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Vote On Second Trump Impeachment Today In House; FBI Warns Of Credible Threat By Extremist Groups Up To Inauguration; U.S. COVID Cases Now Resulting In More Deaths Daily Than 9/11; U.S. House to Vote on Impeachment Wednesday; Far Right App Parler Sues Amazon for Cutting Off Services; Search Teams Recover 74 Body Bags of Human Remains; Comedian's Rant Against U.S. Capitol Attack Goes Viral. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired January 12, 2021 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:00]
JOHN VAUSE, ANCHOR, CNN NEWSROOM: Hello, everyone. John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta.
Coming up this hour. The storming of the U.S. capital may just have been act one. The FBI warning all 50 state capitals could be targeted in the days leading up to Joe Biden's inauguration.
Democrats move at light speed towards Impeachment 2.0 while some Republicans continue to insist a chastened Donald Trump that has now learned his lesson.
And amid a surging of new infections and a new more contagious virus, Europe once again struggling to contain the pandemic with warnings the worst is yet to come.
The U.S. is just one day away from a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach Donald Trump for a second time.
Democrats are charging the president with incitement of insurrection for his role in last week's deadly Capitol Hill riot.
New video shows the chaos and the confusion and the anger in the halls of congress that day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD (Noise)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: And the FBI is warning armed protests are being planned and in all 50 state capitals across the country leading up to Biden's inauguration.
The Bureau says it's tracking threats to the president elect, the vice president elect Kamala Harris and the house speaker Nancy Pelosi. And the acting U.S. homeland security secretary, Chad Wolf joining a
growing list of Trump Administration officials resigning in the wake of the riots on Capitol Hill. He is the third cabinet secretary to step down in recent days.
And several Capitol Hill police officers have been suspended for the behavior during the siege. Up to 15 others are under investigation.
CNN's Alex Marquardt has more now. And a warning, his report contains some graphic video.
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: New chilling video emerging five days after the historic, violent insurrection at the Capitol. Here a police officer is being brutally assaulted by the insurrectionist mob, stomped on and hit with a flagpole as the crowd sings the national anthem and chants "USA."
When the mob tried to force the way to the Capitol, another officer was caught in the crush of people, bloodied as he cries for help.
CROWD: USA, USA.
MARQUARDT: The nation and its capital bracing for more violence in the coming days including around the inauguration of president elect Joe Biden.
MURIEL BOWSER, MAYOR OF WASHINGTON D.C.: Our goals right now are to encourage Americans to participate virtually.
An internal FBI bulletin obtained by CNN says that armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitals and the U.S. capital in Washington D.C. in the days leading up to and on the day of the inauguration.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser asked that the president declare a pre- emergency disaster citing unprecedented challenges.
BOWSER: Further I am requesting the secretary of the Department of the Interior cancel any and all public gathering permits in the District of Columbia.
MARQUARDT: The Pentagon announcing today it is more than doubling the National Guard troops already mobilized to 15,000 for the inauguration.
The head of the Capitol Police who has stepped down told the "Washington Post" before the riot his bosses didn't want him to request to have the National Guard on standby. The Pentagon confirmed that the Capitol Police made no request before Wednesday's events.
JONATHAN RATH HOFFMAN, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN (Voice Over): Based on that assessment that they had, they believed they had sufficient personnel and did not make a request.
MARQUARDT: When the insurrection was underway, former Capitol Hill police chief Steven Sund told the "Washington Post" that he pleaded five more times for help amid the chaos.
The Pentagon responded according to Sund that they didn't like the idea of the National Guard in a police line.
The general who was on the phone now denies that but the decision was made to send the Guard shortly after by acting defense secretary Chris Miller.
Now the hunt is on for many of the rioters. The FBI and D.C. police asking the public for help identifying them like this man carrying the confederate flag through the halls of congress.
Others have been named. The bearded man when the Camp Auschwitz shirt is Robert Keith Packer from Virginia. The man in all black with a holster seen carrying plastic restraints is Eric Munchel from Nashville. He was charged with two federal crimes.
MARQUARDT: (Voice Over): Also charged with federal crimes was a retired reservist Air Force lieutenant colonel, his name is Larry Brock (ph) who also had flexible handcuffs.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[01:05:00]
VAUSE: To Washington now, and Elizabeth Neumann who served in the Trump Administration before resigning last year as assistant secretary of homeland security.
Elizabeth, thank you so much for being with us.
ELIZABETH NEUMANN, FORMER ASSISTANT. U.S. SCRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: My pleasure, thanks for having me.
VAUSE: OK. Well, the latest thing is that the FBI has initiated a warning of possible nationwide unrest by "known group" (ph) is now they put it -- up until and including inauguration day.
They add this:
"This identified group is also planning to storm government offices including in the District of Columbia and in every state regardless of whether the states certified electoral votes for Biden or Trump on the 20th of January."
Some of those states that could be targeted have also deployed their National Guard to the capital.
Here's General Daniel Hokanson.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANIEL HOKANSON, CHIEF OF U.S. NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU: I was the on the phone with Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware and they gladly volunteered the 6,400 that we have on duty today. And we're building that up to 15,000 between now on the inauguration. (END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: So you've got a situation where the Capitol police, what 2,000 strong, they folded like a cheap suit, they were overwhelmed by the Trump insurgents. And now on top of all of that you got some states contributing and deploying troops to the capital so they'll be without their National Guard. 7 So does this all add up to a situation what could happen on inauguration day will make last Wednesday look like piecemeal, it'll be 50 times as bad, possibly?
NEUMANN: It's extremely concerning and also what we've been warning about for months now. That we have a growth in the number of people that we would now consider extremist in their viewpoint.
We've seen a growth in the number of people joining what we would traditionally call domestic terrorist groups like Neo-Nazis and the Boogaloo Boys, QAnon was even designated -- we don't actually designate the United States -- but they were called out as being a part of a domestic terrorist movement.
And all of those entities and organizations were present at the Capitol last week.
And what we saw in chatter online after what happened is almost an excitement that it's finally happening. And what I mean by that is that each of these organizations, each of these movements, have their own ideology, their own eschatology, if you will, of how their goals are eventually going to come to be.
In QAnon, there's a coming storm. In the White Power Movement, it's that there's going to be societal collapse, a civil war and eventually they'll be able to assert an Aaryan nation, their own white nation.
So all of these groups have this mythology behind them and when they saw the taking of the Capitol it was a signal for them that it was finally happening and so it encourages their supporters to go out and continue to accelerate the societal collapse.
So we're very very, nervous -- nervous is too weak of a word --
VAUSE: Yes.
NEUMANN: -- we're very concerned about what we're seeing.
VAUSE: Is there an actual number of the domestic terrorists, if you'd like, or the ones who could potentially be domestic terrorists on how many should actually be violent? And what would the reaction be if you called them ISIS or al-Qaida?
NEUMANN: That's exactly right. So it's a great question. In the fall there was a book that was put out by Cynthia Miller-Idriss who is from the American University's Center for Extremism and she estimates -- and I need to be cautious here -- our numbers in the U.S. are not very good, we don't keep good statistics. But the estimates that we could come up with were about 70,000 to
100,000 people involved in the white power movement alone. And of those, they estimate actually based off of Germany's statistics, they estimate about 50 percent of those would be willing to commit acts of violence.
So you're talking about statistics maybe 35,000 to 50,000 people here in the United States who are willing to commit violence on behalf of their white supremacist ideology.
Now if I were to tell you that over 35,000 ISIS personnel in the United States, the entire country would panic.
And that's why many of us have been trying to raise the alarm that we have had a growth to this extremism, a willingness to commit acts of violence. It is a very challenging problem.
And one other stat I'll throw your way that same group, the American University's Center for Extremism, conducted a survey that they completed last week. That 10 percent of Americans believe and want a civil war. That's millions of people that are out there that have some form that drives and to think that we need is civil war.
That's very, very concerning.
VAUSE: The president announced he would not be at the inauguration. There's two theories; that's either a good thing because it means that he won't be there, the focus will be on Joe Biden, not Donald Trump. The other theory is it's a bad thing because he won't be there and that gives the all clear to his insurgent supporters. What's your take?
NEUMANN: Those insurgent supporters are going to be there no matter what. I'm fairly comfortable that the security apparatus that we always have in place for inaugurations and especially after what happened last week, will be strong enough to push the perimeter out --
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--so we won't see too much at the Capitol itself. But my belief is that the president needs to be removed from office as soon as possible because he is a natural security threat on a whole variety of fronts. And the sooner we can get him out of office, the better.
VAUSE: Elizabeth, we're out of time but thank you so much. We appreciate you being with us and that insight there -- which is actually quite chilling to hear. But thank you.
NEUMANN: Thank you for having me.
VAUSE: The leader of the Republican minority in the lower house, Kevin McCarthy, has reportedly told colleagues that the U.S. president admits he has some responsibility for last week's violence at the U.S. capital, an admission Trump has not made publicly.
During that riot, the Trump supporters were calling for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence.
There had been no communication between the president and his vice president for days but now, apparently, the two have spoken. And that was on Monday, for the first time since the riot.
And officials said they insisted the rioters do not represent the "America First" movement.
Well, regardless of any effort by the president to distance himself from the rioters, the U.S. house is moving quickly to hold him accountable.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports on the push for impeachment.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The house stands adjourned to 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Accusing him of inciting violence against the government of the United States, House Democrats took the first step today toward impeaching President Trump a second time.
REP. JIM MCGOVERN, (D-MASS): What this president did is unconscionable and he needs to be held to account. I expect that he will be impeached. He will be the first president in history to be impeached twice.
COLLINS: Majority leader Steny Hoyer said the house will vote on impeaching Trump within 48 hours after his caucus tried to formally pressure vice president Mike Pence to use the 25th Amendment to strip Trump of his power today.
STENY HOYER, MAJORITY LEADER OF THE HOUSE: House resolution 21, resolution calling on Michael R. Pence to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the cabinet to activate section four of the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office.
COLLINS: But Republicans quickly blocked that effort by Democrats.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: For what purpose does the gentleman from West Virginia rise?
SEN. ALEX MOONEY, (R-W.VA): I object.
COLLINS: Pence hasn't issued a statement ruling out the 25th amendment and sources say it's unlikely he'll take that dramatic step.
Trump was silent this weekend after being robbed of his Twitter account and instead remained behind closed doors at the White House as senators from his own party called on him to resign.
JAKE TAPPER, HOST, CNN, STATE OF THE UNION: Your Republican colleague, Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, says President Trump should resign. She says, quote: "He's caused enough damage." Do you agree?
SEN. PAT TOOMEY, (R-PA.): Yeah I do, I think at this point with just a few days left it's the best path forward, the best way to get this person in the rearview mirror. I think the president did commit impeachable offenses.
COLLINS: But sources say Trump has no plans to step down and now regrets the video he recorded condemning the mob of his supporters who attacked the U.S. capital.
CROWD: (Noise)
COLLINS: Despite the president taking no responsibility for his supporters breaching the Capitol during a deadly riot, some Republicans are once again claiming he's learned his lesson.
SEN. ROY BLUNT, (R-MISS.): My personal view is that the president touched the hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again.
COLLINS (Voice Over): Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Ron Brownstein is CNN's senior political analyst and the senior editor for "The Atlantic." He's with us from Los Angeles. Ron, good to have you with us for this.
Now one of the house Democrats who worked on the impeachment articles, David Cicilline, he laid out his reasons in the op-ed for the "New York Times," including this line.
"There can be no healing of the divisions in our country without justice for the man most responsible for the horrific insurrection. The president must be held accountable."
I want you to listen to the sounds of healing on his voicemail from Trump supporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You poked the (bleep) bear this time, you little (bleep). You've got 80 million people coming after you, you commie little (bleep). If you impeach him, civil war is on, buddy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: It doesn't seem impeachment's going to do a whole lot to convince Trump supporters to put away their pitchforks and torches. Will anything appease them, apart from joining the cult?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, first of all, that isn't -- as you know, I think that is not the right question. The right question is what is the proper accountability for an act that was unprecedented in American history?
And in many ways, this was the only terminus of the Trump presidency. It has been building in this direction for years, as he has barreled
through all -- one restraint after another on the unilateral exercise of power by the president, kind of scoffed at the rule of law.
And Republicans have forgiven and enabled him at each step along the way to where he thought, I think quite understandably that no matter how far he went -- whether he shot someone on Fifth Avenue -- Republicans in congress would not constrain him. And they very much brought us to this point.
[01:15:00]
I think the road to the insurrection was paved by the choice of Republicans at each stage, particularly in impeachment, not to put any restraint on the president's behavior.
VAUSE: Yes. You've often said that we don't get to this point overnight. We're at the point now where according to the FBI armed insurgents are planning inauguration day attacks on every state capital.
Here's Chris Krebs. He was in charge of election security until he was fired by Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS KREBS, FMR. SURVEY OFFICIAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: This is the equivalent of ignoring that pain in your chest for a couple weeks and then all of a sudden you have a catastrophic heart attack.
We are on the verge of what I fear to be a pretty significant breakdown in democracy and civil society here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: I just wonder if the U.S. has actually gone past the point of no return on all of this.
BROWNSTEIN: Well I don't know if we've gone past the point of no return. But there's no question that Trump really from the beginning of his emergence as a national figure but certainly as president has essentially erased the lines between the Republican coalition and the far-right white supremacist, neo-Nazi, anti -- the most hard-core anti-democratic forces in American society.
And he's given them enormous energy and validation and made them feel as though he was speaking to them.
As you saw, so many of the people who stormed the capital, threatened a law enforcement, ransacked the building said they were there because they believed he wanted them to be there.
And so this is going to be an enormous challenge for law enforcement under the Biden presidency. And for that matter, it's a challenge for the Republican Party that is
not unlike the situation they faced in the early 1960s when many wanted to benefit from the energy of the far right John Birch Society, but ultimately they had to find a way to separate themselves from these extremists.
Not that many Republicans are moving that direction yet but it's hard to imagine that they can continue along this road.
VAUSE: This is the problem for Democrats. Can they hold -- can they impeach Trump and then have the trial in the senate which will last for months and then at the same time implement Biden's agenda? All the oxygen will be taken away for the first year, right?
BROWNSTEIN: At least for the first few weeks. They can't do both. Obviously, there is a cost to getting out of the blocks quickly for Biden if you are impeaching and holding a trial in the senate.
But I don't think Biden has a choice. I think his instinct is probably more to look forward than to look back, he would probably try to want to get past this.
But the sense is overwhelming among Democrats even among some Republicans and certainly I think on the public at large that there have to be consequences for what happened.
This was an unprecedented act, it was an act of insurrection, it was an act of violence incited directly by the president of the United States with the assistance of members of congress who echoed his baseless claims of voter fraud and even the Republicans who didn't echo it, didn't challenge it for weeks.
This is, as Chris Krebs said, a moment of crisis in the democracy. And I think many scholars, John, as you know, have said in the last few days, the only way to kind of bring under control these kinds of movements is to impose consequences, is to impose accountability.
For example, it will be a lot easier to arrest the people who are involved if they didn't just let them walk out of the building in the first place.
So I think there are going be a lot of questions but I think the direction of imposing consequences is unmistakable.
VAUSE: Yes. That seems to be the feeling among many although there are those who say that he's learned his lesson, Donald Trump, he won't do it again. For the next nine days or eight days.
Ron, we'll see you again soon, I'm sure. Good good to see you.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, John.
VAUSE: Still to come. A COVID vaccine was seen by so many as a silver bullet to end a global pandemic. So why is this this health crisis getting worse?
From Europe to the U.S., hospitals are facing renewed strain as infections soar to new levels.
And in the U.S., president elect gets his second vaccine dose. Why are so many other Americans are missing out on their vaccinations?
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VAUSE: The U.K. is opening up thousands of vaccination centers to speed up distribution hoping to inoculate two million people every week and prevent the health system from being overwhelmed.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to one of those centers in Bristol, England on Monday. He told reporters the vaccine rollout is now in a race against time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: This is a very perilous moment because everybody can sense that the vaccine is coming in, they can see that the U.K. is vaccinating large numbers of those who need it most.
And my worry is, and Chris's worry, is that this is the moment when that could breed a false confidence, false complacency.
And that when you look at what's happening in the NHS is -- that complacency is not merited.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Many European nations are facing a similar crisis; spiraling infections, overburdened health systems and a slow rollout of vaccines.
Spain reported a record number of new infections this past weekend. France is starting to contain the new contagious variant which was first identified in the U.K.
And from Paris, here's CNN's Melissa Bell.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: Several countries here in Europe, still battling difficult COVID-19 figures.
Here in France, the prime minister spoke this Monday saying that he believed that the curfew system that is currently in place nationwide should be enough. Although, crucially, Jean Castex would not rule out the possibility of a third partial lockdown.
Elsewhere, Spain saw one of its worst weekends on record since the pandemic began in terms of the numbers of new infections. More than 60,000 people infected since Friday with several fresh restrictions announced for some of those regions that have been worst hit.
Also in Germany, of course that lockdown that is in place will continue until the 31st of January. It will change from this Monday with the first restrictions brought in for the country that have been worst hit. So fresh restrictions in terms of the number of people that people can take into their homes, that they can see. Fresh restrictions also on their ability to move around.
We heard from Angela Merkel over the course of the weekend who warned, that the worst may yet be to come. Hinting at a possible surge that has yet to be reflected in the figures as a result of the holiday period.
Angela Merkel said, however, that she hoped that the vaccine could bring some relief. So far half a million people in Germany have been vaccinated.
BELL (On Camera): Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: On Thursday, the U.S. president elect Joe Biden is expected to unveil his national strategy to end the coronavirus pandemic.
He received his second dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine Monday, that was on camera in public, to reassure all Americans the vaccine is safe.
Biden has promised to distribute 100 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office. All of this as the death toll continues to soar.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Three to four thousand a day dying is just beyond the pale. It's just wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: January is on track to be the worst month of the pandemic here in the United States.
Over the past week, the country has added more than 20,000 new COVID cases -- that's every day, according to Johns Hopkins University. A milestone the U.S. has never seen before.
More details from Erica Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The city that never sleeps now offering coronavirus vaccines 24/7. Expanding a list of who is now eligible with a goal of 175,000 additional shots in arms by the end of this week.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, N.Y.: We feel very good about that goal, we feel very good about our goal to vaccinate a million people in the course of the month of January.
HILL: First responders in Massachusetts rolling up their sleeves.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We don't want to be super spreaders.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Today's the first day I feel like we're fighting back.
[01:25:00]
HILL: Nationwide, about 35 percent of distributed vaccines, some 9 million doses have now been administered.
DR. JONATHAN REINER, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, GEORGE WASHINGON UNIVERSITY: What we should be doing is getting rid of the priority system. The priority system doesn't work here. We need to make the vaccine available for everyone.
HILL: President Elect Joe Biden getting his second dose as concern grows about the availability of that second shot if the Biden Administration releases all available doses when he takes office.
DR. LEANA WEN, FMR. HEALTH COMMISSIONER FOR BALTIMORE: 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.
DR. CELINE GOUNDER, BIDEN-HARRIS TRANSITION CORONAVIRUS ADVISORY BOARD: What we're really recommending is a change in how the supply is managed, not how the vaccine is administered, dosed and the dosing regimen.
HILL: While we wait, the virus is still surging, percent positivity topping 10 percent in 32 states. The goal has always been less than 5 percent. Only three states are at or below that benchmark.
GOV. PHIL MURPHY, (D-N.J.): And this is what we were afraid of. People letting their guard down over Christmas and New Year's and spreading the virus among their families and friends.
HILL: Hospitalizations have now topped 100,000 for 40 straight days. Among the states reaching record highs again, Texas and Arizona.
MONIQUE HORBACZEWSKI, HUSBAND HOSPITALISED WITH COVID-19: The ICU doctor told me that there's very little to hope and a lot that can go wrong.
HILL: The U.S. is now reporting an average of more than 3,200 COVID deaths a day. That's more than the number of lives lost on 9/11 every day.
HILL (On Camera): Mayor De Blasio says all the overnight spots between 12:00 am and 4:00 am are booked at this 24-hour vaccination site behind me in Brooklyn, also at the 24-hour site in the Bronx.
The concern, though, is whether supply will be able to keep up with the demand. Governor Cuomo said the state is receiving about 300,000 doses a week
and estimates that, at that rate, it would take 47 weeks to vaccinate all New York State residences.
In Brooklyn, I'm Erica Hill, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: For those who have had COVID-19, there are new concerns about their long-term prognosis.
A study from China found three quarters of wuhan patients who were hospitalized still had systems six months later.
The most common problems were fatigue and trouble sleeping. And there's more evidence that those who have recovered could still have long-lasting health implications including possible anxiety and depression.
Scientists continue to study what they call "long" COVID symptoms.
So where will all the white supremacists, the neo-Nazis and the QAnon folks go now? It seems Parler, the darling of the far right, has lost its power online.
And now the social media platform is taking aim at Amazon.
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[01:30:12]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you for staying with us. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
I'm John Vause.
Well, House Democrats plan to vote on impeachment of President Trump on Wednesday, a week after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. The charge against him this time? Inciting insurrection for his speech to supporters before that riot. The resolution also underscores a constitutional ban on anyone who engages at insurrection from holding office.
Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu introduced the resolution with two other lawmakers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): January 6th happened without an impeachment. It happened because no one stood up to Donald Trump's big lie. No one stood up to what was happening in the right wing media.
And what resulted was that Donald Trump incited a mob that attacked the Capitol. They were looking to assassinate Speaker Pelosi. They were looking to hang Vice President Pence. They were hunting for lawmakers. And to just pretend this did not happen is unacceptable. The only way we can unify our country is to hold all those accountable who engaged in this attack including the man who incited it, Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: So here's the timeline.
The House expected to vote on Wednesday but the Senate not back in session until January 19th. That is a day before Joe Biden's inauguration.
House Democrats tried to vote Monday to urge Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and force President Trump out of office, but there was one objection from a Republican. Democrats will try again in the coming hours.
Franita Tolson is a CNN election law analyst and vice dean of the U.S. Law School. She is with us from Los Angeles. Good to see you. Thanks for taking the time.
FRANITA TOLSON, CNN ELECTION LAW ANALYST: Thank you.
VAUSE: Do you have any concerns about the legality of how Democrats plan on carrying out the impeachment of Trump? At least it seems to be the question if the Senate can hold a trial for a president who is no longer in office. What are your concerns?
TOLSON: I don't have very many concerns about legalities. Impeachment is a political process, so the Senate does not necessarily have to hold a trial right away, the Democrats could wait until the Democratic Senate -- I'm sorry, the Democrats take control of the Senate after January 20th and they could decide to hold a trial then.
Or they may wait until Vice President-Elect -- I'm sorry President- Elect Joe Biden can get his agenda started and hold the trial later.
So there is no constitutional requirement that a trial be held right away. But you know, it's largely political so the legality of it is not really in question.
VAUSE: Ok. So there is no time limit, I guess, is what you're saying or when that sort of trial could take place.
So Biden can get his first term agenda through as much as he wants, maybe wait are a year or and then (INAUDIBLE) -- they can have a trial then? Is that realistically possible?
TOLSON: So remember, the politics works both ways, right. Right now there is momentum. People are angry about what happened last Wednesday. And so the Democrats definitely do not want to delay too much because then the public loses the appetite for an impeachment trial.
And so I'd like to think we can walk and chew gum, right. That the Senate can handle the (INAUDIBLE) of the Biden administration while also conducting a trial on whether or not the outgoing president has acted in a way that's inconsistent with his office.
VAUSE: Yes. You know, impeachment seems to be preferred by so many within Congress, especially Democrats because of the possibility at least that Trump would be banned from holding office again.
Explain how that then works? It could only happen if he's -- once he's been found guilty by the Senate? Is that right?
TOLSON: Yes. So in reality that's why there's an appetite for it because the Republicans are focusing very closely on the fact that President Trump only has a few days left in office. But if he is impeached and then convicted by the Senate, the Senate can pass, by a simple majority vote, a provision saying that he's no longer able to hold federal office.
And so that is really the benefit. But I think it's pretty clear at this point that President Trump is planning to run again in 2024. And so the idea is to head off that by preventing him from being able to run again.
VAUSE: Or at least he's planning on raising money to run again in 2024.
TOLSON: Has raised money, right.
VAUSE: Will continue to.
Jeff Shapiro, who is a former assistant attorney general for the District of Columbia wrote an opinion piece in "The Wall Street Journal". He's arguing that Trump actually did not break any of the laws when it comes to incitement, mostly because he did not actually did not talk specifically about acts of violence.
He concludes with this. "The president's critics want him charged for inflaming the emotions of angry Americans. That alone does not satisfy the elements of any criminal offense. Therefore his speech is protected by the constitution that members of Congress are sworn to support and defend."
Firstly, is that a reasonable legal defense and it seems at this point any actions taken against the president is driven, as you say, more by politics and the law.
TOLSON: Well, that's a legal defense too if he is indicted for inciting a riot, right. So there is an argument that perhaps his language does not rise to the level of criminal incitement.
[01:35:00]
TOLSON: But that's far different than saying that he can't be impeached for that conduct. As I mentioned impeachment is political. So ultimately, the Senate in convicting, decides whether or not the president's actions have risen to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.
That's different from the legal precedence seeking to bring criminal charges against the president for his speech.
VAUSE: And just finally, if this happens, this all plays out as expected. Let's assume that, you know, he is impeached. He does go on trial before a Democrat-controlled Senate. And he, you know, get officially removed from office in the (INAUDIBLE), does that officially make Donald Trump the worst president in U.S. history?
TOLSON: I don't know. There are some that are pretty bad. I mean Andrew Johnson who basically tried to sabotage Reconstruction was pretty bad. James Buchanan, pretty bad, right.
So we've had some bad ones.
VAUSE: Modern history.
(CROSSTALK)
TOLSON: Modern history, yes probably. VAUSE: Franita, thank you so much for being with us. Franita Tolson
there, thanks for your time.
TOLSON: Take care.
VAUSE: Well, barring a last-minute reprieve, the far-right social media platform Parler will be offline by Sunday. It is a favorite among white nationalists, the neo-Nazis and Qanon saying it is now being dealt a death blow after Amazon kicked off the Cloud hosting the platform. Parler accuses the tech giant of breach of contract and antitrust violation.
Amazon says the claims have no merit. Parler failed to remove content which incites violence and violates Amazon's terms of agreements.
Tech companies are working trying to stem a deluge of conspiracy theories after Trump supporters riled up by the president stormed the U.S. Capitol in last week's deadly insurrection. A lot of talk that Parler was used in part to spread words of those plans.
CNN's Donie O'Sullivan takes a closer look at Parler and where those on the fringe right could now move next.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had an election that was stolen from us.
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Some of the biggest peddlers of the conspiracy theory that Trump didn't lose the election including the president himself had been purged from major social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter since last week's insurrection.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president's Twitter account has been suspended --
O'SULLIVAN: But they and their followers have been finding new homes online. Platforms like Parler and messaging app Telegram that have few rules for hate and misinformation fester (ph).
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm moving from Twitter to Parler. I'm moving to Parler. I'm moving to Parler. I have a Parler account.
BEN DECKER, CEO, MEMETICA: When people push disinformation or conspiracy theories, those conspiracy theories are just for the reinforced. There is no counter rebuttal like there might be on Facebook or Twitter where you have fact checkers and people who have different views that offers a civic a debate.
O'SULLIVAN: Weeks ago we spoke to Parler users who explained why they preferred it
(on camera): What is something you could say on Parler that you wouldn't be able to say on Facebook?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That the coronavirus is not as deadly as everybody says it is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you could literally post that on Twitter and get in Twitter jail for that.
O'SULLIVAN: But you could post it on Parler?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. No problem.
O'SULLIVAN: Financially-backed by prominent conservative donor Rebecca Mercer, Parler is a social media app with an interface similar to Twitter. It was increasingly popular and reached number one on the Apple Store for a time before being taken off line overnight Sunday after Amazon, which hosted the site pulls support for it.
Parler is suing the tech giant in bid to get back up and running. But Parler did at least remove this post from Trump supporter, Attorney Lin Wood which seemed to call for Vice President Mike Pence to be executed by firing squad.
Though Wood, later told CNN he made no threats and believes in the rule of law.
The controversial far-right group The Proud Boys is urging followers to welcome new users to the Telegram map, where each channel has seen a surge in new followers over the past few days.
We found this post on a Telegram channel summing up the potential influx of users. "Parler being shut down has sent tens of thousands or more of people to Telegram. Now is our opportunity to grab them by the hand and lead them toward ideological truth.
DECKER: The further migration towards more secure French platforms is going to create a bigger blind spot for researchers and law enforcement. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
O'SULLIVAN: Donie O'Sullivan, CNN -- New York. (END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: We're live now to CNN's John Defterios who is in Abu Dhabi -- I think we have some problems getting hold of John. We'll try and get back to him in a moment.
I think, yes, we are going to just take a quick break, try and work out where we're going to go with this cross to Abu Dhabi and John Defterios.
Stay with us for more news in a moment.
[01:39:21]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: We're going to try this a second time.
John Defterios live in Dubai for us. That's the problem, it's Dubai. It's not Abu Dhabi. Good to have you with us, John.
Ok. Let's just pick up on that report we heard before the break from Donie O'Sullivan about, you know, what's happening with Parler.
You know, they are suing Amazon. Good luck with that, taking on that army of lawyers. But you know, it's not just Amazon. You have Apple and Google also distancing themselves from this platform.
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Yes. John, this really boils down to a vast gray area of regulation that is lacking when it comes to the digital platforms, specifically social media.
Unlike broadcasting, for example, which is governed in the United States and most democracies around the world and also publishers. That is not the case when it comes to hosting content on to the social media platforms.
So you have a case, as you're suggesting here Amazon taking on Parler now with the countersuit saying that this lawsuit from Parler holds no merit.
Then you have Google and also Apple taking the app off of their platforms completely. And then this extends to Twitter and Facebook taking down thousands of accounts. The most highest profile one of course being Donald Trump.
So we spoke to a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley who is now an author is well. He says this is leading to a real legal jeopardy to put this onus on Silicon Valley, which actually does not want the regulation. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGER MCNAMEE, AUTHOR, "ZUCKED: WAKING UP TO THE FACEBOOK CATASTROPHE": Once you've got to last Wednesday, I think it became obvious to just about everybody in power that look, this has gone way too far.
And there is real legal jeopardy. I think the reason why everything has been shut down is great fear that there is more coming. That there were other plots being hatched on social media. And they would not have any deniability. They wouldn't have any way to say they did not know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEFTERIOS: We know what the FBI has been saying about those other plots. But again the legal onus sitting on the digital companies.
This prompted some international reaction. I think the most vociferous was from Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany through her spokesman was suggesting that the move by Twitter is a violation of free speech and very dangerous area.
She was supported by Bruno Le Maire, who's the finance minister, it's unusual for a finance minister weighing the debate of France.
But the German example, John, I think this is an interesting one. The European Union likes more regulation but they're saying companies that manage social media have 24 hours to take down any language or postings that incite hate or violence. And if they don't take it down they are subject to a $60 million dollar fine each and every time.
So this is going to be a huge issue for the Biden administration that they come into power and how to regulate this vast area, which is ungoverned and Silicon Valley kind of likes the freedom but not against the Trump posse which has challenged the framework of that.
VAUSE: It's interesting we are also seeing on another front here, it's sort of related with political donations now that have frozen while this policy is being reassessed and where these companies stand in terms of Biden's election and do they accept it.
And we're looking at what: Google, Microsoft, Facebook now taking the stand, which is a very -- you know, it's a pro active stance. We haven't seen this sort of stuff before.
DEFTERIOS: Yes, we've never seen it before and there's actually two distinct camps here, John. Some who are pausing political donations overall and some were saying that's a relief, not to be cynical, but I worked in Washington for five years you know. That's relationship between Wall Street, political donation, Silicon Valley and Washington right now.
[01:44:55]
DEFTERIOS: The other camp is actually targeting the 147 Republicans who went against the electoral college verification process. And there is some very big names here worth noting: Amazon, American Express, AT&T which is a parent company, of course of CNN and Warner Media, Dow Chemical, Marriott Hotels which has a history of being a conservative company doing the same thing, and Mastercard. And those who are taking kind of a neutral ground, major players again: JP Morgan, which is the largest bank in the United States, and also Microsoft, I don't have to tell you what it does.
And even the payment platform for the Trump Organization and it's a challenge against the legal structures that are going against him. Stripe (ph) has said it will no longer process the payments or donations given to Donald Trump.
This is how explosive it's become. And we're in this again, this area now we've never seen before when it comes to political action committees as well.
VAUSE: Hundreds of millions of dollars Trump has raised online since the end of --
DEFTERIOS: Unbelievable.
VAUSE: Yes. That's going to hurt.
John, thank you. John Defterios in Dubai. Good to see you.
Well, the Trump administration has added Cuba back onto the list of state sponsors of terrorism, again undoing an Obama-era policy. And he did this just days before leaving office. The president has been in the midst of turmoil and chaos but still had time for this.
On Monday the U.S. State Department accused Havana of reneging on the commitments made when former President Barack Obama took Cuba from the list in 2015. Washington says, Cuba is providing support and harboring terrorists. A top Cuban official accused the U.S. of being hypocritical.
Search and rescue teams in Indonesia have recovered human remains from the site of a crashed passenger plane, enough to fill more than 70 body bags. Officials expanded the search area on Monday. The jet plunged into the sea on Saturday, 62 people on board.
CNN's Selina Wang has more now on group stricken families of the victims.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Indonesian divers scoured the sea floor, searching for plane parts and human remains.
Family members of passengers on the crashed Sriwijaya plane wait in anguish. Awan (ph) lost five family members including his eight-year- old son.
"He was very cheerful. He never missed prayers. He was the favorite child in our big family. Our big family feels lost now that he's gone."
His son was with Hiwan's (ph) four months pregnant cousin and their two-year-old daughter. They were on holiday. Before takeoff at the airport, the family film this farewell video, the kids jumping with joy. It's a video, Awan says he can no longer watch. It's too much to bear.
Rescuers say they have retrieved more than a dozen body bags of human remains and children's clothing, this wrecked engine, plane pieces.
Awan said his wife who was inseparable with her son is still in shock.
"When I told my wife, she burst into tears. She wouldn't come out of the house. His son's last words to him were at the airport waiting lounge. He told his dad it was raining. He told his mom to wait for him, he'd be home soon.
Amid that heavy rain, four minutes into the flight the Boeing 737-500 dropped 10,000 feet in less than a minute according to tracking service Flight Radar 24. Fishermen nearby said they heard an explosion like a bomb on the water.
As families wait they provide DNA samples to help authorities identify the victims.
This couple is also missing and feared dead. They were flying to attend the husband's father's funeral, the wife's brother told CNN he will need to take care of their children, who are now likely orphans.
Indonesia is a nation of thousands of islands, making air travel critical for its population of nearly 270 million people.
The country has a history of airplane accidents, partly due to aging infrastructure and the aviation industry's rapid expansion.
As search operations continue around the clock, Awan is still waiting news about the remains with what little hope he has left.
Selina Wang, CNN -- Tokyo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Well, when Trump supporters attacked the Capitol last week, it was no laughing matter for one comedian in the U.S. Instead he posed an angry rant which went viral. More on that we come back.
[01:49:19]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Well, an eight-time Super Bowl winner is turning down the highest civilian from a president he's called a friend for years. New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick says he will not accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump on Thursday citing the tragic events at the U.S. Capitol last week.
Belichick says he was flattered by the honor but above all he reveres the nation's values of freedom and democracy. The riot at the U.S. Capitol this past Wednesday had many Americans' emotions running high, but one comedian went viral after he posted an angry rant online.
Corey Ryan Forrester usually posts funny videos on Twitter offering a progressive point of view from a typically conservative Deep South.
But after the violent and destructive deadly riots at the Capitol from Trump supporters, he said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COREY RYAN FORRESTER, COMEDIAN: Do not ever just sit there and think my kids are going to see this, my grandkids are going to see this.
They're going to put it in the textbook and you're going to look like the dumbest mother (EXPLETIVE DELETED) in the world. Nobody will give a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) about Watergate, nobody.
That is (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
I'm out of breath from how stupid you all are. What is it that this country doesn't give you that you think you have to do some (EXPLETIVE DELETED) like this?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Corey Ryan Forrester is a comedian and host of the podcast "Through the Screen Door". He joins me now from deep inside Trump country. A place called Chickamauga -- Mega, Maga -- in the recently liberated state of Georgia. Did I get that right? Hey, Corey.
FORRESTER: Yes you got it.
VAUSE: Chickamauga, right.
FORRESTER: Yes, you got it. Chickamauga, yes. You got it.
VAUSE: Ok. Well, we just heard part of your rant, I guess as it's called that you put on Twitter. Is it a safe assumption that listening to that that maybe you've given up on the old let's just torture each other and find a middle ground approach.
Is that because it's hard to find a middle ground with people who want to stage a coupe and overthrow the government?
FORRESTER: Yes, look. There's certain things that I just -- there's a line in the sand and I don't draw it. Like when people say that like, oh back in the day we used to -- we used to be able to agree to disagree on things.
To me it's like yes we can agree to disagree on like some foreign policy. And we can agree to disagree on like maybe taxes. But when it comes to just number one outright treason and also outright racism and bigotry and borderline Nazism, like no I kind of don't have to reach across the aisle to you in that way. VAUSE: Do you think that this Trump fever that so many seems to be
afflicted with, will that break after January 20 and Joe Biden is sworn-in? Will there still be this slow realization among a lot of people out there to sort of what's been going on?
FORRESTER: Used to -- where I was from, it was very apolitical nobody ever really talked about who they voted for. Until Barack Obama ran and for some reason -- I don't know what it was -- everybody became more vocal about it. But it still wasn't this bad.
But then when Trump got elected I feel like these people just feel like they're emboldened and that they can get away with it. Like -- so to me, when Biden takes over, no of course not, it's not going to be an immediate thing. And it won't just completely go away.
But I do feel like once these people realize oh this isn't a home game anymore, you know, like we're not in total control. I think they're going to have to go back to the deepest recesses of their caves for a little bit. Because they're not going to feel as safe doing it.
VAUSE: Because there's always this question about Donald Trump. it's like does he make bad people -- good people bad? Or does he just bring out the worst in people?
FORRESTER: I mean to me, I think it's just he brings out the worst in people. And that's -- you know, I think one of the worst things that we've done for the past four years is go oh, every Trump supporter is stupid, every Trump supporter is dumb.
That's not true. Some of them are just bad.
VAUSE: You know, often only someone who sounds like you can get away with saying something like this, like the stuff you have been saying. But in particular about your home town. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FORRESTER: My hometown is so racist, that other racists point their blankets towards it three times a day to pray. You know what I'm saying?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[01:54:54]
VAUSE: Ah yes, but your town is a part of Georgia which is now going blue after the presidential election and you posted this update on Twitter.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FORRESTER: I also want to say something to the rest of America who looks at someone like your boy, "the buttercream dream" and just passes him off as a dumb racist hick because of his Georgia accent. Do me a favor. Look at that map, baby. Is Pennsylvania the South? No. Is Arizona the South? No. Is (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Nevada the South? No.
No. And thank you Georgia, for helping prove that regardless of the outcome you can't count us out anymore, baby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Pretty happy. Is this a permanent change here? Do you think it's just a generational thing or is it just simply, you know, because there was an orange hue blowing in from the north kind of thing.
FORRESTER: Well, first off, I do want to defend my hometown just a little bit. I know what I said in that joke. But you know, it still was a joke. I was being a little bit hyperbolic. It's just funnier to say my town because that's where I come from and that's who I can make fun of.
But my hometown is still full of wonderful people, who support me and love me. But I mean, yes, of course, it's still a town in the South. There are a bunch of racist dipshits, I'm not going to lie.
VAUSE: That's the thing though because quite often with a lot of these sort of very far extremist supporters if you like, is they can't mess -- (INAUDIBLE) in the realms of politics and folks know about anything else.
And they sound like everybody else. They seem to be very normal people. Once they start talking about politics and Donald Trump, they become rabid.
FORRESTER: It's really wild. I genuinely -- you know at the beginning here I was thinking about, I was like, got like Donald Trump -- in the pandemic, it just put everybody in a pressure cooker. And you found that people who you saw were smart were actually dumb and people who you though were dumb were actually just so much dumber than you could have even possibly imagined that they would be.
But yes, sometimes people, they open their mouth and I'm like, I don't -- why are you all of a sudden supporting a silver spoon in his mouth, Yankee carpet bagger? This is the type of stuff that when I was a kid, you're always sitting around smoking cigarettes listening in to Lynyrd Skynyrd just railing.
Why all of a sudden is this guy -- is it just because he ran against a woman. Like I don't understand. Like you never felt this way before.
VAUSE: Yes, it's been an interesting turn in how this country's been heading in many ways.
But Corey, we're out of time. Thank you so much for being with us. I really enjoyed it.
FORRESTER: Oh, thank you all for having me, man. I really appreciate you.
VAUSE: Our pleasure. Take care.
And thank you for watching CNN Newsroom.
I'm John Vause.
Please stay with us. My colleague and friend, Robyn Curnow, takes over after the break.
[01:57:31]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
