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Trump Could Be First President Impeached Twice; How the GOP Moves Forward after Trump; More Capitol Rioters Identified and Charged; Growing Concerns about U.S. Vaccine Stock for Second Dose; U.K. Sees Record Number of Cases, Hospitalizations; North Korea Plans to Expand Nuclear Capability. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired January 09, 2021 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00]
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm Michael Holmes. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I appreciate your company.
Let's get straight to our top story and that is the first time in history a U.S. president is staring down a possible second impeachment. Democratic lawmakers say it is too dangerous for Donald Trump to stay in office, even for the 11 days that are left in his term.
These latest developments come less than 3 days after pro Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says they are ready to fast-track impeachment proceedings if President Trump does not resign now.
There is even growing support among some Republican lawmakers. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has lost access to his favorite means of communication, Twitter, banning his personal account permanently, saying keeping him on the platform risks, quote, "further incitement of violence."
House Democrats say the threat Mr. Trump poses right now is simply too great to ignore and that is why they are pushing for impeachment. CNN's Jim Acosta reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two days after he incited a bloody siege at the U.S. Capitol, Donald Trump is facing the head-spinning prospect of becoming the first U.S. president to be impeached twice. His sudden commitment to an orderly transition may be too little, too late.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Good afternoon. ACOSTA (voice-over): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats are now marching toward impeachment proceedings against the president, all the while making sure Mr. Trump doesn't do anything drastic.
As Pelosi told her Democratic colleagues, "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."
House Democrats say they're ready to move quickly.
REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D-CA): We're not just doing this for the next 12 or 13 days. We're doing this for generations to come. And if we are not willing to state that the acts by the president of the United States to incite domestic terrorism and insurrection is an impeachable offense, then nothing is an impeachable offense.
ACOSTA (voice-over): If the House impeaches the president, some Senate Republicans, who didn't vote to convict and remove Mr. Trump the last time around, say they may have had a change of heart.
SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): The House, if they come together and have a process, I will definitely consider whatever articles they might move, because, as I have told you, I believe that the president has disregarded his oath of office.
ACOSTA (voice-over): White House advisers say there is zero chance the president will resign, with one source telling CNN, quote, "He doesn't think he did anything wrong."
But even former White House officials say Mr. Trump should consider stepping down.
ALYSSA FARAH, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: They allowed this myth, this lie, to take a life of its own, that the election might be overturned. When the moment called for leadership, he did not do the right thing and lives were lost because of it.
ACOSTA (voice-over): Some of the president's top enablers are also facing calls to resign, like Republican senator Ted Cruz, who released a statement, condemning the violence at the Capitol, saying, "Now we must come together and put this anger and division behind us.
"We must stand side by side as Americans. We must continue to defend our Constitution and the rule of law."
That's after he was umping up voters in Georgia, likening them to Revolutionary soldiers.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): You are patriots, just like the patriots gathered at Bunker Hill, just like the patriots gathered at Valley Forge.
ACOSTA (voice-over): Other Trump loyalists are feeling the wrath of the Trump base. After GOP senator Lindsey Graham told Mr. Trump to give up his election fight ...
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): And when it's over, it is over. It is over.
ACOSTA (voice-over): -- Trump supporters were screaming, "Traitor," as he walked through the airport.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lindsey Graham, you are a traitor to the country. You know it was rigged. It's going to be like this forever, wherever you go, for the rest of your life.
ACOSTA (voice-over): Mr. Trump signaled he won't congratulate President-Elect Joe Biden on his Inauguration Day, tweeting he won't be going, giving the Capitol a break from having the instigator-in- chief on hand for the transfer of power.
TRUMP: And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
ACOSTA: And the White House released a statement on the pending impeachment proceedings.
[03:05:00]
ACOSTA: Saying, quote, "A politically motivated impeachment against a president with 12 days remaining in his term will only serve to further divide our great country."
Of course, Democrats don't see it that way; they see these proceedings as absolutely necessary -- Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Sabrina Siddiqui is a CNN political analyst and also the national politics reporter for the world's "The Wall Street Journal."
Good to see you, Sabrina. Let's start with the House Democrats planning to introduce articles of impeachment, including incitement to insurrection.
What do you see as the chances of success there?
SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that if House Democrats do hold another impeachment vote, which they can fast-track without holding the kind of hearings that you saw over the course of months in the first impeachment trial against President Trump, then they probably would be able to pass or, I should say, impeach him once again, because they just need a majority in the House.
And Democrats still do have a majority in the House. But sending that over to the Senate, where Republicans, in their final weeks of having control of that chamber, I just don't think you are going to have enough support from Republicans to remove Trump from office. There are some who said that maybe they would be open to looking at
it. But that is a far cry, even if some of them broken from Trump now, from actually in the final days of his presidency, removing him from office.
HOLMES: When you look back at what happened at the Capitol, those extraordinary events, there was all this talk of possible violence. It was all over social media for weeks, calling for the storming of the Capitol.
We have the president on December 19th, telling people to come along, it's going to be wild. Yet that security posture was woeful.
What do you make of the lack of security at the Capitol?
And there's even claims by some that some officers actively helped rioters.
SIDDIQUI: I think that this was clearly a massive breach on the part of security. And there was a lot of warning going into the demonstrations that turned into riots that there was going to be an effort on the part of supporters of the president to storm the Capitol.
They had even talked about, in some of these online forums, forcing an evacuation. And so the evidence was all there to suggest that this was going to happen.
And you are hearing from federal law enforcement officials, that they say they were unprepared. But it simply doesn't line up with all of the activity online that suggested this is where it was going to be.
It turns out the participation of police officers and whether they had any officers who were facilitating that, I think that's something that we are still getting more information about and there is going to be an investigation certainly into how this happened.
But I think a lot of people cannot help but notice the difference in how the rioters were treated at the Capitol when you compare it to the amount of security we saw when there were Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
Really, the full force of the federal law enforcement was deployed. And we simply did not see that on Wednesday, even in the midst of the insurrection. It took a significant amount of time to get backup and to get them to deploy the National Guard, when it was members of Congress and the nation's Capitol that was under siege.
HOLMES: When you look at everything that has been happening in the last -- you could say the last 2 hours these days -- but over the last, a few weeks, the election season has shown the Republican Party seems to be pretty broken in many ways.
What does the party need to do going forward to recover from what has been a Trump takeover?
And it's important to note, Trumpism does not magically end January 20th.
SIDDIQUI: The biggest challenge I think for the party moving forward is that it still is very much split between those who remain ardent supporters of the president. And then you have this other camp of Republicans, who have now defected, despite supporting President Trump's behavior all the way up to the very end.
And they're saying, look, it's just time to move on. If there is no introspection, if there is no public reckoning around how we got here, then I don't see how Republicans move on.
So I think that Trumpism will very much be alive and well. This is not something that, once it has come out of the shadows, you could just send it back into some dark corner in terms of the sentiment that you see prevailing across this country, that really manifested itself in such a stark way earlier this week.
So this is going to be a really fascinating story, especially going into 2024, how whether the Republican Party addresses the 4 years under President Trump and what that transformation looks like and what really they plan to do to move forward, if at all.
HOLMES: Yes. Indeed.
[03:10:00]
HOLMES: Fascinating stuff. Sabrina, good to see you, Sabrina Siddiqui. Thanks.
SIDDIQUI: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Federal investigators are searching for those who took part in the riot at the U.S. Capitol. The FBI says the founder of the Hawaii chapter of the far-right group Proud Boys, he has been arrested. He admitted to CNN that he was there.
And also, officials say he posted that tweet there, with the caption, "Hello from the Capitol."
Pete Muntean with more on others facing charges.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New court documents detail the charges against Lonnie Coffman of Alabama, who federal officials say packed his truck with 11 Molotov cocktails, a handgun and an assault rifle and parked it only a block from the Capitol grounds.
He is one of 13 people just charged by the Department of Justice as investigators are scouring the internet for images to identify those involved in Wednesday's attack on the Capitol.
Federal officials also just charged West Virginia state lawmaker Derrick Evans after he livestreamed from inside the Capitol and identified himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DERRICK EVANS, WEST VIRGINIA STATE LAWMAKER (from captions): We're in, we're in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Evans' attorney insists his client is not a criminal, instead exercising his First Amendment rights as a, quote, "independent activist and journalist."
Evans later deleted the clip but West Virginia's governor did not mince words about what he saw.
GOV. JIM JUSTICE (R-WV): It is a scar on West Virginia.
How in the world can we possibly, possibly think that's anything but bad stuff?
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Also arrested, the man seen sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office. Richard Barnett of Arkansas now faces a trio of federal charges, including theft of public property, an act he detailed in a local television interview on Thursday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD BARNETT, CAPITOL RIOTER (from captions): I set my flag down, I sat down there at my desk. I am a taxpayer. I'm a patriot. That ain't her desk. We loaned her that desk. And she ain't appreciating the desk so I thought I'd sit down and appreciate the desk. I threw my feet up on the desk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN (voice-over): But not all the consequences are coming through the justice system. The Texas attorney is no longer employed by his insurance company after posting what he called "peacefully demonstrating" on Facebook.
A Maryland marketing company fired a worker seen inside the Capitol, wearing his company ID badge.
And former Pennsylvania state lawmaker Rick Saccone resigned from his post as an adjunct college instructor after he posted this video to Facebook.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SACCONE, CAPITOL RIOTER: (INAUDIBLE). They are Macing them up there. We're trying to run out all the evil people in there, all the RINOs that have betrayed our president. We're going to run them out of their offices.
(END VIDEO CLIP) MUNTEAN (voice-over): Police in Washington are distributing photos of those who stormed the Capitol and now say they have received more than 17,000 tips. D.C.'s acting police chief says they will aggressively pursue persons of interest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF ROBERT CONTEE, METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT: We still have a significant amount of work ahead of us to identify and hold each and every one of the violent mob accountable for their actions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN: Investigators say photos are key for them. The FBI set up a portal so people can upload their own. But in an area already laden with cameras, it will become especially hard to hide from the law -- Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: We are going to take a quick break. When we come back, the London mayor takes action as the coronavirus spreads out of control in the British capital. We will get a live update for you when we come back.
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HOLMES: Now the incoming Biden administration is planning to release much of the U.S. vaccine supply to the U.S. instead of holding some back for a second dose. That is a risky move because it would require production to be stepped up.
So far neither Moderna nor Pfizer said if they are able to meet the new demand. In just the first eight days of this new year, more than 20,000 people in the U.S. have lost their lives to COVID-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Compare that with the 40 days it took for the country to reach the first 20,000 deaths last year. CNN's Erica Hill shows us the hardest hit areas right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR AND U.S. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first week of 2021, shattering records, more than 20,000 COVID related deaths, over 4,000 reported Thursday alone, topping daily highs set just the day before. But numbers only tell us so not much.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every day I live, knowing that my dad passed from COVID-19 and my uncle passed from COVID. HILL (voice-over): Families forever changed, with no end in sight.
Former hotspots reaching sobering new levels: Arizona, now averaging more than 9,000 new cases a day, up 139 percent, from its July highs.
In Texas, new cases are 86 percent higher than its previous peak. And then, there is California.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're running low on water. Sterile water is needed for specific types of intensive ventilation, for people on breathing machines.
HILL (voice-over): The Los Angeles hit area hit particularly hard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's every 6 seconds now, a new case and, every 8 minutes, somebody is dying here.
HILL (voice-over): A new CDC model estimates nearly 60 percent of COVID-19 transmission comes from people with no symptoms of the virus, underscoring the importance of wearing masks, keeping our distance and handwashing.
Meantime, new frustration as vaccinations slow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing is more important than vaccinating nursing home residents. That was supposed to be a federal responsibility under the original plan.
Guess what?
I know this won't shock a lot of you. The federal government isn't getting the job done.
HILL (voice-over): Shots are getting in arms. First responders in New Jersey, teachers in West Virginia, veterans in Pennsylvania. But just three states have administered more than 50 percent of the doses they received. The head of the FDA, encouraging states to expand eligibility.
DR. STEPHEN HAHN, FDA COMMISSIONER: We think that will go a long way toward using these vaccines appropriately and getting into the arms of individuals.
HILL (voice-over): While the coalition of governors is demanding the federal government release the doses it has been holding back, writing, "The failure to distribute these doses is unconscionable and unacceptable."
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good afternoon.
HILL (voice-over): As states wait for an answer, CNN has learned that President-Elect Joe Biden plans to release all available doses.
BIDEN: Vaccines give us hope. But the rollout has been a travesty.
GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): We have got to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible to defeat this virus. HILL (voice-over): One bit of good news, a new study finds the Pfizer
BioNTech vaccine might be effective against two new strains of the virus first identified in the U.K. and South Africa. That U.K. variant has now been found in at least eight U.S. states.
HILL: Here in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing the state will move into phase Ib on Monday for vaccinations. They will begin scheduling them for those over age 75, first responders as well as public transit, public safety and education workers -- in New York, I'm Erica Hill, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: The mayor of London says the coronavirus is spreading out of control. Sadiq Khan said the National Health Service is at risk of being overwhelmed and he has declared a major incident in the British capital now. That's usually reserved for attacks or grave accidents.
The city's last major incident was the deadly Grenfell Tower fire back in 2017. New coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the U.K., all at record levels.
[03:20:00]
HOLMES: Nina dos Santos joins me live from London to talk about this.
It's interesting; the former head of the CDC here in the U.S. tweeted about the U.K. earlier and said that he had never seen an epidemic curve like this. And it is a curve that is happening with a lockdown.
Just how worried are officials there?
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNNMONEY EUROPE EDITOR: Officials are extremely worried. The mayor of this very city Sadiq Khan saying that the virus is raging out of control in some parts of London and that hospitals are seeing a 35 percent increase in the number of people in hospital currently with COVID-19 versus back in April, at the start of the pandemic. which is when we had the first wave of those infections.
So the real concern here for local officials is that this is worse than it was before. And we are also dealing with a new, more virulent strain that has been identified in the U.K. For all of these reasons, as Sadiq Khan said, that people really have to get real. They have to understand that, in some parts of the capital, he estimated that one in 20 people have been infected with COVID-19.
Now London is suffering the worse part, at the moment of this pandemic in terms of regional crises and regional infections but the U.K. as a whole, notched up a really grim milestone on Friday.
It was found that 1,325 people, according to the latest statistics yesterday, lost their lives from COVID-19, 28 days after getting a COVID positive result and 68,000 more cases, again, were published yesterday, in terms of the total numbers.
So we are dealing with a fast-moving situation, one which has helped the U.K. sadly to become one of the worst of the affected countries anywhere in the world, after the likes of the United States, Brazil, Mexico and India.
The U.K. has notched up 80,000 deaths from this pandemic so far. This is how the head of the NHS described the situation in London. It offers you some clues as to what the rest of the country might be facing, if people do not adhere to the local restrictions in terms of those lockdowns -- Michael.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SIMON STEVENS, CEO, NHS ENGLAND: We are seeing over 800 patients a day admitted to London hospitals with coronavirus. That is the equivalent of a new St. Thomas' Hospital full of COVID patients fully staffed every day or a University College Hospital full of coronavirus patients every day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: So that is the head of the NHS in England, talking about London. The real reality here is that what we are seeing is more public officials taking to TV screens, giving sound bites like that to urge people to understand the seriousness of the situation that the U.K. is facing.
As of today, we are going to be seeing the chief scientific advisers and chief medical officers taking to the airways. The public awareness campaign, Michael, saying, just act as though you think you actually have the virus to avoid passing it on any further in the community -- Michael.
HOLMES: A really powerful analogy to say it's the equivalent of a St. Thomas's Hospital every day, fully staffed and equipped. A very powerful way of putting it. Nina dos Santos, thank you so much. Good to see you.
We are going to take a quick break. We will be right back.
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HOLMES: Welcome back.
North Korea is unveiling plans to expand its nuclear capabilities.
[03:25:00]
HOLMES: State media says Kim Jong-un told the congress of the ruling Workers Party that research for a nuclear-powered submarine is complete. He also talked about improvements to tactical nuclear weapons.
Kim also called the United States the nation's greatest enemy and said, nothing will change until the U.S. ends what he called its policy of hostility. CNN's Paula Hancocks joins us now from Seoul.
So much for those summits and I guess a change of administration does not mean a change in North Korea's ambitions.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's interesting, isn't it, Michael, after 3 of those in-person summits, really not very much has changed at all. What we have heard from this eight-party congress, a very long speech by Kim Jong-un, the leader. As you say, saying that the U.S. is the biggest enemy.
Interestingly, to date since President-Elect Biden won the election, he has not actually been mentioned by name by Kim Jong-un, by North Korean state-run media. So, what they have said is, they believe that the U.S. administration, no matter who is in power, will always be anti-North Korea.
As you say, pointing out that this hostile policy against North Korea, as they see it, needs to end. Also, Kim Jong-un reeled off a number of different weaponries, which is in various stages of development at this point.
The nuclear-powered submarine, this is something that we know North Korea has been working towards or at least wanting for some time. This would really boost its deterrence capability. They already test fired a number of submarines launched ballistic missiles.
So, what they said is, this research is now complete. This does mean that there is some way off still from having this capability. But they are signaling exactly what they want to do.
Also, that solid fuel ICBM, the intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially hit mainland United States, that is something that Kim Jong-un has said he's pushing forward with as well.
There was one point, he said, that North Korea will not be the first to launch a nuclear weapon. It would not be a first strike policy. They would only use nuclear weapons if they were used against them as well.
Also, one slight flicker of hope for the optimists out there, saying that all this continued buildup of weaponry did not necessarily exclude diplomacy -- Michael.
HOLMES: One can only hope. Paula Hancocks in Seoul, good to see you, my friend, thank you.
And thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM, spending the part of the day with me. I'm Michael Holmes. "AFRICAN VOICES CHANGEMAKERS" coming up next and you will see Robyn Curnow in about 30 minutes.
