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Biden's Domestic Agenda Stalls as He Begins First Foreign Trip; Aging U.S. Schools Await Funds as Infrastructure Talks Stall; V.P. Harris Takes Criticism from All Sides in First Foreign Trip; Rioter Boastful about Insurrection in Jailhouse Letter. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 09, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar on this NEW DAY. Just a short time from now, Joe Biden departs for his first trip as president, but he's leaving his domestic agenda. It is coming to a halt back home.

[05:59:54]

Plus, cicadas wreaking havoc overnight. They caused a car wreck, and they invaded and grounded the plane of the White House press corps, trampling on the First Amendment.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Which is weird, because they're clearly for freedom of assembly and free speech. Right?

BERMAN: Well done.

KEILAR: Thank you.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris back home after a rough first first foreign trip, taking criticism, really, from all sides here.

And a jailhouse letter from a Capitol rioter shows a lack of remorse as the Congress whitewashes the insurrection.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Wednesday, June 9. In just over two hours, wheels up for President Biden and the first lady as they embark on their first international trip. That's assuming the cicadas permit it.

KEILAR: Let's hope.

BERMAN: Right? Let's hope.

This is serious. A cicada attack grounded the plane that was supposed to carry the White House press corps to Europe. Presumably, Air Force One has better defenses.

Assuming it does, over the next eight days, the president will visit the United Kingdom, Brussels and Geneva for the G-7 and NATO summits. The president's mission: to reassure U.S. allies and restore America's status on the global stage. Meetings are scheduled with the British prime minister, Boris Johnson;

Queen Elizabeth; and perhaps most notably, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

KEILAR: And as President Biden travels abroad, his domestic agenda is spinning its wheels. After spending weeks now trying to find a compromise with Republicans on infrastructure, Mr. Biden pulled the plug on negotiations yesterday, and a number of his other key priorities are also running into roadblocks.

BERMAN: All right. Joining me now, CNN congressional correspondent Laure Fox.

Lauren, we talked about that domestic agenda grounding to a halt. Where exactly do things stand?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, yesterday, of course, you had this big announcement on infrastructure where Joe Biden said he was done negotiating with the lead Republican negotiator, Shelley Moore Capito.

That, of course, puts the brakes on those talks. However, Biden did say he was going to continue conversations with this bipartisan group that's been working for the last several weeks, trying to find some kind of consensus in the middle.

Now, that doesn't mean that you actually get a bipartisan infrastructure bill. But what it does means is that Democrats are going to be working on sort of a dual track, hoping that they will be able to move forward the president's agenda as they to still figure out if there's a path forward on bipartisanship.

Now, there's also, of course, some issues with what's happening with policing. You are dealing here with a proposal that lawmakers have been trying to figure out for the last several weeks.

Right now, we don't see any kind of forward momentum when it comes to that bill. Now, that doesn't mean that there may not be some kind of breakthrough at the last minute.

But, you know, we heard last night that they are trying to get to some kind of agreement. You also heard Tim Scott say yesterday that June is going to be a very hard deadline to meet.

Now, there are other agenda items, as well. Voting rights. This is something the Democrats have been saying is one of their top priorities, but you have someone in their own caucus that doesn't support the bill, Joe Manchin.

Now, without Joe Manchin, you still don't have 50 votes. But even if you have Joe Manchin, you still don't have ten Republicans, and I think that that is a key sticking point and something that has led some Democrats to argue get writ of the filibuster.

Again, Joe Manchin doesn't support getting rid of the filibuster, even on the issue of voting rights. So that is also stalled. Gun reform, another major issue that Biden has talked about . We have

a mass shooting crisis in this country, and yet no bipartisan path forward. And again, without ten Republicans, you cannot pass a gun reform bill.

BERMAN: It really is illustrative when you look at the screen here and see that all of this, in one degree or another, is stalled as the president leaves for Europe. Maybe there is still discussion on police reform. You know, that's it. And discussions on infrastructure.

If it does go to reconciliation, that's a big word. And I think it can be confusing to people here. But basically, what does that mean?

FOX: Well, look, reconciliation is very narrow. You can only do a few bills. The things that are on that list, infrastructure is the big one. You can't do voting rights or reconciliation. You cannot move ahead with gun reform to reconciliation. You have to deal with things that have something to do with the country's budget. And I think that is the real challenge here.

You can move legislation with 51 votes. That's what they did with the COVID relief bill, John. But you have to have something that has an impact on the budget. That's not the case for voting rights. That's not the case for gun reform. That's not necessarily the case for immigration. And I think that is going to be disappointing for a lot of progressives who may not understand that, necessarily, reconciliation is a last resort, and there are very narrow rules for how you can use that.

BERMAN: You also need 50 votes to do it --

FOX: Exactly.

BERMAN: -- which means you need Joe Manchin, and we just don't know --

FOX: We just don't know.

BERMAN: -- what he's willing to sign off on.

FOX: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Lauren Fox, great to have you. Thanks so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Let's talk about this now with Francesca Chambers. She is a White House correspondent for McClatchy.

OK, let's talk, Francesca, about what we have ahead of us, then. What are Joe Biden's options for pushing his agenda through?

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, MCCLATCHY: Well, the White House keeps saying that they have multiple pathways, but by yesterday, it became quite clear, Brianna, that they only have two pathways in front of them, really. They can either continue to negotiate with a bipartisan group now that's led by Senators Manchin and Sinema, or they can just go it alone with Democrats. But Joe Manchin has made it clear that he does not want to do that. So

perhaps they really just have one pathway in front of them, and that pathway is Joe Manchin.

KEILAR: Yes, which is huge, and progressives are going to be very upset about. Let's listen to something that the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said yesterday about bipartisanship.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): As you look to what the majority leader has in mind for June, it's pretty clear the era of bipartisanship is over. We've passed six bills so far this year, significant bills on a bipartisan basis, bills that came out of committee that had buy-in for both sides, but I think that's coming to a screeching halt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: But he says it's -- we should be clear, it's not like they're incapable of bipartisanship. Just yesterday, there was a huge bill designed to keep America competitive against the influence of China that passed the Senate. It was really hard-fought. It had a lot of input from Democrats and Republicans.

But what do you think this bodes for the summer ahead, and how much of a role does Mitch McConnell have in this, as well?

CHAMBERS: Well, Leader McConnell potentially meant that the summer of bipartisanship, at least, is over. But again, the White House does want to get a bipartisan infrastructure deal, and as such, the president now talking to senators Manchin, Sinema, Cassidy, a Republican, on the phone yesterday.

But he is in the position, Brianna, of going on his first overseas trip, and the White House having to say that he'll be calling senators while he's gone to deal with infrastructure, which is not really where you want to be as a president when you're abroad.

KEILAR: And the weird nexus of this trip that Biden is taking has come to its -- the nexus of the trip and cicadas. They have come up against each other.

BERMAN: I was wondering how you were going to make the segue.

KEILAR: This is how I'm making the --

BERMAN: The nexus of international relations and cicadas.

KEILAR: I think that was a smooth segue. Let me get right in there. The White House press corps, so they traveled in a separate plane, and they couldn't go. Tell us what happened.

CHAMBERS: So the White House press charter was the one that apparently couldn't take off last night because, as you said, because of the cicadas. So it's set to hopefully still arrive before President Biden gets to the U.K. today, but certainly, for the press corps colleagues, he'll have time to get there, to, you know, set up and have a little bit of time. Might not have that any more.

BERMAN: I mean, we're saying this like it's all matter of fact. By the way, the plane can't get off because of cicadas. These insects invaded and infested a giant airplane. I mean, to me this is an issue.

CHAMBERS: Well, I mean, I'm obviously not on the airplane, so to speak. But I believe that they were given pizza is maybe what I heard.

BERMAN: The reporters, not the cicadas.

CHAMBERS: Not the cicadas. The reporters were given pizza for their worries while they waited. So at least they got something out of it.

KEILAR: Oh, my goodness. It is just crazy. And it got into the engine, I guess, right? We all know about bird strikes. Cicada strikes.

BERMAN: Are any of us safe?

KEILAR: Clearly not. Clearly not, John Berman.

We are with Francesca Chambers, though. Francesca, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

BERMAN: So as the infrastructure talks collapsed, not because of the cicadas, by the way. Thousands of schools across the country are desperately in need of structural upgrades.

CNN's Bianna Golodryga reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROGER LEON, NEWARK PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT: We did not need a global pandemic to realize what the needs were. At a school such as Lafayette Street School, as well as other schools throughout our history.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From inadequate ventilation --

LEON: The windows. This is the only ventilation that this school actually has.

GOLODRYGA: -- to antiquated heating.

LEON: We have a boiler system that runs on oil that's way close to 50 years old.

GOLODRYGA: For lighting and asbestos beneath floor surfaces.

LEON: Changing these floors has an environmental impact, given what's under the floors.

GOLODRYGA: Newark school superintendent Roger Leon points out just a few of the massive infrastructure problems plaguing Lafayette Street Elementary School.

(on camera): So when was this school built?

LEON: Eighteen forty-eight.

GOLODRYGA: So before Abraham Lincoln --

LEON: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: -- was sworn in?

LEON: Before Abraham Lincoln ran for the president, this building was erected, and children began to attend it.

GOLODRYGA (on camera): Leon says 29 of the district's 64 schools are over 100 years old. Throughout the years, renovations have been made, but the fixes, he says, have been more like Band-Aids.

LEON: We do not have funds to actually do major reparations that are required aren't here.

GOLODRYGA: In 2016, the district, one of New Jersey's poorest, asked the state for $311 million to fund more than 150 projects. As of today, only 11 have been approved.

[06:10:11]

Across the country, thousands of superintendents find themselves in similar positions. Structural crises that President Biden hopes to tackle as part of his nearly $2 trillion infrastructure plan.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today, up to 10 million homes in America and more than 400,000 schools and childcare centers have pipes with lead in them.

GOLODRYGA: The administration has allocated $100 billion for new school construction and upgrades to existing buildings.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has given the nations approximately 84,000 public schools a failing grade of "D"-plus. According to their analysis, 53 percent of school districts need to upgrade or replace multiple systems in their buildings.

The infrastructure bill has earmarked more than $100 million towards the expansion of high-speed Internet. About a quarter of U.S. students do not have adequate broadband at home, with 35 percent of rural homes lacking proper access.

Forty-five billion dollars would be used for clean drinking water. While Leon wouldn't share the exact figure his district would be allocated, he's already planning how to spend it.

LEON: We have a three-inch binder. Every single one of knows. So we have a good sense of what the needs were.

GOLODRYGA (on camera): How long will it take for that to be implemented?

LEON: I envision, once -- once these dollars are -- have been assured, immediate evidence of impact.

GOLODRYGA: The Newark native sees the investment as a big step towards a more level playing field.

LEON: The country needs to understand that children in every school district are important towards changing the reality of their life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GOLODRYGA: Now, John and Brianna, we should note that that interview in Newark took place at the end of April, and the Biden administration was hoping to see a price tag for an infrastructure bill close to $2 trillion.

Well, now that that has been cut down to $1 trillion, I reached out to Superintendent Leon to ask if he was worried about the impact, the amount of aid that would be allocated to his district, and here's what he said. He said, "We are proceeding with our planning as we have built flexibility into our process in anticipation of potentially changing time lines. We do not believe funding delayed is funding denied."

Clearly, this is an issue, John and Brianna, not only impacting the Newark school district but many districts around the country.

BERMAN: Really interesting. But funding denied is funding denied. So if they don't get an infrastructure bill at all, it will be interesting to see what happens there.

So new this morning, White House sources telling CNN they are perplexed by interview answers by Vice President Kamala Harris during her somewhat dicey first foreign trip.

KEILAR: Plus, this just in. The CDC is investigating its higher than expected number of inflammatory heart cases, and it's actually affecting younger vaccine recipients. We're going to look into that.

And delusions of the big lie get even bigger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOUG MASTRIANO (R), PENNSYLVANIA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: You're afraid of transparency.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm afraid of nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:17:23]

BERMAN: Vice President Kamala Harris back in the United States this morning after a trip to Guatemala and Mexico, her first foreign trip as vice president. This morning, we're told, that some of what she said on the trip, her

answers to questions, maybe even obvious questions, those answers have White House insiders perplexed.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond live in Mexico City. Jeremy, you covered this trip. You've been part of it. You asked some of those questions. What have you learned?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, John, the vice president saw this trip as an opportunity to burnish her foreign policy credentials after entering office with very little foreign policy experience.

And she also hoped to make progress on the root causes of migration from Central America. Now, there certainly was progress, but there are now concerns that some of that progress may have been overshadowed by her answers to some of these questions that her team knew that she would be facing. And all of this has left some administration officials perplexed and the vice president's team frustrated.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND (voice-over): A diplomatic test turned political quicksand. On her first foreign trip, Vice President Harris drawing fire from the right and the left as she undertook her mission to address the root causes of migration from Central America.

LESTER HOLT, NBC ANCHOR: Do you have any plans to visit the border?

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At some point -- you know, we are going to the border. We've been to the border. So this whole -- this whole thing about the border, we've been to the border. We've been to the border.

HOLT: You haven't been to the boarder.

HARRIS: And I haven't been to Europe. I mean, I don't understand the point that you're making. I'm not discounting the importance of the border.

DIAMOND: The No. 2 House Republican tweeting, "This is a crisis we're talking about, not a vacation."

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): We don't have an Australian border crisis. We don't have a border crisis in Europe. We have a border crisis on the southern border.

DIAMOND: For weeks, Harris and her team have fought the perception that she is the administration's border czar, insisting she is narrowly focused on the root causes of migration, but after the issue became a distraction, a change of tune.

(on camera): Can you commit right now that you will visit the U.S./Mexico border, and you will do it soon?

HARRIS: Jeremy, let me tell you something. Yes, I will, and I have before.

DIAMON (voice-over): Harris spent most of her trip tackling that issue, announcing a new task force to root out corruption in Guatemala. Nearly $90 million to boost economic opportunity and an agreement with Mexico to boost agriculture and youth programs in Central America.

But it was a stern warning to would-be migrants in Guatemala that caught her flack on the left.

HARRIS: I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States/Mexico border, do not come. Do not come.

[06:20:14]

DIAMOND: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling that message disappointing to see.

(on camera): Why did you feel it was important to relay that message while in Guatemala?

HARRIS: It is -- it can be a very treacherous and dangerous trek, and I don't take that lightly. I don't take that lightly.

DIAMOND: Harris's warning underscoring the U.S.'s balancing act in the region at a time when the U.S. is facing record numbers of migrants at the southern border, some of whom say they believe the Biden administration's policies are more welcoming. The other side of that coin, a message of hope to a region in short supply.

HARRIS: I know our capacity to give people hope in that region, in particular, those three countries in Central America. And I have no question in my mind that the work that we have done is going to have a very positive impact. It may not be evidenced overnight, but it will have a positive impact.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND: And John, some administration officials are quietly perplexed about the vice president's answers to some of those questions, in particular, that initial question she got from Lester Holt about the border, where she equated it with Europe.

There was the hope inside the White House that this trip would be a success, and by the end of it, there was concern that it was perhaps overshadowed by her answers to some of those questions.

As for the vice president and his team, they are simply frustrated that these questions have continued to dog her, amid Republican attacks and attempts to conflate her position, dealing with the root causes of migration as being some kind of border czar.

But it was clear to the vice president -- to the vice president and her team by the end of this trip that this was becoming a distraction, and that's why we saw that change of tune when I asked her would she indeed commit to going to the border. No date, however, has been set yet for that trip -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Jeremy Diamond for us in Mexico City. Jeremy, thank you so much for your reporting.

Look, you know, this White House has presented a unified front up till now. This is a long time to go for an administration to have no, you know, backstabbing or internal -- this isn't backstabbing, but this is the first sign of a crack, a little bit.

KEILAR: Yes, some discontent. I mean, the thing is Kamala Harris has taken so much incoming from the right, but on this trip, she's taking it from the right now and the left. It will be interesting to see once, you know, at the end of this, whether it's considered a success or not. It seems like it's trending towards the latter right now.

BERMAN: It could be a success on the policy front.

KEILAR: That's right.

BERMAN: And the political grade may be somewhat different.

KEILAR: Exactly.

BERMAN: All right. A Capitol rioter boasting about the insurrection and a new letter written from behind bars. What he says about efforts to overthrow the U.S. government.

KEILAR: Plus, will Pennsylvania be the next state to launch a sham election audit? There's actually a state senator who said something that was stunningly bad, a take on what is better in Afghanistan than here in the U.S.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:27:10]

KEILAR: New insight this morning into the motivation of one Capitol rioter who boasts about the insurrection in a letter that has been obtained by Pro Publica, writing this, "January 6th was nothing short of a satirical way to overthrow a government. If overthrow was the quest, it would have no doubt been overthrown. Ask the Capitol Police for their opinion of how it could have been. They are grateful it wasn't a real insurrection complete with mind, body, and soul."

Pro Publica reporter Joaquin Sapien is with us now. Joaquin, thank you for being with us this morning to talk about this report of yours. This is a letter that was signed "the one-sixers." There's no names that appear on it, and yet you figured out who wrote it. Tell us about how you did that.

JOAQUIN SAPIEN, REPORTER, PRO PUBLICA: Sure. So we had been interested in trying to learn as much as we can about the perspective of the people who stormed the building that day, and so a number of them are obviously in D.C. jail.

So we wanted to correspond with some of those folks and to try and reach their families and -- and ask questions. And what we got in return was this letter that was signed "the January Sixers." And through some additional reporting and contacting the author's family, we were able to figure out that the person who penned it was Guy Reffitt, who is allegedly one of the people one of the only people who appears to have brought a gun onto the compound, at least according to a conversation that he had with his son, Jackson Reffitt, which was -- which was reported.

KEILAR: Yes. He and his family, it seems like they're sort of opposed to each other and opinions about politics, for sure. We'll talk about that in a moment.

But let's talk about one of the claims that stands out in this letter, which is that the rioters could have overthrown the government, had they wanted to. Tell us more about that.

SAPIEN: That's right. So what they're saying -- what they appear to be saying in this letter is that they had the numbers, and the cops didn't, and the police were unprepared. And had they truly wanted to overthrow the government, they would have succeeded that day.

And so, you know, it's a little bit unclear how many people who were arrested for their conduct on that day all feel similarly. Again, the letter is signed "the January Sixers," and our understanding is that it might represent the opinions of as many as 20 to 30 people.

But when we went out to try to corroborate how many people participated, five of the folks that we were told were also co-authors said they were not authors.

But I think one of the things that came out of this letter, as well, is that we now know that people who are inside.