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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Senators Sworn in For Trump Impeachment Trial; Interview With Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL). Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired January 26, 2021 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Maybe the federal government doesn't want to waste time with those people.

What we heard today from the top law enforcement officials here is that they want to go after everyone because they believe there has to be consequences to what happened -- Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Yes, all right, stand by.

I will be back in one hour in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

But our special coverage continues right now with Jake Tapper.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We begin with breaking news.

Any American citizen thinking that Republican senators might have finally reached their limit with Donald Trump after Mr. Trump incited a terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol resulting in five deaths, including a Capitol Police officer, well, I have bad news for you. They apparently have not.

A short time ago, U.S. senators were sworn in for the second impeachment trial of now former President Trump, senators raising their right hands, swearing to be impartial jurors and each lining up to sign an oath book as they consider the sole article of impeachment, charging Mr. Trump with inciting that insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The trial is slated to begin two weeks from today on February 9. Moments after all the senators took their oaths, Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky raised a point of order to question whether it is unconstitutional to try an ex-president.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted in favor of Paul's motion, though it did ultimately fail, with five Republicans, only five, joining Democrats to move forward with the trial. So, the vote was 55 in favor of proceeding with the trial, 45 opposed, saying it's unconstitutional. Now, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service says that -- quote

-- "Most scholars who have closely examined the question have concluded that Congress has the authority to extend the impeachment process to officials who are no longer in office" -- unquote.

And while surely some of those 45 votes may have been based in divergent constitutional law, let's be clear-eyed about the politics at play here and what today's vote foretells.

To convict Donald Trump, Democrats will need to win over 17 Republicans. Rand Paul says today's vote showed that conviction is dead on arrival.

Joining me now is CNN congressional correspondent Ryan Nobles.

Ryan, walk us through what happened on the Senate floor today and what this procedural vote actually means.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, the trial itself is not expected to begin here in earnest on Capitol Hill of the former president for about two weeks.

But we learned a lot about the thinking of those senators who are going to serve as jurors in this trial of former President Trump. This test vote, which is essentially what it was that was brought up by Senator Rand Paul, asked the question, do you believe that this impeachment trial is constitutional?

And, as you very rightly point out, 45 Republican senators said that they agreed with Rand Paul that this is not a question that should be brought in front of the senators, essentially, because President Trump isn't no longer the president.

Now, even though that motion failed, and it was tabled by Democrats effectively and not moved forward, it does tell us a lot about the thinking of these Republican senators. And it's important to point out that it will require 17 of those Republicans senators to cross over party lines and vote to convict President Trump in order for him to be convicted.

So, we learned today that, even though there were a lot of Republicans that were very concerned about what happened on the day of the Capitol insurrection on January 6, and many of them who specifically blame President Trump for his role in all of it, it seems very clear, at least from this vote today, that there is not enough of them that want to see him essentially called for his actions and convicted here through this impeachment process -- Jake.

TAPPER: Ryan, one of the things we haven't heard a lot of is, if not conviction, then what consequences do these 45 Republicans believe should happen? What have you heard from Republicans today after today's proceedings?

NOBLES: You raise a great point, Jake. And we have been asking Republicans that, because what's interesting about the position that many of them have taken in the wake of this vote is that they're not actually talking about the merits of the impeachment trial itself. They're not talking about the president's role on that day on January 6.

And, instead, they're talking about the process, that this is unconstitutional because he is no longer sitting in office. Now, we have asked, what other option is there to hold the president accountable? Could they do something along the lines of censuring President Trump?

I spoke to Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who's now come out and said that he believes the impeachment trial is unconstitutional. He told me censuring is an option, but he's not sure exactly where the rest of the conference sits.

So, at this point, Jake, that question has not even been presented to the senators at this point. The impeachment trial is right now the only option for holding President Trump accountable. We will have to see after this is all said and done if they take that next step, or if they, like many seem to want to do, put this all in the rearview mirror -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Ryan, thank you so much.

Joining us now to discuss, Illinois Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

So, your colleague Rand Paul forced this vote today questioning the constitutionality of this trial. His motion died. You voted to kill it.

[16:05:03]

Explain why you think this trial is constitutional.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): Well, if you looked at our history, Jake, every official who has been barred from holding future office was out of office.

And so we have historical precedents that shows that it is constitutional to have a trial that will bar somebody from holding office in the future, because we have done it in our nation's past.

So, it's clear that it is constitutional.

TAPPER: Rand Paul says this vote suggests that impeachment is dead on arrival.

I mean, mathematically, that seems correct, don't you think?

DUCKWORTH: Well, it looks that way.

But I will tell you that we have not yet looked at the evidence. I mean, we all lived through it. I'm sitting here in one of my offices here. I still have plywood on the window, that there used to be a window there. I still have broken glass on my floor.

My door behind me still has marks from where they were trying to batter it down with wherever they device they used as a battering ram. This is all very fresh. And we cannot, cannot allow any official, whether it's Donald Trump or someone else, to not be held accountable for their actions, when that action is inciting a violent insurrection that has left at least five people that we know of.

So we must move forward with this.

TAPPER: We have heard people like Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, say that he holds President Trump responsible for what happened.

But some of your colleagues are saying that he can't be held responsible for inciting the riot. Take a listen to something else that Senator Rand Paul said on the Senate floor today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): We're not going down the road that Democrats have decided, this low road of impeaching people for political speech.

I want the Democrats to raise their hands if they have ever given a speech that says, take back, fight for your country. Who hasn't used the words fight figuratively?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your response?

DUCKWORTH: Listen, he knows he's wrong. And stop covering for Donald Trump. We all saw with our own eyes, we heard with our own ears President Trump and what he did to incite the violence.

Then we also heard from all of the people in the riots who spoke up and said that they were doing this because President Trump told them to do so. That's why you have a trial. You present the evidence, and then you make a decision based on that.

If Rand Paul wants to be President Trump's lawyer, then he is more than welcome to go do that. But, frankly, I think the American people deserve to see the evidence presented to them that this president did indeed incite violence, did indeed incite insurrection against our nation's Capitol.

TAPPER: President Biden tells CNN that the impeachment trial must happen. But Biden says he does not think 17 Republican senators will ultimately vote to convict Trump.

As time passes, do you think it's even going to be harder to change minds? It seemed as though, early on, there might have been some willingness of Republicans to listen to the evidence. But you only got five today, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Toomey, and Sasse.

DUCKWORTH: Yes, I think this is where showing the evidence and replaying video footage from that day, replaying the audio from that day, so that the American people, so that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can see and hear all of the evidence again, is really important.

That's why it is so important to move forward with the impeachment trial, so we can actually review all of the evidence that there is.

TAPPER: House impeachment managers say they're still considering whether or not to use witnesses to try their case.

But the senators themselves all saw what happened. Many of them saw it from inside the Capitol, and many of them still will not blame Trump. Do you think more witnesses, more evidence would change minds? Or are people's minds just locked down at this point?

DUCKWORTH: Well, if their minds are locked down, then the American people deserve to see that they have elected senators on that side of the aisle who refuse to look at the evidence, who are so in former President Trump's camp that they're not even willing to do their constitutional duty.

And it's shameful. As I said, I am sitting in an office where there is still broken glass on the floor, where there is still plywood boarded up, boarded up my -- boarded my window up right here, where my door has marks from a battering ram of some sort that they used to try to force that door open.

I can show them the evidence myself. I'm happy to show it to my colleagues. But, first, they need to listen to the evidence and not close their minds to it.

TAPPER: The House impeachment managers are also weighing if and how to incorporate video into their case. Sources tell us that the impeachment managers are thinking about using some of this footage gathered by Just Security. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You'll never take back our country with weakness.

You have to show strength.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And you have to be strong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Invade the Capitol Building.

TRUMP: We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing...

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's take the Capitol! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take the Capitol!

TRUMP: ... and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take the Capitol!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take the Capitol!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take the Capitol right now!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Just to be clear, because I don't know if you even saw that, as opposed to just heard it, you hear President Trump in that clip saying: "You will never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength."

And then you hear people in the crowd saying, "Invade the Capitol Building," "Take the Capitol, take it, take the Capitol, take the Capitol right now."

What's your response?

DUCKWORTH: Well, my response is, you take that video, and then you take -- and then you into look into the fact that the president did not try to stop or tell the insurrectionists to cease their attack on the Capitol until well after the attack was well under way, and even then, it was a half-hearted statement.

It's clear that the insurrectionists were doing exactly what the president wanted. He wasn't -- I mean, once he saw what was happening, he still didn't come out and ask them to stop and go home, not for a long time. And even then, it was a half-hearted attempt.

So it's very clear that they were carrying out exactly his wishes.

TAPPER: Thank you so much, Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois. Always good to see you. Thanks for joining us.

DUCKWORTH: Thank you.

TAPPER: Breaking news about the spread of the coronavirus that could impact every parent whose kids are doing virtual learning.

Then: Does this MAGA terrorist attack on our nation's Capitol looks staged to you? Of course, it isn't, but that's the official position of Republican state officials in one part of the country. And they are not alone.

Stay with us.

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[16:15:26]

TAPPER: Back now with our politics lead.

President Trump is being impeached because the big lie about the election that he and his supporters pushed incited a terrorist mob to attack the Capitol. Five people are now dead.

And that mainstreaming of lies and conspiracy theories, frankly, it might prove to be Trump's most potent legacy. Some state Republican parties are going to some scary new extremes now. In Hawaii, on Monday, a top Republican official confirmed to the Associated Press that he resigned after posting on the party's official Twitter account a defense of QAnon supporters, QAnon, the same group the FBI has labeled a domestic terror threat.

That same individual from the wall Hawaii Republican Party also posted video from a discredited fringe bigot who denies that the Holocaust happened.

In Oregon, that state's Republican Party released a resolution last week just as insane. It endorsed a complete conspiracy theory, falsely frankly, absurdly, claiming that the Capitol siege was a false flag attack, claiming it was instead committed by Democrats posing as Trump supporters in order to discredit President Trump.

It's hard to emphasize just how nuts and false that is. Oregon's Republican Party also condemned the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump.

And over the weekend, Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona, Trump supporter, he was censured by his state's GOP, the Arizona Republican Party, for certifying the results of the election, along with Cindy McCain and former Senator Jeff Flake, who were censured for endorsing Joe Biden.

And this is just some of the nonsense. Let's discuss.

Ayesha, when you look at this as a whole, what do you think it says about the future of the Republican Party?

AYESHA RASCOE, NPR: It says that the Republican Party has been using the energy that they get from these conspiracy theorists, willing to kind of house and at times wink and nod at these people who are espousing these really outrageous lies about the electoral process and about cabals of child cannibals.

But as we saw with the attack on the Capitol, those types of lies have consequences. And you can't a wink and nod at this stuff and think that, yes, it gets people riled up, it may get them to the polls, but it also gets violence.

And that's the part where it doesn't seem like the Republican Party really has this under control. And you see that in all of these state parties really just talking about these outrageous ideas.

And it's not clear how that gets under control if you don't have members of the Republican Party, leaders of the Republican parties actively rejecting QAnon and all of these theories that are floating around. TAPPER: And, Jackie, relatedly CNN's KFILE just a few minutes ago broke this brand-new story about Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia. She is a QAnon adherent and bigot and conspiracy theorist.

KFILE reports that Congresswoman Greene, before she was congresswoman, repeatedly indicated support for executing, killing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 in Facebook posts.

In one post, Congressman Greene liked a comment that said -- quote -- "A bullet to the head would be quicker" as a way to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who were part of this deep state working against Trump.

She is now a Republican congresswoman in full standing, and there is no apparent effort to do anything to get her under control. She's also, by the way, a 9/11 truther.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And there's been no attempt to not embrace her. She's been embraced. She was seated as a member of Congress. There was no attempt not to have her there.

And now she's theirs to deal with. But, at the end of the day, this is about Republicans trying to be in line with their -- as Ayesha said, they're using the momentum from some of these fringe elements to bolster their.

[16:20:11]

And much like President Trump, who aligned himself by not condemning white supremacist groups, QAnon, because they liked him, that's what we're seeing, the Republican Party kind of take that Trumpian way of doing things on, and which is one of the reasons you see -- why you saw Kevin McCarthy say -- condemn Trump and then now say, oh, it's everybody's fault.

He does -- they don't want to offend some of these folks that are absolutely reprehensible and offensive.

TAPPER: So, Ayesha, we have reported previously that many Republicans believe a conviction of Trump in the Senate would be critical to rid the party of Donald Trump.

Do you think that's possible at this point?

RASCOE: It doesn't seem so at this point.

As you spoke about earlier in the show, right now, there doesn't seem to be the support there. Obviously, a lot of -- they may try to -- some senators, I'm sure, will say that, because he's out of office, why can't the country just move on, this is too divisive.

And, certainly, if Democrats had tried to move forward with impeachment soon -- sooner after the insurrection, there would have been arguments that they were moving too fast. I think part of the issue is that what Donald Trump has said about

moving ahead with primarying people and saying that he is going he -- has this enemies list that he's going to play out, I think that it is without a doubt on the minds of these Republican senators that they would have to deal with their base. And their base has not let go of Trump.

So, while senators may want to let go of Trump, because he's kind of hanging around their neck right now, their base has not.

TAPPER: Yes.

And, Jackie, there's this fight within the Republican Party that we see, the Adam Kinzingers -- he's a veteran. He believes in conservative values -- squaring off against some of the more Trumpy characters like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Meanwhile, I know you're a former Ohioan. Republican Senator Rob Portman, widely, I think, considered very conservative and a sober legislator, he's leaving office. He's not running for reelection. I can't even imagine what that Republican primary is going to look like.

KUCINICH: Oh, yes.

TAPPER: Sarah Sanders launched her bid for Arkansas governor. She already has Trump's support. The lieutenant governor, again, a guy, a veteran, he's served for a long time. But Sarah Sanders, according to private polls, is ahead of him already.

KUCINICH: Yes, we're going to see this play out in a lot of states and whether these kind of Trump stamp of approval candidates -- in Sarah Sanders' case, she's running, but, in Ohio, we don't know who's going to run. There's been a lot of talk about whether Jim Jordan, who is obviously a very close Trump ally, whether he will choose to run against some of the more moderate aspects of -- or moderate Republicans in that party.

But it should be said, I mean, I was told by several Republicans that Senator Portman actually was still building his reelection campaign just a couple weeks ago. And after the riots, it just -- something seemed to have changed. And he said yesterday in his statement that there's just a lack of willingness to get things done.

The Republican Party of Rob Portman, particularly in Ohio, is changing. And it has changed because of Trump. And who wins out at the end of the day in all of these states, I think it'll tell you -- 2022 will tell us a lot about whether the Republican Party is ready to move on from Trump or will it move on from Trump, or whether that's the Republican Party now.

TAPPER: All right, Jackie Kucinich, Ayesha Rascoe, thanks so much to both of you.

The breaking news every parent with school-aged children will want to hear, we will bring that to you. Plus, we're just learning President Biden is going to increase the

vaccine supply, he says. What are the details on how much and who will get it?

That's next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:28:43]

TAPPER: We have some breaking news for you now.

We have just gotten more information about the Biden administration's vaccine plans. The president is expected to speak in minutes about that pandemic. And now a source tells CNN that Biden's COVID coordinator, Jeff Zients, told governors on a call this afternoon that vaccine allocations for states would increase by about 16 percent starting next week, meaning there would be about 10 million doses going out across the U.S. each week.

More breaking news in our health lead, new evidence that supports letting kids go back to school in person. A new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found very few cases of COVID transmission in schools as long as mask-wearing and social distancing measures were followed.

In fact, researchers say, in the areas, they studied coronavirus rates were lower in schools than they were in the community in general.

CNN's Nick Watt joins me now live.

Nick, exactly what kind of safety measures were in place in these schools that others across the country should adopt?

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Jake, these researchers looked at Wood County, Wisconsin. The kids were all given multilayered masks. They we're told they had to wear them in school. There was also a statewide mask mandate.

Also, the kids were split into cohorts of 20 or fewer students. And there was no mixing between those cohorts. Also, if a student had symptoms, they would stay home, and so would their siblings.

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