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U.S. House Will Urge Pence to Take Steps to Remove Trump; Pelosi: If Pence Fails to Act, House Will Move to Impeach; Capitol Security to Be Enhanced for Biden's Inauguration; Growing Calls for Impeachment Among Democrats; More Companies Sever Ties with Trump; U.S. Democracy Resilient Despite Violence in Washington; Colin Powell Says He Would Support Impeaching Trump. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired January 11, 2021 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world, you are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, Democrats want U.S. President Donald Trump out of office one way or another. We could see an historic second impeachment in just days if the vice president fails to meet their demands.

Plus, new details about how the violence unfolded on Capitol Hill as federal authorities investigate if there was a coordinated plan to capture members of Congress.

And with more than 28,000 U.S. lives lost already, January is on track to become the deadliest month in the pandemic. Our President-elect Joe Biden plans to tackle his most urgent challenge.

Good to have you with us. Well Democrats say the violence last week at the U.S. capitol means U.S. President Donald Trump must be removed from office as soon as possible for the good of the nation. In just a few hours they will introduce a resolution demanding the vice president invoke the 25th Amendment. If he doesn't, they are ready to impeach Mr. Trump for a second time.

It's unclear how many Republicans are on board, but outrage is growing over Wednesday's insurrection. We are learning new details about the deadly violence and we have new images showing a police officer dragged down by the crowd and beaten. The video we're about to show is graphic but it's important to see the reality of this attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIDEO SHOWS RIOTERS BRUTALLY ASSAULTING OFFICER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The officer is beaten mercilessly, stomped, kicked, even hit with a pole that carried the American flag. The rioters throw a broom, a clutch, even a Trump 2020 flag at police who are trying to maintain a barricade at an entrance to the Capitol building.

When Democrats introduce their measure in a few hours, they will try to pass it by unanimous consent. But if that fails, a vote will come Tuesday. We get more now from CNN's Ryan Nobles.

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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ready to move forward with articles of impeachment against Trump if Vice President Mike Pence does not begin the process of invoking the 25th Amendment. In a letter to her colleagues on Sunday night, Pelosi said that she is going to introduce a resolution on Monday morning that will essentially put Mike Pence on the clock.

Give him 24 hours to decide whether or not he's going to take the step of moving forward on the 25th Amendment and if he doesn't, then the house will begin impeachment proceedings. That could happen as early as Wednesday, and there are certainly enough votes for Pelosi to get the impeachment passed here in the House.

The question is what happens when it gets to the Senate. There doesn't appear to be an appetite by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to begin a trial and convict President Trump, especially before he leaves office now in less than ten days.

So the question is what does Pelosi do after those articles of impeachment are passed? She could send them over to McConnell for him to do nothing with them or she could actually hold on to them and wait until President Trump is out of office and when the Democrats are in control of the Senate and begin the trial then. There are still some benefits for the House Democrats to move forward with the impeachment even after President Trump is out of office. There are long-term consequences that President Trump could be in store for if he is ultimately convicted of those impeachment proceedings.

So still a lot we don't know. The only thing we know for sure is that Speaker Pelosi is ready to take that first step of doing something to hold President Trump accountable for his role in those riots that took place here last Wednesday.

Ryan Nobles, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: At least two Republican Senators have called for Mr. Trump's resignation. Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski.

[04:05:00]

But Toomey says he's not sure impeachment is the right move. Meantime, Republican Senator Roy Blunt says it's time to look to the future and House Republican Nancy Mace says impeachment risks inflaming Trump supporters. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): One of the issues that I have right now whether it's the 25th Amendment, whether it's impeachment right now is further dividing the country and pouring gasoline on the fire. I risked my life to take the vote on Wednesday night to certify the Electoral College. There are many of us out there that that happened to, our lives where -- people were threatening us. I was accosted in the street on Tuesday night.

And I worry about that because the impeachment articles if it passes with a simple majority in the House, it needs 2/3 in the Senate. I don't know if there's an appetite for it there, but it doesn't get to the Senate until the 19th of January. The day before Joe Biden is sworn into office. And I think that for unity in this county, we need to be really thought full and careful about how we go from here and how do we ensure that there is a peaceful transition of power, that the inauguration goes smoothly and so that we can get a fresh start staring on January 20th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO): And my personal view is that the president touched a hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again and if that's the case, every day we get closer to the last day of his presidency, we should be thinking more about the first day of the next presidency than the last day of his presidency in my view.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Meantime, President Trump is increasingly isolated watching House Democrats make their plans. Our Jeremy Diamond has that.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, as House speaker Nancy Pelosi indicates that the House will move this week to impeach President Trump, the president faces the increasing possibility that he will become the first president in American history to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives. Now a trial in the Senate is a whole other matter and it's very unlikely that will happen before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20th.

But the President is facing not only this prospect of impeachment. He's also facing calls for his resignation, including from several key Republican Senators. And he's also facing this question of the 25th Amendment, with some calling for the president to be stripped of his presidential powers through that amendment.

Now President Trump making very clear according to our sources, that he has no intention of resigning, despite his role in citing that mob on Capitol Hill last week. But there is this question of the 25th Amendment, and the move by the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will put a lot more pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to make clear what his position is on this 25th Amendment. So far, we've just heard from sources close to the vice president that

first of its highly unlikely that he will actually invoke the 25th Amendment. And second of all that he's still not taking it completely off the table, because he wants to preserve it as an option should President Trump's behavior become more unstable.

But it is remarkable, that despite 4 years of unfailing royalty to President Trump, we have yet to hear Mike Pence say himself or through an on the record statement from his office, that he does not support invoking the 25th Amendment to strip President Trump of his presidential powers. That in and of itself is remarkable and this move by the House Speaker could increase the pressure on Mike Pence to actually make his position much more clear.

Now on Sunday, President Trump also finally move to lower the flag on top of the White House, and to order flags across the country lowered half-staff in honor of Capitol Hill police officer Brian Sicknick who was killed in the line of duty during that siege on Capitol Hill. Remarkable though, that it took President Trump 2 days longer than it took the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to order that move and only after a lot of withering criticism.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: In the wake of the siege on the Capitol, law enforcement agencies around the country are bracing for more possible violence. Officials say the riot has heightened their planning for the upcoming inauguration of Joe Biden. CNN's Jessica Schneider has our report.

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JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: There is a lot of concern as we move into a new week and closer to the inauguration in the wake of last week's attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Capitol now surrounded by a 7 foot non-scalable fence and hundreds of National Guard members. They will be sent in for the inauguration next Wednesday.

That includes 1,000 members from New York, 6,200 from across the country. And so far, nearly two dozen people have been charged federally for their involvement in the violent mob that stormed the Capitol. That includes a man who is found with 11 homemade bombs in his truck, parked near the Capitol, plus a handgun, assault rifle, and ammunition. Prosecutors say that that men actually had two handguns on him

when police finally found him.

[04:10:00]

Then there was another man charged with allegedly sending text messages, threatening injury to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. When he was found, he had firearms including an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition that was in the truck that he had parked outside of a Holiday Inn Hotel in Washington.

But, you know, this is likely just the beginning of the charges. The acting U.S. attorney in D.C. now says hundreds of people may end up under arrest as they continue this investigation that encompasses hundreds of prosecutors and FBI agents working from three command centers 24/7.

And finally, there is some growing concern for the safety of members of Congress, many of whom we've seen in videos yelled at, surrounded in airports as they travelled to and from Washington.

Well, this weekend, we learned that all members will be able to get increased security when they travel through airports. U.S. Capitol Police, they're coordinating with other law enforcement agencies to make sure those protections happen to keep those members of Congress safe.

Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Well big tech is responding to the siege on the U.S. Capitol. How are these moves impacting social media? We'll take a look at that when we come back. Stay with us.

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[04:15:00]

CHURCH: Well U.S. Democrats whether in the House or the Senate appear united in their concern about what could happen if President Trump remains in office and their calls for impeachment are growing louder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): There's no doubt about it he should be impeached.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): President Trump by his actions over the last two months since the election has lost the right to be president.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Well, you know, I absolutely believe that impeachment should be scheduled.

REP. MONDAIRE JONES (D-NY): This president must be impeached and removed. And anything less than that is an ad vacation of Congress' constitutional responsibility.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Donald Trump represents a clear and present danger to the health and safety of the American people, as well as our democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Daniel Strauss is a senior political reporter for "The Guardian." He joins me now from Washington. Good to have you with us. DANIEL STRAUSS, SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER, THE GUARDIAN: Thanks for having me.

CHURCH: So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that the House will attempt to pass a resolution by unanimous consent Monday morning, calling for Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump from office. Now, if that fails after 24 hours, the House will move quickly on impeachment. How do you expect all of this to play out?

STRAUSS: I mean, it's anyone's guess right now, but I would say that the fact that the speaker said she listed impeachment as an option right after going through invoking the 25th Amendment suggests that she does not think enough cabinet secretaries will come forward to remove Trump from office that way, and that it will eventually go to impeachment proceedings.

Now the reason for this is partially President Trump's own doing. He has a number of officials who are acting secretaries in this cabinet, meaning they're pretty new to the job, they're not officially cabinet officials and they are very, very loyal to President Trump.

So, even if there are a few secretaries who privately feel that the president is unfit for office, it's more likely that they won't join in Pelosi's movement. Now, that means we are going to impeachment, and again, that's tough -- that's a tough road to hold for Democrats as well.

CHURCH: Right.

STRAUSS: They control the House but not the Senate. And there aren't -- they don't appear to be enough Republicans right now to break the requirements to remove Trump from office that way.

CHURCH: Some Republicans are still reluctant of course to call out President Trump. Senator Roy Blunt says the president touched the hot stove and learned his lesson. But we of course all remember Republican Susan Collins saying exactly the same thing after Trump's first impeachment.

What does this indicate to you about where are other GOP senators might stand when it comes to an historic second impeachment of the president, and of course for the Senate there is talk of possibly doing the House first and the Senate later when it comes to these impeachment proceedings.

STRAUSS: It still, it still suggests to me that there just aren't enough Republicans in the Senate to impeach, to successfully impeach the president. There are a number of them, Roy Blunt is a great example, the Missouri senator is up for reelection soon and he is worried about angering the Trump base. Either to a point where they will pose a primary challenge to him or that will take away from his voter base which he needs. Now Missouri is a very red state. There aren't many Democrats in the highest elected offices there, but that could always change. CHURCH: And a new ABC News/Ipsos poll shows 56 percent of those American surveyed think Trump should be removed from office, while just 43 percent believe he should not be removed. What impact could a poll like this have on any decision made by Vice President Pence, given he has not yet taken off the table his option to invoke the 25th Amendment, which is interesting of course to remove the president.

STRAUSS: I mean, I'm still skeptical about that majority swaying their required number of federal officials needed to remove the president from office. There are only a few days left in his presidency and 54 percent isn't that surprising given that Democrats will control the Senate soon. They control the House and they narrowly won the presidency. So that really reflects the margin of sentiment across the country.

CHURCH: Indeed. Daniel Strauss, thank you so much for your analysis. I appreciate it.

STRAUSS: Thanks.

CHURCH: Well, President Trump is continuing to face backlash from corporate America. Stripes says it will no longer process campaign donations for him while Twitter and Facebook stripped him of his social media profiles. CNN's Brian Stelter has the latest.

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[04:20:00]

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Corporate America is taking dramatic action against President Trump in his campaign. Many technology platforms basically disassociating themselves from Trump over the weekend. We have seen an avalanche of these announcements Friday, Saturday, into Sunday.

And the end result of all of it is that the president is increasingly isolated. His platforms are shrinking, shrinking, shrinking to the point where he has very few megaphones, very few ways to communicate or, at this point, even raise money.

We have seen no emails from the Trump campaign since Wednesday. Up until Wednesday, the campaign was emailing supporters many times a day. One of the reasons why the emails may have stopped is because the campaign is having a very hard time accepting donations.

On Sunday night, we learned that Stripe, which is a payments company that processes credit cards, has halted its service with the Trump campaign. Long story short, Trump can no longer accept donations via Stripe. This is another example of how Trump and his allies are being isolated by corporate America.

And it is striking to see how in some ways businesses are taking swifter, stronger action than government entities, than the House or the Senate, for example. And it is clear that corporate America, in all its different ways, is making a statement, trying to distance itself from hate speech, trying to distance itself from incitements to violence. And this is going to pose serious problems for Trump. Not just, now not just in the next nine or 10 days, but also in his post- presidency.

Any of his plans for launching new businesses, any of his plans for months or years down the road, could be imperiled now that he has been de-platformed by Twitter and by Facebook, and by lots of smaller companies, as well. Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Thanks for that.

Well the scenes of violence we witnessed at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday were extraordinary of course, yet America woke up the next day to relative order. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh helps us understand how democracy in the U.S. thrived despite a brief moment of collapse.

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Well I think, as argued in a piece on CNN digital, that there are many similarities here between the violent, ugly scenes of rioting, frankly, that forged their way into the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.

But there are also some key differences, frankly, in how the United States reacted to that situation.

Now, in so much of the attempted coups that I or others have seen around the world, there is, the next morning, an extraordinary sense of uncertainty, a real sense of fear, perhaps, that something fundamental has changed in the fabric of the country. You might see the president, perhaps, in hiding or appearing much more bullish on television, depending on what's just happened. You might find state TV playing propaganda. There can be a real sense of an abyss opening up.

What was quite extraordinary the morning after Wednesday was to see how the system simply picked up again in the United States. Perhaps comforting vision of seeing cable news, rolling news channels, reporting the events openly, transparently, dissecting them.

Other branches of the government, parts of Congress, parts of the Democratic opposition, standing up, expressing their fury about what had, in fact, happened.

The capacity, frankly, for people to do that openly is something that is extraordinarily rare around the world, particularly after attempted coups.

And certainly, I think some of the language that was used around that particular violence, it reflects how extraordinary, surprised Americans were to see this. There had been multiple warnings but still no sight like that.

But the key thing, I think, we need to remember, particularly that will be urged on, perhaps, in that sense of recognition by people who genuinely have survived or still live under tyranny, is that the U.S. system did still manage to prevail. Yes, it has flaws. Yes, it had flaws to enable it to get to that particular savage point outside the Congress where five people lost their lives. Important to remember that.

But still, there were parts of democracy there that kicked into action. There was law. There was order. The rioters, when they got inside those buildings, didn't, to some degree, seem to get what it was they perhaps had gone there for. They were stopped by brave police officers. They were prevented from achieving whatever it was, in fact, their goals had, indeed, been.

And then swiftly afterwards, finally, the Pentagon moved into action. Other law enforcement, as well. So I think it's important to Americans who perhaps look at those scenes and think, gosh, what is happening to our democracy, is the fabric of our system falling apart, to remember that it isn't.

[04:25:00]

And to remember that there are many around the world who have been through similar scenes of unrest, who've seen the foundations of their daily lives shaken by coups or attempted coups, by scenes like that, who will look at how America managed to recover quite so fast. How it had law and order. How it had those guardrails and feel an extraordinary sense of -- possibly, of jealousy to some degree.

Yes, America has a deeply flawed system, where extremists are often allowed too much of a voice, many might argue. But it's important to remember how much order there was still there, how much fairness the law still seemed to provide to those who sought justice. And how that may hold America in a better position as it navigates the complicated nightmarish political environment that's in the weeks ahead.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Well Colin Powell says he no long longer considers himself a Republican after last week's insurrection. The former U.S. Secretary of State during the George W. Bush administration tells CNN's Fareed Zakaria he would support impeaching and removing President Donald Trump from office. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: This is a moment for accountability. To place blame on people who have done things that are wrong. And at the same time, I think it is something for accountability because there are a lot of people who did not demonstrate that they were using the accountability they had. But I have no fear for our country. We'll come out of this.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR, GPS: Would you support impeachment? And if there were an impeachment, you know, the house is likely to do it. If you were a Senator, would you vote to convict? POWELL: Of course I would. I would vote to convict. I would have done

it, you know, last time if I had the opportunity. But I'd be surprised if we can get an impeachment through or relief on his part or anything else, 25th amendment. It's only a little over a week left and so all I know is that next -- the end -- towards the middle of next week he's going to be gone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Colin Powell there.

Well, the U.S. is now moving to designate Houthi rebels as a foreign terrorist organization. A look at what this could mean for the incoming Biden administration and for humanitarian aid.

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