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Soon: House Impeachment Managers Finish Presenting Their Case; CNN: Investigators Have Narrowed List of Suspects in Officer's Death; ; Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) Interviewed on Evidence Presented at Impeachment Trial of Former President Trump Inciting Capitol Insurrection. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 11, 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]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEL. STACEY PLASKETT, (D) HOUSE IMPEACHMENT MANAGER: As the rioters reached the top of the stars, they were within 100 feet of where the vice president was sheltering with his family. And they were just feet away from one of the doors to this chamber, where many of you remained at that time. You can see Vice President Pence and his family quickly moved down the stairs. The vice president turns around briefly as he's headed down. Journalists in the Capitol reported they heard rioters say they were looking for Pence in order to execute him.

CROWD: Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!

UNKNOWN: Bring out Pence! Bring out Pence! Bring out Pence!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, we have new reporting on what the House managers plan to present today.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings. She was one of the impeachment managers in the former president's first trial.

Congresswoman Demings, you were also a police officer for decades and a police chief. So in addition to the new video we have never seen before, we also heard police dispatch audio, recordings we were hearing for the first time. I want to play some of that right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: They're throwing metal poles at us.

UNKNOWN: Cruiser 50, give me DSO here now, DSO. Multiple law enforcement injuries. DSO, get up here.

UNKNOWN: Cruiser 50, we're still taking rocks, bottles, and pieces of flag and metal pole. Cruiser 50, the crowd is using munitions against us. They have bear spray in the crowd.

UNKNOWN: Cruiser 50, we've lost the line. We've lost the line. All PD pull back. We've been flanked and we've lost the line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So Congresswoman, your decades in service with everything that you personally know about the job, what did you hear there?

REP. VAL DEMINGS (D-FL): Well, John, good morning. It's good to be back with you.

And, wow, just listening to that just brings back so many painful memories. There is no doubt our men and women in blue are in trouble. And that's what you hear. You hear just the -- it's overwhelming for them. They're in trouble. And when you watch the video, boy, we know how much in trouble they were.

I think -- I was in the gallery that day, which was horrific enough. But coming to the realization after watching some of the footage that I was not aware of, and just seeing it all collectively just really drives home that were it not for the police officers doing almost the impossible on January 6th, Mike Pence would have suffered great bodily harm or died. Nancy Pelosi would have suffered great bodily harm or died, members of Congress, the same fate.

So they were responding and under just unbelievable odds. And I am just so grateful and thankful to those officers who remembered their oath and were willing to die to live up to it. And we know that Officer Brian Sicknick lost his life.

BERMAN: House Manager Swalwell read from beatitudes, blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God. And apparently when he read that, there was a Capitol police officer in the gallery, this was just yesterday, who was tearing up, and his identity wasn't revealed. I wonder if you could just reflect on that for a moment.

DEMINGS: John, that's one of the scriptures that I used to share with the men and women in blue, especially when we were having a challenging day, but trying to do good, trying to save lives, trying to protect. And I would remind them, blessed are the peacemakers, that we're on the right side of this issue. We are that thin blue line that stands between evil and good.

And so to hear Manager Swalwell share that yesterday, who has a law enforcement officer in his family, it just brought back a sense of peace for me that they are the good guys. And, boy, what they did on January 6th, but are prepared to do every day, is just worth giving them all of the honor today.

BERMAN: Bruce Castor, who is the former president's defense attorney, said last night, I'm waiting for them, the House managers, to connect all of this, the violence that we saw yesterday to Trump himself. His suggestion was, well, the violence happened, but they didn't prove that Trump was responsible. Your reaction?

[08:05:00]

DEMINGS: Well, I guess when you are trying to defend what is indefensible, you say that -- well, you deny what's right before your very eyes. You ask the American people and the senators in that room to not believe their lying eyes and ears.

I think the managers have done a masterful job in connecting the dots in this case against the president of the United States, and very clearly demonstrated that the president's valid rhetoric did not stand on January -- or start on January 6th, but there was a constant build up weeks and months. He knew that there was a strong possibility he would lose the election. He lost.

And so, he knew that when the courts did their job and threw out his cases, that inciting the violent mob was his only choice, his only option. And remember, during the debate -- stand by to a group that he knew was labeled extremist? Stand by. Donald Trump is directly responsible for the horrific events that occurred on January 6th and he must be held accountable.

BERMAN: What more, because the House managers will conclude with their main presentation today, what more do you think they need to do today?

DEMINGS: John, this case, I, of course, can't help but think about last year when we were presenting the case involving the president of Ukraine. This case is really a -- I would call it a prosecutor's dream. The president's own words -- these are not interpretations. These are not what somebody said he said. These are the president's own words. We're dealing with groups who descended upon the Capitol that day who had already invoked violence in other cities. So the president knew or he should have known.

And then the videos, the videos are hard to ignore. The videos are hard to get over. As a matter of fact, as a nation I don't think we will ever get over what we've seen in those videos. And so I think the impeachment managers who have said already have just done a skillful job, will continue to drive those points home.

BERMAN: In the last trial and in this trial, we have heard reports from pool reporters who were allowed inside of some of the senators not listening. Rand Paul doodling squiggly lines, Josh Hawley with his feet up in the Senate gallery over one of the chairs. As someone who has been a manager, what is it like to look out and see a U.S. senator who will decide something that will have huge constitutional, historic repercussions not listening, what's that like?

DEMINGS: Well, I have to say last year when we were presenting, I believe the senators were engaged and listening. I think this time, perhaps there are some in the chamber who are confused that impartial jurors certainly does not mean disengaged juror. But we do know that there are some who believe that if they face the truth and the facts in this impeachment trial, it causes them some political problems.

BERMAN: How do you get them beyond that fear? If they are afraid of the political repercussions, if they are afraid of being primaried by a Trump supporter, how will you get them beyond that fear? What do you say to them?

DEMINGS: John, this is a moment of human decency. You know what, I am sure -- let's go back to the police officers that day. Police officers have a duty to act. They can't pick and choose what calls they want to respond to. They have a duty to act. I'm sure they were afraid they were going to lose their lives that day. I know some of them wanted to drive away, run and hide, but they did not. They stood strong and fought for our democracy and fought to protect us. You know why? Because they remembered their oath.

It would be nice if the senators who are afraid of political repercussions would put America first and put plain old what's right and wrong first. And it's clear as rain, clear as one and one plus two, that the president is directly tied to this, responsible for this, and should be held accountable. And if they do not do that, John, history will judge them. History will judge them.

[08:10:06]

BERMAN: Congresswoman Val Demings, thanks for coming on this morning. Appreciate your time.

DEMINGS: Thank you.

BERMAN: So what will we hear today from the House impeachment managers? And what can we expect from the former president's defense? We have new CNN reporting, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEL. STACEY PLASKETT, (D) HOUSE IMPEACHMENT MANAGER: For anyone who says Donald Trump didn't know the violence he was inciting, I ask you to consider his supporters tried to drive a bus off a highway in the middle of the day to intimidate his opponent's campaign workers. And his response was to tweet the video of the incident that had fight music, joke about it, and call those individuals in that incident patriots. And once again, Donald Trump's praise worked to incite them further. Emboldened by that praise, they remained ready to fight, ready to stand back and stand by.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: House impeachment managers arguing that former President Trump spent months fanning the flames and planting the seeds for the deadly insurrection at the Capitol.

[08:15:04]

Joining us now, CNN political director David Chalian, co-host of the CNN podcast "Politically Sound", and CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates.

That was effective, Laura. I mean, I don't know that before we saw that presentation that we would have necessarily connected those two dots that was, I thought, a new kind of connection. What did you hear yesterday?

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It absolutely was, Alisyn. And we have to keep remembering, we call this new day in infamy January 6th for the insurrection, but what they're building is the knowledge that he was leading up to January 6th as being a save the date for this sort of behavior. That all of the things he was doing prior to that was leading up to this event.

They did a very fascinating and methodical approach to present this evidence in a way that was so compelling, it has all of our heads scratching as to how we're going to defend against that, particularly knowing this was not coincidental. And I, like you, did not immediately draw the connection between, say, that bus incident and what happened, but what she did just there was actually show America and the world that he uses certain code words like patriot, all of a sudden, to condone the indefensible, to try to signal with a wink and a nod what he'd like you to do. And that in and of itself is chilling.

BERMAN: David Chalian, political director, I had no idea that House Democrats had such warm, kind feelings for Vice President Mike Pence. I actually think it was one of the big surprises in the presentation and has both legal and political implications for what the House managers were trying to do yesterday in this trial, but maybe the message they're trying to lay down for posterity as well.

They set this up as, you know, Mike Pence was a target. The former president was targeting Mike Pence. You now have to decide between Mike Pence and Donald Trump.

Your thoughts?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, I don't think that's a very difficult decision we're seeing for a lot of these Republican senators in terms of where their loyalties lie because of where they think the base of support is from, right? I mean, these -- these insurrectionists that were incited by Donald Trump were looking to hang Mike Pence.

So it's pretty clear where that Trump energy and Trump base of the party is that these Republicans for five years now have been so concerned about. But you're right to point this out because, I mean, obviously, we've never seen Democrats heap so much praise and love on Mike Pence, but it is worth noting, right, that he in the face of all of that, from his boss, the president, that he made clear that he was going to follow the constitutional role. He put democracies functioning ahead of Donald Trump's tweets, which is not true for all the other Republicans necessarily in that chamber. Some of them have, but not all of them.

CAMEROTA: Laura, what do they have to do today?

COATES: They're going to have to really solidify what they've done so far which is to make sure that it's clear that not only from the intent and the context that the president -- former president of the United States became the inciter in chief. That he actually caused this. That but for Donald Trump's behavior and conduct over a months- long campaign, none of this would have happened. But unfortunately, we're talking about a political trial.

Had this been a criminal trial, Alisyn, you and I both know they have to just present their evidence and they have to move the needle beyond a reasonable doubt by proving their case to unbiased jurors. Here they have to change minds already digging in their heels for political reasons.

And so, in spite of the evidence we're seeing, they're going to have to continue to make those overtures, appealing not only to their moral compasses but also their political sense of, you could have been next. Notice the theme we've seen here. The drum beats, the pounding.

Who was going to be next? It could have been anyone and Castro summed it up perfectly when he said, the president left everyone, all of us in this capitol for dead. Let that sink in.

BERMAN: And Eric Swalwell saying 58 steps, which is so vivid when you think about that, 58 steps between maybe life and death for all of you sitting in this room.

David, you know, Laura talks about trying to convince the senators. I don't know if that's possible and I'm not even sure that's the right bar or what we should be discussing right here and now. I am wondering from the House managers perspective what you think they have left to do in terms of the historical record, the record of this. This moment in history, the mark they want to leave behind.

CHALIAN: I'm so glad you're making this point. It is a bar. It is certainly one of the metrics here, the final vote here, but it is not the only bar. This is for history.

This is to make sure that there is a methodical record of this traumatic event that occurred. I mean, it is just so devastating to go through it and yet so important. Now I think the final thing the house managers which, their presentation has been masterful. You just go through the way in which they hit each bucket of the build up.

What occurred on the 6th before the breach of the capitol and then everything after the breach of the capitol. But they do still need to do that final connecting of the dots that, as Laura said, but for Donald Trump, this wouldn't have happened. And I think that's a key part of their closing argument.

I do not think that these house managers have fooled themselves into thinking there's something they can say today to get those 17 Republicans. I think they are looking to the country, to the world, and putting America's fight for its democracy in the record here against a president who chose the other side.

CAMEROTA: Laura, earlier in the program, we had on Ben Ginsburg, famed Republican lawyer, who said he felt there still had to be a silver bullet and that silver bullet would be a witness who was with Donald Trump that day as he went MIA, as all of this was unfolding in real time and he wasn't calling off the mob. He wasn't calling in the National Guard. And that that's what he felt could still sway Republican minds. Do you think there's still a silver bullet? Do you think a witness

would be the silver bullet here?

COATES: I think it could be and precisely for this reason. We keep hearing and we heard for weeks about how Senator Ben Sasse said that President Trump was delighted while all this was going on. But we haven't seen the actual corroboration yet on that point.

And note that yesterday, at the end of the presentation of evidence, you had Senator Mike Lee jump into his feet to make sure that he was clarified. I didn't say that about the conversation with myself and Senator Tuberville.

You know who didn't stand up to say he had been misquoted or mischaracterized? The very person who said Trump was delighted at the time. If they can get somebody in there to corroborate that, that is the nail in the political impeachment coffin.

CAMEROTA: David, Laura, thank you both very much for all of the expertise.

So new developments this morning into the death investigation of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.

What this new video tells investigators about what happened to him, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:26:10]

CAMEROTA: A major development in the investigation of the death of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. New video is helping federal authorities narrow their list of suspects and find a possible cause of death. CNN's Whitney Wild is live in Washington with the new CNN reporting.

What have you learned, Whitney?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, this is also helping investigators build their confidence and one of their leading theories which is that Officer Brian Sicknick interact with a chemical irritant, perhaps bear spray, and that led to a fatal reaction and subsequently caused his death.

This is also helping them put to bed one of the earlier theories, one of the earlier suggestions that he had been hit with a fire extinguisher and had suffered some blunt-force trauma and that's what caused his death. Investigators now believe that's simply not true.

In addition to helping them narrow down the list of suspects, narrow down a cause of death, what this really does, Alisyn, is bring justice closer and closer to becoming a reality that is so important because they have spent weeks struggling to build this federal murder case -- John.

BERMAN: Whitney Wild, thanks so much. Bear spray.

The former president's defense attorneys say the House impeachment managers are, quote, just trying to drum up emotion with the damning videos of the deadly insurrection. Yet a source says the former president's legal team is scrambling to secure and produce new videos of their own to bolster their case.

CNN White John Harwood joins us now.

John, what do we know exactly at this point about the president's defense?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know is that they are going to come up with wafer thin comparisons between what happened on January 6th and President Trump's rhetoric and things that occurred previously in terms of Democrats criticizing President Trump or saying they wanted to impeach President Trump.

The reality is, the outcome of this trial does not depend on the quality of the prosecution by the House managers or the quality of defense by the Trump team. And the reason for that is that a critical mass of the Republican Party has been radicalized. They've been radicalized by the existential dread that a different set of people, a different set of economic circumstances or changing the country culturally, economically to the detriment of people who have been in charge in the past.

So, white working class voters fear that people who are not white, who are not Christian, who are better educated are gaining power. They're losing it. So they're willing to defend their place through the Republican Party by anti-Democratic means.

That's why you had a Republican president inspiring this insurrection. That's why the Republican Party seeks to limit the right to vote. So they don't need much to cover their justification.

So you'll get people like Lindsey Graham saying, well, yes, there was a deadly insurrection of the capitol but people spit on me. People spit on Susan Collins. Or, yes, there was a deadly insurrection at the capitol, but there were racial justice protesters who committed vandalism and violence.

Intimidation of public officials is bad. Violence against people and property is bad. But these are not comparable things.

Nevertheless, simple justifications are going to be sufficient as we've seen from these Republican jurors who were saying, waste of time. I didn't hear anything. It's all emotion. Let's move on.

CAMEROTA: John, what is President Biden doing during all of this?

HARWOOD: President Biden is staying away from the impeachment trial. There is zero up side in him commenting on this. He's got work to do. Pass his COVID relief plan. He's having a meeting with senators at the White House this morning on infrastructure, which is going to be the big bill to follow on the COVID relief plan which appears to be on track to pass it in a few weeks.

The infrastructure plan is going to be even bigger than the $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan. He's also moving forward with implementing his foreign policy. Of course, we saw sanctions yesterday on Myanmar for the coup there.

[08:30:00]