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Dominion Voting Systems Sues Rudy Giuliani; Threat of New COVID Variants?; Stimulus Plan Negotiations; House Set to Deliver Article of Impeachment to Senate. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 25, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: This hour, President Biden will sign another executive order. If you are keeping track, he has signed more than 30 thus far in his first five days in office. This one today is aimed at strengthening the government's rules to buy American products.

But over on Capitol Hill, you have two battles unfolding that could really set the tone for the president's relationship with Republicans and his first 100 days in office.

This evening, the House is set to deliver the article of impeachment against former President Donald Trump to the Senate. Trump's second impeachment trial is scheduled to start in just two weeks, but the number of Republican senators opposing that trial is growing, as is the number of moderate Republicans pushing back against President Biden's stimulus plan, the $1.9 trillion on the line for Americans struggling financially during this pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president himself has conveyed the urgency of moving this package forward. And that's certainly something he has also conveyed privately to Democrats and Republicans.

And it's not just him. There's urgency to the American people for this package to move forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, let's start there with our chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju.

And, Manu, I know there was a call yesterday between a group of bipartisan senators. Where do things stand right now with the stimulus bill?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's going to take some time for it to come together, because in order for anything to get through the United States Senate, it's going to require 60 votes, if they go through the regular order.

So, that means 50 Democrats, 10 Republicans. And right now, there are just not 10, Republicans who are behind this $1.9 trillion package. On that call yesterday, a number of Republicans pushed back about the scope of the package, saying they needed to first assess how the $900 billion in COVID relief that was passed in late December, how that will be spent, and also a number of them saying they need to limit the scope of the relief, particularly for some of those relief checks that would be going out under President Biden's plan.

So, the Democrats have a strategic choice to make. Do they continue to try to move and try to win over some of those Republicans skeptics, or do they plan to move it on their own? And if they do move it on their own, they can do it through the budget process. And in the budget process, that can actually be approved in the Senate by a simple majority.

And that cannot be filibustered, meaning just 51 senators, 50 senators, plus the vice president to break a tie, could pass that legislation. But that process takes some time, Brooke.

It will require several complicated and arcane and legislative steps in order for them to finally get legislation through. And they would have to, of course, unite their divided Democratic Caucus to get a bill through. So it's going to take some time for this process to play out.

At the moment, the White House is signaling they do still want to get those Republicans on board. But then we will see how that courtship works out and how quickly Democrats decide to go on their own, but even that is no sure bet -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: How about just even more immediately on impeachment tonight? I mentioned that the House impeachment managers are going to walk that article of impeachment over to the Senate this evening.

Then, just procedurally, Manu, what happens next?

RAJU: Well, right away, the House impeachment manager, the lead manager, Jamie Raskin, will read aloud the article of impeachment, which charges Donald Trump with inciting an insurrection that led to that deadly riot here on Capitol Hill on January 6.

And then tomorrow, the senators, who serve as jurors, will be sworn in. A summons will be sent out to President Trump. And then, after that, it'll go quiet for about two weeks. The impeachment managers in the House will provide -- write their briefs to the jurors, who are the senators, and the president's defense team will write their own briefs.

And then the week of February 8 is when we expect the trial to begin. Now, the questions are still how long this trial will take place. Will it go two weeks, will it go three weeks? The expectation is it, will be less than three weeks for the president's 2020 -- the former president's 2020 impeachment trial. And, instead, it will maybe around two weeks or so. But we still don't know exactly. And one question, reason why we don't know exactly is the question about whether they will pursue witnesses who may testify. That could prolong things, but also could provide more insight into the president's -- then president's thinking while the riot was going on.

So, we will have to see how that plays out. And then, Brooke, will 17 Republicans break ranks, join with 50 Democrats to convict Donald Trump? At the moment, that seems highly unlikely, but we will see if things change when the trial takes place -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Seventeen, the number they need.

Manu, thank you so much, two weeks, for mid-February.

Let's talk about all of this with two political analysts.

Astead Herndon is the national political reporter for "The New York Times," and Ron Brownstein is the senior editor over at "The Atlantic."

So, gentlemen, welcome.

And, Ron, I want to start with you just on what we were talking about with Manu on impeachment. What do you think is driving the Republican decision-making on impeachment? Do you think it's a fear of losing reelection because of all the Trump supporter votes? Is it the fear of Trump and all this talk of maybe creating this third party, this Patriot or MAGA party?

Or is it that some of these Republicans really actually believe that Trump did not incite that the violence?

[15:05:00]

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't think there are many who believe Trump did not incite the violence. The connection was so obvious.

They may feel that it is inappropriate to -- quote -- "impeach a former president." But I think there's no doubt of Trump's culpability.

Look, I think the focus -- as I have said before, the focus on fear really get -- this is the point. The idea that the Republicans are deferring to Trump, as they have throughout his presidency, solely because they fear that he will inspire a primary against them, I think, is too narrow an interpretation.

The fact is that every Republican now is facing the same electoral equation that Trump has imposed on the party. Almost all of them are losing ground among white-collar suburbanites who used to vote for them, facing very bleak numbers among young people. And, as a result, they all need the Trump voters to survive.

We saw that with David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Georgia, I mean, two would have been standard issue country club Republicans in an earlier generation. And they were kind of putting on overalls, as someone said, to try to appear like Trump-style populists to gin up that turnout.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: So, they need the Trump base to turn out in enormous numbers, given the way that the party is now oriented. And that gives him leverage over them going forward.

BALDWIN: So you're saying already thinking about themselves, Ron Brownstein, as she said dripping with sarcasm.

BROWNSTEIN: I am. I am indeed.

BALDWIN: I know.

Astead, if you are Mitch McConnell, you are weighing how important it is to get Trump out of the Republican Party, right, and retake the party. You have just evidence in the form of Rob Portman saying he's not running for reelection because of all the gridlock in Washington. You have Adam Kinzinger, who on our air today was saying that he's threatening to leave the party, vs. this notion of Mitch McConnell's Republican senators being put in these precarious positions, as Ron just outlined, for reelection.

That's a lot to weigh. Where do you think he is on all of that?

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Certainly, I mean, he is balancing competing concerns here.

One is kind of his natural instinct to protect the party and incumbents. But that is made harder by the kind of problems that Trump has put them in. It is one that was evident when we look at the numbers from Election Day. Both -- there is no doubt that Trump juices a certain type of voter that Republicans need to turn out in this election.

But there is also no doubt coming that he bleeds another type of voter that they also need going forward. And so, at some points, you can see that the kind of outlook after November as one that's a really tough one for Republicans to solve, because there's the singular figure that was able to kind of play in one type of playbook, has motivated the base around a certain type of politics.

But there is no clear replacement or successor who can do the same thing. So and the Republicans are in a deep, tough spot.

But I think, when we think about the Senate, it's obvious from even the statements we hear so far, we have not heard really people say that what Donald Trump did was defensible or the kind of merits of impeachment. It is all about whether it is an appropriate thing at this time for a former president, which gives them a get-out-of-jail- free card to vote no on a technicality and gets them in the place that they want to be with their base. BALDWIN: Speaking of your point, though, about a successor, because,

Ron, this is what I'm wondering, because I know you make the argument that Republicans have really enhanced Trump's capacity to threaten them.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BALDWIN: Who in the GOP has the most power right now?

BROWNSTEIN: Still Trump, because they have put themselves in the position where he has the most power.

I mean, by failing to push back against his narrative that he -- that the election was stolen, that he didn't really lose, three-quarters of Republicans still believe that in polling even as late as out today, and that means it's harder for them to go back and argue, look, Trump led us into a dead end, he lost the House, he lost the Senate, and he lost the presidency.

Most Republicans believe it was actually stolen. And in all of that, Brooke, you see the inherent tension in Biden's approach as he starts, because he definitely, clearly wants to try to find ways to build more cooperation with Republicans.

But he's got an agenda that leans left, and he's got a party both in Congress and in the associated interest groups that are extremely dubious that a Republican Party under the thumb of Trump is going to cooperate with them on anything.

So, as Manu nailed it in his report, very quickly, on a whole series of issues, they're going to face the choice of, how far do you let this string along in terms of trying to find Republican support? And when do you use legislative tools, starting with that budget process known as reconciliation and maybe ending with it with eliminating the filibuster, when do you use those tools to try to pass your agenda with Democrats only and 51 votes in the Senate?

BALDWIN: To that point and his agenda, Astead, I want to talk about this $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, because, in running for president and in the last couple of days, you hear Joe Biden saying, hey, I work across the aisle, I want to unify the country.

People thought it wouldn't be maybe business as usual on the Hill. But then you have members who are saying, not so fast, especially when you talk to the Mitt Romneys of the Republican Party, saying, I'm not so sure I'm ready for this $1.9 trillion stimulus plan. Let's see how the last one landed among Americans.

[15:10:05]

What do you do if you're Joe Biden?

HERNDON: It's a challenge.

I think we should acknowledge the things that have changed for Biden and the things that he's coming up against. I mean, one, it is a kind of a break worth noting that the Democratic president is leaning further into the kind of big stimulus package, and not relying on kind of even the deficit hawk wing that existed among Democrats that he has kind of broken free of and kind of forcefully defended the need for deficit spending.

That has put him at odds with some of his own party, others, including Mitt Romney, that he would need for that kind of 60-vote threshold. But I think this is a position that Democrats are somewhat comfortable in. They think that they can position themselves as the party of checks, as the party of stimulus in the time of American need and struggle economically.

And they think that Republicans' position against that is one that it cannot hold. They point to things like Georgia, and saying that actually there is a coalition who is looking for this economic investment. And so the themes of unity, of bipartisanship and togetherness, it's going to be what Biden means by that.

Does he mean that he needs Republican involvement on these pieces of policy, or will he become more comfortable with kind of using legislative maneuvers to force the agenda that he says has wide and polling also says has broader American support even than our kind of 50/50 partisan divide?

BALDWIN: That's what we watch for here and then in the young days of the Biden administration.

Gentlemen, thank you so much, Astead and Ron.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Good to have both of you on.

As for COVID in this country, coronavirus cases dropping, great news, obviously, today, but deaths are also beginning to stall. But California is now lifting the stay-at-home orders. The total U.S. case count is now over 25 million. The vaccine rollout is still very rocky. Let's get into all those new pieces of information today.

Also, Dominion Voting Systems is filing this massive $1.3 billion lawsuit against this guy, Rudy Giuliani. Why they say his repeated false election claims actually hurt the company.

And a new investigation is now under way to see if anyone at the Department of Justice tried to interfere with the presidential election.

You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:37]

BALDWIN: Welcome back. you're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me. Some positive news in the coronavirus pandemic. New cases and

hospitalizations across the country are down. But several important questions remain about the nation's vaccine supply. The race to quickly inoculate as many people as possible is even more urgent now because of new variants that doctors say are more highly transmissible and possibly more deadly.

All of this is happening as more states are beginning to ease safety restrictions.

Nick Watt is our CNN national correspondent in Los Angeles, where the governor there just lifted a regional stay-at-home order.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is that more contagious coronavirus variant first found in the U.K. also more likely to kill you if you catch it?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: I'm pretty convinced that there is a degree of increase in seriousness of the actual infection which we really have to keep an eye on.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good afternoon.

WATT: Today, President Biden, hoping to slow the spread of that and other variants, reinstated travel restrictions for non-U.S. citizens coming from much of Europe and Brazil, also adding South Africa.

FAUCI: The vaccines that we have now do work.

WATT: Against these variants, although Moderna now says its vaccine works, but not quite as well against the South Africa strain. They will test if a third dose or a variant booster might help.

For now, in the raw numbers, there is some optimism, first time since mid December fewer than 115,000 Americans in the hospital with this virus. These past two weeks average daily case counts have fallen 30 percent. But the country still adding more than a million infections a week, on average, more than 3,000 deaths still reported every day, and:

FAUCI: If the variant that has greater degree of transmissibility becomes dominant, we're going to be faced with another challenge.

WATT: And six weeks since the first vaccine shot, only around 1 percent of the population double dosed. Team Biden says hamstrung by a teenage Trump hangover.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: I can't tell you how much vaccine we have. And if I can't tell it to you, then I can't tell it to the governors and I can't tell it to the state health officials. If they don't know how much vaccine they're getting, not just this week, but next week and the week after, they can't plan.

WATT: There are more disturbing insights now into how hard it was to fight a pandemic and save lives when Donald Trump was in charge.

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made. So, I know that someone or someone out there or someone inside was creating a parallel set of data.

FAUCI: There was a considerable amount of mixed messaging about what needed to be done from the top down. And that really cost us dearly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, there is optimism in the air. Tens of millions of us here in California now have a little bit more freedom. They have lifted that stay-home order across the entire state, but two things.

We all do need to carry on with the masks and the distancing, so this virus doesn't bounce back. And, Brooke, those variants really could be a curveball -- back to you.

BALDWIN: Could be a curveball. How will all these various vaccines help us against them?

[15:20:02]

Nick, thank you in L.A.

Numbers are down. States are beginning to ease restrictions, as you just heard there. But there are major concerns all these new vaccines.

Dr. Megan Ranney is a CNN medical analyst and an emergency room physician at Brown University.

So, Dr. Ranney, nice to see you.

And I want to jump in just what he was reporting out of California, that, yes, some of these cases are down. But we are hearing about these warnings about this variant. Is now the right time for California to be lifting the restrictions?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: You know, it's really tough, Brooke, because people are exhausted by the restrictions. And there's a point at which they're not going to follow them any longer.

Most of us in public health have been advocates for doing staged lifting of restrictions, as space opens up in the hospitals, as case counts drop. But that only works if people keep masking, keep avoiding those indoor unmasked get-togethers.

What I'm worried about is that they're reopening too soon. They're doing it mostly universally across the state, and we know there are some areas that are not yet ready to come out of restrictions, like Sacramento, and that they're going to see another rise in cases soon after, just like happened in the South last summer.

And we do have these new variants out there. There was the variant identified in L.A. We have the variants that were identified in South Africa and the U.K. that are just waiting beneath the surface to start spreading again.

BALDWIN: What about this massive question mark around the vaccines?

Hearing the director of the CDC saying she doesn't know how many vaccines we have in the U.S., why doesn't she know that?

RANNEY: That is the million-dollar question. I have been in conversations with public health officials and colleagues from across the country over the past few days trying to figure that out.

Back in November, many of us said the logistics aren't there. We tried to sound warning bells. And the Trump administration simply did not take it seriously. They didn't build out the data systems. They didn't build out the logistics systems. They didn't build out the playbooks for the states.

And, as a result, we don't have data. Every state is going at its own way. And we have seen what happens. We have seen people stuck on the phone for hours trying to get vaccines. We have seen appointments canceled.

And I worry that, at some point, Americans are just going to give up and not keep trying to get their vaccine.

BALDWIN: Which we cannot allow to happen. So, this new administration needs to address this ASAP.

To the point about the -- these -- what Nick referred to as variant boosters with regard to Moderna, right, there -- the Moderna vaccine is expected to protect against the variants. They are developing this variant booster that will hopefully cover you all the way around.

What does that mean, though, for everyone who's already been vaccinated?

RANNEY: So, the good news is, so far, the current versions of the vaccine seem to work about -- against all of the variants that are present here in the United States, including that variant, the B117, that was first identified in the U.K.

There is some question as to whether it will be as effective against the new variant that was identified in South Africa. But for most of us, we can see a deep breath of relief, and just keep trying to get the vaccine out, because the more of us that we get vaccinated, the greater our protection against these variants.

The piece of good news there is that Moderna has a solution. And I'm going to say, Brooke, this variant from South Africa is not the last variant we're going to hear about. This virus is going to keep mutating. We are in a race against time between vaccine administration and virus mutation.

And so we may fix the South African one, it might be OK, but the next one might not work. So, it's why we have to put such an emphasis on fixing the system and getting people vaccinated now. BALDWIN: So, to your point about the good news, the fact that Moderna is working to have this booster shot that should be able to cover us from the various variants.

Dr. Megan Ranney, thank you so much for all of that.

Rudy Giuliani is now facing a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit, after spouting several baseless conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems. Why this company says that Rudy Giuliani has damaged their business and what Giuliani has to say about that -- next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:45]

BALDWIN: Accountability may be coming for some of the people who helped promote the big lie about the 2020 presidential election.

Dominion Voting Systems is suing Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, for defamation and is asking for $1.3 billion in damages.

In the D.C. District court filing, this is what Dominion has to say -- quote -- "The harm to Dominion's business and reputation is unprecedented and irreparable because of how fervently millions of people believe the big lie."

Giuliani has responded, telling CNN the suit will allow him to investigate Dominion's history, finances and practices fully and completely.

Joining me now is CNN correspondent Tom Foreman.

And, Tom, I know that Dominion's attorneys talked to reporters this morning. What did they say?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What they said to us was, listen to Rudy Giuliani's words, dozens and dozens of times during this election promoting this lie that there was massive fraud.

So, listen:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The company counting our vote, with control over our vote, is owned by two Venezuelans who were allies of Chavez.

This Dominion company is a radical left company. One of the people there is a big supporter of Antifa and has written horrible things about the president for the last three or four years.

Dominion sends everything to Smartmatic. Can you believe it? Our votes are sent overseas. They're sent to someplace else.