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Historic 2nd Impeachment Case Against Trump Now in Senate's Hands; 1 Dead After Powerful Tornado Rips Through Birmingham Area; Biden Raises Vaccination Goal to 1.5 Million a Day; COVID-19 Variants Identified in U.S. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired January 26, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald John Trump engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors by inciting violence against the government.

[05:59:54]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's trying to assemble a legal team. It hasn't been an easy process.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY) (voice-over): The entire American people, we all saw what Trump did.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Biden said he views this impeachment trial as something that, quote, "has to happen."

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we may be able to get that to 1.5 million a day rather than 1 million a day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am very worried that people are not taking these variants as seriously as we should be.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES (voice-over): The good news is vaccines, as they exist now, still would be effective against the mutants.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, January 26, 6 a.m. here in New York.

And an historic moment at the U.S. Capitol. House managers delivering the sole article of impeachment against former President Trump to the Senate.

They made this somber walk through the scene of the crime, where a pro-Trump mob tried to stop lawmakers from counting the electoral votes less than three weeks ago. This morning, senators will be sworn in as jurors. This is only the

fourth impeachment trial of a U.S. president.

Sources tell CNN former President Trump is scrambling to assemble a legal team. This morning, we will break down for you what we know about possible witnesses, who will preside over the trial and whether they can get 17 Republicans to vote to convict.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Overnight, a remarkable hallway interview inside the White House. Our new chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, got the president to spill on impeachment in a way he never has before.

The president told her he thinks the trial has to happen but also said he did not think there were enough votes to convict. We're going to talk much more about this scoop from Kaitlan and what it means.

Breaking overnight, at least one person is dead after a large tornado ripped through Birmingham, Alabama, the area surrounding that city. It tore off roofs, caused significant damage there. We have late-breaking details coming up on that.

We begin, though, with Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill.

And Lauren, it really is remarkable, seeing these charges delivered at the scene of the alleged crime. And this morning, we know a lot more about what this historic impeachment trial will look like.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, John. They walked through the same corridor, the same hallway that you saw that mob move through just about three weeks ago.

And a historic moment really. This is only the fourth impeachment trial of a president in the U.S.'s history. It is the very first trial of an ex-president.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOX (voice-over): A historic march through the halls of the U.S. Capitol. Nearly three weeks after a deadly insurrection took place within its walls.

Nine House impeachment managers delivering a single article of impeachment to the Senate Monday night, formally beginning the second impeachment trial against former President Donald Trump.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Donald John Trump, president of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.

FOX: Ten House Republicans joined House Democrats last week to charge Trump with incitement of insurrection, saying he encouraged a violent mob to storm the U.S. Capitol January 6 in an effort to overturn the election results.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

FOX: The House also pointing to Trump's phone call with Georgia's secretary of state earlier this month, asking him to find votes to reverse Trump's loss.

RASKIN: In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government.

FOX: Senators will be sworn in as jurors later today, and a trial will begin the week of February 8, the timeline allowing Trump's team to prepare and space to confirm President Joe Biden's cabinet nominees.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY NOMINEE: It's not going to be easy to manage all these things at once, but it's absolutely imperative.

FOX: Biden telling CNN he's doubtful there are enough Republicans willing to convict Trump, but he also believes the impeachment trial has to happen, despite the effect it could have on advancing his agenda.

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): I believe we will put forward a very strong case, that of course, is already in the public view of what took place here.

FOX: Even with the bipartisan passing of the article in the House, many Republicans oppose the trial against Trump.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): It seems very, very much counterproductive if you're the -- President Biden, to say, We're going to take the precious first days of a new administration, and we're going to squander it on this impeachment trial.

FOX: The trial moving forward as the Justice Department's internal watchdog launched an investigation looking into whether any DOJ officials participated in attempts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election. The probe after news reports indicated Trump may have attempted to use the DOJ to challenge the election results in a plan that sources say included ousting acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen.

[06:05:12]

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Anyone that is trying to approach this with with, you know, any kind of open-mindedness, it seems like the evidence keeps mounting.

And we expect that, instead of the chief justice, John Roberts, presiding over this Senate trial, we will see the president pro tem, Patrick Leahy, presiding over the trial, in part because the reading of the Constitution by Democrats is that you do not need the chief justice to preside over an impeachment trial of a former president.

Again, this is the very first time in history, though, we're seeing this unfold -- Alisyn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Lauren, thank you very much for setting all that up for us.

Joining us now, we have CNN White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond and CNN political analyst Margaret Talev. She's the managing editor at Axios.

So Margaret, obviously, history in the making. Let's see -- let's try to answer some of the outstanding questions.

First, who will be the witnesses? Do we know who will be called at this trial? Because virtually every lawmaker hid from this marauding mob and, in a criminal trial, would be the victims or the witnesses, but who are they planning to call?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, Alisyn, it's a really intriguing question. The -- both sides kind of plays, their plans of strategic pursuit for the next few days, are still being shaped.

The president is still putting together his legal team. We expect to hear more on that imminently.

And for both sides, this is a real question. Do you call -- who do you call?

Here's how it seems to be taking shape early on, again with the caveat that this could change. On the Republican side, there is a sense of precisely what President Biden tipped his hand to, which is that those 17 votes really aren't there.

If that's the case, why do you want the drama of a longer trial? Why do you want to bring witnesses who could blow all that up, including former President Trump?

And so there was early on some consideration: Are we going to see him in these proceedings? At this point, it does not look like it.

On the Democratic side, we're hearing from the reporting quite a bit about the idea of video being introduced. The idea that what's different now than impeachment No. 1 of President Trump was that so much to do with Ukraine and, you know, Russia and the whole investigation happened behind the scenes, but that in this case, the main event happened both partly in public view and, certainly, in the view of all of the House and Senate members.

And so there is a different calculation on should anyone be called? If so, who should be called? And would video be a clearer representation than witness testimony?

BERMAN: Yes, "The Washington Post" has some great reporting this morning that they are piecing together the president's own words with words from the insurrectionists at the Capitol. We might expect to see some serious video presentation there.

The idea of if human witnesses will be called not resolved yet, as far as we know. Jeremy Diamond, your coverage straddles the former White House and the current White House.

What do we know about the former president's defense? As of now, there's just one lawyer that's signed on.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Butch Bowers, an attorney in South Carolina, who was connected with the president by the president's perhaps only remaining most loyal ally in the Senate, Senator Lindsey Graham, who connected the president with this attorney.

But the president isn't drawing the same kind of high-profile attorneys who he had during his first impeachment trial. And that is what is most notable about the legal team that he is beginning to craft. He's having to look and search and try and find attorneys who are willing to take the heat of representing president -- former President Trump in -- in this trial.

His attorneys Jay Sekulow, Jamie Raskin, you know, those folks -- Jane Raskin, forgive me. They are not signing up to join the president in this effort. And some of the other folks, like Rudy Giuliani, are not able to represent the president, because they spoke at that rally alongside the president before that mob stormed Capitol Hill.

But I think what's interesting about this trial is, unlike the first one, we are not going to have any surprises. There are not going to be any bombshells, I expect, at this point.

You know, when you think about that first impeachment trial, you had witnesses, Trump administration officials, coming forward and providing new insights and new details into the president's actions and his pressure campaign against the Ukrainian president. We are not expecting to see that this time, again because so much of this has played out in public view and also because Democrats perhaps don't necessarily want to draw this trial out, given that the outcome seems fairly certain at this point.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I'd say the insurrection itself was the bombshell that we all -- that we alle witnessed. But we do know a little bit about the timeline. So let's pull up the calendar for everyone.

Today, the senators are sworn in, who will be the jurors. On February 2, former President Trump's response is due. Then on the 8th and 9th of February, the House rebuttal is due, and there's a Trump pretrial brief due. And then do we know when it starts in earnest, Margaret? And how long they think this can last?

TALEV: We're hearing everything from a few days to a few weeks. And it's likely that it will be on the shorter end. But I just think we don't know that yet.

And for the most part, Democrats, including President Biden, understand that the longer of a delay there is in the start, and the longer of the duration, probably the lower their chances get at a conviction.

But here's the thing. We just don't know what's going to be determined between now and the start of this trial, much less now and the end of this trial. And I think some of these inquiries, investigations, the gathering of evidence behind the scenes does always have the potential to -- to change what we see in front of us.

And so, while it seems likely that this is a trial that Democrats have to go through, because if they didn't, it would send an even worse message, as President Biden says. While it's likely that's the scenario, I think until you start, you don't know quite how long it lasts or what's uncovered in the process.

BERMAN: And Jeremy, one thing you were talking about there. There's a big difference between the last impeachment and this one. All the witnesses you were talking about and the so-called bombshells happened during the House impeachment process.

DIAMOND: Right, right.

BERMAN: Those people came and testified before the House. You remember, there were no witnesses before the Senate. And that was a big deal. And there are some Democrats who would like to have witnesses, just because they want to say, look, we thought witnesses were important last time. You didn't give them to us. We think we should have witnesses now.

And to Margaret's point, look, there's a whole independent investigation going on in the Justice Department, inspector general investigation going on into whether the Justice Department inappropriately aided the former president's efforts to overturn the election.

So there is some nuance that is coming to light as time goes on that gets to the president's state of mind, not the words he spoke out loud. We know the words he spoke out loud. But what he said behind the scenes and what possible coordination there might have been in the government, with the Republican Party, and with some of the people who did storm the Capitol. And there's a serious risk there if more connections are made, I would imagine.

DIAMOND: Yes. And there certainly is the potential to explore further, right? There is the potential to dive deeper in this if Democrats decide that they want to do that. And certainly, now that they are in the majority in the Senate, unlike they were during the first impeachment of Donald Trump, you know, they can craft the rules. They can have much more influence.

And Patrick Leahy, who is the Senate president pro tem presiding over this, he actually has the authority to make rulings on how the trial goes forward. So the Democrats do have a lot more power this time.

They did tailor this impeachment fairly narrowly, with this single article of impeachment focused on incitement of an insurrection. You know, they mentioned the fact that the president had this call with the Georgia secretary of state, but they didn't level a separate additional charge against the president.

You know, people have talked about the president potentially having criminal liability. They could have charged him in a separate way for that, but they decided not to.

So certainly again, they could delve deeper in this and bring up witnesses, but I don't know if that's what they want to at this point. Maybe they will do it just to show that they are conducting the trial differently than the first time. But we'll just have to wait and see.

BERMAN: Jeremy Diamond, Margaret Talev, thank you both very much.

We do have breaking news. CNN has just confirmed at least one person is dead after this powerful tornado ripped through parts of Alabama overnight.

We're getting our first look at some of the pictures now. The storm caused significant damage in the Birmingham area. We can see all these images of buildings collapsed. We do understand there are people trapped in their homes. Search-and-rescue efforts are under way at this hour.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is with us now with some of these details. Chad, give us a sense of what happened here.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: John, it was the only tornado yesterday in the eastern part of the country.

Now, there was wind damage and there was hail damage, but the air was warm. The storms felt like and the air felt like spring. And it was a spring-type storm.

So we had this cold front that moved on through and into that warm air. Muggy air. It felt like March here today and yesterday. Still does out there right now. Lightning around Atlanta.

But there's the storm at 10:45 last night, local time, moving just to the north of Birmingham. There is no question that this was a tornado. A lot of times we say, Well, we'll have to see if the weather service goes out and what they find.

Weather service said there's no doubt what this is. It will take a couple days to figure out how big, how long, how wide, but this was a tornado, no question.

[06:15:04]

Twitter is lighting up. How can there be tornadoes in January? Well, there are tornadoes every single month. In fact, 36 tornadoes on average in January, and most of them are in the Deep South. Because that's Tornado Alley -- we call it Dixie Alley in the wintertime -- because that's where the Jet Stream is.

This is what the storm looks like right now. It's going to move to the east. We are going to see some severe weather around Tallahassee, no question about that later on today. And in fact, it's going to continue all the way towards Savannah.

It's all part of the same system that made snow in the Midwest. And it's making snow right now -- John. BERMAN: All right, Chad. We're getting these new pictures in. We know

you're going to keep us posted throughout the morning. Thanks very much.

MYERS: Yes.

BERMAN: Also this morning, concerns about coronavirus variants. These mutations, including a new one discovered for the first time in the United States. We will tell you what you need to know about this new variant, next.

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BIDEN: I think we may be able to get that to 150 -- 1.5 million a day rather than 1 million a day.

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BERMAN: That's President Biden, increasing his daily goal for coronavirus vaccines that he hopes the U.S. will administer during his first 100 days.

Just do the math there. He has said 100 million doses administered in the first 100 days. If we're doing 1.5 a day, that means he now thinks we can get to 150 million doses administered in the first 100 days.

[06:20:09]

CNN's Kristen Holmes live in Washington. That's a big shift, Kristen.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. And it's really unclear where that number came from.

There are still a lot of questions about where the vaccine supply actually stands. And White House officials seemed to walk that back after the president spoke, telling CNN that the goal was still 100 million shots in the first 100 days. A goal they called ambitious but achievable.

Now, this back and forth comes as the Biden administration was facing a little bit of heat. Experts saying that the rollout was already on track to hit that 1 million shots a day before they even came into office. So this would have happened, no matter what during this time period.

So, a lot of questions back and forth here, but I will note yesterday we did hear from the heads of Pfizer and Moderna in a panel same day that President Biden said this, saying that scaling up manufacturing would take time and urging patience -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Kristen Holmes, thank you so much.

Joining us now is Dr. Carlos del Rio. He's the executive associate dean at the Emory University School of Medicine at the Grady Health System. We'll talk about the vaccine in a second, Dr. Del Rio, because the math is what it is. I mean, we're administering 1.2 million doses a day. You just do the math there, and we will get to more than 100 million doses in the first 100 days.

But the discussion this morning among infectious disease doctors seems to be about the challenges posed by the variants. We have the South African variant, which Dr. Fauci has said may be more resistant to the vaccines. We have the U.K. variant, which is spreading like wildfire there and Boris Johnson says may be more deadly. And now we also have the possibility of a California variant, as well. And the very first time that the Brazilian variant has been discovered in the U.S., Dr. Del Rio.

So please explain to us what challenges these pose and what concerns you have over them.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, GRADY HEALTH SYSTEM: Well, John, good morning.

What happens is that viruses, and particularly the RNA viruses, when they're reproducing, when they're multiplying, they mutate and they produce so-called variants. And some of them may be more efficient than others to their transmission or resistance to vaccine or being more deadly.

So what we need to do is we need to slow transmission. We have, you know, uncontrolled transmission not only in the U.S. but pretty much in many parts of the world. And what we need to do is slow transmission, because if we slow transmission and the virus is not multiplying, it's not reproducing, the variants will stop.

So we've got to really hunker down on prevention, you know, wearing a mask, watching your distance, avoiding going to crowded places. You know, being really careful, and getting your vaccine as soon as we can get it. Because as much as we can slow down transmission, we will defeat the variants. If we have ongoing transmission, the variants will continue.

CAMEROTA: OK. Speaking of the vaccine, let's pull up how many Americans, as of this morning, have been vaccinated. It's 22.7 million doses have been administered, 41 million had been distributed. Obviously, this is half of where the Trump administration had projected that we would be by now.

It sounds like, obviously, Joe Biden's goal is to accelerate it, but then when we talk to some people in, you know, local offices, field offices like the New York City health commissioner, they say that they're not getting enough supply and that they -- he feared he was going to be running out again by the end of this week.

So do you think that it's realistic what President Biden is saying?

DEL RIO: I think we're already doing as was presented, 1.25 -- an average of 1.25 million a day. I think we can easily get to 1.5 million a day. We may want to get to even higher, to 2 million a day. I would put a higher goal. The key is going to have three things. We need to have a steady

vaccine supply. Yesterday, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said, I don't know how much vaccine we have.

We have to know the vaccine supply. We have to know how much we can get to states regularly because, again, knowing what your supply is allows you to plan.

And then we've got to get resources to the states, because vaccinating this amount of people requires major logistics. If we do those things, I think we can do it.

BERMAN: And then there is whether the vaccines meet the challenge of the new variants, Dr. Del Rio. And this is something that you've been working on the Moderna vaccine. And we do understand the Moderna is now looking into whether or not a booster will increase immunity to the South African variant, to the various variants.

Talk to us about this. Explain what that means, why that might be important and how long it would take.

DEL RIO: Well, again, it shouldn't take that long, because this vaccine, you know, we simply need to do a modification in the mRNA inside the vaccine, and you will get now a different antibody production and a slightly different antibody production.

Up to now, both Pfizer and Moderna vaccine appear to be effective against the variants that we have discovered thus far, but obviously, the Moderna people announced that they're starting to work. And Pfizer, I suppose, is also doing the same in modifying the mRNA, trying to catch up with these variants that we're seeing to be sure that we, you know, stay ahead of the game.

[06:25:03]

And I think that's the key right now. If we continue doing genomic sequencing and surveillance; and we know what variants are out there, we can keep up with them with the vaccines.

This is a little bit like we do with the flu. The flu vaccine is changed every year a little bit, depending on the strains that are circulating in the community.

BERMAN: Dr. Del Rio, we appreciate your time. Thanks for explaining all this for us.

DEL RIO: Delighted to be with you.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking overnight, a major development in the U.S. Senate. We'll tell you what it is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Developing overnight, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell dropping his demand for the filibuster to survive, thereby ending a showdown that was stalling President Biden's agenda. Last night the Senate voted to confirm Janet Yellen as America's first

female treasury secretary. Yellen will be sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris this morning.

Back with us to talk about all of this, we have Jeremy Diamond and Margaret Talev.

Margaret, so the filibuster lives at this moment, and Senator Mitch McConnell.