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Biden Taking on Economic Crisis with New Executive Orders; Fight Over Filibuster Stalls Power-Sharing Agreement in Senate. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 22, 2021 - 10:00   ET

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: The article of impeachment to the Senate as soon as today.

[10:00:03]

Note this though. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is hoping to push the trial until next month in order to give President Trump's legal team time to prepare. I spoke with the number two Democrat in the Senate. He said he's open to that idea as well.

This is as President Biden use his second full day in office to focus on the economy. He will sign two more executive orders today to provide more assistance to those struggling in this pandemic. The administration still considering all options as Congress works to reach a deal for more stimulus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He thinks we could get to a bipartisan package at the same time. We're not going to take tools off the table because addressing this is what he was elected to do. But we're going to pursue a bipartisan package first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: Today, the COVID death toll is staggering. 410,000 Americans have now lost their lives in this pandemic. But Dr. Anthon Fauci tells CNN this morning that number could have been lower if the Trump administration had been more honest about the virus.

President Biden issuing a detailed new anti-pandemic strategy pledging a genuine, in their words, wartime effort to expand vaccine distribution. The latest on all these headlines ahead this hour.

Let's begin with our White House Correspondent John Harwood. Good morning to you, John. Walk us through the executive actions.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, first of all, we can't say often enough, the most important thing that the United States government could do for the economy right now is to get the pandemic under control. So the most important executive actions that Joe Biden has taken so far are the ones to invoke the Defense Production Act to expand the production and distribution of vaccines, to create a pandemic testing board, the more robust use of federal power that was resisted by the Trump administration. There will be a lag time until those take effect, but those were profoundly important for economic reasons.

On the economy itself today, he is signing new executive orders, which would try to expand the amount of food stamp benefits that some low income Americans can get by changing the way those benefits are calculated. That is one.

The second thing is to begin the process of pursuing a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour for people employed by federal contractors. This executive order does not accomplish that today. It begins the process of affecting how many would be affected by such an order and how they might go about doing that.

The most important thing on both of those fronts though, following on the coronavirus executive orders and the economic executive orders, is getting that relief package that you, Jen Psaki alluded to in that bite you played a moment ago, and toward that end, toward that effort, to do that with Republican votes. You have got a large group, bipartisan group of Democratic and Republican senators who are going to be meeting with Brian Deese, the head of the -- President Biden's National Economic Council, to begin the process of trying to see if they can come to an accommodation that would get Republican votes as well as Democrat, do that rapidly and not use the special procedure, that is known as reconciliation, that would limit some of the things that could be done in that package. So that is really a key negotiation that gets underway.

The Biden administration is not going to pursue bipartisan compromise indefinitely but I think for weeks, probably not months, they're going to try to do that because that would be the optimum way of doing it, if they can. They may have to scale back the package. But if they can get one that way, they would rather do it.

SCIUTTO: And if not at least holding that option open of going to reconciliation where they only need those 50 votes. John Harwood, thanks very much.

The Senate is back in session it morning and it could be a matter of hours before the House drops that article of impeachment against former President Trump. A source telling CNN that that could happen as early as today, but open discussions now delaying the trial.

HARLOW: Let's go to our Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju. He joins us on Capitol Hill this morning.

Manu, I'm so fascinated by this power play in the back and forth and what McConnell is asking Democrats to agree to.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It is actually a clear power play by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who does have a lot of power with 50 Republican seats because he -- the Democrats need his support in order to create this power-sharing agreement, get it into effect in the United States Senate. And that would allow the Senate to officially organize.

And he has leverage to play here too. Because if they don't consent, if they don't agree to this power-sharing agreement, that means the Senate will operate under the rules of the last Congress when the Republicans had control of the majority and the control of the committees and the chairmanships, even though, overall, the Senate is controlled by Democrats right now.

[10:05:01]

So there are significant pieces to play here in this chess match between Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader.

Now, what Mitch McConnell is asking for, he's demanding to maintain full power as the Senate Republican leader by having the power to filibuster, which is the tool used to thwart, derail and delay legislation. You need 60 votes to overcome that tactic. What some Democrats have been pushing for is to limit that down to 51 votes. That is something that Republicans in the minority have pushed back against, what Mitch McConnell wants Chuck Schumer to take that completely off the table.

Now, this is all wrapped up also in that larger discussion about when the impeachment trial will begin. McConnell has suggested they delay the impeachment trial for Donald Trump for the charge of inciting an insurrection on January 6th, delay that until mid-February. That is part of the negotiation going on with Chuck Schumer, to consider whether to delay that trial, whether to agree to the power-sharing agreement and whether they can actually get Biden's cabinet nominees confirmed quickly.

They're going slowly right now. Lloyd Austin, as the defense secretary, is expected to get confirmed this morning, perhaps others, but still much slower. So all of this tied up right now amid that large negotiation between the two sides and the Senate has not even officially organized yet, even though Democrats officially have the majority, guys.

SCIUTTO: I'm awaiting the calls from Republican to play nice on those rules if what we've seen and you've witnessed up there for the last several years. But, Manu Raju, thanks very much.

President Biden is rolling out his administration's new strategy to help get the coronavirus pandemic under control. This is Dr. Anthony Fauci, he opened up about his time in the Trump White House. He says there was a strategy for dealing with the coronavirus over the past year but it wasn't, in his view, articulated well.

He told CNN this morning this, though, that the lack of candor over the past year likely cost Americans lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER ON CORONAVIRUS TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: You know, it very likely did. I don't want that, John, to be a sound bite but I think if you just look at that, you could see that when you are starting to go down paths that are not based on any science at all, and we've been there before, I don't want to rehash it, that is not helpful at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Our Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is with us. Good morning, Sanjay.

Well, that is a sad reality but I think an important one for him to acknowledge, for sure, as we go forward. I do wonder about your thoughts on the Biden administration, we have got a second day now of a million vaccines administered, but even our colleague, Fareed Zakaria, argued in his op-ed in The Post this week, they have to get a lot higher than that to get to where we need to be. Is that right?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think so too. By the way, on the first point with regard to Dr. Fauci, it is worth pointing out that there had not been a COVID briefing like that since November 19th. So when he says, we're not articulating the message, I mean, we're in the middle of the worst public health emergency disaster of our lifetime. And I feel like I have to say it like that because we haven't had a briefing in two months, right? And so people -- there are a lot of people looking at this in the rearview mirror, which is not the case. We're still very much in this.

The 100 million doses in 100 days has become a point sort of surprising sort of friction. You saw President Biden getting a little irritated by about being asked about this yesterday. Some people say, hey, look, it is not high enough. If you look at the numbers and do the math, and if you're doing a million people a day, it would be sort of the end of this year, early next year, before we could get to that level of herd immunity.

We also know that yesterday we vaccinated more than a million people and we're averaging more than 900,000 a day right now. With humility, anything can go wrong. I mean, this is a brand new sort of rollout and some of these are brand-new vaccines. But, yes, we have to be shooting higher. We have to hit -- for the two doses, we've got to get 500 million of these vaccines out.

We know the national pharmacies, I've been talking to people over there, they could do 100 million a month if they have the right resources, personnel and things like that to do it. We're talking about these community centers. So we have to shoot higher.

This is a inflection point you guys know well, politics versus science, setting the expectations, underpromising, overdelivering, however you want to frame it.

SCIUTTO: I mean, let's be practical though. You could shoot as high or low as you want. The question is how quickly can the Biden administration get over the obstacles that are standing in the way here, right, that has made, by all accounts, too slow of a rollout? What are those main obstacles and do they have the resources, do they have the plan to get over them? GUPTA: Yes. Well, when I used to report on the previous administration's rollout, and I talked to the vice president about this, they would always use this term, we are adopting a whole of government approach. You've heard that term. Well what does that mean exactly? I never really understood. What I've seen now is a whole of a government approach, at least the strategy behind one.

FEMA will be doing community vaccination centers. There will be 100 within a month. CDC will be responsible for getting the pharmacies to start vaccinating people. As I mentioned, if all goes well, they could do 100 million doses a month. HHS will be responsible for getting more vaccinators into the equation because they found that a weight limiting step is simply having enough people to administer the vaccines. We talked about these vaccination center goes into especially hard to reach communities. So that's more of a whole of government. It is not necessarily an obstacle, that is taking advantage of what is potentially out there.

And I should add to that that it is not just the amount of vaccine now that is the issue, it is the speed at which they go out. Because the longer this virus continues to spread, the more mutations it accumulates and the more of the concerns about variants we'll continue to have. So we have to get the vaccine out there and we've got to do it fast.

SCIUTTO: That is an interesting point. I didn't think the slower it goes out, the more variants and more challenges ahead.

HARLOW: 100 percent. What about this CDC updating its guidance, Sanjay, that if you absolutely have to, you can sort of mix and match vaccines. They're not saying just go with is. They are calling in an exceptional situation. That is so interesting, that you could take the Pfizer one first and the Moderna or vice versa.

GUPTA: Right. Well I spent a lot of time yesterday evening and even this morning talking to scientists about this, and here is what I will tell you, is that from a scientific perspective, scientists are not surprised that this could happen and we can show you specifically what they're talking about. They're saying if you took the Moderna vaccine or the Pfizer vaccine first and then these exceptional circumstances where you didn't know which one you got for some reason, or you simply couldn't get the same dose of the second -- the same does the second time around, you could take the other vaccine.

Now, that makes sense, they're very similar vaccines, and the scientists say it shouldn't matter. And you could even (INAUDIBLE) it out by six weeks.

SCIUTTO: Sanjay, I hate to interrupt. We have the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, speaking on the floor of the Senate. Let's have a listen.

(LIVE COVERAGE ON THE SENATE FLOOR)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): So it will be a fair trial. But make no mistake, there will be a trial and when that trial ends, senators will have to decide if they believe Donald John Trump incited the insurrection against the United States.

Now, over the course of elections in November and January, the American people chose to retire four Republican senators and elect a Democratic majority to the Senate. The Senate must now take the basic step of passing an organizing resolution and setting up the rules for a Senate where there are 50 members of either party.

Luckily, we have a clear precedent for what to do in this situation. In 2001, then Majority Leader Lott and Minority Leader Daschle came together and agreed on a set of rules to govern a 50/50 Senate. We should follow that precedent. We have offered to abide by the same agreement the last time there was a 50/50 Senate. What is fair is fair. That is precedent.

We could organize the Senate today if both sides agreed to abide by the same rules as last time. The Republican leader, however, has made an extraneous demand that would place additional constraints on the majority, constraints that have never been in place before. In fact, his proposal would remove a tool that the Republican leader himself used twice in just the last Congress to accelerate the confirmation of Republican nominees.

Leader McConnell's proposal -- sorry, Leader McConnell's proposal is unacceptable and it won't be accepted. And the Republican leader knew that when he first proposed it. Only two days ago, Mr. President, we celebrated the inauguration of a new president and the turning over of a new leaf. The American people want us to work together and move past the meaningless political fights and gridlock that have plagued us for too long. It is time to get to work. The first step is for the Republican caucus to agree to follow the same precedent that governed the Senate last time around.

I yield the floor.

[10:15:00]

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Mr. President.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republican Leader.

MCCONNELL: Yesterday evening we learned that some of the National Guard forces who have been helping protect the Capitol complex were being made to rest in parking garages between their shifts. I don't think a single senator feels that was acceptable. I'm glad the situation was resolved and I hope we learn exactly what happened.

And in that regard, I want to thank all of the National Guard, include more than 300 Kentucky guardsman and local and federal law enforcement who have helped supplement our very own Capitol police in the wake of January the 6th. Your Congress and your country appreciate all you've done to secure the Capitol and the inauguration.

Later today, I'll have the honor of meeting a number of my Kentuckians who have been helping out here at the Capitol. It is going to be the highlight of my day. In the near future, Congress needs to smartly transition toward a more sustainable security presence, keeping the Capitol safe cannot and will not require huge numbers of uniformed troops and vast systems of emergency fencing to remain in place forever.

With the inauguration behind us, we should find a right middle ground between the unacceptable lot of three weeks ago and the extraordinarily short-term measures that have been put in place since that time. In the meantime, we need to make darn sure that we look after the men and women who look after us.

Now, let's go on a totally different matter, while business proceeds on the floor, the Democratic leader and I continued to flush out the structure of this 50/50 Senate. When leaders Lott and Daschle wrote a similar agreement 20 years ago, there wasn't a need at all to reaffirm the basic standing rules that govern legislation here in the Senate. It was safely assumed that no majority would break this rule for short-term gain.

Floor remarks surrounding those 2001 discussions specifically cite the legislative filibuster as an important and unquestioned part of the backdrop that lay beneath the negotiations on the finer details. It was assumed no one would ever take that step.

After the fact, Leader Daschle, the Democrat praised the legislative filibuster as a crucial rule. President Biden has praised this distinctive feature of the Senate on many occasions. Our current Democratic colleagues used it liberally, liberally over the last several years when they were in the minority. More than two dozen signed a bipartisan letter in 2017 saying our Republican majority should not break the rule by brute force.

Let me say that again. Two dozen Democrats signed a bipartisan letter in 2017 saying our Republican majority should not break the rule by brute force. I agreed. I didn't do it. President Trump was not happy with that. He tweeted against me numerous times because I didn't do -- put an end to the legislative filibuster.

And so the Democrats used it constantly, as they had every right to. They were happy to insist on the 60 vote threshold for practically every major bill I took up. So we'll continue to request that our Democrat colleagues reaffirm the standing rule of the Senate, which they have been happy to use on many occasions. I can attest.

If we are going to truly replicate the 2001 agreement, we need to reaffirm this crucial part of the foundation that lay beneath it. Yesterday, I also shared a proposal for the pretrial steps in the Senate impeachment process. It appears to be headed our way, and if I understand, it must be headed our way Monday. By Senate rules, if the article arrives, we have to start a trial right then.

This impeachment began with unprecedentedly fast and minimal process over in the House. The sequel cannot be an insufficient Senate process that denies former President Trump his due process or damages the Senate or the presidency itself. Senate Republicans strongly believe we need a full and fair process where the former president can mount a defense, and the Senate can properly consider the factual, legal and constitutional questions at stake.

For that reason, we suggest the House transmits this article next Thursday, but that is apparently going to be next Monday, that former President Trump's answer and the House pretrial brief I've suggested be due on February 4th and the former president's pretrial brief be due I suggested on February 11th.

[10:20:13]

That timeline would have provided the Senate some more floor time before we step up fully into the unknown of a trial, which, by the way, would have been a substantial benefit to the incoming administration, and allowed them to get more of their cabinet confirmed, which we are cooperating as best we can to expedite.

So, finally, Mr. President, on one final matter, regarding those nominees who are considering to have President Biden's nominees for key cabinet posts on Wednesday, Avril Haines was confirmed as director of National Intelligence, of a big bipartisan vote, including my own. We hope to be able to consider Tony Blinken to be the secretary of state early next week.

Today, we're considering General Lloyd Austin, President Biden's nominee to serve as secretary of defense. I voted to approve a waiver that would allow him to serve in this post yesterday, notwithstanding the seven-year cooling-off period for military service. And I'll be voting in favor of his confirmation. I'm voting yes because the nominee is clearly qualified and because presidents should get real latitude in filling terms with qualified, mainstream people of their choosing.

At the same time, the Senate should pause and reflect on the fact that we will have begun two consecutive presidential administrations by issuing a waiver to a four-star general and former CENTCOM commander to lead the Pentagon. The Armed Services Committee held a hearing last week to examine the waiver and the current state of civil-military relations at the Pentagon. I expect the committee will continue to pay close attention to this important issue in the months ahead. And we'll investigate steps that Congress can take to help restore balance over at the Pentagon.

The law that we keep waiving actually exists for a good reason. Civilian control of the military is a fundamental principle of our republic. We emphatically do not want high-ranking military service to become a tacit prerequisite for civilian leadership posts over at the Department of Defense. It's not just about a simplistic fear that the military will end up running itself.

To the contrary, many experts worry that military leaders appropriate fixation on being non-political may not prepare them for the job to forcefully fight for Armed Services amidst the political rough and tumble in the executive branch and here in Congress.

Put another way, they are taught from the beginning to stay out of politics entirely, but you do want a secretary of defense who is willing to engage in the issue-based discussions that we have related to the department.

So, nevertheless, I will vote today to confirm a clear patriot with an impressive career, but I will cast that vote with the understanding that our new secretary of defense specifically commits to balancing civil military relations, empowering civilian leaders at the Pentagon and playing an active role in the inherently political budget process to get our forces what they need. Our intensifying competition with China and Russia and all the other threats we face demand nothing less.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Under the previous order, the leadership is reserved. Morning business is closed.

(END OF LIVE COVERAGE FROM THE SENATE FLOOR)

HARLOW: OK. This is big. There's a lot to unpack. We just learned that Speaker Pelosi, the House will deliver the article of impeachment against former President Trump to the Senate on Monday.

Manu Raju joins us. Manu, two big things, the question becomes when, Manu, does the trial start. And, by the way, the second really important thing that just happened is that McConnell said, no, we're still going to demand the Democrats don't gut the filibuster before we agree to a power-sharing agreement. So there is no agreement for how Congress should even operate now.

RAJU: Yes. The Senate could be essentially at a standstill for some time until they get that power-sharing agreement, and Senator Schumer, the majority leader, rejected that suggestion that Mitch McConnell has made that they affirm the use of a filibuster that can derail and thwart legislation. Mitch McConnell wants to preserve as much power as possible in the Senate minority.

Chuck Schumer says, we're not going to agree to that because some Democrats want to abolish the filibuster, even though the Democrats don't even have the vote that's in their caucus to do just that. Schumer does not want to take that off table.

So the end result of that, if there is no power-sharing agreement, that means the Republicans will still control the committees in the United States Senate, even though the Democrats are in the majority, because they're operating under the rules of the last Congress, when the Senate Republicans had the majority.

[10:25:16]

And that means, in order to get nominees through, legislation through committees, they'll need cooperation consent from Republicans who do that and it's not clear if that will happen at all. So that's why things are really stalled on that issue.

Now, the trial also very significant here. They're saying, Schumer is rejecting Mitch McConnell's call to delay the trial for two weeks to give time for the Trump team to prepare for the trial. Schumer said that the article will be delivered on Monday. So that means absent in agreement to delay the trial, on Tuesday afternoon, they will begin the ceremonial aspects of the trial and they could begin the arguments as soon as next week.

Now, the question will be how long that will last. Will it go just next week, will go into later in February? Schumer said it will be a full and fair trial. So trials in the past, there have been three impeachment trials for presidents in the past, the least amount of time was 21 days. Would this be 21 days? Will this take up the entire month of February? There have been talks from Democrats to expedite the trial. But if they expedite the trial, it may not be that full and fair trial that Schumer promised and the time to get Republicans to vote to convict Donald Trump and expect the Republicans to push back if they think the trial is too short.

So, a lot of complicating factors here as Democrats try to pursue this impeachment charge against Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection and questions too about Republicans will get on board. And also an important comment there from McConnell at the end, pushing back on the idea that they should have a short impeachment trial, because he has been seen as a key vote, perhaps he would vote with Donald Trump if the Democrats move too quickly, guys.

SCIUTTO: Just very quickly on that point. If you revert to the last Senate rules for other legislative matters, does that mean Republicans then control the rules and the timing and the timetable of the trial as well?

RAJU: No. Because once the article has come over, essentially, the train is in motion for the trial. Things will start moving piece by piece. So they cannot stop the trial from happening.

Now, if Schumer and McConnell agrees separately to delay the arguments to later, they could do that with the consent of all 100 senators. So that remains a possibility. But it didn't seem like that was going to happen right there.

SCIUTTO: Yes, goodness, the rules have said, it always require interpretation. Manu Raju, thanks very much.

We also have CNN Political Director David Chalian. And, David, I wonder, goodness, what do we -- we're two days after the inauguration. Is bipartisanship dead already, right? I mean, is that where the train is headed?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I mean, you've got to think to regular Americans watching their government in action. They are probably sitting back and thinking, wait, there's administration, the Democrats just want control of the Senate, we were supposed to see this transformation of government. And it seems everything is stalled. Why? Well, as Manu just explained, because the rues in the Senate do require some agreement from everyone about how the Senate will actually govern itself.

And as you saw, McConnell and Schumer are nowhere near agreement on that because McConnell is trying to extract as much power as possible in the minority over this issue of the filibuster. What you're seeing here are power plays and what the American people are seeing is their government at a standstill and not functioning. SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Unreal. Okay, there is so much to unpack. David, we have to jump because we want to give a few minutes, we're going to be able to talk Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland before. I understand you have to go for a vote, so let me know when that is, sir. I'm sorry we're a little late coming to you. But big news, obviously, the article impeachment, senators are going to come to the Senate, to you guys, on Monday. But there's not even an agreement on how you guys should operate. So what are the American people going to see?

SEN. BEN CARDIN (D-MD): Well, Poppy, it's good to be with you. It means that we will start the trial next week. The process I am still hopeful will have a bipartisan agreement as to the scheduling, making sure that we have a full trial, a fair trial, opportunities for the former president to present his defense. So I'm optimistic that once we get started, we will, as we have in the past, been able to reach a bipartisan agreement on the process for the trial itself.

But our rules are very clear. We have to take it up immediately and we have to stay with it until we complete the trial.

HARLOW: What makes you so sure? I mean, I've read your encouraging comments about the unity you saw at the inauguration. You said you couldn't tell the Democrats and the Republicans. But now, you literally cannot even get Schumer and McConnell to agree on rules, as, by the way, Lott and Daschle did 20 years ago pretty amicably to function.

[10:30:03]

CARDIN: Well, I think you're seeing the Republican leader trying to.