Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Senate 1/6 Report Reveals Security Failures, But Omits Trump's Role; New Audio of Giuliani Pressuring Ukraine to Investigate Biden. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 08, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Now can take up to three hours one way.

[07:00:02]

He envisions a future of a third Memphis bridge but says the only thing to blame for this gridlock is political gridlock.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what's wrong with the world, everything is political. I don't care where you get it, let's get it done.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MUNTEAN (voice over): This bridge has become a symbol for what is wrong with America's infrastructure. Now the question is whether or not a bridge fix will happen before an infrastructure deal. The Tennessee Department of Transportation tells me more bridge materials are set to arrive here later this month but that means the work here could extend into next month.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Memphis, Tennessee.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: All right. We do have breaking news. There is a huge internet outage that has brought down a number of the world's biggest websites, including cnn.com. Brian Stelter joins us now.

Brian, look, we're all on pins and needles right now because of the various ransomware attacks, but what do we know about this?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Right now, no indication that this is a cyberware or ransomware attacks, but it is one of the more widespread outages that I have ever seen, John. This is everything from Hulu and Reddit and HBOMax all the way to BBC and CNN and Guardian and countless other news websites. So, folks are waking up this morning trying to check the news on their phone, whether they're watching New Day, they're going to see these websites are down. And now, in just in the last few minutes, they are starting to come back online.

The problem appears to be what's something called a CDN, a content delivery network, a distribution network, that is. What that means is these web servers are located closer to people's homes and locations all around the world. The idea is by putting web articles closer to your home, you get access more quickly, things load up on your phone faster. But when a CDN goes down, it causes a ripple effect all across the globe web, and that appears to have been what's happened this morning.

Fastly is the company is behind this CDN. They say they have identified the problem in the past few minutes. You'll see right here, they say found a fix and they're working on it and you're going to see all websites coming back online as the morning goes on.

But when the web goes down at this scale, John, it causes this vast ripple effect and so it's going to be rocky for the rest of the morning. Some people might be able to log on, others might not be able to. This is an infrastructure problem, just like the other ones you were talking about a few minutes ago. This is the internet infrastructure. And when the lights flicker, it has global effects.

BERMAN: All right. Brian Stelter, please keep us posted as this develops throughout the morning.

STELTER: Yes.

BERMAN: New Day continues right now.

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

A new congressional report just released into the Capitol insurrection identifies security failures ahead of January 6th, but it leaves out one glaring omission into what or who is to blame for it.

BERMAN: So the guardrails are off, former President Barack Obama slamming Republicans for kowtowing to Donald Trump and continuing to spread lies about the 2020 election.

KEILAR: A CNN exclusive for the first time, we are hearing Rudy Giuliani in his own words, he's pressuring officials in Ukraine to announce bogus investigations into Joe Biden.

BERMAN: And big news for parents of young children, the first vaccine maker revealing when kids as young as five will likely be able to get vaccinated.

KEILAR: That's neat.

KEILAR: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world, It's Tuesday, June 8th.

A new bipartisan Senate report just released reveals stunning security breakdowns ahead of the January 6th Capitol attack. It details critical intelligence failures, miscommunication and unheeded warnings that led to a chaotic response on that deadly day.

BERMAN: Perhaps most telling is what's missing from the report, not a word about Donald Trump's role in the riots. And the word insurrection, it never appears in the document. And this really does highlight the importance of an independent, bipartisan commission, the one that does not exist because it did not get enough votes in the U.S. Senate.

Joining us now, CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins and CNN Anchor and Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto.

Jim, I just wonder what you make of what's in this report and what isn't.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have to know what's not in it. The president is not mentioned and his role. And, by the way, that's his role leading up to it inciting the people who carried out this attack but his role on the day of it, right? What were his communications with the Defense Department about deployment of a National Guard force? And, clearly, Republicans don't want the answers to those questions.

And imagine a terror attack where you don't investigate the role of an imam who preached to his followers to carry out an attack. You don't touch it, right? And, by the way, Donald Trump is still giving that same sermon today about a stolen election, et cetera, which led to violence on that day. It's a remarkable omission. And you can't clearly answer those questions about the lead-up or what happened on that day if you don't look into Trump and they're just frankly not willing to do it.

KEILAR: I think that's an incredibly important point that you're making.

[07:05:00]

I actually went back this morning to look at the 9/11 commission report and to see what was in there. And I thought if this was governed by the same rules as what we see in this report, you would have no discussion of Osama Bin Laden, you would have very little discussion of Al Qaeda. There is a lot that is not in here, and I wonder, Kaitlan, how we can actually get a picture so that we know how to stop this from happening again.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it does seem to nullify this GOP argument that you didn't need an independent commission because this was already investigating all of this because it clearly leaves out a really big part of it. And Senate aides admitted as much to the CNN team who wrote this story.

And when you're reading through it, it's kind of like reading if they were investigating a building fire and talked about why the sprinklers didn't work or why fire department was too slow to respond but they never actually looked at who set the fire.

And remember on that day, former President Trump invited the supporters to come to Washington, they were wearing his shirts, waving his flags, and so it's just kind of stunning that it does not take a real significant look at two equally important parts here, which is what led to how it was exacerbated that day but also what started it. And I think that's what people want the answers to just as much as the other part of it, the security opponent of this the Capitol Hill officers want to know.

And so it's really stunning that this is not something they went into great detail or really any detail at all on.

BERMAN: I mean, it really is as if you're playing one of those games, tell a story without using any vowels or tell a story without using a certain word here. They had to go out of their way to do this.

And I do wonder if now Chuck Schumer will look at this and say, okay, Republicans, you've argued that we have enough investigations going on here. We have enough other things going on here. We don't need the bipartisan commission. Will then come back and say, look, this is what you get when you don't have that commission?

COLLINS: I think they could try to make that argument, but there's still no commission to be had. There is no support in the Senate behind a commission like this. We saw just how much it failed. We know House Speaker Pelosi is exploring the idea of having a panel look into this but it's not going to be the way that we had initially envisioned it and the way that even Republicans were publicly supporting on January the 7th and the aftermath of this.

SCIUTTO: Mitch McConnell said that, right? We don't have to convict him today because there are other opportunities to investigate. And, of course, he blocked the main bipartisan one, the bipartisan proposal to have a bipartisan commission.

And, by the way, it is not just about politics, right? It's about the security of this issue. Just one glaring omission here, the security review that followed January 6th included the recommendation that you need a quick reaction force of National Guards, men and women, so that they can respond more quickly. And one thing that comes out of this report is that folks on the Hill didn't even know how to call one, right? They didn't know what the law was, et cetera. So, clearly, you need to fix that problem. But there's no political appetite to do that either. That issue has been punted down the road too.

So, folks at home are watching and saying, it's just the politics. No, it's about security fixes to prevent it from happening again. And those aren't addressed in here as well.

KEILAR: Again, 9/11, you wouldn't interview the TSA, right? There are many reports here they talked to a lot of police officers to be clear, but it needs to bigger.

I want to see what you guys think about the interview that former President Barack Obama did. It's wide ranging, it was exclusive on CNN last night, and he talks sort of about this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: You talked about Sarah Palin at her brief ascendancy and you talked about dark spirits that had long been lurking on the edges of the Republican Party coming center stage. Did you ever think it would get this dark?

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: No. I thought that there were enough guardrails institutionally that even after Trump was elected that you would have the so-called Republican establishment who would say, okay, you know, it's a problem if the White House isn't -- doesn't seem to be concerned about Russian meddling, or it's a problem if we have a president who is saying that, you know, neo-Nazis marching Charlottesville, there are good people on both sides. That's a little bit beyond the pale.

And the degree to which we did not see that Republican establishment say, hold on, time out, that's not acceptable, that's not who we are, but rather be cowed into accepting it and then finally culminating in January 6th where what originally was, oh, don't worry, this isn't going anywhere, we're just letting Trump and others vent, and then suddenly you now have large portions of an elected Congress going along with the falsehood that there were problems with the election.

COOPER: And the leadership of the GOP briefly for one night when they still had the sort of --

[07:10:03]

OBAMA: Yes.

COOPER: -- scent of fear in them going against the president.

OBAMA: And then, poof. Suddenly everybody was back in line.

Now, what that -- the reason for that is because the base believed it. And the base believed it because this had been told to them not just by the president but by the media that they watch and nobody stood up and said, stop, this is enough, this is not true. I won't say nobody. Let me correct it. There were some very brave people who did their jobs, like the secretary of state in Georgia, who was then viciously attacked for it. And all those congressmen said, you know what, I'll lose my job. I'll get voted out of office.

Another way of saying this is I didn't expect that there would be so few people who would say, well, I don't mind losing my office because this is too important. America is too important.

COOPER: Some things are more important than --

OBAMA: Our democracy is too important. We didn't see that.

Now, you know, I'm still the hope and change guy, and so my hope is that the tides will turn, but that does require each of us to understand that this experiment in democracy is not self-executing. It doesn't happen just automatically. It happens because each successive generation says these values, these truths we hold self-evident, this is important. We're going to invest in it and sacrifice for it and we'll stand up for it, even when it's not politically convenient.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KEILAR: It's interesting, Kaitlan. He says he thought there were guardrails and he placed faith in Republicans. And I think a lot of people connect with this but what has become clear about those beliefs is that they are not based in fact. They are based in people wanting to believe them to be true and so that's why they think them.

COLLINS: Well, it's interesting. I mean, Obama did not have a good relationship with Republicans obviously when he was in office. Remember in 2012, he said he hoped that the fever would break now that he would be re-elected and for him to say I did think there were some people left in this group who could step in and say, hey, this is crossing a line, which is something we always heard from a lot of these Republican lawmakers when Donald Trump was on the rise, when he actually got into office and his first two years in office was that, yes, this is bad but if it gets bad enough then we'll step in.

And I think what Obama accurately gets at there is saying this is all a political calculation because for a brief moment there on January 6th and January 7th, you saw where there were a lot of people in the White House who were on the verge of resigning, lawmakers who were saying they were done with Trump and were not standing by him, Mitch McConnell's comments, and then it all changed. It was all because of a political calculation and I think that's completely accurate.

SCIUTTO: Politics, Trump, truth and principle, right? I mean, these are about political incentives. And we heard Liz Cheney talk about Republicans who say they feared for their lives, fine, and it is true. I mean, if you watch what happened on January 6th, you can reasonably worry about your safety. And that's why as part of the Capitol security review, there's talk about having security in their home districts.

But I've spoken to Republicans whose fear was not about their lives, it's about their seat. I had one sitting Republican, an Army veteran tell me, listen, I can't stand up to him because I would lose my seat. I mean, that's the bare politics of this and that's on display. Because, as you said, there was a moment when they were willing to speak the truth, McCarthy, McConnell and others, but that moment passed.

BERMAN: Well, look, obviously, shame on those Republicans who would not stand up when it was so obvious. But at what point should Barack Obama know better than to believe that they would do the right thing? He can't consistently and Democrats -- I think -- there are some who will argue, we can't consistently or continue to be surprised by this stuff.

SCIUTTO: No, you can't. I mean, listen, or when do Joe Manchin or Joe Biden, right, realize that the bipartisan environment that they grew up in or one where you had a potential for bipartisan, which is different today. I mean, the political calculations are different. And that's -- we'll see. We'll see.

But the thing is it's not just like different political views of a situation. It is different factual views of the situation. There are separate sets of facts on each of these events. People believe their own reality.

KEILAR: Maybe there are guardrails. But perhaps he mistook Donald Trump because Donald Trump is someone who doesn't care about guardrails. He just drives right through them. It's not that there aren't guardrails it's really the man.

COLLINS: But I think the question and the thing that has frustrated a lot of people, even allies of this White House is why are Democrats not more hair on fire over what's happening in each of these states when it comes to these election laws.

[07:15:03]

Because I think this gets to the broader background of what happened on January 6th, which was, of course, the former president disputed the outcome of the election because they

say that is so critical to democracy moving forward and what this actually looks like and these institutions and these guardrails we talk about.

And so I think that that has been a big calculation for them of what are you going to do about this, because it's not just a news cycle, it's not just Trump is temporary, he is coming back, he is going to be on the public stage much more often over the next year-and-a-half, before the 2022 midterms. And so I think that that is something that they have to consider.

SCIUTTO: And one of the guardrails that held post-election was nonpartisan election officials, like Raffensperger, saying, no, this was the count. And some of the laws, the more alarming aspects of some of the laws that have been passed allow partisans to jigger the vote, the vote count, right?

KEILAR: He did give them credit, I will say, just to be clear, Obama did gave them credit. But it's wonderful to see you two this morning, Kaitlan and Jim.

COLLINS: Wonderful to see you too.

KEILAR: Thank you so much.

Coming up, Rudy Giuliani's pressure campaign with officials in Ukraine, you're going to hear the exclusive audio of his phone call.

BERMAN: It's crazy.

Also a new twist in the defamation lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of rape, why is President Biden's Justice Department coming to his defense?

KEILAR: And the U.S. government strikes back against cyber criminals after a ransom attack that crippled the key energy pipeline.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00] KEILAR: Never before heard audio obtained exclusively by CNN shows how former President Trump's former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani relentlessly pushed the Ukrainian government in 2019 to investigate baseless conspiracy theories about then candidate Joe Biden. Now, this is a pressure campaign that became the focus of the former president's first impeachment trial.

CNN Senior International Correspondent Matthew Chance has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE), what exactly did you mean?

RUDY GIULIANI, DONALD TRUMP'S FORMER PERSONAL ATTORNEY (voice over): Meaning meddling in the election.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was the coal that set events in motion.

KURT VOLKER, U.S. DIPLOMAT: Okay, we should have on the line America's major, Mayor Giuliani, and we have Andriy Yermak.

CHANCE: Thrusting a reluctant Ukraine into America's divided politics. We already know through transcripts and testimony Giuliani pressured them to announce investigations important to then President Trump. But this is the first time we've heard his actual voice.

GIULIANI: I want very much to see that our two countries are able to work together.

CHANCE: Giuliani cajoled the Ukrainian presidential adviser on the other end of the line, first promoting debunked conspiracy theories that Ukraine, not Russia, was involved in U.S. election meddling in 2016 and tried to hurt the Trump campaign.

GIULIANI: Way back in last November, I got information from a reliable investigator, international investigator, that there was certain amount of activity in Ukraine during the 2016 election that was -- that involved Ukrainian officials and Ukrainian -- mostly officials being asked by our embassy possibly by other American officials. Basically, the statement was to produce dirt on then- candidate Trump and Paul Manafort.

CHANCE: By the time of the call in July 2019, Joe Biden had already emerged as the Democratic Party's frontrunner to challenge President Trump, digging up dirt on Biden, like the unfounded allegations of corrupt dealings in Ukraine when he was vice president had become a priority for Trump and his longtime adviser.

Throughout the roughly 40-minute call, Giuliani repeatedly pressed the Ukrainian leadership to publicly announce investigations into this too, something that would have undoubtedly benefitted Trump's re- election campaign and damaged candidate Biden.

Listen to how Giuliani sets out what's required. GIULIANI: And all we need -- all we need from the president is to say, I'm going to put an honest prosecutor in charge, he's going to investigate and dig up the evidence that presently exists and is there any other evidence about involvement in the 2016 election. And then the Biden thing has to be run out.

I don't know if it's true or not. I mean, I see -- I see him bragging about it on television. And to me as a lawyer -- to me as a lawyer, it sounds like a bribe. Somebody in Ukraine has got to take that seriously.

CHANCE: In the Ukrainian presidential office, they took it very seriously. Then there's now the country was fighting a desperate war against Russian-backed rebels in its east and heavily depended on U.S. weapons and military aid to hold its ground, including millions of dollars that had been frozen by the Trump administration while Giuliani pursued these political investigations.

Mindful of the need of a strong relationship with Washington, the Ukrainian presidential adviser on the call tried to assure Giuliani investigations he wanted would be looked at.

ANDRIY YERMAK, HEAD OF THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: And we'll be ready this day immediately communicated to coordinate, to work and investigate everything which you listed.

CHANCE: But, privately, Ukrainian officials say they were alarmed that being sucked into American politics, especially when Giuliani repeatedly suggested compliance would open the door to closer U.S./Ukrainian ties, even a presidential meeting, undermining the former U.S. president's assertions that he never sought political favors from Ukraine to secure U.S. support, so-called quid pro quo.

[07:25:09]

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.

CHANCE: Now we can hear Giuliani set out his offer.

GIULIANI: So, if he could make some statement at the right time that he supports a fair, honest law enforcement system and that these investigations go wherever they have to go, going to be run by honest people, that would clear the air really well. And I think it would make it possible for me to come and make it possible, I think, for me to talk to the president and see what I can do about making sure that whatever misunderstandings are put aside and maybe even, I kind of that this could be a good thing for having a much better relationship where we really understand each other.

CHANCE: One former Ukrainian official who was listening in on the call understood all too well. He spoke to CNN last month of his outrage as he heard Giuliani try to force a deal that in his words threatened Ukraine's national security.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me remind you, we're a country fighting an active war with Russia for many years. So, anything to do with swapping, you know, favors within our bilateral relationship in exchange for trying to get us involved into U.S. domestic politics is just wrong on many levels, morally, ethically and probably even legally.

CHANCE: By call's end, Ukrainian side seemed to understand exactly what President Zelensky of Ukraine was expected to do, to keep Washington on the side and on the call at least they agreed.

YERMAK: I'm sure that Zelensky will say that, yes.

VOLKER: Yes, good.

GIULIANI: Second, boy, that would -- that would -- believe me, Andriy, that would -- that would be good for all of us.

CHANCE: Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing in Ukraine and says he was just trying to help his personal client, Trump. It was, of course, this and other aggressive attempts to coax Ukraine vigorously denied by then administration officials that led to former President Trump's first impeachment, in which he was eventually acquitted by the U.S. Senate. It's hard to know if actual hearing Giuliani relentlessly pressing Ukraine like this --

GIULIANI: If he could say something like that, on his own, in conversation, it would go a long way. It would go a long way with the president to solve the problems.

CHANCE: -- would have in any way influenced the outcome of the impeachment vote.

Matthew Chance, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Joining me now is democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, he's on the Intelligence Committee. And, Congressman, to hear Rudy Giuliani's voice -- and this isn't veiled. This is Rudy Giuliani saying, if you do this for me, I will do that for you. There's a Latin term for there, isn't there?

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): It's quid pro quo. And it's funny you bring this up because, of course, look, this is not new. The president was impeached for this. We knew this was happening. And no surprise Rudy Giuliani, he of Four Seasons Total Landscaping and the insane effort to defend this president.

But remember, the senators who voted against impeachment, impeachment over the obvious use of American official resources and the service of the president's re-election effort, right, I mean, I've always thought that was worse than Watergate. The senators who refused to convict said, well, it's not clear there was a quid pro quo. Well, it was clear then and it's clear now.

And even more horrifyingly, of course, is that Rudy Giuliani wasn't alone. Years later, Senator Ron Johnson is promoting this notion that there was some conspiracy in Ukraine. And he wasn't alone. And, of course, Giuliani had help. Not so much from the official people, the professionals at the State Department, but he had help, as we saw during the impeachment trial.

BERMAN: Also help from the president of the United States who ultimately made a phone call himself to the Ukrainian leader, that was not dissimilar to what we heard just there.

Congressman, I want to get your take on, first of all, there's a huge cyber outage this morning where CNN's website, The New York Times' website, other news' websites are suffering real problems. They appear to be coming online. We don't know. We don't think, we don't know, whether that at all is a hack.

You, aside from that, you have written a letter to the White House and you're deeply involved with this in the Intelligence Community, saying the administration -- we need to start doing more. The administration needs to start doing more on cyber security. What do you think needs to happen?

HIMES: Well, a lot needs to happen, right? We all need to be better about our cyber hygiene, use two-factor authentication, all that stuff, we need to have better defenses. The notion that companies like CNN, or like Colonial Pipeline doesn't need to tell the government when they've been attacked is just a crazy notion.

[07:30:04]

But what my letter to the president focuses on is I've seen this for years. I've seen it for years.