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Biden to CNN, Doubts 17 GOP Senators will Vote to Convict Trump; Historic 2nd Impeachment Case Against Trump Now in Senate's Hands; U.S. Detects First Case of Brazil Variant of Coronavirus. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 26, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: The senators will be sworn in for their role in the trial this afternoon.

Overnight, a remarkable hallway interview with President Biden. Our new Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins got the president to talk more about impeachment than he ever has before. He said he thinks the country needs the trial to happen, but he does not think there are the votes to convict.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: Also, new this morning, President Biden set to roll out his plan for racial equity through a series of executive orders targeting reforms in public housing, prisons and police.

Also, breaking overnight, extensive damage from a powerful tornado, this one near Birmingham, Alabama, at least one person was killed, dozens are hurt. We have new video of what it looks like as the sun comes up there.

BERMAN: Joining me now is the new White House deputy press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. Karine, thanks so much for being with us. Nice to see you again. Congratulations on your new role.

If I can, I just want to quickly ask about this remarkable moment in the hallways of the White House yesterday, where Kaitlan Collins caught up with the president. And President Biden told her that he thinks the president needs the impeachment trial of the former president to happen but he does not think there are the votes to convict. Can you explain then what America gets out of it?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: Look, I think that President Biden and his administration has been very, very clear about this when it comes to now the Senate trial is that senators, they have to be able to do their constitutional duty, uphold the Constitution, but also be able to do the American -- the job for the American people and give them that relief.

And so here is the thing, John, there is a precedent for this, right? We saw this happen about a year ago where there were Senate hearings and they were able to do the Senate trial at the same time. And here is the thing, a year ago, now a year later, and now the economic crisis and also COVID-19 is much more worse than it was before. So, we have to move forward and make sure we push forward the president's economic relief plan, the American rescue plan because the American people cannot wait. And so that's how we see the situation.

Look, January 6th was indeed a horrific event. But the thing about it though, John is that it didn't divide the party even more. It actually put out there that in a really bold way that we need to continue to fight for our democracy. And this is what needs to happen. And if you look at the plan that the president put forth, the American rescue plan, it has bipartisan support across the country from Americans. And so now it needs bipartisan support from Congress. And that's how we see this moving forward.

BERMAN: I get it. Again, my specific question though was what the country -- why it needs to happen, not just constitutionally, but why he thinks America needs to see a trial.

JEAN-PIERRE: Because, I mean, really, it's their duty. It's the senators to uphold their constitutional duty. They did it before, right? And it's for both Republicans and Democrats to do that. But, but, but, John, we have to make sure that the job -- they're doing their job for the American people.

BERMAN: I understand that.

JEAN-PIERRE: Honestly, that is the key, critical part of this because we cannot -- they got to be able to do both.

BERMAN: And you now have two weeks until the trial begins. You are getting some of your cabinet nominees confirmed. Janet Yellen sworn in today, Tony Blinken could be confirmed today.

I do want to ask you one more thing about what the president said this time about vaccines. He now says he thinks that America can vaccinate 1.5 million people a day, which would mean in the first 100 days, 150 million people could get their first dose of the vaccine.

You know there's been a question about whether or not the 100 million in 100 days was an aggressive enough goal. So was this a response to that? Or what changed so that the president now thinks we can do more?

JEAN-PIERRE: Well, here is the thing, John. It's really -- look, when we first announced, you know, 100 million vaccine in 100 days, it was called -- it was said to be too ambitious. But, really, at the bottom line is this. That was the 100 million vaccine for 100 days is the first goal, right, that it is a metric that we wanted to make sure that the American people had so that we were transparent. And so that's what we put forth. And we're probably going to exceed that goal, as the president mentioned. And that's good. And that's important to the American people.

The bottom line is this, John, when the previous administration did not have a strategy when it came to vaccination, the president of the United States, Biden, Joe Biden, what he did is he talked to the experts and he put forth a science-based plan, 200 plan that he pushed forward last week. And now what we're going to do is it's going to increase the supply of vaccine, increase the distribution of vaccine and actually also make sure that we give economic relief.

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That is the plan and that's what we're moving forward, not leaving any of the states behind, working with the states and making sure we do what was supposed to be done, which is make this a national crisis and a national priority.

BERMAN: Executive orders on the issue of equity today. Alisyn mentioned some of them specifically. Generally speaking, what's the goal with this?

JEAN-PIERRE: So, let me just step back for a second. The thing that Joe Biden did, President Joe Biden did on day one is keep his promises. And he said he would lead on day one and he did that. And a lot of this is because we have this -- these converging crises happening all at once. And so he did that by making sure he changed the course of the COVID-19, took action on racial equity on day one as well, climate change, trying to fix a modernize -- a broken immigration system.

And so this is what the president has done taken action, make sure that he's being decisive and bold. And so today, as you just mentioned, he's going to give a speech on racial equity. He's going to lay out what that agenda is going to be. It's just going to be the beginning. It's going to be the beginning of so much work that we're going to do for one of those crises that he mentioned over and over again as well as COVID, the economy and climate change.

BERMAN: Can I ask you sort of a thematic question, and the president was asked this yesterday, but I want your take on it. What is unity?

JEAN-PIERRE: So I think the way that the president sees unity is basically bipartisanship, people coming together and working for the American people. That's the simplest way that I can say it. And we see this as we talk about the American rescue plan, the importance of that being bipartisan, the importance of everybody from both sides of the aisle coming together and helping to give relief to the American people, because at the end of the day, the American people cannot wait.

All of this has gotten worse. And so, we need to act today. We need to act as quickly as possible. And as president Biden has said, we have to do this in a bipartisan way. Because it's not about Republicans, it's not about Democrats, it's about the American people.

And just like he said after he won election, he is going to be the American president, not just for Democrats, for people who elected him, but also for people who did not. And I think that's the importance here about unifying the country, about having unity and bringing everyone together.

BERMAN: The reason I was asking is because some of the reaction has been notable, shall we say, to some of the things that the president has done or even the way he's talk about unity.

So, the president reversed the ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military. U.S. Senator John Cornyn from Texas, his response to the inclusion of transgender people in the military was to tweet, another unifying move by the new administration, question mark? So what's your response to that?

JEAN-PIERRE: Look, when you ban people, patriots, who want to -- who are smart, who are able, who are talented from joining the military, that only undermines our national security. That is not the way to go. And so, what President Biden is doing is that he is lifting a ban that is essentially hurting us and should not be. And so -- and he's going to work with the Department of Defense. You saw Lloyd Austin there yesterday with him. And there's going to be -- they're going to work with civilians and also the military.

This is going to be a joint effort. This is not going to be just the president saying it needs to happen. Everybody is going to come together and make sure that happens. Because at the end of the day, it's about our national security and we have to be able to include everyone who is able -- who is able to serve and have that opportunity to do so.

BERMAN: Let me ask one more question about unity, and this gets a little bit more of what I'm going after here. The Oregon Republican Party, the Oregon Republican Party, passed a resolution yesterday which suggested that the invasion of the U.S. Capitol, the insurrection, was a false flag. They passed a resolution that said there's growing evidence that the violation at the Capitol was a false flag operation designed to discredit the former president, his supporters and all conservative Republicans.

And, again, President Biden has talked about unity but how do you forge unity with people who are calling the invasion of the U.S. Capitol a false flag?

JEAN-PIERRE: Look, it's going to take time, John. This is not going to happen tomorrow. It's not going to happen even two weeks from now. This is something that's going to take some time to get to that place where we can bring together unity, where the president could actually do that.

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And we understand, we're not going to be Pollyannaish about it but we have to get there. You know, this country -- it's time to bring this country together.

And I believe and he believes that's what the American public voted for. That's what they wanted to see. They were tired of the divisiveness and it was time to really bring the American people together because there's so much work to do, there's so much to get done.

And we're living in a space right now, in a world right now where there are multiple crises happening all at once. And it's compounded. And so, we have to be able to come together, give relief to the American public, get to work today.

And so it's going to take time, to your question on unity, and we understand that.

BERMAN: Karine Jean-Pierre, thank you for coming on New Day. We look forward to talking to you agin really soon.

JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Great to see you.

Joining us now to discuss everything this morning, CNN Political Analysts Alex Burns, he's a National Political Correspondent for The New York Times, and Seung Min Kim, she's a White House Reporter for The Washington Post. Guys, great to see you.

Let's start with the fact that this article of impeachment was delivered to the Senate last night and now what, Alex? And I know that you say the task for Democratic impeachment managers is to make this so politically uncomfortable for Republicans that the swing Republicans change their vote to convict. And I'm just wondering how they will do that.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Alisyn, we know there's a relatively small number of Republicans who have indicated one way or another that they're very open to voting to convict former President Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors but not nearly the 17 votes that you would need to actually convict him at trial.

And so, how do you get the rest of the folks along? You do actually have to make a really compelling case and a case that's so compelling that it would change the sort of atmospherics in the country at large around this impeachment trial.

Right now, left to their own devices, talk to any Republican close to the Senate or serving in the Senate, talk to any of them and they will tell you that just inertia on its own is going to take Republicans back to a place of saying, let's just move on and let Trump off the hook.

And so, the burden really is on House Democrats and Senate Democrats to put Republicans in a position where that feels politically untenable, where the evidence presented and laid out before the eyes of the national electorate and in those states where Republicans are defending Senate seats next year becomes overpowering.

I do think, Alisyn, you had a pretty good sense from President Biden and from that interview that we just heard that there is still a lot of sort of ambivalence and uncertainty at the highest levels of the Democrat Party about whether that's something that's even possible to accomplish.

BERMAN: Yes. The astute political analyst, President Joseph Robinette Biden, said he does not think there's enough votes in the Senate to convict. He knows a little something about the Senate. Seung Min, you come with something that I long. You come bearing gifts, you come bearing news. You have new reporting this morning about how the managers are talking about presenting their case. It's like an AV cornucopia. Explain.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So it really gets to the point of what Alex was just talking about, because it's such a compelling case to Democrats but particularly Republicans that they just cannot do anything but to convict President Trump of inciting an insurrection. So what the impeachment managers are doing now is looking at lots and lots of video, hours of footage from that January 6th day and kind of looking at how those protesters, those -- the people who participated in the insurrection were inspired by the president's words.

And we know that even they are putting together video clips and actually sending it out potentially to an outside contract firm to make the video all pretty and very digestible, to make the case of how the president basically egged the people on at the Capitol, the rioters to do this.

Now, I feel like, you know, Republican senators who are genuinely on the fence are going to want to see more. And I think -- and that goes to the question of witnesses, which we reported this morning that the House impeachment managers are deliberating that question. They don't yet know, first of all, whether witnesses will be admitted and, second of all, who they would be, who they would call.

But one thing that would be compelling and Democrats are aware of this, are witnesses who can speak to what the president was doing in those hours, in those terrifying hours when the Capitol was under siege. You know, White House officials, close advisers to the president, you know, would they be willing to testify? Would Democrats green light a subpoena? These are all questions that the impeachment managers are deliberating right now.

You know, everybody -- President Biden on down are correct that it is difficult right now to find the 17 Republican senators willing to vote to convict, but there is time.

[07:15:06]

And (INAUDIBLE) in the next couple of weeks.

CAMEROTA: One person who has been named as -- not named, floated as a possible witness is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who endured, and he was one of the lawmakers who was hiding and endured the mob and his evolution, I guess, on how he sees what happened is just, you know, a kind of one-man pendulum swing. So here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack.

I don't believe he provoked if you listen to what he said at the rally.

I also think everybody across this country has some responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I'm sorry, what? Alex?

BERMAN: you and you and you.

CAMEROTA: Wow. Where do you start?

BURNS: I think, Alisyn, the real responsibility is the friends he made along the way. Look, I think in the event that somebody like Kevin McCarthy were called and compelled to testify, what he can actually bring to the table and what other folks like him can bring to the table, as Seung Min was alluding, is actual sort of factual information about what was happening that day in real-time, right, not their own sort of from a step back in broad rhetorical terms, political assessment of whether the president is or is not to blame.

It would put McCarthy in an awfully tough spot, right, because he for his own purposes within the House GOP conference cannot be seen as turning on former President Trump. We saw that just now in those clips you played he went from acknowledging the president's responsibility in the events of January 6th to essentially trying to spread it so widely and broadly that, really, there's nothing for any of us to do in terms of apportioning blame. So that would be a tough spot for Democrats to put him in.

It would be a big steps for Democrats to take, right? And I do think one of the really large questions hanging over all this is just how determined are Democratic leaders in the House and Senate and the White House to really drive at getting a conviction as opposed to just laying out the evidence in a way that will briefly embarrass Republicans beyond the way they already have been embarrassed by what happened on January 6th and then move on to confirming the Biden sub cabinet.

BERMAN: Alex Burns, Seung Min Kim, thanks so much for joining us this morning, sharing your reporting.

We have breaking news, at least one person is dead this morning, nearly 30 others injured after a powerful tornado tore through the Birmingham, Alabama, area. We're getting our first look at some of the pictures now. You can see buildings there severely damaged. And we do understand at this point there are still some people trapped in their homes.

This is what's left of a hotel that the tornado hit, and we're getting much more on this as well.

CNN's Meteorologist Chad Myers has much more. Chad, what have you learned?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEORLOGIST: There's no doubt that this is, by definition, a tornado, without a question. Even with the service saying, we're going to go out, we're going to take a look, our staffing is a little bit low, because of COVID, we may not be able to get out there today or tomorrow but we will know. All they're going to know is was it in EF3 or EF4. This was absolutely a tornado, came through after dark somewhere between 10:45 and 10:50 last night Central Time, a massive storm just to the north of Birmingham.

Some of the pictures you were showing here I have too. Hard to see whether this was an EF2 or 3 on some of this video, but I've seen other pictures where houses are destroyed. People are saying, well, it's January. How can this be? We have tornadoes every single month of the year. And across the south, many of those tornadoes, not all, not half, but many are after dark. Those are the most dangerous tornadoes that can be.

Now, today, the shift is a little different. Down toward Tallahassee, down toward Panama City, during the day, storms will make their way on shore, some of them may rotate as well. The big story is that this is all part of the same storm that's making the snow in the Midwest. That's how big this storm is, John.

BERMAN: All right, Chad. Thank you for watching this for us. We know you will keep us posted.

The new variants, the mutating coronavirus, that is what has doctors concerned this morning. A new variant discovered in the U.S. overnight. What does it mean for you? How much more contagious is it? Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

CAMEROTA: A new variant of coronavirus first identified in Brazil is now in the United States. The variant was discovered in a Minnesota patient who recently traveled to Brazil.

Joining us now is CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. What? Excuse me well-groomed man. What have you done with our mop- haired groovy doctor?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I decided to get all professional for you guys, you know? I lost about two pounds yesterday, I think.

CAMEROTA: This is your -- as far as I can tell, your first haircut of the pandemic.

GUPTA: It is. It is.

CAMEROTA: Is this you yesterday? Hold on, Sanjay. Look at this video. Did you just come in from a biker's --

BERMAN: It was a bar, it's leather bar, bike rally.

CAMEROTA: -- gathering or what? GUPTA: This is kind of how I am, typically, you know. This is the unusual part over here. Yes, a lot of hair, very different look now. I feel clean. It feels good.

CAMEROTA: Wow. We are making progress as a country. I mean, I think we need no better example than how far we've come in the pandemic.

Okay, Sanjay, thank you very much for sharing that moment with us. So, let's start with the news this morning. The Brazilian variant, the U.K. variant, the South African variant, what do we need to know about all of this?

GUPTA: Well, you know, keeping an eye on all of these, I mean, you know, right now if you think about these variants as a whole, the areas that are developing these mutations are around the spike protein, something we have been talking about for some time.

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The antibodies that are generated by these vaccines, they kind of provide a blanket over the spike protein. So, hopefully they're going to continue to work. If there's more mutations that are occurring in other areas further away from the spike protein, that may be a problem.

But I want to talk about the Brazil one for a second, and this is called the P1 variant. It came from an area called Manaus in Brazil. And the reason this is significant is because it was believed that just about everyone there had been infected at some point last year with the coronavirus.

Then they saw a resurgence of cases. And that's sort of what led to the investigation saying what's going on here? When they looked at these new cases, they found that some of them were of this new variant. So there were people who were getting infected again, re- infections, and there was increased transmissibility.

And now, as you point out, there is one patient at least in Minnesota who had returned from Brazil, got tested on January 9th, so some time ago, and that has now come back as being positive for this variant.

So the variant is moving. That's not a surprise. It does appear to be more transmissible, more contagious. That is also not a surprise. These mutations allow these viruses to enter cells more easily. But at least for the time being it does seem to be protected by against the existing vaccines, but we're going to have to keep an eye on that.

BERMAN: We're going to have to keep an eye on it, Sanjay. And I think if you listen closely, not so closely to people like Professor Osterholm, who we think is flat out alarmed by the progression of the variants. But if you listen closely to even Dr. Anthony Fauci, you're starting to hear language about the variants that it's something that is worrisome, that it is the unknown. It is the possibility that these variants could outpace where we are in vaccines that have doctors worried at this point. What are you hearing? GUPTA: Yes. I think there're two concerns. Just because something is more trance miscible while not being more lethal, which is what appears to be the case with these variants, that doesn't mean it's not a problem. Because if you start to do the math and look at something that is far more transmissible, 50 percent more transmissible, that means that casual encounters, things that people got away with in terms of not spreading the virus are going to become more problematic. I mean, you've been diligent, you're wearing a mask, you should still be okay. But for people who have been a little bit more careless, they are going to have less wiggle room to possibly get infected.

The other thing is that vulnerable populations are more likely to become infected. In fact, if you do the math within a month, if you had a more the more transmissible virus versus a more lethal virus, the more transmissible one would still lead to more deaths because it's more likely to affect vulnerable populations. That's the first issue.

The second issue again is these mutations overall in terms of the vaccine. The interesting thing is you don't want just the number of vaccines to increase. You do want the pace of vaccinations to increase because the more the virus spreads, the more mutations it accumulates. Many of them are not going to be big deal mutations. But if it does start to accumulate mutations that make it more resistant to the vaccine, that's another problem. That's the race that Dr. Fauci was sort of talking about.

CAMEROTA: That's really interesting. Thanks for helping us understand that. Sanjay, we'll see you in the next hour as well. Thanks for being here.

GUPTA: Okay. You got it.

CAMEROTA: Okay. We want to remember now some of the nearly 421,000 Americans lost to coronavirus.

New York City Rabbi Yehuda Dukes ran the Jewish online learning platform JNet, connecting Jews around the world who want to explore Judaism's religious texts with study partners. He died last week after a ten-month up and down battle with the virus. The father of six was only 39 years old.

Amy Desormeaux, a beloved staff member at Apex Friendship High School in Wake County, North Carolina. Friends and family members remember the media assistant as lively and funny with a mission to serve. She was 60 years old.

Efren Osorio was considered the life blood of the Connecticut veterinary practice where he worked. Colleagues say his compassion and patience were unmatched. An immigrant from Mexico, Osorio loved to travel with his wife of 37 years. He was 62.

We'll be right back.