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House of Representatives Votes to Remove Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from Committee Assignments; Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) Interviewed on Proceeding for Second Senate Impeachment Trial of Former President Trump; Parkland Massacre Survivor Responds to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 05, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And she harassed school shooting survivors. David Hogg, one of them, will join us shortly.

Finally, on Thursday Greene admitted that QAnon conspiracies are lies, but she made the argument that somehow her mind was controlled, and she was, quote, allowed to believe things that weren't true.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Allowed to believe things that weren't true.

CAMEROTA: I guess by the almighty Q?

BERMAN: What even is that? What even is that?

Meanwhile, some major maneuvering before the president's impeachment trial, the former president's impeachment trial. In a surprise move, House managers asked the former president to testify. He refused. So just days before that trial begins there is still so much we don't know.

We begin, though, with breaking news. Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote that clears the way for Democrats to pass the president's $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill and do it if they need to without any Republican votes. CNN's Lauren Fox live on Capitol Hill. This is a big step, and it was really interesting to see the vice president cast that vote before dawn.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, certainly she leaves the U.S. Senate, and she has to be back in that chair to break the tie. And this isn't the first time you're going to see her breaking ties in an effort to try and pass the president's COVID relief package.

Look, this was a major moment on the Senate floor, and they started this entire process yesterday at 2:30 in the afternoon. Then they had 15 hours of what is known up here as a vote-a-rama. It's sounds like a party, but it's a lot tougher than that, because members basically are voting every 10 or 15 minutes on different amendments that folks are bringing to the floor. It's really an effort by the minority party to try to put the majority in tough spots by having to take very hard votes that they can then later use on the campaign trail. And that works both ways. Both parties using this process to their advantage.

But here's why it all matters. This unlocks Joe Biden's ability to pass a COVID relief bill with just democratic votes. What you'll see in the next couple of weeks is committees going behind the scenes, writing that package into legislative text, and then potentially doing this whole process again to finally pass a COVID relief proposal. Their deadline is March 14th. That's the expectation, the hope. That is when you're going to see some of those unemployment benefits run out. But this last night, an important step. They passed it at 5:30 a.m. this morning, but it unlocks, like I said, their ability to pass a COVID relief bill if they have to with just Democratic votes. John?

BERMAN: And they needed to get it done before the impeachment trial begins in just days. Lauren Fox, thank you very much.

That's where we're going to begin with Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings. She was one of the impeachment managers in the former president's first trial. Congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us. It was interesting to see the current House managers ask the former president to testify. And I wonder, if you were a manager this time and you did have the former president on the stand, what would you ask him?

REP. VAL DEMINGS, (D-FL): Well, John, it's great to be back with you. And I can't help but to think about during the hearings and trials and all, remember when now former President Trump would say, oh, I wish they would subpoena me. I wish I had an opportunity to testify. I would love to testify, and interestingly enough, that never happened. Not only did he not -- the information, if you remember, the written answers that he provided were not truthful, and then he blocked so many other people who did have pertinent information about his case from testifying or appearing.

But you start at the beginning. Tell us what happened, the why. He is trying to demonstrate that his words had nothing to do with the violent attack on the U.S. capitol on that day, and we would love to hear his explanation of why he believes that. We know that that's never going to happen, though. He will never come and testify. And if I was his attorney, I would never probably allow him to do it. But we'll see what happens.

BERMAN: Is it worth a subpoena to get him there?

DEMINGS: That's a procedural strategy that the impeachment managers would have to decide. We'll wait and see. You certainly -- when we subpoena witnesses, it's always, what do they bring to the table? So, you know, that's a procedural step that the managers would have to decide, and we'll see what their strategy is. What I do know, John, is that under the leadership of my classmate, Jamie Raskin, I know this team of managers are going to do an outstanding job and present the facts. They don't have any problems with the facts. There are no alternative facts for them. And they'll present a clear and convincing case. And they'll do their part.

[08:05:00]

BERMAN: How important, or how crucial or essential would the former president's testimony be in making their case?

DEMINGS: The interesting thing about this particular article of impeachment, evidence, and I've said it before, evidence in a case is everything, right? It's a police detective's dream. It's a prosecutor's dream. John, there is so much footage of what happened on that day. We see the images. We also clearly hear the president's words and those who -- his enablers who stood with him and basically incited a riot, marched down to the capitol, just one example, and fight like hell. If you don't, we're not going to have a country anymore. His own words. We don't have to look far for evidence in this case, but the footage with the evidence, his own testimony as millions of Americans have already seen, I think, is pretty crucial.

And we'll see if the managers decide that they need more. But we know this president, I would expect him to come in and say, don't believe your lying eyes or your lying ears. But we'll see what happened.

BERMAN: Do you know yet if there will be witnesses?

DEMINGS: I do not know.

BERMAN: It's interesting. Three days before --

DEMINGS: I've talked to -- I've talked to some of the managers, but it's always our conversations have just been about sharing information from the previous impeachment trial that they thought would benefit them during this time. I have not discussed with them their strategy or their intentions to call any witnesses.

BERMAN: I just want to move on to another subject, but first, if you were doing it, would you want a witness on the stand at this point?

DEMINGS: You know what I said during the last impeachment trial, I think we all agreed when John Bolton, the information came up about him actually being in the room if you will, to overhear the phone -- the infamous phone call. And we had that opportunity, the Senate had the opportunity to call on witnesses and chose not to do that.

And so John Bolton was someone who was in the room, certainly had direct information. I don't believe he has alternative facts. I think calling him in a case would be quite different from calling a president or the former president who every day had alternative facts.

BERMAN: There was a vote last night in the full House of Representatives to strip Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee posts. Eleven Republican members voted to do so. Some of them were from your state of Florida. There were at least three members from the state of Florida who did vote to strip her of her committee posts. What do you think of that?

DEMINGS: John, school shootings are tough. All shootings where people die violently, but when children are in one of the -- what should be one of the safest places for them, are gunned down, that's pretty tough. And I know, unfortunately, there are a lot of political games that take place on the Hill. That's probably been one of my biggest disappointments as opposed to putting the people first. I could not have been prouder of my Florida colleagues for standing up

for the people that they represent and the survivors of the kids who were gunned down on their school campus. And so it was the right thing to do. And believe me, in this political environment, it was great to see.

BERMAN: Now there's been a lot of talk about Kevin McCarthy and a lot of talk about the other 190 Republican members who did not vote to strip her of her committees. But I want to ask about another group of people that I think often gets overlooked in this. Marjorie Taylor Greene was elected by a lot in a Georgia congressional district. So how much responsibility do you put on the voters for sending her to Congress?

DEMINGS: I think our responsibility, John, is to make sure that voters have all of the information that they need to make the best decisions when they go to the polls. I chose, though, to focus on leadership.

BERMAN: But I guess I'm asking, these voters knew --

DEMINGS: Because sometimes people are hired, and they later it comes to light that they were not the best person to be hired. Sometimes people are elected, and it comes to light that they are not the best person to be elected and uphold the high values and principles of the House of Representatives. Leadership has an awesome, tremendous obligation to right this wrong and stand up.

[08:10:04]

And unfortunately, we've seen, as opposed to leaders in position, we have seen cowards in those positions, or shadows of men. Let's not forget, too, 140 people voted to overturn a free and fair election, and carried the big lie that Joe Biden was not elected president of the United States. And so we do have some work to do, and I think leadership had an opportunity to stand up, correct the wrong. They chose not to do that. And they should be held accountable as well.

BERMAN: I just do think it is something that needs to be addressed at some point. What does it say that people, who knew what they were getting into, because a lot of this was known, still chose to elect her? There's a demand issue in the United States that needs to be addressed, I think. And I am just curious how that will happen.

DEMINGS: I have not met, I don't believe, any of the congresswoman's constituents or voters, but being here in the House of Representatives and presiding over the debate yesterday when she gave her 10-minute speech, as a former police officer, I've seen far too many people die of gun violence, some of them police officers who were shot in the head and died. So I don't take very kindly to liking posts about shooting people in the brains.

On 9/11, I was assigned to the Orlando International Airport as a police commander. So I am just so happy that Ms. Greene thought it was appropriate to stand at the microphone and say, yes, 9/11 did happen. But, you know what, a plane also hit the Pentagon and people were killed and lost their lives.

And so, John, these are critical times and we are dealing with critical issues. And people who believe in outlandish conspiracy theories, spread hate, hold assault weapons, basically with pictures of their now colleagues, I don't take too kindly to that. And I do believe that Kevin McCarthy, if he wants to be the leader, then doggone it, show some leadership, should stand up, and the 199, I really -- history will judge them.

BERMAN: It's a remarkable time. Congresswoman Val Demings, we appreciate you coming on and sharing your thoughts with us this morning. Thank you.

DEMINGS: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Joining us now to talk more about this is CNN White House correspondent John Harwood. John, really interesting to hear Congresswoman Demings there. Let's just start with Marjorie Taylor Greene, because, as she was just saying, 11 Republicans voted to remove her from her committee assignments, but 61 voted to remove Liz Cheney from leadership. They didn't win, but there was a much bigger number. And so where do we go from here?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Republican Party to a significant degree, both at the grassroots and in Congress, has been radicalized. It's been radicalized around anger at the way the United States is changing. The core of the Republican base right now are blue collar white voters, many of whom are upset that the country is becoming less white, less Christian, that the economy is changing in ways that don't benefit them because many of them are lesser educated.

And so the anger that flows out of that is the anger that bubbles up in movements like QAnon that she has adhered to. There were a significant number of QAnon people at the core of that insurrection on January 6th. And what we've seen over the last several weeks is that the vast majority of Republican senators have voted to absolve the president of responsibility for that by saying the impeachment trial is unconstitutional. That will happen next week. The vast majority of Republican House members have voted to absolve the president of consequences for that anti-democratic, deadly insurrection. They've oppose the impeachment.

And the share of Republicans willing to stand up against that un- American behavior is very marginalized. It's a -- it shows something about how degraded the Republican Party has become, and it creates a contrast with the Democratic Party as exemplified by Val Demings, who you just heard from. And Democrats were the ones who took responsibility for imposing consequences on Marjorie Taylor Greene. Republicans lacked the strength to do that.

BERMAN: John Harwood, as always, thank you so much.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene did not apologize, but she did invoke the name of a survivor of the Parkland shooting massacre, David Hogg. He joins us live, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:35]

CAMEROTA: Just hours before Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was punished by the House, stripping her of her committee assignments, she addressed the conspiracy theories and her theory that mass shootings at schools had been staged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): School shootings are absolutely real. And every child that is lost, those families mourn it.

I understand how terrible it is because when I was 16 years old in 11th grade, my school was a gun-free school zone and one of my schoolmates brought guns to school and took our entire school hostage. And that happened right down the hall from my classroom.

I know the fear that David Hogg had that day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Parkland massacre survivor David Hogg. He is also the founder of March for Our Lives.

David, great to see you again.

DAVID HOGG, FOUNDER, MARCH FOR OUR LIVES: Great to be on. Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: What did you think when you heard her say your name and say that she can somehow relate to your experience?

HOGG: You know, I think the ultimate thing is, I don't -- I don't really care. The thing I care most about in this situation isn't so much myself but it's the real people that she offended, which are the families of Parkland and Las Vegas and Sandy Hook that have a permanently empty bedroom, you know, that have a permanently empty place at the dinner table. They are the people that are the real victims here that deserve the apology. Not me.

And that's really what upsets me, is like she's detracting from their suffering and their experience because she can't -- you know, she can't know their pain.

[08:20:05]

They literally had the worst possible thing in the world happen to them. They are the ones that deserve an apology.

On top of that, there's also, Alisyn, we need to talk about the fact that, you know, although it's important that we address the gun violence in schools, most gun violence happens outside of schools, too, and it doesn't get the same attention because it happens predominantly in black and brown communities that face the most systemic racism, poverty and injustice by this country.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

HOGG: And they are the ones that need this attention.

CAMEROTA: David, you've always talked about that. I mean, every time I ever interviewed you, you bring that up and I know that there are so many families and lawmakers who appreciate that you always bring that up. In fact, I mean, so -- I applaud you that you always remind us that you're not the only victim.

But you also said on Twitter yesterday, Marge, you're not the victim here.

Is that how she's trying to paint herself?

HOGG: I think so. I think they are trying to paint themselves as the victim to play like they are the little guy, so they can raise millions of dollars as they have talked about, you know, or thousands of dollars as they've talked about wanting to raise. And it's just pathetic, you know, because they are not the victim here. As I said, the victims are the families of children that have died in Sandy Hook and Parkland and, you know, the people that died -- as well, adults that died in those places, and at Las Vegas, of course. They are the ones that need to be talked about.

And that's why we're continuing to call for her resignation and asking people to text "resign" to 954954. Again, you can text "resign" to 954954 to sign our petition calling for her resignation because we believe just stripping her of her committee assignments, after she has threatened to kill the speaker of the house, mind you, that's a felony with a five to ten-year prison sentence.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

HOGG: I don't know what's going on there, but you can't threaten an elected official. It is a -- it is a felony.

CAMEROTA: The last time we had you on, we played that video of her harassing you out on the sidewalk outside of the Capitol. I wasn't aware at that time there was another video inside the capitol of her chasing after you and harassing you that we'll play right now, where she is following after you.

She's claiming, excuse me, that people will still do mass shootings. She's, obviously, you know, trying to trigger you. She says to you specifically, you were born in this country with all these freedoms. You don't even appreciate what you have. David Hogg, you don't even know what you have.

Do you feel -- did you feel after you heard her explanation yesterday that Marjorie Taylor Greene has learned her lesson?

HOGG: No. I think a lot of the time, sadly, in politics and life generally, there's a lot of really immature adults that are in power, that cannot simply have the humility to lead and admit that they were wrong before they face consequences.

You know, I think if Marjorie was truly apologetic, it wouldn't have taken us literally removing her from her committees to talk about -- well, maybe I shouldn't have said school shootings were fake. Maybe she shouldn't have said that all these conspiracies about 9/11 being fake and stuff like that. I want to see elected officials that actually take accountability and responsibility for what they've said before they face consequences for it, because that's what true leaders do, have the humility to admit they make mistakes and they're not perfect and that they mess up, you know?

But the other thing that I would say with that, too, Alisyn, what's interesting to me is that when we were in there, in the capitol and she started chasing us, we started chanting enough is enough -- you know how long if took the police to show up to tell us to basically shut up or we're going to be arrested? It took about -- it took about 30 seconds. And I don't know if it shows it in that video, but they did that.

That's why I knew during the insurrection when there were -- the capitol was surrounded by white supremacists and many people that don't believe that the election was, you know, fair and all those different things, it took them like an hour to two hours to show up and that's why I knew that that was different.

CAMEROTA: And what does that mean? What does that tell you about that, the response time?

HOGG: It's terrifying, because it shows that, as has been said by people much smarter than me many times before, there are two systems of justice in this country. And one that has, you know -- one of them that basically doesn't have very much, if any, accountability a lot of the time for white supremacists and white nationalists.

And it is something that needs to be confronted head on, because not only is it a threat to everyday Americans and our freedoms that Marjorie says that I hate so much or whatever. It's a threat to our democracy as well. And we all have a responsibility no matter the color of our skin to stand up and fight against racism because racism, you know, it's something that all of us need to stand up and fight against because it should be a unified front even if we're not directly affected. And we should simply ask people, how can we help?

CAMEROTA: David, very quickly, are you starting a pillow company?

[08:25:03]

HOGG: Yes, Alisyn, I am, but I'm going to ask you to have me on in a couple of weeks to talk about it. We don't have the website or trademark yet. And we're still working on manufacturing because we're going to make it union made in the USA, and it is very hard to find unionized pillow manufacturer in the United States.

So if anybody one -- knows one, please PM me on Twitter or reach out, and we're going to make it sustainable and everything, and part of it is to help raise money for good causes. It is a for-profit, but a big part is to have a social enterprise kind of component to it. So, yeah, please bring me on and we'll talk about it.

CAMEROTA: And we'll do. And let's be honest, it's also to put my pillow, Mike Lindell, out of business. But we'll talk about that at a later time.

David Hogg, thank you very much. We really appreciate you being on with all of your thoughts.

HOGG: Thank you so much, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: What's on former President Trump's mind these days? The cameo that he did on the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" 25 years ago. Yes, we're not kidding. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREKA)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MACAULAY CULKIN, ACTOR: Excuse me, where's the lobby?

DONALD TRUMP, THEN-REALITY STAR: Down the hall and to the left.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump.

TRUMP: I like keeping a low profile.

Waldo, you're the best son money can buy.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Thanks, dad.

TRUMP: Look, without Derek Zoolander, male modeling wouldn't be what it is.

[08:30:00]