2030. Starbucks says cuts will come from its operations -- a huge supply chain -- without offering details yet.

The company setting two other targets also. Fifty percent of the water used for operations and coffee production will be conserved or replenished. And, 50 -- they're promising a 50 percent cut in waste sent to landfills.

JARRETT: Rutgers University has named the first black president in the school's 254-year history. Jonathan Holloway becomes the 21st president. He says he was drawn to the school by the university's excellence and an ambition to conduct life-changing research.

Holloway talked about a phone call with his now-deceased mother 29 years ago about a possible job offer from Rutgers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN HOLLOWAY, PRESIDENT-ELECT, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: And somehow I was able to ignore the fact that I was only in my third semester at my doctoral program. And in retrospect, I'm quite certain that Professor Lewis wasn't offering me anything at that time.

And as we've come to know, I'm the kind of person whom hope always springs eternal. And wouldn't you know it -- I'm going to get through this moment.

(APPLAUSE)

[05:55:00] HOLLOWAY: No, no, no, no, no.

And wouldn't you know it, this time my hope paid off. Mom, I got the job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Hope always springs eternal.

Well, Holloway succeeds Robert Barchi who has served as president of Rutgers since 2012. He leaves the post in July.

ROMANS: All right. The streaming wars are putting pressure on Netflix. Subscriber numbers in the United States and Canada sluggish in the fourth quarter. It added 420,000 new members in those markets. That's less than the 600,000 it had forecast.

Netflix blamed the miss in U.S. growth on recent price changes and the launches of the competitors, like Disney + and Apple T.V. There will be even more competition. NBCUniversal's Peacock and WarnerMedia's HBO Max launch later this year.

Netflix added 8.3 million subscribers in overseas markets, bringing it to 167 million subscribers worldwide.

Netflix closed out last year with a lot of buzzworthy content, including "THE IRISHMAN" and "MARRIAGE STORY." Both are up for Oscars next month, including best picture.

Let's take a look at markets around the world right now. You can see a rebound -- a recovering from losses sparked by that coronavirus outbreak.

On Wall Street, futures also leaning a little bit higher here. Stocks closed lower yesterday as investors worried about the first case of that virus coming to the U.S. The Dow finished 152 lower, snapping a five-day win streak. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also fell.

Boeing fell -- wow -- three percent after it said it doesn't expect regulators to sign off on the 737 MAX until the summer.

General Motors autonomous unit Cruise revealed the next thing in ridesharing -- a robot taxi. The all-electric shuttle, called Cruise Origin, is specifically designed to operate without a driver. It doesn't have manual controls, it doesn't have pedals or a steering wheel. It does have sensors that function like the car's eyes. The Origin is currently being tested in San Francisco.

JARRETT: Well, a 6-year-old girl in northern New Jersey saved her family Sunday night, alerting her firefighter father that their kitchen was in flames. Madalyn Karlbon heard the smoke alarm go off, saw smoke, and woke up her dad. Former fire chief Jimmy Karlbon got the family to safety, thank goodness.

Donations have flooded in to help the family, who are staying in a hotel while the house is fixed up. The fire department praising the girl who saved the day on its Facebook page, saying, "Way to go, Madalyn. You are, indeed, a hero."

Well, a big congratulations in order to Derek Jeter. The legendary New York Yankee a first-ballot Hall of Famer now. Jeter falling just one vote short of unanimous election to Cooperstown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEREK JETER, ELECTED TO HALL OF FAME CLASS OF 2020: I was speechless when I got the call. Everyone said anticipate a phone call coming at such and such time. But quite frankly, I was pretty nervous.

This is something that's very difficult. You're talking about one percent of the players that have ever played this game getting to the Hall of Fame, so it's very humbling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Also joining Jeter in the Hall of Fame, the class of 2020, Larry Walker. The outfield great made it in his tenth and final year on the ballot.

ROMANS: All right. While you were sleeping, senators were awake. Here is late-night's take on the impeachment trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, CBS "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": So, no evidence, no witnesses, just 100 old people stuck in a room together. This isn't a trial, it's the 4:00 dinner rush at Denny's.

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, ABC "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE": People online started called him midnight Mitch yesterday -- Midnight McCon-artist, Midnight McCover-up, Putin's little Mitch. Everything you can imagine.

JAMES CORDEN, HOST, CBS "THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN": Meanwhile, President Trump isn't even in the United States. He left last night for a World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland or as that's more commonly called, fleeing the country.

I mean, Trump said it was comforting being around skiers in the Swiss Alps. Very much like his presidency, they are also going downhill fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Oh, they are stuck there for hours. They don't have their phones.

ROMANS: No.

JARRETT: Our reporters there on the ground saw a few of them taking a snooze.

ROMANS: Yes, a lot of them taking notes or writing letters -- or who knows, maybe their memoirs -- in the chamber.

Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.

JARRETT: And I'm Laura Jarrett. Have a great day, everyone. "NEW DAY" starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Wednesday, January 22nd. It's 6:00 here in New York.

Six a.m., a mere few hours since the dramatic, revealing, and in some ways, surprising marathon first round of the impeachment trial of President Trump. They didn't finish in the Senate until just before 2:00 a.m.

A long day with the most significant moment coming right at the beginning -- a retreat from Mitch McConnell -- and the most heated moments right at the end.

END