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COVID-19 Has Killed At Least 438,452 People In The U.S. & Infected More Than 26 Million; CDC Says In-Person Learning Is Low-Risk With Right Precautions; Republican Extremists, Trump Loyalists Seize GOP Spotlight; South African Coronavirus Variant Detected In Second U.S. State; WSJ: Rally Prior To Capitol Riot Funded By Trump Donor, Helped By Far-Right Conspiracy Theorist, Alex Jones. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 30, 2021 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:28]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today, embattled Republican Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green is touting support from former President Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she needs to really quite frankly be expelled.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The small community of Sequim, Washington --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the next question is, for the mayor --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has a big question for the mayor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you publicly support QAnon?

MAYOR WILLIAM ARMACOST, SEQUIM, WASHINGTON: QAnon is a truth movement that encourages you to think for yourself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's brand new evidence that the new coronavirus variants are spreading in the U.S. Rates of illness are lower for kids who are in school than out of school.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When the protocols are followed, they work. When they're not followed is when you can have break outs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Saturday and we start with breaking news tonight.

The U.S. has now surpassed a startling number. More than 26 million people infected with coronavirus, the numbers there on your screen. Let's put that into context. That's more than double the number of people who live in Pennsylvania.

Also tonight, concern is growing about the South African variant of this virus. It has now been detected in a second U.S. state. So what does that mean for you? CNN's Natasha Chen is at a vaccine Center in Atlanta for us.

Natasha, good to see you. Dr. Anthony Fauci says the spread of COVID variants is a quote, "wake up call" to ramp up inoculation efforts. This is significant.

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, Pamela, definitely the experts are saying that you should consider these variants already in the community.

First, we heard that in South Carolina and now in Maryland. The people that we saw at our vaccine center today in Atlanta were just so excited, a lot of them getting their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. One of them saying to me, you know, I can't wait to see my grandkids and that's really a common thread we're observing.

We're also seeing that a lot of these big sites like Mercedes Benz Stadium here in Atlanta, these are large venues across the country that have sat empty for so long and are now being repurposed into vaccination sites like Disneyland Resort in California, Dodger Stadium at Fenway Park.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN (voice over): The C.D.C. says starting Monday night, everyone over two years old using any form of public transit must wear a mask, even if one has already had the COVID vaccine. It's a mandate that comes a year after the first reported U.S. case of COVID-19, a virus that has killed more than 437,000 people in the U.S.

ZORA BRENGETTSY, LOST THREE FAMILY MEMBERS: We didn't expect to lose any of them. To be honest, we all thought there were going to bounce back.

CHEN (voice over): This family lost three loved ones.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To wake up and know that he's not there, I can't call him.

CHEN (on camera): January was the deadliest month of this year-long pandemic, more than 90,000 people in the U.S. have died this month alone, and to give you some perspective, that's about 20,000 more people that could fit in this entire NFL stadium.

CHEN (voice over): The Mercedes Benz Stadium that hosted the Super Bowl just two years ago is now a vaccination site.

DR. LYNN PAXTON, DIRECTOR, FULTON COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH: We can actually get more vaccines out given the resources that we have or that are shortly coming to us. But if you don't have the vaccine, then we can't do it.

CHEN (voice over): Johnson & Johnson is expected to apply for Emergency Use Authorization for its vaccine next week. Its Global Phase 3 trial results showed the vaccine is 66 percent effective, but 85 percent effective specifically against severe disease. DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND

INFECTIOUS DISEASES: This is a single shot vaccine in which you start to see efficacy anywhere from seven to 10 days following the first and only shot. It is very, very good with regard to cold chain requirements, namely requiring only a refrigerator.

CHEN (voice over): Meanwhile, a new study suggests children are safer from the virus in schools than out of them. The author of the first detailed study of two K-12 schools said in order to reopen schools safely, they need Federal centralized guidelines and better access to testing.

Health experts are also eyeing new variants of the virus including the first domestic cases of the variant first identified in South Africa and more than 400 cases of the variant first identified in the U.K. Experts believe these variants will be more dominant by the end of March.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, C.D.C. DIRECTOR: I believe that we should be treating every case as if it's a variant during this pandemic right now.

[18:05:07]

CHEN (voice over): A pandemic that's far from over. The virus killed nine nuns in a retirement home in Michigan, all within a few weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is numbing. And we have -- I do -- a much deeper appreciation for all the other families who have gone through this, the hundreds of thousands of families and until it personally touches you, I don't care how much we can have a sympathetic heart, it is different when you've already been there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN (on camera): And it's so personal as well to the school community, especially here in the Metro Atlanta area and Cobb County, we know two educators who recently passed from COVID-19.

So there have been some difficult conversations about how to safely have kids in class. And that new study we mentioned about the kids being possibly safer in school than out of school is an interesting addition to that conversation -- Pamela.

BROWN: It certainly has. Natasha Chen, thank you. And for more on this promising study that Natasha was just talking about, one of its co- authors, Dr. Darria Long joins me. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Long, thank you for coming on.

Before we dive into the findings of the study, first off, would you lay out what makes this study credible? And has it been peer reviewed?

DR. DARRIA LONG, CLINICAL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE: Yes. So yes, it actually has been. It has been accepted at the "Journal of School Health." So has been peer reviewed. It's just waiting for publication there. And right now it's up on the preprint server. So yes.

And one thing that was really exciting about it is that this is the largest that we are aware of study where we've chronologically tested every single student and staff from August through the end of December.

So we did protocols, and then we tested eventually every week to see how well those protocols were doing.

BROWN: So the biggest takeaway from your study suggests that children may be at lower risk of infection when they're actually in school. Why is that?

LONG: So this is interesting, Pamela. And what we saw, and that was kind of our final conclusions from this is what we saw the number of cases that we had were very high each time after kids were out on break.

So when they came back in August or after fall break, after Thanksgiving, their numbers were highest. Whereas when they were in school continually, they were following these protocols and we were able to test them, we got our numbers even lower.

So we had the lowest incidence when they were continually in school.

BROWN: Well, and just to be clear, how many kids were you following?

LONG: So it was two separate schools of K through 12 schools, to get all the ages and the teachers, 2,300 at one school and about 1,300 in another, so about 3,600 students.

BROWN: So what about in those communities with extremely high numbers of new cases and deaths? Or schools that don't test as much or don't have enough PPE? Would that trend hold?

LONG: So no. So what's really important, that last point you said about not having enough PPE, what these tests highlighted were how important the protective protocols are, talking about masking for everyone at all times, maintaining smaller pods, maintaining distance and really strict quarantining measures.

We saw that those things work, and as a result, we found that for all the kids and adults who walked in with COVID, 91 percent of them never transmitted COVID. The nine percent that did, almost always did so because there was a protocol violation. So those protocols are crucial.

BROWN: And of course, one of the challenges for some schools, particularly public schools is the funding to have the space and the PPE necessary. So I think that that's important, you pointed that out.

And to be clear, you found zero cases of student to teacher or teacher to teacher transmission. Is that right? What does that indicate to you?

LONG: Well, that was very promising for us. And again, these were two schools, and our biggest goal here has been to say, how do we translate this at scale to other schools? But that's very promising to see that there was not student to teacher transmission.

BROWN: So what do you think then? In light of your findings in the study, do you think that all teachers should be vaccinated before schools reopen?

LONG: I think it would be lovely, if they could. But I think given as you were talking at the beginning, the challenges in getting a vaccine and access to that, I think there's a way to prioritize it, because I think we should be able to prioritize our teachers to get them vaccinated.

And I think that, but even if they are vaccinated, we still need to be following all these other protective protocols. So schools need to be putting that in place right now. And Pamela, the government has a very big role here. They need to make a centralized guidelines here.

Each school should not have to be figuring this out and winging it. And they need to also make testing available because right now, it's really hard to get testing and it's very expensive. It was a really tough process for us. The government can help us there to make it more accessible.

BROWN: That's a very important message, and just to sum up for parents who are confused, you had this week New Jersey reported 10 new school outbreaks, Kansas reported 19 school clusters. Earlier this month, Michigan saw outbreaks at 26 schools.

[18:10:10]

BROWN: So parents at home see these stories and then they see your report. They see the C.D.C. says it's safe to go back to school. What do you say to them?

LONG: So it's safe to go back to school when you do these things is what I say. And even in our schools, we did identify outbreaks, that one traced to an off campus party. But when you're testing and doing these things, you can identify where the outbreak is. And instead of flying blind, you can be very strategic in who you quarantine and allow the rest of the school to be in place.

That was the key point. It is that if we do these things, we can keep the majority of children in school safely.

BROWN: I know a lot of parents, I'm sure are watching this right now who want to get their kids back in school and find a bit of hope in your study's findings. Thank you so much, Darria, Dr. Long, we hope you'll come back on the show.

LONG: Thank you, Pamela. Have a great evening.

BROWN: Thank you. And coming up by the way later in the hour, I'm going to speak to Dr. Paul Offit from the F.D.A.'s Vaccine Advisory Board. He'll explain how the vaccines are faring against these new variants and when the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could be available. And let's go to the White House now. CNN's Arlette Saenz is there.

Arlette, the Biden administration says it's increasing transparency on the COVID response compared to the Trump White House. What does that look like so far?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, the Biden administration wants to make it clear that they will be transparent throughout this process during the COVID-19 pandemic. And one step they are taking is releasing weekly state specific reports relating to the pandemic.

This is a break from the Trump administration, which would not publicly release these or provide them to reporters. But what the White House has done is they will be providing a link where people can download these reports with information relating to COVID-19 and the states.

It's really just the latest step that we've seen from this White House as they've stressed that transparency will be at the heart of how they are operating. You've seen them hold these weekly briefings. They are hoping to do the three times a week with medical experts and their health officials to talk about the pandemic as they are trying to give as much information to the public as possible as this crisis continues to take hold in the country.

Now here at the White House, President Biden met privately behind closed doors with his advisers to talk about the next steps for that COVID relief package he is trying to push up on Capitol Hill.

And yesterday the President made it clear that he wants that package to be passed quickly even if Republicans can't quite get on board. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Do you support passing COVID relief through budget reconciliation?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I support passing COVID relief with support from Republicans if we can get it, but the COVID Relief has to pass. There's no ifs, ands or buts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: So the President there did not completely rule out using reconciliation to pass that COVID measure that would only require a simple majority. But one key test that that could provide for Democrats is whether they can keep their party united as they would need all 50 Democrats to sign into onto that bill if they are going to go that route -- Pamela.

BROWN: And the big question looms. At what point will the White House say all right, we're not going to get the Republican support we need, we're going to go reconciliation route?

Arlette Saenz, thank you so much. And the Republican infighting goes below the belt, Congresswoman

Marjorie Taylor Greene is telling Senator Mitt Romney to quote, "Grow a pair" as the party grapples with life after President Trump.

Also tonight, exclusive reporting from "The Wall Street Journal" how the far right conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones and the heiress to the public supermarket empire were involved in the D.C. rally right before the Capitol riot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:18:04]

BROWN: The Civil War in the G.O.P. is intensifying this evening even as it tries to rebuild. CNN is learning that Republican leader Kevin McCarthy canceled the House G.O.P. leadership meeting set for Tuesday. His office cites his travel schedule, but a source suggest to CNN it's because he doesn't want to discuss Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is a promoter of the QAnon cyber cult and election conspiracy theories.

Senator Mitt Romney is lashing out at Greene. He tweeted, "Lies of a feather flock together: Marjorie Taylor Greene's nonsense and the big lie of a stolen election." And that came after Greene tweeted about a phone call with former President Trump claiming, "The people of this country are absolutely 100 percent loyal to him," and again quoting her, "You can never beat him because we, the people have his back."

Our senior political analyst, David Gergen served four Presidents, three of them Republicans, including Ronald Reagan. David, always an honor to have you on. If you would, give us a sense of what is going on in the Republican Party in your view.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm afraid, Pamela that the Republican Party, which was the Grand Old Party, has lost a lot of its grandness. This started way back actually in the in the 1990s when the Republican Party moved right, very sharply under the leadership of Newt Gingrich's takeover of the House.

In Gingrich's time as Speaker, really, the party swung very far over to the right. And it just continued to do that. And now, it's being taken over by radicals on the far, far right. Radicals who, like Miss Greene, were just wanting to get into what they've done what they've said. You just are astonished that they are in positions of authority that they now have.

[18:20:01]

BROWN: And you have Leader McCarthy whose office says that he will be talking to her next week. What that will entail, we do not know, but he's been calling on Republicans to cut that crap out when it comes to the infighting and then he went to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago this week and Congressman Matt Gaetz, as you know, went to Wyoming to speak out against Liz Cheney to her own constituents. What does all of this say about McCarthy to you? GERGEN: Well, I think obviously, when McCarthy went to see Trump and

bend his knee and kissing a part of his anatomy, and I think that that, you know, he wants -- McCarthy is looking for long term power within the Republican ranks, and this was a move because he and Trump have differences.

McCarthy criticized Trump, of course, that is illegal in Trump's book, and McCarthy had to go down there and admit his offenses. But I want to just make sure that listeners have some sense of who Marjorie Taylor Greene is and what she represents.

I would take like an extra minute and just give some examples of what she's done and what she said.

BROWN: Absolutely.

GERGEN: This is a woman who, on after September 11, questioned whether those planes really hit the Trade Center and they were all safe. She indirectly accused Obama of being behind 9/11.

John F. Kennedy, Jr., when he went down that plane, she said that he was assassinated, by people close to Hillary. Forest fires in California, 2018, she said the forest fires started -- listen to this -- started from a laser in outer space that was directed to start those fires by a prominent Jewish family. I mean, this anti-Semitic and looney at the same time.

Parkland and Sandy Hook, the shootings in Parkland and Sandy Hook. She said they were staged by the government in order to promote gun safety laws, which of course, the far-right hated.

She has been beyond that. She has a pattern of online sports for far- right conspiracy theories, and she has argued that online that a bullet to the head of Nancy Pelosi would be a quick way to eliminate her -- a bullet to the head.

She's anti-Semitic. She has endorsed various forms of violence, and she is now the leading radical in the House of Representatives. Increasingly, the more we learn about the woman, the more it's problematic. How did she ever get elected? Why did so many Republicans throw their arms around her on the right? How is it possible that everyone in the Republican side is quiet about Miss Greene, and at the same time going after Liz Cheney who is number three in the leadership?

BROWN: David, I was just going to ask you, they are going after those who impeached Trump -- voted to impeach him.

GERGEN: Yes.

BROWN: But they're largely staying silent about people like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

GERGEN: Yes.

BROWN: What does that say to you? GERGEN: They have had in power conversations, but these were things

she did publicly. If a person says those things publicly, can you imagine what they really believe in private?

BROWN: But a lot of this obviously happened. I mean, in some ways, people who voted for her knew what they were getting with her. I mean, we all knew she was a QAnon believer, was into conspiracy theories, obviously, more troubling stuff has come out in recent days, but it's not like it's a surprise, in a sense.

GERGEN: I think you're right about some people at the top of the Republican Party. I imagine there are a fair number of people in this country who have never heard of Marjorie Taylor Greene until this controversy arose. And once people started digging into the past a little bit, you know, it was explosive.

And you know, coming from North Georgia as she does, she almost got knocked out in the primary. Some Republicans hoped that she would be knocked out of the primary. She won then easily won the seat.

But coming from North Georgia, you know, it is embarrassing. The good people of Georgia just voted these two new senators in who have been so splendidly received and represent real step for diversity.

It's hard to believe that she is from the same state, but she is, but I cannot tell you, in all my time in politics, I don't think I've ever seen this radical in the House of Representatives.

BROWN: And really, you were seeing her walk up behind a Parkland school victim after the shooting there, essentially harassing him as he is walking to meet with lawmakers.

GERGEN: Yes.

BROWN: But really quick, you have to wonder, would she have been elected had it not been for Trump in office? He lost the House in the midterms then the White House and the Senate, yet the Republican Party is banking on him for the next round of midterms. He's not even on Twitter anymore. Why does the party still feel like it needs to rely on him?

GERGEN: I think to a very large extent, Pamela, when people went home after January 6th, the congressman on the right kind of fearful from angry conservatives, angry Trumpites who thought that he had been -- that the conservatives had not been protective enough of the President and their men. You know, they really were rallying to Trump.

[18:25:17]

GERGEN: And when Members of Congress heard that on the Republican side, they cut and ran, and they capitulated to those -- to Trump and it demonstrates just as Miss Greene illustrates how radical elements of the party have come in power, the Donald Trump episode, what we've seen since January 6th just underscores how powerful Trump still is within the party, and how long lasting that poison he has injected into the system has lasted and how dangerous it is. BROWN: All right, David Gergen, thank you so much.

GERGEN: Pamela, it is good to see you again.

BROWN: Live for us there from Massachusetts. Good to see you, too. We'll see you again soon.

GERGEN: Thank you.

BROWN: And you are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. The South African COVID variant has spread to a second state, and it could impact how well the vaccines work. I'll speak to a member of the F.D.A.'s Vaccine Advisory Committee about that up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:00]

BROWN: It was exactly one year ago today that the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus as a public health emergency of international concern. Remember that day? Well, the toll it has taken on the United States seemed unthinkable at the time. We have just surpassed 26 million cases.

It took us 311 days to reach 13 million cases, but the next 13 million cases were added in just 64 days. Right now, vaccines are at work. The CDC says at least 29 million doses have been administered and more than 5 million people have been fully vaccinated. But the virus might find ways to defy the vaccine. The U.S. has already detected highly contagious variants of COVID-19 first in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil and there's even a new variant seen in California.

One model is now projecting these new variants could add 85,000 additional deaths by May. That is so troubling. Joining me now is Dr. Paul Offit. He is on the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Nice to see you, Dr. Offit.

You have Johnson & Johnson announcing its vaccine is less effective on the South African variant that was first reported in the U.S. this week. How concerned should we be about that?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, MEMBER, FDA VACCINE ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Well, here's when you should get really concerned, you should get concerned when people who've received, for example, two doses of the Pfizer vaccine or two doses of Moderna vaccine, that despite that, that they still get hospitalized or die and that the reason is, is because they're infected with one of these variants. That's when you know that vaccine's specific immunity has failed.

Now, right now if you look at the South African strain, Johnson & Johnson tested their vaccine in the United States, they tested it in Latin America, they tested it in South America - I'm sorry, in South Africa. When they looked in South Africa, they found that they had 72 percent protection against moderate to severe disease in the U.S., it was only 57 percent in South Africa, so that that's worrisome. It shows you that the vaccine immunity is less effective against this strain.

With that said, it did protect relatively well against severe disease. Meaning hospitalization and death, that's good. I mean, what you really want from this vaccine is you want it to keep people out of the hospital and keep people out of the morgue, so far that's still true. But again, we need to consider these strains and make second- generation vaccines for when they really do, if they do, ultimately resist vaccine specific immunity.

BROWN: Just really quickly, because I think it gets confusing all these different strains and where they're coming from, if you would just sum up for us how many strains there are and what they mean, how concerned we should all be about this. I mean, I just think it's just confusing.

OFFIT: It is confusing. So this is a bad coronavirus that made its debut in Wuhan in November of 2019. It immediately created a variant, the so-called D614/G variant. And that became the virus that sort of spread across the world.

It's an RNA virus. It's a bat virus. It's trying to adapt to growth in humans and when it does that, it's going to create variants. So we've had a series of variants now, the so-called U.K. variant, the South African variant, the Brazilian variant, now the California variant. The critical question is it going to create variants? It's going to create variants.

The critical question is are those variants functionally different than the original strain? In other words, are they more likely to be contagious? Are they more likely to cause more severe disease, i.e. be more virulent? And then most worrisome at all, are they likely to resist vaccine specific immunity?

People are looking closely at this, people are getting ready to include these variants in a vaccine if we need a second generation of vaccine. I'm just trying to calm the waters a little bit here. Worry when you start to see people who've gotten the vaccine, fully vaccinated but then nonetheless are still hospitalized or killed by these viruses, that hasn't happened yet.

And in fact, I think that the J & J data and again, it's top line data, we're just looking at press releases, was somewhat encouraging that you could prevent severe disease. I mean, the kind of disease that caused you to go to the hospital or to die with that vaccine against the South African strain. That's somewhat encouraging.

BROWN: But the bottom line is you're waiting for more data. You're waiting to see more about how this will impact it. January, I mentioned this 1830 [00:05:01] to you.

[18:35:03]

It's quickly turning into the deadliest month of the pandemic. The average number of new deaths is rising. People are dying more quickly, why? OFFIT: Right now, it's the worst of possible worlds, it's winter and

it's getting cold out. People are together more. There's still a critical number of people in the United States who don't wear masks, who don't social distance, who sort of just kind of bought into this cult of denialism that if we just close our eyes tightly, it's all going to go away. I think the next six weeks or two months are going to be rough. I think we could have another a hundred thousand, 100,000 to 150,000 deaths.

But there is reason for hope. I mean, we do have two excellent vaccines. We have two more vaccines like the Johnson & Johnson or the AstraZeneca vaccines that are likely to come online, we'll see. The weather will get warmer, that's good because the virus isn't transmitted as easily during humid times and more people will be vaccinated.

We have an administration that's dedicated to getting on top of this, so I do think as the months go by, things are going to get better. I'm choosing to be optimistic.

BROWN: All right. Dr. Paul Offit, I like the optimism. Thank you very much for that and hope you'll come back on soon.

OFFIT: Thank you.

BROWN: Well, the Republican Party right now deeply divided just before their standard-bearer goes on trial again. I've got the Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison here to talk about the forest fire raging on the other side of the aisle and the game plan to go against Donald Trump who's already working to flip the house in the midterms. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:33]

BROWN: Well, just a short time ago, President Joe Biden left the Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown after attending mass. It is the second straight weekend he attended church at Holy Trinity.

After Republican election conspiracies inspired a deadly coup attempt, the GOP has largely declined to condemn conspiracy-addled extremism within its own ranks. And in the case of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, she has been rewarded for such views.

This morning, she said she had a 'great call with former President Trump'. This comes as President Biden continues to lobby for bipartisanship. But looking at the trajectory of the Republican Party, when does unity become a pipe dream?

Here to discuss is the person Biden handpicked to run the DNC, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison. Thanks so much for coming on, Jamie.

Republicans rush to condemn members of their party who voted to impeach Trump, yet they have largely given Congresswoman Greene a pass. When you watch this play out, do you see this as helpful for Democrats?

JAIME HARRISON, CHAIR, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Well, listen, what we are watching right now is a complete dumpster fire. The Republicans are in disarray. They're leaderless at this point in time. Schizophrenic in some situations.

You got folks like Lindsey Graham who basically said in one breath to count him out in terms of supporting this president. In the next breath, he flew down to Texas on Air Force One. You got Kevin McCarthy who's blaming the American people for what happened at the Capitol. Then he said it was the president that was responsible and now he's kissing the President's ring.

BROWN: So do you see this as helpful for Democrats, what you just laid out?

HARRISON: Well, listen, it's not helpful for America, because these leaders are leaders who took and swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and they're not doing that.

BROWN: OK. But what about Democrats? Do you think - when you see this playing out, how do you view it from your perch as head of DNC now?

HARRISON: Well, in terms of my perch, listen, I'm trying to get more Democrats elected to office. So if these are the folks that they're putting up, yes, we're going to run people against them and run them because they're not following the law. They're not following the Constitution.

And so it could benefit Democrats in the end, but it's ultimately sad for America. And I think that's fair for all of us.

BROWN: Let me ask you this, there is often a disconnect between Biden's moderate approach and the more progressive wing of the party. How do Democrats know where the party stands on key policies?

HARRISON: We have a platform for our party and this is what I always say, listen, in the end of the day we may take different paths, but the destination is the same. How can we make sure that every person in this country can get the opportunity to live the American dream? How can we make health care affordable and accessible for all?

How can we protect the environment? How can we make sure that folks that live in rural communities on dirt roads and those who live in urban communities can get the resources and the opportunity to do what they need to do in order to be successful.

That's what the Democratic Party is all about and it's about bringing all of our factions together in order to move the ball forward.

BROWN: Well, let's talk about bringing people together because Joe Biden campaigned a lot on bipartisanship. It's been something he's talked about a lot since he's been in office. But now he's indicating he will use reconciliation if need be if Republicans don't get onboard. He's issued 42 executive orders already. These are, of course, policies that Republicans supported that he is

now returning through these executive orders. Is he actually, in your view, walking the talk of bipartisanship here or is this just lip service?

HARRISON: No, what Joe Biden is doing is he's keeping the promises that he made to the American people, over 80 million people who voted for him, who wanted to see a sea change in terms of where we were going in this country. He has gotten us back in terms of the Paris Climate agreement. He's moving forward in addressing issues like federal private prisons.

I mean, Joe Biden is doing so much in order to address the needs of the American people. He is building back better and I'm so happy that he's doing that. And I think a lot of other folks are too if you look at the latest polls.

BROWN: OK. So basically what I hear you saying is he's putting back bipartisanship on the back burner, if that means he is helping the people that voted for him.

[18:45:08]

HARRISON: No. I'm not saying that. What I said is if you look at the polls, over 70 percent of folks, Democrats, Republicans and Independents support Joe Biden in terms of what he's doing. There's one thing in terms of bipartisanship and he has a bipartisan coalition of folks who had supported him to become president and they support his policies.

The people on Capitol Hill, the folks who can't even keep their oath of office and people who allow folks like Congresswoman Greene to be in Congress right now, I don't know if that's about bipartisanship. They got a problem right now in their caucus that they need to address. Joe Biden is addressing the issues that people care about right now in this country.

BROWN: Well, it seemed as though potential issue has emerged in the Democratic Party. As you know, Vice President Harris did her first television interviews with local stations in Arizona and West Virginia to push COVID relief. And now those locations are significant. It is the home of moderate Democratic senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

In an interview Friday, Manchin says no one gave him a heads up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): We're going to try to find a bipartisan pathway forward, I think we need to, but we need to work together. That's not a way of working together, what was done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: What is your reaction to that? He's does not seem too happy. HARRISON: Well, that's the first time I've ever heard of that. But in

the end of the day, sometimes the scheduling snafus and the like it's very early on in this administration. I'm sure they will get that fixed and addressed going forward. So that's not something that I would worry about.

BROWN: OK. Jaime Harrison, thank you so much for coming on. Nice to hear from you and your perspective.

HARRISON: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: We'll do details tonight on who helped plan and pay for the rally before the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. Somebody put a lot of money to organize it and they had help from a far right conspiracy theorist. The Wall Street Journal reporter breaking this story joins me next.

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[18:51:30]

BROWN: Tonight, The Wall Street Journal has reporting on who helped organize a rally in D.C. right before the attack on the Capitol. You'll remember it was at that rally on January 6th that then President Donald Trump urged his supporters to 'fight like hell' right before they marched on the Capitol. The Journal says the rally in Washington's Ellipse was funded by a top Trump donor and aided by the far right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Wall Street Journal Reporter, Shalini Ramachandran, co wrote that story and joins us now with all of the details. Shalini, thank you so much for coming on the show this evening. Tell us what you know not just about Alex Jones' involvement, but how the heiress to the public supermarket empire and another far right activist were involved behind the scenes.

SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Sure. So the big picture we've confirmed is that a top Trump campaign fundraiser and a major Trump donor, this heiress to the public supermarkets, and the far right show host Alex Jones who has publicized, discredited conspiracy theories played key roles among a small group of organizers in arranging and funding the January 6th rally at The Ellipse where President Trump urged supporters to march to the Capitol.

BROWN: OK. So what is the significance of that? Why is that important to know?

RAMACHANDRAN: So prior to these 1850 [00:02:52] it wasn't clear who paid for the event and the Trump campaign has said it wasn't involved in the financing or organizing of it. And the hodgepodge of pro Trump groups that had put together were not known for being very well funded and the money behind it was unclear.

So what our reporting shows is that a key donor who funded the Ellipse rally was Julia Jenkins Fancelli, who's the heiress - who's one of the heiresses of the public supermarket chain.

BROWN: All right. Shalini Ramachandran, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your reporting with us.

RAMACHANDRAN: Thank you.

BROWN: It is a hunt for you would be bomber, a pipe bomber, somebody planted explosives around Washington, D.C. before the Capitol riot. The reward has gone up and there are some new clues. Stay with CNN, we have the very latest.

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[18:57:57]

BROWN: Tonight in Vernon, Texas, a family is mourning the sudden death of their young son from COVID complications. This is a heartbreaking story. J.J. Boatman celebrated his ninth birthday just a few weeks ago. His uncle describes him as an active loving little boy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GABRIEL AYALA, UNCLE: He was a loving, caring little boy. Like, every time he would see you or see any family member, he would run up and hug.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, J.J. appeared to be fine on Sunday night, but Monday morning his health began to deteriorate. And he was flown to Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth and placed on a ventilator. Doctor said his lungs were filled with fluid and his brain had swollen from lack of oxygen. Tuesday morning, the little boy's heart gave out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AYALA: She didn't know that she was going to come home empty-handed without her son. It's just hard, of course. That was her baby boy. That was her only son. We're going to miss his whole life. Going to miss his whole life. His life hadn't even started.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, J.J. is survived by his parents and two older sisters. His dad writes, name Jason, "We appreciate everyone's love and support. Please be safe and use your mask."

I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. You were in the CNN Newsroom.

And on this Saturday night with the U.S. now at 26 million coronavirus cases and counting and a domestic terror warning in effect, the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln is in civil war, tearing itself apart. The home of Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt is being overrun by conspiracy theorists.

[19:00:01]

More than three weeks after the deadly attempted coup on the Capitol, only a handful of mainstream Republicans are openly rejecting the violence.