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Trump May Deliver Remarks on Big Tech; Coronavirus Deaths in First Days of 2021; PGA Pulls from Trump Golf Course. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired January 11, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:34:35]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: This just into CNN in the last few moments. We have the article of impeachment, as Poppy said earlier, that will come before the House. It cites three things, certainly the president's speech on January 6th to those rioters before they marched to the Capitol and carried out all that violence, but also his repeated claims to deny the election results. And, Poppy, notably, this call to the Georgia secretary of state to find votes. So in that one article, quite expansive charges against the president.

[09:35:03]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. And, you know, if he is impeached, if they move to impeach him, which looks very likely at this point, again, history, Jim, right, the first time a sitting president has been impeached twice.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: We will keep you posted on all of this.

Later today, the president is expected to possibly speak live in front of cameras. This will be, of course, for the first time since the deadly riot last week at the Capitol.

SCIUTTO: His plans have yet to be finalized, but those familiar say the president is expected to lash out not against the deadly violence on the Capitol, not against the killing of the U.S. Capitol Police officer, instead, against big tech, this after losing his social media platforms on Twitter and elsewhere. This as we learned that the conservative social media site Parler has been taken offline for now.

With us now, CNN chief media correspondent and host of "Reliable Sources," Brian Stelter, and CNN business reporter Donie O'Sullivan, who's been out there amongst many of these Trump supporters as well.

Brian, if I can begin with you, I mean this is -- this is quintessential President Trump, is it not? I mean the country is reeling under the results of this violent insurrection and he's going to talk about losing his Twitter following?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, most people are upset about the mob. Most people are upset about the violence. He's upset with losing his Twitter account. He's upset with big technology.

It's been 120 hours since the riot. The president's MIA. We barely hear from him. He's in hiding. He's in a bunker, it seems. Nobody in the Republican Party has marched down to the White House to told him to leave yet. It's an astonishing thing. We're more than four days into this.

But the president losing his Twitter account means we are not hearing from him. And, as you mentioned, he may try to give a speech later today to complain about big tech.

I know what our viewers at home are thinking. They are thinking television networks, you're not going to run that live are you? And I think the answer is, no, responsible television networks will not show President Trump speaking live due to the possibly that he will further incite violence.

Fox News might. "Newsmax" and OAN might. But I think, at this point, we are seeing real care and caution on the part of the media and technology platforms to make sure that these platforms, whether it's CNN or Twitter, are not used to cause further insurrection.

HARLOW: Donie, you have been remarkable and so important in the field speaking for months with -- with, you know, people that have been voicing what we saw happen on Wednesday at the Capitol.

This morning, people are waking up to Parler being gone. It's basically the pro-Trump social media network. And it's a really big deal that not only was it taken off platforms like Apple and Google, but that Amazon web services, that it runs on, basically it's heart, right, said, no, we're not going to support you to work anymore.

So where does that mob go?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, that's right. I mean what we saw on Wednesday was basically, it was the physical manifestation of the online mob.

HARLOW: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: And, you know, FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter, they are culpable here. They're culpable for the scenes that we saw on Wednesday. And as bad at they've been, as bad as they've been at moderating and stopping misinformation, those companies do still have some rules.

I think now we're going to face a new challenge in this country in that, you know, the mob has to go somewhere. And they're going to start going to social media platforms that have no rules like, as you mentioned, Parler. And a few weeks ago I was in Georgia. And just to give you an example of the sort of stuff that is on Parler, have a listen to these Trump supporters I spoke to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: What is something you could stay on Parler that you wouldn't be able to say on FaceBook?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That the coronavirus is not as deadly as everybody says it is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Or -- and you can literally post that on Twitter and get if Twitter jail for that.

O'SULLIVAN: But you can post it on Parler?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: So these platforms, you know, COVID denialism, election denialism, these could be recipes for radicalization. So it's -- as people move platforms, it could get quite dangerous.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Listen, we wouldn't have a debate about this if we were talking about Islamist terrorists, right? I mean if we were talking about sites that they used to plan, to foment, et cetera, there would be no debate in this country.

Now we have domestic terrorists here. It is a fair question, what is the outlet now for them? But I'm curious, Donie, are you seeing, as you monitor these sites in advance of the inauguration, more planning, more discussions? I mean we've heard some of this, about come back again. We're still not giving up.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, we're seeing that discussion. Also Twitter itself said that they have seen discussion on their own platform about Second Amendment, pro-gun rights, ostensibly at least, demonstrations due to take place at the Capitol and at state capitals this coming Sunday.

So, Jim, it's an extremely volatile period. And as you see, social media is playing such a huge role in it.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

[09:40:01]

HARLOW: Brian, I do think at some point we have to have the discussion, the debate over the power that is now wielded by a few billionaires in Silicon Valley. And Kevin Roost (ph) does a good job in his "New York Times" piece about pointing it out. But he writes in the end, two billionaires from California did what legions of politicians, prosecutors and power brokers had tried and failed to do for years, they pulled the plug on Trump. They did, right, finally. But, at the same time, that's a lot of power

in a few hands.

STELTER: It is. And we should want a working legislature and working governing bodies that can debate these issues and talk about regulation. Of course, when a mob shows up and makes people hid under their desks, we can't have those debates.

But we do need to have real debates about big tech and the tradeoffs that are made here. These are, in many cases, not easy calls. They are very close calls. These are really tough decisions. And these technology companies have had a very, very hard time trying to figure out what the right answers are.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

STELTER: But I think this country has been afraid to talk about far right domestic terrorism for decades.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

STELTER: We've been afraid to talk about radicalization in our midst. And, honestly, we can't -- we can't be afraid anymore. It's right -- it's right under our noses. And, unfortunately, blood was spilled by it.

SCIUTTO: And you -- who hasn't been afraid, right, are federal authorities. If you read the FBI reports going back years, they have said for years, you know, even when that message has been tamped down by some for political reasons, that domestic, right-wing extremists are the primary domestic terrorism threat. It's a remarkable statement in there.

STELTER: Well, that's the thing, Jim, the rank and file know it.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

STELTER: And then the higher up in the food chain, the lawmakers and the governors, they're afraid to say it at the top.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

STELTER: They're afraid to piss off the president.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

STELTER: But the rank and file know the truth. And we need to talk about it.

SCIUTTO: And now people are -- and now people are dead, right? It's as simple as that.

Brian Stelter, Donie, thanks so much to both of you for bringing us a view from the inside.

STELTER: Thanks. SCIUTTO: And we'll be right back.

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[09:45:53]

SCIUTTO: Of course the other major story continuing to boil in the background here.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Well, less than two weeks into this new year, 10 days, and already more than 28,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the U.S. People with families. Nearly 2.5 million new infections have been recorded. And yet just 30 percent, one-third of available vaccines have been administered.

HARLOW: Let's go to our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and our national correspondent Kristen Holmes.

Good morning, ladies.

Elizabeth, to begin with you, genetic sequencing is the key to finding any new variants, mutations of this. Where are we in what is needed in terms of completely getting a handle on this, as we were, to get more Americans vaccinated?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, you're right, it is the key to the hunt for new virus mutations. And it's so important that we get ahold of these mutations as soon as we possibly can. The U.S. has not been doing a great job at this compared to some other countries.

Let's take a look at why it's important to do this genetic sequencing and then share it around the world so that the hunt can be, well, international. The way that it works is that you take a sample of virus from someone's nose, from someone who has COVID-19, and then you map out the genetic sequence of that virus and then you post it on a database to share internationally so that mutant variants can be identified.

Here's what's not going so well in the U.S.. The sequences that are being posted are about 85 days old. That is old. We want to know what's happening now or as close to now as possible. The U.S. ranks 61st in this time. We're behind Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka and all sorts of other countries. And in terms of just the number of virus sequences that are getting posted, we rank 35th. So, in other words, we're not doing enough.

But, Poppy, Jim, the CDC says they are working on this. They are spending millions of dollars to increase the sequencing that's being done in state labs, private labs and universities. And they said we should be seeing an increase very soon.

Poppy. Jim. SCIUTTO: Kristen, I shake my head hear as I look at these vaccination

numbers. The administration promised -- and this was already whittled down from their early promises, but 20,000 vaccinations by the end of December. We're a third into this month. We're a third of that goal at this point. Is there any sign of the rate of immunization picking up? If not, what's being done?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, what we're starting to see is these states actually change course in order to ramp up that distribution. So talk about a state like California that has been very behind in the administration of these vaccines. For example, we know they're sitting on about 1.5 million doses that have yet to be administered.

They are now changing who is actually eligible to get a vaccine. Originally, they had broken it down, their phase 1A, into three tiers. Now they are saying anyone who qualifies for phase 1A, come in, you can get a shot now. So that is nursing home employees, as well as residents, as well as, of course, healthcare workers. So there trying to expand the pool there to get more people in.

They're also hoping -- and this is an administration goal -- that that distribution will be ramped up and that administration will be ramped up later this week, hoping that CVS and Walgreens will start giving out that vaccine.

The last thing I want to point out here, though, is that I just got off the phone, just moments ago, with another Democratic state official who said the big problem they're seeing in their state is that they don't have enough people to actually administer the vaccine. So that's something that they are looking at right now as well.

Jim.

HARLOW: OK.

Elizabeth, thank you.

Kristen, thank you for the reporting.

Ahead, some of America's biggest, most well-known companies are pulling their political donations in the wake of the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol. We'll tell you what companies and more ahead.

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[09:54:09]

HARLOW: Well, a big message really, Jim, being sent from some of America's biggest companies. They are, this morning, suspending donations to a number of not only politicians but political PACs as well.

SCIUTTO: Yes, specifically targeting those folks who objected.

HARLOW: Yes. SCIUTTO: I should say this, who attempted to overturn the results of the election via their votes on the floor of Congress.

Plus, from a business perspective, the PGA now says it will move its 2022 championship away from the president's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Certainly a financial cost there.

CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us now.

Is this, based on the folks you talked to, the beginning of something broadcaster here in terms of a direct financial consequence, right, of this for the president and his companies?

[09:55:01]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, money talks and what the companies are saying is that they will not have their money or their employees' contributions to the PACs in the pockets of these Republican Congress members who were, you know, denial -- denying this -- the election win of Joe Biden.

And some of these companies are very clear about this. Blue Cross Blue Shield had a really strong statement where they said essentially the votes of some members of Congress to subvert the results of November's election by challenging Electoral College results, we will suspend contributions to those lawmakers who voted to, quote, undermine our democracy.

Commerce Bank also with a strong stand here. A bunch of other banks have actually come forward and said we're not going to give any political contributions for the next three months or the next six months. They're stepping back from the fray here.

It's a -- it's a remarkable turn, though, right, because at the beginning of this presidency, there were high hopes that this would be the business president. Those the big tax cuts, they loved those. But on tariffs, on tone and on democracy, these companies have had it with this administration and -- and with the Republicans who they feel are obstructionists.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, democracy, Christine, in the simplest words. Remarkable.

Christine Romans, thanks very much.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

SCIUTTO: Well, CNN has obtained the House impeachment article against President Trump that the House will vote on -- will file, rather, today. The question is, do -- if and when they vote on it.

Stay with CNN. We'll have the latest.

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