Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Now, House GOP Moves Ahead With Effort to Impeach Mayorkas; Biden Weighs High-Stakes Response to Deadly Drone Strike; Soon, Illinois Board of Elections to Decide on Trump Ballot Eligibility. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 30, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, new insight into the options President Biden is weighing on how to respond to the drone strike that killed three American soldiers in Jordan.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, the House begins a key step to impeach a cabinet secretary for the first time since the 1800s.

SIDNER: And CNN takes you deep into the trenches on the front lines of Ukraine as funding in Congress still at a standstill and Ukrainian forces are dealing with dwindling supplies and a constant Russian onslaught.

I'm Sarah Sidner with John Berman. Kate is off for the day. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: It has not happened since the 1800s, but happening at this moment, the first steps to impeach a U.S. cabinet secretary. The House Homeland Security Committee is debating articles of impeachment for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. And this morning, Mayorkas is hitting back.

CNN's Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill with the very latest this morning. Lauren?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. This hearing about to kick off in the room right behind me. And on Capitol Hill, obviously, this is a day where Republicans and Democrats are going to go at one another with fireworks in this committee room. We expect that they are going to move forward with those articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Now, one of the key questions is once it gets out of this room, what comes next? Do they have the votes on the House floor? There is the narrowest of margins right now in this body. That means that Republican leaders are going to have a tough time convincing every single one of their members to get behind these two articles of impeachment.

But that work has already begun. Right before I joined you guys, I was just finishing up talking to Chairman Mark Green. He said that he is continuing to have conversations. He's continuing to do the work that he needs to do in order to get the votes.

When I asked him and pressed him if he could guarantee those votes would be there, he said he doesn't know at this moment, but he said he does believe his committee is doing the right thing.

Meanwhile, you do have Mayorkas hitting back, saying that he has done his job to the best of his ability, that the immigration crisis on the southern border is nothing new. He's also arguing that if House Republicans wanted to do something on immigration reform, there is an emerging package waiting for them across the Capitol in the United States Senate. Of course, we haven't seen text for that legislation, but that is something that he says is an option. Meanwhile, most House Republicans rejecting that emerging deal out of hand. John?

BERMAN: Lauren, if everyone's voting, how many Republicans can vote no on impeachment without it going down?

FOX: Yes, they have a two seat majority, John. That is a narrow, narrow majority, the most narrow majority that we have seen in this Congress. And that just shows you they have to convince people, like Ken Buck, they have to convince people like Tom McClintock, who have bold voice concerns over whether or not this rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. That work continues.

We asked yesterday Republican leadership if they had a plan to try to get those votes. They said the whip operation would begin after these two articles of impeachment pass out of the Homeland Security Committee. John?

BERMAN: All right, the narrowest of marches, not at all fait accompli.

Lauren Fox, keep us posted, it's all getting underway right now. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Now to the Middle East, President Biden vowing action, and this morning, we are standing by to see if we learn anything more about what the United States will do in response to the drone attack that killed three Americans in the Middle East.

We are closely watching live pictures the White House right now, where Biden expected to leave very soon.

The concern inside the administration right now, will the retaliation they choose trigger a wider war with Iran?

We begin this hour at the Pentagon with Natasha Bertrand. Natasha, what more are you learning from officials there? And it's clear that they do not want this to blow up into an Iran versus United States official war.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Sara, it's an extremely fine line that the Biden administration has to tow here, because, on the one hand, they need to respond to this attack in a way that actually fundamentally deters these Iran-backed militants from launching an attack like this ever again, but at the same time not do too much where it sparks a regional war and where the U.S. actually gets into a direct confrontation with Iran itself.

And so we are told that the options that the Biden administration is weighing include, but, of course, are not limited to, striking these Iran-backed groups inside Iraq and Syria, perhaps conducting some kind of offensive cyber attack, weighing additional sanctions and financial penalties to place on these groups.

And you have to remember as well that there are Iranian assets that are outside of Iran's borders as well, including Iranian personnel in Iraq and Syria that could be targeted, Iran-backed Iranian warehouses and weapons storage facilities in these countries that could be fair game for the United States. But it's a really delicate balance that they have to weigh here.

And according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the response might not be all in one day. It might be, quote, multi-leveled, common stages, and be sustained over time.

So, this is likely to be a much more powerful response that we see from the administration in contrast to previous strikes that had been more narrow and targeted, but still they are still very wary, of course, of getting into a larger conflict that could embroil the U.S. in the Middle East in a larger war.

SIDNER: We have been here before with Middle East wars and the United States and there are lessons to learn.

Thank you so much, Natasha Bertrand, for all of you reporting there from the Pentagon.

All right, we are now learning more this morning about all three soldiers killed in line of duty. They were all based out of Fort Moore in Georgia. They are 24-year-old Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 23-year- old Specialist Breonna Moffett, and 46-year-old Sergeant William Rivers.

Last night, the widow of Sergeant Williams described her husband of 11 years as always smiling, always happy and a very hard worker for his family. The parents of Specialist Sanders say they spoke with their daughter just hours before the attack. They hope she is now remembered for her service, her sacrifice, and her contagious smile. And specialist Breonna Moffett's mother says she was waiting for her daughter to call her back when she was killed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANCINE MOFFETT, MOTHER OF SPECIALIST BREONNA MOFFETT: If we knew what we know now, we would have held on to that phone call as long as possible.

Oh my God, I love you. And then we may just make sure that she knew how much we loved her.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SIDNER: That mother's grief is hard to take.

Moffett's mother also told CNN that she too served in the military. And when Breonna joined, she became the second woman in their family to do so. John?

BERMAN: All right. As we said for the first time since the 1800s, the House is moving forward with impeaching a U.S. cabinet secretary.

Let's go inside the House Homeland Security Committee. This is the chair, Mark Green.

REP. MARK GREEN (R-TN): -- roundtable on the border that our Democrat colleagues refuse to attend, burying their heads in the sand as if there wasn't a crisis. We held many hearings at the subcommittee and full committee level, and we heard from a variety of witnesses, including former senior DHS enforcement officials, state's attorneys general, the victims of Secretary Mayorkas' crisis, Democrats have consistently claimed these hearings were a waste of time. Tell that to the families of 150,000 Americans who died from fentanyl poisoning in '21 and '22 alone.

We have also submitted dozens of requests for information to the department. Many of these have been stonewalled. At every turn, our Democrat colleagues have met these oversight efforts with mockery. They labeled a recent committee hearing with a mother who lost her son to fentanyl poisoning as, quote, Republican border hearing number 746.

And when we heard from a mother who had lost her daughter to fentanyl poisoning and another mother whose daughter was brutally raped and murdered by an illegal alien MS-13 gang member, the minority labeled the hearing a sham on their website.

Are they actually saying these things never occurred? What a slap in the face.

During that same hearing, one member from across the aisle even went so far as to lecture the mom who had lost her daughter to fentanyl, claiming that she was being used and didn't have the background to understand the issues before this Congress.

On the contrary, this brave American mother who lost her daughter because of our open border is more qualified to speak on this issue than any of us here today.

For almost a year, committee Democrats have turned a blind eye to the victims of the border crisis while berating us for spending what they believed was too much time investigating Secretary Mayorkas' handling of the border.

Let me repeat that. Democrats have berated us over and over for spending too much time investigating Secretary Mayorkas' border crisis. Keep that in mind when you hear them claim today that this impeachment is somehow rushed.

[10:10:00] The truth is that this process has been painstakingly thorough. We made sure of it. Our intent was to be fair, comprehensive and meticulous. Unlike House Democrats, we take the use of impeachment extremely seriously.

I am proud of the work my Republican colleagues have put in through our five-phase investigation. We have uncovered a lot. Phase one of our investigation documented multiple laws, court orders and rulings that Secretary Mayorkas disregarded, ignored or abused, and that dozens of times he has been dishonest with both Congress and the American people.

In phase two, we learned that Secretary Mayorkas' actions and unlawful policies have surrendered control of the southwest border to the drug cartels and enriched the cartels to the tune of $13 billion per year just from human smuggling alone.

The national security implications are dire. More than 300 individuals on the terrorist watch list have been caught crossing the southwest border.

In phase three, we documented the devastating human costs of the border crisis, the fentanyl epidemic.

SIDNER: -- Representative Mark Green, he's the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. They are talking about how they're going forward, trying to impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas. We will, of course, bring you the response to all of those allegations just ahead in this hour.

Joining me now, though, is CNN Chief International Anchor and Correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Thank you so much for being here.

I want to talk about what is happening in the Middle East with you, as you are always tracking all things there. You have seen President Biden vow to respond to the drone attack in Jordan that killed three young service members. You have some Republicans, including Nikki Haley, who is running for president, demanding retaliation against Iran itself.

When you hear these words from Biden saying there's going to be response from some Republicans saying we should attack Iran, are we inching closer to the potential all-out war between Iran and the U.S.?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Sara, that would be very possible if in fact that is the route that's taken. I mean, I have to say that sitting on this side of the Atlantic, much closer to where the war zone is, it sounds extraordinary, as many of the commentators here have said, to see all these people in the United States baying for another war in the Middle East. And that is what is it.

If they want to call on the Biden administration to strike another country in the Middle East, a sovereign state, not out-of-state actors, like the Houthis or various militia groups and the like, that is a massive escalation and you just don't know where that's going to end.

And notice who has been quiet on this, and that is, as it's been reported and noted, the MAGA crowd, right? They're not yelling for this because nor is Donald Trump, because they don't want to see this, they're much more isolationist in that regard. And Trump himself didn't do that, even under great pressure, even when there were attacks.

He did, in the end, end up killing the head of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Quds Force, as we all know, Qassem Soleimani, in response to certain attacks on Americans, but did not attack Iran itself.

So, in 43 years since the Islamic Republic, there has been no direct U.S. hit on Iran. This would be huge. However, clearly, the president needs to do something to make it clear that the United States will not tolerate the killing of its personnel.

The only thing is that right now, as you've seen for the last several weeks, the U.S. and its ally, Britain, both with extremely capable air forces and weapons systems, have been targeting the Houthi militias in Yemen. That has not worked.

So, you have to put this in context about what you're trying to achieve, what is doable, what's proportional, and what kind of signal you're trying to send.

SIDNER: Yes, those are all good points. And you know this because you've covered these wars. The U.S. has gone to war twice in the Middle East and our lifetime in Iraq and then in Central Asia, in Afghanistan. None of it has really garnered the fruits of a better Middle East or a better world. Do you think we've learned lessons after those wars?

AMANPOUR: Well, clearly not very many, although, to be fair, President Biden did say to Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, learn from us, learn from what we did back in 2003, that we went to war based on vengeance, based on essentially a herd mentality pushing the United States to war in Iraq in 2003, and look what happened. Look what was the backlash that we are still enduring, still grappling with, still paying for.

Basically, so much of what's happening in the Middle East right now can be traced all the way back to 2003. So, I think that's a very important thing.

And I think also what you really do have to understand and what Americans have to understand is that the current, heightened maximal tensions there, which are sort of hovering on this attempt to show pressure without it spilling into a massive war, is all to do with what's happening in Gaza.

[10:15:04]

Hence, the United States is trying its hardest to help negotiate some kind of reduction or end or pause or whatever they want to call it in Israel's counteroffensive in Gaza. Because on the streets of these Arab and Islamic countries, including Iran, that is what is creating a lot of this anger, a lot of this response, because the people just, you know, are telling their leaders that they can't stand it anymore. So, this is a very important point.

And to that point, I will say that the former British prime minister, David Cameron, who knows a thing or two about military engagement, is now the foreign minister, has told a private reception, and it's been verified, according to the BBC, that there needs to be a pause or a ceasefire, but that also Britain is inching closer to the idea of actually recognizing a Palestinian state. And that is the big political context of all of this, as well as de-fanging Hamas and its ability ever to threaten Israel like that again.

SIDNER: Yes, the two-state solution is a solution that a lot of countries are hoping can happen. But right now, it is not looking great.

Christiane Amanpour, it is always lovely to speak to you. Thank you so much for joining us on CNN News Central. I appreciate it.

AMANPOUR: And all our best to you, Sara.

SIDNER: Thank you. John?

BERMAN: All right. Happening now Illinois election officials meeting to decide if Donald Trump can stay on that state's ballot.

And CNN is on the frontlines in Ukraine, in the trenches, as the need for more aid becomes even more desperate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:20:00]

SIDNER: Okay, we promised it and we're going to go live now to the committee for Homeland Security that is looking at impeaching the DHS secretary. You are listening to Ranking Member Bennie Thompson with his response to the Republicans.

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): -- grounds for impeachment. Indeed, no official in American history has ever been convicted after impeachment for a refusal to follow the law. These disputes are settled in the court system, not through impeachment.

Apparently, Republicans are upset. They lost in court and are trying to re-litigate their cases through impeachment. The Constitution does not allow that. Breach of public trust requires conduct intended to serve an official's own benefit or the benefit of a foreign power.

No serious person can allege that Secretary Mayorkas' action meet the standard for breach of public trust under the Constitution. Nevertheless, throughout this truncated impeachment process, Republicans have ignored the facts and misrepresented the law to justify their scheme. But the law is clear, and so is the secretary's record. He's leveraged a full range of authorities at his disposal while stretching the resources provided by Congress to secure the border. He has removed record levels of migrants detained by more people than Congress has provided funding for and prevented record levels of fentanyl from entering our communities.

Constitutional law experts agree the secretary has not committed any impeachable offense. Rather, he has faithfully implemented the administration's border policies, policies Republicans apparently disagree with.

But policy differences are not impeachable. House Republicans' impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas accomplishes nothing, which would be consistent with their abysmal record this Congress.

At a hearing before the committee this month, Constitutional Scholar Professor Deborah Perlstein said, quote, no branch of government has more power under our Constitution to address matters of border security than Congress, unquote.

At every opportunity, Republicans have turned their backs on legislation to provide resources to the Department of Homeland Security. In doing so, they are turning their backs on border agents and officers. If House Republicans were serious about improving conditions along the border, they would provide the department the funding necessary to do so. They have not.

If House Republicans were serious about improving conditions at the border, they would negotiate border security legislation with the White House and the Senate. They have not. Instead, they sit on their hands as a bipartisan group of senators worked with the Biden administration to hammer out a deal.

The extreme MAGA Republicans who are running the House of Representatives are deeply unserious people. They don't want progress. They don't want solutions.

SIDNER: All right, you are listening to Representative Bennie Thompson, the ranking member there in the Homeland Security Committee.

As he responds to Republicans, they are trying to do something that hasn't been done in 150 years. They are trying to impeach someone who is in the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas.

We will be watching this. We will let you know what happens as they go forward. Remember, the Republicans are in a very, very slim margin. Two people could make the difference between whether he's impeached or not.

We'll be right back.

[10:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIDNER: Any moment now, the Illinois State Board of Elections will hold a public meeting where they're going to decide whether former President Donald Trump can appear on the state's primary ballot or if he is barred by the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban.

It is a question that is being asked by dozens of states across the country as the primary season is heating up. Many states believe it should ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which plans to hear arguments on this very matter on February 8th.

[10:30:06]

CNN's Marshall Cohen is joining me now.