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Democrats Face Challenge over Relief Bill; Support for Greene despite her Rhetoric; RobinHood Halted GameStop Purchases; Brady Speaks about Parents' Battle with Coronavirus. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 29, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:31:16]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden will visit wounded service members at Walter Reed Medical Center today. President Biden continues to pursue that bipartisan deal for his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

How's that going? CNN's Jeremy Diamond is live at the White House for us.

Hi, Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

The pursuit of bipartisan does indeed continue here at the White House this morning. We know that President Biden has been on the phone with several Republican and Democratic lawmakers over the last week, as well as White House officials having those meetings. But there is no sign as of yet that we are any closer to actually reaching a deal.

But what I can tell you is that inside the White House there is a growing acknowledgement that this $1.9 trillion price tag for this coronavirus relief bill, it will have to be pared down if, indeed, a bipartisan deal is to be achieved. That is a big if, though, as we're talking about right now.

They're -- the White House hasn't made any big concessions yet and a senior administration official told me that they still consider every major component of this bill essential. What they might be willing to do is negotiate on those components to bring down the price tag. Specifically, I was told that the stimulus checks to Americans, that there is some wiggle room there for the White House in terms of targeting that financial assistance more narrowly to individuals with lower income levels.

Now, it's not clear how much lower the White House is willing to go on the price tag and, more critically, whether that will be enough to get Republican support.

And, at the same time, on Capitol Hill, what we're seeing is Democrats already taking the steps to set up this budget reconciliation effort. They're going to begin doing that next week. That's the process that would allow the White House to pass major parts of this package along party lines with their Democratic majority in the Senate.

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, just yesterday, she wouldn't rule out President Biden signing a coronavirus relief bill that passes along party lines.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: : Given that Democrats have kind of indicated they will move forward with or without Republican support, would President Biden sign a bill that only Democrats vote for?

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: That's getting us a few steps ahead of where we are now. He continues to believe that this can be -- will -- should be and will be a bipartisan bill that receives support from Democrats and Republicans. And he's having conversations with and listening to leaders and members of both parties to assure that we get to exactly that place.

COLLINS: But if we got to that place where only Democrats have voted for it, is he OK with that?

PSAKI: We'll have a conversation at that point. We're not there yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: So you can see, she clearly would not rule that out. And, frankly, there's no reason to believe that Joe Biden would not sign a bill that was passed solely by Democrats.

This has been kind of what the White House was -- has been trying to reconcile is both the urgency of the action that they are asking for and also the difficulty of achieving a bipartisan deal. And so reconciliation seems like the more likely option here.

But one interesting thing that Hen Psaki also said yesterday was that she said they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. You could have the budget reconciliation process with 50 Democrats in the Senate and also have some Republicans joining that effort without it being a 60- plus filibuster-proof majority.

Of course, the question is, which Republicans would be willing to sign on to this package as of now? And, right now, we don't have any clear names who would -- who would be willing to sign on.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Jeremy, how about the executive orders that President Biden is signing? There's been a flurry of them. And so he's getting some criticism. And what -- how are they responding to that?

DIAMOND: Yes, more than three dozen executive orders that President Biden has signed in his first eight days in office. That is a record number of executive actions, outpacing his last three predecessors, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, as well.

[06:35:05]

So it is a stunning pace.

And what the White House is saying is that, look, this is not a substitute for legislative action. They have made clear that as President Biden has taken executive action on the coronavirus, on the economy, or on health care, that none of those are substitutes for what they would like to see passed through Congress to achieve those same policy goals.

But there has been criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill, including the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who just yesterday criticized President Biden for governing by fiat, essentially. And then also from some elements on the left. "The New York Times" editorial board yesterday suggesting that Biden was using this executive action as a substitute, which is exactly what the White House was pushing back on yesterday.

President Biden himself made clear yesterday that when he was signing those executive actions on health care, that what he was trying to do was to undo the damage done by his predecessor. And that is also the point that the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, made yesterday. She even said that Biden was trying to undo some immoral actions from the president and that they feel a sense of urgency to act given the coronavirus pandemic, even as they are still pursuing that bipartisan coronavirus relief deal on Capitol Hill.

CAMEROTA: OK, Jeremy Diamond, thank you very much for all of the information.

So if you thought that Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's incendiary social media posts and her harassment of a school shooting survivor would somehow erode her support from her constituents, think again.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I would follow her more than any other congressman or senator I've ever seen in office.

CAMEROTA: How does that work? Well, we have a report from her home district, next.

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[06:40:47]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a member of Congress in good standing, even after indicating support for executing Democratic politicians. House leadership, Republican leadership, taking no action. And what's more, in her district, she seems more popular than ever. CNN's Martin Savidge reports from her town hall overnight.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We weren't allowed inside the congresswoman's town hall. We were told explicitly by her office and law enforcement that we had to remain in the parking lot, even though this is actually public property. It's a county airport about 38 miles just outside of Atlanta.

One thing's very clear, the congresswoman does not appear or seem to believe that she has to back down in any way as a result of the outrage and the anger that seems to be mounting against her because of statements she has made or believes that she has espoused.

The other thing that's clear is that those who voted for her, they aren't changing their mind either. They, in fact, seem to like her even more, believing that her outspokenness is just a sign of how genuine she is.

Things you should know about this area. It was an area that supported former President Trump strongly. It's an area where many still believe the election was stolen, even though factually we know it was not. And it's an area that believes many of the same conspiracy theories that the congresswoman herself has supported at one time or another.

Here's just some of the people we spoke to.

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SAVIDGE: She's under a lot of scrutiny right now. What do you think of it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'll address the three issues that I'm aware of that she's under scrutiny for. The first one being the oldest, was that she followed those Q conspiracy theories. Whether or not she did, whether or not she believed them, I mean that she's reading.

SAVIDGE: What brings you here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Marjory Greene.

SAVIDGE: What do you want to hear?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to hear that she'll continue to be the woman we elected and take the fight to the left while in Washington.

SAVIDGE: Is there anything she has said or done since taking office that has changed your opinion?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely not. In fact, my 23 years in Georgia and the years prior to that, she's the most serious candidate and I would follow her more than any other congressman or senator I've ever seen in office.

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SAVIDGE: So if you're looking for some sort of ground swell of outrage and anger against Congresswoman Greene, so far it's not happening here.

Back to you.

CAMEROTA: There you have it! I mean there you have it! That's how she got -- when -- when people wonder, how did she get 75 percent of her district? How did she win with that margin? There -- there you have it.

BERMAN: It's not a bug, it's a feature. Again, the problem, and I'm going to say this repeatedly in the show, for Marjorie Taylor Greene, who reportedly wrote about Jewish space lasers starting forest fires --

CAMEROTA: That's the least of her offenses that (INAUDIBLE).

BERMAN: But -- but my point is, the problem isn't the Jewish space lasers, it's the fact that the party, and apparently a large group of voters, is willing to accept it. All of this stuff has been known from the beginning and it seems evident now that, again, they're no supporting her in spite of it, but we have to assume because of it.

CAMEROTA: Well, also, her opponent in that runoff said that there is a mountain of oppo research that his campaign had. So this isn't going away. The problem of Marjorie Taylor Greene is not going anywhere. Just because she scrubs her Twitter and her FaceBook free, she tries to, of her offensive comments, it's not going away.

BERMAN: But she's not hurt. But, again, I don't think the problem is her. It's everyone else. It's, you know, it's the party that's accepting her.

CAMEROTA: I think so (ph).

BERMAN: All right, a lot of people this morning waking up, wondering if today is the day that they're going to make some kind of fortune by bashing the hedge funds. This GameStop thing just keep on. The remarkable roller coaster. What you need to know about this, next.

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[06:48:32]

BERMAN: So major, new developments this morning in the roller coaster on Wall Street. The GameStop saga. GameStop's stock plunged more than 40 percent yesterday, but this morning shares are up nearly 100 percent in pre-market trading. Why? Well, yesterday, the investment app RobinHood restricted GameStop trading, but today it's going to lift some of those restrictions, so here we go again.

Joining us now, CNN International business anchor and correspondent Julia Chatterley, who has been all over this story.

I'm going to try to summarize in ten seconds where we are and what this all means. Basically, retail investors, regular people, have been making a fortune off of GameStop stock, sticking it to hedge fund investors, sticking it to institutional investors.

Yesterday, the primary, or one of the primary ways they were doing that, sticking it to the man, was taken away from them. RobinHood stopped letting them trade the way they had been yesterday. Today they're going to again. How does RobinHood explain? How does this app explain why and how they've made these decisions?

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: You explained it perfectly. Ordinary investors basically felt that their hands were tied at the moment where they were just starting to make money and get on top here. Effectively what RobinHood did by limiting trading was that they artificially manufactured selling pressure. It put pressure on the stock. And we saw that yesterday. And that effectively pushes the share price in a direction that helps the hedge funds.

[06:50:02]

Now, what RobinHood said was, look, you know, we have to do this for regulatory purposes. We have to shore up our own cash positions and make sure that people aren't in a position where they're buying this stock and actually can't afford to do it or don't have the money there.

In their defense, they've actually raised a billion dollars. They're a relatively new company and I think for them to have got caught off guard by the sheer volume and size of what happened here and need to shore up their cash defenses actually makes sense to me. But their handling of this, John, was really stinky.

And the final point here is, they have a relationship, a working relationship with one of the big hedge funds involved, Citadel Securities. So you can understand for the smaller investors, they were just like, the system's rigged and trust was broken.

BERMAN: One of the avenues or one of the places that has helped fuel this is this area on Reddit called Wall Street Bets. This site which has discussed or promoted, although that's a legal term that's problematic in terms of regulation, but talked about investing in GameStop and other stocks, driving the prices up.

You talked to, I guess, the founder of that. What did he tell you about this GameStop frenzy?

CHATTERLEY: Well, he likened it to a train wreck, which I thought was interesting, and he said he doesn't envy anyone involved and actually he's enjoying watching it from the sidelines. I think he's, quite frankly, amazed, although he -- he had a sense, I think, of the power of social media and collective conversation on these things.

But what really stood out to me was, I said to him, this is not a game. This is a bubble. And bubbles pop and people lose money and people get hurt. And he said, and I'll get the quote right, bubbles are such boomer mentality. So, clearly, I'm very well preserved.

But, you know, when I look at the stock market, and we've been talking about this a lot, and it defies gravity and it keeps rising, you'd be forgiven for thinking that these stocks can continue to rise forever.

And, John, that is what terrifies me, boomer mentality to call this a bubble.

BERMAN: Well, they can't. I mean they can't rise forever.

CHATTERLEY: Look at history.

BERMAN: And, sooner or later, people are going to sell. The companies are not worth this much. People will start to sell. And someone will be left holding the bag. Everyone can't get out at once. Someone is going to be the one holding onto a stock worth much less than it is right now. People need to know that.

Julia, I hope you can explain one thing, though. And this is where the Fed interest, how the Fed might be interested, the administration, regulatory interests. People say, look, hedge funds and institutions have been gaming the system forever. They've been manipulating the markets forever while everyone has stood on the sidelines and watched. So why all of a sudden will there be concern about regular people doing it?

CHATTERLEY: It's fascinating, isn't it? You know when you've aligned Ted Cruz and AOC that something really momentous is happening here.

Look, I think there are three things that we have to look at here. The sheer volatility in the markets, the price rises. This stock's up 1,000 percent year to date. That's not normal.

Then there's the behavior of hedge funds. They have the ability to go out there and put pressure on these companies and say, we think they're going to go out of business and sell them.

Then you've got a bunch of people on social media and suddenly having access to these financial platforms and being able to sell stocks and how that behavior influences the markets.

So much has changed and so much has, I think, been realized in the last few weeks. And all of these three things need tackling and they need tackling separately. And the fact that you've got the White House, you've got the Federal Reserve looking at this, and you've got lawmakers now coming together is a good thing because if the system is rigged and there are bad players here and the hedge funds do have a greater advantage based on their sheer scale and size --

BERMAN: Oh, yes.

CHATTERLEY: Then an investigation and action needs to be taken. And what I think we've learned here is the use of social media and the use of these platforms means that the smaller guy suddenly are big power brokers, too.

BERMAN: Julia Chatterley, thank you very much for that.

So as he prepares for his tenth Super Bowl, tenth, tenth, Tom Brady opens up about his parents' battle with coronavirus. We had no idea this was going on this season. That's next.

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[06:58:29]

BERMAN: Former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady opening up about his parents' battle with coronavirus.

Andy Scholes has more in the "Bleacher Report."

Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, John.

So, Tom Brady says his parents are doing well and they are going to be able to be in the stands to cheer him on in the Super Bowl a week from Sunday. But Tom Brady's dad revealing earlier in the week to ESPN that he and his wife tested positive for the virus in September and Tom Brady Senior called it a matter of life and death, needing to be hospitalized for three weeks.

Brady's mom, who's a cancer survivor, she had more mild symptoms and was able to be treated at home. And after making it only one game this entire season, Brady says he's thrilled they're going to be able to be in Tampa for the big game.

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TOM BRADY, TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS QUARTERBACK: Certainly the health of my parents is very important. And although I was far away, I had three sisters who were, you know, doing everything they could to help at the time, too. So, I'll be very excited to certainly know my parents will be in the stands for the game.

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SCHOLES: They will have fans at the Super Bowl, but it's not going to look like this.

Check out the crowds on hand to watch the exhibition matches ahead of the Australian Open. Four thousand fans packed in together, most without masks on. They weren't required. Australia now has had 12 days without a local infection in any of its states or territories. Players had to quarantine for 14 days when they got there. And, you know, John, Serena and Naomi Osaka both said pretty awesome to play in front of a crowd like that because it had been a long time.

[07:00:01]

Congrats to Australia for being able to pull that off. You know, here's hoping we get there sometime soon.

BERMAN: Yes, indeed.

All right, Andy, thanks very much.

SCHOLES: All right.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.