Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Senate Defeats Motion on Constitutionality of Impeachment Trial; Senators Sworn in for Trumps Historic 2nd Impeachment Trial; Oregon GOP Falsely Calls Capitol Siege "False Flag" Operation; Judge Temporarily Blocks Biden's Plan to Halt Deportations; Vice President Harris Gets Second Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 26, 2021 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Now of course, we'll see what this trial will be compelling. Democrats will have an opportunity to make their case both in briefs and also when their actual trial begins on the second week of February. They're will lay out video evidence about what they see. We'll see if they bring forward witnesses. That's still under discussions. Anybody who can shine a light on Donald Trump's thinking.

So we'll see if anything can change and what else is learned through the course of the next couple of weeks, but at the moment you're seeing a Senate Republican conference overwhelmingly still siding with the former president despite their own concerns. They are pointing to process concerns about this trial overwhelmingly. They don't believe it should go forward, and this early vote indicates where the overall Republican conference is leaning at this time -- Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Yes, 45 Republicans said the entire trial that's supposed to start in two weeks sun constitutional. So it's hard to believe, Manu, that if you believe the whole thing is unconstitutional, you're then going to then flip and vote to convict, right?

RAJU: Yes, absolutely, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader's vote here is really significant because we know behind the scenes for some time, he has been concerned about Donald Trump's actions. He has privately viewed it as an impeachable offense. Today I asked him directly do you think it was an impeachable offense? He did not say, this is the first time he's answered questions since the January 6th riots, and he would not say if Donald Trump's actions were impeachable.

But McConnell is very astute. He understands where his conference lies. What the viewpoints are of his fellow Republicans. And we expect talking to our sources and talking to his allies that he most likely will side with the sentiments of fellow Republican Senators and the sentiment is don't go forward to this trial, throw it out. You can point to better reasons why they're doing it, but they are making it very clear they don't believe this trial should go forward.

So we'll see, Wolf. If anything changes their mind. But the Republican leadership on down to the rank and file overwhelmingly still with Donald Trump even as some have raised serious concerns with Donald Trump's actions leading up to the deadly riot that all of them experienced here on January 6th -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I'm sure the former president, he doesn't like the fact that there's going to be a trial, but he must be smiling that 45 Republicans said it was unconstitutional.

You know, John King, you know, one astute observer of the Senate -- we're talking about the current president of the United States, President Biden. Yesterday he told our Kaitlan Collins he didn't think there were 17 Republicans who would vote to convict.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well he has watched. He has watched during the campaign as a citizen, former vice president, now president, Republican loyalty during the Trump administration. Why would it be different now? To that math, Wolf, five, five. That doesn't even guarantee that those five would vote to convict.

BLITZER: That's right.

KING: Even if you assume, they do in the end, getting from 5 to 17 or 18, it's not only improbable, it's near impossible. It's near impossible. To your point, now they voted they think it's unconstitutional. Think about this. Pat Toomey, the Senator from Pennsylvania who voted with the Democrats there, he's not running for re-election.

There are two other Republican incumbents Rob Portman of Ohio, Richard Burr of North Carolina they're not running for reelection either, so if you're looking for any Republicans who don't have to fear Trump, right, who don't have to fear a primary challenge. Where were they? And they are staying in the Republicans.

So if those two are staying lock step. Again this doesn't guarantee that some of them won't flip in the end, but to get from 5 to 17 it raises the enormous stakes number one on the Democratic house impeachment managers. They have to enter into their prosecution understanding that is overwhelmingly unlikely they will get a conviction.

They still believe it's important for constitutional purposes, it's important for moral purposes, it's important for accountability purposes. The Democrats will continue with their case, but they have to understand that that vote just confirms the strength of the headwind the prosecutors are walking into.

BLITZER: And, you know, gloria, if the former president is now going to be acquitted, let's say he's acquitted a second time. He was acquitted during the first impeachment trial a year or so ago in the U.S. Senate. If he's going to be acquitted a second time, he could argue, and I'm sure he will, this was a witch hunt. This was fake and all of that. GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, he can argue that

it's a witch hunt, but he can't argue that what occurred was fake. Because we saw it with our own eyes. We witnessed it. The people who were sitting in that chamber witnessed it. He can argue if he wants that the Democrats were out to get him, but let me just say one thing, the acting D.C. U.S. attorney today just said that they are building towards charging Capitol riot defendants with sedition.

So the people he incited to charge that building are going to be charged with sedition, and then the President of the United States who told them, I'm going to march to the capitol with you, although he ended up going back to the White House, he doesn't get charged with anything? He doesn't get convicted of anything. He gets impeached in the House, but he doesn't get convicted of anything.

[15:35:00]

I mean, I think those are questions that people are going to ask and the United States Senators are going to have to answer. You know, you've all pointed out the political reasons for supporting Donald Trump and all of this. I mean, I think, as Jake I think said earlier, if it were a private vote, these people would say we want him gone, and we don't like what he did, et cetera, et cetera, but they won't stand up against him and they are using process arguments to make their case.

Well the people who are going to end up being in court but are not going to be able to make process arguments. Saying oh, I didn't like the process here. They can't do that. They are going to be charged with sedition, and they are going have to, you know, make their case based on whether or not they were seditious. And it looks like if this vote is anything that there's a different standard for the President of the United States.

BLITZER: And you're absolutely right. He did say in that -- in those remarks before all of those individuals began walking up Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol, I'll be marching with you, and, of course, he didn't march with them.

BORGER: He took a car to the White House.

BLITZER: We were listening to the commander in chief. We were listening to the president and he said he was marching with us, and of course he didn't.

You know, Douglas Brinkley, our presidential historian, this vote that we just saw, 55-45, 55 saying yes, it's constitutional and 45 saying it's not constitutional to go ahead and have a Senate trial of a former president of the United States. Give us your historic perspective.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, it's unlikely that two Republicans from the state of Kentucky, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell, would be on opposite pages at this juncture. So I don't think we want to overread Mitch McConnell's saying, look, that this is procedurally a big inconvenience and let's get around it. He may be different when it gets to a Senate trial.

I mean, remember this is going to be quite a display. In the amount of evidence that's going to be put on television for people to see about the President of the United States in inciting a riot or the replaying of the tape with the Georgia Secretary of State trying to, you know, turn an election and find fake votes.

I do agree the mass of evidence against Trump will have to be mammoth, overwhelming, and it's not -- there's a lot of evidence out there for easy picking already, and at the very least, Wolf, the Senate trial could serve like a 9/11 commission report or the Warren commission report. There's still going to be a lot of questions, but it's the gathering of the facts and presenting them on television that's going to at least give a chance to permanently put what some of the nefarious things Trump did after he lost the election to Joe Biden to put it -- tattoo it on a permanent record of American history.

BLITZER: Yes. That's an important point as well. And Jake let's not forgot, once again 55-45. 45 Republicans saying the entire Senate trial is unconstitutional. They lost this vote, but 45 of them said it's unconstitutional to see what happens in the course of the trial in two weeks.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: That's right. Wolf, this trial is because of the big lie that President Trump and so many supporters of his on Capitol Hill and in MAGA media pushed forward, this big lie that Donald Trump actually won the election. It's not true. There's no evidence that it's true. But they've pushed it and that's one of the reasons the crowd was incited. And now we have more lies being pushed by the Republican Party across the country.

You can file this one under offensive, absurd, revisionist history of the very attack on the Capitol, on January 6th that we all saw. It comes from a resolution passed by the Republican Party officials in Oregon, the official state party in Oregon. I'm quoting here, and that is lie what I'm about to read to you, but this is what they say. Quote --

There is growing evidence -- there isn't -- that the violence at the Capitol was a false flag operation designed to discredit Trump and his supporters and all conservative Republicans -- again, that's complete crap. This provided the sham motivation -- not true -- to impeach President Trump in order to advance the Democratic goal of seizing total power, unquote

And again, all of it a lie. CNN's Michael Warren joins us, and Michael, what's astounding here, we expect there to be nonsense in the ether, but this is coming from the official Republican Party state headquarters in Oregon, and they are not alone.

MICHAEL WARREN, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Jake. This is sort of an extreme example of something that's been happening with state and local Republican Party committees over the past four years. You might call it Trumpification, a sort of pro-Trump element, a MAGA movement element of Republicans taking over these local and state party committees. [15:40:200]

You've seen it in Arizona, in Texas and, of course, in Oregon. You know, this is not unusual to see sort of extremes of a party, the most strident voices be active in the state and local party committees. What's different, of course, is that the leader of the national party, former President Trump, has in many ways been encouraging this kind of conspiracy theorizing about the election. This reflects I think where the party is going to be for the near future even as the president is no longer president.

TAPPER: All right. Michael Warren, thanks so much. And Dana, we just saw yesterday the Hawaii GOP apologized because they had been tweeting out literally a Holocaust denier. A guy who denied that the Holocaust happened, and the Hawaii GOP put that out. We've seen the Virginia Republican Party for years now defending, you know, the cause of the confederacy and slavery and all sorts of racist ideas. It's really a virus that's infecting the Republican Party. It's a -- it's a minority of state chapters.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

TAPPER: But it's enough to be disturbing.

BASH: That's an understatement, you know, first of all, the fact that there is a Hawaii GOP is probably news to some people because you don't hear and see a lot of Republicans from Hawaii.

But look, the fact is that this is a very, very big problem, and as long has Republicans who don't subscribe to that, which is the majority -- the vast majority of Republicans keep their head in the sand and don't, you know, pull it out and denounce it, it is just going to continue to spread. I mean, those are vile examples.

We also have what happened in the Arizona Republican Party just this week where they censured or, you know, tried to punish the sitting governor, Cindy McCain and others in that state for not supporting the big lie and supporting the notion of a free and fair election. I mean, that is just -- I mean, it's not just as scary because it's not about racism and anti-Semitism, but it's against the Constitution.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and it goes back to what we were discussing earlier which is that it seems that Republicans are so eager to downplay the significance of what this insurrection was all about, and it bears repeating. They broke into the Capitol, attempted -- first of all, they assaulted and beat, and one Capitol police officer was killed as a result of it. And then on top that have they were looking for the Vice President chanting hang Mike Pence. Looking for the Speaker of the House, some of them with plans, according to court filings, to kill her,

So the seriousness of what happened is obviously apparent in the videos that we're seeing and what we saw with our own eyes. But if you listen to Republican elected officials, not just the state parties but at the federal level, it was just a couple of people who just got a little worked up, and let's just all put it behind us. It's no big deal. Let's not even worry about it. If we keep talking about it, we're just going to make these folks even more angry than they were before.

That is the foundation of the problem here is that it's being swept under the rug, something that is so serious, that is so unprecedented in American history, and they're sweeping it under the rug because no one in the Republican Party, on Capitol Hill, the state parties, wants to say we need to separate ourselves from the Proud Boys and from the QAnon conspiracy theorists and from the 9/11 truthers and the Sandy Hook truthers. No one has been willing to say that, and because of that I think those kinds of problems are just going to continue to be below the surface.

TAPPER: Yes, I wouldn't say no one. You can point to a handful.

PHILLIP: Very few, very few people.

TAPPER: Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Mitt Romney, but you can literally do it on one hand.

PHILLIP: And I think that it's really notable that, you know, Mitch McConnell is the leader of the Senate, but he is clearly following where majority of his party is. He's not taking a leadership position even though based on our reporting he knows what happened on January 6th was something that was beyond the pale.

And we should note, Wolf, I mean, this has all been led by President Trump and Ronna McDaniel of the Republican National Committee. They were pushing all this stuff, all these election lies. They were supporting the QAnon stuff. It's only natural that if you let lies become part of the mainstream of your party, other lies like Holocaust denial or this was all a false flag are just going to follow through. It's all part of the same opposition to facts -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, the false flag allegation is totally, totally obscene, and it's hard to believe that serious people would even make an allegation like that when we all saw the Trump supporters storm the U.S. capitol.

[15:45:00]

Very, very ugly. Stand by.

We have some breaking news that's unfolding right now. In the midst of all of this President Biden's efforts to pause deportations, our chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins is joining us, and our legal analyst Elie Honig is with us as well. So tell us exactly what happened -- Kaitlan.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, this is significant because it's a big effort to block one of the first early orders from President Biden on his immigration agenda, and this is because a federal judge has now put a temporary restraining order on that executive order you saw from President Biden that started a 100-day pause in deportations. Of course, all of this stemmed from a lawsuit that was filed by the

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. He's a close ally of President Trump, so of course, you'll remember seeing at White House in the last few days that he was in office and he filed this restraining order saying -- complaining about this order from President Biden saying that Texas had formed this agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, that they had to be consulted on any changes or modifications on that policy.

And so, now this federal judge who we should note is a Trump appointee has granted this temporary restraining order on President Biden's order putting a pause on deportations, so we're waiting to see what the ultimate outcome of this is going to be.

But to be clear. This is a pretty significant roadblock to President Biden's early agenda, and his immigration initiatives that he took early on in just his first few days in office. And it does speak to this effort that you see that has been the last few days which is governing by executive order and how, of course, something like this can get in the way of that.

BLITZER: That's a good point, you know. And Elie, talk a little bit about this potential -- a pretty legal significant setback for the new administration.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Wolf, this is a big setback. Essentially what the federal court has done here is put a hold on President Biden's effort to pause deportations. Now we've seen President Biden over his first few days in office issue dozens of executive orders.

And the thing to keep in mind here is the Supreme Court has told us as recently as last year the president has very broad power to issue executive orders, but it is not unlimited. The key phrase here is arbitrary and capricious. Meaning all that the president has to do is show some reasonable policy goal and some reasonable process in order to pass his executive orders, but I expect us to see all sorts of --

BLITZER: Hold on, hold one moment, Elie, the Vice President Kamala Harris is getting her second dose of the coronavirus vaccine. I want to see this and watch this.

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, BETHESDA, MARYLAND: Kamala Harris, and her husband, the second gentleman Doug Emhoff, so a warm NIH welcome to both of you. I did a little snooping about your background, madam Vice President, and learned to my delight that we have a generational connection between your mother and NIH.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes.

COLLINS: In that your mother, Shyamala Gopalan -- I hope I got close to that. Was in fact a rather well-known and distinguished breast cancer researcher.

HARRIS: Yes. COLLINS: Funded I'm glad to say by the National Institute of Health.

HARRIS: That's right.

COLLINS: Over many years, I got a PhD at UC Berkeley and worked at a number of institutions and mostly at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

HARRIS: That's right.

COLLINS: And I read one of her papers. She worked in this area particularly of progesterone and estrogen and the effects that they have both in normal development and in cancers.

HARRIS: That's right.

COLLINS: So that's wonderful that our new vice president has that kind of family connection. We are proud indeed to notice that.

And, of course, we're proud to have you here to say just a few words before you get the reason you came here, a bit of a jab, about how NIH has played such a central role in responding to this COVID crisis which sadly now has taken more than 420,000 deaths, and we are working hard every day to try to come up with ways to further limit that.

The vaccine that you are going to receive your second doze of -- based on this messenger RNA effort, was really developed initially right here on this campus in the vaccine research center which is over there a couple hundred yards. Working with our colleagues at Moderna, the company which then did the manufacturing. This vaccine research center and this clinical center were critical in designing that and doing the early phase one trials. Patients in those trial came to our clinical center, the largest research hospital in the world right here. Sometimes called the house of hope by people.

HARRIS: Yes.

COLLINS: Who come to the NIH clinical center. As I see it now, 23 million plus Americans have in fact been immunized. We're now getting about 1 million a day, and we want to see that go up even further. Thank you, President Biden, for encouraging that sort of stretch goal.

[15:50:00]

And that's not all that NIH has been engaged in. We're also deeply involved in developing and testing therapeutics, and we have made considerable progress there with things like monoclonal antibodies and also with diagnostics and new technologies to make it possible to have home testing for this particular virus which would a great opportunity especially for trying to get kids back to school.

HARRIS: That's right.

COLLINS: Which I know is a big priority. So we're really glad you're here. I wanted to recognize Dr. Tony Fauci -- he is sitting over in the corner. Amazing spokesperson, an amazing scientist, probably the best-known infectious disease doctor in the world. And it's a great privilege to have him in this organization. And he and I are spending a lot of time talking to each other over the last 13 months.

So we're really glad that we can be the one to actually host you here for your second dose. First dose, I saw, was in Southeast D.C.

HARRIS: Correct.

COLLINS: December 29th. Count out the numbers and days here. You're right at day 28. And we do believe that's important. And honored that you decided to come and visit with us. So, welcome.

HARRIS: Thank you.

COLLINS: And, please, if you would, say a few words. There's a lot of people watching the video here. Our 40,000 NIH staff are incredibly excited that you're part of our particular institution this afternoon.

HARRIS: Thank you, Dr. Collins and Dr. Fauci. I'm going to take my shot right now and then I'll speak after.

COLLINS: Fair enough.

HARRIS: So I can also describe what that experience was, hopefully an encouragement that others will get their vaccination as quickly as they are able.

COLLINS: All right.

HARRIS: So with that. And we have nurse Chan.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

HARRIS: Thank you.

JUDY CHAN, NURSE PRACTITIONER: You're welcome.

HARRIS: Shall I sit here?

CHAN: You can sit there. My name is Judy Chan. I'm one of the nurse practitioners from medical services. I just want to thank you very much for doing this. We very much appreciate you coming here, doing this for us.

HARRIS: Of course.

CHAN: I went over your medical history. Do you have any questions for me?

HARRIS: I do not.

CHAN: And is the left arm OK?

HARRIS: Yes, it is.

CHAN: And the vaccine may be a little thicker, because it's going to go in slower because it's a little bit thicker.

HARRIS: OK.

CHAN: Just to let you know. You may get an enhanced reaction from the vaccine, but that's normal. It's because your body is building immunity to the vaccine.

HARRIS: Well that's what we want.

CHAN: Yes, exactly. All right.

HARRIS: OK.

CHAN: Are you ready?

HARRIS: Yes, I'm ready. OK.

CHAN: Ready?

HARRIS: Yes.

CHAN: A little stick. OK. How was that?

HARRIS: When are you going to put it in?

CHAN: I hear that a lot. All right, we're going to put a little band- aid on there.

HARRIS: OK. It was really painless.

CHAN: Great. I'm glad to hear that. There you go.

HARRIS: OK.

CHAN: And you're good.

HARRIS: Thank you, nurse Chan. Thank you very much.

CHAN: You're welcome.

HARRIS: Thank you. OK.

COLLINS: We have helped protect your health.

HARRIS: Yes. So I've had the vaccine, and it really was painless, relatively painless. But I want to thank everyone here at NIH for all you do. As you said, wo growing up, my mother, our mother would go -- we always knew that mommy was going to this place called Bethesda. Mommy is going to Bethesda. Now we're living in California. My mother would go to Bethesda. And of course, what she was coming is she's coming here to NIH. And she was in the biochemical endocrinology study section.

She was a peer reviewer. And my mother had two goals in her life, to raise her two daughters and end breast cancer. In fact, little-known fact, my first job was cleaning pets in my mother's lab. She would take us there with her after school and on weekends and I grew up then around science in a way that was taught to me by someone who so profoundly passionate about a gift, which is the gift that scientists give to us in that their whole reason for being is to see what can be unburdened by what has been.

Their whole reason for being is to pursue what is possible for the sake of improving human life and condition. It is such a noble pursuit. And the importance of NIH is that this is about an essential function of government, which is to provide for the public health.

[15:55:00]

The work that happens here has one goal, to improve public health. And the importance of the pursuit of the work that happens at NIH. It's not about profit. It's about the people. And so I want to say to everyone who works here, I know who you are. I know what you do. I know that you work around the clock with those experiments that have to be checked on every few hours, and they don't care about what time it is on the clock.

I know the work you do and the collaboration that is required. I know the work that you do, reviewing grants because, of course, some of the most significant, scientific research has been publicly funded. That's what my mother did. She reviewed grants.

And so I have the luxury of being here at this moment on just the fifth day of our administration, coming full circle because the NIH was such a huge part of my youth, as this place that my mother went all the time and was very excited to work.

So I want to thank everyone for all you're doing. So now to the vaccine.

NIH, these scientists, these medical professionals, doing the work of pursuing what is in the interest of the public health, have been a big part of the vaccine that I just took. They, through the research, through the dedication, created something that will save your life and the life of your family and the community.

And so I want to urge everyone to take the vaccine when it is your turn. It is really pretty painless. And it will save your life. So, thanks to all who are doing this great and important work. Let's make sure everyone gets a vaccine.

On behalf of President Biden and myself, I thank you for everything you do every day. And the bottom line is that we're going to get 100 million vaccinations in 100 days and then we're going to continue to do what is necessary to improve the health and well-being of our country. So, thank you all very much. Thank you, Dr. Fauci. Thank you again. OK.

BLITZER: All right, so there you have the Vice President of the United States with Dr. Francis Collins over there, who is the head of the NIH. So she got her second dose, her second shot.

You know, John king, I think it's important, she's encouraging those skeptics out there who may be reluctant to get a shot, saying go ahead. Get the shot. It could save your life. We also saw her wearing not one, but two masks, which is also important now. We keep hearing Dr. Fauci saying, you know, the mask wearing is as important as ever, if not more so right now.

KING: More so because of the new variants, which are more transmissible, more infectious if you will. The new vice president an example there in two very important rolls. It he said, number one, where mask whenever you can. We're sitting in a studio, we're socially distanced. It's right here. It's right here. Have the mask ready and be ready to do it when you need it.

Number two, getting the vaccine. For all Americans, but also the skepticism in the African-American community because of past, historical experiments and the like. Trying to say this is a good thing to do. This will save your life. And Wolf, we're having this conversation after special coverage of the impeachment trial. The Senators being sworn in. A reminder, that drama is going to dominate Washington, especially with a two-week pause now. When the impeachment trial happens it will dominate Washington in February.

The most important test for this new administration will be what you just saw there. Accelerating the vaccine rollout, getting a handle on this pandemic. And so, if you're in the Biden administration, if you're watching at home, you're a supporter of the Biden administration, they understand that. Their job is incredibly complicated right now. But that is why they will be judged on this.

BLITZER: It's a life and death matter. It's critically important. And very quickly we have some other breaking news I want to get to right now. The investigation into the deadly Capitol riots. Evan Perez is work the story for us. Just give us the headline.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well Wolf, the U.S. attorney and had of the FBI Washington field office just talked to reporters. And one of the big takeaways is that they're working to try to bring these seditious conspiracy charges related to the insurrection on January 6th. So far, they've got more than 400 suspects identified. About 135 or so people who have already been arrested -- 150 actually is the updated number.

And they're looking now, Wolf, at not only people who went inside the Capitol, but people who were outside the capitol. They might be charged with misdemeanor charges. The question has arisen as to whether or not this is too much, whether there were people who maybe just want to the Capitol, didn't go inside, maybe the federal government doesn't want to waste time with those people.