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Talks to Invoke the 25th Amendment; Attempted Coup on Capitol; Congress Certifies Biden Victory. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired January 07, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): In my book is a story of the enablers. You know, the hundreds and thousands of people, the members of Congress who are traitors to their country after last night, the people in Trump's inner circle, all of whom should know better and do know better and have allowed this to happen.

So now we need to find a way to move forward. We need to make sure that the terrorists from yesterday are tracked down and put in prison. We need to make sure that we are pushing for the safety of this country over the next couple of weeks and whether that's the invocation of the 25th Amendment or another tool I think we need to have that discussion. And then we need to figure out what we do to move forward as a country and put this dark period behind us.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Congressman Crow, we appreciate you being with us.

Congresswoman Wild, I say once again, we are so glad that you're both safe. And based on the stories that you tell, you both handled yourselves as heroes yesterday. So thank you both so much for being with us.

REP. SUSAN WILD (D-PA): Thank you so much, John.

CROW: Thank you.

BERMAN: So, what will the next 13 days -- 13 minutes hold? Will the cabinet step in to protect the country from the president? A former defense secretary joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:35:03]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news.

A source tells CNN that some cabinet members are holding preliminary talks about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office.

Joining us now is former defense secretary and former Republican Senator William Cohen. Secretary Cohen, thank you very much for being here.

What's your message to those cabinet secretaries this morning who may be considering the 25th Amendment?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE AND FORMER REPUBLICAN SENATOR: It's long overdue. I think the cabinet should have taken action long before because they have been witness to the kind of irrationality, the kind of action that he has proposed taking in the past.

I've suspected this from the very beginning. I -- when he was running for office in 2016 I said openly that I thought he was unfit by temperament and competence to serve as president of the United States and commander in chief. I've seen that verified over the years.

He claimed to be a wartime president when the COVID started spreading in this country and yet he walked away from the battlefield and left thousands dying and wounded on the battlefield, went off to play golf. So that's just another indication he doesn't take his responsibilities seriously.

And the second, is for him now to be commander in chief in ordering a group of domestic terrorists to storm the Capitol, a place where I worked for 24 years, and to see that building, that hallowed building, have people crawling through the windows as if they were ants searching for their sand pile, it was a disgraceful, disgusting and desecration of the -- of the building and all that it stands for.

CAMEROTA: Yesterday you said, quote, we are standing on the abyss of democracy. And that was before the armed insurrection. You said that before this violent mob showed up.

This morning, "Time" magazine, here's the cover of it, I don't know if you can see it, it says democracy under attack and it has that very chilling photograph of Capitol Police with their guns trained on that barricaded door thinking that the terrorists would break through it any -- at any moment.

And so now that all of that happened yesterday, where are we?

COHEN: Well, the point I was making is that there's some 74 million Republicans who have voted for the president, who believe every word that he says. And the question is, does he believe every word that he says? I've talked to individuals that say, no, he really believes that this election was stolen. I said, on what basis? The facts are not in his favor. In fact, he doesn't have any facts.

So then the question is, well, is he believing fraudulent information because he really believes it? Well, that's almost a test of insanity. When you have someone who commits a crime and they said, well, he really didn't know the difference between right and wrong, well, that's a test of insanity, or that he had an irresistible impulse and couldn't resist it. Again, a test of insanity.

Now, whether or not the president fits either one of those categories, the point is, his supporters and basic surrogates, they believe that he actually believes the election was stolen. So it seems to me it calls into question his mental status and his actions would warrant his removal from office. And I hope that the -- the vice president, having done his duty last night, would see a continuation of that duty and file a range for the cabinet -- a majority of the cabinet to remove him. I think that's the --

CAMEROTA: I mean, as you point out, the 25th Amendment exists to remove a rogue or incapacitated president.

COHEN: Right.

CAMEROTA: And it sounds like you're saying that he's both.

COHEN: I think by demonstrating -- by demonstrating what he did yesterday at that rally by his past demonstrations in terms of how he's handled our military, I would say how he has treated President Putin, who helped him in 2016, and who has invaded our country and attacked our infrastructure without any word of criticism from the president, I'd say that there's more than enough justification saying the president has failed to protect and defend the American people from foreign and domestic enemies.

CAMEROTA: And, Secretary, what about the senators yesterday, the seven senators who tried to block the reading, the counting, of Joe Biden's win? I mean, in particular, Josh Hawley, who sort of led the charge, Senator Ted Cruz, who was right there with him. What do you say to them?

COHEN: Well, I think it's pretty clear they're trying to become the heirs of Donald Trump. They know that he has a base out there that's unshakeable. And to the extent that he doesn't run in 2024, by casting these votes they can go out to the populous and such and say, we were with him all the way. We fought. We didn't give up.

[08:40:02]

And thereby try to wear the mantel of Donald Trump.

For me, it was more of a John Gotti (ph) situation yesterday when he gave that speech. I thought it could have been "The Goodfellas." But in any event, it's up to them. They are very ambitious. They see an opportunity to follow him in the White House four years from now and they'll have to live with that.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

Very quickly, what's your biggest fear this morning?

COHEN: Well, the biggest fear is there are things going on in the international world. A lot of activity over in the Arabian or Persian Gulf. We've had a number of B-52 bombers, four in all, over the last three weeks. One of our -- two of our aircraft carriers, submarines. So we've got a very large amount of firepower in that region. And I am just hoping that the Iranians don't do something thoroughly stupid that would justify the president taking military action during these last 20 days that could leave a real carnage and mess for President Biden to clean up. That would be my biggest worry right now.

CAMEROTA: Understood.

Secretary William Cohen, thank you very much for being on NEW DAY. We really appreciate it.

COHEN: Sure.

CAMEROTA: CNN correspondents were right in the middle of the Capitol insurrection. What we learned about the domestic terrorists that stormed the halls of Congress, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:45:29]

BERMAN: Four people are dead. This is the result of the mob storming the Capitol. The mob sent there by the president of the United States.

CNN's Elle Reeve was in the thick of it all. She joins us live from Washington.

And, Elle, you really captured this crowd of insurrectionists surrounding the Capitol. You could even see someone scaling the scaffolding.

What was it like on the ground?

ELLE REEVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really was a mob in that there was a frenzy and that people's emotions were contagious. They were really, really happy to be with each other and it encouraged them to do things that I don't know that they would do in normal life. There were older people climbing over stairs, climbing up walls, even though if they'd used their brains for a moment, they could have walked around and gone up the stairs.

CAMEROTA: You also, as you do, talked to them. What did they say?

REEVE: Yes. So almost every single person that I talked to firmly believed that the election was stolen. It's not a joke. It's not cynical. They really, really believe it. Some of them believe that Trump would be sworn in as -- in the next administration and also thought there would be tribunals of Democratic leaders.

One man I talked to had pushed through the barricades and described the police maceing (ph) them and him fighting back. And I was like, what's the point? And he said, what's the point? Like, this is our only choice. This is the only option we have. The Supreme Court doesn't have our backs. This is 1776.

BERMAN: What was the mix of people that you saw there?

REEVE: This was a more older crowd than you'd usually see in a protest. There were young like 20 year olds there, but a lot of people in their 40s, 50s and 60s, a lot of people who spend a lot of time on FaceBook. It was a little more diverse than you might expect, in part because there were a lot of QAnon supporters there and QAnon is actually a pretty diverse conspiracy theory.

CAMEROTA: And is that how they were radicalized, FaceBook, or are these, you know, Fox watchers, are these "Newsmax" watchers? How did they become so crazy?

REEVE: Social media, YouTube. There are other websites that will host videos that YouTube takes down. One particularly common one is called Fall of the Cabal, which is a really pretty insane conspiracy theory that touches on the anti-Semitic tropes. But this really radicalized a lot of people to QAnon this year.

BERMAN: They stormed the Capitol. Was there an intent to target members of Congress directly or was there something they planned to do if they reached members of Congress?

REEVE: That I don't know. I mean I think a lot of people were just going with the crowd.

I spoke to several groups who were -- as they were preparing to come here. A lot of them talked about violence in terms of protecting themselves from Antifa, which largely did not show up. But they talked about having -- you know, using clips instead of brass knuckles, that kind of thing.

I did talk to one person who had alluded to thousands of people storming the Capitol. He said, maybe you could disarm 1,000 people but not 200,000. But I don't know of any overarching plan to attack members of Congress.

BERMAN: Elle Reeve, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you for being there and being here to tell the story.

REEVE: Thank you.

BERMAN: So Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States in 13 days despite the attempt to stop it, despite the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Joining us now is presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Her latest book, "Leadership in Turbulent Times." Holy cow, talk about turbulent times.

Doris, you've written about a lot. You've seen a lot. No one has seen anything like this.

If you can, just reflect for a moment on the last 24 hours.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Oh, you know, one of the times you realize you're living in history is certainly this time. And I -- when I think about what people are going to write 100 years from now, I think it will not only focus on January 6th, but it will go back to November 7th when President Trump refused to accept that the presidency had been called for Biden.

And think about what we've been through for these two months. I mean first there were a series of fabrications about the fact that he had not really lost the election, which millions of people believed, which he kept spreading despite court decision after court decision.

[08:50:04]

And then there was the absence of leadership during this period of time, 15 days of playing golf, the virus surging, 100,000 people dying. I mean the idea that a president is not speaking about the central crisis that's placing us and has been with us in these last two months. And then it all leads up to inciting these people to come to the Capitol and breach the Capitol.

And something we really haven't seen. We've seen incidents before. I mean in 1954 there were four Puerto Rican nationalists who came and fired on the floor of the House of Representatives and wounded five representatives. And way, way back, in 1856, Senator Sumner from Massachusetts was caned on the head by a southern congressman and nearly died, carried out bloodied.

And the interesting thing, you guys, is that that incident mobilized almost like the dawn of the Republican Party because they -- because it was the Capitol that was breached, because one of their senators was nearly killed, even though lots of incidences of violence had taken place, they went out in mass numbers and moderates and conservatives formed the Republican Party.

So it will be so interesting to see whether this incident may create a new Republican Party and a split with Trump and maybe return to that party of Lincoln that we once were so proud of.

CAMEROTA: If this isn't the catalyst for something, I don't know what to say. I mean if everything we witnessed yesterday -- and can history, Doris, be any guide to prepare us for what is going to happen over the next 13 days?

GOODWIN: I think what history can tell us is that there are events in our -- in our collective memory that change public conscientiousness. And many times they change publish consciousness for the better. I mean think of the Selma demonstration. We went through that this past year. I mean when people saw the violence that was being visited upon the foot soldiers there who were simply peacefully demonstrating for the right to vote, it changed the way people felt in the country.

So my hope is that having lived through this experience, as so many people did yesterday, seeing the violence at the Capitol, knowing that it was incited by the president of the United States, will lead to a change in public consciousness and people will say, enough is enough of this tribal -- been waiting, what will make this tribal politics stop? Everybody keeps saying couldn't the virus have done it, something we all went through together. But, instead, we were divided, masks and not masks. What do we do? What do we not do? What is the president saying? This is a collective experience we've lived through. Will it change the public consciousness? Will it reduce the level of violence within the Congress in terms of rhetoric? Because rhetoric leads to violence. That's got to be the hope. That's happened before in history when these episodes have done such things. Maybe that will happen again. At least begin to heal where we are right now. BERMAN: You know, it's possible, right? It's possible it is the book

end, the other book end, to American carnage. That it does close that chapter.

As you said, it does teach the lesson of what happens when a politician's supporters take him literally and seriously, which is something that we've heard over the last four years.

And, Doris, just, when we talk about norms, and this is something you've studied for a long time as well, and how many norms have been shattered, there's never been a president who has fought leaving office after an election like this. This is something that historians will write about I think for generations, the effects of that.

GOODWIN: I mean there's no question. Whatever historians may argue about the Trump presidency per se, that period of time between his loss of the election and the inauguration and his fighting it every step along the way, every president has conceded, they understand that this is absolutely central to a democracy.

You know, Lincoln talked about the fact that one of the causes of the civil war and one of the problems of the experiment of democracy was that the Democrats, the southerners who lost that election, would not agree that they had lost. And so what did they did? They broke away from the union. They seceded from the union. And he said that if that were able to stand, and that's one of the reasons why the war had to be fought, then it would mean that the idea that ordinary people could govern themselves would be an impossibility. We would -- our experiment would fail, the fact that we were a beacon of hope.

It is the central part of a democracy that one gives up power to the next. It started with old George Washington and John Adams. It's -- every single other president, other than this one, has accepted it. And it's the mark of a democracy. And I think now we just have to accept that we have to do something about protecting it.

Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20th. A peaceful transition will have taken place. But not to peaceful because of what the president incited.

BERMAN: Not so peaceful anymore.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, invaluable perspective. As always, we thank you so much for being with us this morning. Look forward to speaking to you in better times.

GOODWIN: All right. Me, too. Absolutely.

[08:55:00]

CAMEROTA: Thank you, Doris.

I don't know, John, I never thought we'd be here. I mean I think, as I said, it's the logical through line from American carnage, but what we have reported on this morning and yesterday has been an incredible experience. BERMAN: You had a member of Congress tell us that she was fearful that

she was in the middle of what would be a mass casualty event. We had another member of Congress tell us he was trying to figure out how he could use his pen as a weapon to fight his way out from the U.S. Capitol. And the people who were there, putting him at risk, were told to go there by the president of the United States.

CAMEROTA: It's going to be a news-filled day and we have 13 more days of this presidency.

BERMAN: Maybe.

CAMEROTA: Maybe.

BERMAN: Maybe.

CAMEROTA: We'll see.

BERMAN: CNN's breaking news coverage continues right after this.

Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett take over.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Anderson Cooper.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Erin Burnett.