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Soon: Former President Trump's Historic Second Impeachment Trial Begins; Assistant Speaker of the House Rep. Katherine Clark (D- MA) Interviewed on Pending Impeachment Trial of Former President Trump and Legislation to Raise U.S. Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired February 09, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

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

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 our 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 but a long shot.

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

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

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Morning, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. And it is an historic morning in America. The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump is about to begin.

Security is tight at the U.S. Capitol this morning, of course, trying to prevent a repeat of the deadly insurrection on January 6th. Prosecutors will use Donald Trump's own words against him. Trump told his supporters to march to the Capitol and fight. He didn't say it once, he didn't say it twice, but 20 times.

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

Fight.

Fight.

Fighting.

The fight.

Fighting.

I'd 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: Former aides tell CNN that Mr. Trump enjoyed the spectacle created by the riots and was, quote, loving watching the Capitol mob. Mr. Trump repeatedly ignored requests to tell his supporters to stand down, even as lawmakers who were trapped inside the Capitol begged him for help.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The former president is on trial, but so, too, in a matter of speaking is the Republican Party itself. That is according to a member of the Republican Party, Congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of 10 House Republican members who voted to impeachment the former president. He is pleading with Republican senators this morning. He says "this isn't a waste of time. 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 get 16 hours over two days. The total process could take about a week.

Let's go right to Capitol Hill where it all begins in just a few hours. Lauren Fox is there. Lauren?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Good morning. That's right, John. This is an historic day on Capitol Hill, not just because Trump has been impeached twice, but because he is the first president to now undergo an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate when he is no longer in office. That is going to be the subject of the debate today on Capitol Hill in the U.S. Senate chamber where there will be four hours of debate, and then a vote later today about the constitutionality of holding this trial of a former president.

We expect that the breakdown is going to be very similar to what we saw a few weeks ago, with five Republican senators joining their Democratic counterparts and saying, yes, this is constitutional, and the rest of the Republican Party voting that it is not constitutional.

Tomorrow, we will see those opening arguments from the impeachment managers about their case. Essentially that's going to last two days, 16 hours total. Then Trump's defense team will have their own 16 hours, two days to make their cases. It's a little unclear right now which weekend days they will be using given the fact that there was initially a request to observe Jewish Sabbath on Saturday. That request has now been pulled. So we are still awaiting word on how many weekend days this trial will go.

Then there will be four hours of questions from U.S. senators. And then a question of whether or not there will be witnesses or subpoenas for documents. There would have to be a vote if that was the case that the House managers wanted to move down, but we have not seen any evidence of that yet.

At the end of all of this, there will be four hours for closing arguments, and then that final vote on whether or not to convict Trump for an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Now, look, we are starting to begin to see the arguments that both the president's defense team and the House managers are going to lay out. You saw yesterday in that pretrial brief that the president's defense is going to argue he didn't mean to fight literally. He just meant it as a use of political free speech.

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Now we expect that the House managers are going to combat that, and this is what we saw from their pretrial brief yesterday, quote, "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." That is the argument that they are going to be making.

Now, look, we don't see any evidence at this point that there are going to be 17 Republican senators willing to convict Trump. But, of course, all of that can change depending on these arguments we hear over the next week. We're going to be watching those five Republican senators very closely, the ones who we believe will vote today on moving ahead with this impeachment because they say it's constitutional. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Lauren, thank you very much for setting the table for us.

Joining us now, Democratic Congresswoman Katherine Clark. She's the assistant speaker of the House. Good morning, Congresswoman.

REP. KATHERINE CLARK (D-MA): Good morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, so we now know some details of how this will unfold. It sounds like each side will have 16 hours to present their case over the course of two days. It sounds like that is not going to leave enough time for witnesses. Do I have that right?

CLARK: What I think we are going to see over the next few weeks is a laying out of the facts of an insurrection and an incitement by President Trump. I think we're going to hear his own words 20 times asking the mob to fight. A tweet as that mob moved towards the Capitol saying they have been betrayed by Mike Pence. Don't forget, this is a president who at a debate told the Proud Boys to stand by. This is a case where we are putting our very democracy on trial. And I hope that the Republican senators move to convict because they believe in our country and in the future of a democracy and cutting off the fascism that this president has started to plant and has started to take root.

CAMEROTA: It sounds like what you're saying, and we've heard this before, is you don't think you'll need witnesses, that there's other evidence that is just as compelling.

CLARK: I think we have the words of the members of the mob telling us, our leader, the president, wants us to be here. The president made me do this. Those -- we have hours and hours of tapes of people who were there because the president told them a lie. And we were warned by other Republicans like the secretary of state of Georgia who said if this lie continues, if the president continues to tell people falsely this election was stolen, someone is going to be killed. And all of that so tragically came true. Five lives lost that day, two police officers who have taken their own lives since, 140 members of law enforcement and the Capitol police and D.C. law enforcement seriously injured.

But even more than that, today is the day where we have to stand up for our Constitution. We have to stand up for our democracy and say there's no January exception to making sure that a president abides by the Constitution and does not turn an angry mob on his own government.

CAMEROTA: So, sorry to be stuck on this point, but that sounds like no witnesses. Just so we're clear.

CLARK: I'll leave it up to the managers. They are very capable on whether they will see the need. But I think this is a highly unusual impeachment proceeding in that the jurors were also witnesses. Those senators knew what it was like to flee in terror from the Senate chambers when they heard that mob at the door. They saw the flags of the Confederacy being flown. They saw a gallows and a noose erected on Capitol grounds.

So we will deal with the process, and I trust the impeachment managers to deal with that very capably. But the importance here are the facts, because we have to get back to the truth and accountability, because that is how we protect our country and move forward to fight this pandemic and get our economy back on track.

CAMEROTA: The president's lawyers say that those 20 times that he used the word fight in that rally before the mob marched to the Capitol, he was just speaking figuratively. He didn't mean literally fight. What's the response to that?

CLARK: I don't think that argument gets you out of high school detention.

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We have a president who has been on record for almost a year sowing doubt, misleading, lying to the American people about this election. And let's be clear what his motivation was. It was to overrule the will of the people, retain the presidency illegally for himself. And frankly, I don't think he cared who got hurt, what happened, what happened to his own vice president, what happened to the speaker or members of Congress. He doesn't care what happens to the very tenets of our Constitution and democracy. He cared about retaining power at all costs. And that is why this impeachment is so critical.

CAMEROTA: Is it your impression that all the senators who will serve as jurors have already made up their mind?

CLARK: What we have to do is trust in the oath of people, not only the oath of office to the Constitution, to holding up our democracy, but also their oath to be impartial. And the eyes not only of the country and of history are going to be upon them, but the eyes of the world. They are going to have to make a choice. Are they going to be patriots? Are they going to be truth-seekers? Are they going to do what is right and true? Or are they going to continue to be loyal to a president who thinks nothing of misleading the American people and sowing violence against his own government.

CAMEROTA: I want to move on to President Biden's agenda, and, of course, at the top of his list is getting this COVID relief out to Americans. You support the $15 per hour minimum wage. And last night, that made it into one of the legislation that was crafted by the House Education and Labor Committee. The CBO has looked at that, and they have concluded that if there were a $15 minimum wage, that over the next just few years, that would kick 1.4 million workers, mainly young workers, out of the job market. It would also hurt small businesses. What's your response?

CLARK: The minimum wage is a critical piece of not only raising wages for 27 million Americans, pulling 1 million people out of poverty, but it is a major step to addressing income inequality in this country. And the CBO, overall, said this is going to be a tremendous economic gain by raising the minimum wage over time. This will be phased in. But here's the other point is that every American who is working full

time should be able to provide the basic necessities for their family. Put food on the table for their children, be able to pay the basic bills. And what we have now are families that are working two or three or four jobs and still not able to make it. And I don't think that we can look at this issue around the minimum wage and not recognize that almost 70 percent of minimum wage workers are women. And women are being disproportionately hurt in this economic fallout from the pandemic. One out of four women have been forced out of the workforce.

So if we are serious about an economic recovery that is inclusive, that we can do even better, not a return to status quo, but build something that includes even more Americans, the minimum wage increase is a great and critical place to start.

CAMEROTA: Congresswoman Katherine Clark, thank you for dealing with all of these issues with us today.

CLARK: Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: So former President Trump's historic second impeachment trial begins just hours from now in the very building that was stormed by the violent mob only a month ago. More on what to expect, next.

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BERMAN: We are just hours away from the historic impeachment trial of the former president for his role in the invasion of the U.S. Capitol.

Joining us now, CNN political analyst David Gregory and CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers. She's a former federal prosecutor.

And, David, I was struck by something that Adam Kinzinger wrote overnight. He wrote a long op-ed. He's one of the Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach the former president of the United States.

And there was just one phrase in there that jumped out at me. He said, this is not a waste of time, right? We've talked about how this is an historic moment today.

Why do you think what we're about to see is so important?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Because what do you do in response to a president who launches an attack on our election system? If we don't have reliable elections in this country, what happens to our democracy? What do you do when one branch of government launches an attack on another branch of government?

I don't know that this impeachment proceeding is the right way to answer that question, but I know it's a big question and it requires big action. You cannot say to future presidents, and this is Kinzinger's point, that in your last weeks and month-plus in office, you know, you have a blank check to indulge any lie or promote political violence.

So that's the key point here. This cannot be a new normal.

E.J. Dionne in "The Washington Post" talked yesterday about reminding us about how we talked about the new normal after 9/11. This cannot be a new normal after January 6th that we just kind of absorb as part of our political life. That's what Congressman Zinger -- Adam --

CAMEROTA: Kinzinger.

GREGORY: Kinzinger, sorry. Had another name in mind. Thank you, Alisyn.

But that's the point that he's making that we can't go on as normal from here and that's the importance of today.

CAMEROTA: So, Jennifer, you know what it takes to successfully prosecute cases. Big picture, what do you think they need to do? What are you looking for?

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JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, unfortunately, Alisyn, what they need to do is change minds. You know, in a regular criminal case, you have an unbiased jury who doesn't know the facts and don't have any personal stake in the outcome. That's not what we have here.

So, what the House managers need to do is change the minds of the senators and get it away from what's in their interest personally and to what is right. And to do that, I think they need to call some witnesses. You know, it looks like they're not going to, although they're keeping that option open.

My concern is without someone who can tell us -- this is the critical thing, I think -- what president Trump was doing in the time during the actual insurrection, while the capitol was being breached, while capitol police were being beaten, while things were being damaged and stolen, while they were hunting for Mike Pence and some of the Democrats on the Hill, he was reportedly delighted and he was sitting on his hands when he should have been calling in reinforcements and telling his supporters to stand down.

So, I think even though we've heard reporting of that, a firsthand witness who can sit there and swear an oath and tell us in his or her own words what the president was doing, what he wasn't saying, and what he wasn't doing, I think that would be very, very powerful and might change some of these senators' minds.

BERMAN: You know, it might be powerful, but the calculation the House managers have to make is even if the former president confessed to everything, even if you had a few good men, even if you had a moment where he was asked, did you order the code red and he said, you're damn right I did, it's very possible you wouldn't get 17 Republican senators to convict. And I know that sounds hyperbolic, but that's the consideration at this point. There are 45 senators who don't even think a former president -- they

claim. They don't think a former president can face trial at this point. So, that's the dilemma because they know it will add time. It will add time to this trial.

David, though, the Republican senators who have already staked some ground here, this could be uncomfortable the next few days. I think we're losing sight of what it will be like for them as America relives this moment.

GREGORY: Yeah, I think that's a really important point. It's been made earlier in our coverage this morning. This is less abstract than the Ukraine investigation about a phone call and what was meant and what the transcript said and what was meant on the call.

This happened before all of our eyes. It's incredibly dramatic. It's visceral. And by the way, it had a huge impact at the time. It had a huge impact on this president's standing in America, within his own party. Electorally if you look at these two Georgia senators who were elected, Democrats, right after this happened. It had a huge political impact.

I don't know if this impeachment proceeding now continues to have a political impact, but we know that it's had already the effect of kind of breaking the political back of Donald Trump. But what's at stake now is people taking all this in and saying, which way forward? Republican Party is fighting with itself over which way forward as a party.

Where are the moral lines to be drawn? Where are the political, ideological lines to be drawn? Lines around populism, grievance and Donald Trump is what stands in the middle of that, and that will be debated here. And they'll have to live with that.

And voters will pay attention to that piece. Even if they are swept up in the idea that, well, this is Democrats going after Trump again. We cannot deny the political impact that these events have already had on Trump and on his party.

CAMEROTA: Jennifer, I totally agree with your argument that if they were to call a witness, somebody who was inside the White House, that could report that president Trump was totally MIA and he was enjoying watching it on television as the reporting suggests. But there is other evidence, even without that witness, it took three hours. Three hours where he did nothing to call them off.

So at 1:30 p.m. they stormed the capitol. At 4:17, that day, three hours later, he came out and said, I love you all, but time to go home.

Now one of the things I think his lawyers will call upon are the two tweets he sent out in the middle of those hours. An hour into the siege, OK, at 2:38, he said, stay peaceful. They were already violent. They were already destructive. They were already vandalizing things and doing even more disgusting things that I won't say on morning television at the moment. And 3:13 he says, remain peaceful. By then, people were dead. So

that's what they -- his lawyers seem to want to hang their hat on.

RODGERS: That's right, Alisyn. And you know, it's not just that. It's the evidence, of course, the big lie and how he fomented all of this from the beginning that the lawyers are ignoring.

So, I agree with you. Listen, if these were unbiased civilian witnesses like we see in a criminal trial, this would be a slam dunk. It's just that it's not. So, they are really going to have to focus on all of the lead up to January 6th, what the president did and didn't do in the hours when this was all happening.

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And remember, by the way, he wasn't just seeing what we were all seeing on television. He was receiving intelligence reports, right, from inside. He was getting calls from people actually barricaded in that building.

So he knew a lot more than even we knew at the time. And yet he was sitting on his hands and sending out these ridiculously late and tepid messages to his followers, instead of doing what he should have been doing. And that is going to be powerful evidence.

BERMAN: Look, more than that, CNN's reporting is he was delighted. CNN and "The New York Times" reporting he was delighted by what he saw. We'll hear that, we may not hear it from witnesses but we'll hear it over the next few days.

Jennifer Rodgers, David Gregory, thanks so much.

CAMEROTA: So the race to vaccinate more Americans as the threat from the new corona -- the new variants grows. So how are those mass vaccination sites going? Are they helping? We have a report, next.

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BERMAN: Across the country, stadiums and arenas being transformed into mass vaccination sites. They're playing a key role in getting more Americans vaccinated.

CNN's Amara Walker live at Mercedes-Benz.

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