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CNN: 140+ House Republicans to Vote Against Counting Electoral Votes; How Will Biden Admin Tackle the Economy? Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 01, 2021 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:02]

JOHN AVLON, CNN HOST: CNN's new film "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President" explores how his unique relationships shaped battles for years to come. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: One of the things that have held America together has been the music that we share.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jimmy Carter used music in politics. It had never been done quite that way.

CARTER: I want to introduce to you, the Allman Brothers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He enjoyed our music and he became a friend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a kindred spirit of a very kind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A man you don't meet every day and you're lucky to meet if you ever do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jimmy and I basically come from the spot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We went to the White House, we will come in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His love for music makes sense to me because music is the voice of the heart.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was the music of shame and dissidence. There was a risk politically for that, and it didn't matter to him.

CARTER: I think music is the best proof that people have one thing in common no matter where they live, no matter what language they speak.

ANNOUNCER: "Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President", Sunday at 9:00 on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:35:48] AVLON: The fatally flawed fight to keep Donald Trump in office beyond the 19 days he has left in office is now focused on Congress and its meetings next Wednesday to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

Now, President Trump tweeted just moments ago that massive evidence of voter fraud will be presented. He also has a bridge he'd like to sell you. Nonetheless, 149 GOP members are expected to object.

Here's how it works. The objection is submitted in writing by at least one House member, one senator then joins. That suspends the joint session.

The Senate and the House then debate separately for two hours over the objection. The House and Senate then each vote on the objection. Finally, both the House and the Senate would need to agree on the objection for the votes to be thrown out.

That's not going to happen. So why are so many Republicans joining in on this charade?

Well, Republican Ben Sasse explains it this way in a Facebook post. Quote: Let's be clear what's happening here. We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there is a quick way to tap into the president's populist base without doing any real long-term damage. But they're wrong. And this issue is bigger than anyone's personal ambitions. Adults don't point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.

And that is, indeed, what's happening. I want to discuss all of this and more with Rick Wilson, a former Republican strategist and co- founder of the Lincoln Project, and Maya MacGuineas, she's the president of the committee for responsible federal budget and a founder of FixUS.

It's great to see you both.

I want to have a conversation about democracy reform, about strengthening the guard rails that have been weakened the last four years.

Maya, I want to start with you. You've said many times Donald Trump is the symptom, not the lone cause of the situation we're in.

So, what do you think President Biden can do in a new administration to help heal these divides?

MAYA MACGUINEAS, FOUNDER, FIXUS: Well, he's already started what he needs to do, and that is the way he's talked about his objective of unifying the country and being the president of all people whether they voted him or not. That's a start, because I have said the underlying root causes, and they're political, and they're economic, and they're cultural and they're even technological, all of those have been going on for a long time.

But President Trump fanned those flames massively, things got much worse the last four years and now we need to start at the top with a leader who is trying to bring the country back together where we don't look at each other as enemies. So, I think his focus on that, and then starting a national discussion on letting some of the anger -- it's such an angry moment -- letting some of that anger out and having real discussions about legitimate different points of view but with a civil tone, which is not what we've had in the past years.

AVLON: Rick, you're a former Republican. You and I met years ago working for Rudy Giuliani.

I guess my question to you is that, do you think there is enough responsible Republicans left in the party to take it back and oppose Trump era, or do you think it's something new entirely?

RICK WILSON, FORMER REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: John, at this point, in the House and Senate together, you got Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, and Ben Sasse. Basically, you could fill a small table at the waffle house with the remaining Republicans who are responsible adults.

You will have no end, as Senator Sasse admits, this is about ambition. Donald Trump has even fooled himself a little bit. He thinks that Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, Marco Rubio love him. They just want to take over his movement. They want to be in a position in 2022 and 2024 to not get primaried from the MAGA right or to be viable in the presidential campaign where the MAGA base has redefined the Republican Party as a personality cult base around Trump.

So, I don't think there's a lot of adult supervision right now, because they haven't learned any lessons for what's happened.

AVLON: You just said that basically four people at a waffle house can't retake over a party. I think that's a fair point.

Maya, to that extent, how much of this is about a twisted incentive structures that led some people who might privately know better to play to the extremes because they're afraid of losing a primary?

[15:40:08]

And if that's the case, what are the kind of reforms that could be put in place to change the incentive structures, to maybe strengthen our democracies, as opposed to destroy it on the way to self-glorification by a handful of pols?

MACGUINEAS: I think that's exactly the right kind of questions we now have to focus on, because sort of leading a movement that is fueled by anger alone will not sustain, and those politicians who are kind of trying to take advantage of that, that can't work. At some point, and hopefully soon, we have to start solving the problems that people are really angry about.

And in order to do that, we need to start returning to an era where Congress is functioning. That starts with things like political reform, election reform, everything from gerrymandering to open primaries, to rank choice voting, so we don't have a political system that actually rewards partisanship, polarization, huge tribal separations of a country turning us into two teams instead of one country, with very real threats on the horizon, which is what we should be focusing on.

So, those political reforms are front and center, and I think they are the low-hanging fruit. I think we can make progress with them. But there are also economic and policy pieces we need to look at. First and foremost, obviously, is fighting the terrible pandemic which we're still not through, so starting to help the country function as we're dealing with that may have more economic measures that we need as well as getting the vaccine out.

And then moving into some of the other policy issues where there may be places for compromise. I know word is not in fashion right now, but in things like infrastructure, fixing Medicare which is about the trust fund running out of money in the next couple years. We need to return to an era where Congress is willing to compromise and show we can function, because if we continue in an era of division and distrust and dysfunction, we will lose to these great threats outside the U.S. that are looking straight at us.

AVLON: Sure, these ethno-nationalist autocracies that are trying to eat democracy's lunch.

Rick, if you were advising President Biden, you know, presidential leadership matters, but certainly good faith has been in low supply with when presidents negotiate with Congress lately.

WILSON: Right.

AVLON: What would you advise he do to help move the ball forward, to make infrastructure week something more than a punch line, to help reach out to some Trump supporters?

WILSON: Sure. Here's where I -- my three pieces of advice to President-elect Biden and then President Biden are simple. First off, never be in a dark room with Mitch McConnell because he'll shiv you.

The second is he's got to go out and find a coalition of Republican voters inside the caucus large enough to start influencing the way the tide turns and to stop Mitch McConnell from just engaging in his singular goal -- look, all Mitch McConnell is looking at 2022. He wants a larger, or if he loses in Georgia, he wants to recapture his majority. If he doesn't, he wants to enhance his majority.

So, Mitch McConnell is going to try to train-wreck the Obama or the Biden administration from the first day, just like he did with Barack Obama, try to train-wreck him from the very first day. So Joe Biden needs to be very cautious about Mitch McConnell, but then he needs to reach out to Republicans in good faith, and then you look the four I mentioned, in the aforementioned waffle house scenario were there, and there are probably half a dozen in the House he could work with a little bit here and there.

But this is a big thing that Republicans aren't going to understand unless we deal with COVID in the next year or two, unless we get back on -- get an actual vaccination program in place, an actual program of economic recovery in place, nothing else matters. So, Biden needs to frame I think a lot of the argument in those terms, the few he can operate with.

And, Remember, Joe Biden does have a lot of relationships in the Senate that stretch way back, including a lot of these people who have been the tacit enablers of Donald Trump, like, you know, Portman and so on.

AVLON: Well, Rick and Maya, it's an important conversation. I want to thank you for beginning it today, happy New Year to you both.

WILSON: Happy New Year to you, my friend.

MACGUINEAS: Happy New Year.

AVLON: All right. So, what can we do to help unite the country and recover from the pandemic economy? We're going to have someone who help then-Vice President Biden get the country out of a recession. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:48:55]

AVLON: The pandemic touched every part of the economy in 2020. So does the same hold true for 2021? It's an important question as health experts warn the pandemic will still be with us for several more months.

CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik is back with us.

Alison, what are the indicators for the year ahead?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John, last year historic job losses prompted unprecedented fiscal stimulus from Washington, but its benefits dwindled over the course of 2020. Americans have suffered. Today, more people are falling behind on bills, they're struggling to pay rent or mortgage or fear of losing a job.

Now with the government's second round of stimulus, help is on the way, if only temporarily. Americans who qualify will receive one-time stimulus checks of $600. Those collecting jobless benefits will get an additional $300 weekly federal benefit through mid-March and eviction protections will be extended through the end of January.

There is also benefit for businesses and industries that continue to struggle. The travel and hospitality industries have been crushed, same with airlines, the movie industry. But some industries are actually thriving.

[15:50:01]

Big retail, big tech and the housing markets are flourishing in the pandemic. Home sales have surged because of record low mortgage rates and families searching for more space as the pandemic drives on. That's as some of the biggest banks are forecasting the economy will grow anywhere from 4 percent to 6 percent this year. That would be an improvement from the collapse of the economy in early 2020.

And if GDP hits 6 percent, that would be the best since 1984, which was also a year bouncing back after a terrible recession -- John.

AVLON: That would be quite a bounce-back.

KOSIK: Yeah.

AVLON: Alison Kosik, thank you very much.

All right. President-elect Joe Biden will assume office amid a pandemic, which has been plagued in the global economy. So, what do his past instincts tell us about his future policies?

Joining us now is someone who worked extensively with then Vice President Joe Biden to navigate America out of the Great Recession, Austan Goolsbee. He's a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and currently an economics professor at the University of Chicago's business school.

Austan, good to see you. You know the president-elect well. You've seen him in action.

So, what does that tell you about he's going to tackle this dire situation when he takes office later this month with regard to the economy?

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BUSINESS SCHOOL: Well, I mean the poor guy. The last time he took office, we're in the worst economic crisis since the depression, and now, he's going to come in as president-elect and, if anything, it's even worse.

I think he was in charge of the enforcement and execution of the stimulus the last time, and my observation of the president-elect is that he's very concerned with the blocking and tackling of getting things out the door. At that time, get the money out the door, make sure that it's not being wasted, make sure that it's being spent the way it's supposed to.

We could have used that attention to detail when we've been trying to get this vaccine out. I think President Trump doesn't want to be there. I think this has spiraled so far out of his control that he just wants to be done. It's ironic that he's fighting to overturn the results of the election. It's not -- he doesn't want to do the job, and that's going to make it that much harder for the president-elect when he comes in to try to correct for it.

But if we have attention to detail to stop the spread of the virus, I actually think that the economy could come back pretty rapidly.

AVLON: All right. That actually brings me to the next point, which is that Obama a alumni like yourself lauded the George W. Bush administration for their cooperation and collaboration during the 2008 transition. That is obviously not the case this time around, particularly as we've seen pushback from the OMB and the Defense Department.

My question to you is, what are the stakes of those kind of political contentions in terms of impacting an incoming administration?

GOOLSBEE: Well, I think it's more than just petty. I think it's outright destructive, and that's -- I assume that was their purpose. That's why the Trump administration is doing this. They're actively trying to sabotage and make worse the early months of the incoming administration.

But rather than get into the, did they invite them to meetings? Are they sharing intelligence? I would just observe on the ground the administration is not doing the fundamentally most important thing that it needs to be doing right now, which is protecting the American people, slowing the rate of spread of the virus. They're literally -- at Mar-a-Lago, they're having another super-spreader event, mask less with people dancing, yelling, celebrating in each other's face. We've got multiple superspreader events in the White House itself and the president got the disease.

AVLON: Sure.

GOOLSBEE: If they aren't going to take those actions to control the spread of the virus, the stakes are that the economy is going to be that much worse because the number one rule of virus economics, I always say, is you want to fix the economy, you have to slow the spread of the virus.

AVLON: That's the order. Let's talk about policy, you know, because Joe Biden going back to his 1988 campaign always was focused on the middle class. It's been squeezed for decades. So specifically, what do you think a President Biden can do to rebuild the middle class either through executive order or in working with Congress through a bipartisan coalition?

GOOLSBEE: It couldn't be a more important topic to question about. My general view is that the best thing to expect what a president's going to do is pretty much in the spirit of what did they say they want to do in the campaign. And I think what President-elect Biden described as his "Build Back Better" plan, that a heavy emphasis on infrastructure and manufacturing, a heavy emphasis on the care economy, both education, training, child care, and those things as well as health care system, getting people health care and working in health care, and a commitment on climate change and on racial equality. I

[15:55:00]

I think all four of those are spaces that the president-elect will probably move pretty strongly in. And several of those areas I would observe outside of just the last few years of contentious gridlock, before that, they were some bipartisan areas. So, I would not be surprised if President Joe Biden has a couple aces up his sleeve and is able to pull together coalitions that right now we didn't necessarily envision him being able to do.

AVLON: We will see. That will be the acid test. Austan Goolsbee, happy New Year. Thank you very much.

GOOLSBEE: Happy New Year.

AVLON: And thank you all for joining us.

I'm John Avlon.

Up next, CNN film "A President in Waiting." Happy New Year.