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Trump Impeachment Trial to Begin February 9; Narrowly Held Democratic Senate Could Hinder Biden Agenda; U.S. Hot Spots Remain as Cases and Hospitalizations Decline; Wuhan Marks One Year Since Lockdown; Japan Determined to Host "Safe and Secure" Olympic Games. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired January 23, 2021 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone, live at Studio 7 here at CNN Center in Atlanta. I am Michael Holmes.
And coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, the United States at a critical point in its fight against COVID. Despite a growing number of vaccinations for rollout, falling far short of the demand.
Plus, it's been one year since the lockdown in Wuhan. A look at what life is like now in the first epicenter of the pandemic.
And the timeline emerging for the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. What they are saying in the Senate about prospects for a conviction this time.
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HOLMES: Welcome, everyone.
So how do you wrest a nation from the grip of health and economic crises?
Well, apparently, it starts with a president and a pen. On Friday, President Joe Biden signing executive orders, expanding food aid and relief checks for low income Americans.
Mr. Biden says the U.S. must not let people go hungry or lose their jobs during the national emergency created by a pandemic. And getting his team assembled to tackle the challenges will come before Donald Trump's impeachment trial. It's been delayed, giving the Senate more time to confirm Biden's cabinet.
Now Mr. Biden says, the more time he has to get his team up and running, the better, obviously. And his top economic aide says there is no time to wait. CNN's Kaitlan Collins with our report.
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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Biden signing another round of executive orders today, as he attempts to use the power of his office to blunt the economic fallout from the pandemic.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have to act. We have to act now.
COLLINS (voice-over): By expanding food stamps and speeding up stimulus checks for eligible Americans who haven't received them yet, Biden is hoping to deliver desperately needed relief.
BIDEN: We cannot, will not let people go hungry. We cannot let people be evicted because of nothing they did themselves. They cannot watch people lose their jobs.
COLLINS (voice-over): Today, Biden's top economic aide, Brian Deese, spoke bluntly about the challenge that is facing them.
BRIAN DEESE, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Our economy is at a very precarious moment. If we don't act now, we will be in a much worse place and we will find ourselves needing to do much more to dig out of a much deeper hole.
COLLINS (voice-over): Deese adding that Biden's executive orders should not be seen as a replacement for the $1.9 trillion relief package he's called on Congress to pass.
DEESE: The single most important thing economically right now is to take decisive action.
COLLINS (voice-over): This impeachment announcement from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has some White House officials worried that Biden's early agenda could be left in limbo.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I have spoken to Speaker Pelosi, who informed me that the articles will be delivered to the Senate on Monday.
COLLINS (voice-over): That means President Trump's trial could start as soon as next week. But, today, Biden seemed to side with Mitch McConnell's proposal they wait until next month.
QUESTION: Mr. President, do you support Mitch McConnell's timeline for a February impeachment trial?
BIDEN: The more time we have to get up and running and to meet these crises, the better.
COLLINS (voice-over): Privately, White House officials have voiced concern about whether an impeachment trial would affect passing a relief package or confirming Biden's Cabinet nominees, given only two have been confirmed so far.
Today, the White House press secretary declined to say if President Biden ultimately believes his predecessor should be barred from holding office. JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, he's no longer in the Senate and he believes that it's up to the Senate and Congress to determine how they will hold the former president accountable.
COLLINS (voice-over): One Biden official was more candid, telling CNN, "We need to move past this. The only way for that to happen is for the trial to begin."
Coronavirus remains the top challenge facing the Biden administration. And, tonight, there are new questions about this campaign trail promise:
BIDEN: At least 100 million COVID vaccines shots into the arms of the American people in the first 100 days, 100 million shots in the first 100 days.
COLLINS (voice-over): Data from the CDC says the U.S. has already reached that goal of vaccinating one million people per day, leading some experts to say Biden's plan is too modest.
BIDEN: God willing, not only do 100 million, we're going to do more than that.
COLLINS: We've seen President Biden try to steer clear of weighing in on this impeachment trial, although he did today and, shortly after that, we got an announcement from the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, saying that they are going to delay that trial for a little over two weeks from now -- Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.
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HOLMES: And that delay gives Mr. Trump more time to prepare his defense, though Democrats have their work cut out for them as they try to get a conviction on this second impeachment. CNN's Manu Raju with details from Washington.
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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So Donald Trump's political future will have to wait at least a couple of more weeks to determine whether or not he will be able to ever hold office again.
If he is convicted by 67 senators during his impeachment trial and then a simple majority of senators vote to bar him from holding office again, Donald Trump can't be president again.
Because of after he was charged with inciting an insurrection by a bipartisan House majority last week, the question is, will there be 67 votes in the Senate to convict him in his impeachment trial?
At the moment, that appears increasingly unlikely, almost virtually nonexistent, those chances are, according to Republican senators, up and down, who I've been speaking with. Their belief is that either this trial would be unconstitutional to go
after a former president -- someone who's no longer serving in office -- there's some dispute and debate about that. Democrats would say, of course, there's precedent for going after a former federal official in an impeachment trial and certainly constitutional to go against a former president who has committed a high crime or misdemeanor.
Nevertheless, that will be an argument that will play out. There are also some Republicans who believe the president needed to move on, somewhere to Trump's loyalists are not going to break ranks. All of which means it's highly unlikely we are going to get to the 67 votes needed to convict this president.
Now it would be 50 Democrats if they all join hands and also 17 Republicans. Right now only a handful are signaling that they may vote to convict. We'll see if the trial changes anything.
But at the moment it does not appear that way. Now Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, has agreed with Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, to delay those proceedings until the week of February 8th.
That's when we plan to see those arguments happen on the Senate floor, the impeachment managers will make their case. President Trump's impeachment defense team will make their case. And then the senators will vote to decide what to do about Donald Trump.
At the moment, delayed action, delayed for a couple of weeks, the Senate will try to confirm some of Joe Biden's nominees and then discuss, to discuss Donald Trump's future -- Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.
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HOLMES: Joining me now, Jonathan Cohn, senior national correspondent for the "Huffington Post."
Great to have you on, Jonathan. The Senate, operating on rules from the last Congress when the GOP was the majority. What that means, so people understand, is that things like confirmation hearings for Joe Biden's cabinet picks are being chaired by Republicans at the moment.
For people watching internationally, Republicans are not the majority anymore. Mitch McConnell is the minority leader.
Why is he wielding so much power and what can the Democrats do about it?
JONATHAN COHN, SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "HUFFINGTON POST": So at the moment, we are in a very strange short period. They need to agree on how they are going to divide power, going forward in the next two years.
Because the Senate has 100 seats and is exactly divided 50-50, it's an unusual circumstance and there is a more complicated negotiation about that than there normally would be.
When it is all done, the Democrats will have the majority, because the rule is, when you have a 50-50 split in the Senate, the vice president breaks the tie. Of course, the new vice president is Kamala Harris, the Democrat.
So the Democrats will be in the majority. Chuck Schumer from New York will be the majority leader. But the way American government works and, in the Senate, a minority party does have a lot of power because we have this thing called the filibuster.
Basically, it is a rule, not in our Constitution but it has evolved. And it basically says that if senators want to block a vote, it takes 60 senators to overrule that.
Originally, it's been around for a while, it was only supposed to be used very occasionally but now it is used all the time, on almost every piece of legislation requiring 60 votes. So Democrats have the majority but they need to deal with the fact that the minority, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, have the power to block legislation.
HOLMES: That's a great explanation, to explain the sort of dysfunctionality, if you like. It is a political thing. Democrats have long been accused of playing softball while Republicans pull out the big guns politically.
How hard do Democrats need to push their agenda?
How tough do they need to be?
COHN: They have to be tough. I think they have learned, especially over the last 10 years or so, Republicans do play hardball and they will do what it takes to win. If they have a tool that is available to them to use and they can use it to stop legislation or pass legislation, they will use it.
Democrats, traditionally, have been reluctant to do those things. There are more inclined to try and find agreements with Republicans and pass things on a bipartisan basis.
So I think the consensus is, Democrats need to learn from that. It is a bit of a weird moment in American politics, because we did just have the Trump presidency, that ended with the armed insurrection on Capitol Hill.
And I think a lot of Republicans are a little bit rattled by that. In addition, Republican suffered big losses in the election. I think Democrats, always inclined to try and deal with Republicans, will probably give it a shot here.
Joe Biden, the new president, always talks about unity. And I think they will want to make an effort. But I do think that they will be quicker to abandon that effort if they see that Republicans --
(CROSSTALK) HOLMES: Yes, having seen what Mitch McConnell did to Barack Obama in 2009 when he got the Senate back, it would seem a bit naive to play Kumbaya with Mitch McConnell still in the Senate.
I guess too, because of the American system of government, again, there's midterm elections next year. Democrats have razor thin majorities in both houses.
How great is the imperative, the need, for legislative speed for Biden?
He could have two years to get things done and, if he doesn't, back to the Obama experience.
COHN: Absolutely. Everyone knows that. It worked out with Obama. It worked that way with Trump as well. He lost a majority after two years. It is accepted, widely, that when you're a newly elected president, you have a very small window to do big things.
In addition, I think Democrats realize that we are in the middle of a national emergency.
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COHN: And people are restless and anxious. It is important to show them that Democrats can govern quickly and get things done.
Politically, if they can get things done quickly, they will build support and they may have support to do more things later on, this year, next year. And who knows, maybe even they hold power in the midterms. Of course, most importantly of all, there's a national emergency, people do need help and we need to get vaccines out.
The United States needs to fund vaccinations, it needs to give economic support to all of the people out of work. So the best argument for speed is that it will get help to people right away, when they need it.
HOLMES: Excellent. Good to have you on to discuss all of this, Jonathan Cohn from the "Huffington Post," thank you so much.
COHN: Thank you for having me on.
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HOLMES: Now President Biden launched his global efforts Friday with phone calls to two world leaders. The first one he made was to the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau. They discussed working together to combat the coronavirus, boost economic recovery and act on climate change.
Mr. Trudeau expressing his disappointment, also, with the United States' decision to revoke a permit for the $9 billion Keystone XL pipeline. The two are set to have a more comprehensive meeting next month. Mr. Biden also spoke with the president of Mexico. We are going to take a quick break. When we come back on CNN NEWSROOM,
Wuhan's coronavirus lockdown shocked the world a year ago. While now life looks pretty different in that city, emotions, though, still raw. We are going to take you there next.
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HOLMES: Welcome back.
The U.S. is beginning to see declining coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. Some good news there. The 7 day case average now hovering around 180,000, down from 232,000 a week ago. This as vaccinations ramp up.
The latest CDC vaccine count increased by nearly 1.6 million doses and that brings the total number of doses of administered to more than 19 million.
But the one area not seeing much improvement is perhaps the most important of all. That is the number of people losing their lives. Erica Hill with more on that.
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ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With COVID-19 deaths still far too high, a blunt admission.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Did the lack of candor, did the lack of facts in some cases over the last year cost lives?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You know it very likely did.
HILL (voice-over): More than 411,000 lives lost, nearly 4,000 more added just yesterday. Nationwide average new cases are down by more than 20 percent over the past week. One trouble spot, Virginia, where that number is moving in the opposite direction, up a staggering 19 percent.
While overall hospitalizations are declining...
DR. JONEIGH KHALDUN, CHIEF MEDICAL EXECUTIVE, MICHIGAN: Now just under 10 percent of in-patient beds in the state are being used for patients with COVID-19.
HILL (voice-over): -- hot spots remain.
MELODY NUNGARAY-ORTIZ, ICU NURSE, BANNER UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, PHOENIX: As soon as you start to tend to a situation, to try to get your bearings with that quickly another emergency arises.
[03:15:00] HILL (voice-over): In California, ICU availability is at an all-time low. Hard hit Los Angeles adding virus warning signs in high-risk areas.
LUIS GONZALEZ, SPOKESMAN, L.A. CITY COUNCIL MEMBER, GIL CEDILLO: We wanted to make it as powerful and as colorful as possible.
HILL (voice-over): The CDC sparking confusion with new guidance about the coronavirus vaccine now advising it's OK to wait as long as six weeks between doses.
FAUCI: You're taking a chance.
HILL (voice-over): Dr. Fauci walking that initial reaction back just hours later.
FAUCI: Sometimes the situation is stressed where it's very difficult to be exactly on time, so we're saying you can probably do it six weeks later. There's no disagreement at all between me and the CDC.
HILL (voice-over): Meantime many eligible Americans still struggling to get their first dose.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You get a busy signal or no answer.
HILL (voice-over): Six in ten people still don't know where or when they can get a vaccine according to a new study.
DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: We are just learning as we go and it's been painful.
HILL: (voice-over) The most common issue, supply.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our biggest limiting factor right now is vaccine.
HILL (voice-over): Florida cracking down on vaccine tourism to ensure enough doses for residents. The FDNY pulling back on planned vaccinations as New York City stock runs low.
Meantime, it won't look like this but Super Bowl 55 will allow 22,000 fans to watch the big game in person. Among them some 7,500 vaccinated health care workers.
ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: And we hope that this program will be a small way to celebrate you, honor you and most importantly thank you.
HILL: We're just getting updated information from the CDC. We now know that some 1.6 million additional doses of the vaccine were administered in the last days, more than 19 million doses administered of the total amount distributed.
That works out to about 48 percent as of now. About 5 percent of the U.S. population has had their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine -- in New York, I'm Erica Hill, CNN. (END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Now across Europe, most countries are seeing fewer new cases this week, compared to last week, with a few exceptions. Spain and Portugal, you can see there, are in the midst of a surge that started in early December and hasn't started easing yet.
Elsewhere, the trendline is falling though. Here, for example, Italy in green, Germany, red; Netherlands in orange and the U.K. in blue. But let's not forget that the European Union is dealing with multiple coronavirus variants, including the one first identified in the U.K.
The British prime minister now saying it could be deadlier than previous versions. CNN's Scott McLean is standing by in London.
That's not what they were saying before.
How certain are they that this new variant is in fact more deadly?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So there are more certain about the transmissibility. So 30 percent to 70 percent more transmissible than the original is the U.K. variant. When it comes to if this variant is more deadly, well, that's where they're not so certain at all.
So the prime minister's top scientific advisers were quick to make clear, there still is a lot of uncertainty about this data. In some cases some studies they are relying on, the sample sizes are not quite as big as they would've liked.
And so there's a lot of variance. So I want you to listen to first to prime minister Boris Johnson's top scientific adviser describing what they know so far.
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PATRICK VALLANCE, U.K. CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER: If you took somebody in their 60s, a man in their 60s, the average risk is that, for a thousand people who got infected, roughly 10 would be expected to unfortunately die with the virus.
With the new variant, for a thousand people infected, roughly 13 or 14 people might be expected to die.
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MCLEAN: So that same trend you can see across all of the age groups, they say. But when you only look at those people who end up in hospital with either the original or the mutated version of the coronavirus, you are no more likely to die from the U.K. variant, than you are from the original.
Either way, early research suggests that vaccines will still be effective against the U.K. variant. The government focus is on other foreign variants they are seeing in South Africa and Brazil, that this government knows less about. They're concerned that it may, potentially be, one of those variants may be a bit more resistant to the vaccine.
With that in mind, the government has not ruled out the possibility of shutting down the border to all foreign visitors, Michael.
HOLMES: Still a long way to go. Scott, good to see, you thank you for that, in London.
Now today, marking one year since China put the city of Wuhan on total lockdown. The world was just starting to see how destructive and chaotic, the coronavirus would become. Wuhan, of course, the case study on how to deal with it.
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HOLMES: David Culver shows what it's like there now.
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DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here, back in Wuhan, China, when you mention its name, people around the world know it as the original epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.
The city is marking one year since an unprecedented lockdown took place, a lockdown that lasted 76 days. Essentially, it sealed off this city of 11 million people from the rest of the world.
If you notice, business is back open. Face masks, no longer required in public and if you are a good distance away from others. However, while business may be going back to normal, you may also notice there's a deep agony felt amongst folks who lost loved ones, wounds that have yet to heal.
Many of them, actually still angry with the local officials who, they blame, for not doing enough early on. Our visit here coincides with a source tracing mission of the WHO, a fealty that is, likewise, in Wuhan, to find the truth of the origins of this virus -- David Culver, CNN, Wuhan, China.
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HOLMES: Just six months to go until the start of the Tokyo Olympics. Despite reports that they may be canceled, Japan says the games will go on. We have a report from Tokyo, when we come back.
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HOLMES: The baseball icon and civil rights activist Hank Aaron passed away in his sleep early on Friday. Nicknamed Hammering Hank, the Atlanta Braves Hall of Famer broke Babe Ruth's all-time mark for career homers in 1974. That was it right there.
He faced down death threats and racist taunting and hate mail yet persevered through it all with determination and class. Hank Aaron was 86 years old.
The Japanese government says it's determined to hold the Olympics, despite rumors of a possible cancellation. The games were postponed last year because of the pandemic. As our Selina Wang reports, a lot is at stake for Japan.
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SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Six months until the Tokyo Olympics, the outlook is grim. The host city in a state of emergency, Japan is struggling with the severe surge in COVID-19 cases. Speculation grows around whether the games can be held in the middle of a pandemic.
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WANG (voice-over): "The Times of London" reports the Japanese government has privately concluded that the Tokyo Olympics will have to be canceled, citing an unnamed senior government official that International and Japanese Olympics Committees called the report preposterous and categorically untrue.
Earlier on Friday, Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga reaffirmed his commitment to hold the games as scheduled.
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YOSHIHIDE SUGA, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (through translator): It will be a symbol of humanity overcoming the novel coronavirus. We will be well prepared on the measures for the infection.
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WANG (voice-over): But Dick Pound, the longest serving member of the International Olympic Committee, is not 100 percent sure.
DICK POUND, INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE: Confident. But it is not a guarantee, of course. Everyone understands that.
WANG (voice-over): Cancellation would be a crippling scenario for Japan; more than $25 billion spent in national pride are on the line.
WANG: I am at the top of Shibuya Scramble Square, a new state-of-the- art skyscraper built in anticipation for the Olympics and, in fact, this entire Shibuya district has been getting a complete makeover, new buildings, landscaping and even new subway lines.
For years Tokyo has been redeveloping, waiting to show all of this off to an influx of tourists for the Olympics.
WANG (voice-over): Yuki Onana (ph) manages a souvenir shop in this tower and he said, without the Olympics and the tourists, it would dramatically hurt our business. It is clear the games will not bring the economic boost Japan was hoping for.
WANG: Do you think athletes should be required to get vaccinated? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I certainly would recommend it. I mean, you'd have to be crazy not to take whatever mitigation steps you can.
WANG (voice-over): Meanwhile, public support has fallen dramatically; 77 percent of people in Japan think that games should be cancelled or further postponed. According to a poll by national broadcaster NHK, a member of an anti-Olympics group argues that games are a wasteful spectacle.
She said the government is obsessed with hosting the Olympics and it is becoming clear during this coronavirus disaster that the Olympics would sacrifice people's lives. Japan's prime minister says that the Summer Games will bring hope and courage to the world.
A lot of that courage will be needed, as each day the July 23rd opening day grows closer and each day more fall sick with COVID-19 -- Selina Wang, CNN, Tokyo.
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HOLMES: Before we leave, it's not a bird, it's not a plane, it's a packet of haggis launched to the edge of space. A butcher in Scotland launched a weather balloon carrying the cargo. It went up 32 kilometers, a height three times higher than normal commercial airliners. It was a mission to teach children about space.
The haggis did eventually come back down to Earth. It will be preserved at the butcher's headquarters.
Mmm, tasty.
I'm Michael Holmes. "AFRICAN VOICES CHANGEMAKERS" is up next.
