Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Trump's Historic Second Impeachment Trial to Begin Today; Georgia's Secretary of State Launches Investigation into Trump Call. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired February 09, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: House Democrats making their final preparations in a case expected to vividly detail the deadly insurrection at the Capitol last month.

[05:59:29]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's beyond the Senate's constitutional authority to have an impeachment proceeding.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): There must be truth and accountability if we are going to move forward, heal and bring your country together once again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Biden focused primarily on one thing: COVID relief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are better, but baby, it ain't over yet, not by a long shot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The continued proliferation of variants remains great concern.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): We have enormous crises, and we have to got to pass that legislation as soon as we possibly can.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome your viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, February 9, 6 a.m. here in New York, February 9th. And it is an historic morning in America: another impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. His unprecedented second trial.

Security is tight at the U.S. Capitol this morning, of course, trying to prevent a repeat of the deadly insurrection we saw on January 6.

Democrats will use Donald Trump's own words against him. Trump told his supporters to march to the Capitol and, quote, "fight," not once, not twice. He said it 16 times.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Fight.

Fight, fight.

Fighting.

The fight.

Fighting.

And fight.

So I'd fight, they'd fight. I'd fight, they'd fight.

Fight.

Fighting.

We fight.

Fight like hell. Fight like hell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: If you count "fighting," it was 20 times.

Former aides tell CNN that Mr. Trump enjoyed this spectacle, created by the riots and was, quote, "loving watching the Capitol mob," end quote. Mr. Trump repeatedly ignored desperate requests to tell his supporters to stand down, even as lawmakers trapped inside the Capitol begged him for help.

BERMAN: The former president is on trial, but so, too, in a manner of speaking, is the Republican Party itself. And that is according to a member of the Republican Party.

Congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of the ten Republican House members who voted for impeachment is imploring Republican senators this morning. "This isn't a waste of time," he writes. "It's a matter of accountability. If the GOP doesn't take a stand, the chaos of the past few months and the past four years could quickly return. The future of our party and our country depends on confronting what happened."

Today the Senate will hear arguments about the former president's widely-discredited claim that he can't be tried at all.

The meat of the case begins tomorrow. Each side will have 16 hours over two days, meaning the proceedings could be over in a week.

President Biden is deliberately trying to show focus elsewhere, specifically his pandemic relief package. We have new details emerging this morning about that.

We start, though, with the impeachment trial. Lauren Fox live on Capitol Hill where it begins today -- Lauren. LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's another historic day on Capitol Hill with Donald Trump not just the first president to be impeached twice in U.S. history, but now the first president to be impeached in a trial once he had already left office.

And remember, those Senate jurors will be taking their seats today in the chamber. They were also witnesses to that deadly insurrection that happened now more than a month ago on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOX (voice-over): In just hours, former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial will begin on Capitol Hill --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on.

FOX: -- inside the same building stormed by a violent mob just over a month ago.

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): This is an extraordinary situation in that you actually have a trial that's being held at the crime scene with jurors that were victims of the crime being prosecuted by victims of the crime. There's really no precedent for this.

FOX: Now the Senate will decide if Trump is guilty of inciting that insurrection, but they will first have to vote if the trial is constitutional this afternoon.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reaching an agreement on the rules. Starting Wednesday, House managers and Trump's lawyers will have up to 16 hours each to present their cases, followed by four hours for senators to ask questions to both teams.

SCHUMER: The structure we have agreed to is imminently fair. It will allow for the trial to achieve its purpose, truth and accountability.

FOX: Trump's legal team previewing their defense, filing a 78-page brief accusing House Democrats of engaging in political theater and calling the trial unconstitutional, because he's no longer president.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): I think it's beyond the Senate's constitutional authority to have an impeachment proceeding the point of which is to convict and remove from office a man who left office three weeks ago.

FOX: Trump's lawyers also saying he did not direct anyone to commit lawless actions. And arguing these words on the day of the insurrection were meant in a figurative sense and protected by the First Amendment.

TRUMP: We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

FOX: In total, Trump used "fight" or its variants 20 times at that rally. The House managers submitting a response in their own brief, writing, "The House did not impeach President Trump because he expressed an unpopular political opinion. It impeached him because he willfully incited a violent insurrection against the government."

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): This wasn't about his First Amendment right. He's more than exercised that over the years. This was about him literally inciting a riot.

[06:05:03]

FOX: And with Trump refusing to testify, House managers will use videos from the insurrection, showing rioters' actions, planning to outline how many appeared to be following the then -resident's commands.

SEN. BOB CASEY (D-PA): There's a lot we have not yet seen yet. Video evidence and other evidence. We'll have a thorough review. I think that's important for history, that we hold officials accountable, especially for something as grievous and as dangerous as inciting a mob to attack the Capitol.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOX: Trump has become fixated on those ten House Republicans who voted to impeach him, with one adviser telling CNN that he wants accountability.

We are also learning this morning that Trump is very, very sure that he will be acquitted as part of this impeachment trial, given the fact he does not see 17 Republican senators willing to convict him -- Alisyn.

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

Joining us now, we have Anna Palmer. She's the founder of Punch Bowl News. And CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates. She's a former federal prosecutor.

OK, so Anna, just tell what do we expect today? It starts at 1. What do we know about what we'll see, who we'll hear from, et cetera?

ANNA PALMER, FOUNDER, PUNCH BOWL NEWS: Yes. I mean, this is just really the set-up of the trial. Right now, there's going to be an agreement that there's going to vote on to basically move the trial. Originally, Trump's lawyer, who's an observant Jew, had said, you know, Can we not have this trial on a Saturday? We're going to hold off.

And he has rescinded that. So this is basically just the table setting for the opening arguments, which are going to start tomorrow.

BERMAN: And the defense is making the case, Laura, based on what they are framing as two constitutional questions. I find it interesting that they're framing it such as, because I think the preponderance of scholarship is that there aren't actually these constitutional questions. The Congressional Research Service says the preponderance scholarship is that a former official can be tried. Yet, we're going to hear four hours on that today.

CAMEROTA: And have been.

BERMAN: Sorry?

CAMEROTA: And have been.

BERMAN: And has been, exactly.

And the other argument they're making is that the president's first -- former president's First Amendment rights protect his speech. Of course, this is an impeachment trial, where free speech isn't guaranteed the way that it is elsewhere.

What do you expect the main themes to be, Laura?

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: This is going to be the arguments today about the procedural off ramp of saying, Hey, this is not constitutional, because he ran out the clock.

Well, that shouldn't hold a lot of water, should it, John and Alisyn? The idea that you can simply do what you like at the very end, and knowing that the timeline might run out, you are free. You have a carte blanche to do what you'd like.

Also, there is precedent, as you've always suggested, about removing or actually impeaching and convicting a former officer. And remember, they would have perhaps a stronger leg to stand on, had they waited for the entire thing, the impeachment itself and the trial, after he left office. But they impeached him while he was sitting president for comments that occurred, and they were aware while he was actually in office.

This is analogous to a criminal trial, in many respects, where as long as you have indicted somebody prior to the limitations period running, you are free to actually prosecute the person. So there's that argument.

On the second area here, of course, free speech. Free speech, even in a courtroom, is constrained by whether you have incited violence, whether you have defamed somebody, whether you have engaged in hate speech, whether you have done other things, including threats. So we have a body of law already that says you can't say what you want consequence-free, and you're seeing that play out right now.

CAMEROTA: Laura, I have another question for you about evidence. One of the things that Trump's defense team is trying to say is he was just speaking figuratively when he said "fight" 20 times.

He also, by the way, at one point simulated it. He simulated, as he said "fight," punching the air and punching people, OK? So that's pretty literal.

But it wasn't just President Trump who said "fight." His posse around him, some of whom even went further. So just to remind people of the evidence that will be heard at the trial, here are the Rudy Giulianis, Don Jr.'s, et cetera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And we fight, we fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: Let's have trial by combat.

DON TRUMP JR., SON OF DONALD TRUMP: If you're going to be the zero and not the hero, we're coming for you.

ERIC TRUMP, SON OF DONALD TRUMP: Have some backbone. Show some fight. Learn from Donald Trump. We need to march on the Capitol today.

REP. MO BROOKS (R-AL): Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: "Trial by combat," "kicking ass," you know, those are fighting words.

BERMAN: And bad rhyming from Donald Trump Jr., which should be impeachable, in and of itself.

COATES: It really should be.

And yet -- and yet, my favorite line from the Trump defense team's brief was the only reference to force was in taking pride in his administration's creation of the Space Force. That's an actual line in their brief.

[06:10:05]

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

COATES: It defies logic in every respect to say they don't actually think this.

And so they're going to have to show also the context here, because everything he says before the insurrection at the rally, during the actually insurrection, and what he said afterwards, including praising them as patriots, including talking about them as -- he loves them. He essentially signed off on their behavior through his behavior and his statements and his conduct.

And so, you're going to see the evidence building not only about what he said at that rally but what he did afterwards or, more importantly perhaps, what he failed to do, knowing that he was in a unique position to be able to quell the unrest or to send in re-enforcements. And if Senator Ben Sasse is right, and he was delighted, that's a very difficult thing to defend against.

BERMAN: And it may have been a mistake for the former president's lawyers to include that. Ben Ginsberg -- will be on with us later -- says, by raising that at all, the former president's lawyers have walked in a little bit to a meat grinder that they should have avoided completely.

COATES: Yes. Yes.

BERMAN: And Anna, I'm struck by the Adam Kinzinger letter, which reframes, I think, what's happening today. Yes, the former president is on trial. But Kinzinger, who's one of ten Republicans who voted for impeachment, really is making the case that the Republican Party is on trial today. That these Republican senators will determine the course of that party going forward; and you're going to see it, I think, repeatedly over the next few days.

And today is the first day when they're talking about whether or not, in their minds, they can even have this trial. Forty-five of them earlier, on the Rand Paul vote, said no. I think it will be interesting to see if that 45 number sticks or if more senators today vote that this trial should proceed. I think maybe there will be more that say it should proceed this time.

PALMER: It's unclear where they're going to end up. I don't think, ultimately, there's 17 Republicans unless there is a really dramatic testimony or something that we don't know right now, which doesn't appear to be the case.

But I do think, to your point, Adam Kinzinger is hitting the nail on the head for the Republican Party where he sees it, that this is an existential crisis about the future of the party and what they stand for. That argument hasn't held a lot of merit with a lot of Republicans. We're going to see, probably, a very similar vote today, a redo of this issue of is it unconstitutional or not.

And I think that there hasn't been a growing number of Republicans the further away from January 6 in the Senate that we've seen saying, Hey, I am going to take a second look.

I think a lot of people believe that their minds are made up. They don't expect to have a big shift. We're talking about a handful of Republican senators who could potentially vote to impeach a president. Of course, that -- that would be historic.

BERMAN: McConnell, McConnell, though, before voted with Rand Paul. And today, I mean, I don't know which way he's going to vote. But today is a day when we'll really find out what Mitch McConnell wants to see happening going forward, yes?

PALMER: Yes. I think Mitch McConnell's vote here will be instructive. I do think he is under a tremendous amount of -- of pressure in terms of looking at his conference, where they are. I think he would have a lot of trouble on his hands if he ultimately ends up voting to impeach this president.

CAMEROTA: OK. Anna, Laura, stand by. We have many more questions for you.

Remember former President Trump's phone call with Georgia's secretary of state pressuring him to, quote, "find votes" to overturn the election? That call is now under investigation by the state. So what impact does that have on the impeachment trial? And why now are they investigating it? All that is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:17:49]

BERMAN: Developing overnight, the office of Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, started an investigation into the former president's attempts to overturn Georgia's election results, including this phone call the former president made to the secretary. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP (via phone): So, look, all I want to do is this/ I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It's just so vivid. Back with Anna Palmer and Laura Coates.

Laura, first of all, how much legal jeopardy do you think the former president is in the state of Georgia? This is a real investigation. It put it into the impeachment trial, because it is rather significant in terms of establishing a pattern for that, as well.

COATES: It does. It gives a factual predicate that he was using the big lie, and the theories of the big lie, to rev up people to believe that they should meet him on the Ellipse and then, eventually, march towards the Capitol and do what they did. And so you've got this basis of calling the arc of evidence and the contextual clues about what he intended and why he was speaking about these issues.

So it will likely be used to give that greater context.

But he's also in jeopardy here, because remember, when he was a sitting president, even at the time people thought, look, a state prosecution, even he could not -- excuse me -- get himself out of. It's a state level. There's no pardon. Now he's no longer a president and no longer even has the luxury of being able to give those things out, let alone possibly to himself.

And so now you've got a state prosecution where the evidence is actually on tape. Prosecutors look for the smoking guns all the time, and here you actually have it from the proverbial horse's mouth, saying what he was trying to do, in the greater scheme of things, trying to overturn an election, which as we know, he only wanted as with respect to the highest office on the ballot. He did not think about it for the lower offices that were down the ballot, only as it related to him, as well.

And so this will be further fodder to make the case that he was promoting the big lie, and he was going to capitalize on it, perhaps, through his supporters even on the Capitol.

CAMEROTA: Anna, I just want to remind all of our viewers what Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state in Georgia, had felt after that phone call. He had wanted to put it in the rear-view mirror. On January 4, he wasn't going to investigate President Trump. OK?

[06:20:21]

Here's what he said then. This was his rationale: "I don't think that would be appropriate and not needed at this time. After we complete Wednesday, January 6, emotions will then be able to get back to normal levels. I think that will be the best for all of us and the best thing for America."

If only he were right. If only on January 6, the temperature had come down. Since then, there was a deadly insurrection, and five Americans were killed.

And so, now, there's this university -- George Washington University law professor who has sent a complaint, saying that this has to be investigated; and the secretary of state is going to oblige and go on this fact-finding mission. And then, the attorney general of the state has to figure out if there will be charges. That's where we are.

PALMER: Yes. It's interesting, because Raffensperger, basically, on the 4th sounds like a lot of Republicans who still want to just turn the page and almost pretend like January 6 didn't happen. You know, kind of mimicking those same words of, you know, it's time for the country to move forward, time to come together.

But clearly, January 6 changed everything. There's just no two -- two bones about it, you know. There's kind of pre-January 6, post-January 6. And it's not just politics. But this is the history of this country and an insurrection, a mob siege coming to the Capitol to now -- just blocks from my house, there's you know, fences up and National Guardsmen. And we don't know when they're going to go away.

And I think that that is something that is a reality that a lot of Republicans want to brush under the carpet, so to speak, so that they can not have to deal with Donald Trump and his impact on their party.

BERMAN: I think you perfectly encapsulated, Anna, why today is such a big deal. And I'm glad you just did. Because, you know, a month ago the U.S. Capitol was invaded and overrun by a group of insurrectionists.

And now we have something we've never seen before, which is a former president of the United States on trial for a second time. And look, Anna, you know, you've covered the Capitol for a long time. Just -- just reflect on this moment, on what it means, you think, for the country this morning.

PALMER: I do. I think it is really one of those moments that is so pivotal to how we move forward as a country. There is so much distrust between Republicans and Democrats, between members of Congress and the police force. Nobody knows what exactly happened still.

I think everybody knows what Donald Trump's role was, though. That he was at the speech before it happened. That he did not, even though his vice president, even though -- but for -- I mean, what we know now a few cops and really critical decisions that were made, things could have been so much worse.

And I think that that -- that is something that all of these members and these senators are going to have to think about. You know, where are we going to go forward as a country? And, yes, free speech is important, but this clearly turned into something that was going to be one of the darkest days of our history.

CAMEROTA: Laura, it's just incredible, really, when you think about how Republicans don't want the accountability. Where is the accountability for what happened? Why are they willing to move on and, as Anna says, sweep everything under the rug?

I mean, we heard it with our own ears, President Trump wanted to disrupt the electoral count. He wanted Mike Pence to turn it around. He said it all. And guess what? Everybody who went to the Capitol heard him. They parroted it, even before they -- the siege on the Capitol, they said we're here for Donald Trump. He told us to march to the Capitol. We're going to march to the Capitol. We're going to make this right. We're going to go try to hang Mike Pence. I mean, they were very clear about their instructions.

COATES: They talked about, He told us to come. He told us to be here. And then he told us to go home. They were following almost to a "T" the instructions that they heard from the president of the United States.

And the article of impeachment itself really is haunting, that he is singularly responsible to imperil a coequal branch of government? I mean, it looked as though -- I remember, my children asked me, Mommy, is this real, when we were watching it. It looked like they were zombies that were crawling up the and scaling the walls of the Capitol. They thought it was a movie, perhaps. And I had to tell them that it was real.

But also real is the inability of certain politicians to actually call balls and strikes because of political expedience or political preference or trying to hold onto an office.

And what is really the most unfortunate aspect of this is that this started because somebody was trying to retain power. And now, an absence of accountability, is coming from those who would also like to retain power as opposed to lead.

[06:25:13]

I hope they'll have open minds about this very issue. I hope that they will hear the evidence. I hope that nobody has their minds made up already and that they're receptive to the evidence that will be presented. They're jurors, they're victims, they're eyewitnesses, but more importantly, they're also leaders in this country who have an obligation to be able to act as an oversight, a check and a balance on another coequal branch of government.

If they're derelict in their duty, they'll not only lose the moral high ground, but will actually lose the coequal branches of government system that we actually hold dear. BERMAN: Look, the future of the party, the future of the country. They

are determining, to a certain respect, where we go from here.

Laura, Anna, thank you both very much for being with us.

So, President Joe Biden, we have new reporting on how he is reacting to this and what he believes he will do over the next few days as this takes place.

Plus, new reporting on the pandemic relief package, the $1.9 trillion worth that President Biden wants to get to the American people in the next few weeks. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)