Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Today, House Votes to Pressure Pence to Invoke 25th Amendment; House Gears up to Impeach Trump a Second Time Tomorrow. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired January 12, 2021 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:02]

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Absolutely. This time around and sort of a quick window of time when you move in and out, move one president in, they're going to have a little more time, and that's because close to a half a million dollars is now contracted out to be spent on cleaning the White House top to bottom. This means a full deep clean. There is contracts for cleaning the curtains, the rugs, replacing the wall coverings, doing a fresh coat of paint. This is clearly a deep clean worthy of a pandemic, and President-elect Biden will not move in until the deep clean is done.

We're hearing that he is going to be staying in a hotel possibly even the night of the 20th. So there will be an expansive amount of time to get the White House, which we know has been a hot spot many, many times for COVID outbreaks, including with the president and the first lady and their teenage son so to get it clean for the next incoming administration. Guys?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEW DAY: Kate Bennett, thank you so much.

A very good Tuesday morning. I'm Jim Sciutto.

HARLOW: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

One day until the president's expected second impeachment in the House, and we could see the president at any moment. He is set to depart the White House this morning for his first public event since the deadly riot are the Capitol.

Less than two miles away on the site of that violent day, House Democrats are moving forward very quickly with their attempt to oust the president. A vote is set for today on a resolution calling for the vice president to invoke the 25th Amendment. If it doesn't happen, the chamber will hold an impeachment vote tomorrow morning.

SCIUTTO: Still, the threat to our democracy is intensifying to, frankly, terrifying levels. Pennsylvania Congressman Conor Lamb says that lawmakers were briefed late Monday about a series of new and dangerous threats. The briefing follows an FBI warning of more potential violence at every state capitol across the nation in the days to come, armed protests. Lamb tells CNN that armed protesters could descend on Washington by the thousands, adding that those have a plan and their own rules for engagement, when to shoot.

Let's begin with CNN's Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. Manu, today's resolution, do they have the votes and will there be Republicans joining in at all today?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there will definitely be votes to push Mike Pence to use the 25th Amendment and force Donald Trump out of office. There will likely be at least maybe one, perhaps a handful, maybe others who also vote with the Democrats, Republicans and we expect there to be Republicans to vote tomorrow to impeach Donald Trump when that comes to the floor.

Now, the Democrats are moving full steam ahead on that impeachment resolution regardless of what happens tonight, unless the president were to decide to resign, unless Mike Pence were to decide to invoke the 25th Amendment, which there are no indications that either of those things are going to happen.

But tomorrow, the House will begin consideration of that impeachment resolution charging Donald Trump with inciting an insurrection. The article of impeachment, single article of impeachment details all of the actions that he took post-January 3rd -- post-November 3rd of the elections, where he tried to subvert the will of the voters leading up to that scene last Wednesday, in which he incited that deadly riot to come here to Capitol Hill. That will make that case very clearly.

Now, the question will be whether -- how many Republicans will go along with them. We expect a vast majority of Republicans to side with Donald Trump. We do potentially expect some to break ranks and join Democrats. This is much different than 2019 when House Republican leaders urged all of their members to fall in line and oppose impeachment. Zero Republicans voted to impeach the president in 2019, but now we expect at least a handful.

And one reason why the House Republican leaders are not whipping this vote, are not telling their members to fall in line, it just shows how the party is splintered, divided, about how to respond to Donald Trump. Some want to impeach, some want to censure, some want to side at Donald Trump, but the party is divided as Democrats are pushing forward on this impeachment resolution.

SCIUTTO: Quite a momentous occasion for your to cover there and a series of them, Manu Raju, thanks very much.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Let's go to our colleague, Jessica Schneider, she joins us now. Jess, I mean, gosh, this bulletin from the FBI is tarrying. What are they warning of?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we've taken a look at it, Jim and Poppy. It is a lengthy internal bulletin. And in it, the FBI is warning law enforcement officers all over the country about what could be a cascade of uprisings and violence not just here but in all 50 states.

So this bulletin makes a number of different points. So, first of all, that there are credible calls for armed protests at the 50 state capitols and here at the U.S. Capitol in the lead up to the inauguration next week. Plus, the FBI is warning about a group that's calling for others to join them to storm government courthouses, administrative buildings if the president is removed from office prior to January 20th.

[10:05:07]

And possibly most alarming is that law enforcement is seeing a number of threats against President-elect Joe Biden as well as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

So federal agents are monitoring all of the threats in real-time, but they are spelling it out for law enforcement officers across the country at the 50-plus field offices that these are real threats and they are spread far and wide. So there is a lot that law enforcement has to do here to understand these threats and then tackle them, Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Wow, hard to believe it is happening. Jessica, thank you for the reporting.

SCIUTTO: For more on this, and there is much more to discuss, we're joined now by CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem, who served in the Department of Homeland Security, certainly well aware of the details and depth of threats in this country.

First Juliette, can you give the viewers and Poppy and I some context here on the degree of this threat right now? I mean, a bulletin talking about armed protests in all 50 state capitols and now more uniformed military, National Guardsmen in D.C., by a factor of four than in all of Afghanistan today, at least.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Exactly, yes. And so this is now pre-positioning because we are taking this threat seriously. As you know, I have been arguing, this is domestic terrorism. We are in America's largest domestic terrorism effort, I think, against an internal threat that we have right now that is not the civil war. And we have to treat it as such.

We have been too nice, I would say, so far as Trump began to radicalize his extreme supporters and we weren't calling it what it was. So now that we're calling it what it is, you're seeing the FBI move forward into a traditional counterterrorism effort, which is, essentially, get ready because we have a good sense of what's going to happen and, secondly, massive arrests.

These public arrests that you are seeing are purposeful because they are saying to the radical element within Trump supporters, he's not saving you. He is not saving you and that is a good thing.

POPPY: You have, to that point, exactly, Juliette, a really interesting new piece in The Atlantic this morning and you write, viewing Trump's insurrection through a counterterrorism lens unlocks some insights about how to de-radicalize his most violent supporters. Tell us more about that because that is really about a solution. KAYYEM: Exactly. So we're not there yet. And I think what we have to remember is Trump is the spiritual but I will also say operational leader of this domestic terrorism effort. He tells them where to go. He tells them what to do. He tells them why they're angry. And so we need to start at the top, like any counterterrorism effort, which is isolation of the president of the United States, impeachment, yes, 25th Amendment, yes, deplatforming, yes, all of the aboce, no money, no access to campaign funds, a complete isolation. Because as the leader of a terrorist organization is viewed as a loser, as a not winner, it is harder for him to recruit.

Look, he's going to have his radical elements. We will arrest them. We will isolate them. But what we have to make sure is that Donald Trump does not have a second act. I know I sound incredibly harsh right now calling the president this, but we are in the tactical response right now. Enough with the let's unity and stuff, this is a tactical effort to make sure that we protect American citizens and, of course, the next president of the United States.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, it is amazing to hear you say those words, the leader of the movement. It is just alarming.

I want to ask you about concerns about -- I don't know if infiltration is the right word, but we have two Capitol Hill police officers who have been suspended for helping, it seems, these rioters, others being investigated. You have current and former law enforcement and military being investigated for participating. I mean, you have the image of that Air Force vet decorated standing on the floor of the House with zip ties. How severe does the internal threat go, to our knowledge, within law enforcement in the military?

KAYYEM: Well, certainly have had knowledge of at least arrests, but here is what needs to happen because it is clear that there is a radicalized, violent element within some of these police departments. The military has been monitoring for a while. The shocker was the Secret Service, which tends to be viewed as a more elite entity. So there needs to be an immediate scrub of these people and I mean it in the nicest way possible.

The unions are very important in this regard. The unions have been way to passive about MAGA and about Trump. They need to get on their personnel.

And then, finally, and I just leave everyone with hope, it is going to be a hard couple of days, the extent to which Donald Trump, his family and his enablers have nurtured white radical extremism -- racism is the right way to put it -- we can't even measure it.

[10:10:07]

They have welcomed this element back publicly. It is always been there but they've welcomed them publicly. And I think a lot of shaming has to occur, a lot of isolation has to occur and then we can talk about unity. But we're in a tactical phase of a counterterrorism right now.

HARLOW: Juliette, thank you. We're so glad to have your voice on all of this.

We are watching to see if the president does speak to reporters and answer their questions as he heads to his first public event since that deadly riot at the Capitol.

SCIUTTO: And former Republican Senator and Defense Secretary and decorated military veteran Chuck Hagel warned that President Trump's rhetoric would lead to bloodshed. What he thinks about Democrats' push now to impeach him and what comes next, that is ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't let this be you. If you truly loved your loved ones, don't let this be you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW (voice over): That is a family forced to hold a funeral in a parking lot. They're powerful message and their warning is ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: This morning, we are watching as at any moment President Trump is expected to leave for the southern border in Texas, heading there to tout 400 miles of border wall, much of it actually upgraded rather than newly built while the fact the rest of the country still reeling from a deadly attempted coup. And, by the way, that's what it was at the U.S. Capitol.

HARLOW: That's right. John Harwood joins us in the White House this morning.

So, I understand the president is -- it sounds like he's taking questions so we'll hear from him in a little bit. But while we wait for that, the vice president, Mike Pence, spoke last night for the first time in almost a week to the president after what happened. That is pretty stunning.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It is Poppy, and remarkable juxtaposition this morning. President leaving to head to Texas to talk about a public policy issue, the border wall, while official Washington is mostly preoccupied with how to neutralize the threat he poses to the country in his last eight days in office.

Part of the efforts to neutralize that threat is holding out the potential for invoking the 25th Amendment. We don't expect Vice President Mike Pence to trigger that process or that you'd get the cabinet support to invoke it. But it remains as a deterrent to the president's conduct.

Mike Pence met with the president yesterday in the Oval Office, we're told that was a constructive meeting and where they talked about the past four years, talked about finishing out, defending the American people.

Now, we have got 24 hours that the House of Representatives is giving Mike Pence to trigger or not trigger that 25th Amendment process. If he does not, as we expect, then the House is likely to vote for an article of impeachment tomorrow. That would make Donald Trump the first president ever to be impeached twice. Of course, he is not likely to be removed from office in his last eight days, but that too is meant, guys, as a deterrent to the president's conduct over the next eight days.

HARLOW: Okay. John Harwood, thank you for the reporting at the White House. Again, we'll hear from the president in a few minutes. While we wait for that, Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California is with us. And, Congressman Swalwell, thank you for being here. It is our first opportunity to talk to you since the harrowing tragic episode of last Wednesday.

And as I understand it, you were one of the last members of Congress on the House floor. We have this video that shows the violent protesters there smashing the window of a door that you were 30 feet away from. So you were just feet from that. You fled with a gas mask on. You heard the gunshot that killed a woman moments later and it was your fellow congressman, Ruben Gallego, who really helped you through all of that.

I just wonder your thoughts living through that this morning on the eve of impeaching the president for the second time.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Poppy, I never imagined that that safe, sacred place would have been breached. As I was watching on my phone, protesters and rioters outside of the Capitol, I thought, well, they're never going to make it inside. And then you see that they make it inside, we thought, well, surely they're never going to make it on to the second floor where the chamber is.

And then we started to hear them and we're told to take out the gas mask and I thought, well, I don't take out a gas mask every day, so, Ruben, you were in a theater of war, how do you do this? And so Ruben sprung into action and started opening up gas masks for folks and was shouting how you put them on. And I still thought there is no way, Poppy, that they're going to make their way on to the floor.

And then when the House chaplain went up to the podium where the president speaks at the state of the union and she started offering a prayer, that is when I thought, okay, the chaplain is praying, they're shouting and smashing windows, we may have to fight our way out. And so Ruben and I took off our coats. I saw Republican members helping the sergeant of arms move furniture against the door at the back of the House.

But the most unsettling part of all of this is that they were able to get so close and we had to retreat from America's floor of democracy.

HARLOW: Right, the people's house. I also know that you have said it gave you a whole new level of respect for members of the armed services. Look, a lot of news to get to. I know that there was this intel briefing last night on specific future threats. You were briefed. What can you share?

SWALWELL: That our democracy, our country is still under attack, that this was not something that we talked about in the past tense, that there are plans and intentions to, again, attack the Capitol to stop the transition of power.

[10:20:10]

And the person whose feet I lay this at is the president of the United States. He incited the attack on the Capitol last week and these individuals are seeking to come to the Capitol again to defend and protect him. And as long as he's there, he's a threat to life and he's a threat to our democratic ideals.

HARLOW: Is it because you'll be at the inauguration, you'll obviously be back in the Capitol again doing the nation's business later today and tomorrow morning, is it true that you were guys were even told remember bulletproof vests are reimbursable expenses?

SWALWELL: We were sent an email last night that listed some of the reimbursable expenses for your office account to protect yourself. And just to not tip off these terrorists as to what we're doing, we are taking security measures and we've been advised as to how we can protect ourselves and our family.

And this, Poppy, really is to just show ourselves and the world that we can carry this off on January 20th, that we're not going to be bullied or intimidated and not perform this transfer of power.

SCIUTTO: It is amazing that you have to do that. You wrote on op-ed over the weekend and you said that impeaching President Trump, quote, could deter and his supporters from reeking further chaos. But your fellow member of Congress, that is Republican Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas, said this in a tweet, quote, calling for action, he's talking about impeachment, that is equally irresponsible as the president's actions and could well incite further violence.

My colleague, our CNN Editor, Kyle Felter (ph), points out that it is just so striking to hear that argument from him and some other Republican members of Congress, not all of them, but essentially watch out if you impeach the president, there will be more riots. If you convict the president, there will be more riots. There will be more violence. What does that say about where the country is now?

SWALWELL: Well, we're not going to negotiate with domestic terrorists, and that is who these people are that attacked the Capitol. And so with all due respect to my colleague, Mr. Brady, I just don't have the mindset that we appease the president because holding him accountable for inciting this attack would lead to another attack.

I was an intern on September 11th and we saw unity among Democrats and Republicans on the Capitol steps, and I would like to see that unity right now. We don't have a commander-in-chief to unite us but we could unite among ourselves to say that we're not going to let this homegrown attack stop us from carrying out our duties of having a peaceful transition of power on the 20th.

HARLOW: Okay. So your call for unity, given that, I wonder what you think should happen, if anything, to your fellow members of Congress, seven House members from your state of California, who even after the insurrection, even after the deadly violence and riots on the Capitol, voted once again against certifying Biden's election win, seven of them. What should happen to them?

SWALWELL: I think we have to get to the 20th. That's the most important thing we can do, is to safely show, again, ourselves and the world that we can transfer power. We should look at who said what and did what. I understand there is a difference too between taking that vote, which I think is reprehensible but also the people who went to the rally and said that they're going to take names and kick ass, as Mo Brooks said, or one of my colleagues from Colorado, she tweeted out, this is 1776. And then also tweeted the movements of the speaker that were not public, as she was pulled off the floor. So I think we have to look at all of their actions.

But right now, this is about what crimes were committed, if any, by our colleagues and how do you hold those individuals accountable.

HARLOW: Eric Swalwell, thank you very much for being with us today. We wish you all safety, obviously, in the week ahead.

Well, several Republicans in Congress could break ranks tomorrow when the House votes on impeaching the president for the second time of the year, one Republican Leader Liz Cheney calling it a vote of conscience tomorrow. We will ask Former Republican Senator and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about all of it. He's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:00]

SCIUTTO: President Trump is on the verge of an unprecedented second impeachment nearly one week after the deadly riot on Capitol Hill. And a little over a week before, a new president is in.

With me now is former Defense Secretary and Republican Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel. Mr. Senator, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Now, presciently, just days, we should know, before the attack on the Capitol, you specifically warned that Trump's rhetoric would, in your words, lead to bloodshed and riots. I wonder, as you saw what played last Wednesday, were you surprised by the numbers, by the degree, by the ferociousness of it?

HAGEL: Jim, I was surprised by, as you say, the ferociousness of it, the numbers and the degree. I mean, I'm not that smart. [10:30:00]

All you need to do is what we should have done, the people in charge with responsibility of protecting the Capitol, is just read the news, listen to television and radio.