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Trump Impeachment Trial To Begin February 9; Biden Takes Action To Ease "Deepening" U.S. Economic Crisis; Prominent Republicans Lobbying McConnell To Convict Trump; Russia Protests, Demanding Release Of Alexei Navalny; U.K. COVID-19 Variant May Have Higher Mortality Rate; National Guard May Stay In Washington Through March; Extremist Militant Group Oath Keepers Members Arrested; Republican Lawmakers Try To Bring Weapons Onto House Floor; Atlanta Mayor: People Desperate For Vaccine. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired January 23, 2021 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): President Biden zeroes in on the economy, signing off on orders aimed at easing the pandemic's impact. But as his administration gets started, what is left of the old one lingers in Washington as the impeachment trial of former president Trump gets a formal date on the calendar.
And on a mission to speed up the lackluster rollout of coronavirus vaccines in the U.S., how President Biden is planning to get more shots in the arms of Americans.
Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to all of you watching around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber, this is CNN NEWSROOM.
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BRUNHUBER: In just three days as U.S. president, Joe Biden has signed more than 2 dozen executive orders, many reversing Donald Trump's policies. The Senate agreed to delay Trump's second impeachment trial. House Democrats will deliver the article of impeachment to the Senate on Monday. The trial arguments will start two weeks later.
The delay gives Democrats time to confirm Joe Biden's cabinets and begin to tackle his ambitious agenda, like trying to drum up bipartisan support for the proposed COVID relief bill.
Meanwhile, President Biden isn't wasting any time. With the stroke of a pen, he is looking to bring relief to Americans hardest hit by the economic fallout of the pandemic. CNN's Phil Mattingly has more from the White House.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We need more action and we need to move fast. PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over):
President Joe Biden in his second full day in office, zeroing in on the second major crisis facing his administration, a teetering economy.
BRIAN DEESE, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Now is a moment not to undershoot or to wait and see, now is a moment to act.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): With new weekly unemployment claims still hovering just shy of one million, Biden unveiling a pawir of executive orders, one that would expand food assistance, speed up distribute of stimulus checks and expand eligibility for unemployment benefits for workers who refuse jobs due to unsafe working conditions.
BIDEN: We're in a national emergency. We need to act like we're in a national emergency. So we've got to move with everything we've got. And we've got to do it together.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): And one that lays the groundwork for a $15 minimum wage for federal workers. The executive orders capping a week of more than 2 dozen actions to ramp up or completely reverse his predecessor's efforts to deal with the same issues.
But as the White House grapples with a cascade of economic and public health crises, concern that its sweeping $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal has already run into partisan roadblocks, with conservatives and moderate Republicans alike blanching at the price tag. The White House, despite its flurry of executive actions, remains unbowed in its push.
DEESE: We're at a precarious moment for the virus and the economy. Without decisive action, we risk falling into a very serious economic hole, even more serious than the crisis we find ourselves in.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): But it is an immediate and potentially seismic challenge for a president who has made clear that bipartisanship is his preferred route.
Still, a signal that some of the logjam is starting to break on at least one issue, the president's cabinet. Retired general Lloyd Austin confirmed as Defense Secretary, the first Black leader of the Pentagon in U.S. history, with Democrats saying Janet Yellen and Antony Blinken, Biden's picks for Treasury and the State Department, will follow in short order, a team coming together as the stake only get hiher by the day.
BIDEN: We have the tools to get through this, we have the tools to get this virus under control and our economy back on track. We have the tools to help people. So let's use the tools, all of them, use them now.
MATTINGLY: And the urgency of the moment, whether on the public health side or on the economic side, is underscored by what the Biden administration is trying to do on the legislative front, making very clear the president on down that they want a bipartisan legislative package. Might not be the $1.9 trillion they proposed but they want something,
as some Democrats on Capitol Hill don't believe that there will be Republican support for anything.
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MATTINGLY: They want to go their own way. But make no mistake about it, President Biden made clear during the campaign, he wants to be somebody who makes bipartisan deals. He believes his experience and why he was elected is because he can make bipartisan deals.
So at this point in time, behind the scenes, officials throughout the Biden administration are working with lawmakers, working with staff, trying to create some type of space, some type of path forward, to a COVID relief deal.
Whether that actually happen, well, we'll have to wait see. At least for now, they have time and space before an impeachment trial. Whether that ends up in a final deal, only time will tell -- Phil Mattingly, CNN, the White House.
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BRUNHUBER: So as we mentioned, the impeachment trial of Donald Trump kicks off formally on Monday, when the Senate receives the article of impeachment. And as Manu Raju reports, Democrats will have their work cut out for them as they try to get a conviction.
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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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BRUNHUBER: Let's bring in Gina Reinhardt, who joins me now from Colchester, England. She works in the department of government at the University of Essex.
Thank you so much for joining us. I want to start with what we heard, impeachment and chance of conviction on one hand and we keep hearing about how it is in the Republican Party's best interests to be rid of president Trump, that McConnell has been facing pressure behind the scenes by some Republicans to impeach.
But as we heard just now from Manu, you know, publicly, the drumbeat seems to be mounting against impeachment.
What do you think?
GINA REINHARDT, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Well, I think that McConnell is in a really interesting position here. He is wielding as much power as he still can. One of the things that he has in terms of leverage is this impeachment of Donald Trump and whether or not a conviction will take place.
The other thing has is the agenda of Joe Biden and whether or not the Republicans can and will support it. As long as he has those two things to hang on to, he will try to wring as much as he can out of the Senate.
And so he is keeping it sort of close to the vest right now. He is not going to say whether a conviction is going to happen and he is using that, hanging over the heads of Democrats as leverage to try to get more for Republicans.
BRUNHUBER: But that implies that he probably won't, in the end, vote to convict, right?
REINHARDT: Actually, I'm not so sure. The fact that he leaked that he thought that impeachment was a good idea -- and he was pretty loyal to Trump. He didn't say anything wrong or bad about Trump while Trump was president.
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REINHARDT: But he definitely was not a fan before Trump came into office. And I think that that leak is a sign that he really does want to oust Trump from the party and make sure that Trump's ethos is not the direction the Republican Party goes.
I think he is just waiting to say anything definitive. If he says that the conviction is going to happen or he is in favor of conviction, I think a lot of Republicans will fall in line and then a conviction will be certain.
BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. I want to turn to President Biden. Much of your research focuses on how policymakers make decisions under uncertainty. And few incoming presidents have faced as much uncertainty as this one as they stepped into the White House from plague to insurrection to impeachment. I won't list all the challenges.
But what do you make of the way that they are signaling how that process will unfold, how decisions will be taken, using experts and sticking to the tried and tested procedures, which clearly is, you know, very different and deliberately different from the previous administration's maverick, insurgent, ad hoc decision-making process?
REINHARDT: In the U.S. especially what is key to managing a disaster or a crisis is trust. And during the Trump administration, the American people, their trust in each other and their trust in public officials and in public institutions declined dramatically.
And the reason that it is so important is because, if nobody trusts anyone else, then they can't follow the directions of somebody else, right?
And when you have experts, people are more likely to trust what the experts say. Biden is up against a really tough hill to climb because he is coming in at such a time of such low trust in public institutions and public officials.
But one of the reasons that he has issued so many executive orders and so many of them are attacking and really trying to lock down pandemic- related behavior is because he is hoping to provide a voice of strength and a unitary voice of what who and shouldn't be done.
BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll see whether he is able to restore some of that trust that seems very broken right now. Gina Reinhardt, thank you very much, appreciate it.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, vaccinations in the U.S. are on the rise. But supply problems could jeopardize that.
Plus serious new concerns about the variant that was first identified in the U.K. We'll head to London for the details.
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BRUNHUBER: What you're seeing are live pictures from Moscow, supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny are gathering for protests, demanding his release from prison. We've already seen police dragging people away.
Russian authorities have deemed the demonstrations illegal and they have arrested some of Navalny's allies, including his spokesperson and, just a little while ago, the coordinator of his Moscow office.
You will remember that he was detained last week. And moments after returning from Germany where he spent five months recovering from being poisoned, Navalny blames the Russian government but the Kremlin denies it.
And there is finally good news in the U.S. for the coronavirus fight. Some 47 states are now showing a drop in new cases this week compared to last. The only state -- only the state of Virginia is actually trending upward.
And you can see the downward trend in all regions of the country, with the peak in new cases coming about 10 days ago. At the same time, vaccinations are ramping up.
The CDC reported on Friday that about 1.6 million vaccines were given during the preceding 24 hours. But still less than 1 percent of the population has been vaccinated, mainly because of the confusion over the supply and where people can go to get the shots.
So even though more people are getting vaccinated, states like California are still reporting a heartbreaking number of deaths every day. CNN's Nick Watt has more from Los Angeles.
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NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Dodger Stadium in L.A., up to a five-hour wait for a vaccine shot.
MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI (D-CA), LOS ANGELES: Demand far outstrips supply. We are still waiting to learn when more doses will arrive.
WATT (voice-over): In New York City they have paused vaccinating police and firefighters. Why? Dwindling supply. Less than 1 percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated so far, double dosed.
There's a new hands-on plan from Fauci and defense.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We've got to go into the trenches.
What we need to do is get there and say, OK, what went wrong here and how can we help you fix it?
WATT (voice-over): The bright side?
President Biden's first full day in office, 1 million shots were administered for the second time. Promise kept so far. That's the promise every day for 100 days.
FAUCI: If we do better than that, which I personally think we likely will, then great.
WATT (voice-over): And this could be huge. Johnson & Johnson expected to submit its single-dose vaccine for authorization soon. They're ramping up production.
DR. MARK MCCLELLAN, BOARD MEMBER, JOHNSON & JOHNSON: With the goal of having perhaps enough vaccine for 100 million Americans by spring, by this April or so. So, that's going to make a big difference.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. Are you ready?
WATT (voice-over): It's now a race of sorts.
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WATT (voice-over): Vaccinate fast before more contagious variants spread even farther, now blamed in part for the startling surge in Los Angeles.
GARCETTI: I am very concerned and think it does explain what happened in December.
WATT (voice-over): How far and wide have these variants spread already?
We don't really know.
FAUCI: We must be honest and say that the level of comprehensive sequence surveillance thus far is not at the level that we would have liked.
WATT: And amid all this talk, it's important not to lose sight of the daily pain for people in California, 764 deaths reported. Across America on average, 3,000 people are still dying every day -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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BRUNHUBER: U.K. officials are warning that a new coronavirus variant could be even more dangerous than they first thought. During a press conference Friday, U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson said this new mutation first identified in his country spreads faster and may be linked to, in his words, a higher degree of mortality.
Let's talk more about this with Scott McLean in London.
So it spreads faster and it could be more deadly as well. That seems to contradicts what British officials were saying just last week.
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. There are still a lot of question marks here about this data. Even the research seems contradictory in some parts. So what the British prime minister said yesterday is that the government knows that the U.K. strain is more transmissible from person to person, about 30 percent to 70 percent more transmissible than the original virus.
And that is having a huge impact. Hospitals are packed to the brim and really can't take too many more patients. The prime minister though is less certain about the mortality or the -- how deadly this new strain of the virus actually is.
His advisers were quick to point out that there is a lot of uncertainty around the new data. In some cases, the sample sizes were a little bit less than they would have liked, to get an accurate count. And there is also a lot of variance, between 30 percent to 90 percent some studies are showing more deadly this may be.
And so one example was said a 60-year-old person of 1,000 60-year-olds who get the coronavirus, about 10 would generally be expected to die with the original virus. Under the new variant, that might be 13 or 14 more people dying.
A similar trend holds true across the age groups. But the government says that if you look at only people who end up in the hospital with the coronavirus, regardless of the strain, you are more -- no more likely to die from the new variant than you are from the original virus.
Either way, the good news is that the government stresses that research still shows, suggests heavily, that the vaccines will work on this U.K. variant of the virus. The bad news, though, is that the government doesn't expect a mass vaccination to have a huge impact on hospitalizations and mortality until at the earliest later this month but more likely next month.
BRUNHUBER: Interesting. All right, thank you so much, Scott McLean in London.
And let's turn to Sterghios Moschos, associate professor of molecular virology joining me from England.
Doctor, thank you so much for joining us. I want to start with what we just heard the news in the U.K. about the variant that could be more deadly. The government's chief scientific adviser did say that the evidence is not yet strong. Obviously more research is needed.
But what do you think it could mean not just for the U.K. where you are but other countries as well?
Because as we've seen, you know, it seems like this variant travels very fast. It is everywhere, including here in the U.S. STERGHIOS MOSCHOS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MOLECULAR VIROLOGY,
NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY: I think it is important to emphasize that we now have vaccines that seem to be able to keep people out of hospital if they get infected with coronavirus.
And we have adequate evidence to tell us that these vaccines, all of them, practically, will be able to keep you out of hospital if you get the new variant. So from that perspective, focusing our efforts on trying to get people vaccinated and getting everyone vaccinated, I think, is the most important aspect.
What has to be highlighted, however, is that this challenge is global. And it is global not because we have people in Africa and South America, Central America and other developing regions of the world, where they are not getting the vaccine at the moment but we also have new strains appearing in these regions.
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MOSCHOS: Which may not be as easily confident with the current drugs or current vaccines that we have. So we need to focus back on the basics. We need to look into the test, trace and isolate and try to prevent transmission from happening.
The reality is that the more transmission we get, the more mutations the virus will accrue and the more it does that, the more it will posed to evolve resistance to the vaccines and treatments. Thus we have to stop transmission.
BRUNHUBER: So exactly on that, I read some Danish scientists saying that the U.K. variant isn't responding to the established ways of slowing the pandemic and that got me thinking about what we're seeing in California, officials there suspected that the reason COVID was spreading so fast there, despite all the aggressive measures, the quarantines and all the mask measures and so on, was a new variant, which they found because they were looking for the U.K. variant.
And the difference is Denmark, they are testing and genetically sequencing every case to see if there are mutations here in the U.S. And as we heard from Dr. Fauci, the sequencing is very low. I believe we're 33rd in the world.
So you know, despite -- we have to have more surveillance over these new variants.
But how important will sort of sequencing and surveillance be in this fight here?
MOSCHOS: Look, testing is the way out of this. There is no two ways about it. There is a lot of discussion at the academic level about which way of testing is best. I won't engage into that right now. It is worth trying as much as possible.
We have seen from South Korea and China actually that testing is critical to identifying where we're going and who has the disease, whether they are symptomatic or not. And if we want to reopen the economy, we have to do it in a safe manner that prevents transmission.
We have to support the people who test positive, get them out of the way, help them through their isolation period so they have no issues paying their mortgages and supporting their families.
And then when they come out the other side, if they can return to work with a lower risk to everybody else. I think that is where we need to focus our effort.
How do we support the society and the communities to be able to stop themselves from transmitting?
Right now we have individuals who basically can't afford to stay at home. And as a result of that, they are perpetuating transmission. We can come up with ways -- the physics don't change on this -- on how to stop the virus from transmitting.
But if you cram people inside settings that are not supposed to be crammed and they are not well ventilated and then people just relax and they start touching each other, maybe there is a hugger going around the water bottle, or something along those lines, transmission will happen.
So that is the thing that is critical here. Looking at how we support people to prevent transmission. Yes, the vaccines are great but we're not 100 percent sure yet that they stop transmission. So let's rely on what we know works.
BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. We're out of time but thank you so much for that, Sterghios Moschos of Northumbria University, thank you very much for your insights.
MOSCHOS: You're very welcome.
BRUNHUBER: Investigators examining the deadly events at the Capitol January 6th are taking a close look at extremist groups. And they say that there were military veterans among the insurrectionists. More on that after the break.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back.
On Monday, Democratic leaders will set the wheels in motion for former president Donald Trump's impeachment trial. Majority leader Chuck Schumer says the trial will commence on February 8th. But a conviction isn't guaranteed, obviously, since at least 17 Republicans would have to join the Democrats for a guilty verdict.
Meanwhile, thousands of National Guard troops might stay in Washington through March due to fears of unrest. Defense officials say there is ongoing chatter about violence during the impeachment trial and Mr. Biden's first address to Congress.
Authorities investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol say that they are now focused on extremist groups that participated in the attack. This makes the investigation more complicated, since members of these groups tend to hide their identities and involvement.
But authorities say they expect to make hundreds of more arrests on top of the 125 people already detained.
Three members of the militant anti-government group Oath Keepers are facing charges in connection with the riot. They were detained earlier this week. And all of them are former members of the U.S. military. Here is Sara Sidner.
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SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is striking just how many people are former veterans who are now accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol.
RIOTERS: USA! USA!
SIDNER (voice-over): They came to Washington, trained in warfare, wearing combat gear, forming a line, marching up the Capitol steps and then used their training against the U.S. Capitol.
These three Americans are some of the first to face the most severe charges in the attack on the Capitol, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding and violent entry or disorderly conduct. All three are U.S. veterans.
Sixty-five-year-old Thomas Edward Caldwell served in the Navy. Fifty- year-old Donovan Ray Crowl is a former Marine.
This is Crowl inside the Capitol building on January 6th.
DONOVAN CROWL, CAPITOL RIOTER: All the way in the Capitol.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're in the (INAUDIBLE) Capitol.
SIDNER (voice-over): The person who popped up behind him is Jessica Marie Watkins. She served in the Army as Jeremy David Watkins. On January 6th, the former Army veteran riled up her troops in person and on a social media site, Parler.
"We stormed the Capitol today."
Watkins is a member of the Oath Keepers, an extremist anti-government group. She also started her own self-styled militia in Ohio.
We wanted to know more about these Americans, now charged with attacking the democratic transfer of power they claimed to support. So went to their towns. It turns out Watkins runs a bar with her partner in the village of Woodstock, Ohio. SIDNER: I spoke with a neighbor who lives down the street from this bar, who didn't want to be identified. But he told us that this is the watering hole for this town of about 300 people.
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SIDNER: And that, when you would go to get your beer, Watkins would often try to recruit you to her militia.
He said most people didn't bite. But we know at least one person did because he was in D.C. with Watkins and they were both arrested.
SIDNER (voice-over): That person was Donovan Crowl, who lives just down the street from Watkins's bar.
MONTANA SINIFF, WATKINS' BOYFRIEND: She's not a violent person.
SIDNER (voice-over): Montana Siniff and Watkins run the bar. The two live upstairs, where the FBI showed up last week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The shots woke us up and the yelling because they were on the microphone yelling, "It is the FBI," and to come down. And it was crazy.
SIDNER (voice-over): It was flashbangs, not gunshots; the blasted-out window remains broken. Only Siniff was home and says he was questioned and released. Watkins later turned herself in.
SIDNER: What was her plan?
SINIFF: She was supposed to help protect some VIP members within the Trump rally.
SIDNER: There are people calling her a traitor.
How would you describe her?
Is that fair?
SINIFF: That's very much an unfair statement. She would never try to dismantle the Constitution.
SIDNER: So you don't see this as an insurrection or sedition?
SINIFF: It was illegal and those people involved do need to take their lumps but it's --
SIDNER: Including Ms. Watkins?
SINIFF: For what -- if she is found guilty of anything, then she will have to take the consequences of that.
SIDNER (voice-over): Siniff also knows Crowl and says he joined Watkins self-styled militia.
SIDNER: What's he like? SINIFF: When drunk, the guy you want to shut up; when sober, the best man you could have.
SIDNER: You came to the bar, so you saw him both drunk and sober.
SINIFF: That's how I got that barometer and the militia was a good thing to help him -- a reason to be sober.
SIDNER (voice-over): Crowl has been convicted in Ohio for drunk driving. His mother told CNN by phone that, a couple years ago, her son said they were going to take over the government if they tried to take Trump's presidency from him.
His mother said she didn't think much of it until January 6th happened.
About 400 miles away from Woodstock, Ohio, near Berryville, Virginia, is where Thomas Caldwell lives.
THOMAS CALDWELL, CAPITOL RIOTER: Every single (INAUDIBLE) there is a traitor. Every single one.
SIDNER (voice-over): That is Caldwell at the Capitol, calling legislators "traitors." Caldwell was a delegate to the Clark County Republican Convention last year. In Washington, D.C., authorities say he was a co-conspirator with Crowl and Watkins in the assault on the Capitol.
SINIFF: I do not believe the charges of conspiracy are at all fair.
SIDNER: It is unclear how Caldwell knew Crowl and Watkins, but according to federal prosecutors, they were all in Washington, D.C. and Watkins was using the Zello application on her phone to both communicate and help plan the attack on the Capitol -- Sara Sidner, CNN, Toledo.
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BRUNHUBER: For many Democrats it was downright disturbing, a series of incidents this week involving Republican representatives, trying to bring weapons onto the floor of the House of Representatives. Sunlen Serfaty has details.
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SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a brazen move, some Republican members of Congress are defiantly dismissing Capitol Hill security meant to keep the U.S. Capitol safe.
Capitol Hill police are now investigating Republican congressman Andy Harris after the congressman tried to carry a concealed gun with him onto the House floor Thursday, setting off the metal detectors and, afterwards, trying to pass his gun to another congressman to hold it for him.
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D), NEW YORK: Why does a member of Congress need to sneak a gun on to the House floor?
SERFATY (voice-over): And also on Thursday, according to a tweet from a "Huffington Post" reporter, congressman Don Young had a switchblade on him, passing it to his wife before he went onto the House floor.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: We still don't yet feel safe around other members of Congress.
SERFATY (voice-over): Multiple House Democrats say that they feel unsafe around some Republican members. One House Democrat telling CNN the increasing tensions with certain incoming freshmen has been building for months.
This is just the latest example of Republicans not only breaching security protocols but oftentimes bragging about it.
Freshman Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert releasing this provocative video on her first day in Congress, declaring she will be bringing her 9mm Glock to the halls of Congress and streets of D.C.
REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): It is our job in Congress to defend your rights, including your Second Amendment. And that is exactly what I'm here do.
SERFATY (voice-over): And freshman Congress man Madison Cawthorn saying, fortunately, he was armed when the mob stormed the Capitol earlier this month.
Members are permitted to keep guns in their offices and carry guns on the Capitol grounds but not in either legislative chamber.
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SERFATY (voice-over): Following the insurrection on Capitol Hill, metal detectors were quickly installed just off the House floor, requiring members for the first time to walk through them to get onto the floor. The move was met with an immediate uproar from many Republicans.
A handful who outright refused to go through them ignored Capitol Hill police and just walked right onto the floor without being screened. Congressmen Mullin yelling at Capitol Hill police, "It is my constitutional right to walk through and they cannot stop me."
Congressman Andy Biggs calling the metal detectors, "Crap, the stupidest thing," and others just blatantly mocking the new security.
BOEBERT: I can tell you none of us were looking to one another saying, gosh, I hope there are more metal detectors outside.
SERFATY: And Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has proposed a rule change that would fine members who refuse to go through the mags $5,000 to be deducted from their paycheck on first offense, $10,000 for the second. And Pelosi's office tells me that they expect to vote on this rule change in two weeks when they return to Washington. But, of course, all of this speaking to the massive distrust that exists right now between members in what is already a very politically charged and emotionally charged environment -- Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, Capitol Hill.
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BRUNHUBER: And coming up --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm extremely frustrated because I tried everything out there and nothing is working.
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Why some vulnerable seniors in Florida feel like they were given false hope about the vaccine.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Plus protests in Russia in a show of support for Putin's jailed rival. Those details after the break.
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MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D-GA), ATLANTA: There are so many people desperately looking for the vaccine, people who are 75 and older, looking for that vaccine and I'm getting calls on a daily basis from people saying that they just can't find it.
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BRUNHUBER: That is the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms, talking about how hard it is for the people in her city, here in Atlanta, to get vaccinated.
Residents of Florida are also frustrated with confusing information about how to get the vaccine. As Rosa Flores reports, what is making matters worse is that thousands of tourists snapped up inoculations meant for Floridians.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Diagnosed with cancer during the pandemic, Joyce Fish is fighting for her life, isolated with her husband, Jack, in their home in Palm Beach County.
JOYCE FISH, CANCER PATIENT: My years are numbered. I'm 82 years old and I feel like I have lost a year. FLORES (voice-over): She has yet to get her first dose of the COVID-19
vaccine. It has been a year without embracing her family.
FISH: I see you, big girl, yes, I do.
FLORES (voice-over): She hasn't met their 7-month-old great- granddaughter, Dylan (ph).
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): The vaccines will be targeted where the risk is the greatest. And that is in our elderly population.
FLORES: Do you feel you were given false hope?
FISH: I do.
FLORES (voice-over): She thought vulnerable seniors like her would be first to get the vaccine in Florida. Instead --
FISH: Hi, how you doing?
FLORES (voice-over): -- she and her daughter, Sharon (ph), have been in a "Hunger Games" of sorts, using five devices to try to get an appointment.
FISH: Everything said filled, filled, filled, filled, sorry.
SHARON LASHER, JOYCE'S DAUGHTER: It's very emotional and I cry every single day about this. Legitimately, I cry. It breaks my heart. And I feel like I am helpless.
FLORES (voice-over): In Florida so far, more than 1 million people, mostly seniors, have received the first dose. Just yesterday, the state put in place a residency requirement but not before nearly 40,000 nonresidents got the shot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORES (voice-over): One woman, who documented her travels from Argentina on social media, took to the airwaves to say she got the vaccine for free and said, when she received it, residency was not required.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That really angers me.
FLORES (voice-over): Wendy Walsh says that after weeks and hundreds of calls to get her 92-year-old mom the vaccine, she drove her 55 minutes to another county near Tampa to get her the shot.
Other Floridians are having similar struggles due to jammed websites and phone lines and supply shortages. This was the case at one vaccination site in The Villages where 7,500 appointments were canceled.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we are just left high and dry.
FLORES (voice-over): This, just after Governor DeSantis had announced the site was opening.
DESANTIS: Obviously, a site like this is great for The Villages, because many people live here.
FLORES (voice-over): The company who runs it says, they didn't get doses from the state.
FISH: They're going to need to come to Florida someday, see?
FLORES (voice-over): CNN started following Joyce's journey to get the vaccine two weeks ago.
FLORES: Last time you use the word frustrated, now, what word would you use?
FISH: I'm extremely frustrated because I've tried everything out there and nothing is working.
FLORES: I do have some good news to share, Sharon, Joyce's daughter, said she was able to get an appointment for her mom. That appointment is set for Saturday afternoon. Florida governor Ron DeSantis maintains -- and he has said this at multiple press conferences -- that he stands behind the rollout of the vaccine in his state.
It is important to note, however, that Florida is not alone. We have heard similar frustrations from people across the country -- Rosa Flores, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: So happening right now as we speak, we're following the protests in Moscow and across Russia.
Supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny are demanding his release from prison. Russian authorities say that the demonstrations are illegal and they have arrested some, including Navalny's spokesperson and also the coordinator of his Moscow office.
And the foreign ministry has accused the U.S. embassy in Moscow of encouraging the protests. Navalny was detained moments after returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from being poisoned. Navalny blames the Russian government for poisoning him but the Kremlin denies it.
Some loyal Trump supporters say there is a way that Joe Biden could be a good president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think Joe Biden needs to do to be a good president?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He will have to get everyone together first. Get the whole United States together again. And I don't know that he can do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: When we come back, we'll go to a small stronghold of the former president to hear their advice. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: A small county in Texas is getting a lot of attention for having so many loyal Trump voters. So it may be a surprise that some people in Roberts County think that Joe Biden could be a good president. CNN's Gary Tuchman reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Roberts County in the Texas Panhandle.
TUCHMAN: Do you think he could be a good President, Joe Biden?
CHAD BLACK, TRUMP VOTER: Everybody has capability of being good. We'll see.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): It's a very small county, roughly 850 people live here.
VICTOR CASTILLO, TRUMP VOTER: I just tell him good luck and do what's right.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Except for the frequent freight trains. Roberts County is quiet. But it's getting a high profile. Because in the last two presidential elections, Roberts county give Donald Trump a higher percentage of the vote than any other county in America.
TUCHMAN: n this election, Donald Trump got over 96% of the vote in this county. Joe Biden received a grand total of 17 votes.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): So we asked these most loyal of Trump voters.
TUCHMAN: What do you think Joe Biden needs to do to be a good president?
GARY MCFALL, TRUMP VOTER: Well, he's going to have to get everyone together first, get the whole United States together again. And I don't know that he can do that. Because he's got too many people behind him that's against getting the Trump supporters together with him with Democrats.
TUCHMAN: You voted for Donald Trump twice. Do you think there's a possibility that you could ultimately believe that Joe Biden is a good president?
BRETT HALL, TRUMP VOTER: Yes, sir.
TUCHMAN: What would he have to do to earn that from you?
[05:55:00]
HALL: He's going to have to keep the people together and quit being so divisive.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Several other Trump voters here told us the same thing. They believe President Biden needs to unite the country, be less divisive, despite the obvious irony.
TUCHMAN: Do you think Donald Trump has been divisive?
HALL: In certain ways? Sure.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Debbie Howard is owned the family hair care salon in the county seat of Miami for almost a quarter century.
TUCHMAN: If Joe Biden walked into your salon and said, Debbie, I'd like an opinion from a Trump voter. So I'm going to vote for Trump twice. What can I do to make you like me and make you think I'm a good president? What would you say to him first thing?
DEBBIE HOWARD, TRUMP VOTER: That's really hard because I'm just go blank right now. Just try to unify this country. Try to try to, you know, listen to both sides. And in -- meet in the middle of compromise with the Republicans.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Certainly not every Trump voter we met here is willing to give President Biden a chance. Randy Massey works in the heating and air conditioning business.
TUCHMAN: So is there any chance you could see him being a good president.
RANDY MASSEY, TRUMP VOTER: No.
TUCHMAN: So you've given up on him already.
MASSEY: And I had faith in him for seven years and I'm only 44 years old.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): But others are hoping they end up being pleasantly surprised.
TUCHMAN: Do you think you could be happy with him potentially?
HOWARD: Maybe there's potential there. Yes.
TUCHMAN: There are many Trump voters here in Roberts County who are not happy with something that President Biden did in his first day of office, the president made the decision to cancel a permit that allowed the Keystone XL oil pipeline to go from Canada to the United States. Oil is a big business here in the Texas Panhandle and it did not go
over too well. However, the prevailing sentiment we heard from people here is that they are willing to give Joe Biden some time to prove himself -- or perhaps not prove himself -- this is Gary Tuchman, CNN, in Roberts County, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Well, that wraps up this hour. For our viewers in the U.S. and Canada, "NEW DAY" is just ahead. And for everyone else, it is "AFRICAN VOICES CHANGEMAKERS."
