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Article of Impeachment Now in the U.S. Senate; Biden Touts Unity to "Eliminate the Vitriol"; Frustration with Slow Pace of E.U. Vaccinations; Putin Forced to Deny Navalny's Anti-Corruption Report; White House: U.S. Will Approach China with 'Strategic Patience'; India Bolsters Holiday Security as Farmers Stream to Capital; Dominion Voting Systems Suing Rudy Giuliani for $1.3 Billion; Key COVID Model Projects 569,000 Deaths and 42,800 Saved by Vaccine by May. Aired 12- 12:45a ET
Aired January 26, 2021 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, 19 days after an insurrection by insurgents loyal to Donald Trump, nine Democrats walked the same halls to deliver the article of impeachment, accusing the former president of incitement of insurrection.
The coronavirus variant which is not only more contagious but now experts say more deadly and warning existing vaccines are not as effective.
And Russia is rescued (ph), why Saturday's government protesters are different and why the Kremlin should be worried.
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VAUSE: We begin with a historic night in the U.S. Congress. Democrats delivered one article of impeachment to the Senate, officially starting the countdown to the trial of the impeachment of Donald Trump, for incitement of insurrection.
Never before has a president no longer in office faced an impeachment trial; never before has a U.S. president been impeached twice.
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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: President Trump will stand trial and there will be a vote on his guilt. I hope he is voted guilty. The trial will be done in a way that is fair but with -- relatively quickly. The evidence is all out there.
Who is the witness?
The entire American people. We all saw what Trump did, we all saw what these horrible insurrectionists did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: We have more details now from CNN's Ryan Nobles, reporting from Capitol Hill.
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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The clock is now ticking on former President Donald Trump as the Senate now has the articles of impeachment and are preparing for a trial.
We're entering a phase now of preparation. The former president getting about two weeks to get his legal affairs in order. On Tuesday, the senators that will serve his jurors will be sworn in, as well as the presiding judge will take his place overseeing this trial.
This all pushing towards a February 9th, that's the day that the trial will begin in earnest and we're not 100 percent sure how the trial will take place, whether or not witnesses, for instance, will be called.
Both Republicans and Democrats have said that they are open to that idea. There's even the possibility that the senators themselves maybe called as witnesses because they were part of the Capitol insurrection which is of course at the heart of this impeachment trial.
Meanwhile, the former president attempting to put together a legal team. He did hire Butch Bowers, who is an attorney from South Carolina. Bowers is trying to hire another lawyer from South Carolina but they're having a hard time getting together a big team.
Our Jeff Zeleny reporting that in some respects these law firms don't want to be associated with the impeachment trial and in other areas they just worry that President Trump may not pay. So that's where the president finds himself right now.
Meanwhile, his close ally here on Capitol Hill, Senator Lindsey Graham, said that he spoke to President Trump over the weekend and the president echoed what many Americans are feeling about the situation, that he would just like to see this impeachment trial behind him -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, on Capitol Hill.
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VAUSE: For more, John Avlon is a CNN senior political analyst, joining me from Charleston, South Carolina.
Good to see you.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to see you.
VAUSE: Here is how some Republican lawmakers are reacting to the looming impeachment trial of one-term president Donald Trump. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: How do you anticipate the Senate -- ?
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): A post presidential impeachment has never occurred in the history of the country for a reason, that it's unconstitutional. It sets a bad precedent for the presidency and it continues to divide the nation.
CHUCK TODD, NBC HOST: Do you believe Trump committed an impeachable offense?
SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R): To begin with, I think it is a moot point because I think right now Donald Trump is no longer the president. He is a former president.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): First of all, I think the trial is stupid and 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.
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VAUSE: For a start, legally, they are all wrong. But Republicans switched gears, backing away from criticizing and denouncing Trump and making these arguments over the legitimacy of the process.
What happened here?
Why the change?
AVLON: One, Donald Trump still has a lot of muscle to flex in the Republican Party. But Mitch McConnell has made it clear that this is a vote of conscience. Republicans are hoping to make this go away.
There is no taking away the fact that Trump is the only president in American history to be impeached twice by the House. And we are in unprecedented constitutional waters.
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AVLON: But over 150 legal scholars, including many conservatives, have said you can impeach an ex-president.
In this case, it's for actions taken after the election, for inciting an insurrection. And there is an additional angle as well, which is the 14th Amendment, Section 3, specifies if someone takes part in an insurrection, they can be banned from holding political office.
That is relevant, at least given Trump's talk of running in 2024. But Republicans want to say they are above this, make a constitutional argument and hope it goes away because they don't want to take the vote.
VAUSE: They are still carrying water for Trump, right?
AVLON: Yes, certainly Lindsey Graham is. You've had other senators say that if this isn't impeachable, what is?
You already had, in the House, 10 Republicans support impeaching the president. That may sound like not very many. But it's still the most bipartisan margin for an impeachment of a president in the history of the United States on the House side.
And a lot of senators, particularly ones who are not running again or up for immediate reelection, know what Donald Trump did is just deadly wrong.
The question is, what is the appropriate censure for the Senate in the eyes of history and for precedent?
That's the question.
VAUSE: Well, here is Senate leader Chuck Schumer.
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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: There seems to be some hope that Republicans could oppose the former president's impeachment on process grounds, rather than grappling with his actual awful conduct.
Let me be very clear: this is not going to fly. The trial is going to happen. It is certainly and clearly constitutional. And if the former president is convicted, there will be a vote to disqualify him from future office.
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VAUSE: Arguing process, though, has been incredibly successful for Republicans, coming to defend Trump against the indefensible.
Why won't it work this time?
AVLON: One, because Trump is no longer president. So the political ramifications that many of them feared after an election, which he decisively lost, after he spread a big lie, arguing that he did not lose the election, after that inciting an attack on the Capitol itself, you would think many of these folks would feel free to vote their conscience.
But still, the dynamic in American politics is twisted and driven by hyperpartisan polarization. And a lot of these folks are afraid of their base, afraid of close partisan primaries. And Trump is arguing he will primary anyone who stands up against him still.
So it's a question of conscience versus cowardice, political cowardice. It's about taking a vote to denounce what you know to be wrong or finding a way out by arguing process.
I don't think the same process arguments you heard in the first impeachment will fly for a variety of reasons, despite the unprecedented nature of what we are dealing with here.
VAUSE: In other words, it's the same dilemma Republicans have been facing for the last four years?
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VAUSE: Yes. Any Senate trial which establishes directly between what Trump said and what the insurgents did on January 6th, for the prosecution, I present Exhibit A. Here it is.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are listening to Trump -- your boss.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were invited by the President of the United States.
ALBERT WATKINS, JACOB CHAZZLEY'S ATTORNEY: He loved Trump, every word. He listened to him. He felt like he was answering the call of our president.
JENNA RYAN, CAPITOL RIOTER: President Trump requested that we be in D.C. on the 6th. So this was our way of going and stopping the steal.
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VAUSE: As the defense, it will be hard to say, oh, the president was only joking and he didn't mean it.
If this gets to a Senate trial, what is the justification for finding Trump not guilty in this case?
AVLON: They will argue process, that the president is no longer in office. They'll say you cannot remove him and the Constitution didn't contemplate convicting a non-sitting president.
That said, the founders had a very expansive vision for impeachment. While they couldn't have anticipated every eventuality, this is clearly one that rises to those standards of treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors.
Indeed, as more information has come out, even in the weeks since he has left office, we very clearly see Trump taking actions to try to overturn the election, abusing the power of the president to overturn the election.
If that's not a violation of his oath to faithfully uphold the laws and protect and defend the Constitution, nothing is.
VAUSE: Great to have you with us, John, really appreciate it.
John Avlon there, senior political analyst for CNN.
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VAUSE: Well, for the new president, Trump's impeachment trial is an unwelcome distraction. And with senators acting as jurors, passing any legislation will at best be delayed. It's unlikely to help Joe Biden make good on his promise to unite the country.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Unity requires you to take away eliminate the vitriol, make anything that you disagree with, about the other person's personality or their lack of integrity or they're not decent legislators and the like.
So we have to get rid of that. And I think that's already beginning to change. But God knows where things go.
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VAUSE: Biden is also focusing on the pandemic, pushing to increase the number of coronavirus vaccinations from the official goal of 100 million doses in 100 days.
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BIDEN: I think with the grace of God and the goodwill of the neighbor and the creek not rising, as the old saying goes, I think we may be able to get that to 150 -- 1.5 million a day rather than 1 million a day. But we have to meet that goal of a million a day.
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VAUSE: And within 4-5 months, President Biden says anyone who wants a vaccine should be able to get one. He's also reinstated international travel restrictions and did not rule out passing his coronavirus relief bill without Republican support. That depends on negotiations.
For the first time the United States has detected the more transmissible strain of coronavirus, first identified in Brazil. The discovery is raising concerns from health officials who fear the variant could spread more easily and cause more infections.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If it has the capability of spreading more efficiently, likely it might actually get more and more dominant.
But we have to wait and see because we have a couple of situations. You know, we have a California mutant, that was just recognized in California. That's different than the Brazil one, that seems to be more efficient in spreading.
You have to keep your eye on all of these things. And with regard to genomic surveillance, we are really ratcheting that up a fair amount.
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VAUSE: Pharmaceutical company Moderna says its vaccine appears to protect against two other strains, first detected in the U.K. and South Africa. It comes with a warning that the doses could be less effective against this variant from South Africa. Now it's working on a booster shot targeting that strain.
Meantime, a scientific model predicting nearly 750,000 Americans will have died from COVID-19 by May 1st. Researchers say the bleak forecast does not take the new variants into account. They're expected to release new models this week to reflect the impact of those new, more contagious strains.
The United Kingdom offering to help countries without the proper resources to help identify the new variants. The U.K., where the first known variant was detected last year, says this new variant assessment platform will be able to analyze new strains.
More than half of all coronavirus genome sequences in the global database have been submitted by the U.K.
Meantime, frustration is mounting across Europe over the slow pace of the rollout of vaccinations. Details now from CNN's Nina dos Santos.
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BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Are we trying to recite in perjury --
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Boris Johnson and Joe Biden rolling up their sleeves at vaccine programs vital to ending the pandemic. But across the E.U., the slow pace of inoculation is raising concerns.
MAYOR ARIEL WEIL, CENTRAL PARIS (through translator): It's the limited number of doses that don't allow us to go faster.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): So far, Israel has covered the largest proportion of its people at 44 cumulative doses per 100, followed by the UAE and a newly Brexited Britain. By contrast, just 12 E.U. nations that vaccinated more than two people per 100.
MAYOR JEANNE BECART, GARCHES: (through translator): I'm a bit angry when I see the lack of preparation from the government. I remember our president saying we are at war, that we would do everything necessary whatever it cost.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): The E.U. has ordered almost 2.3 billion doses from six suppliers including France's Sanofi, but just two made by Pfizer and Moderna have been approved.
URSULA VON DER LEYEN, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: There will be no parallel negotiations, no parallel contracts, so the framework we are all working in is a framework of 27.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): And while the E.U. promised act in unison, powerful formations like Germany have struck their own deals with drug makers amid concerns of a supply exacerbated by a recent change in manufacturing at Pfizer. DOS SANTOS: Part of the problem is supply but part is also distribution. What the E.U. did centralize its procurement of vaccine leveraging upon its sizeable negotiating power on price. it left out the rollout of those vaccination programs to individual members and many of those countries were either unwilling or unable to put on the mass vaccination schemes you see here in London, run in many cases, with the army and the help of private pharmacies and supermarket chains.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Each country can set its own rules on who gets their injections first and when. And not all have the staff or logistical ability to get the vaccines to where they're needed.
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DOS SANTOS (voice-over): In France, where coverage has been particularly low, national bureaucracy is a massive barrier says this man.
MAYOR NICOLAS MAYER-ROSSIGNOL, ROUEN: We just need more far more transparency and direct pragmatic cooperation between the member states, the national authority and the local authorities. We don't need additional extra layers of administration. That's not necessarily in that particular emergency situation.
DOS SANTOS: With new more virulent strains claiming more lives on the continent, this is the E.U.'s best shot at beating COVID-19. But to do that, 27 countries need to get it right -- Nina dos Santos, CNN, London.
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VAUSE: In the Netherlands, police and rioters clash for the third night over COVID restrictions. Hundreds have been arrested as anger grows over a nightly curfew, the country's first curfew since World War II.
Thousands protesting on the streets to find police to demand that a Kremlin critic be set free. Coming up the new political reality in Russia.
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VAUSE: Well, in an attempt to keep his job, Italy's prime minister will resign in just a few hours. Giuseppe Conte is hoping the president will invite him to form a new government with broader backing in parliament. Conte he lost his senate majority last week when a centrist party quit the coalition over concerns about coronavirus and the economic recession.
Russian president Vladimir Putin is condemning the huge weekend protests, saying they are illegal and dangerous. But demonstrators demanding the release of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny are already planning more protests for this Sunday. CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance reports on Russia's political turmoil.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is how Putin's Russia has suddenly changed. Across this vast country, supporters of a jailed opposition leader have come out in their tens of thousands, some clashing with police, losing all fear, even as protest organizers were quickly detained.
"There's no need to be afraid. They're scared of their own people," says this opposition campaigner before she's hauled away.
Nationwide, riot police detained more than 3,500 others. And this is what has jolted so many Russians into action, not just the horrific nerve agent poisoning of Alexei Navalny in Siberia last year but also the arrest of the Kremlin critic.
When recovered, he flew back to Moscow earlier this month. The brave farewell to his wife at the airport seems to have struck a chord.
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CHANCE (voice-over): As does his latest anti-corruption expose, detailing an extravagant palace in southern Russia, alleged to have been built for Vladimir Putin, forcing the Russian president to publicly deny its implication.
"I haven't seen the whole film," Putin admitted to these university students, "but nothing about it listed there is my property, has ever belonged to me or my close relatives," he said.
Still, more than 87 million people have now viewed the investigation online, a sign of how broad the appeal of Alexei Navalny and his anti- corruption campaigning has become.
And that is a terrifying challenge to the Kremlin, now frantically casting these protests as a Western plot, a position activists say this protester, draped in the U.S. flag, was planted to reinforce the idea of a conspiracy before they ejected him.
Russian officials accuse the U.S. embassy in Moscow of actively encouraging the protest by listing the locations nationwide for U.S. citizens to avoid.
MARIA ZAKHAROVA, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON: They even used such a term as "march on the Kremlin" before the protest started.
So on Friday, was that an instruction, was that a motivation?
Who knows?
CHANCE: Was it a warning, because the embassy put that statement out, to warn America of places not to go?
ZAKHAROVA: Absolutely not, no, no, no, because those who organized that protest never mentioned the march on Kremlin.
CHANCE (voice-over): It seems like a desperate attempt to distract from the very real crisis now unfolding on Russia's streets -- Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.
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VAUSE: CNN national security analyst Steve Hall, former CIA chief, in Tucson, Arizona.
It's good to see you, welcome to the show.
STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Thank you.
VAUSE: There's been some key images from these demonstrations over the weekend, like riot police standing almost days while being pelted with snowballs, caught off guard by that.
Then police in full riot gear, who charged by these young protesters in another instance, they also seem to be taken off guard by that. Simply by the ferocity of the protesters there. Some pointed to this as signs that these protests are substantially different from previous anti government demonstrations.
Do you agree?
If so, what does it mean?
HALL: Yes, I do agree that with. I was in Moscow for the 2011 protests, which were different, not as emotional perhaps. Importantly, they weren't behind a specific oppositionist like Navalny.
This time, you're seeing, I think a, much more of an uprising in terms of an emotional response, as your correspondent was saying previously, to the arrest of Navalny after the government attempted to poison him.
So yes, this is different, I think that's one of the reasons why Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin are so much more concerned this time. They're taking really unprecedented actions and acting in ways that we really haven't seen before.
They're very worried and Putin I think is personally fearful of the situation.
VAUSE: It's coming from all angles. There was that documentary released last week by Navalny's anti corruption foundation. Putin's mansion by the sea, this palace on steroids, it had a spa, a hockey rink and it was incredibly opulent and obviously a sign of where billions of dollars had gone. Obviously Putin denied any involvement.
This documentary is being seen as motivation for many of the protesters. Also at the same time, Navalny's group organized demonstration in more than 100 cities across the country.
At this point is Putin being outplayed by Navalny? HALL: Well, we will have to see if he's outplayed. But Navalny and his supporters and really the Russian people have upped the ante and have upped the game. Certainly, I would agree with the assessment that Navalny is playing a three-dimensional chess game. He actually made the film about the palace on the Black Sea, Putin's palace, before he was arrested.
So this is all part of a plan and Navalny is really thinking this through. His organization is really doing things that is giving the Kremlin fits. And of course Navalny's individual braveness and that of his wife, Yulia, is remarkable as well. So yes, I think this really has the Kremlin back on its heels. And it has them doing the things that we've seen them do so traditionally. Oh, it's a Western plot. Oh, the Americans are paying for it.
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HALL: No, of course it's not mine, says Putin, because his standard procedure is to deny everything.
VAUSE: "The New York Times" published an op-ed by Alexey Kovalev from Meduza, a Russian news outlet.
He finished with this conclusion, "Crackdown and coercion are no longer enough to discourage Russians from protesting. According to sociologists who studied Saturday's demonstrations, at least 42 percent of all participants were first-time protesters.
"Mr. Navalny has clearly struck a chord well outside his regular circle of supporters. The Kremlin, its room for compromise limited, is likely to respond with further escalation."
If he is right, what does that look like and does that sort of crackdown just lead to further unrest and more protests?
HALL: Yes, this is the totalitarians' problem, their conundrum.
Do you crack down harder and risk more of a pushback?
Do you leave Navalny in jail and make him a martyr?
Do you kill him and make him a martyr or do you let him go free and let him continue his pretty sophisticated attacks on the regime?
But I think one thing that is lost on a lot of Western viewers -- and if you read Russian history, you'll see it -- the tradition that Vladimir Putin comes from, a KGB background, a Czechist (ph) background, these things go all the way back to Stalin and even earlier, back to Lenin.
So the ability of the Russian government to use its special security services and intelligence services to repress and kill people is really unmatched. These are the people who created the gulag, these horrible death camps that killed Russians.
So we have yet to see the beginning of significant repression inside Russia. There are entire segments and units inside Russian intelligence dedicated to nothing more than monitoring and disrupting dissident activity inside of Russia.
So we haven't seen that yet. I'm afraid down the road we'll see some really aggressive repression coming out of the Kremlin.
VAUSE: I guess this could get a lot worse. Steve, thank you, Steve Hall there in Tucson, appreciate it.
HALL: Sure.
VAUSE: When we come back, how the Biden White House plans to deal with Beijing. How will it differ from the turmoil of the Trump years?
Plus live to New Delhi on one of the biggest public celebrations of the year We'll have the latest on protests by tens of thousands of farmers.
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VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody, thank you for staying with us. I'm John Vause.
The U.S. House has formally delivered an article of impeachment against former president Donald Trump to the Senate. The trial will not start until February 8th. Trump is accused of inciting insurrection for his actions leading up to that January 6th riot on Capitol Hill.
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U.S. President Joe Biden says the country is track to pass its COVID vaccination goals; could soon administer one and a half million shots a day.
Drug maker Moderna claims its vaccine could offer protection against the variants first found in the U.K. and South Africa, but when it comes to another strain first spotted in Brazil, which has been detect in the U.S. for the first time, that is a different matter.
Well, President Biden has signed an executive order to boost U.S. manufacturing, saying it will help rebuild the backbone of America. The White House says the order will create more oversight and transparency for the government to buy American rules (ph), and sets a six-month deadline for regulators to deliver on those changes.
The Biden White House says the U.S. will approach China with strategic patience, after President Xi Jinping offered increased global cooperation on Monday.
The White House says Beijing has engaged in conduct that hurts American workers. President Biden believes the U.S. needs to hold China accountable for unfair and illegal practices, especially in the field of technology.
CNN's Selina Wang has more.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., do solemnly swear.
SELINA WANG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The U.S.- China technology war likely won't end under a Biden presidency. Biden may take a more nuanced approach than Trump to diplomacy, but the tech rivalry will likely intensify. Concerns over how Chinese-made technology can be weaponized for surveillance and hacking.
Plus, allegations that Beijing steals American tech may persist. So will the battle supremacy in 5G, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and space.
BRIAN DEESE, DIRECTOR, U.S. NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: China is our most serious global competitor, and this competition is going to be one of the central challenges of -- of the century.
WANG: Trump set into motion the decoupling of the two economies, slapping tariffs on Chinese products, blacklisting top tech companies, banning popular Chinese apps.
In his final weeks in office, Trump attempted to cement his tough on China legacy. He signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese apps, including tech giant Ant Group's Alipay and Tencent's WeChat Pay.
He slapped restrictions on China's smartphone maker Xiaomi and a top chip maker, cutting them off from U.S. suppliers.
He also barred investment in Chinese businesses with alleged military ties.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We may be banning TikTok.
WANG: It's unclear if these orders will be implemented. His previous efforts to ban TikTok and WeChat have been halted by legal challenges in U.S. courts.
(on camera): Experts say Biden may reverse some of Trump's most recent actions against Chinese tech, but the key difference in Biden's approach will be his multilateral strategy and investments at home.
Biden's campaign included a $300 billion investment in technologies like artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and 5G.
(voice-over): Gone are the days of Trump's unilateral brinkmanship.
SCOTT KENNEDY, SENIOR ADVISOR, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: We may see a refined, modified approach to protecting America's technology crown jewels, in particular, greater expansion of coordination, collaboration with our allies in Europe and Asia, who face the same types of challenges with China and technology.
WANG: Trump's attempts to cut off China's tech giants showed Beijing how vulnerable it is to the U.S.
Regardless of Biden's approach, China is doubling down on its strategy to become a self-reliant technological power. It's clear that this tech cold war is here to stay, a costly battle for both sides of the Pacific.
Selina Wang, CNN, Tokyo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: It's Republic Day in India, and authorities have increased security around celebrations in New Delhi.
The annual display of troops, military hardware, and colorful floats began a few hours ago in the capital, but there are thousands of angry farmers there, as well, arriving on tractors and by foot, protesting government reforms which they say cost them and only helps financially big business.
CNN's Vedika Sud is in New Delhi with the very latest.
There were some plans to allow these farmers to take part, actually, in the day of celebration: 19,000 tractors. So what's there to say? How did it go?
VEDIKA SUD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good to be with you, John.
In about an hour from now, we're going to see those tractors rolling into the national capital region of New Delhi, where currently, like we mentioned, the 72nd Republic Day parade is on.
Highly ironic: on one hand, you have the parade rolling out, and on the other, you have these farmers, over 150,000 of them expected in the capital city today of India, where they are peacefully protesting against three controversial new agricultural laws that we've been speaking of since the 26th of November.
They've been on the ground, especially in three (UNINTELLIGIBLE) areas near Delhi, for over two months. In the cold, all by themselves. Of course, the fear of the pandemic looming large, because there are about 100,000 of these farmers who have stayed put there for over 60 days.
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So yes, in about an hour's time from now, they're going to be rolling out their tractors. We're expecting more than the 5,000 tractors that has been allowed by the Delhi police.
This is going to be a logistical nightmare, as well, for the police in the area, because on the one hand, you have the VIPs in central Delhi, who are commemorating Republic Day. On the other, you have hundreds of thousands of these farmers rolling out their tractors and making their way into Delhi.
Now, we do know that at least 11 rounds of meetings have taken place between the Indian government representatives and representatives of farmer unions. But no headway yet.
Yes, the government has yielded in the last meeting. They did mention that they're ready to put these laws on hold and suspend them for about a year and a half, and that's the maximum they can go to.
But the farmers have rejected that proposal, as well. And today, we're going to see quite a few of them on the roads of Delhi. Unprecedented visuals will be coming in soon, as well, of them being there. And we're expecting another rollout of the protests in Delhi by the end of this month -- John.
VAUSE: So very quickly, Vedika, you know, with those negotiations, a couple rounds of negotiations between the farmers and the prime minister essentially going nowhere, they're hoping that this display, this parade of tractors will up the ante. How does that work? How will that be more effective, if you like?
SUD: Well, it's a short strength, really, John, that they're trying to, you know, propose and show and display as I speak with you. Right now, they are moving out of the border areas. They're waiting to get the go-ahead to roll into Delhi, which is in about 45 minutes from now.
So yes, this is a way of showing their strength and a symbol of strength to the Indian government, saying, Hey, we're not going anywhere. We've been here for the last two and a half months. We're going to stay here, come hail, come storm, come winter. Which, you know, the temperatures are really, really low right now in Delhi, and they have also claimed quite a few deaths over the last two months in these border areas of farmers.
So that's the show of strength that they're displaying today, and they're really going to be very, very clear and determined to go ahead with these protests in the coming days. Because the government has yielded and said that this is the maximum we can do. Farmers aren't happy. Well, that's where it stands as of now -- John.
VAUSE: Vedika, thank you. We appreciate the insight. Vedika Sud --
SUD: Thank you.
VAUSE: -- in New Delhi.
Well, still to come, actions have consequences. And Dominion Voting Systems, much aligned by Trump and his allies, says Rudy Giuliani, among others, now owe the company, big-time, for a big lie.
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VAUSE: An election tech company at the heart of baseless conspiracy theories by Donald Trump and his allies is now suing Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, for defamation, seeking more than a billion dollars in damages.
Dominion Voting Systems says Giuliani pushed a big lie about its machines somehow being a part of widespread voter fraud, and the company's reputation has suffered irreparable harm.
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JOHN POULOS, CEO, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS: The actual calculation of the $1.3 billion is a -- is a legal calculation, and we will -- we will play that out in court. But if I could trade our reputation back from November 1 and go back before these false accusations were logged against us and our employees, I would do that in a heartbeat.
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VAUSE: And as CNN's Tom Foreman reports, Giuliani is not the only one facing legal jeopardy.
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RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: This Dominion company is a radical left company. One of the people there is a big supporter of Antifa.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Dominion Voting Systems, the case against Rudy Giuliani comes from his own mouth.
GIULIANI: The company counting our vote, with control over our vote, is owned by two Venezuelans who were allies of Chavez.
FOREMAN: Through dozens of falsehoods on television, radio and the Internet --
GIULIANI: It is not made up.
FOREMAN: -- the lawsuit says former President Donald Trump's lawyer knowingly pushed blatant lies about the company.
GIULIANI: One of the experts that has examined these crooked Dominion machines has absolutely what he believes is conclusive proof that, in the last 10 percent, 15 percent of the vote counted, the votes were deliberately changed.
FOREMAN: Dominion's $1.3 billion lawsuit against Giuliani follows a similar suit against attorney Sydney Powell, who also promoted Trump's false claim the vote was rigged.
THOMAS CLARE, ATTORNEY FOR DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS: People believed this lie. People believed the statements that were made by Giuliani. They were motivated to take action in the real world.
FOREMAN: Dominion says the deception spurred deep mistrust of the voting system; could cost the company a fortune; and triggered threats against its employees. Giuliani says the massive suit 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."
TRUMP: Dominion, nobody even knows who owns it. These machines are controlling our country. So it was rigged election. It was really a sham and a shame.
FOREMAN: Still, Trump and his supporters enjoyed a great deal of free speech when they were trashing Dominion, again, without a shred of proof to back their false claims.
MIKE LINDELL, FOUNDER/CEO, MY PILLOW INC.: The biggest fraud is the Dominion machines.
FOREMAN: So, Dominion attorneys say, they are looking hard at FOX News, OAN, Newsmax, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Rush Limbaugh, "The Epoch Times" and more, as the company contemplates its next legal moves.
(on camera): What's more, Dominion is hoping to learn, through the process of discovery, whether these attacks on the company were coordinated and at what level. That could open up more targets for lawsuits and potentially make all that free speech a lot more costly.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: Well, after four canine-free years, the White House is once again home to not just one first dog but two. The president has two German Shepherds, Champ and Major, both officially arriving on Sunday.
Major is the first rescue to live at the White House, adopted from a shelter back in 2018 and now enjoying his new bed, apparently, by the fireplace.
One source described the energy from the new first family as, quote, "The residence has life in it again."
Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. WORLD SPORT with Patrick Snell is up next, and I'll be back in about 15 minutes.
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