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Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) Interviewed on Failed Republican Party Vote to Remove Liz Cheney from House Leadership and Upcoming House of Representatives Vote on Removing Marjorie Taylor Greene from House Committees; Soon: House to Vote on Removing Rep. Greene from Committees; How QAnon Delusions Took Hold in America. Aired 8-8:30a ET
Aired February 04, 2021 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The variants may actually lead to increased mortality. And the jury is still out on how these vaccines are going to work against these variants.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. A moment of revelation for the Republican Party overnight. House leadership, Republican leadership, taking no action against Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-supporting House Republican who endorsed the execution of Democratic leaders, harassed school shooting victims, called mass shootings a hoax, and reportedly trafficked in anti-Semitic propaganda about Jewish space lasers. No action. She keeps her committee assignments and even received an ovation, we are told, from half the caucus after speaking to them last night.
Today there will be a full vote in the House of Representatives about Greene's committee post. Republicans have to go On the Record about where they stand on this.
One other note. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy made the claim overnight he doesn't even know what the conspiracy group QAnon is. He might want to check the tape from January 6th. Some of them invaded his office.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Or do a one-minute Google search.
Meanwhile, the third most powerful Republican in the House, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, reportedly got an earful from her GOP colleagues, but she survived an attempt to remove her from leadership because she dared to vote to impeach former President Trump for inciting that deadly insurrection. The final vote was 145 to 61, and it was conducted in a secret ballot, meaning the Republicans who stood behind her can remain anonymous.
BERMAN: Joining me now is Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an outspoken supporter of Liz Cheney, outspoken in the suggestion that Marjorie Taylor Greene should lose her committee posts. Congressman Kinzinger, thank you so much for being with us. You had a heck of a night last night. How would you describe what happened?
REP. ADAM KINZINGER, (R-IL): So, I want to put this up front. I don't reveal details from conference because -- but what I'll tell you about last night was Liz survived. And here's the interesting thing. They tried at the end to move without having a vote so we could all walk out with some facade of unity. And I think that having the vote was important because people like Matt Gaetz and some in the freedom club had this idea that they had the votes to overtake her, and she crushed it. And I'll tell you, she never apologized for her vote. She defended herself.
But on the Marjorie Taylor Greene stuff, look, I -- obviously, I won't go into a lot of details, but she did address the issue. And I didn't hear an apology personally. Maybe she did say it, but the bottom line is I think until she publicly disavows all her comments from the past and says everything going forward, I don't take it too seriously.
BERMAN: How will you vote today on the House floor about whether to strip her of her committee posts?
KINZINGER: I intend to vote for it. The only thing that could change is if today she comes out and publicly shows that she has moved on, contriteness. That takes eating a lot of humble pie, and it's probably going to hurt her fundraising base, so I'm not sure that's going to happen, because I honestly think a lot of this kind of boisterousness on her end is to get a bunch of Twitter followers and to raise a bunch of money. If she does that publicly today, then I reserve the right to vote against the resolution on the floor. Otherwise, I do intend to vote to remove her from her committees, and I think it should have been done by the Republicans.
BERMAN: The reporting is there was an ovation in that meeting. Why were people clapping for Marjorie Taylor Greene?
KINZINGER: Look, it was disappointing by factor of 1,000. Like I said, and I know it sounds kind of inside baseball, I don't like to reveal a ton of conference details, but she stood up and kind of gave a bit of contriteness. But then it pivoted into, they're coming after you next. And obviously, I had a huge problem with all of that. But, the quote/unquote "they" being the Democrats, I think if you're not buying into Jewish space lasers and false flag operations and QAnon stuff, to think that they're just going to come after you next I think is way a bridge too far.
Look, I wish this vote on the floor today to remove her committees was something that we didn't have to do because it would have been done by our side. But to see her come out of there, strong position, was crazy.
BERMAN: You said disappointing by factor of 1,000. What exactly was disappointing to you?
KINZINGER: I mean, look, at least half the room didn't, of course, stand up and applaud her. That's something, I guess. But to see people at the end of it just be all in on Marjorie Taylor Greene, look, I get it. She's a Republican in your mind and you want to defend her, but my goodness, look at what's been said. And if she came out again today publicly and was very contrite and remorseful, that's very different than doing it just in front of your colleagues but then going out and tweeting whatever you want because your base shouldn't know what you really said in there.
[08:05:10]
BERMAN: Some of the reporting last night was that you, quote, unleashed hell on Kevin McCarthy. How so?
KINZINGER: So this is where I'm not going to confirm or deny anything because I don't want to get into to many details. Was I disappointed in the level of defense of her? Absolutely.
BERMAN: Liz Cheney?
KINZINGER: Was I -- what's that?
BERMAN: Disappointed in the level of defense for Liz Cheney?
KINZINGER: Yes, it was a pretty significant amount of time talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene, and a real quick one or two sentences about Liz. And look, Liz committed no sin except to vote her conscience. Who is the one that put everybody in our party in an awkward position on impeachment? It wasn't Liz Cheney. It wasn't me. It was Donald Trump. And, boy, last night, I'll tell you what, the people that claim they had the votes to remove her are embarrassed today, your Matt Gaetz, and stuff like that. But again, to have stood up and even defended Marjorie Taylor Greene, I thought for sure she'd lose her commits. And I'm still bewildered this morning about why there was no change whatsoever. Are we really that broken as a party that we can't even take a stand on something like that? I don't know.
BERMAN: I understand not wanting to reveal the details about what you said last night. So let me get your take on something McCarthy said after the meeting about QAnon. Listen to this from Leader McCarthy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R-CA) HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: I think it would be helpful if you could hear exactly what she told all of us, denouncing QAnon. I don't know if I say it right. I don't even know what it's right.
There's no place for QAnon in the Republican Party. I do not support it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: The first part of that, Congressman Kinzinger, was Leader McCarthy last night saying I don't even know what QAnon is. How can any leader of a party claim at this point, after everything the country has been through, that they don't know what QAnon is? KINZINGER: You can't. And he used the same QAnon thing in the press
conference was a second or third time with that. We all know what's QAnon, and by acting like we don't know what it is, it's not convincing anybody we don't. We're not saving our own bacon, and frankly, we're not doing a service to the people that deserve to know that we're taking this threat seriously, the threat that trampled the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
Look, to be here a month later and act like January 6th wasn't a big deal, QAnon wasn't a big deal, none of this stuff really happened, really the big thing is fighting the executive orders, which, look, we should have battles over political differences, but you're not going to gain any followers by pretending a month ago didn't happen.
BERMAN: How do you feel about having Kevin McCarthy as your party leader after what you went through last night?
KINZINGER: I thought last night was an embarrassment, but it was really vindictive -- not vindictive -- vindicating to come out with a massive Liz Cheney win. I think, you know, look, Kevin needs to be very clear that he's going to stand for truth in this party.
BERMAN: But it's not -- saying you don't know what QAnon is isn't true. There's no way that's true. It's an out and out lie.
KINZINGER: That's what I'm saying, right. He needs to stand for truth, and he needs to recognize this party of the future is not going down to Mar-a-Lago and being with Donald Trump. So he's going to be our leader. I'll support him as leader, but I think if they're going to go after Liz Cheney, I think Kevin McCarthy has to really think abo leadership and how to lead this caucus going forward, especially because she got last night by 145 of us.
BERMAN: So 61, 61 of your colleagues voted to remove Liz Cheney last night. If that's the over/under there for the vote today on the House floor, whether to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee post, do you think fewer than 61 Republicans will vote to remove her? How many do you think will vote?
KINZINGER: I would be surprised if we get 10. I don't know. I don't know what the number is, but it's not going to be very high, because last night it was all about defending Liz and defending Marjorie Taylor Greene. I defend Liz. I don't defend Marjorie Taylor Greene. So I don't know what that number is, but I think it's going to not be super high.
BERMAN: Adam Kinzinger, thank you for being with us and telling us what you can at least about what happened last night. It's important to speak to somebody who was in the room.
KINZINGER: You bet. Take care.
BERMAN: All right. So, as you just heard from Adam Kinzinger, he thinks that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy should have prevented the vote that's going to happen today on Congresswoman Greene. He chose not to. You heard how upset Kinzinger was about that. So what does McCarthy do next?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:13:23]
CAMEROTA: Today House lawmakers will take a vote on whether to remove Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from the Education and Budget Committees after she called for executions of top Democrats and after she harassed school shooting survivors.
Joining us now, CNN chief political correspondent and co-anchor of STATE OF THE UNION Dana Bash. Also with us, CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny. Great to see both of you guys.
Dana, Congressman Adam Kinzinger was just on with John. He said he did not hear her apologize last night. Kevin McCarthy wants us to trust him that she apologized. But when she's had a chance in public, on radio shows, on social media, to apologize, to step away, recant anything that she said, she has loudly and proudly refused to do that. And, again, Congressman Kinzinger said he didn't hear her apologize last night.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And he explained very clearly the reason why, which is, never mind the fact that she might actually believe the things that she said, but more importantly now that she's a member of Congress, that's how she's raising money, and it helps boost her and bolster her power, which is incredibly enhanced now after the meeting last night.
One of the things that -- two things that Kevin McCarthy said last night that are very telling to me. Number one, on this note, he said it would be helpful for her to come out and say what she said in the conference in public. He didn't say I demand it. He didn't say as part of the deal for me not kicking her off the committees myself, she must go out and do that, which is what we have seen leaders do time and time again on both sides of the aisle. That didn't happen.
[08:15:02]
And the second thing which I thought was very interesting was more than once, McCarthy talked about winning the majority back in two years. That is his focus. That is the whole ballgame for him and what he thinks is the most important for Republicans that is his focus. That is the whole ball game for him and what he thinks is the most important for Republicans right now to focus on winning, and he wants to be the speaker at that time.
And that, from him, from his point of view, that's what this is all about. Trying to make everybody happy and that means allowing somebody who was told so many dangerous lies, pushed bigoted conspiracies to remain unchecked by his -- by her own party leadership.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He's trying to thread a needle, but it's interesting, Jeff. It's clear that he didn't completely successfully thread that needle based on what we heard from Adam Kinzinger. I know Kinzinger doesn't lead dozens of house members but he's part of a group, the ten that voted for impeachment. I don't know if they'll get ten here.
But unless she comes out with a full-throated apology, it will be a bipartisan vote on the House floor to remove her from committees. In this environment, that's not nothing.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It's not nothing. And, look, we do have a metric. We have something that we have not seen yet in the post-Trump era. That's that secret ballot vote last night -- 145 members to 61 voted. That is as good as you get. As Dana well knows, we've covered these closed-door conference meetings so many times over the years.
That's an extraordinary number. And that is the best sort of gut feeling of what Republicans are thinking. And that is a lot of Republicans who voted to support Liz Cheney. And yes, it's a slightly different thing than Marjorie Taylor Greene, but these are basically the same pots of people.
But one thing that Leader McCarthy did last night without question, he accepted full ownership of anything that Congresswoman Taylor Greene does from this point forward. He basically was giving her the benefit of the doubt saying, oh, she said all these things before she came to Washington.
The fact is that's not true. You saw the drum beat from the other side of the U.S. capitol, which rarely happens. You rarely see senators getting involved in the lower chambers' business. That's exactly what was going on with Mitch McConnell opening the floodgates and so many senators came forward.
I'm not sure I can recall anything like that in 20 years of covering that building. And, Dana, I think would agree. That was extraordinary.
So, I think what we have today is this. You know, how is the Georgia freshman congresswoman going to conduct herself? Is she going to turn the page or is she going to double down? Or mix of both?
We've already seen she's fundraising over this. We'll see if she is bragging about any more conversations with the former president. But my biggest takeaway from really the last 12 to 24 hours is that this is no longer Donald Trump's Republican Party in whole, in mass. Yes, he has a sliver of them but not entirely.
Last night was the first vote to break the party away from that. Boy, Kevin McCarthy owns all of that. We'll see if he can hold that big tent up. Precarious for him.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene is not going away. I predict this is not going to end well for Kevin McCarthy because, Dana, again, just two days ago, she was given an opportunity to apologize. She said, I don't think I have anything to apologize for. For looking things up on the Internet and asking questions about it on Facebook, big deal, end quote.
That doesn't sound like somebody who has come to her senses. And the interesting thing, there's the politics of this and then there's just the human side of this. You know, Donie O'Sullivan talked to a QAnon adherent and she said, had Donald Trump ever said, this isn't real. I don't believe in QAnon, it would have broken the spell for her. It would have broken the spell for these cult followers.
Similarly, Marjorie Taylor Greene has their attention. She can break the spell. She's choosing not to.
BASH: Right. Exactly. And that's why what John was asking Adam Kinzinger about. Leader McCarthy last night saying, I don't even know what QAnon is. Never mind the fact that we know he knows what it is.
Instead of saying that, you know if you want to break the spell when you are a leader you say, I know what it is, a la Mitch McConnell, and it is not what our party stands for. Our party stands for lower taxes, smaller government, so on and so forth. It doesn't stand for, you know, wacky ideas that are based in bigotry in many senses. So that is number one.
The other thing is, the other point I want to make on just the raw politics of this, Kinzinger saying that he doesn't think many more than ten of Marjorie Taylor Greene's fellow Republicans will vote to remove her in this vote we're going to see today. That is the reason Democrats are holding this vote, politically. Obviously, the main reason they're holding it is because they don't think she belongs on those committees, the principle of it, the morale of it.
[08:20:00]
But then, secondarily, and not that far behind is the Democrats want to be able to run against every one of the Republicans who are in even remotely vulnerable seats and say, oh, you know, congressman X, look at what he or she did. He or she didn't vote -- voted with Marjorie Taylor Greene. So that could box in Kevin McCarthy or box out Kevin McCarthy from being the speaker which is one of the main reasons he has not stood up to Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And so that is one of the most fascinating kind of political ramifications that I'm going to be watching about this, never mind the way and the direction of the party and whether or not Liz Cheney is going to use the capital that she now has according to a source I spoke to close to her in order to help steer the party in a way that McCarthy is not.
BERMAN: Do you have to know -- we have to let you both go -- but do you happen to know, Dana, how Liz Cheney is going to vote on Marjorie Taylor Greene today?
BASH: I don't. But it would surprise me if she didn't vote to remove her.
ZELENY: I agree, for sure. For sure.
BASH: You agree, Jeff?
ZELENY: For sure. She can't go down this road and not do it. This is a fork in the road. She certainly owes Kevin McCarthy. He did stand up for her in the conference so that is no small thing.
But I think Dana is absolutely right. They're already doing ads, the Democratic National Campaign Committee already doing ads for vulnerable Republicans calling them members of Q district.
So, that's so fascinating here. That's why that vote today will be remembered for, you know, the next almost two years before Election Day 2022.
BERMAN: That's really interesting point. So glad you guys share with us this morning. Thanks so much.
BASH: Thanks, guys.
ZELENY: You bet.
BERMAN: As we've seen, too many Americans are falling in the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. How can they get out of it, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:25:51]
CAMEROTA: QAnon followers actually believed that Donald Trump was going to round up all Democrats and throw them in jail on the day of Joe Biden's inauguration. They also believed there's a global sex trafficking ring being run out of a pizza parlor basement.
But some of the hard core followers of QAnon are now beginning to snap out of it. Here is what one former QAnon believer told CNN's Donie O'Sullivan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASHLEY VANDERBILT, FORMER QANON BELIEVER: If he were to have said something, and if he were to just say Q is illegitimate. Nothing is real in there, I think some people would leave. Maybe not all the people too far into it, but I think it would help a lot of --
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It would have helped you?
VANDERBILT: Uh-huh. I thought the world of him. If he would have said, that's not real, I'm not coming back it is over, I would have believed him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: She's talking about President Trump there, if he had said anything. If he had said it wasn't real, she would have believed him.
Joining us is Arieh Kovler, he's a political consultant and independent researcher who studies the far right.
Arieh, great to see you, as always.
I share your fascination with QAnon, and I want to understand their mindset. And that interview that Donie O'Sullivan did with that woman was so helpful because she was quite reflective. Now that the smoke cleared for her and she snapped out of it and realized it had all been lies she'd been falling for, she was really reflective and introspective, which I appreciate.
One of the things she told Donie, and I want to know if you agree, she was indoctrinated by TikTok. TikTok and YouTube and Facebook is where she began believing the unreality.
Is that the portal for people?
ARIEH KOVLER, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: Yes, absolutely. I would suggest the vast majority of people who believe in QAnon and its conspiracy theories found their way to it through social media. Now, whether that is through the recommendation algorithms, you're watching one video and it shows you another, and shows you another. Or whether that is because you are in groups where other people who already believe, where they're pushing it, those two methods pulled in a lot of people. T. Is
CAMEROTA: Yes, she said that. It is the echo chamber algorithm. Once you click on somebody who's a QAnon follower, it starts feeding you more and more of that. That is just cult bait, I mean, right there, that's that problem.
She -- here's what TikTok says about this, OK? They said -- they told CNN, we're committed to countering misinformation and advancing media literacy in our community. Content and accounts promoting QAnon are not allowed on our platform and are removed as identified.
Is that true?
KOVLER: It's true to an extent, but they're not winning the battle by any means.
Perhaps the most significant source of QAnon radicalization for the last couple of years was YouTube. It's the biggest platform, and there were these huge videos with millions and millions of views promoting QAnon ideas. And YouTube didn't take systematic action until October of last year. So a couple of weeks before the general election, which is, you know, crazy.
You know, Reddit already banned QAnon sites in 2018. Before the midterms, you know, they are reluctant to, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok, to take action. And it is difficult. It's a big problem.
They particularly allowed people to become essentially influencers in the QAnon scene. Those accounts get bigger and bigger and bigger. If it acted earlier, perhaps there wasn't be others following this in the first place.
CAMEROTA: You know, she said there that if Donald Trump had ever said anything about it not being real, it would have helped her break the spell. That's, I mean, she's just being honest. She was also very honest when she said, I've always been someone that you just tell me what to do, and I do it. I grew up being told I was a Republican so I have always been that. I
know that you're not a psychologist, but have you found that there's a certain personality type that falls for this more than others?
KOVLER: It's an interesting question. In particular in QAnon, it emphasizes independence, ironically enough as.
