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New Day
Trump Impeachment Trial Gets Underway. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired February 10, 2021 - 06:00 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: These powers must apply even if the president commits his offenses in his final weeks in office. In fact, that's precisely when we need them the most.
[05:59:44]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not just about Donald Trump. This is about abusing the impeachment power for political gain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A number of Republican senators said that they were disappointed in the Trump team's legal performance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's easier for them to talk about how bad of a case they presented today than it is to grapple with the facts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These guys are not going to get athwart their base, because they want to get re-elected. And it is just that simple.
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ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, February 10, 6 a.m. here in New York.
It is day two of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial. And today, the House impeachment managers will present mare opening arguments. They have 16 hours to present their case today and tomorrow. Prosecutors are expected to introduce more video evidence that they say directly connects Donald Trump's words to the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.
House manager Jamie Raskin presented a chilling 13-minute video of the former president's words, followed by his supporters parroting them, then violently storming the Capitol. Here's a clip from that video, and we want to warn you, we have not censored it.
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(CROWD YELLING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all want to be the best patriot we can run (ph). UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go! Go!
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: (SCREAMING IN PAIN)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out! Get out!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!
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CAMEROTA: During much of that presentation, some Republican senators tried to act in indifferent, unmoved, as if they could not be bothered to pay attention, though of course, they're tasked as jurors.
A maskless Rand Paul doodled squiggly lines on a white pad of paper. "The Washington Post" reports senator Rick Scott and Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio studied papers on their laps instead of watching that video.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, there was one mind changed. And I think this is significant, because maybe it shows opinions are not quite as rigid as some would have you believe.
Republican Senator Bill Cassie [SIC] -- Bill Cassidy changed his previous opinion on the Constitutionality of impeachment. He changed his vote on the matter, largely because he says, the former president's attorneys did such an awful job.
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SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): President Trump's team were disorganized. They did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand. And when they talked about it, they kind of glided over it, almost as if they were embarrassed of their arguments.
Now, I'm an impartial juror, and one side is doing a great job, and the other side is doing a terrible job on the issue at hand. As an impartial juror, I'm going to vote for the side that did the good job.
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BERMAN: Now, CNN has been told the former president is fuming over his lawyers' performance, on the verge of screaming at the television, we're told. Sources close to the former president tell CNN's Jamie Gangel, This was a disaster. This was lunacy. If Trump could fire him, he would fire him.
We're going to begin on Capitol Hill again. Deuces wild today. Day two of the impeachment trial begins in just a few hours. Lauren Fox on what we might see -- Lauren.
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, yesterday, you saw the House impeachment managers go to the well of Senate -- of the Senate, and they were prepared, John, with what arguments they wanted to make, having that compelling video footage at the beginning of their arguments yesterday.
Meanwhile, the former president's defense team shaky, at best, with many Republican senators expressing concern about what they saw on the floor from the former president's defense team. We expect to see today more video evidence, but some compelling arguments yesterday in the U.S. Senate.
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FOX (voice-over): House prosecutors will present their case against former President Trump today, explaining why they believe he should be convicted of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol last month. They will have up to 16 hours over the next two days to do so. And without Trump as a witness, they are expected to rely heavily on video evidence.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Our case is based on cold, hard facts. It's all about the facts.
FOX: House managers immediately presenting a chilling preview of their strategy on the first day of the trial --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: USA! USA!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: USA! USA!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: USA! USA!
FOX: -- playing a video highlighting some of Trump's words from January 6 --
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
FOX: -- and the deadly storming of the Capitol that followed. The clip showing rioters breaking into the building and attacking police officers in the rampage.
[06:05:07]
RASKIN: People died that day. Officers ended up with head damage and brain damage. An officer lost three fingers that day. Two officers have taken their own lives.
FOX: A grim reminder to Senate jurors, most of whom were inside that chamber on the day of the insurrection.
RASKIN: You ask what a high crime and misdemeanor is under our Constitution? That's a high crime and misdemeanor. If that's not an impeachable offense, then there is no such thing.
FOX: The 13-minute video just a small recap of the terrifying footage from the riot.
REP. JOE NEGUSE (D-CO): What we experienced that day, what our country experienced that day is the framers' worst nightmare come to life. Presidents can't inflame insurrection in their final weeks and then walk away like nothing happened.
FOX: Tuesday's debate before the Senate voted on whether the impeachment trial is constitutional. Trump's legal team arguing he cannot be convicted, because he's in longer in office.
BRUCE L. CASTOR, TRUMP'S DEFENSE LAWYER: The majority in the House of Representatives does not want to face Donald Trump as a political rival in the future. That's the real reason we're here.
FOX: Six GOP senators ultimately joining Democrats to vote the impeachment trial is constitutional. Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy becoming the only Republican to switch his vote on the constitutionality of the trial.
CASSIDY: The House managers made a compelling, cogent case, and the president's team did not.
FOX: And with the Senate Democrats needing 17 Republican votes to convict Trump, some hope that being witnesses to the attack will make this impeachment trial different than the first.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): We happen to be meeting at the crime scene. We are in the Capitol. You don't have to prove it up, as we say in a courtroom. It's been proved up to each -- each and every one of us as individuals.
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FOX: And the impeachment manager is trying to bring senators back to that moment on January 6 when many of them were in the chamber. Expect new video evidence today as these impeachment Democrats try to make the argument that 100 jurors, 100 senators should move to convict Trump over the next several days -- John.
CAMEROTA: Lauren, thank you very much for all of that reporting.
Joining us now, CNN political analyst Margaret Talev. She's the managing editor at Axios. Also with us, CNN legal analyst Ross Garber. He's a defense attorney and constitutional law professor at Tulane University. Great to have both of you.
So Ross, let me start with you. What did you take away -- excuse me -- from the House manager's case yesterday, and what are you looking for today?
ROSS GARBER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I -- I think the -- the House managers did exactly what they had to and what they aimed to yesterday. You know, it was an emotional case; it was a logical case; it was a factual case. They did what they needed to do.
You know, today, we start kind of a different page, a new page. What they're going to have to show is that there was a cause and effect between what former President Trump said and the violence and also that he intended it, that it was willful. That's what he's been charged with. And so what I'm going to be looking for today is whether they can make that case with the videos they have or whether they need additional witnesses.
BERMAN: You know, Margaret, Bill Cassidy, I think, did America a favor. Not because of what his vote was. People can argue whether or not he made the right decision or not, but the fact that he did change his vote shows that there's a case being made here and that people are listening. That something's going on. There's an argument being made, and there's an audience for that argument. I think the American people is a whole different audience for this argument.
What do you think the House manager's goal is today in terms of making that argument, not just to the Senate, but to the American people?
MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, John, I think it is exactly what Ross was talking about. It is -- if yesterday was about taking you back to that moment of chaos, today is about beginning to connect the dots and to try to show a cause and effect consistently from President -- former President Trump to the rioters.
Remember, there's some figures who we didn't really see featured yesterday in those opening arguments, but they have been certainly important to Democrats' case. Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a Republican. Other Republican members of Congress like Adam Kinzinger. The tragic death of Officer Sicknick. Those powerful images of him lying in honor at the Capitol.
And what we heard consistently, beyond Senator Cassidy's vote yesterday, was Republican senators who have no intention of changing their minds, just being deeply moved by Jamie Raskin's testimony and by having to watch those images that -- compressed together in that 13-minute video, that it's powerfully emotional.
[06:10:15]
And as Jamie Raskin talks about cold, hard facts, that's true, they're going to submit facts. But this is truly an emotional appeal, both to senators and to the American public, to say, take a step back from the talking points that you've been provided or the position you've staked out or are thinking about, your primaries or the future of the party. And just let's focus on what actually happened here and how the country is supposed to respond to it.
CAMEROTA: And Ross, as an attorney, how hard is it to connect these dots? I mean, let's remember, January 6 was not an accident. It wasn't a coincidence that, you know, hundreds of pro-Trump supporters showed up on that day. They were called there to disrupt the electoral vote count. That's why they came on that day. That's what President Trump talked to them about in his rally.
When Rudy Giuliani says, "trial by combat," that's what he means. So is this a tough case to connect these dots? GARBER: So, you know, I think what we're going to hear from the
president's lawyers is sort of the what, who, me defense. It was like, you know, I think they're going to say, you know, the president has -- you know, on January 6, was saying what he'd been saying in the weeks preceding that.
And I think what we're going to hear is that, you know, that was a genuinely-held belief, you know, that the election was stolen. He really believed it. And you know, he had -- we're going to hear a First Amendment right to say it, to kind of say his opinion. And that the violence was not caused by him. It was caused by planning, by others unrelated to him at all.
And so I think what we're going to look for from the House managers is to undermine that argument, is to show that cause and effect that we were just talking about. And also, show what his intent was.
You know, one of the other things I think it's going to be interesting to see is whether the president's team, you know, points out that, you know, law enforcement was not ready for violence. Law enforcement didn't see violence coming. They would have been prepared for it. So you know, how -- how could he have done that?
And you know, the video I think we're going to see is going to be probably compelling on that point, but again, you know, the question is, can it get all of the way there to show what was in his head?
BERMAN: You know what's interesting, and I just want to follow up with you, Ross, on this point. The former president's lawyer, David Schoen, went on TV and was talking about the president's effect on an audience, and the audience that the president has; and said something that raised a lot of eyebrows. This was first pointed out by an editor of "The Daily Beast." At least, that's where I first saw it.
I want -- I want to play this for you, what Schoen told Sean Hannity last night. Listen.
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DAVID SCHOEN, DONALD TRUMP'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: They're using rhetoric that's just as inflammatory or more so. The problem is, they don't really have followers, you know, the dedicated followers, and so, you know, when they give their speeches.
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BERMAN: So what he was saying there was that Democrats have used rhetoric before, but they don't have the followers that the former president does. It's sort of an admission that the former president has people who can be incited. It was just very odd to hear him make what some people construe as an admission there.
SCHOEN: I think he forgot which side he was arguing for. Because that's what the House managers are going to say, is look, you know, words coming out of one person's mouth might mean one thing and might have a certain effect. Words coming out of the mouth of the president of the United States who has, you know, these dedicated, hard-core followers -- not -- not all of them, certainly, are going to engage in violence, but the House manager is going to argue that a certain percentage of them are. And that they do, you know, take a significant amount of value from his words.
And yes, that was essentially the argument that the House managers are going to use, coming out of the mouth of the president's lawyer.
CAMEROTA: They also, as you know, Margaret, yesterday, dispensed with the idea that this wasn't constitutional, somehow. So they voted this is constitutional.
And the case was made that there is no January exception. And so, you know, Congressman Neguse of Colorado said, you know, I think he was quoting a conservative constitutional law attorney, and here's that argument.
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NEGUSE: The text of the Constitution makes clear, there is no January exception to the impeachment power. That presidents can't commit grave offenses in their final days and escape any congressional response. That's not how our Constitution works.
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CAMEROTA: You know, some of the talking points that we're going to hear today, because we got ahold of the talking points released by Donald Trump's team, is still the constitutionality argument. That's -- that's over. That's been dispensed with.
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TALEV: Yes. And Alisyn, I think what you saw yesterday, if you take the former president's lawyers at face value, is that they, in fact, reshuffled the order in which they were trying to make their arguments, because the House managers so definitively blew the constitutionality argument out of the water. And that was supposed to be the underpinning of their argument.
So you heard these other sort of issues thrown out there, like about the First Amendment, or this very interesting other argument, which was that, if the trial goes forward, it's going to tear the country in half. It's tearing -- well, it's already torn the country in half, but it's tearing the country in half, because the president's messaging, the former president's messaging around, you know, the election, the alleged fraud that never actually took place, and trying to sort of call followers, you know, to arms and to act.
So again, it's one of these mixed -- mixed messages, where they're saying, President Trump couldn't actually make anybody do anything, but if you go forward, all these people are going to rise up. So I think you'll see that systemically sort of gone after in the continuation of the evidence that's presented today.
CAMEROTA: OK. Margaret, Ross. Thank you very much. Stick around. We have many more questions for you about Donald Trump's legal teams.
So President Trump is fuming about how he's -- I mean, reportedly, how weak they were. He was borderline screaming at the television, we're told. So we have much more of that reporting, next.
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[06:20:35]
CASTOR: I want to comment on the outstanding presentation from our opponents. I'll be quite frank with you: We changed what we were going to do on account that we thought that the House managers' presentation was well done.
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BERMAN: Now, that is the former president's attorney, Bruce Castor, praising the House managers. And frankly, that might have been the most coherent part of his entire argument. It was before delivering this hot mess of a defense that has been widely criticized by Republicans and by his client.
Sources close to the former president tell CNN's Jamie Gangel the defense "was a disaster" and "lunacy," adding that, "If Trump could fire him, he would fire him."
Back with us, Margaret Talev and Ross Garber.
Ross, I mean, that it was awful is widely agreed upon this morning. But from you, I want to know what made it so awful.
GARBER: Well, I guess, in fairness to these lawyers, they just got hired. This isn't their area of expertise. They, you know, clearly know nothing about impeachment law, impeachment process, impeachment history. They don't know the facts, and they, you know, had just started working with their client. So I'm not sure how much, under those circumstances, we could expect. Sort of like, you know, me going and trying to do, like, a property closing in Louisiana.
And -- and so, as anybody who watched it saw, it was -- it was rambling, it wasn't coherent, and it took for granted that the president already, he believes, has the votes to win. And so it reflected kind of a lack of preparation, a lack of, you know, attention to a coherent narrative. There was nothing good about that -- about their presentation.
CAMEROTA: Margaret, you know, Donald Trump has raised $170 million from his die-hard supporters for his legal defense fund. Do you think that those supporters feel like they got their money's worth yesterday?
TALEV: This is now the president's third legal team when it comes to impeachment matters. Of course, the team from a year ago didn't come back together. The team assembled for this effort fell apart over disputes about whether they were going to get paid. But also, what tact to take.
Remember, former President Trump originally wanted that argument to be that the election was stolen from him. And so now you have a team with a week's worth of practice and fundamentally, the challenge is the client; and the client's actions are the primary challenge here.
But I think, going forward, we are going to see an effort for some message discipline. Republicans, particularly, after yesterday, Senate Republicans who weren't in that group of six, voting essentially to move forward are saying, Give us a way to explain this, because once we survive the primary process, we're going to need to stand for a general election.
And so I think, you know, this is a real challenge. And the reports that President Trump -- former President Trump was fuming shouldn't be surprising to anyone. This is like what always happens when something went wrong over the last four years. He would attempt to blame the people around him who had advised him.
But fundamentally, this is a political venue. There is a separate court venue for potential criminal cases. He may now be more concerned about exposure on that front.
But fundamentally here, this impeachment trial doesn't have the same standard of proof. Senators are free to vote in a different way than jurors in a court would. And that's why messaging is so important. Because it's not about doing what the law says you must do. It's about doing what you think politically you should do. And that's really a different standard with different implications.
BERMAN: You know, Ross, I know from the movies that when a fight is rigged, when the fix is in, you need to make it look good, still. You know, people get upset when a rigged fight still doesn't look real.
And that's the position now that some Republican senators find themselves in by this legal defense, what Margaret was saying there. Give us a reason -- give us something to talk about here.
I just wonder what pressure you think this puts on senators going forward. And I don't think that necessarily Bill Cassidy changing votes means that, you know, 50 Republican senators are going to change their votes. But I also don't think it's meaningless when someone changes their mind.
GARBER: Yes, for sure. To count to 17 Republicans changing their mind is very, very hard. But the fact that -- that Senator Cassidy did is -- is not without significance. I mean, I don't think anybody would say that the senior senator from Louisiana, you know, is a RINO, not a real Republican. So, you know, him changing his mind was significant.
And, you know, I think the problem was that he -- you know, you didn't give him a reason yesterday to side with the president.
The senators, the Republican senators who want to vote and likely will vote with the president have a few choices coming up. One is to vote guilty or not guilty on the merits when they get to the verdict. The second choice is to -- to say that they still believe there's no
jurisdiction, and notwithstanding what the Senate said, to stick with that. You know, We're voting not guilty just because of jurisdiction.
And the third option is to abstain and to say, We don't think there's jurisdiction, so we're not even going to vote.
And, you know, I think that's going to be something interesting to watch. In the Belknap case, you know, back from the 1800s, the last time this happened, senators took all of those different positions, the senators who thought there was no jurisdiction. Most voted not guilty, but some took other paths. And so I think it will be interesting to watch which approach these senators take.
BERMAN: Ross, we really appreciate having you here, laying out the history and the law for us.
Margaret, we love having you here for the politics. Thank you both so much.
So a lot going on in the country as this is happening. The president, President Biden, pushing ahead with his agenda. We're going to tell you about the new plan to get more coronavirus vaccines into arms of Americans, next.
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