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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
White House Starts Pushing Biden's Top Priorities; Biden Seeks Bipartisan Support for New COVID Relief Package; Article of Impeachment Against Trump Heads to Senate. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired January 25, 2021 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:00]
LAURA JARRETT, CO-ANCHOR, EARLY START: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. We have reports this morning from the White House, Capitol Hill, Moscow and Paris. This is EARLY START, I'm Laura Jarrett.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CO-ANCHOR, EARLY START: And good morning, it is Monday, I'm Christine Romans, January 25th, 5:00 a.m. exactly in New York, and Joe Biden facing critical early test of his promise to find political compromise. This morning, the White House launching a week of themed events starting today with buy American, urging government agencies to buy products made in the U.S.A. The rest of the week focuses on racial equality and fairness, the climate crisis, healthcare and rounding out the week with immigration and the border. Now, the outgoing priority here is beating coronavirus. On Sunday, the White House held a call with senators to drum up bipartisan support for the administration's COVID-19 relief package. Senators wanted more details and evidence the money will go where it's needed most.
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SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): We ask for more data. There were a lot of nerds on this call, and we want the backup. We wanted to know if your -- if the White House is saying we need to do $130 billion of school aid, what's the backup for that? Where did that number come from? So, that's on the White House. We're expecting to hear from them in the next 24, 48 hours.
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JARRETT: Now, the White House faces a tricky dynamic here. Democrats are of course in control of the Senate, but at the moment, the Republicans are still trying to run the agenda. The two sides trying to reach a power-sharing deal in an evenly divided chamber. Senate Democrats are rejecting GOP demands to not weaken the filibuster which of course the minority party can use to hold up legislation. That's one reason the White House may ultimately have to use a legislative loophole to push the COVID bill through. CNN's Arlette Saenz has more from the White House now.
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, the White House is trying to drum up bipartisan support for President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan. And over the weekend, the president dispatched his top economic adviser to speak with a bipartisan group of senators to get that bipartisan signed on. Now, some Republicans have expressed unease about passing a bill so soon after they already passed a stimulus relief package at the end of last year. And Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, who was part of that White House call said that it's premature to be talking about a $2 trillion package, and that she believes that, that bipartisan group of senators could find a more targeted approach.
But one item that was deemed a priority on that phone call is getting money for COVID vaccinations, and the senators also asked for more details to find ways to ensure that the Americans who needed the relief most would be getting it. Now, Biden has said that he wants this all done through a bipartisan manner, but there are some Democrats pushing him to pursue a reconciliation process which would only require a simple majority to pass this type of measure. So, this is something that the Biden White House will be keeping their eyes on and pushing for in the opening days of his administration. Now, later today, the president will also be re-imposing some COVID travel restrictions on most non-U.S. citizens traveling from Brazil, the U.K., Ireland and many European countries, and he is also extending those restrictions to those who have recently traveled to South Africa.
You'll remember just last week, President Trump said he was lifting those travel restrictions, but the Biden team was quick to say that they would not let that stand. This is just their latest effort to show that they are making aggressive moves to try to curb the spread of the virus. Christine and Laura?
ROMANS: All right, Arlette, thank you so much for that. Federal transportation officials are deciding how to enforce President Biden's new mask requirement for Interstate travelers. It could include fines in the thousands of dollars. The rule-making-process can take months, so officials are believed to be considering emergency actions that could take effect much sooner. The president signed an executive order last week making masks mandatory on planes, trains and public buses.
JARRETT: The house will deliver a single article of impeachment against former President Donald Trump to the Senate later today. CNN has learned that dozens of influential Republicans including former top officials from the Trump administration have been lobbying Republican members of Congress to convict. Now, this effort is not coordinated, we're told, but it does reflect a broader battle inside the party between Trump loyalists on the one hand and those who want to sever ties with the former president forever.
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At the same time, a path to conviction in the Senate is extremely narrow. Joe Johns has more from Capitol Hill.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, this will be history again as we gear up for the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. It will be a bit different from the first. This time, he is out of office, out of town and off Twitter, but there will be some similarities. Once again, the house impeachment managers will take the long walk across the United States Capitol to the Senate where they will deliver and present the one impeachment article. The Senate tradition is that the trial begins 1:00 p.m. on the day after the article is delivered. However, the Senate has bought itself sometime, in fact, two weeks, the trial in earnest begins on February 9th.
Now, some people have suggested this trial will go much quicker than the last time, but that's not necessarily true because Senate Republicans are all over the place on the issue.
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SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): I think the trial is stupid. I think it's counterproductive. We already have a flaming fire in this country and it's like taking a bunch of gasoline and pouring it on top of the fire.
SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R-SD): But I think it's a moot point because I think right now Donald Trump is no longer the president, he is a former president. Article 1, sections -- I think it's 3 -- or 6 and 7 specifically point out that you can impeach the president and it does not indicate that you can impeach someone who is not in office.
SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): And what we saw which is incitement to insurrection is an impeachable offense. If not, what is?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: With the Senate evenly divided at 50-50, it takes two-thirds majority to convict on an impeachment. That means if all 50 Democrats vote to convict the former president, 17 Republicans would have to go along with them. Christine and Laura?
ROMANS: All right, Joe, thank you so much for that. Now, CNN has learned a man facing charges in the Capitol insurrection has a brother in the Secret Service. Preston J. Fairlamb III once led a Michelle Obama's security detail. His brother Scott Fairlamb now faces five counts over his role in the riot. As video evidence shows him shoving and punching an officer in the head on the Capitol steps. His attorney -- Scott Fairlamb's attorney tells CNN that Preston, the Secret Service agent was unaware of his brother's action during the Capitol attack. Preston Fairlamb; the Secret Service and Michelle Obama's office have not responded to CNN's request for comment.
JARRETT: Well, 38 Capitol police officers have tested positive for coronavirus since the insurrection on January 6th. It's not clear how many of them may have been on duty during the attack or when exactly they contracted the virus, but health officials had worried that all of the unmasked people shouting and pushing each other could result in a super spreader event. Several lawmakers also tested positive in the wake of the attack after sheltering in place with other members of Congress who refused to wear masks.
ROMANS: Twenty one million doses of COVID vaccine have been administered nationwide so far. President Biden wants to give five times that many, 100 million in his first 100 days. But officials are running into supply problems here as states including Texas, South Carolina, New York and California are canceling appointments because of vaccine shortages.
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ROCHELLE WALENSKY, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL & PREVENTION: You know, I would say one of the biggest problems right now is I can't tell you how much vaccine we have. And if I can't tell it to you, then I can't tell it to the governors and I can't tell it to the state health officials. If they don't know how much vaccine they're getting not just this week, but next week and the week after, they can't plan.
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JARRETT: That was CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. She hopes vaccine production scales up dramatically by March. The U.S. has contracts with Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson for 600 million doses, but the deadlines aren't until this Summer. The president has pledged to use the Defense Production Act to boost manufacturing and emergency approval of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could deliver tens of millions more doses by April.
ROMANS: In the meantime, officials are keeping a close eye on the U.K. COVID variant. Last week, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the variant may be linked to quote, "a higher degree of mortality", but there's still a lot of uncertainty here. The CDC is reviewing new data and scaling up surveillance and study of variance.
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FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Let's be clear, this is very preliminary data. And you can't be sure when they're quoting those numbers, as this might not also be a consequence of the fact that the U.K. health system is really overwhelmed. And that has an effect --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right --
COLLINS: Also mortality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The U.S. health system also on the verge of being overwhelmed, but on Sunday, there were fewer than 111,000 people reported hospitalized with coronavirus. Well, that's the lowest number since December 14th.
JARRETT: Still staggering. And in Chicago, the teachers union is defying a school district order, voting Sunday to continue remote learning until teachers are vaccinated.
[05:10:00]
Instead of returning to work today, teachers are preparing for a limited reopening of K through 8th grade schools on February 1st. And the Louisiana Health Department says a high school wrestling tournament has been linked to a COVID-19 outbreak. Health officials received more than 20 reports of coronavirus among athletes, staff and attendees following the tournament on January 15th and 16th.
ROMANS: All right, the coronavirus recession is --
(CLEARS THROAT)
Excuse me, is really a she-cession hurting women and especially minority women the most. Senator Elizabeth Warren said Sunday, the pandemic has set women back.
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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Make no mistake, this is not something that women are going to recover from in just the space of a few months or even a few years. This will have life time consequences.
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ROMANS: Remember, the country is in a deep jobs hole right now, 140,000 jobs were lost in December. The economy overall still down about 10 million jobs since February. When you dig deeper into these numbers, women made up all of the job losses when you look at that Decembers jobs report on a net basis, losing 156,000 jobs, men net gained 16,000. Hundreds of thousands of women have dropped out of the labor force either because of a lack of child care or to take care of older family members. Senator Warren said universal healthcare, childcare rather and rising wages for teachers are just some ways to help women during this crisis.
JARRETT: Yes, taking care of elder family members, obviously, such an important point, Christine, there, so many of us trying to have our older family members get the vaccine --
ROMANS: Right --
JARRETT: In addition to all these job losses. All right, well, Wednesday night, CNN brings you a new global town hall, the race to vaccinate America. Top doctors from President Biden's team join Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, "CORONAVIRUS FACTS AND FEARS" live Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.
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[05:15:00]
ROMANS: All right, President Trump's attempt to overturn the election went deeper than we knew. CNN has learned he considered firing former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and replacing him with an obscure Justice Department lawyer who was willing to cast doubt on the election results in Georgia. According to the "New York Times", Rosen demanded to hear the news straight from Trump and arranged a meeting with the president on the evening of January 3rd. That same day we learned, Mr. Trump's now infamous call pressuring Georgia's Secretary of State to find him votes. JARRETT: During the meeting, Rosen and DOJ lawyer Jeffrey Clark made
competing cases "Apprentice" style. Trump ultimately backed down only after he was told that top Justice Department officials had all vowed to resign together if Rosen was fired. And there's more. Here's CNN's Shimon Prokupecz.
SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, the "Wall Street Journal" reporting that the former president put pressure on the Department of Justice to file a lawsuit with the Supreme Court to try and get them to overturn the election. The journal citing multiple officials say that the attorney general at the time, Bill Barr and two other top officials at the DOJ resisted, said that they had no standing, they had no reason to file this lawsuit. They said that because the Department of Justice doesn't have any reason to take either Biden's side or Trump's side in the election, they would not pursue the lawsuit. And so it went nowhere.
Also, the journal notes that one of the former presidents personal lawyers even drafted a brief that they would hope that the Department of Justice would use, but obviously this went nowhere. The top officials at the Department of Justice at the time resisted these efforts, and so nothing was ever filed. Christine, Laura?
JARRETT: Shimon, thank you so much for that. Well, Arizona's Republican Party is making it very clear that its leadership remains loyal to Donald Trump after voting to censure Governor Doug Ducey, former Senator Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain, all three of course, opposed Trump's effort to overturn President Biden's victory. And Flake and McCain endorsed Biden before the election. The decision to censure the three Republicans reflects the deep fractures among Arizona Republicans over the future of the GOP.
ROMANS: And Cindy McCain's response I thought was just golden. She said she'll wear that censure like a badge of honor that the leadership of the Arizona GOP is completely at odds with the traditional Republican Party in that state. All right, the Super Bowl match is set. The greatest quarterback of all time takes on the young star -- looking for a repeat.
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ROMANS: All right, the Super Bowl match-up is set. Tom Brady and the Buccaneers squaring off against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. Andy Scholes here with the "BLEACHER REPORT", so many great story lines in this match up, and Tom Brady 43, looking 23 last night.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I -- what a surprise, right? Tom Brady is going to be playing in the Super Bowl. It's going to be Brady's 10th Super Bowl in the past 20 years. The 43-year-old is getting Tampa to the big game in his very first season with the team, and the Bucs now going to be the first team ever to play in a Super Bowl in their home stadium. Brady playing in his record 14th conference championship game against the Packers yesterday. Right before the half, Brady stunning Green Bay with a 39-yard touchdown strike to Scotty Miller. Brady three touchdown passes, the Bucs will lead 28-10 at one point in this game. Packers though making a comeback, advance with fourth and goal down by 8, the closing minutes. Head Coach Matt LeFleur decides to kick a field goal instead of going for the tie. Brady and the Bucs then give the ball back and run out the clock to win the game 31-26.
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TOM BRADY, QUARTERBACK, TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS: It's a great football team, they've been playing well all season. And you know, to come, beat them at home, there were 9,000 fans, it felt like a little more than 9,000. But just great to get another road win, and now we've got another home game, who would ever thought, you know, a home Super Bowl for us, but we did it.
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SCHOLES: Yes, and Brady sharing a pretty special moment with his son after the game, walking over to the stands and he called him down. They had a nice victory hug. Then while getting on the plane, Brady and Gronk recreating their video from two years ago playing the song "Bad Boy for Life", and Gronk was rocking the NFC Championship year, that new video on the left. All right, up next for Brady, a super showdown with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
[05:25:00]
Like usual, the Chiefs falling behind against the Bills, they were down 9-0 before reeling off 21 unanswered points, never looking back. Mahomes three touchdowns in the 38-24 win, 25-year-old is going to be the youngest quarterback to ever start two Super Bowls and the Chiefs look to become the first team to win back-to-back titles since Brady and the Patriots did it in 2005.
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PATRICK MAHOMES, QUARTERBACK, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: And just trust in each other. The best thing about this team is we believe in each other, and every single time we hit the field we leave everything we have. But the job is not finished. We're going to Tampa and we're trying to run it back.
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SCHOLES: What a match it's going to be, Brady versus Mahomes, Chiefs versus the Bucs, Super Bowl LV in Tampa, February 7th. The Bucs winning three road playoff games in order to get that Super Bowl at home. This is going to be the first ever Super Bowl between the last two Super Bowl winning quarterbacks, and Laura, what a sports year for the city of Tampa. The Rays went to the World Series, the Lightning won the Stanley Cup and now Brady and the Bucs getting to play in the Super Bowl at home. They'll never see another year like that ever again.
JARRETT: Something to look forward to. All right, Andy, appreciate it. Thanks so -- SCHOLES: All right --
JARRETT: Much. Well, President Biden said he wants to end the uncivil war. So, in a frank discussion with senators on both sides of the aisle, get the White House any closer to another coronavirus relief package.
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