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Dominion Voting Systems Files $1.3 Billion Lawsuit Against Rudy Giuliani For Defamation; Senate Republican And Democratic Centrists Push Back Against Biden Administration's $1.9 Trillion Economic Stimulus Proposal; Senator Marco Rubio Criticizes Pending Impeachment Trial Of Former President Trump; Growing Number Of GOP Senators Oppose Impeachment Trial; Interview With Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO). Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired January 25, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Mr. Trump's second impeachment trial is scheduled to start in two weeks, but the number of Republican senators now opposing that trial is growing.

We're also learning stunning new details about how Donald Trump tried to use the Department of Justice to overturn his election loss.

And just into CNN, two new arrivals at the White House. This is your pet cast right here. Champ and Major, these are the Biden's German Shepherds. They moved in over the weekend. They were told Champ is fond of his new bed by the fireplace, John, and Major enjoys runs across the south lawn.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Does he likes pina coladas?

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: I know how that ended.

CAMEROTA: They sound perfect for each other.

Let's get back to the real news. CNN's White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond has the latest for us from the White House. Jeremy?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Alisyn, five days after President Joe Biden made appeals for unity in his inaugural speech, he is facing an uphill battle to get his first major piece of bipartisan legislation passed through Congress. That's the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill that Biden and the White House have been pushing for. Already you are seeing resistance from Republicans to the price tag at $1.9 billion coming just weeks after Congress passed that $900 billion coronavirus relief bill in the final week of Donald Trump's presidency.

Senator Collins, Senator Romney, both of them pushing back on this. They were a part of a group of eight Republicans as well as eight Democrats who joined the White House's chief economic advisor Brian Deese on a call yesterday. And while we are told that vaccine distribution was, indeed, something that there was broad support for in terms of additional funding, there was resistance to some of the specific items in here, and these senators asked for more justification for this $1.9 trillion price tag and overall some of the more specific items in there, including some of those stimulus checks.

Now, that hour-long call with Brian Deese, we'll see where that ultimately goes. For now, the White House insists they want to get this done in a bipartisan fashion. But already, there is some pushback from Democrats on Capitol Hill who are saying, look, we just need to get this relief out there, do this through the budget reconciliation process, which would require only Democrats, a majority of Democrats, a majority of the Senate, rather, 50 Democrats plus the vice president, in order to pass this piece of legislation.

Now, today, President Biden is expecting to turn his attention to the military. He is expecting to sign an executive order reversing that ban on transgender servicemembers serving in the military. That is expected to come via executive action today. And the president is also going to be meeting with his newly installed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Austin has already been in the job for a couple days now as secretary of defense, but he will be ceremonially sworn in today by the vice president, and another person or individual at least with a military rank at the White House. That's major, Major Biden, the first dog has arrived at the White House alongside Champ. These are the two first dogs at the White House. They arrived yesterday. And we're are told that they are already settling in quite nicely. John?

BERMAN: Just one point of distinction. They both can't be first dogs, right? One of them has to be alpha dog. You don't have two firsts. There's got to be one that's the alpha dog

DIAMOND: I'm not going to make that ruling, but I'll let you go for it.

BERMAN: We'll let you go do some reporting on that, Jeremy Diamond, at the White House, thank you very much.

All right, breaking news, Dominion Voting Systems has filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani for defamation after he and others spread the false conspiracy theory that the company's machines flipped votes from Trump to President Biden. This is a taste of the type of thing that Giuliani was saying. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: Last night, one of the experts that has examined these crooked Dominion machines has absolutely what he believes is conclusive proof that in the last 10 percent, 15 percent of the vote counted, the votes were deliberately changed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: CNN legal analyst Elie Honig joins us now. Elie, $1.3 billion, how strong does this case look to you?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It looks pretty strong to me, John. In a defamation case like this, if you're the plaintiff, if you're Dominion voting systems here, you have to prove two things. One, that the statements that the defendant, here Rudy Giuliani made, were false. They should have very little problem proving that. These statements Rudy Giuliani made were not just false, they were wild.

The second thing you have to prove is that the defendant Rudy either knew they were false or was reckless, meaning he should have known, easily could have known, but said them anyway. Those are the legal requirements. And given the utter falsity, I think obvious falsity of Rudy Giuliani said, I think Dominion is going to have a real shot to prove its case here.

BERMAN: One thing that's interesting, and the Dominion lawyer points this out, they say Giuliani never made the Dominion claims in a court of law when he would have been under oath. He only made them in public or testifying when he wasn't under oath. Why does that matter here to the point you were just making?

[08:05:09]

HONIG: Yes, it's a good point by the Dominion lawyers, because it goes to Rudy's knowledge if these were false, because if he really believed these, he would have said them in a court of law. The risk of doing that to a lawyer is you can get sanctioned by the court. You can get fined, you can get thrown out of the Bar even. So I think that's a good indicator.

Another interesting detail here, Rudy didn't just say something once. Sometimes in these defamation suits it's one statement that a person said, you can argue, well, maybe they misspoke a little bit or were misunderstood. Rudy made the statements that Dominion complains about here, dozens of times, up 50 times. And it's harder to run away from that.

BERMAN: Dominion writes in its suit, after we asked Giuliani to retract his false claims, he doubled down and said he would love to take discovery on Dominion. We're here to grant his wish and to remind him that discovery is a two-way street. What do you see there?

HONIG: I see a bluff being called there. So discovery means when the parties exchange information here. And so Rudy was puffing up and saying I can't wait to get the information from you, Dominion, because it's going to prove my wild theories about Venezuela. Dominion is saying bring it on because I think they're pretty confident that there is no such information.

On the flipside, they're going to get to see what information, what texts, what e-mails Rudy Giuliani has been involved in saying, which I think could only further strengthen their case.

BERMAN: How do you see this playing out in the end, Elie? Is this something that will go all the way, and you will reach a verdict, or do you think some settlement will happen? HONIG: So the vast majority of these cases do settle because it's

costly and risky for both parties to go to trial. I'm not sure Dominion is going to be in much of a settling move here given they have taken a very strong litigation stance, given the serious damage that's been done to their reputation. I'm not sure Rudy Giuliani is going to be able to settle for the amount of money that I think Dominion is going to require. So this one, I put this in the small category of cases that I think have a real shot to end up in trial.

BERMAN: They have every reason to push this until the very end here. Rudy Giuliani could be in some serious financial trouble this morning. Elie Honig, thanks so much for being with us, appreciate it.

HONIG: Thanks, John.

CAMEROTA: OK, joining us now, we have CNN political commentator and former Republican Charlie Dent, also with us CNN political analyst Rachael Bade. She's the co-author of "Politico's Playbook." Great to have both of you. OK, let's get to this $1.9 trillion COVID relief. There was this conference call, Rachael, as you know yesterday, with these 16 centrists, bipartisan senators who had questions for the administration about where they're getting this number, how they came up with $1.9 trillion, will this be more targeted relief?

They really wanted to crunch the numbers here. Do you think that it is possible that the White House will compromise now hearing some of their concerns? Do you think that they would compromise on, say, losing the $15 minimum wage or things like that?

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, they're certainly reaching out, and Biden has made it pretty clear that he would like and prefer a bipartisan package. I think the big takeaway for me last night was there's been a lot of talk about Republican resistance to this $2 trillion relief package. But we are hearing some Democrats express concern about that price tag.

Angus King, who is independent, caucuses with the Democrats, he's from Maine, basically asked in the call, look, this isn't Monopoly money. We've got to be targeted and specific if we're going to spend another $2 trillion. You heard Susan Collins, also from Maine, speak up on the call about why are people who make more than, say, $300,000 getting these stimulus checks? Perhaps they should be more targeted to low income earners who really need the money.

And so I think the interesting thing out of this is, yes, there is a willingness by a group of 16 moderate Democrats and Republicans to try to come up with some sort of compromise. But on the flipside of that, there has been this idea of trying to pass through the House and through the Senate a party line votes this Biden proposal, and I think what we learned last night is there are actually Democrats who want to make changes as well, and with Schumer's 50-50 Senate he is going to perhaps have his own wrangling to do if they end up going on a party line basis as well. It's not an easy win.

BERMAN: Charlie, I want to ask about another major headline from over the weekend, where we learned as bad as the insurrection was, seizing the Capitol, it doesn't get any worse than that. But new revelations over the weekend about what else the former president was trying to do, including getting rid of the acting attorney general, replacing him with his own guy, and then basically trying to invalidate the entire election, take it to the Supreme Court, get the thing thrown out, sort of an internal Justice Department coup.

[08:10:00]

We also learned that one of the guys, according to "New York Times," that was pushing this whole theory is the guy down the street from you, Pennsylvania Congressman Republican Scott Perry. What does this tell you that this happened, that it got as close as it did, and that it was driven at least in part, from Congress?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, John, no one should be surprised that the president would go to all lengths to try to overturn the election. I am not one bit surprised that they tried to put pressure on the Justice Department, on the acting attorney general to throw out the election. This isn't surprising. You mentioned Scott Perry. He's a hard charging Freedom Caucus member tightly aligned with Jim Jordan. Again, not surprised by his intervention. I'm sure he's unapologetic about what he did.

So nothing here is really surprising. The president has been obsessed with this election since he lost, and he's gone to great lengths. This is just a part of the narrative.

CAMEROTA: Charlie, I want to ask you about the upcoming Senate trial for Donald Trump. It's less than three weeks since that insurrection, and already, you are hearing from some lawmakers whose lives were endangered that day -- lawmakers had to try to find President Trump. They were desperately trying to call him, text him. He was MIA. While this was happening, they were praying that he could call off the mob, call off the insurrection. He did not do that. And already you are hearing from some of these Republicans saying like old news. Let's move on. Here's Marco Rubio yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, so he's not saying odd news there. He is saying, it will increase tensions in the country.

BERMAN: You're going to upset the insurrectionists if you talk too much about the insurrection.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I don't know how much worse the tensions than what we saw on January 6th. And also, I just want to remind people what Senator Rubio said when there was a different marauding mob that killed four Americans. This was in 2012. This was Benghazi. Back then, Senator Rubio and Senator Graham, and we have all sorts of sound from Republican senators who really felt that there had to be accountability and really felt that we had to get some answers. Here is Rubio then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R-FL): This is not about politics. This is about accountability. Someone needs to be held accountable for what's happened here. But it's also about preventing this from happening in the future. This is not about hurting anybody politically. This is about getting to the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So you only need accountability if Americans are killed in Libya. Explain the contradiction there, Charlie.

DENT: Well, I think Senator Rubio said it would be counterproductive to proceed with a trial. I think what's happening is he's thinking about his potential primary with Ivanka Trump in 2022. That's probably what he's thinking about. But my advice to him would be, you need to draw a clean break from the Trumps if you're going to be running against one. And he shouldn't be, or many of these senators shouldn't be doing anything to help the president evade accountability from his actions that everybody agrees were just horrific, that he provoked this insurrection in many respects.

So I'm not sure I understand the political calculation here except that there is going to be political damage to the Republican Party no matter what happens, whether they impeach or they convict him or not. I think the question for these Republicans in Congress is what kind of party do they want to go forward?

Do they want to have a clean break from the president, or do they want to continue to be under the thumb of this guy, a guy whose been disgraced, twice impeached, defeated soundly? How about going forward and let's talk about winning instead of losing?

BERMAN: So Rachael, you cover Congress so closely. I am very curious how you think. I know we know now how the trial in the Senate will officially start, but what happens between now and then, and not just with impeachment, because there is so much that still needs to be resolved, including the power-sharing agreement? How will these next few days go?

BADE: Yes, it's clear that a lot of senators are feeling overwhelmed right now with everything that's going on. Chuck Schumer has wanted this job for years. I can only imagine he is dealing with impeachment, he's trying to negotiate with McConnell who is being a pain in his side. And then they've got these nominations they're trying to get through the Senate. And so it's going to be a rough couple days, couple weeks in the Senate.

I think regarding Republicans on this trial, we've got some reporting in "Playbook" this morning about this pressure that is really mounting, even on Republicans who want Trump gone, they are feeling this pressure from constituents back home. There was a call last week where Senate Republicans were all talking about their phone lines going off the hook with constituents saying that they should acquit Trump.

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BADE: Kevin Cramer, who is Republican from North Dakota, was talking about how he was getting calls from donors, including a donor for his Senate Leadership Fund, which is a PAC that is aligned with Mitch McConnell himself. And there was a lot of, frankly, like concern about this trial.

And you didn't hear Republicans talking about, you know, how they would justify convicting him. Rather, you heard a lot of Republicans trying to find a way out on this call. Could we get rid of this trial? Could we go to the Supreme Court to say, you know, that they can't impeach Trump.

And so it's clear that Republicans right now, even some who are really concerned about Trump being in their party are feeling this pressure. It's a question of though, are they going to go with their gut? Are they going to go with what their constituents are saying? And that's -- you know, it's a big question mark right now.

CAMEROTA: Charlie, it is just so incredible. It's just incredible that they don't feel any need to get the answers and the accountability and justice for what happened there.

I mean, it's dizzying, frankly, and is this because they're afraid -- they're still afraid that Donald Trump, what -- he's going to start the MAGA Party or the Patriot Party, or I guess they're just afraid that his supporters will punish them?

DENT: Well, I think many of the Republican Members of Congress are in a real dilemma. They feel that they can't win their primaries without Trump, but they also realize that most of them are going to have a tough time winning with a Trump style candidate in the fall. So they're in this no man's land.

So again, I come back to the whole issue with it, they have to make a clean break. I mean, it's that simple. I mean, there will be some short term damage that Donald Trump, he is going to do whatever he does. Loyalty is a one-way street with that man, and many of them are on the wrong -- they are going the wrong way.

Trump doesn't care about the Republican Party. He's trying to monetize his defeat. And if he feels it's in his interest to start his own MAGA Party, he'll do that. If he thinks that it's better for his business interests to stay with the Republican Party, he will stay there.

But if I were Republican, I'd do what's right. They have to hold the President to account for what happened. He trampled on Congress. You know, he helped lead -- he provoked an insurrection that, you know, is a frontal assault on the institution itself.

So I think that, you know, it's in their interest long term to have this fight. The reckoning is here and it's time that they engage and not shy away from it. There'll be damage either way.

CAMEROTA: Charlie Dent and Rachel Bade, thank you both very much. Great to talk to you.

So in just hours, House Impeachment Managers will formally deliver the Article of Impeachment against former President Trump to the U.S. Senate. One of the impeachment managers joins us next.

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[08:21:15]

BERMAN: Just hours from now, House Impeachment Managers will carry the Article of Impeachment against the former President from the House of Representatives to the Senate and read it out loud on the floor. The trial itself will begin in two weeks.

Joining us now is one of the Impeachment Managers, Democratic Congresswoman Diana DeGette. Congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us. It's great to see you again.

When you were last on, you had just been appointed. It was the very beginning stages of even discussing how you would all present your case. Now, you are further along. I want to know how the process is going and how you intend to present your case.

REP. DIANA DEGETTE (D-CO): Well, we're the nine Impeachment Managers, we are all lawyers and we are all working very well together sort of as a legal team. We're getting ready. And we felt like we were ready last week.

But every day more evidence comes out like the evidence this weekend. And so we're just continuing to prepare our case. We're ready to go to trial next week or a week after next, on the eighth of February.

BERMAN: So the evidence that came out this weekend, you're referring to the stories in "The New York Times" and other places, that there was a discussion about removing the acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, replacing him with someone who wanted to overturn the results of the election. Why does that matter to your case?

DEGETTE: Oh, well, there's that evidence. There's the evidence that the Trump Campaign apparently organized the rally at the White House. Numerous more statements are coming out by people who were writing at the Capitol who said that they came because Trump told them to do it.

So all I'm saying is the case gets stronger and stronger every day. And of course, since we're preparing for trial, we are not going to say specifically which pieces of evidence we're going to use in the trial.

But the evidence remains clear that Donald Trump invited these insurrectionists to come to Washington, to overturn the certification of the election results. They went over to the White House to a big rally that was organized by the Trump campaign. The President told him to come over to the Capitol and stop the counting, and they did. They tried to.

They came over. They broke in. They terrorized everybody in there and they tried to stop the counting. And of course now, many of them are saying that they did it at the direction of the President.

It's a pretty strong case. How all of this evidence comes in, we will just have to see how it fits in as we get closer to the day.

BERMAN: I guess what I'm asking is, typically, look, we all saw it happen. We saw the insurrection play out on TV. We've now heard directly from some of the people charged with being part of it. And we heard the President himself speak out loud.

I guess my specific question to the specific reporting involving Jeffrey Rosen and others is, what does that what does that matter? I'm not saying it doesn't, but I'm curious into where it fits in the case overall.

DEGETTE: Well, overall, Donald Trump, for months has been obsessed with the fact that he was worried about the election. I mean, even in the last impeachment trial, of course, he was trying to persuade Ukraine to bring out dirt on Joe Biden. So this has been all along his intent.

And then when the election happened, of course, he spent all this time trying to strong arm different states like Georgia into not counting the results and then this revelation about the Department of Justice, trying to politicize them to go to the Supreme Court to stop the counting.

It's just all part of the President's mental state about how he didn't really care what the legal election was. He just wanted to stay President.

[08:25:09]

BERMAN: Okay. So getting to the mental state. That's interesting. What decision have you made on whether there will be witnesses?

DEGETTE: I don't believe a decision has been made yet. Part of that will be up to the Senate rules and we haven't heard yet.

BERMAN: One of the arguments being made against conviction, Marco Rubio basically said -- I don't want to play the sound again, we've heard plenty from Senator Rubio this morning.

But he said something to the effect that we already have a flaming fire in this country. This would just pour gasoline on the fire. To me that sounds like, you know, be careful upsetting the insurrectionists. What about that argument?

DEGETTE: It is like don't rile up these terrorists anymore, that they might come back. That's just ridiculous, I think because I think the only way we can come to closure is if we have the trial, if we find that Donald J. Trump did commit a high crime or misdemeanor and inciting this insurrection, and then if the Senate finds that he can't hold Federal office again, that will bring closure, that will help us come to healing.

You know, I used to be a public defender and it would be like, if you had a case where somebody robbed a bank, but you got the money back, so you said oh, well, you know, we got the money back. So what's the harm? Let's just let him go. That doesn't -- it doesn't work that way.

BERMAN: How concerned are you about your own security over the next several weeks? We've learned that there will be thousands of National Guard troops who will remain in D.C. through the impeachment trial and other events. So what concerns do you have?

DEGETTE: Well, I think that all of us will have whatever security that we need. I think a lot of the lapses that happened on the sixth of January are being investigated right now. It was a lapse in security. But I think people are now taking this seriously.

BERMAN: What's your message to the people and there are plenty out there stating it as some kind of constitutional fact that you can't hold a trial for a former President.

DEGETTE: Well, the precedent says you can try somebody who has left office. The precedent is clear. But also the reason is, you can't just say okay, if you're President, you can just do anything you want the last few weeks of your presidency with no consequence, because then you couldn't be tried. That's not a good result.

And of course, the most -- the most telling example that you could see is what just happened, where you have a President who incites a crowd to go and try to stop the certification of a legitimate election. You can't just say, oh, well, now you left office so no harm no foul. That's not the way it works.

BERMAN: Congresswoman Diana DeGette, thank you for coming back on NEW DAY. We look forward to speaking with you as this trial progresses.

DEGETTE: Lovely being with you. Thanks.

BERMAN: So childhood sweethearts who were married for 17 years died of coronavirus while holding hands in the hospital. Their family joins us next.

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