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Leaked Audio Of Trump Threatening Georgia Secretary Of State To Overturn Election Results; Ten Former Secretary Of Defense Disavow Military Involvement In Election Dispute; GOP Senators And Congressman Plan To Object Certifying Joe Biden; Nancy Pelosi Reelected As Speaker Of The House. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired January 03, 2021 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: The hour-long phone call between President Trump and the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, took place yesterday. Here's just one shocking part of their conversation and this was audio first obtained by "The Washington Post" that CNN has now obtained as well.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (via telephone): We have won this election in Georgia based on all of this, and there's -- there's nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know? I mean, having the -- having a correct -- the people of Georgia are angry, and these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night along with others that we're going to have by that time, which are much more substantial, but -- and the people of Georgia are angry. The people of country are angry and there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know -- that you've recalculated.

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE (via telephone): Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have, it's the data you have is wrong.

TRUMP: Now, do you think it's possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? Because that's what the rumor is, and also that Dominion took out machines, that dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their machinery? Do you know anything about that? Because that's illegal.

RYAN GERMANY, GEORGIA GENERAL COUNSEL: This is Ryan Germany. No, Dominion has none moved any machinery out of Fulton County. We're having --

TRUMP: No, but, have they moved -- have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?

GERMANY: No.

TRUMP: You sure, Ryan?

GERMANY: I'm sure. TRUMP: You should want to have an accurate election. And you're a

Republican.

REFFENSBERGER: We believe, but we do have an accurate election.

TRUMP: No, you don't. No. No, you don't. You don't have -- you don't have. Not even close. You've got -- you're off by hundreds of thousands of votes. You know what they did and you're not reporting it. That's -- you know, that's a criminal -- that's a criminal offense. And, you know, you can't let that happen.

That's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. That's a big risk, but they are shredding ballots in my opinion based on what I've heard. And they are removing machinery, and they're moving it as fast as they can. Both of which are criminal finds, and you can't let it happen and you are letting it happen.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CABRERA: Trump's effort to overturn the election based on these debunked conspiracies have failed in every legitimate avenue. It failed during audits and recounts and probes in the states and counties. It failed in front of Republican judges. It failed in front of Trump-appointed judges. It failed in front of the Supreme Court.

So now we hear Trump leaning on people in his party, like a mob boss, trying to get them to do his bidding to overturn the election. Thankfully on this call, at least, his tactics again, failed.

Just as we learned about this Nixonian recording today, the new Congress was being sworn in on Capitol Hill, and there, many new and establishment Republicans are in the grips of this very same anti- democracy meltdown, planning to object to the Electoral College certification on Wednesday.

Let's get to CNN's Kyung Lah in Georgia and John Harwood at the White House. Now, Kyung, I'll start with you in Georgia. President Trump using today's critical Senate elections in Georgia as a threat on this call. What has the reaction been like there on the ground?

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm actually trying to pay attention to Reverend Warnock as he's speaking and we just heard from the other Democrat. So Reverend Warnock is one of the Democratic challengers for the two runoff seats. Jon Ossoff is the other candidate for the Senate seat. Two Democrats who want to flip these two seats, ultimately, which would tip the balance of control in the Senate to Democrats.

And we just heard Ossoff say this about what he thinks about the call, that call you just played, Ana. And he said, "That is a direct attack on our democracy and if Perdue and Loeffler, who are the two incumbent Republican senators, had one piece of steel in their spine, one shred of integrity, they would be out here defending Georgia voters from that kind of assault."

So, very strong words from one of the Democrats. We are anticipating that Reverend Warnock may also address this as well. And then following Reverend Warnock will be Kamala Harris. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. These Democrats here are feeling that after the early vote, they may have the upper hand.

[17:04:56]

But the big question, Ana, is what the impact of all of this news is going to have on Republican voters who are going to be taking to the polls, going to the polls in just two days.

From what we have seen and had conversations with various Republicans, whatever the president wants, they will follow. And we've seen that line also taken from the two senators here, who understand that the president here is a very potent force among his base and they are so far stepping in-line with the president. We have yet to hear from Senators Loeffler or Perdue about this call, any comment from their campaigns, Ana.

CABRERA: And I know you are trying. John Harwood at the White House, let's bring you in because shortly before this audio leaked, Georgia's secretary of state, Raffensperger, he tweeted this, "Respectfully, President Trump, what you're saying is not true. The truth will come out." Do you think Trump is surprised? The tape from this phone call was made public and do you think he's concerned about that?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I don't know if he's surprised. He ought to be concerned, but you know, this is a president without any obvious conscience or sense of shame. So, I'm not sure how it's going to affect him.

You know, you stated it at the beginning in your intro, Ana. This was a conversation in which the president was talking like a mob boss. And we just heard from Kyung that Jon Ossoff, one of the Democratic Senate candidates, was putting it on Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the two Georgia senators to speak out.

We've got the same question for other Republicans. If Donald Trump's a mob boss, the question is, are other members of the mob family going to support the president in this nakedly corrupt effort to pressure the Georgia secretary of state to overturn the election on the basis of the fact that he was a Republican, dressed up with all sorts of fantasy nonsense about shredded ballots and inner workings of machines being tampered with.

The question is now going to be, how does the Republican Party react to this? We know what Donald Trump is. This shows it more vividly, but we have known that already. We expect that about 12 Republican senators and somewhat more than 100 House members are expected to support this direct challenge to American democracy. How many others are going to join them? And how many are going to speak out against what the president was trying to do?

CABRERA: And I will read a quick tweet from Adam Kinzinger. He is a Republican Congress member who has been outspoken against the president in the past but he wrote this afternoon following breaking news with the audiotapes being released. "This is absolutely appalling to every member of Congress considering objecting to election results. You cannot, in light of this, do so with a clean conscience."

And we will be talking with him coming up later in our show. Both of you, thank you. Stand by. We'll come back. Joining us now is CNN political commentator Margaret Hoover and CNN senior political analyst, John Avlon.

Wow! What an unbelievable turn of events here. It was going to be, you know, hard to top the idea of 12 Republican senators and 140 House Republicans trying to subvert a free election. But here we have it, the President of the United States on tape pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the votes in his favor. Let's just listen to a part of it one more time.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

TRUMP: So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.

So -- so, tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election and it's not fair to take it away from us like this, and it's going to be very costly in many ways.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: John, you first. What's your reaction to this?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He's a pathetic thug. He's a mob boss attempting a shake down caught on tape, who elevates conspiracy theories over facts and tries to bully election officials. And what he did, what he was caught doing, was trying to deprive the voters of Georgia and the United States of a free and fair election.

And I believe our legal friends will say that is illegal under federal and state law. And so the voters of Georgia have to look in their own consciences when it comes to this kind of shakedown of Republican election officials who are trying to do their job honestly.

And the Republicans in Congress who are about to join the autocrat caucus (ph) by trying to overturn our elections on this guy's behalf, need to take a second look at who they're willing to destroy their reputations to whose ambitions they will advance. It's this man. It is this man. They are willing to trash the Constitution or our Democratic norms to support. Why?

CABRERA: Margaret, how do you answer that?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't -- Ana, this is not actually a circumstance. It's sort of an either/or, or well, on the one side this, on the other side that.

[17:10:01]

This is "The Emperor has no clothes." I mean, this is a moment where you see that the man who has been telling us there are irregularities in the system that have created a false outcome of the election caught on tape trying to create irregularities in the system to lead his own re-election.

I mean, there is no, well, on the one hand, on the other hand. There are no two sides to this story. This is the president of the United States undermining democracy. And this is the first time, you know, thanks to modern technology, we got it on tape.

I mean, it is there for any one of this supporters and Josh Hawley and every single member of Congress who signed, 126 of them that signed that amicus brief to the Supreme Court saying that there were irregularities in the system and the constitutional, like the Supreme Court needed to take up the constitutional questions of these irregularities now.

The irregularities in the system are from the president of the United States trickling down trying to create uncertainty in the minds of Americans. And now you have him on tape, creating --

CABRERA: So how should Republicans respond to this? Especially those lawmakers who have been considering, you know, going along with this idea of trying to overturn the election results?

HOOVER: I don't think, Ana, this should be a Republican or Democratic issue. This should not -- this is time to pick country over party. This is -- and it is -- if there were ever a moment, right? And one might have thought there's were 100 opportunities before now, but this is the moment where it is very clear that this president has undermined democracy and our electoral system. Republicans and Democrats together should join together and renounce.

AVLON: Yes. And they should, and let's hope they do, but let's not hold our breath. Here's the thing. This is in his own words. You can't write this off as the media or Democrats.

This is him trying to shake down a Republican official in the state of Georgia, and that's what's so -- so, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and those 140 or so members of Congress, all have to really decide if they want to back this kind of behavior to the hilt that causes them to try to destroy our Democratic norms, because they're doing it on his behalf.

And guess what? In 17 days, I think there are going to be some prosecutors who will be interested in this as well. But for the time being, this just highlights the constitutional question. Do you want to disfigure our democracy for a man with morals like that?

HOOVER: I'll just add, the numbers in Georgia were beginning to not look so great for Republicans. I mean, in terms of the early voter turnout, Democrats have done exceedingly well. There were new people who hadn't voted in the general election who voted.

Republicans on Election Day were going to have to turn out in very, very high numbers and turn out with a higher percentage in order to make up for the early vote of the Democrats. This is really going to hurt. And Donald Trump I think going to Georgia tomorrow doesn't help this case. I think already the wins were not going in the right direction for

Republicans in Georgia just in the last 10 days. I think this is very -- makes it very, very difficult.

CABRERA: John, you think back to what got the president impeached. A phone call to Ukraine that was basically find me dirt on my rival. And now here you have another phone call. Find me votes. So, for any Republican who thought this president may have learned his lesson, guess not.

AVLON: No. I mean, how naive can you be? This is a pattern. This is who he is. He was trying to derail Joe Biden's candidacy because he was afraid Joe Biden could beat him and he was willing to use the power of the presidency and foreign policy to try to get another foreign leader to do his dirty work.

Now on tape, not someone else's account of a tape, but on tape, is irrefutable evidence of doing the same to a Republican official in Georgia. And here's the thing. If Republicans stand by him now, they need to just embrace the suck that they have put lies over truth, because that's what the deal is.

If you're going to defend this, you're just saying, my lie is more important than the objective truth. And if you do that, just resign. Just go home.

HOOVER: Come on, come on. Let's just --

AVLON: No!

HOOVER: It is -- it is -- Brad Raffensperger is a Republican.

AVLON: Yes, and he's a good man. And Adam Kinzinger is such a good man.

HOOVER: It is Republicans who are standing up to Republicans here.

AVLON: Not enough, but Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney.

CABRERA: He's one of the only Republicans that are standing up to this president and we hear him do it, to the president's face on this phone call where we see Congress who is supposed to be, you know, the branch that holds the White House accountable are just doing the president's bidding.

HOOVER: Which has everything to do with the systemic failure that we have in our Congress with hyper-partisanship and hyperpolarization and have created a system that has undermined what the founders wanted in checks and balances, where the Congress has stopped being a check on the executive branch.

And that is -- it's a larger story and a larger problem that we have to fix, but it has come to a boiling point. It has boiled over in the presidency of Donald Trump.

[17:15:00] CABRERA: Joe Biden said he had no interest in having his Department of Justice investigate President Trump after he leaves office. But John, do you think he's going to be pressured now or does he let this go?

AVLON: This isn't a question of pressure and this is well beyond politics. This is about the law. This is about abuse of power. And what I think Biden has said and what he should do is let the process of the law take its own route. Don't do what Donald Trump has done, who was trying to put your finger on the scale of justice to punish your political enemies.

But if he broke the law in this or any other instance, or anyone in his administration that is absolutely legitimate and indeed it's an imperative because if you don't have accountability, you encourage it, you excuse it.

CABRERA: John Avlon and Margaret Hoover, thank you. Thank you both for joining us.

HOOVER: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: More on this breaking news. In just a moment, President Trump in a new audio recording, now obtained by CNN, trying to pressure Georgia's secretary of state to magically find him votes so he could win the state.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: We have more breaking news this hour. All 10 living former secretaries of defense issuing a stunning rebuke in response to a GOP plot to contest the results of the election. They write in a piece that was just published in the "Washington Post." "The time for questioning the results has passed, Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory."

Now, those 10 former defense secretaries include not only the two who served under President Trump, but also Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice. They also include my guest, William Cohen. He served under President Clinton. He is also a Republican who served as a U.S. senator for Maine.

Secretary Cohen, thanks for coming on. The military, of course, has a tradition of staying non-partisan and apolitical, but you're taking a very public stand here. Why?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE UNDER PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, this is highly unusual, I think, and maybe the first time in my life the 10 living former secretaries of defense have showed compelled, you know, just speak out because of the suggestion that the military will be used to overturn the election, possibly overturn the election.

And so, it is really our attempt to call out to the American people. We believe all of them are patriotic. They've been led down a path by President Trump, which is an unconstitutional path. And so we felt its incumbent on us as having served in the Defense Department to say please, all of you in the Defense Department, you've taken an oath to serve this country, this constitution, not any given individual.

[17:20:07]

So, we expect you to adhere to that oath you've taken, not to allow yourself to be used for any political purpose, particularly to try and overturn the election. So, there's genuine concern on our part, a lot of talk lately about martial law being imposed, something that has been floated within the White House and by Lieutenant General Flynn as well.

And so I think the combination of having seen the president misuse the military in Lafayette Square to take a photo op in front of the church, to see what he did with the ninja suited man up in Seattle while he fired rubber bullets into the heads of protesters.

And now to hear talk about using the military to overturn and review the elections, which have been not only reviewed, audited, re-audited, certified, analyzed by the Supreme Court, et cetera. For them now at this point to try to say we're going to overturn it and possibly use the military that would be clearly an unpatriotic thing that would be done.

And those supporters of the president and there are many, they have to understand it's unpatriotic what the president is seeking to do.

CABRERA: Do you worry Trump has succeeded in changing the apolitical aura of military service?

COHEN: Well, he hasn't yet. He's tried to politicize the military. He's done that on a number of occasions. He had Secretary of Defense Mattis, General Mattis, who resigned after having served for two years in the Trump administration. You have others.

We've had four secretaries of defense in four years. So it tells you something about what's happening inside the Pentagon. Also, the president has tried to remove people who have served honorably over the years, removed them and put functionaries in that will do his bidding, whatever it might be.

And that is the reason why we felt compelled at this point to say, to all of those who serve in the Defense Department, please, remember your duty. Remember the sworn oath to the Constitution. Do not do anything that is unlawful.

You have an obligation to abide by and to follow through on the legal and lawful orders of the commander-in-chief, but be wary here. You are not do engage in political affairs and certainly not to use that force to try and overturn the election on the part of the American people.

And I simply want to say to the people who support President Trump, they are patriotic. They believe that he is their rightful leader and they have accepted what he has said, but what he is saying to the American people is not true. They're lies. And I feel that we got to heal this country. We've got to try to make

this country, the country, the America it was meant to be, that we thought it was, that used to be in our own minds. So we've got to pull us together and I think what Joe Biden is trying to do is exactly that.

What President Trump doing is trying to split us in ways along ethnic, religious, racial lines, economic lines, cultural lines, but to divide us, and divided, frankly, we can't stand against the enemies that are foreign or those who are domestic like some of the militias that have been cited by the FBI as being a real threat to the American people.

CABRERA: And your article, we should note, was written before this phone call between the president and the Georgia secretary of state. What's your reaction to this breaking news today, what we are hearing from the sitting president of the United States?

COHEN: Well, to me, I remember the words "Russia, are you listening?" "President Zelensky, are you listening?" This is consistent with what he has done most of his life, I suspect, but certainly while the president, using his power in order to get someone else to do something illegal or unethical.

Here is a classic case of the president reaching out to the secretary of state of Georgia, a Republican and saying, come on. Find me a few thousand, a hundred thousand votes. You got to do this. And if you don't do it, you're actually participating in a crime. You know what that means.

So what you have is the commander-in-chief who heads up our Justice Department as such. He is the top law enforcement officer in the country, telling the secretary of state of Georgia, either you find this or you may be in trouble criminality-wise because you are participating in a criminal act and you know that so beware where you're heading on this.

So basically, he's saying either change some of the votes or you may be charged with co-conspirator in violating the laws of the state of Georgia. Pretty -- it's pretty sad. It's quite sickening, actually. Some say appalling. We're running out of words to really describe what's taking place.

But the American people have to understand what really is involved here. If we're going to continue to be that beacon of light for the rest of the world, we can't be violating our own principles.

[17:25:02]

We can't be saying one thing to the world about human rights, about the sanctity of liberty, about the sanctity of the right to vote. How many of our forefathers, grandfathers, fathers, have fought to overcome Nazism and imperialism, Russia, et cetera, and the Cold War, have made that effort to secure the freedom of the right to vote.

The president of the United States wants to overturn that and say only --it's only good, only fair, and not fraudulent if you vote for me. So, I think it's a clear warning to the American people. I hope that President Trump's supporters and there are millions, 74 million who voted for him this last time that they'll look at this and look inside their hearts.

Is this the America that you really want to be where the person at the top can say, I can do anything, I'm not accountable? I can't be charged with any crime. I can't be impeached. Simply absolute power and you have to absolutely support me. I don't think the American people want to live in a country like that and I surely hope not.

CABRERA: You said this week Donald Trump is the ringmaster of the Republican Party and what he expects to do is just, you know, snap his whip and all the elephants hop up on chairs. What do you make of the Republican Party right now?

COHEN: Well, I make exactly that. We've had some very gifted Republicans in the Senate who are highly educated. Whether it's Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and these highly educated individuals are trying to act like populists.

Much as the president has, who lives in a gold-plated age, I would say, as far as his lifestyle is concerned, and he tries to pretend that he's for the little guy or woman. So he panders to the people who are doing poorly in our society while he's padding the pocketbooks of the wealthy.

And some of these people who are now pretending to be populists, who are the most educated in our society and they are jumping on this bandwagon and say, yes, we can do the same. We can say we're for the little guy, we're for the working men and women, but we're going to pretend that we have these Republican principles.

And the Republican principles, the first one is, rule of law. No one is above it. No one falls below it. Balanced budgets, fiscal responsibilities, engagement with our allies, all of these things which represent the true heart of the Republican Party philosophy is being brushed aside saying might makes right.

Yes, all we have to do is exercise power that benefits us. The rule of law changes because we can change the rules. So, I think this is -- I mean, we need two vital parties. The Republican Party that I'm seeing taking place these last several years to be sure is not the party that I joined.

It's not the party that had people like Howard Baker, had Jack Danforth, had Al Simpson, Dan Coats, the list goes on, John McCain. We go down the list of people who served in the Republican Party who heart who had a big open tent.

And now this tent has been narrowed and I think it's time for the tent to collapse and the circus move out of town. I think we got to get back to our fundamental principles of believing in law and order. But when we say law and order, we have to include the worse justice. Law and order without justice is not really law and order.

And I had a professor who once said to me, you know, if you have freedom without order you have a mess. But if you have order without freedom you is a menace. And I think we were heading down the road to having a menace because we had were preaching order. We weren't preaching law. We certainly weren't preaching justice.

CABRERA: Okay.

COHEN: So, these are choices we have to make and I'm hoping that we'll come to the right conclusion moving forward. Joe Biden has won this election. We're going to have Joe Biden for the next four years or his administration.

And I hope that we can then come back and compete on a fair level as we have been. And if we can't compete and win on the voting side, then we don't deserve to win.

CABRERA: Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Thank you. Really appreciate your time tonight.

COHEN: Pleasure to be with you.

CABRERA: And if you're just joining us, President Trump, in a new audio recording now obtained by CNN trying to pressure Georgia secretary of state to magically find him votes so he can win that state. Our breaking news continues after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:30:00]

CABRERA: We're back with breaking news. The president of the United States on tape ordering Georgia's secretary of state to reject the will of the voters and find the votes needed to hand him a win in that state.

This extraordinary audio first obtained by the "Washington Post" and now obtained by CNN further illustrates the president along with many other Republican lawmakers' inability to accept the results of a free and fair election.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: Under the law you're not allowed to give faulty election results, okay. You're not allowed to do that and that's what you've done. This is a faulty election result. And honestly, this should go very fast. You should meet tomorrow because you have a big election coming up and because of what you've done to the president, you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam.

And because of what you've done to the president, a lot of people aren't going out to vote. And a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because they hate what you did to the president. Okay? They hate it. And they're going to vote. And if you would be respected, really respected if this thing could be straightened out before the election. You have a big election coming up on Tuesday.

(END VIDEOTAPE) CABRERA: Greg Bluestein is a political reporter for the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" and joins us now. And Georgia Senate Democratic candidate, Jon Ossoff, just addressed this audio recording. Greg, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: And at this moment, when the president of the United States calls up Georgia's election officials and tries to intimidate them to change the result of the election, to disenfranchise Georgia voters, to disenfranchise black voters in Georgia who delivered this state for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

(HORNS HONKING)

[17:34:57]

That is a direct attack on our democracy, and if David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler had one piece of steel in their spines, one shred of integrity, they would be out here defending Georgia voters from that kind of assault.

(END VIDEOTAPTE)

CABRERA: Greg, do you think this will significantly affect the Georgia runoff elections?

GREG BLUESTEIN, POLITICAL REPORTER, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: I mean, it could, because it could further depress Republican turnout for at least the moderate Republicans who are appalled by this type of behavior from the president and also encourage more Democrats to turn out because this plays into the argument that both Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have had against their Republican opponents from the get go, which is that they are too loyal to Trump and they are putting their loyalty to Trump over the good of Georgians.

CABRERA: Have you talked with the secretary of state since this phone call with the president?

BLUESTEIN: I've talked to his aides. Of course, they are getting deluged right now. But look, they promised in a tweet earlier this morning when the president made public the fact that there was a phone call yesterday. They promised that the truth would soon come out and this phone call, and the transcript of the phone call and all these recordings that we've been hearing throughout the afternoon shows you exactly what happened during that hour-long conversation.

CABRERA: Right. And the secretary of state there, pushes back, just doesn't give the president, you know, what he wants to hear. I want you to give our viewers a reality check because, you know, the votes are counted. How many times there in Georgia without ever changing results that Biden won?

BLUESTEIN: Yes. Three separate tallies of 5 million votes in Georgia all showed the same thing, a narrow victory by President-elect Joe Biden. He is the first Democrat to flip the state since 1992. That has outraged President Trump but there has been no evidence whatsoever of widespread voter fraud.

A tally, a verification of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in the suburban county of Cobb, Cobb County, showed no evidence of any voter fraud there either. So, at every turn, state elections official, Republican state election officials, I should add, have been rebuking the president along with Governor Brian Kemp, along with Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, just saying that they can't overturn elections results just because the president is demanding they do so.

CABRERA: Greg Bluestein, really appreciate your time. Thank you.

BLUESTEIN: Thank you.

CABRERA: Congressman Adam Schiff has now slammed President Trump over the leaked audio and he called it criminal. But is it? We'll ask our legal expert next. Stay with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:40:00]

CABRERA: Our breaking news this hour. Remarkable new audio of President Trump this weekend attempting to pressure the Republican secretary of state in Georgia to "find" just enough votes to put him on top of Joe Biden in the election that has already been decided.

In this recording of Saturday's phone call first obtained by the "Washington Post," the president uses conspiracy theories to try and cast doubt on this election that has been confirmed and validated over and over.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.

So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election and it's not fair to take it away from us like this. And it's going to be very costly in many ways.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: This call between the president and the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, lasted more than one hour. There's no indication that either Raffensperger or his general counsel who was on that call agreed to the president's demands. In fact, we hear them push back.

On the president's end of the line, we have White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Republican lawyer named Cleta Mitchell, who listened in. Now, the revelation of this audio comes just hours after Georgia's secretary of state accused the president of lying about their call in a tweet this morning.

With us now, CNN contributor Steve Vladeck. He's a law professor at the University of Texas. Steve, I want to show a tweet from House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff who led the Trump impeachment trial last year. Schiff calls what he heard in this recording potentially criminal. Is it?

STEVE VLADECK, CNN CONTRIBUOTR: You know, Ana, there's a good case that it is. I mean, there's a federal statute that prohibits anyone especially someone in the official capacity like the president from trying to interfere with how states count their votes.

There are multiple Georgia statutes that the president probably violated by attempting to intimidate the secretary of state and into changing the tally. But I think there's a larger point here which is, you know, we hear all of this noise from Republicans in Congress, from Josh Hawley, from Ted Cruz, about the need to, you know, uncover all of the sort of problems with the vote and election irregularities, and to have a commission on integrity.

Ana, what the call makes clear is that the president is not interested in fraud. Right? The president just want to win and he doesn't care how. Even if it means breaking the law or encouraging others to do so to get them there.

CABRERA: So, what was your initial reaction when you first heard this audio?

VLADECK: I mean, is it possible to be both horrified and not surprised at this point? You know, the reality is that with this president, I find this completely unsurprising, and yet it's such a symptom of where we are that, you know, there are folks who are saying this is not a problem. This is appropriate. This is fine.

And again, I think the larger point is, what are we actually fighting about at this point? Are we fighting about disputed electors? No. Are we fighting about verified instances of fraud that call into question results in any of these states let alone enough of them to change the result? No.

So, to the 12 Republican senators and to the over 100 congressional Republicans who are simplifying that they are going to challenge the electoral slate on Wednesday, Ana, I think what this call really drives home, is that it's not because they actually believe there was any mischief. The only mischief is that they're preferred candidate lost.

CABRERA: This president will be out of office in just over two weeks. So, what can be done about his actions if they are considered illegal?

VLADECK: Well, I mean, it's possible, of course, that a future president could instruct his Department of Justice to investigate whether there were violations of federal criminal statutes. Of course, Ana, the states have their own authority to prosecute criminal offenses so it's possible that the Georgia attorney general, if they really wanted to, could look into whether this conduct violated those statutes.

Bu, you know, I think that's unlikely. I mean, I think the reality at this point that folks are going to want to move on. I think the harder and larger question is, how do we actually convince the folks who continue to buy into the theory they're being spun that there was this massive fraud to cheat the president out of his victory?

[17:44:56]

That this actually is not about fraud at all. This is just about a president who likes power, who's trying to cling on to that power with every single reserve he has available to him and will stop at no length to do it.

You know, our system's not really designed to handle a president like that when, as we're seeing now, so many members of his party are willing to go along with it.

CABRERA: I want to turn to this growing battle over the objections planned by some Republicans to the Electoral College results, which you mentioned, you know, will not change the results. Joe Biden will end up being the president in, you know, 17 days from now. So, what are the potential outcomes of this spectacle?

VLADECK: Yes. I mean, so the way that the Electoral Count Act of 1877 works, as long as any one member of the House and any one senator joins in an objection to a particular state's slate of electors, both chambers have to go vote on whether or not to accept the objection.

And, Ana, we know no there is no way either chamber, let alone both of them, are going to vote to sustain any of these objections. So, all that can happen from what Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and their, you know, colleagues are proposing is to drag out this process, you know, a few hours, maybe a couple of days.

It's not going to change the bottom line, which drives home that this really is not about trying to actually alter the result of the 2020 election. This is really political posturing for those who see themselves as potential front-runners for the Republican nomination in 2024 and who are trying to just capitalize on the anger the president has instilled in his supporters over, you know, these unsubstantiated claims of a stolen election.

CABRERA: Which is just disgusting. Steve Vladeck, thank you very much. Appreciate your expertise.

VLADECK: Thank you.

CABRERA: All eyes on what Republican lawmakers will do on Wednesday when they have the responsibility to count the electoral votes and do final certification of the election. Tonight, there are a growing number of Republicans coming out strongly against the plans from their GOP colleagues to object to the count that would certify Biden as president. We have much more on that just ahead, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:50:00]

CABRERA: More breaking news here on CNN. It is a busy night. Nancy Pelosi narrowly re-elected just moments ago as Speaker of the House for a fourth time. And this comes as the 117th Congress was just sworn in today. Take a listen to Speaker Pelosi just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI, HOUSE SPEAKER: This sacred ritual of renewal as we gather under the dome of this temple of democracy to begin the 117th Congress.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

Thank you, Leader McCarthy. Congratulations on your election as leader. I look forward to working with you to meet the needs of the American people during this great moment of challenge. As the leader knows, usually on this day, the day of our swearing, is there is a bipartisan church service that we all attend where we pray together for America.

Until that is possible again, let us all pray personally, pray that let there be peace on earth and let it begin with us. That is our recurring theme.

(APPLAUSE)

And our prayers, as we all know, are very needed now. As we are sworn in today, we accept a responsibility as daunting and demanding as any previous generation of leadership has ever faced. We begin this new Congress during a time of extraordinary difficulty. Each of our communities has been drastically, drastically affected by the pandemic and its economic crisis -- 350,000 tragic deaths.

We sadly carry them in our hearts. Over 20 million infections. Millions without jobs. A toll beyond comprehension. To our new members, and we will be welcoming them soon to swear them in, welcome and congratulations on your election to the United States House of Representatives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Pelosi's re-election comes amid more breaking news. President Trump in a shameless and outrageous phone call, pressuring Georgia's secretary of state to find enough votes to tilt the election. The news coming in as the new Congress is sworn in ahead of what is sure to be a spectacle next week when at least a dozen Republican senators and 140 House Republicans say they will oppose the certification of Joe Biden's win.

CNN's Manu Raju joins us from Capitol Hill. Manu, first, are we getting any Republican reaction to this audio tape out of Georgia?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONALD CORRESPONDENT: Very little so far. Some who have been critical of the president have voiced their concerns. But for the most part, we are not hearing much from the Republican leaders. It's been very similar to what we have seen through controversy after controversy during the Trump years.

Most of the time the Republican leadership doesn't say very much. But this is all going to come to a head on Wednesday amid that effort by the conservative House members along with some Senate Republicans to try to overturn the Biden victory from November. That is not going to succeed but it will spark a debate.

It will spark a vote and will put a lot of Republicans in a difficult spot. Now, in the aftermath of this report about what the president was saying to the Georgia secretary of state, some Republicans reacted with alarm one of which is Congressman Adam Kinzinger who has been an outspoken critic of the president's efforts to try to subvert the will of the voters.

Kinzinger said, "This is absolutely appalling to every member of Congress considering objecting to the election results. You cannot, in light of this, do so with a clean conscience." Now, as I mentioned, this comes as a number of Republicans are plotting to try to overturn the elections come Wednesday.

Most House Republicans, we expect it could be up to a majority of House Republicans who get behind this effort. We expect a minority of Senate Republicans that are not going to get a majority in either chamber but the Republican leadership particularly in the House is split.

One congresswoman, Liz Cheney, who is the number three Republican made clear in a conference call last week to her members that this was not the way to go and she sent out around a memo this morning, 21 pages, laying out her concerns.

[17:54:59]

She said, "Such objections set an exceptionally dangerous precedent, threatening to steal the states' explicit constitutional responsibility for choosing the president and bestowing it instead on Congress. This is directly at odds with the Constitution's clear text and our core beliefs as Republicans."

Now, Ana, one Republican, key Republican who is on the other side of this that I'm told is Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican who has not said much publicly about this effort, but I am told that he has given a green light to these conservatives trying to push to overturn the elections.

He even told the president that he is on the president's side on this. So, we're seeing these divisions play out privately, but come Wednesday, they'll be public, Ana.

CABRERA: There is so much that can happen between now and then, too. You just never know. Manu Raju, thanks for keeping us posted on this. CNN has now obtained more audio from that phone call between President Trump and Georgia secretary of state. Our breaking news continues after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. We are following stunning breaking news out of the White House this evening. In newly released audio, the president of the United States is heard issuing stark and possibly illegal demands to the Georgia secretary of state ordering him to find more than 11,000 nonexistent votes and insisting that he won the state of Georgia.

[17:59:59]

After multiple recounts we know he did not. The jaw-dropping conversation between President Trump and Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, took place yesterday.