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Barr Warned Trump Not to Self-Pardon; Feds Round Up At Least 20 Defendants Related to Riot; Anonymous Callers Threaten Top Democrat in Impeachment Push; Interview with Rep. Gallego (D-AZ), Recounts Chaos at Capitol Riot; CDC Says Nearly 9 Million Vaccinated, 25.5 Million Doses Distributed; Biden's Vaccination Plan in Flux. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 11, 2021 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: You're reaction to that?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's crazy that should even be legal advice that needs to be given to the president. Look it's good legal advice. The president should not try to pardon himself. A, it's probably unconstitutional. B, it would a historic abuse of power. So I think that's very sound legal advice.

BALDWIN: Astead, to you sir. I just have to read for everyone who didn't read your piece over the weekend. I saw it shared far and wide on my social, so this is the lead line from your "New York Times" piece.

The day after Georgia elected a black descendant of sharecroppers and a young Jewish filmmaker to be U.S. Senators underscoring the rising political power of racial and religious minorities, the forces of white grievance politics struck back. What do you make of such a profound contrast?

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, it was a week which I think really encapsulated much of what we've come to expect in this Trump era but is nonetheless jarring. And I think extends even past that. So really the core forces that have been the founding features of this country, both the tenets and the right to democracy, the transfer peaceful of power, the things that we kind of hold dear as our political beacon to the rest world.

But also the uncomfortable truths about how that has not been extended to everyone, about how at every turn it has been violent. It has been uncomfortable to include new people in that. And I think that that one day, Wednesday, really -- really is a microcosm of America's struggle with that.

You have a rising multicultural tide in Georgia that elected an historic figure, but you also have a very real force of grievance, of bigotry, of conspiracy that does not believe in those folks equal power to have a say in this democracy. Those are things that have to be reckoned with if we're going to move forward as a democracy and that's in line with the history of this country that has had to wrestle with that at every turn.

BALDWIN: Elie, on these people, these domestic terrorists, these rioters, you know. A number of them are being ID'd as I mentioned off the top. They are being arrested. What are they facing, and how long could they be looked up for? And also actually I'm also curious. What are they going to do, like try to identify every single person in all the pictures from the Capitol or just those stealing and climbing and being violent?

HONIG: Look, so you should try to identify every single person you can out of those photos coming from the Capitol siege. Now look, you prioritize as a prosecutor. So obviously, you start with the murders, first of all. Then you move to the people who are destroying property and then you move on down just to people who were there.

And in terms of investigating this, Brooke, I've never seen a case where the actual people breaking the law have created so much of the evidence that's there. We've seen dozens if not more of homemade cell phone videos of these crimes being committed.

And by the way, in all those videos, what do you see? Everyone or half the people are holding up their cell phones like it's a concert, So FBI, DOJ needs to be on these people's social media, needs so to be subpoenaing these cell phones. It's going to take a long time. It needs to be a national coordinated effort, but they all need to be brought to justice.

BALDWIN: What about Twitter? Astead to you, you know, seeing all of us going home on Friday and seeing that the president of the United States has been barred from tweeting, his main megaphone is extraordinary. But big tech, is it too little too late? Might this merely drive Trump and these conspiracists to deeper darker corners of the internet?

HAMILTON: Yes, I was talking to a couple people for a story recently, and I remember asking them, why now? Why have the big tech companies decided to act at this front and they said that we not only had a kind of culmination of events that forced their hand, but it is also a recognition that they have an incoming Democratic administration in Congress and that Trump is no longer the threat, that they had to kind of play nice with over the last three to four years.

Now, we know that this has come at a cost. What he did on Twitter was to incite what we saw at the Capitol which has resulted in death. So there's a real human cost to the lack of action but there's also a question of power and about who gets to regulate these kind of modern day voices online and that is a growing concern on both the right and the left.

But even -- but right now the -- the question and concern is certainly is one of big tech and how they are handling the president's account but there is a core concern about democracy and about what the president did to incite that insurrection. And I don't think anyone can say that his Twitter account itself outweighs the concern of what have we saw in terms of human life and kind of core political process that was disrupted this week.

BALDWIN: Thank you for that. Astead Herndon, Elie Honig, gentlemen, thank you.

HONIG: Thanks. Brooke.

BALDWIN: Breaking news, as Democrats move ahead with plans to impeach President Trump for a second time, new threats of violence on Capitol Hill. Congressman Ruben Gallego joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A Democratic Congressman who is leading the push to impeach President Trump is getting frightening and hateful threats left on his office's voice mail. Representative David Cicilline has shared the threats with law enforcement, and I just want to play some of them now. I need to warn you they are graphic and very disturbing.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You poke the f**ing bear this time you little b*tch. You poked the bear. You understand what I'm saying. You've got 80 f**king million people coming after you, you commie little f**ks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you impeach him, civil war is on, buddy.

[15:40:00]

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's go to Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego of Arizona. Congressman Gallego, thank you so much for coming on. Welcome back.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: These threats, are you on the receiving end of anything like this?

GALLEGO: Not currently, but, I mean, I have in the past and a lot of them stems from just the type of environment that Donald Trump has set up on. This is the reason why we ended up having the Capitol attacked last week. It ends up that, you know, a lot of the fear and anger that's been fomenting out there has been pushed and, you know, really created by Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: On impeachment, Congressman, when are you going to hold the vote, and are you going to get it done before he's out of office?

GALLEGO: From what I understand we're going to be voting on Wednesday formally for impeachment, at least the House version of it, and then sending it over to the Senate, and we need to get it done right away. We need to keep this president accountable.

This is one of few tools, unfortunately, that we have in Congress to keep this madman in check and we really have many days left that he can really go overboard. So we need to pass this, and we need hold it like a Sword of Damocles over his head in case he decides to do something rather drastic again.

BALDWIN: OK, so the date for the vote, I'm hearing from you Wednesday. It doesn't seem likely though that the Senate will take this up until after January 20th. I know House Majority Whip Clyburn is saying that Democrats may want to wait, you know, the 100 days to send the impeachment articles to the Senate. I'm just curious if you -- do you see any argument for waiting? Let President Biden focus on his first 100 days and then you take this up?

GALLEGO: Well, I think the most important thing is that we need it there as a fallback in the sense that the most important thing we need to make sure happens is a peaceful transfer of power. Well, at least, a transfer of power. We skip the peaceful part because of the attack on the Capitol.

And so that being said I know that the Senate won't come in session until January 19th. But if we pass this out of the House, should this president overreact or act in a manner that is against the constitution or against, you know, the transfer of power, I believe that there will be enough Senators both Democrats and Republicans that will quickly impeach him.

And so as to what's going to happen after that, I'm indifferent. My only goal is to keep this president in check and make sure there's a transfer of power.

BALDWIN: Understand. And Congressman Gallego, I want to go back to just the events of last week. You know, there are reports that several of these rioters who also U.S. military veterans. We saw the guy with the plastic zip tie handcuffs in body armor is an Air Force Academy graduate and combat veteran.

You know, many had combat training. They brought pipe bombs, climbing gear, earpieces, people who are trained for combat. And just as an Iraq war veteran yourself, what does this say about these men and women turning on their own country?

GALLEGO: It's disgraceful. We need to throw the book at them. Once civilian judicial system is done the military judicial system should be involved. We can recall them in the military, we should recall them into the military, and charge them with insurrection. If they have a military pension, we should wipe them out and take their military pension. They no longer get to live under the grace of the United States because they went to fight against the United States.

I'd like to also point out I served in the United States Marine Corps, enlisted in the infantry, I have a lot of friends that are actually Trump supporters, you know, that I served with and none of them, none of them would ever think to do something like this.

This is a very extreme group, and this is why we have to punish them and punish them hard so that other military personnel and veterans recognize this is not acceptable. It will never be acceptable. It will never be acceptable to strike against your government and if you do, there will be strong and strong consequences.

BALDWIN: Congressman Ruben Gallego, thank you so much for your words and also of course as always for your service. Thank you, sir.

GALLEGO: Thank you.

BALDWIN: The U.S. is now averaging more than 3,000 deaths a day from COVID, and the vaccine rollout, it is still so bad that some hospitals are throwing away unused doses.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:45:00]

BALDWIN: Amid the turmoil in Washington, D.C., a reminder that the nation remains in the throes of a deadly pandemic. There are more people dying each and every day from coronavirus than died during 9/11, more than 3,000 people a day on average. And there is still no cohesive plan from the Trump administration to get vaccines into people's arms.

CNN's Nick Watt, our national correspondent, reports from southern California where the daily devastation of this pandemic is skyrocketing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For the first time America is averaging over 3,000 COVID-19 deaths a day, more dead in a day than were killed on 9/11, every day. Dozens of bodies in that trailer. Funeral homes in California are turning people away.

MAGDA MALDONALDO, OWNER, CONTINENTAL FUNERAL HOME: About 200 people a day just to say, no, we have no more capacity for them. It is really, really sad.

WATT (voice over): Meanwhile, a little over a third of the vaccine doses distributed across the country have actually been administered. We were promised 20 million shots by new year.

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: We need to acknowledge that it's not working. We need to hit the reset and adopt a new strategy.

WATT (voice over): The president has failed again.

[15:50:00]

DR. CELINE GROUNDER, MEMBER, BIDEN-HARRIS TRANSITION COVID ADVISORY BOARD: The complete lack of planning here is quite frightening frankly, and I think all of us are very worried about what we're inheriting and stepping into right now.

WATT (voice over): The president-elect December pledge 100 million shots in his first 100 days.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: We need mass vaccination events. I actually think what we should doing now is getting rid of the priority system. WATT (voice over): That is beginning to happen. Joe Biden got his second dose today. Remember, it's a two-dose vaccine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You still have confidence in your COVID team, that they will be able to vaccinate 50 million Americans in the first 100 days?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT: I do, and I put together, which I'll be announcing on Thursday, laying out a plan and cost of how I want to proceed.

WATT (voice over): They plan to release every dose on hand, to stop holding back those second doses, but it's a gamble say some experts.

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: If there are production snags or if we just cannot administer the vaccines quickly enough, if people cannot get that second dose in time, I don't know how I'm going to be able to convince my patients to even get the first dose.

WATT (voice over): Biden's team says second doses will not be delayed. Production will not be a problem.

MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, MEMBER, BIDEN-HARRIS TRANSITION COVID-19 ADVISORY BOARD: We at this point do not be concerned about that. I'm very confident that the plans cover that.

WATT (voice over): In terms of containment while we wait, a good place to be is under 5 percent of tests coming back positive. Right now the nation is averaging over 13 percent. In Idaho, it's over 50 percent. And more evidence, as if we need it, that this ain't the flu. A Chinese study shows most COVID patients discharged from the hospital still suffer at least one symptom six months later.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT (on camera): And a symbol of the shifting focus of the fight against this pandemic, Dodgers Stadium here in L.A. which has been a testing site for about the past eight months, will this week become a mass vaccination site instead -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Nick Watt, thank you. I want to start on vaccinations with my next guest, Dr. Leana Wen is a CNN medical analyst and a former Baltimore health commissioner. Dr. Wen, welcome. Listen, on this vaccination rollout, we knew it would be challenging, but did you think it would be this bad?

WEN: No, I didn't. If you had told me a month ago, which is when the Pfizer vaccine first received its authorization, that we would be where we are now, with what, 7 million doses actually given in arms. I don't know that I would have believed it. It would have been a failure if we had known in advance that this is what would happen.

So I do agree that we need a total reset at this point. We need to have a war-time mentality here. This needs to be a 24/7, all hands on deck effort, not just all government but all of private sector. Everyone needs to be involved in this effort. We need armies of vaccinators. We need mass vaccination sites. We also need to get rid of all these rules and bureaucracy that are getting in our way of getting out the vaccines in an efficient manner.

BALDWIN: You talk about needing a reset. We're about to have a reset at the White House. President-elect Biden has a pretty ambitious plan to vaccinate a 100 people in his first 100 days. And then to release nearly all of the available doses. How do you feel about those numbers, those goals and are you at all concerned there may not be enough for a second dose?

WEN: Yes, so I do think that getting a million vaccinations a day is achievable. It's ambitious at the rate that we're going right now. However, we did have one day last week where we were able to get 800,000 vaccinations in a single day. So I think getting to a million a day is certainly something that's achievable.

I do hope, though, that the Biden administration will make a guarantee that for any individual who gets a first dose that they are guaranteed a second dose in the time that they're supposed to receive it.

If the federal government wants to release all the doses, fine, but then they should make sure that the hospitals, the pharmacies that are getting the doses hold back a second dose to give it to individuals. Because that's how this was studied.

And there could be production snags. We already are having trouble getting the vaccines out in time. And if we're unable to reassure people of that second dose, that could really fuel vaccine hesitancy and erode public trust at a time when we really cannot afford it.

BALDWIN: Dr. Leana Wen, thank you, as always, for your expertise.

After days of silence, first lady Melania Trump is finally making a statement on the Capitol Hill violence and using that statement as an opportunity to slam what she calls salacious gossip. That is a quote.

But first a heads up for you. A programming note, join Abby Philip as she talks with soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris. A CNN special report, Kamala Harris Making History. That is Sunday night, 10:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:55:00]

BALDWIN: After five full days of silence, first lady Melania Trump has now finally issued a statement on the Capitol Hill siege that her husband incited. She placed no responsibility with President Trump, who by the way, is now facing an unprecedented second impeachment and potential charges from the Washington D.C. Attorney General.

The first lady condemned the violence and offered her condolences to the family members of those who died, but then she hit back at her own critics. She cast herself as a victim of, quoting her now, salacious gossip and unwarranted personal attacks, end quote.

In fact, parts of her statement were directly lifted, are exact sentences from her RNC speech over the summer and a likely reason behind that? Her press

secretary and her social secretary resigned, largely because of the insurrection in Washington last week.

I'm Brooke Baldwin here in New York. Thank you so much for being with me. Let's go to Washington.