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New Day

Biden Makes Concession on Infrastructure but Sides Far Apart; Pence: Trump and I May Never 'See Eye-to-Eye' on Capitol Riot; Sources: Trump's Absurd Return Theory Sparked by MyPillow CEO; Biden's July 4 Vaccination Goal Faces Uphill Battle; U.S. Has No Evidence UFO Encounters Were Alien Spacecraft. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 04, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar alongside John Berman on this NEW DAY.

[05:59:55]

A new CNN analysis shows President Biden's goal to vaccinate 70 percent of American adults by next month will be an uphill climb. See the numbers.

Plus a key Democratic senator speaks to CNN, saying that he's not ready to give up on Republicans, but many in his party disagree, and the clock is ticking.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: They came to hang him, yet Mike Pence says he and Donald Trump don't see eye-to-eye on the deadly Capitol insurrection. Will Pence testify about that?

And highly-anticipated UFO findings are in. What the government says they reveal about alien spacecraft and why this could be a could be a national security problem.

KEILAR: Good morning to viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Friday, June 4.

And this morning, bipartisan negotiations over President Biden's plan to rebuild the nation's aging roads, bridges, ports, and waterways are entering a critical phase.

Republicans are expected to present a counteroffer today in these infrastructure negotiations after President Biden offered a series of concessions, slashing the bill's price tag and rethinking the way that it's funded.

BERMAN: Will it be enough for Republicans, and are Democrats being naive to think that bipartisanship is even possible? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did say this in May.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

Jeff, mind the gap, right? How far apart are they right now, the White House and Senate Republicans?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John, good morning.

President Biden is trying to narrow that gap, but it is pretty wide this morning. But he's signaling that he wants to keep bipartisan talks alive. That is why he's holding another conversation today at the White House.

Let's take a look at exactly what the issue is, how to pay for all of this. The president -- you'll see these strike-through lines. This is what he started with: $2.25 trillion. He's cut that down to a trillion. That is nearly half of his original proposal. That is a big concession, root?

On the Republican side, they started at $600 billion. They raised it to $928 billion. This is the sticking point, the new spending. All of President Biden's proposals, $1 trillion, comes in new spending. Only a small part of the Republican plan, $257 billion, that is the new spending.

But this is the biggest thing that happened this week. This is the biggest sign that the president wants to concede, try and work with Republicans, this right here.

Corporate tax rate, that was the red line. President Trump's 2017 tax cut. Republicans said that's a non-starter for them. So that President Biden, he took that off the table, instead added 15 percent minimum corporate tax rate. That's going after all the businesses who used loopholes to not pay corporate taxes.

Also stepping up IRS enforcement. So that helps get you to this number.

Republicans still want to use gas tax and other user fees to pay for this. So this is the big difference here.

We also see the funding for our roads and bridges. This is the number here that President Biden has come down, again, in spending. Republicans have not changed this. So this is the number we're looking at today. What the counter offer is when Senator Shelley Moore Capito goes to the White House and talks to President Biden about what their counter offer is.

But additional items, this is also at play here. The size and scope of the bill. President Biden has added several more things into this infrastructure bill. Call it soft infrastructure, if you will, not physical infrastructure. Republicans so far opposed to all of this. So these are some of the sticking points here, not all of them, but some of them as we head into this key day of negotiations. KEILAR: Yes. Americans, surprisingly, in polling not opposed to all of

those things. Certainly, Republicans are there. And the key player in all of this is, of course, Joe Manchin, West Virginia Democrat. He says he's not ready for Democrats to call time on infrastructure talks with Republicans yet.

He wants to keep Republicans involved. But as this drumbeat on the filibuster from the left continues, let's listen to what he said in a new interview with CNN about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You just take it off the table and say you'll never reduce the 60-vote threshold on the filibuster.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): Let me just tell you one thing. We're going to make the Senate work the way it was intended to work. We're -- I'm totally committed to that. And I'm not throwing caution to the wind. I have never desired to do that. I've listened to everybody's point of view. But the bottom line is this country has got to unite it. We can't divide it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: How are you reading what he said there, Jeff?

ZELENY: I think those are key words there. This -- all the talk of is this an attempt of bipartisanship, an empty exercise. Is it a waste of time? It is not for that reason, because of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

He is key to all of this. Also, so interesting, the conversation today at the White House. I'm told it's going to be by phone, not face to face, with another West Virginia senator, Shelley Moore Capito. She's leading the way for Republicans here.

So her conversation with the president will be critical. But watch Joe Manchin. All this talk about why is he waiting so long? Why is he so intent on bipartisanship? That is key.

This is part of the process. Not a delay. It's a critical part of winning him and other skeptical moderate Democrats over.

So will there be a deal? We do not know. But this is a key part of the process going forward. The time is running out. Next week in the House, they're starting this bill already.

But I do have one interesting piece of information. Joe Manchin, the senator from West Virginia, happens to live on a houseboat directly next to the top House congressman, Pete DeFazio, who's writing up this bill. They have a great relationship. So perhaps we'll keep an eye on the wharf in Washington to see if those talks are happening there by the water.

BERMAN: They can talk on hibachi. You know, they can shout to each other over the open water there.

KEILAR: Sound does travel well over the open water, as you know, John Berman.

BERMAN: All too well.

KEILAR: All too well. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much for that.

This morning former vice president Mike Pence putting some distance between himself and Donald Trump over the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As I said that day, January 6 was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol. But thanks to the swift action of the Capitol Police and federal law enforcement, violence was quelled, the Capitol was secured, and that same day, we reconvened the Congress and did our duty under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office, and I don't know if we'll ever see eye to eye on that day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now, attorney and contributing columnist for "The Washington Post," George Conway.

George, thank you for being with us and getting up so early this morning to do so. I just wonder what you think of the former vice president's comments here. Can he really split the baby on this saying, you know, kind of downplaying the need for a commission or letting January 6 kind of ruin (ph) more than January 6 politically, as he puts it, and also say he doesn't see eye to eye with Trump without signing his own political, you know, death notice?

GEORGE CONWAY, ATTORNEY, "WASHINGTON POST" CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST: Well, it really was a remarkable speech that he gave last night. He's just downplaying the most significant disagreement you would ever possibly have, which is whether or not democracy in the United States should continue.

I mean, the president -- the former president basically tried to -- he tried -- he incited an insurrection, was essentially trying to stop the election of his successor.

And Mike Pence, Vice President Pence to his credit, stood up for the law, stood up for the Constitution. It's just not something where you can just say, well, we don't quite see eye to eye about it like it might be whether or not you should spend $50 million more or less on infrastructure.

It's just a remarkable attempt to downplay the significance of what happened on January 6. And it's just -- it's just -- it's just crazy that he's doing that and at the same time, you know, he's going to actually -- to think that he's going to harm himself, he's worried about harming himself by standing up for democracy is really just a depressing and stunning thing.

BERMAN: Yes. Democracy is not readily seen as something you can agree to disagree on. You know?

CONWAY: Yes, that's it. And that's crazy.

BERMAN: And also, I mean, the other thing is, to Brianna's point, I don't see how it helps him. I mean, he -- basically, even by saying, you know, Donald Trump and I don't see eye to eye, isn't that enough to give the Trump base and the Republican Party, which is the dominant force of the Republican Party to say, he's not one of us?

CONWAY: Absolutely. I mean, the fealty to Donald Trump is running very, very strong, and as what the polls have shown, a significant percentage of Republicans continue to buy into the big lie that Donald Trump propagated after the election.

It's not in Pence's interest to really play this up, and he didn't really play it up. But at the same time, it's the elephant in the room, so I think he felt he needed to acknowledge it somehow.

[06:10:14]

KEILAR: So look, there is not going to be a commission, which it seems clear where Pence is on that. But there is going to be some kind of congressional investigation led by Democrats with subpoena power.

Do you think Pence here saying, I don't see eye to eye with the president on January 6 opens him up to potentially testifying?

CONWAY: Well, I think that whatever happens in terms of investigation, he -- he's potentially a witness, no matter what. So I don't know that him saying one thing or another is going to make a difference.

I mean, his story will be what he -- you know, what he -- his conversations with the president, about what the president, President Trump wanted him to do that was, frankly, illegal, and then the story about what happened to him at the -- at the Capitol and having to hide, well, I mean, that's pretty much a story that we already know.

So I don't know that his testimony in that respect will add a lot.

BERMAN: He said some other interesting stuff last night. I want to play a little bit about that and the future of the Republican Party. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PENCE: And if we offered a positive conservative agenda to the American people, we'd win back the House. We'd win back the Senate. We'd win back America.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: Some people are saying he's trying to draw a line here, too, by not focusing on the last election, focusing on other things. But how do you see it?

CONWAY: Yes. Well, that's -- I think that's what a lot of the Republicans are trying to do. They're trying to make January 6 fall into a memory hole, and I guess you can't blame them, because they've tied themselves to the mast of Donald Trump, and they've basically tolerated him for four years.

The Senate acquitted him of, I think, what were clearly impeachable and removable offenses in the Ukraine matter, and that allowed Trump to basically continue his misconduct into the election, promising -- basically saying all throughout 2020 that if he lost the election, it would be because of fraud.

And then after he did lose the election, saying that it was because of fraud. I mean, this is a man who has no limits in terms of what level of depravity and falsehood he would pursue in order to remain in power. And fortunately, again, thanks in part to Mike Pence and thanks to others, that didn't happen.

KEILAR: You have your most recent opinion piece in "The Washington Post" that says, in part, "Four years of Trump have led to the Republican Party becoming a threat to democracy, a declining sect dominated by crackpots, charlatans, and cowards. Of these, it's the cowards, including the senators who killed last week's legislation who bear the most blame."

This is something I've thought about, is you categorize the different Republicans out there. They may be voting the same, but their motivations are certainly different. Do you think that there is any ramification for the senators, the worst ones, as you put them, politically here in the coming years?

CONWAY: Again, I think there will be ramifications overall for the Republican Party. I think they're going to find it more and more difficult to create legitimately electoral majorities, because people in the center, or more rational conservatives, don't believe that a president should foment insurrections, and they don't believe that their members of Congress should tolerate that.

And they don't have much room for error, which is why they lost, basically, both houses of Congress and lost the presidency. And I don't think that it's going to get better for them over time if they don't really stand up for rationality and reason and democracy.

BERMAN: And then there's the MyPillow guy. Because it all goes back to the MyPillow guy. The former president, Donald Trump, is reportedly asking advisers whether or not he can be reinstated the year as president. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, he's falsely saying that he can.

Lindell also claims that he spoke with Donald Trump in recent weeks. Like, I guess after Lindell was on the Jimmy Kimmel show? What do you think's going on here? CONWAY: Well, these frankly are -- I mean, Trump is a deeply disturbed

individual. We saw that for four years. It got worse. And now to indulge this complete fantasy that -- and it's been reported by multiple outlets that he's been discussing with people of being reinstated as president in August, you know, it just -- it just shows you how out of touch with -- with reality and how deluded he is.

[06:15:20]

And it's just -- this isn't -- this isn't rhetoric. It's not an overstatement. I mean, this is -- this is crazy, crazy stuff.

And if you -- you know, if somebody did that and they were in a job of a CEO or any job other than, I guess, politics, and they uttered this kind of lunacy and they didn't run their own company, like Trump did and I guess MyPillow guy does, they'd be removed.

And they -- I think the board of directors would say, you need to get some help. But nobody's there to help Donald Trump, because they're all afraid of him, and they're either trying to grift off of him, or they're trying to just try to keep him from attacking them.

And this process, which has gone on and gotten worse for four years, is basically leading to the unraveling of the Republican Party, and it's deeply undermining democracy.

I mean, January 6 was the product of people believing that an election was stolen from them. And now, I mean, there are people out there, adherents of Trump. I mean, you heard -- who are, as this episode shows, thinking that somehow Trump will be restored. And they're going to be sorely disappointed again. And who knows what people who have been drawn into these fantasies are going to do.

KEILAR: Yes. When does that conspiracy theory die? It doesn't seem like any time soon.

CONWAY: He's never going to let it go.

KEILAR: And the people who believe him won't, as well.

George, it's great to see you. George Conway, thanks for being with us.

CONWAY: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: So as of this morning, 63 percent of adults in the U.S. have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. President Biden is hoping to get that number to 70 percent by the Fourth of July, but a new CNN analysis shows it's going to be an uphill battle.

Elizabeth Cohen joins us now with the numbers -- Elizbeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: John, when you see this graph, you will understand why our CNN analysis is showing that we might not make this goal by July 4th of 70 percent of American adults having at least one shot in arms. Our analysis shows that may happen more towards the latter half of

July, but likely not July Fourth. Look at these numbers. This is the number of Americans with first doses administered, looking at seven- day averages. It goes down, down, down, down.

Everyone anticipated it would go down, but not quite like this and sort of stay down.

Now, let's take a look at the country. The states that you see in green, they've met the 70 percent goal that Biden set. They already met it, already done. The yellow states are on track. The red states, look at all those red states. They do not appear like they are going to make that goal.

You know, an interesting comparison can be made here, John, which is that in the beginning of his administration, President Biden said, Look, we think, you know, we can get 100 million shots in arms in the first 100 days of my presidency. He did it, actually, in less than 60 days. He knows how to set goals that are pretty -- relatively easy to meet.

I think there was a lot of thinking that this one would also be easy to meet. But getting that last third of Americans to roll up their sleeves, that's proven to be tougher, I think, than anyone thought -- John.

BERMAN: A lot of work left to do. Elizbeth Cohen, thanks so much.

COHEN: Thanks.

BERMAN: Next, highly-anticipated findings are in. What U.S. intelligence says about those potential UFO encounters and what may be behind them. The truth is out there.

KEILAR: The truth is out there. Plus, he was taken from a passenger plane, hijacked by a strongman regime, and now new images of a journalist are being called a hostage video.

And Capitol Hill officers speak to CNN for the first time about their experiences and what they'd say to Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It hurts me that the country I love that I (UNINTELLIGIBLE), that I have sacrificed so much, don't care about us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:23:25]

KEILAR: Developing overnight, UFO news. Brand-new details about the much-anticipated Pentagon report on more than 120 unidentified flying objects encountered not by your foil-padded neighbor but by the actual United States Navy here in recent years. Sources familiar with the findings tell CNN U.S. intelligence

officials have found no evidence that UFOs like this one here were alien spacecraft.

It's good or bad news, depending on how you look at it. However, the report also does not rule out the possibility.

And joining us now is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, Adam Frank. He's author of the book "Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fat" -- the Fate, pardon me for that typo there -- "Fate of the Earth." The fate of the earth, which we're more interested in.

OK, This report, Adam, it doesn't rule out that they're alien. It doesn't rule it out, but they're saying there's a chance.

ADAM FRANK, PROFESSOR OF ASTROPHYSICS, UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER: Well, you know, I mean, not -- there's a very long distance between not ruling out and claiming it's alien.

So you know, the work -- one of the things I work on is looking for life in the universe on distant planets. And we have a very, very high bar of evidence if we're going to make that claim. If I tried to make that claim, my colleagues would, you know, beat me up pretty bad, as they should.

So the thing about these UFOs is they're interesting. They should be studied, but there is nothing in them, from a scientific point of view, which would make you think that you've actually found intelligent life visiting the Earth.

BERMAN: And that's what I hear from so many scientists like you who are saying, It's my job. You know, I and 100 of the other smartest people ever born are trying to find signs of alien life, and so far, you know, we haven't, so don't get excited here.

And these are literally UFOs, literally unidentified flying objects. But you point out that's different than drawing a link to alien life.

FRANK: Yes. Just because something is unidentified doesn't mean -- you know, this is the way science works. You see something you don't understand and then, you know, you have this process by which you use to study and try and evaluate your conclusions about it.

And for making the link between UFOs and, you know, literally visitations from advanced civilizations that, you know, from light years away, that's a huge leap. There's just nothing to warrant that.

KEILAR: You know, you've written here recently about how this could be a -- these could be drones, right? These could be drones from China or Russia. The whole point of these could be to say, Hey, U.S. Navy, turn on your radar. Let me know about your capabilities here, and that actually America might just be, you know, playing into that kind of trap.

But at the same time you say, you need more information to be able to know the distance, the size. How -- what do you need, and how do you get that information? Can you get it?

FRANK: Well, I think you could. Look, if science -- if science makes a decision that it wants to study something, you bring together lots of smart creative people, and you figure out a way of doing it.

We've done this, you know, in everything from the viruses, you know, trying to create vaccines, to the work that my colleagues and I are now doing, using really advanced telescopes to look for the possibility of seeing perhaps city lights on distant planets, the ability to see perhaps pollutants in the atmospheres of other worlds orbiting other stars.

So it would be just a matter of deciding that we want to do it.

And then what we would need is the kind of data that would really be able to tell us six ways to Friday that the accelerations we're seeing in these crafts, if they're even crafts, are so high that there's no material on earth that could withstand it.

But, you know, we're not even -- we're not even close to it. I like to say, if you use the same reasoning that people are using, claiming UFOs are aliens to build a cellphone, what you'd end up with is a brick, right? There's just no signs there.

So we have this beautiful thing called science that we've developed that allows us to be in a dialogue with nature so that we can come to strong conclusions and get the answer right when it comes to phenomena in the world.

KEILAR: Dialoguing with nature. I love that. I love that very much. And, Berman, what do you think of his background?

BERMAN: Well, I had suggested to the professor that he was appearing to us from the set of the first death star, not far from where the trash compactors are. But the professor assures me this is actually from "Expanse," which was a show on Prime, correct?

FRANK: Best show ever. Yes, it's the Rocinante on "The Expanse." This is my favorite space ship. There's a lot of great spaceships out there, but this is the best.

KEILAR: OK. Real quick, before we let you go, though, since you are searching for intelligent life out there, do you think there is? Do you think there is some?

FRANK: Well, again, you know, the interesting thing -- there's a difference in science between my belief and knowing. And yes, I think I believe, but the only way I'm going to know is by doing the work. And that people need to understand we are setting sail now. We have capacities that we have not had before. And in the next ten, 20, 30 years we're going to have data to answer the most important question humanity's ever asked, and that is a radical, radical new thing.

BERMAN: The truth is out there.

KEILAR: It is. Adam Frank is going to find it. We have confidence in you, Adam. Thanks for being with us.

FRANK: Thank you.

KEILAR: A big new announcement reportedly in store today from Facebook, the changes that they're making to rules about politicians and hate speech.

BERMAN: Plus, elections this weekend in Mexico. Dozens of politicians have been killed in the run-up. Can democracy survive at America's southern border?

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