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Live Coverage of White House Press Briefing; Justice Department Announces Second Investigation; Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 25, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On China, we just -- you just mentioned about competition (ph) and President Biden's Asia czar, Kurt Campbell, says he hopes for a stable (ph) competition. Is that what the White House is looking for? And you just mentioned about this comprehensive strategy. When (ph) can we expect on (ph) that?

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I appreciate all of those questions. I have no -- I don't have any preview for you on when we will have more specifics on our strategy. I've tried to convey overarching, the president's overarching approach.

But, again, this is a relationship that we are going to be communicating with and working with partners and allies on. Those are -- there are a number of calls that will happen over the coming weeks with key partners and allies, I'm sure this will be a topic of discussion, as well as Democrats and Republicans on the Hill. And we are going to approach it with patience.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And on the U.K., we know over the weekend, President Biden had a phone call with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Mr. Johnson said they talked about the free trade deal. However, from the White House readout, we don't see that. Does the president support the free trade deal with the U.K.?

PSAKI: I haven't talked to him or Jake Sullivan about that, I'll venture to do that and see if I can get more for you on it. Thanks, everyone.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

PSAKI: Thank you.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right, I want to bring David Chalian and Gloria Borger back in to talk about the White House briefing that we just witnessed.

There were a few headlines here. We learned that there are going to be coronavirus briefings, they are going to be returning, and we're expecting about three a week. So that's significant, I think that's something that a lot of people were relying on when the Trump administration was doing them, until they turned out to be, you know, inaccurate. These, we expect, will be accurate.

There's also the White House looking at a March deadline for the COVID relief deal, and Psaki admitting that the administration doesn't really have a handle on how many vaccines are actually available in the U.S., which is a big deal, and that right now the Treasury is -- this is sort of an aside one -- but the Treasury's looking to speed up putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill after it stalled during the Trump presidency.

Gloria, I'll start with you. What stood out?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, all of those things stood out, plus one more, which is on the COVID relief package itself, I think Jen Psaki kind of hinted that the administration is very willing to use the budget route. Brianna, you know what that means, having covered the Hill for a while. That means that they may end up going a route of just needing a majority of votes rather than a 60- vote margin, that they are talking to Democrats and Republicans .

And it seems pretty clear to me that they believe this is a very urgent matter, lots of it needs to get passed, they're not talking about dividing it up. She said they don't expect to get everything they want, this is how the process should work, she said. But it's clear to me that they are willing to use the budget as a way to get this package passed by March.

KEILAR: And what was interesting about that, David, was she was saying it's this type of tactic, budget reconciliation, it doesn't mean that Republicans can't vote for it. But the point is it's a 50- vote -- it's a simple majority threshold rather than a 60-vote threshold, so it does mean the Democrats can go, David, without requiring Republican support, it means they don't need Republicans to vote on it, it is significant.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, it moves the goalposts, right? It's something that can get done with Democrats only, versus something -- or an approach where you will be required to get some Republicans on board.

I thought it was also interesting, though, when Jen was pressed on what does unity mean? We heard this theme in the inaugural, we heard Biden talk about this notion of unity. What are benchmarks for the American people to sort of use and that the administration's using for itself to determine the success that Biden is having on this sort of unifying project in America?

One of the things Jen said was, bipartisanship is a piece of that, approaching the legislative proposals through a bipartisan lens is a piece of that project, which is why Joe Biden, going into this, does prefer to attempt a bipartisan bill here rather than just from the outset say, we're setting this up that we can go Democrats alone. That's why you haven't seen a full embrace of that just yet.

But you can hear from a lot of Democrats on the Hill, patience running thin of how long they're going to sort of let the administration just put out this idea that they can get folks on board.

And, Brianna, I just want to note, what you said about the CDC and whether or not they know how -- what sort of the quantity is of how many vaccines exist and where we are, I really do think the Biden administration, there's only so much time that you can say it's day five or day 12 or day 15 and we're getting arms around this.

[14:05:02]

On Wednesday, when those health care professionals come before cameras and answer questions about this, I think it's -- they're going to be hard pressed not to have their arms around exactly what is the vaccine situation, what is the quantity. Because I just don't think you can go too much further into the administration with the answer of we're still getting our arms around this.

KEILAR: That was -- that was Kaitlan Collins who actually asked that question, our chief White House correspondent. She's with us now.

And, Kaitlan, I mean, this is the question that is perhaps most pertinent to the lives of Americans, which is how much vaccine is available in the U.S. You heard David Chalian there, saying they can only get away with not knowing the answer to that for so long.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and I think they realize that. And so of course the initial days on the job, that's when they're first getting real access to being able to see what it was that the state of the vaccine and supplies were. We know that several officials said they were disappointed by what they were left with.

But it is raising questions because our understanding still is that General Gus Perna, who was in charge of the logistics for Operation Warp Speed, which of course was started under the Trump administration, is still around. And so there are questions about what the supply is, what does that look like.

Because you heard the new CDC director say yesterday that she does not know, which means she then can't tell state officials and local officials. And that's critical information about what exactly they should be expecting, so that is something that we'll keep following up with the White House on to find out exactly what that looks like.

It's certainly complicated, if you speak with health officials in this administration and the last one about finding out what that number is, because some of it's being shipped, some is being distributed, some is being injected. So it's a lot to get your arms around, but still a ballpark figure of clarity is what officials are going to be looking for. And so I think that's one notable aspect.

Another is she said that President Biden is not going to be attending every single COVID Task Force meeting, but she expects that he will be briefed far more regularly than President Trump was.

Of course we know, as we got several months into the pandemic, President Trump was often not being briefed by people like Dr. Fauci and others, but instead by officials like Dr. Scott Atlas, who was brought in in a special position, and Dr. Birx, who we have heard from being incredibly critical of data that the president, the last president was getting. So that's something else to watch as well.

But they will be bringing back those briefings with health officials, where they're going to be able to update us on what is going on with the Task Force. So I think David is right, maybe we can get more clarity with that. She said it is going to start on Wednesday, and so that will be updates on what the pandemic situation is looking like and how much COVID vaccine there really is in the federal government's stockpile.

KEILAR: And, Gloria, it was odd that President Trump, at the time, was a part of those kind of day-to-day briefings so much -- he clearly wanted the visibility -- so maybe no surprise that Biden's going to do that.

Now, with the Trump administration's response to coronavirus not that far behind us, I mean, I think the bar isn't that high for how well this briefing will need to go. But eventually, you know, the Biden administration is going to have to stand on its own merits when it comes to its response.

BORGER: Well, this is the first test. As we've all said, this is early days of the administration. She said very clearly, we are eyes wide open with the knowledge we were not walking into a circumstance when a concrete plan was handed to us. So we understand that. What she's saying is, look, we're starting from scratch on planning and figuring out how we can get these vaccines into the arms of people.

But the president has said he will move heaven and earth to get those vaccines into people's arms, and that is the way, early on, people will judge him. And I think he understands that, I think Jen Psaki understands that, I think his new White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, understands that, that people want to get back to life, and that vaccines are a huge part of it and they've got to figure this out and do it on a very short timeline.

KEILAR: Yes, they do. All right, thank you, everyone, for that. Kaitlan, great questions, thanks for being with us.

We're also following some breaking news from the Justice Department. The inspector general is launching an investigation into whether any DOJ official tried to interfere with the outcome of the presidential election. CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny is with us now.

What are they looking for exactly, Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, what they're looking for is really the extraordinary behind-the-scenes meetings that were taking place between a top official at the Justice Department and the president himself.

Now, we did not know this at the time -- really, in the final days leading up to the certification of the Electoral College vote -- but reporting over the weekend in "The New York Times" and "The Wall Street Journal" is really shining a light on what now the inspector general is saying he is going to investigate.

Whether Jeffrey Clark, who was the head of the Civil Division at the time of (ph) the Department of Justice, was backchanneling with President Trump, having a meeting at the White House, talking about ways the Justice Department could intervene in the final hours of the last gasp of the presidential race. So this is the second inspector general's report -- investigation that's going on into the election.

[14:10:08]

Now, this is something that could -- the reason this matters now is because of course the impeachment trial is just going to get under way in two weeks from now, so anything the inspector general finds or is revealed could certainly indicate and perhaps change the vote in the Senate for the conviction of President Trump's impeachment.

So certainly interesting that the inspector general is having the freedom to weigh in here, to look into those very bizarre meetings that almost led to a Saturday Night Massacre at the Department of Justice, when all of these top officials in the department were threatening to resign if Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, would have been dismissed by the president.

KEILAR: And you mentioned the House will deliver the single article of impeachment to the Senate. What pressure at this point in time does what we're seeing at the DOJ put on Republicans? Any? I mean, would this change any minds as they look to whether to convict or not?

ZELENY: Brianna, it's hard to imagine really any other information that could come forward that is not, you know, already on the minds of these Republican senators who are going to be jurors. I mean, they know what the president said and they saw all this with their own eyes. So the reality is, at least as of now, this is shaping up as essentially a political vote.

I mean, is there the stomach or the will to convict the president? And there are a lot of outside pressures happening on these Republican senators. Many simply just want to move on beyond the Trump era.

The question is, if you know, they actually want to convict him, he couldn't run for office again. But it's very hard to imagine that 17 Republican senators would come forward to vote to convict based on what we know now, even based on what we can imagine finding out. But this is at the heart of, you know, the redefining, if you will, of the Republican Party.

And we saw, you know, really some shocking news earlier this morning on Capitol Hill, Senator Rob Portman, a Republican of Ohio -- really a longstanding, well respected -- I guess we would call him a moderate in some respects, but very much a conservative, he says I'm out, I'm not running for re-election in 2022. So he is now one of three sitting Republican senators who are not running for re-election in 2022.

So this is all impacting, you know, this entire discussion over the rebranding, if you will, of the Trump Republican Party as we move beyond the Trump era. Is it still Trump's Republican Party? As of now, it absolutely is. It's one of the reasons that Rob Portman, this senator from Ohio, says, look, I'm out. You know, there's just no room here to do actual work, it's become too partisan.

KEILAR: Yes, may be the Trump Party but it's getting smaller, is what we've kind of seen --

ZELENY: Right.

KEILAR: -- it's contracting as well. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much for that.

And now, the 10-figure attempt to crack down on conspiracy theories. Election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems is suing Rudy Giuliani for $1.3 billion for defamation. Dominion accuses President Trump's attorney of constantly pushing baseless fallacies that pushed the, quote, "big lie" on election fraud.

Giuliani's lies, the lawsuit alleges, include saying that Venezuela controls Dominion and that Dominion stole votes. Dominion says the loss to its reputation is immeasurable and ongoing as Giuliani continues to refuse to retract any of his false statements.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM CLARE, LEGAL COUNSEL, DOMINION: He knew from the outset, the complaint alleges, that there was no evidence that the election was rigged. And that's why even Mr. Giuliani didn't make those claims in court, but he made them on television and online, where they would do maximum damage to Dominion but face minimal scrutiny.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Giuliani says that he'll counter-sue. He said, quote, "The amount being asked for is, quite obviously, intended to frighten people of faint heart. It is another act of intimidation by the hate- filled left wing to wipe out and censor the exercise of free speech, as well as the ability of lawyers to defend their clients vigorously."

Joining me now is CNN contributor John Dean, who was Richard Nixon's White House Counsel, and he was a key witness in the Watergate investigations. He also co-wrote the book, "Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers."

You know, I wonder what you think about Rudy Giuliani's defense there. He's saying that this is a sort of left-wing attempt to silence him. But this isn't the left wing, this is Dominion Voting Systems.

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. No, it's a very weak public response. He doesn't deny that he made any of his statements because he can't. The complaint, which is 107 (ph) pages of really all of his charges, false charges against Dominion, is imposing. And I'm sure he wishes he hadn't said all the things he had said, but now he's got to deal with it. And claiming it's a left-wing attack just doesn't work. KEILAR: And so right now, Dominion is suing Rudy Giuliani, they're

suing Sidney Powell, who of course is another Trump attorney. And this is what the lawyer for Dominion says about if it's going to sue former President Trump.

[14:15:08]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARE: We're certainly -- we're not ruling anybody out. One of the things that you've seen from Dominion is that they've been very careful, taken a very evidence-driven approach to these lawsuits -- it's why we've laid out so much detail in both of the complaints that we filed. And we're looking at everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: If they're suing Giuliani and they feel like they have the grounds to do it, in your view, considering what Trump said, would they have the grounds to sue Trump? And if they're not, then why not?

DEAN: It's possible that they could be -- Trump could be sued. There is a case from the Nixon era called Nixon v. Fitzgerald, where it -- the Supreme Court ruled that a president doing any of his official acts has total civil immunity regardless of what he says, unless he does some egregious violation of the law in that act.

But the question is, did Trump defame or attack Dominion in a way that's clearly outside of his official functions? Campaigning would be outside his official functions, so I'm sure they're -- I haven't seen a lot of the Trump charges, I can no longer search his Twitter feed so that's not available to look at. But obviously they're looking at Trump and there could be a basis for a lawsuit, yes.

KEILAR: So I want to turn now to this story. The president reportedly trying to remove acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in order to put in place a Justice official Jeffrey Clark who would be willing to file lawsuits to overturn election results in specific states.

And the reason that this didn't happen is that then-President Trump would have faced the resignation of multiple senior leaders at the Justice Department. We just learned that the inspector general for the Justice Department has launched an investigation into this.

I mean, upon finding this out, what did you think?

DEAN: Well, I was delighted to see that Michael Horowitz had started an inspector general investigation because it's extraordinary that a middle-level attorney at the Department of Justice was negotiating and dealing directly with the White House, and contrary to the policy of the Department of Justice. So there's going to be some ramifications for this.

Now, Mr. Clark has not been terribly forthcoming under than to deny some of the press accounts, so we don't really know what he did and when he did it, nor the full sequence; it's pretty much all hearsay out there right now. But that'll get sorted out.

And as your earlier segment with Jeff went on, this could influence the impeachment trial. It is evidence that shows the president's state of mind, his general effort to try to reverse the election, his -- we have the information about Georgia.

It's understandable why Justice didn't do this, they really had no case to bring. He couldn't force them -- the lawyers there -- to file a suit they know would be thrown out by the Supreme Court and maybe get the -- a reprimand from the Supreme Court for even filing it. So this was just nonsense that Trump was pushing. But, again, it shows his desperate effort to try to reverse the election.

KEILAR: And the politicization of the Justice Department for sure.

DEAN: Yes.

KEILAR: John Dean, thank you so much for being with us, really appreciate your perspective.

DEAN: Thanks, Brianna.

Next, Republican Senator Marco Rubio is now calling the idea of a second impeachment trial for President Trump stupid, the same man who once touted the role of Congress in holding people accountable. We will roll the tape on that.

[14:18:51]

Plus, the White House mentioned those COVID variants, so we'll talk about what we're learning about how deadly they are and how one hospital is under quarantine because of a particular strain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The Republican Party has long tried to claim that it has the monopoly on valuing law and order, but when it comes to seeking accountability for the siege on the Capitol, they're instead looking the other way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): I think the trial is stupid. I think it's counterproductive. We already have a flaming fire in this country, and it's like taking a bunch of gasoline and pouring it on top of the fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Florida Senator Marco Rubio doesn't want to hear about an impeachment trial, he doesn't want to know what responsibility Donald Trump or his Republican allies in Congress bear for their roles in inciting the violence on the symbol of American democracy.

He would like to move on from the insurrection that resulted in at least five deaths, including at least one Capitol Police officer and the injuries of many more officers who protected Rubio and other lawmakers from the violent mob. Move on, he says, for unity.

But historically, Rubio has valued accountability insofar as it's a political weapon to use against Democrats. Here's what he said about the attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans including two Navy SEALs and Ambassador Christopher Stevens, an event that occurred while President Obama was in the White House and Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: This is not about politics, this is about accountability. Someone needs to be held accountable for what's happened here. But it's also about preventing this from happening in the future.

This is not about hurting anybody politically, this is about getting to the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: But Rubio's perspective on accountability changes more quickly than the weather on a Florida afternoon.

[14:25:06]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: You know, some of them unfortunately are adherents of conspiracy theories, others got caught up in the moment and the result was a national embarrassment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Caught up in the moment. That's what he says.

Prosecutors are now charging some of these rioters with conspiracy, they're saying that these groups planned and plotted this, that they arrived dressed for war, many of whom said they came because the president told them to. And it was only after that riot that Rubio piped up to say that then-Vice President Mike Pence could not overturn the election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: Many of those in that mob were believers in a ridiculous conspiracy theory, and others were lied to, lied to by politicians that were telling them that the vice president had the power to change the election results.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: But Rubio fails to mention another group of politicians, those who stood idly by, silent in the days and weeks leading up to the breach -- like him. He didn't publicly counter this lie until after he was whisked away to safety in the Capitol and it was too late. He didn't contradict Trump when the president told supporters that he would win the presidency if Mike Pence comes through for them. TEXT: The Miami Herald: Rubio waited until after Capitol attack to

say politicians lied to Trump rioters

KEILAR: Now, we reached out to Senator Rubio today, there was no response yet. But when the "Miami Herald" contacted him for a reason why, he had no comment, his office had no comment.

Marco Rubio is not alone though, as he takes a pass on holding President Trump accountable. He finds himself in the same place as Republicans who voted to overturn the results of a Democratic election, like House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), MINORITY LEADER: A vote to impeach would further divide this nation. A vote to impeach will further fan the flames of partisan division.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Understanding where Kevin McCarthy stands at any one moment has been harder than traversing California's grapevine in the winter. He has swerved from lane to lane and back again since the riot, careening more clumsily than a runaway tractor-trailer.

Remember, before the Capitol siege, he had challenged the election of Joe Biden in the courts, in Congress and also on TV. And he refused to acknowledge that Biden was president-elect until the riot, when he realized then that the game had become real.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCARTHY: The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters.

I don't believe he provoked, if you listen to what he said at the rally.

I also think everybody across this country has some responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: You do you, Leader.

And like Rubio, Kevin McCarthy incessantly pushed Benghazi investigations. Unlike Rubio, McCarthy said the quiet part out loud, that it wasn't so much about accountability as politics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCARTHY: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I agree --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That was a whoopsie-daisy, and McCarthy admitted as much.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCARTHY: Well, that wasn't helpful. Yes, I mean, I could have said it much better. But this Benghazi committee was only created for one purpose, to find the truth on behalf of the families for the four dead Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He values finding the truth on behalf of the families of dead Americans, unless it isn't politically prudent for him, even as he struggles to figure out what is politically prudent for him.

And then there's Lindsey Graham.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): You talk about unifying the country. If you do not stand up against the impeachment of President Trump after he leaves office, you're an incredibly weak figure in American history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So it's weak, he says, to pursue accountability for an attack on U.S. soil at the U.S. Capitol against a Congress certifying the outcome of a democratic presidential election.

Weak, says Lindsey Graham, who is usually a hawk, who was all for Congress holding people to account after an attack on a U.S. compound not too long ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: I consider this a major national security failure that you could see coming, that no one's been held accountable for yet. And that to have accountability, you have to have information.

Why can't we talk to the people who were attacked, and hear from them what happened in Benghazi? If that's too much for Congress to ask, God help us all. And this reluctance and unwillingness and refusal to allow the Congress to talk to the people who were on the ground during the attack will not stand.

[14:29:52]

And we're asking something that's reasonable, and we're demanding action, not because we're Republicans, but because the nation needs to know how these people died.