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Cuomo Prime Time

LIVE CNN Prime Time: Coverage With Chris Cuomo; Ten House Republicans Vote Yay Vote For Trump Impeachment 2.0; The Pros And Cons Of The Timing Of Trump's Impeachment Trial; The Way Forward (Or Back) With Trump's Exit; Whiteness: The New Color In Domestic Terrorism; 20,000 Troops Expected in D.C. for Biden's Inauguration; Philip Bump on "Retrumplicans" and Calls for Unity; U.S. Vaccine Rollout Lags as COVID-19 Cases Climb Above 23M. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired January 14, 2021 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00]

CHRIS CUOMO, ANCHOR, PRIME TIME: Hey everybody, I'm Chris Cuomo.

We're live at 1:00 am in the East, 10:00 pm in the West because we are having a special edition of PRIME TIME.

A twice-impeached Trump is going to be gone in six days but his ghost will haunt Washington long after President Elect Biden takes office.

The second Trump impeachment trial is not going to begin anytime soon. It will be after the inauguration, if it happens in earnest at all.

Mitch McConnell says he won't rule out convicting the man that he has protected for four years. Of course, why would he say which way he was going to vote before the trial, right? That would be a fool's play.

And this man is no fool. That's why he won't put him on trial before he's out of the White House, ignoring calls from Democrats to bring the senate back immediately.

This was not a party line vote in the house this time. And that's one of the reasons it was historic.

Ten Republicans broke from Trump a week after he incited an insurrection to help him remain in power. There has never been a U.S. president impeached twice.

No Republicans voted to impeach him in 2019. But now some have seen enough. In fact, this is more bipartisan than any impeachment has ever been.

And why? Because of what we just lived through, what we're still living through. The assault on the Capitol that killed five, sending lawmakers running for cover, including ReTrumplicans. If they think everything was so righteous, why did they run? For a lot of Republicans, it was a breaking point. And though Trump has no one to blame for the exodus but himself, CNN's

hearing in these overnight hours that he's blaming long-time attorney, Rudy Giuliani, among others, for his mess. He's reportedly telling his aides to not pay Rudy's legal fees -- that's nothing new for Trump, by the way. That certainly wouldn't be out of character,

But he has loyalty to no one so that really wouldn't come as a surprise either, if you think about it.

Let's size up about what this new moment means for the country going forward.

We've got the "Professor," as I call him, because the cat knows everything, Ron Brownstein, and Charlie Dent, true Republican.

Good to have you both.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SNR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good evening.

CUOMO: For your party, Mr. Dent, the idea that 10 members of the house crossed the line and voted. Do you believe this is a step toward reclaiming the GOP from the ReTrumplicans? Or is this a sign of just how full people are willing to go against him?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COOMMENTATOR & SENIOR POLICY ADVISER, DLA PIPER: Chris, I do believe it's a step away from Donald Trump without question. Sure, I wish there had been more.

But I can tell you there were a significant number of Republican House members who supported impeachment, only 10 voted for it. Clearly, these members were frustrated.

I'm quite friendly with many of those who voted to impeach, I think it's even -- I think the sentiment against Donald Trump is even greater in the U.S. senate, they are seething over there because of the way the president cost them the Georgia senate elections.

[01:05:00]

And of course, because of what happened last week, the violation of the Capitol and his frontal assault on the constitutional order.

So I think this is a step. And I think Donald Trump is a diminished figure -- and I'm not saying he's done, I'm just saying he's diminished and I think his influence will be less over time.

CUOMO: He's all the way down to 77 percent approval in your party, even after two impeachments and an insurrection in his name. Man, is that some level of adherence.

Ron, how much of this is about whiteness? And white people being afraid and easily being made afraid, and representatives from largely white areas being afraid of doing anything other than scaring and reinforcing the fear of those white communities?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, from the beginning, the heart of the Trump movement has been about the fear of the way America is changing demographically, culturally, economically.

The academic studies that were done in 2016 were unequivocal. That the best predictor of support for Donald Trump was the belief that systemic racism does not exist.

In polling done this fall by the Public Religion Institute, a higher share of Republicans say whites and Christians face discrimination than say the same about blacks and Hispanics.

And Donald Trump does not put too fine a point on this.

When he went down to Georgia for the first time in this runoff, when he went to -- Valdosta,, I guess, was the first appearance, he said this -- and speaking to a virtually all white, rural white, rural audience, he said this is our country and they are trying to take it away from us through fraud, and rigging the election.

And that has been the underpinning of this from the beginning.

As you know, Chris, if you look at from 2016 to 2020, he declined more in white collar suburban areas than he did in central cities. That was where his vote fell off even more.

But he did not accuse Oakland County, Michigan, or Montgomery County, Pennsylvania of stealing the vote, he accused cities with big African American populations -- Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee -- and that has been at the core of this. And it continues to be.

And it's one of the reasons why it's going to be challenging for Republicans to get out from under Trump's thumb because so many of them are dependent on maximum turnout among the same voters who responded to these barely veiled racial arguments from the president.

CUOMO: Is that's what's going on, Charlie, with McConnell's move? We know it's not about timing, right? He played that same game with Merrick Garland -- it's too soon before the election. Then when it was time for him to pick judges, he could do it in no time flat.

Is it just that, look, the argument that hey, maybe this is a gift to him. Let them have the trial, tell people they can cross lines, get rid of Trump, amputate him and get him out of the party's DNA as quickly as possible.

He chose not to. He chose to kick it down the road, which he knows is going to greatly mitigate the effect of any trial once it happens. What's his play?

DENT: Well, I think, to be fair we all knew that by having an impeachment at this moment, that it was going to be very difficult to get a real trial done before inauguration day. So I think rather than force it and rush it, I think to be fair to McConnell, I think he actually thinks it's prudent to kick it after inauguration day.

Now we can have a debate about whether or not it's the best course of action --

CUOMO: No, no. I hear it.

DENT: -- but I think it's a reasonable one.

CUOMO: You don't want to rush.

DENT: Yes.

CUOMO: Haste makes waste. But you don't think if you flip the R's and the D's here McConnell has the trial right away?

DENT: I'm not so sure about that, had the shoe been on the other foot. Well, maybe he would --

CUOMO: Remember Merrick Garland?

DENT: -- they can rush this if they want to.

CUOMO: Remember Merrick Garland? Never this close --

DENT: I'm sure they --

CUOMO: Never this close, I'd never do it.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

DENT: I think --

CUOMO: He did exactly that. He plays to advantage.

DENT: I think he could -- look, I think your point's fair, Chris. But I don't think that McConnell's out of bounds here by letting this thing slip past inauguration day. I really don't.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CUOMO: No, me either. The rules allow it. Look, the guy's a master of a game, Ron. You know what I mean?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, one thing to keep in mind about that, Chris, is even if his goal is to do the right thing and to honestly assess whether Trump deserves sanction for what he did, the fact is that Mitch McConnell by moving it back has introduced a complication and a hurdle into the opening part of Joe Biden's presidency.

From January 20th until election day 2022, Mitch McConnell's principal goal as it was under Obama's first years is to burn up as much of the clock as he can, to make it as difficult as possible for Biden to have a positive record going into the mid-term that would help Democrats maintain their majority in the senate.

Don't forget, he said his principal legislative goal under Obama was to make him a one-term president. I don't think this is any different.

So even if he does, in fact, want to create separation from Donald Trump, the fact that pushing it back creates a hurdle for Biden, burns up some of his clock, I cannot imagine that has slipped his mind in his calculations.

[01:10:00]

One thing, though, delaying this doesn't necessarily help Trump. Because as you have pointed out and others noted, each day after we learn more about this attack, we realize it was more horrific than even the original photos of people strolling through the rotunda suggested.

And I don't think time and revelation is going to be kind to Trump and anyone else who was involved in instigating or planning this attack. And it maybe that it's Democrats this time who want witnesses and more investigation -- Democrats, again, want witnesses and investigation. Because I think there's a lot more to learn about what happened.

CUOMO: The time could fade. As Biden gets in and maybe with Trump a little bit more in the rear view and being a little quiet because he's afraid of all the money he's losing, Republicans feel a bit more free about crossing the lines. We'll have to see.

But one thing is for sure. That opposition argument -- I don't disagree with you, Ron, conceptually. But to do that in the middle of a crisis where you have a pandemic that deserves -- demands legislative fix for the vaccination distribution and otherwise and the need for checks -- Charlie, it would be a tough time to be an opposition party, wouldn't it?

DENT: I agree. I do believe McConnell knows he's going to have to cooperate with Joe Biden on the pandemic, on cybersecurity, probably China, and other issues.

Candidly, I think the real challenge for Mitch McConnell is he's going to have to be at the center of this fraction within the Republican Party. The battle lines have been -- they're drawn. Mitch McConnell clearly wants to separate from Donald Trump and there are others who don't.

And let the battle begin. And by the way, Bill Kristol's out there right now, he is going to raise $50 million for these Republicans who are pushing back against Trump, voting to impeach or to remove.

So people are getting ready -- a counterforce has risen here to push back against the Trump sycophants.

CUOMO: You better hope they don't start talking that Giuliani talk in party, trial by combat and all that B.S.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CUOMO: You'll start having Jim Jordan and Adam Kinzinger going at it with bayonets running around in the house chamber. We do not need any of that.

All right, fellas, I appreciate you. Ron Brownstein, Charlie dent, thank you very much.

BROWNSTEIN: All right, Chris. Thank you.

CUOMO: We'll see what happens. Each step of the way.

DENTL (Inaudible).

CUOMO: So. All right, if the play for the Republicans is delay because it buys them time, maybe mitigates the furor against Trump and therefore them, by proxy, and also puts a complicating factor in the beginning of Biden's tenure, what's the play for Democrats?

We've got a lawyer on the inside of the last impeachment with advice about some lessons learned for Democrats.

Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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[01:15:00]

I'm Neil Giles, I'm the chief executive of Traffik Analysis Hub. We're an NGO based in the United Kingdom, in London. And our dream is to create the richest possible store of data around the issue of human trafficking for every actor everywhere in the world.

Traffic Analysis Hub is a map-based data platform, with hundreds of thousands of stories of trafficking from around the world available to analysts to access, to compile insights and risk dashboards, to compile reporting or to find ways to guide their activities.

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CUOMO: House Democrats in their initial impeachment proceedings against Trump included a grave warning from their special council, Barry Berke.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARRY BERKE, DEMOCRATIC JUDICIARY COMMITTEE COUNSEL: In fact, President Trump can get away with what he did again our imagination is the only limit to what President Trump may do next or what a future president may do next. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Hyperbolic speculation. If "if's" and "but's" were cherries and nuts, we'd all have a beautiful Christmas.

If, at that time, people had said, who knows, if the guy loses the election, maybe he'll refuse to leave. Remember that speculation? No, no, no; the institution is too strong.

Maybe he would say he was cheated, he's going to say it was rigged, he's saying it already, who knows what he'll do? You remember that? Oh, you have such a malignant heart, why you have to speculate that way?

Now here we are; the charge is different but the premise the same.

A man who abused his power because the only thing he respects is his own advantage, even if it means inciting insurrection.

So what does this mean for the trial ahead? Let's bring in former special counsel Barry Berke.

You were more right than even you could have ever imagined at that point. If I had put in front of you, give this idea of what might happen you'd say, no, no, no I don't want to blow people out of the way with something that seems too exaggerated.

So what do you want Democrats to learn from the last time in a trial this time?

BARRY BERKE, SPECIAL COUNSEL FOR HOUSE DEMOCRATS IN TRUMP'S FIRST IMPEACHMENT: Well, I think what has to be learned is really you have to speak to your audience.

The fact that President Trump, once he got away with it he not only continued to offend our core principles of democracy, put his own personal and political interests over the country's interest but his conduct kept getting worse because he was never held accountable.

He was able to weaponize the department of justice, he was able to try to shut down the postal service.

So, at this point, you really have to call your jury, the Senate Republicans, to know that if you don't take action, the next thing he may do is if he runs for reelection. That's what's impeachment is about, preventing harm.

And I think what you really have to do here is tell the story of what happened that brought us to this trial.

As a trial lawyer, I know it's all about the narrative. And as horrific as the events of January 6th were, and the horrible senators will feel so acutely, the events that led to that are so clear.

And you can imagine the insurrection happening based on what he did. Whether it was at the debate when he was asked to distance himself from these extremist groups and he said to the Proud Boys, "Stand back and stand by."

And then he falsely claimed again and again that the election was stolen from him. And when he tried to get the states' legislatures and others to decertify or not recognize it, they failed.

When he couldn't get his vice president to commit to do it, he did what he had left. And that is to tell an angry mob disappointed supporters that the election was stolen, he won in a landslide and they should use force to prevent the certification of his loss.

That is a compelling story and it should be a slam dunk case if the senators are true to their oath as jurors.

CUOMO: What is your take, counselor, on time? Is it have to do it now because it's fresh in their minds and the more time goes by, you'll lose that fervor? Or let it play out over time because the Republicans will be haunted by this guy and, as time goes by it'll be easier for them to vote against him and want to move on?

[01:20:00]

BERKE: Well, that's a great question and there's a balance. On the one hand. the harm was so great and immediate, that supports having a trial sooner rather than later. Although part of what you're going to want to do at the trial is recreate that and also fill in the blanks.

What was going on at the White House when the president was apparently -- according to reports -- enjoying it and refusing to send in the National Guards?

But I don't think here you have a choice and I think there are advantages to Democrats to waiting. So, right, we know that McConnell's not calling back the Senate, Chuck Schumer will become majority leader and there are no set rules for impeachment trials. So you'll now have the Democrats who can set the rules. And that's an advantage.

There's no timing of when Speaker Pelosi has to send over the articles and, in fact, in the first impeachment she waited 30 days and during that time a lot of evidence came out.

We learned about John Bolton's disclosures in his books, more evidence about the withholding of aid. And here every day we see further reports about disgruntled aides revealing things about the president.

So there could be advantages to waiting, wait until Schumer comes in and then there'll be a discussion of what are the rules for the trial.

Last trial, we had all sorts of discussions and debates about whether you'd have TV to allow for demonstratives and all those things.

Here, on a critical issue of where witnesses would be allowed, the Democrats will be able to set the rules for the trial.

CUOMO: What kind of legal exposure do you think this president has for what happened during his exit? BERKE: So we all know there's a great tradition of not prosecuting

our former leaders and that's right -- and other countries in the world look up to us as a democracy.

On the other hand, no one is above the law including a former president. And these are hard cases to prove, right?

There are a lot of cases out there -- you have to prove he actually intended to and used words that were, by their impact, would cause people to act and that -- with an expectation they would act. I think you have all the evidence there.

But the question is whether a prosecutor is prepared to bring a case like that against a former president. So he clearly has exposure.

I think the more we learn, the more we learn about what he actually knew before he went out there to speak to this crowd, that links up his previous comments, that sees this crowd that he knew they were itching for violence, I think the case could get stronger and stronger.

So there's no question there should be an investigation. And I think if he were the president and he was concerned -- there's a reason he's talking about a self pardon because he has exposure.

Often you look at will people feel the harm, will they get angry about what the president did, right? Because concepts like reasonable doubt and proof beyond a reasonable doubt can mean different things. Here the insurrection causes anger.

And his contribution to it is something I believe prosecutors will look very closely at.

CUOMO: Let me throw you a curveball before I let you go --

BERKE: Please do.

CUOMO: -- at 1:22 in the morning Eastern. I think that we have a really tough task coming anywhere close to monitoring let alone policing these domestic terror organizations. They're citizens. You cannot treat them like you treat foreign Islamic -- Islamist extremists.

You start monitoring what they're saying and you're going to have not just speech legal issues but a lot of political blow back.

How do we deal with this new threat of -- it's not new, we've always had domestic terror threats in the form of white extremism -- but now they've been invited to the party by Trump, literally and figuratively. How do we deal with this given the constraints of were allowed to do to citizens?

BERKE: And I think you have to be careful, right? After 9/11 we had a lot of new laws, a lot of new rules that we might not have needed.

I think what you have to do is have the equal application of the law, right? We saw with the Black Lives Matter marchers, everybody lined up like they were ready to fight for bare (ph).

In the same way, all these folks are -- they're on social media as part of -- I represented Pennsylvania in the election litigation. We were able, with the help of outsiders, to track a lot of people are saying on the dark web trying to anticipate violence around the election, to anticipate where you might have concerns that people would bring guns to vote. And so what we did is really track it. And I think there needs to be more of that.

And treat these extremist groups as exactly what they are; as terrorist organizations looking to cause harm. And not give them the benefit of the doubt because there's a political piece.

Obviously, you have to respect their political rights to assemble, right to speech. But there is so much obvious violence that's public that you have to not give them the benefit of the doubt because they look safer. You have to apply the existing laws, existing surveillance as they're applied to other groups.

And I think this was a wake up call, not only to the political system that you cannot have a leader who challenges the core principles of our democracy but also to law enforcement that you have to apply it equally.

CUOMO: Yes. I think one of the benefits they've been given is going to go away. Which is that some of them seem safer because they're white.

[01:25:00]

But I think people are waking up to the reality that the biggest domestic terror threat is white. Barry Berke, appreciate you. Thank you for the insight.

BERKE: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. So I'm careful on this one. But by all accounts so far, you've got to look at it.

Was it an inside job? Did anyone in congress -- I'm not talking about giving a tour -- did they help attackers?

There are a lot of open questions and swirling accusations, but you have to have proof. You can only know what you can show, OK. If you can't show it, you don't know it.

And can we really make the inauguration safe?

A retired army major general's take on what we're up against. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:29:52]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Our nation's capital is locked down like a fortress tonight. Barricades, strong shows of force from the National Guard. Staggering reality -- listen to this -- the number of U.S. troops in our capital protecting it from other Americans is more than double those currently stationed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria combined. Think about that.

Let's discuss the threat and the response with Retired Major General James "Spider" Marks. Good to see you, General.

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Chris, good to see you this evening.

CUOMO: It's been too long.

MARKS: Yes.

CUOMO: And I wish it were a better reason.

Can you believe in all that you've seen that America has a bigger problem with itself than we have ever prepared for from abroad?

MARKS: Well, we certainly have had this in our past, thankfully our distant past, but not so much now.

I'm very surprised. Let's be frank, we've been kind of stirring this up for quite some time, so it is surprising. But thank goodness we have the capability that can respond and hopefully put a blanket over the inevitable security challenges that will pop up.

CUOMO: There is no real question about force versus force in terms of the ability to keep the inauguration or the capital safe, is there?

MARKS: No, I don't think so at all. Let's be frank, there are really three things about seeing uniformed -- military uniformed personnel in D.C. in support of this inauguration.

First of all, everything that the military does is codified specifically in response to what's called defense support to civilian -- civil authorities, the DSCA rule that surround that.

We have Com plans. We have DOD directives. All of this is out there, and we study that. We are required as military folks and designated units to rehearse this as a matter of routine. That's number one.

Number two is we've got some experience doing this. So we are an adaptive organization. These DOD directives have not been locked down for the last 15 -- 20 years. We have experience, and we continue to improve upon those.

And then finally, the thing about soldiers is that soldiers deploy in teams, so you're not going to have individual soldiers that might get out of bounds, might be tempted to do something that is in excess to what their prescribed capabilities should be and demonstration of force, and response postures might be.

So they're in teams and that keeps everybody essentially connected together with leadership and experience at multiple levels throughout those formations. So that is what is important going forward, is that this is not new. The military knows how to do it and they have learned from it and they've improved upon it.

CUOMO: If we really are in the era now of white domestic terror groups coming after us, how do we ever get into a position of not being behind the ball because you can't punish them for what they say to each other the way you can with foreign terror groups?

MARKS: Yes. Very true, Chris. You know, Posse Comitatus -- the law that goes back to the, you know, mid-19th century really describes what federal capabilities, federal soldiers are allowed to do on domestic soil.

The presumption is that everybody that a soldier engages in a civil authority type role, that everybody out there that they have to deal with is a U.S. citizen. And enjoys the protections and the freedoms and the liberties that U.S. citizens have.

So that's going-in presumption until determined otherwise. So when you look at these types of domestic terrorist organizations, they are presumed to be U.S. citizens, most of them are, and so it limits what you can do in terms of directed intelligence.

Look, when I was a senior intel guy during the L.A. riots in 1982, my hands were tied in terms of the direction of collection assets against presumed U.S. citizens. I couldn't do it.

I mean that was a ticket, Chris, for me to go straight to jail. In fact, my best buddy in this engagement was the units lawyer. He and I knew that if we got out of bounds we're going straight to jail. And rule number one about going to jail, is choose your cell mate.

And that dude was going with me, if we did it wrong. So there are limits, very prescribed limits in terms of what you can do. You've got be to be very, very careful about that. So you are blind -- you are blind going in.

CUOMO: General, I really hope that the worst is behind us. It just doesn't feel like it. And I appreciate your counsel as always. The best to your family for the new year.

MARKS: Thank you, Chris, very, very much. You as well. Take care.

CUOMO: God bless and be well.

So the same "Retrumplicans" who claim the election was stolen are now calling for unity. In fact, blaming Biden for not being enough of a unifier by saying let's investigate and hold people accountable for an insurrection.

[01:34:58]

CUOMO: What a bunch of just nonsense that has become a reality. Phil Bump, a man who is a master of making sense of what seems nonsensical, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: The Retrumplican who stood on the house floor Tuesday and insisted he never said the election was stolen, proudly stood up at one of those "Stop the Steal" rallies and tweeted this. "Democrats are trying to steal the election." And said multiple times on Twitter, social media, and on television, "I don't know what you could tell me to make me believe that they didn't steal the election."

So is this about verb tense? Is this the kind of lying to get you the Medal of Freedom from the president?

On Wednesday he, known as Jim Jordan, and his buddies, the same ones who actively voted to decertify an election, condemned impeachment as a reckless application of House procedure.

[01:40:01]

CUOMO: How do we make sense of this? We ask "The Washington Post's" Phil Bump to help us. How are you, big brother?

PHILIP BUMP, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I'm well. How are you?

CUOMO: So -- ooh, that's a nice scoreboard behind you, by the way. So what sense do you make from this nonsense?

BUMP: Well, I mean, you know, it's politics, right. I mean it is -- the president is in a relatively indefensible position. His actions both leading up to January 6th and then of course, on the 6th itself. What can you say in defense of that?

And so the Republicans tried a number of different strategies but one they seem to have settled on was that it's up to Democrats now to begin the healing process, which they, of course, were setting aside one week ago, when they are voting to throw -- or choosing to throw out the votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania.

CUOMO: So, the theory of the case is let bygones be bygones, and speak no more of anything we did that bothered you.

BUMP: Right and you know, I think it's important to remember. If this were something that had occurred where they were looking at the vote in Arizona and Pennsylvania, and there were legitimate questions about the vote in those states, which there wasn't. And this had occurred before the riot, before the occupation of the Capitol, they might have a better been argument.

It's important to remember, that vote occurred after the Capitol has already been occupied. There was already this demonstrated effort to throw out the results in the 2020 election which they then supported through their vote.

So to argue that it's up to the Democrats at this point to unify the country, is at best insincere and at worst cynical. CUOMO: I have a question. Why did Jim Jordan and these others who kept

telling people that the election was being stolen, and they had to fight back and they had to make it stop, and they had to do what they could -- why did they run when the people that they had been encouraging broke into the Capitol?

BUMP: It's a fair question. I mean obviously It was not necessarily up to the members of Congress how they're going to respond. It was up to the security professionals to get them out of there. Thank goodness that they did.

Obviously we've also heard very different assessments of what's happened that day from different members of Congress. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had that livestream yesterday, and she expressed some real fear about what might happen to her both as they were making their as they're making their way to that facility and then once they were there. So it is -- it is certainly not the case if the invaders were perceived the same way depending on party. But I think that -- they felt they didn't have too much choice.

CUOMO: But it's interesting. You've been baiting them all along, basically telling them this is what they needed to do, they do it, and then you run away. It kind of --

BUMP: I think this is part of a concern some of the Democrats had was how are their people who are members of the House who are willing to work with these folks? That's the thing that Ocasio-Cortez said she was afraid of being kidnapped and someone might help them do that.

CUOMO: Right. Right.

And look -- and that is a terrible assessment of where we are. A commentary on where we are, whether it's valid or not, whether it's provable or demonstrable or not and that is something we're all going to have to really slow walk it until we know something on the basis of what is shown.

So where do we go from here? What do you think about all the things that have to be dealt with that really require cooperation?

BUMP: I mean -- it's a great question. I mean there was this point a few months ago before the election when I reached out to both the Biden and Trump campaigns and said what is your candidate's plan once he wins or loses to help unify the country?

Neither had a particularly good response because there isn't a great response. So Biden's response was essentially he was going to do his best to pass legislation benefiting all Americans. I think there are a lot of reasons to think that Biden will be a less polarizing president than was Trump, or even than Obama simply by virtue of how he is perceived by a lot of Americans and the fact that he's a white man and not a black man.

So I think he has a better starting point from which to operate but it's incredibly challenging particularly with Trump who is going to be out there making his allegations about the election for a very long time.

CUOMO: But we will not have the same type of obligation to report on what he says because he will no longer be invested with power over the people.

Give me a little who and how action on this one. The issue is disabusing people, largely Trump voters, of these lies about the election and a host of other issues that they have been bathed in by Trump and his enablers. Who can make them believe differently and how?

BUMP: I mean look, you and I both work in the media. And for you and I, this is an existential question, right? this is a question that's remained unanswered for years. How do these --

CUOMO: They will not believe us.

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CUOMO: They will not believe it.

BUMP: Yes, exactly. How do we tell the truth to people who don't want to hear the truth.

CUOMO: You would have to have him live, telling you I didn't mean it, and you'd have to ask him again and say people are going to think that you are saying this because your coerced. Are you sure you mean it?

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CUOMO: That's it, a piece of tape where he says it. A voice recording where he says it. Him writing -- they will never believe it.

BUMP: Right. I mean yes. I mean keep in mind, there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who believe the Qanon conspiracy theory, right? The fact that they are so detached from rational assessments of what's happening in the world means that even if you have President Trump come out and say, yes I admit. I felt bad about having lost and I told lies to make up for it for my self-esteem basis.

They are going to assume -- we saw from (INAUDIBLE) today a lot of those conspiracy theories were like -- clearly it's being made it's -- it's an intractable problem. But at the very least by having books like (INAUDIBLE) I think that's not insignificant that this conservative radio network mandated their people to stop telling this lie about how the election was stolen.

I think that is important. I think we need to see what happens with cable news that's conservative, Fox News and, you know, the fringier networks. How they move in the Biden era. And hopefully they are able to move someone back towards reality and still maintain all hints, you know --

CUOMO: There's nothing else. We've got to see -- state TV or, you know, Fox News and the Murdochs decide to stop playing the Alex Jones game. You know where they have somebody on at night who they market as being a straight read and then they'd in court defend themselves against allegations, against the same person by saying he is not to be taken seriously. You know, he is not supposed to be credible.

They're going to have to get out of that game if they want to be believed. I think it's going to have to be a charismatic Republican who has a new message and vision of that party, who then excises Trump and his thinking and says that was never what we wanted to be. It was never right.

I think that's probably the closest we get. I do not think we can be the answer. He has done a good job of killing us off in their minds.

Phil Bump with you, it's a mistake. Me, it could go either way. You should be listened to. Be well and thank you.

BUMP: Thank you, sir.

CUOMO: All right, why do we have to think about timing? Why is unity important more than from just a straight spirit of America standpoint?

Pandemic crossed 23 million COVID cases. I know the numbers are numbing. It's killing more than us than it ever has before.

The vaccine rollout is a mess. It's written here -- disappointing pace. No, it's a mess, ok. We have to have it get a lot better in order for us to have any kind of immunity that will make our lives better at any scale any time soon -- period.

Now there's a new question that I'm sure you're hearing circulated. Should you wait for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because you only need one shot. Is that true? Next.

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CUOMO: I don't know how much longer we can be distracted from the pandemic. It's not getting better. We're not getting the degree of compliance we need. You've got Jim Jordan trying to make political hay out of it being wrong to mandate how he wears a mask.

23 million U.S. COVID cases. The number is climbing at a rate that is just not sustainable for us. We are the worst. We should be first.

It took us four days to add the last million ok? Infections, deaths rising. The effort to vaccinate Americans is lagging far behind predictions.

How much? Of the roughly 29 million doses distributed, just over 10 million or about 35 percent have been administered, ok? They said that we had to get millions administered a day to get to herd immunity when they thought we could. We are nowhere near it.

In an effort to turn things around strategies are changing. HHS announced it will now release more vaccines that those were originally -- those that were originally reserved for the second dose will go out now. Essentially adopting part of Biden's plan.

Meantime more states all across the nation are working to convert sports venues like Yankee Stadium into mass vaccination centers.

Let's discuss this with Dr. Leana Wen.

First, I want to ask you a question that everybody keeps asking me, ok? Because let's be honest, the numbers don't compel people anymore. They just -- they're not -- they don't care about the numbers. They want them to go down but they're over it. It's like we have mass compassion fatigue -- 23 million, 25 million, 4 million, 5 million, 4,000 a day, 3,000 a day. Whatever their just numbers now.

But vaccine they care about. I'm going to wait because the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is coming out in a week or so. I hear like from everyone all over the country and political spectrum. And you only need one shot. Is any of that known?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well I do think Chris, that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is very promising. I think it's a total game-changer if it is -- if it does end up being safe and proven to be effective. And because it is a one shot vaccine that I think will increase compliance a lot over something that's two shots.

The problem though is that we don't know yet exactly when the date it will be released and we don't know what those data will show. It's possible that the data will be released by the end of this month. But then it might still take a few more weeks or even months for it to be authorized and for the production to ramp up.

And so I would really encourage people to get the vaccine if they could get Pfizer or Moderna right now, they should get whatever vaccine they have access to.

CUOMO: They don't like the two shots. And it's too hard to get which is making people think maybe I'll just wait because it's so hard to get and I've got to get it twice which means I have to go through this twice? And I don't even know.

Now, what do you say to them?

DR. WEN: Well I would say that if you are someone who is particularly vulnerable, certainly if you are a health care worker, if you are an essential worker, if you are over 65 and you're able to get the vaccine in your state, you should take that opportunity right now.

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DR. WEN: Because we also don't know what's going to happen in the months to come. We hope that production will keep up. But we just don't know. And so if you're given the opportunity right now, please take it.

This is a surging virus. All the activities that we were doing before are even riskier now because of how much virus is in our communities. So take the vaccine if it's available to you. CUOMO: Now, the problem, it's not available. And the distribution plan

stinks. And we've been pretty quiet about it. And I think it's because nobody is pitching any better solutions.

Now we're starting to hear about converting bigger places. But what I keep hearing on the state level is yes, no, no, we've got plan but we got to get money to pay for them. Where does the -- what is the state of play in terms of improving distribution from the conceptual phase to the practical phase, quickly?

DR. WEN: I think part of the problem is that the federal government ceded their responsibility and basically said as soon as we get the vaccines to states were done we wash our hands.

We need the federal government to really step in and provide the resources and the oversight. And then we need states to get the funding that they need but overall we need exactly everything that you talked about.

We need an army of vaccinators. We also need mass vaccination sites. We need to reduce these terrible regulations that are preventing flexibility to actually get out the vaccines. And that's what's leading to wastage of these doses.

This is a wartime effort that requires a 24/7 wartime mobilization, all hands on deck. And that kind of urgency has been missing thus far.

CUOMO: I keep -- I always ask the Republicans, where is your wall mentality now? you threw everything at finding a way to get that done. Why not this?

Dr. Leana Wen, thank you very much.

We'll be right back.

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