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White House Chief of Staff: COVID Relief Bill Gaming Momentum on Capitol Hill; Judge Scolds Riot Suspect Who Sat at Pelosi's Desk, Denies Him Bail; GameStop Soaring Again After Trading App Eases Controversial Ban. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired January 29, 2021 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[09:32:12]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: We are standing by for a briefing at the White House, but we are expecting questions on President Trump's COVID relief bill.
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain now expresses confidence saying the bill is, quote, gaining a lot of momentum on Capitol Hill.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Let's go to our Jeremy Diamond. He's at the White House with more this morning. That would be a significant turn if they think they've got enough to maybe get this on a bipartisan basis. I wonder what has changed to get that, right? More targeted payments. What is it?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, here's the reality. More than a week into the White House's push for this $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, we haven't gotten any indications from any Republican lawmakers that they are willing to sign on to a package of that size. Despite that, though, the White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain saying yesterday that he believes he is seeing momentum building on Capitol Hill.
Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RON KLAIN, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: It's hardly dead in the water. I think it's gaining a lot of momentum on Capitol Hill. We've been here seven days, and I think we've done more to advance the bill in seven days than any administration in history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIAMOND: Now he's right. This legislation certainly isn't dead in the water, and the White House is signaling that they would prefer a bipartisan deal. President Biden himself has said that repeatedly and sources have told me the White House is willing to pare back that $1.9 trillion price tag, but the question right now is whether they are willing to bring it down far enough to get any Republican support in the Senate. And as of now, it appears more likely that the White House would be, and Senate Democrats would be able to pass this using that budget reconciliation process along partisan lines than actually being able to get a bipartisan deal.
But we'll have to see. The White House is continuing to make this push, and significantly, they are also pushing to get in line all of the Democratic caucus. Yesterday, the Vice President Kamala Harris doing local TV and newspaper interviews in the states of West Virginia and Arizona where Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are two critical Democratic moderates who support the White House needs to pass this even for that budget reconciliation process.
HARLOW: Yeah, that was interesting to see her there for sure. Jeremy Diamond, thank you very much.
A federal judge comes down hard on those accused of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The chief federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled one of the suspects, Richard Barnett, will stay in jail, no bail for him, as he awaits trial.
SCIUTTO: He's the man putting his feet on a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office during the violent insurrection.
CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider joins us now from Washington.
Jessica, this judge was blistering --
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.
SCIUTTO: -- in his criticism of the rioters, the insurrectionists, I suppose we should call them.
SCHNEIDER: That's right. This judge is often outspoken, but Judge Beryl Howell really unleashed yesterday and she really poured into the January 6th insurrection.
[09:35:03]
It's really the first time that we're hearing a federal judge comment on this Capitol attack.
So, here's part of what she said: This was not a peaceful protest. Hundreds of people came to Washington, D.C., to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. We're still living here in Washington, D.C., with the consequences of the violence that this defendant is alleged to have participated in.
So, she really got into what happened on January 6th. Now, what's interesting here, she also denied a decision by a federal magistrate judge to release Richard Barnett on bail. She ordered him held in jail pending a trial here and pointed to some of the evidence from prosecutors saying that Richard Barnett himself had bragged to reporters about putting his feet on the desk, leaving a nasty note, in his words, for Nancy Pelosi and prosecutors also point to the fact they have receipts from a stun gun they say he bought and may have brought with him to the Capitol.
Now, this is all coming at the same time the acting chief of the capitol police, Yogananda Pittman, she is calling for more permanent fencing around the capitol, and, guys, we also have a memo from the acting house sergeant at arms talking to lawmakers telling them to continue remaining vigilant and saying they'll get stepped up security at airports from TSA. So, a lot going on at the capitol.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, these warnings are harrowing. Clearly, they're concerned about the safety of members of Congress. Giving them money for bulletproof vests.
Jessica Schneider, thanks very much.
HARLOW: Thank you, Jessica.
Well, ahead for us -- they had young, healthy husbands and then COVID took all of it away. Coming up, four young widows reflect on their stunning loss and the legacies their beloved husbands leave behind.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm thankful I have the boys. Yeah, because ultimately, I have a piece of him here with me. They're half of him. So I got lucky that they're here with me.
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[09:41:03]
HARLOW: Welcome back. Every morning, Jim and I tell you about the rising number of COVID infections. We tell you about the rising death toll. But what we all need to remember is that these numbers aren't just statistics. They are people who had lives and families.
This is the story of Whitney, Pamela, Christina and Diana. They are all young widows, and they are all trying to navigate a new life as single mothers while they endure the isolation of COVID. But an unexpected letter brought these women and hundreds more together.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just always carried on this, like, light into a room.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Frank was like a huge teddy bear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was going to take me to a lighthouse on our sixth anniversary, but it was a total surprise, and I didn't even find out about it until he had passed away.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just -- he made me a better person.
HARLOW (voice-over): Whitney, Pamela, Christina and Diana have never met but they've had to welcome each other to a club none want to be a part of. WHITNEY PARKER, LOST HUSBAND TO COVID-19: He called me and he was
like sobbing, and I've never heard my husband cry. And he just said he's so scared.
HARLOW: Their husbands, all young, only in their 30s or 40s, are all now dead.
PARKER: I just remember going, I just got a call two days ago. He was doing better. Why did it all happen so fast?
HARLOW: These are the women COVID has left behind. The widows left to pick up the pieces after the pandemic shattered their world. They are also all mothers. Strong for their children and kept strong by them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just loved being a dad. That was his biggest joy of his life.
HARLOW: I just wonder where you find that strength, Pamela.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I know that martin would want me to be happy and live my life, I kind of think about that every day with the kids. They are running in the huge yard that our house has, and that was what he envisioned when we bought this house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He did everything from take her to the zoo to take her to the little gyms. I never had to ask him to help me with anything. He thought the floors weren't clean, he'd just sweep them.
PARKER: He sounds amazing!
HARLOW: Diana's husband Juan was taken to the hospital in the middle of the night. He never came home. For their 5-year-old daughter Mia, it changed everything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She tells me, I'm afraid something is going to happen to you. I'm afraid you're going to die. And so she, you know, she just can't go to sleep.
PARKER: I just remember calling her in the room and i, you know, I was crying, and she was just like, what's wrong? Is daddy okay? I was just like, daddy passed away. He's not going to come home.
But she is so much like her dad. So logical. Like, well, you know, daddy's not here, but I don't think he wants us to be sad all the time. And I am like, yeah, that's true. How are you teaching me about grief?
HARLOW: Kristina Scorpo's husband Frank died on Easter Sunday. Their baby boy was just six months old. His older brother Francesco not even 5.
When Christina read that Pamela Addison had lost her husband Martin to COVID, she put pen to paper and wrote to a woman she'd never met about a grief she knew all too well.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She knows exactly how I feel, and I know how she feels.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I felt so alone after martin died. So I thought I was the only young widow. And you really weren't hearing the stories about the young people dying. When I opened up her card, I think one of the first things she said is, you're not alone.
And at that moment, the weight of feeling alone was like lifted because now there was someone else who understood.
[09:45:03]
HARLOW: Because of that letter, Pamela started the Facebook group young widows and widowers of COVID-19.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's my inspiration for why I decided to do it.
HARLOW: It became a place for Diana Ordonez and Whitney Parker to go after their husbands Juan and Leslie died quickly from COVID.
You, Diana, called Juan the other half of my soul. How do you cope with that now with Mia and with your little girl?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, I try to remember while he's still here what he would say to me in certain situation. There's this empty silence where his words would once be, you know. I don't know if it's coping, but I just kind of let myself feel that.
KRISTINA SCORPO, LOST HUSBAND TO COVID-19: I'm thankful I have the boys. Yeah, because ultimately, I have a piece of heaven here with me here. They're half of him. So I got lucky that they're here with me. And I'm forever grateful for that. It's part of my life, is them. He was the one who gave them to me.
HARLOW: A shared grief, but without a shared embrace, able only to comfort each other through the cold, hard screens of their computers.
PARKER: He was only here for 31 years, but he really did so much in those years.
HARLOW: As the months pass and the world keeps moving on, these four women are left with their acute pain accentuated by their isolation.
DIANA ORDONEZ, LOST HUSBAND TO COVID-19: For weeks after he passed, I would wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, and I would reach for my phone thinking I missed the call. I missed the call from the hospital. And then you realize, no, you know, he already passed. You have to like tell yourself the story again.
HARLOW: But alongside their profound grief is their deep belief that each of their husbands is looking down on them.
Anything you want to say to them?
ORDONEZ: Everything I do every day is to honor him.
PARKER: I'm so glad to have spent the last 11 years of my life with him.
SCORPO: Every time I hear him say dada, it's like sitting on the couch having a cup of coffee.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you for Elsie and Graham. They're my sunshine.
HARLOW: Their healing is only beginning but at least they now know they're not alone. Separated by a pandemic but connected by their collective grief, they persevere.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW (on camera): I was so struck, Jim, speaking with these women. Especially because when I asked the first question, tell me about your husband, they went on and on and on for like ten minutes each pause I think they wanted to show me the full lives that their husbands lived, even in such a short period of time. And they just -- they opened my eyes to so much and to this profound grief for people of all ages in this crisis.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, I think they just want -- they don't want them to be forgotten, right, and it's sort of a reminder, that number on the side of the screen, 433,216, folks just imagine that's a statistic. Of course, it's not. They are real people with real loss.
HARLOW: Yeah. And you remind us of that every day saying these are people, not statistics. And they are young people dying from this pandemic. And they, those women and all who have lost are in our hearts for sure.
SCIUTTO: For sure.
HARLOW: So, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
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[09:53:27]
SCIUTTO: Well, markets are back open and once again there is no stopping GameStop stocks, again surging as the trading app Robinhood facing backlash after banning purchases by small investors yesterday.
HARLOW: And what's so interesting, Jim, is that after that ban, for just regular investors, they raised a billion dollars.
Christine Romans is here with how this is developing and exactly what is happening right now as the CEO of Robinhood is out there doing the rounds defending this move they're reversing it morning.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, trying to explain why they had to -- why they have to put the restrictions on, because, look, the stock was moving so violently, some of these stocks, that they have to make sure they have enough capital in reserves and cash requirements there. And this morning, Robinhood has a list of restrictions for the
companies. AMC, the movie theater chain, you could buy only 115 more shares, BlackBerry, 65, GameStop only 5, KOSS, the headphone maker, and Nokia.
Interesting, there is two kind of themes here in terms of the online group of amateur traders taking on Wall Street. On the one hand, they're buying up companies that have been in the targets of short sellers and so they are crippling the short sellers. On the other hand, they're also talking up stock that's are nostalgia plays. So those are the two themes.
I'm seeing from the SEC just moments ago, by the way, issuing a release telling Friday that there is extreme stock price volatility has a potential to cause rapid and severe losses for investors and that could undermine confidence. The SEC also saying that it's closely watching the platforms that are restricting transactions, trying to make sure they're doing so fairly and they're not disadvantaging any particular group of traders, guys.
[09:55:11]
HARLOW: Christine, just -- your message for everyone going into this weekend. I mean, I just don't want anybody to lose their shirts on this, especially not experienced folks.
ROMANS: No. This is all buyer beware. This is a game, guys, that's just kind of playing played out. And I know somebody who -- a friend's son who made $20,000 on two days in GameStop and paid off his student loans, woo hoo, great for him. But come on, I mean, at late in the game when you -- this is frothy, this is gambling, not investing at this point.
HARLOW: Yeah.
SCIUTTO: Yeah. The losers stories far outnumber the winners in these things.
ROMANS: Yeah.
SCIUTTO: Christine Romans, thanks very much.
Ahead, a White House briefing just moments away as the nation discovers a new variant of COVID-19. There is the podium there. We'll bring it to you live.
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