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Two Members of Trump's Cabinet Resign After Violence; World Reacts to Shocking Capitol Hill Riot; Powell: Capitol Riot a Total Failure of Planning; Democrats and Republicans Blame Trump for Inciting Riot; U.S. Vaccine Rollout Lagging as Americans Seek Shots; Social Platforms Act to Police Trump's Misinformation. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired January 08, 2021 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Now Donald Trump of course has only 12 days remaining as U.S. president, a fact he's finally acknowledged two months after losing the presidential election. But after inciting a mob of supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, some U.S. officials and lawmakers say he should leave office before January 20.
At least five people died in the mayhem, including a Capitol police officer, a female annual agitator was fatally shot by police as rioters tried to break down a door.
Now numerous administration officials have resigned in protest -- belatedly in the eyes of many -- including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.
The scenes that played out at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday shocked the world. Some global leaders said they knew the ugly scenes didn't represent America. But others laid the blame directly at the feet of Donald Trump. And some adversaries took the opportunity to gloat.
CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson joins me now from London with more. Speaking of gloating, I suppose the State Department wouldn't like it when they're getting sympathy from, you know, Turkey, Cuba and Venezuela.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, and they're also hearing that, you know, countries like China and into the Baltic states here in Europe, Lithuania, Estonia are warning their citizens in Washington, D.C. to, you know, stay at home, be vigilant and be careful. And it's not the sort of image that the United States wants to have.
And it has very clearly been an opportunity for the United States enemies to take very pointed digs at the United States for their own national agendas, for their own sort of ability to project themselves and be it China, be it Russia, as the sort of moral authorities and the leaders. You know, trying to sort of point to the United States as a less than strong nation. But I think perhaps most of all what was surprising here was the
number of world leaders that responded to what they saw and just how quickly they responded as well.
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ROBERTSON (voice-over): On nightly news cast the world watched America's democracy falter. As we filmed, protesters tore down Pelosi's nameplate.
ROBERT MOORE, ITV NEWS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: And so here we are right now inside the halls of Congress.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): In the aftermath, newspapers showering shame on the embers of Trump's presidency, world leaders damning in their response.
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: What President Trump has been saying about that has been completely wrong and I unreservedly condemn, encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way that they did in the Capitol.
ANGELA MERKEL, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (via translator): The basic rule of democracy is after the election, there are winners and losers, both have to play their role with decency and responsibility so that democracy itself remains the winner. I regret very much that President Trump did not admit defeat in November and again yesterday.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Close allies wondering how it came to this.
SCOTT MORRISON, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: They're a great friend of Australia, and they're one of the world's greatest democracies. And so we just -- our thoughts are with them, and we hope for the peaceful transition to take place.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): On Twitter, both Norway's and Sweden's Prime Minister's directly blaming President Trump. Heavy responsibility now rests on President Trump, Erna Solberg wrote. President Trump and several members of Congress bear substantial responsibility, wrote Stefan Lofven.
From Canada to Chile, Norway to Greece, India to Australia and New Zealand, global leaders vented worries, sadness, horrendous. The world is watching common themes.
[04:35:00]
ROBERTSON: These leaders know that what happens in America has a trickledown effect on the rest of the world. They worry about how this can influence democracy going forward. These are real concerns.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Meanwhile, America's enemies seemingly scoring points, in China, taking some apparent sarcastic satisfaction. HUA CHUNYING, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESWOMAN (via translator): We hope that the American people can enjoy peace, stability and security as soon as possible.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): And in Moscow, a TV anchor reading a foreign ministry's statement.
The reason behind the divide in American society lies also in the archaic electoral system.
Yet perhaps most striking, some allies still held back from blaming Trump directly.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The rampage at the Capitol yesterday was a disgraceful act and it must be vigorously condemned. I have no doubt that American democracy will prevail.
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: What happened today in Washington, DC is not America, definitely. We believe in the strength of our democracies. We believe in the strength of American democracy.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Everyone, it seems, counting on President- elect Joe Biden to make it all better.
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ROBERTSON (on camera): And in the first year of his presidency, Joe Biden has said that he will call for a global summit on democracy shoring up its values. And there's a reality here that there is a rise of nationalism and populism in democratic nations around the world. It hasn't happened in isolation in the United States.
Certainly, President Trump has fed into the growth of it in some of the European nations. But the reality is that, you know, Democrats and democratic forces around the world feel that this is a very real threat, and Joe Biden says that it will take this on. But cleaning house in the United States, of its image around the world on this is not going to be an easy task.
HOLMES: Good point. Fascinating report, Nic, thank you. Nic Robertson there in London.
Now former Republican Secretary of State and retired General Colin Powell speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer about this insurrection. Here's what he said about the message it sends around the globe.
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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: How do you think foreign adversaries, whether the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians, Venezuela, what they're seeing here in the United States. They're watching all of this unfold, and people are watching us right now all over the world, how are they react to this?
GEN, COLIN POWELL (RET.), FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: They're watching with great interest, and they can't believe we have done this to ourselves. So, that's the gift for Mr. Putin, who I know quite well.
We like to pick on them and say they're doing things wrong or bad or they're not good. And suddenly, they're looking at the United States of America, and we've got people running through all our Capitol building, I've never seen them run through the capitol buildings of the Russians Federation. And so, they're just smiling and saying, see, Americans are not as big and bad as they like to make themselves out to be.
But they're going to be surprised. They're going to discover that we're going to rebound rather quickly. I believe that once we settled this problem of these people who are out there, and wherever they came from -- arrest them, put them in jail, and run them off, but clean out the place. And once we settle down, and frankly, once Mr. Trump is no longer the president of the United States of America and we have other people in the government, and we have a new president, I think things will settle down, quickly.
The big problem that I have with all this is that where was the Congress in all of this? In all the things that we have been doing, the Congress just went along with Mr. Trump. And, usually, it was just the Republican side, but there are some things we did that showed the Congress was not ready to do its duty.
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HOLMES: Tim Naftali, CNN Presidential Historian, and former director of the Nixon Presidential Library joins me now from New York. It's great to get a historical perspective, Tim, is it fair to say this has been the first time in American history where a president has actively opposed a peaceful transition of power? I mean, how extraordinary was what happened at the Capitol in a historical sense?
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, yesterday's insurrection was unprecedented in American history.
[04:40:00]
It broke a perfect run of -- in the modern era of peaceful transitions and it echoed -- it's not a parallel -- but it echoed the transition of 1860, '61 which was not peaceful. During that transition, that was leading up to the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, the states of the confederacy seceded. But in the modern era, the United States has enjoyed a series of peaceful and for the most part successful transitions.
HOLMES: We have seen extraordinary and let's face it, frightening displays by some of the president's supporters. I'm curious for your perspective on whether these people can come together with the rest of the country's healing possible. Are there lessons we can learn from history, perhaps, you know, what happened after the Civil War.
NAFTALI: Here's the challenge, my view for the United States for my country. It's to try to merge these two bubbles, these reality -- these different worlds of fact into one world. So that the president's supporters -- by the way, the people that participated in the insurrection yesterday are a more challenging lot to try to reintegrate to the rest of the country. But the bulk of the president's supporters have not had access or have rejected information that at least 80 million adults accept.
And the challenge -- you can't have a national dialogue. You can't have one political community if you have a different set of facts. And the great challenge here is not to make everyone think alike, because you don't want that. You want a healthy conservative option and a healthy liberal option or liberal progressive option. You want a polity an agora, a political marketplace.
HOLMES: I wanted to ask you finally, and quickly, if you will. This sort of speaks to in some way, I mean the nation will survive, but it speaks to the fragility of democracy in a historical sense. Americans always speak of being the greatest country, the greatest system, naively perhaps, but how much of a jolt does Wednesday give to that notion?
NAFTALI: Well, I think what's fragile are constitutions, because remember that constitutions are a way of protecting minority groups, defined in different ways. Religious groups, people of color, people with different political views, protecting them from mobs, from the majority, and that's what's fragile. Is keeping, protecting people from groups in society that are in one way or another liberal, in other words, contrary to rights and freedoms.
What we saw yesterday was a group, a mob, that wanted to deprive everybody else of their rights because they had defined the United States and if you didn't accept their definition of the United States, they didn't care.
HOLMES: Tim Naftali, got to leave it there. Thank you so much.
NAFTALI: My pleasure, Michael.
HOLMES: Well, the U.S. has just broken a new record. When we come back, a deadly milestone in the pandemic. Plus, a possible silver lining in the COVID vaccine. We'll have that and more after the break.
[04:45:00]
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HOLMES: In the last two weeks, the U.S. recorded its five deadliest days since the coronavirus pandemic began. On Thursday more than 4,000 deaths in a day. That is the highest number recorded in a single day, according to Johns Hopkins University. And a new study showing Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine does appear to be effective against those two new coronavirus variants, which is good news. CNN's Nick Watt now on how vaccine distribution is going in the U.S.
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NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Bottom line, this vaccine rollout is nowhere near as fast or efficient as promised or projected.
DR. CLYDE GRANT, RETIRED SURGEON, VACCINE VOLUNTEER: This and other sites are going to have to really ramp up to get this done.
WATT (voice over): It's now more than three weeks since the first shots. But as of Wednesday morning, the CDC reports just 5.3 million first doses have actually been administered. At that rate, it could take nearly three years for this country to reach herd immunity. Early hiccups were expected. The holidays didn't help.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES (via phone): I think it would be fair to just observe what happens in the next couple of weeks. If we don't catch up on what the original goal was, then we really need to make some changes.
WATT (voice over): The pace will pick up, but by how much?
DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, EPIDEMIOLOGIST AND PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERT: All of this speaks to a failed leadership from the very top of American government. And here we are, in January, breaking records.
WATT (voice over): This past week more than 1.5 million new cases confirmed, the worst week so far. And more than 50 cases of that more contagious variant first found in the U.K. now confirmed in at least eight states. There will be many more.
FAUCI: We have to pay attention to it. We can't just blow it off.
WATT (voice over): The CDC just released a study, detailing how college parties fueled that fall surge, 54 gatherings at the University of Arkansas connected to COVID cases. Dr. Fauci gave Axios some factors that hindered our early response, the lack of transparency from China and political divisiveness at home.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It doesn't make any difference what happens.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The governor of Washington --
TRUMP: No. You know what I say? If they don't treat you right, I don't call.
WATT (voice-over): Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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HOLMES: Now, America's most populous state remains the one worst hit by this pandemic, California seeing record hospitalizations, surging deaths and a health care system under tremendous strain. The Los Angeles County public health director calls it a crisis of epic proportions.
[04:50:00]
The L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti says the number of people dying from the virus in a single day in L.A. equals the number of homicides in the city during an entire year. It took a siege on the U.S. Capitol for social media companies to
finally take significant action against President Trump. Later this hour, what platforms are doing to police Mr. Trump's misinformation going forward. We'll be right back.
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HOLMES: Social media platforms are taking different approaches to punishing President Trump following Wednesday's mob attack on the U.S. Capitol. But some critics say they waited too long. Mr. Trump is already now back on Twitter after deleting the required tweets to unlock his account. Twitter has warned future violations, though, could come with a permanent ban.
CNN's Anna Stewart is in London with more details for us. Yes, back on Twitter, but for how long?
ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Well one more strike and the president is out from Twitter. That is what that company has said. He did post a video message yesterday. But it had a much more conciliatory tone and will have to stay that way.
[04:55:00]
You mentioned the president is also temporarily banned at least from Facebook and Instagram to the end of his presidency, and perhaps for longer. They say it could be an indefinite ban. And I think actually the strongest statement we had was possibly the one from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He said that allowing the president to continue to use their platform would simply pose too great a risk to the public.
This is a social media firm saying that they have a responsibility here to protect the public from the president. Now, there are plenty of critics out there who say perhaps social media firms should have felt this responsibility sooner, perhaps they could have done more. And some people want to see the president banned from social media platforms permanently right from now.
And one of those people is former first lady, Michelle Obama. She released a lengthy statement on Twitter yesterday amongst which she said --
Now is the time for Silicon Valley companies to stop enabling this monstrous behavior and go even further than they have already by permanently banning this man from their platforms.
Now, up to Wednesday, social media platforms like Twitter, like Facebook, had to either take him down specific tweets or posts from the president or they'd label them as inaccurate or having within them a statement that was disputed.
The first time we have seen a temporary ban from a social media platform was following Wednesday, and cynics point to the timing of all of this, just after President-elect Joe Biden was confirmed by Congress and unfortunately, of course, after those violent scenes we saw on the Capitol. Perhaps more could have been done. It's not just Silicon Valley that are acting and speaking out.
HOLMES: We lost Anna Stewart there, but I think we got the gist of it all.
Thanks for your company, everyone. We're out of time anyway. We didn't do that deliberately to Anna there. I'm Michael Holmes, "EARLY START" is coming up next. You're watching CNN.
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