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House Democrats Hold Call On Impeachment As Trump Confirms He Will Not Attend Biden's Inauguration; Pelosi Says She Spoke To Joint Chiefs Chairman On Preventing Trump From "Initiating Military Hostilities" Or "Ordering A Nuclear Strike"; Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: President Trump Should Resign; Acting AG Says FBI, DC Police Will "Spare No Resources" In Investigating The Capitol Police Officer's Death; Top Democrats: We Can File Impeachment Articles Next Week If Trump Doesn't Resign. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 08, 2021 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing a very busy news day with us.

Momentum building this hour towards another impeachment confrontation a critical call happening right now among House Democrats who say President Trump must be held accountable for inciting the Capitol rioting that spiraled into a deadly insurrection.

The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it would be best if the Trump cabinet declared the president unfit to finish his term, but there's little sign that will happen. Sources telling CNN the vice president is dismissive of such discussions. This morning, a key Pelosi deputy tells CNN that leaves Democrats with little choice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KATHERINE CLARK (D-MA): Donald Trump needs to be removed from office. If the reports are correct and Mike Pence is not going to uphold his oath of office and remove the president and help protect our democracy, then we will move forward with impeachment to do just that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The Biden inaugural is 12 days from now. It is tradition of course that the outgoing presidents attend. But you see it right there, President Trump tweeting a short time ago he will not. Democrats say an aggressive impeachment timeline is six to seven days that would put a first vote in the middle of next week and now Republicans are cautious.

Most prefer to run out the clock and say another impeachment would only deepen the nation's political wounds. But there are Republicans who say the president must be held accountable. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska is one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): He was flagrantly disregarding his oath of office. So that's not in debate. The House if they come together and have a process, I will definitely consider whatever articles they might move. What he did was wicked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Republican sources are telling CNN there are more Republicans open to voting yes on impeaching and removing the president if the charges drafted by the Democrats are viewed as reasonable by Republicans.

Now, the president today tries to blunt any republican support for his removal. In a tweet he warns his 75 million voters remain "A giant voice in republican politics" and says they best not are disrespected.

The defiant tone there just hours after a much more subdued video that yes, finally acknowledged Joe Biden's victory, but that aides say the president taped only to quash rumblings, his cabinet was thinking about invoking the 25th amendment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now congress has certified the results. A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The impeachment strategy call happening right now is just one consequential new piece of the rioting fallout. The effort to bring the rioters to justice now includes a federal murder investigation. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died last night from injuries, he sustained in that insurrection. Let's get straight up to CNN's Manu Raju on Capitol Hill with the breaking news.

House Democrats are talking right now and Manu, I know you have this letter from Speaker Pelosi laying out her concerns. It's quite stunning to read.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is quite stunning to read John, revealing a conversation she had this morning with the Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley. And making clear her concerns about keeping the president in office as they consider impeaching the president, something they could do and are discussing doing just in the next few days, whether they can get room to remove from office is another question?

But she says in a letter to our colleagues is this. She said this morning; I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.

This situation of this unhinged president could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy. Now she doesn't say exactly how Milley responded to that?

They are as you mentioned having a conference call right now in this hour to discuss what they plan to do in the days ahead. Now I can tell you and talking to multiple Democratic sources that Pelosi is pushing full steam ahead.

She does not believe that they can just simply not impeach this president if Vice President Mike Pence does not take the extraordinary measure of invoking the 25th amendment along with the presidential cabinet to force the president out of office.

There's no indication Pence is going to do that, invoke the 25th amendment. So, House Democrats are drafting articles of impeachment right now that includes potential article about inciting an insurrection as part of a reason to remove him from office.

Now this would be the second time Trump would be impeached, it'd be the first time in American history president has been impeached twice in his presidency. But John, it appears that is almost certain to happen potentially early next week.

[12:05:00]

RAJU: Of course the question would be can they remove him from office, there's probably not enough time for the Senate to conduct a trial, to vote to convict to remove him to office, and certainly uncertain about they have the votes to do just that on the senate side but impeachment at least accusing the president of committing a high crime and misdemeanor. John?

KING: Consequential day, consequential hour. Manu Raju live on the Hill. Manu come back if you got more details of this strategy call House Democrats are having right now joining me now to share their reporting and their insights on this big question, CNN's Jamie Gangel and Dan Balz of "The Washington Post".

Jamie, I want to start with you, because to Manu's point, this is a political statement by Democrats, an important political statement most of them say to hold the president accountable for the deadly rioting now.

But it doesn't get anywhere unless you have and it lacks, probably lacks more credibility with the American people unless you get Republican support. You're reporting is that there are some Republicans; they want to see the language of Democrats right. Do we know how big that universe is?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't think we have any idea because they want to see the articles of impeachment first. I have to say during the Russia impeachment there were some Republicans who said to me they might sign on then, and then it went to nothing. But these sources say if the articles seem reasonable, they would vote for impeachment. And the other thing is, John, they want Donald Trump gone. They're keeping up the pressure.

KING: They're keeping up the pressure, and they want him gone. They also have tough choices to make about the future of the party. And so, Dan Balz I've been saying this all week, every day we find ourselves and this has happened a lot in the Trump Presidency, but this week is different. Every day we find ourselves in a place we have never been before, despite years of covering these things.

You have a debate now about impeaching the President of the United States when he has 12 days left on the clock. You have some Republicans saying he must be held accountable, even if they stop short of saying they'd vote to impeach him.

And then you read this note from the Speaker of the House, a letter from her colleagues from the Speaker of the House saying she called the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff this morning to say that she's worried.

What can you do to stop the president if he decides he wants to instigate some military action, perhaps even go as far? How much of this in your reporting and experience is politics, Democrats trying to put a final stain if you will on this president? And how much of it is legitimate worry, because we have seen the president's erratic behavior of late?

DAN BALZ, CHIEF CORRESPONDENT, "THE WASHINGTON POST": John, I think there are two issues that are in play at this point. The first which is highlighted by what the Speaker's letter about the president and the nuclear codes highlights is that, people are worried about what he might do in the time he has remaining in office?

And that, of course, is the biggest concern and the reason that people are trying to do everything they can to in one way or another constrain him, to put restrains on him, to send signals to him that he should not take these kinds of steps. So that's one issue and the question is how do you do that? And she in talking to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, that's what she's trying to do.

She's trying to put further guardrails around him, the president who has never been very good at being hemmed in. But I think the second question that is involved and that goes to the issue of impeachment is, what happens to him in the future? Its one thing to impeach him for a second time, and that would be another terrible stain on his legacy.

But the question is if the Republicans don't want Donald Trump to be messing around in their party in the future, one way to do that would be to impeach and convict him, because he then would not be able to hold office in the future.

Now that would be a very big and drastic step and I am not predicting that, that's going to happen. But I think those are the two issues that are in play at this point. Certainly, some of this is politics, but I think this certainly goes beyond politics. KING: Right. And that's the difficult moment, because it is both. It

is a consequential action; we all watched what happened at the Capitol? The lawmakers will have to make these decisions, they were there, they were petrified. They had rioters come into the building and cause mayhem.

And so, now they have both the political and you might call it course of the country choice to make and Jamie, that's what makes it so fascinating. The president's tweet this morning essentially in reminding Republicans I got 75 million votes, I dare you, I dare you, go for it.

I will be against you in 2022. And then you have "The Wall Street Journal" Editorial Board saying in our view it crosses a constitutional line that Mr. Trump hasn't previously crossed. It is impeachable. If Mr. Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign.

Unlikely we're going to see that second part. So here you have this debate and again that newspaper is written by Rupert Murdoch, who has been on the president's side for most of the past four years.

So you have Republicans in the final days of this presidency as you noted, even though it's a lot of them publicly support the president privately tell you, they just want him to be gone, what choice do they make?

[12:10:00]

GANGEL: So my sources are former allies of the president who are talking about voting for impeachment. But to underscore what Dan Balz just said about Pelosi's statement, one of the things I have been hearing for the last 24 hours when we've been hearing about all these resignations from administration officials is, they want to make sure that certain people stay in place to protect the country Robert O'Brian, Mike Pompeo and Mnuchin.

There's a concerted effort, some people are resigning, others are staying there for exactly this reason. They are worried about what Donald Trump might do in the next 12 days.

KING: You have these conversations, and as if you're watching some fiction movie.

GANGEL: Correct.

KING: People staying because they're worried what the president will do? Dan what about the president-elect? You see the obvious anger, a legitimate anger among Democrats and among Republicans, were in terms of impeachment it is largely Democrats leading this charge.

I want you to listen; this is the president-elect talking about what happened at the Capitol, clearly laying blame on the President of the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: Yesterday in my view, one of the darkest days in the history of our nation. He unleashed an all-out assault on institutions of our democracy from the outset and yesterday was what the culmination of that unrelenting attack.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It's clear, Dan, the new, the president-elect views this as an indelible stain on Mr. Trump. However does Joe Biden who has campaigned repeatedly on he wants his administration to be at least to begin as an effort to bring people back together, does he want to take office in the middle of another impeachment debate or does he view that as counterproductive?

BALZ: John, we're going to hear more about that later today when President-Elect Biden introduces the newest members of his team. And presumably what we're hearing is that he will take questions, and he knows that this will be the first question he has to answer. Obviously, this is not something that he would welcome.

On the other hand, I think it is important to listen to his language, to see whether in his words he essentially allows the congress to move forward, not necessarily with his encouragement, but by not discouraging it. In other words, to say this is their responsibility, I've to prepare to be President of the United States. It is a tough choice.

And obviously this is not what he wanted as kind of a backdrop of the beginning of his presidency. On the other hand, as all presidents know, and as he knows from having served in the White House for eight years, presidents don't get to choose events that they can - not respond to. This is now front and center.

The question of the future of President Trump and so, he will in a sense have to allow speaker Pelosi to move forward and decide what he wants to do in response to that? So, I think it's very important to listen to what he has to say this afternoon?

KING: A potential fall back that could get some Republican votes would be to censure the president. I know some Democrats think that does not go far enough. But we'll watch as this all plays out Dan Balz and Jamie Gangel grateful for the reporting and the insights on this very important day.

Up next, the death toll from the Capitol riots is now five. The latest is a Capitol police officer, and prosecutors say they're opening a murder investigation.

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[12:15:00]

KING: CNN is now learning a federal murder investigation will be opened into the death of a U.S. Capitol Police Officer. Brian Sicknick was injured when that mob of pro-trump rioters stormed the United States capitol. Officer Sicknick died Thursday night from those injuries. CNN's Evan Perez is here with the details of this very consequential investigation. Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes John, this change a lot of things for this investigation. Obviously, there are now five deaths that are attributed to this mob scene that happened at the capitol.

But the fact that a police officer, one of the U.S. Capitol police officers who was there trying to defend the people in that building has now passed away really does change the context of this because now as you mentioned, the prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office are opening a murder investigation. And that is got all of the focus of the FBI as well as the prosecutors here.

The Justice Department, the metropolitan police are also helping to do this investigation. I will read a statement from the acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen. He said in part, that the FBI and Metropolitan Police Department will jointly investigate the case and the Justice Department will spare no resources investigating and holding accountable those responsible.

Obviously there's a lot of questions about what went wrong that are still unanswered at this point, despite the fact that obviously there were plenty of warnings that there were violent people who were part of - were going to be part of this rally, the Trump rally?

And then the fact that the FBI even moved to arrest one of the leaders of the Proud Boys a couple days ahead of the rally. They were caught definitely by surprise about how violent this became and how quickly they were overwhelmed by the Capitol police?

There are still a lot of questions for the FBI, the Homeland Security Department as to whether or not they properly warned the capitol police about the seriousness of these threats? The Capitol police repeatedly told the Justice Department and other officials that they had this in hand, that they were ready to go and now one of their own has died as a result of injuries that took place during this mob scene.

[12:20:00]

KING: It is a critical investigation. And you're right, that raises the stakes for everybody involved and certainly then the questions about how this happened, Evan Perez grateful for the new reporting there.

And up next, we continue this conversation, a key Senate Democrat on how those rioters so easily breached Capitol security? And also, why he thinks the second Trump impeachment debate is different?

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[12:25:00]

KING: Democrats because of Georgia will soon have the narrowest of Senate majorities but for now, Republicans still run the show which at first glance suggests a second Trump impeachment debate will fizzle in the Senate just as did the first. But there are some cracks in the president's republican support and Democrats say this debate is imperative.

Vermont's Patrick Leahy, for example, the Senate's longest serving member writes in a new op-ed essay, I have long believed that President Trump is a threat to our constitutional republic and he will remain so until Joe Biden is sworn in as President on January 20th. President Trump should immediately resign or be removed from office.

Senator Leahy joins us now. Senator, grateful for your time today. Let's start with this impeachment debate. House Democrats are on a phone call right now. The Speaker of the House we have just told them, she would prefer the president have the decency to resign or that the vice president would call the cabinet together and invoke the 25th amendment.

But if those things don't happen, House Democrats should be prepared to go forward and impeach the president. He is leaving town in 12 days. Is that a necessary and worthwhile exercise or is it more of a political statement from Democrats?

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): Well, I think the president should be removed. I hate to think of him being down there having access to nuclear weapons and all that. I mean, he's acted in a deranged fashion. Here's a person who incited a riot, incited criminal activity, people died as a result of that. He had his attorney out there, Rudy Giuliani, calling for trial by combat.

Anywhere else such a person would be prosecuted. It'd be arrested for inciting a riot, and they'd be arrested for calling for criminal conduct, and he seemed to gloat over it. It wasn't until he was forced by some of his advisers and others to say you ought to say something to the public.

And he gave this wooden like marionette comments and was very similar to what he said after the people were being killed in Virginia, well, there's good people on both sides. No, he incited a riot and that was criminal conduct.

Certainly, if what's left of his cabinet had any courage, they would join and the vice president would join with them, they would use the 25th amendment. He would be removed. He could appeal to the congress but that takes three weeks and he would be gone by then.

KING: Senator, I am asking you to stand by for a second because our Capitol Hill Correspondent Manu Raju has some new information based on the strategy call under way right now among Democrats. So, let's get the latest news. Manu, what are you learning?

RAJU: Yes, from sources that are on the call, I am told that she's making very clear that there's more support from moving forward with the impeachment among the House Democratic Caucus now than there was the first time Donald Trump was impeached back in 2019.

That of course was a debate that went back and forth for some time, the party was not always on the same page, ultimately did voted to impeach the president overwhelmingly. But this time she's saying its crystal clear where the support lies within their conference?

Now she said that she prefers the president resigning or Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet invoking the 25th amendment to force the president out of office. But she's making it very clear they're prepared to move forward with impeachment if neither of those things happens.

She also said the president chose to be an insurrectionist. Those are her words according to a source in the call. She said impeachment encourages conversation on the 25th amendment. That's picked up a lot of steam.

And she said that how the Caucus will continue with discussions on how to move ahead? But John, they're drafting those articles of impeachment, they plan to bring those to the floor in the matter of days. Unless something changes, that's where this is headed, John.

KING: Important reporting, Manu Raju. Appreciate it. Let's bring Senator Leahy then back into the conversation. So, senator, it appears likely the House Democrats are going to put this train on the tracks. And it appears if the Speaker is correct, then we know she knows how to count, if the support among Democrats is more intense now, that it will come your way at some point.

Your colleague, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina this morning tweeting that this is all political. He says Speaker Pelosi is hanging by a political thread, Senator Schumer lives in fear of a primary from the radical left. It is up to President-Elect Biden to step in and allow the nation to heal.

Is this politics by Democrats? Would you be open, and could you talk - have you talked at all to Republican colleagues maybe about saying OK, you don't want to impeach him, go on the record and vote to censure him?

LEAHY: Well, Congressman Lindsey Graham and others, it is always somebody else's fault. They are the people that have enabled Donald Trump throughout all of this.