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Democrats, Trump Defense Team Reveal Impeachment Pre-Trial Arguments; Protests Build as Moscow Court Sends Putin Foe to Jail for 2.5 Years; Task Force Announces Direct Vaccine Shipments to Pharmacies. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired February 02, 2021 - 13:00   ET

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

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): But when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other.

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[13:00:11]

JOHN KING, CNN INSIDE POLITICS: Very powerful. Thanks for spending your time with us today. I hope to see you back here this time tomorrow. Brianna Keilar picks up our coverage right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN RIGHT NOW: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar, and I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

We are following breaking news in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. The pre-trial briefs from both sides are in and they lay out their strategies ahead of next week's trial.

The Trump team filed their 14-page briefing last hour denying that he incited an insurrection and calling the trial unconstitutional. They write, quote, the constitutional provision requires that a person actually hold office to be impeached. Since the 45th president is no longer president, the clause shall be removed from office on impeachment is impossible for the Senate to accomplish.

Now, the House impeachment manager's brief was a lot longer. It was 80 pages. And their strategy focuses more on President Trump's, quote, betrayal of historic proportions and the threat that he poses to the Constitution. They say, the president is singularly to blame for the insurrection writing, quote, it is impossible to imagine the events of January 6th occurring without president Trump creating a powder keg, striking a match and then seeking personal advantage from the ensuing havoc.

CNN's Chief Domestic Correspondent Jim Acosta joins me now. And, Jim, I want to start now with the Trump team. They were very concise here in comparison. They appear to have come to, what, a compromise with the president on whether to focus on the constitutionality or the stolen election. JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Brianna. And I think it boils down to what the president's advisers have been saying for weeks now, that his speech on January 6th, while some may view it as incendiary, and it certainly was, that it's protected speech. And that is essentially the argument that they make throughout this brief that was filed in response to what the House managers are alleging.

They are also saying, as you're just mentioning a few moments ago, that you can't constitutionally remove a president from office who is no longer in office. And that's essentially what's at stake in the Senate impeachment trial.

But let's show you some highlights from the Trump impeachment team, his defense team. This is from Bruce Castor and David Schoen. It says, it is denied that the phrase, if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore, had anything to do with the action at the Capitol as it was clearly about the need to fight for election security, in general, as evidenced by the recording of the speech. That references an infamous quote from the president during that speech on January 6th when he says, if you don't fight like hell you're not have a country anymore.

We can move on to the next one, Brianna, and talk about that one. This one says it is denied that the 45th president engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States. The 45th president exercised his First Amendment right under the Constitution to express his belief that the election results were suspect.

And so that gets to that compromise you were just mentioning a few moments ago, Brianna, that, essentially, the president wanted to say that, you know, he believes this election was stolen. He wanted his lawyers to argue that. The first team of lawyers that he had evidently did not want to make that a focal point of their defense of the former president. But it is included in this response from the Trump impeachment team.

Now, the House managers anticipated a lot of these arguments from the ex-president. We can put up what they're alleging in their document, in their brief before the Senate. It says, the framers of the Constitution clearly intended for the impeachment process to reach former officials. This goes straight to the heart of the president's impeachment team's defense, that you can't impeach and remove from office a president who is no longer in office.

And these arguments go on to say, Trump is personally responsible for the violent attack on the Capitol. He was impeached while still in office. The case for trying him after he has left office is stronger than any of the precedents.

And I think, Brianna, there's another key point that the Democrats, the House managers, make in these allegations against the former president. They say there is no January exception to the Constitution when it comes to whether or not you can be impeached and removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors. And what these Democrats are saying, and what they're going to say in this impeachment trial is that if inciting an insurrection at the Capitol does not qualify for a president to be impeached and punished in a Senate trial, then what does?

And what you're seeing throughout this Trump impeachment defense document that we just obtained in the last hour is that, you know, they don't believe you can constitutionally do this.

Now, I've talked to Trump advisers over the last 24 hours, they feel that's the best defense for the ex-president, that constitutionally, you just can't do this.

[13:05:08]

They point to the fact that there are dozens of Republican senators who are in the Republican Senate caucus who agree with that analysis. They're trying to hang their hat on that in part because, Brianna, they know all too well they don't want this to get bogged down in the Senate impeachment trial in terms of an argument over whether or not the election was stolen from Donald Trump.

That is what he believes, just about everybody else in the world believes that that is not true or knows that is not true. And so that is why you're seeing it sort of slipped in there in this Trump impeachment defense document that we just saw. It is not by any stretch the main focal point of what the Trump impeachment team is arguing but it is in there.

And I do think it is worth saying, as we said so many times, that, obviously, what the president is saying about the election results of 2020 is just a huge lie on his part. There's nothing to substantiate it. But, of course, his impeachment lawyers would not be able to probably stay in the good graces of the ex-president had they not tried to make that argument somewhat in this brief that was filed today, Brianna.

KEILAR: That's right. Jim, thank you so much for walking us through that. We certainly have a big week ahead of us.

I do want to bring in CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former federal prosecutor Laura Coates, and also with us is former U.S. attorney, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman.

Laura, to start with you here, the House impeachment managers are pushing against the Trump team's major defense claim that the trial is unconstitutional. Do you think that they made the case, their case in these briefs?

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think they did. It was very thorough, very holistic and it also pointed to the specific instances of presidential value going back as far as the 1700s to actually say how long ago the Senate was trying former representatives, talked about this being a vindication of the First Amendment, not somehow the infringement of it or the exercise of cancel culture run amok, talking about the link directly between his statements at the rally during perhaps the insurrection and afterwards and what the conduct actually was.

They made a very key point of anticipating exactly what the defense would say, which is to have a procedural off-ramp of saying, hey, procedure stops us from having a former president. I think they're pretty much obliterated that. But, of course, we're not in a criminal court where cooler heads and common sense is the requirement to exercise and evaluating the claims.

KEILAR: And, Harry, the president's lawyers are arguing that the president has a right, that he has a First Amendment right to question the election results. They wrote, quote, insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that 45th president's statements were accurate or not and he, therefore, denies they were false. I wonder what your response is to that argument.

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: So it's a complete red herring, and as Laura says, this isn't a criminal trial. You can commit all kinds of impeachable offenses with speech. He has no right to First Amendment. It's not as if, in a criminal trial, they're coming after him. There's many ways including here when things he says could be impeachable offenses.

So it's a very -- the whole brief is very thread bare, 14 pages to 80 pages. And it's not even -- doesn't even have arguments. This is the sort of compromise they tried to reach with him. It's written like an answer to a state trial where it just says, well, we deny this or we deny that. They are outgunned hugely in every way except where it probably matters, which is the bottom line vote.

KEILAR: That's a very good point, Harry. And, Laura, House managers also wrote, quote, President Trump insists that his constitutional offenses were perfectly acceptable and so the precedent set by a failure to try him would pose an astronomically greater threat to the republic. What do you think about that?

COATES: This is essentially their argument that addresses what American people are saying after that vote of 45 senators saying, hey, we're not even thinking this is constitutional. We don't want to go forward at this point of last week.

They're wanting to respond to the notion that this is an exercise in futility. And it simply it's not, because if they are going to cede all of their power as a co-equal government to exercise oversight regardless of whether it ends in conviction or not, then they have subordinated themselves and are no longer co-equal branch of government who could be easily imperiled, as they wrote in our code of impeachment by a future president.

So they're concerned about the deterrent value, of course, for future abuse to power but also about the deterrence of future branches of government looking at them down their nose and saying you've got no power here. They're exercising it and trying to give the information they can.

KEILAR: We're going to be seeing perhaps the major witness, Harry, being the cameras, right? Because when it comes to evidence, the House impeachment managers plan to use video and there's a lot of it.

[13:10:03]

President Trump's Lawyer, David Schoen, thinks that is a bad idea. Let's listen.

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DAVID SCHOEN, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S IMPEACHMENT LAWYER: Does this country really need to see videotapes? We know now apparently that Mr. Swalwell and the other managers tend to show videotapes of the riots and people calling in, people being hurt. Police officers talking, why does the country need that now? We would stipulate that there was a riot that went on that day. It was a tragedy. President Trump has condemned violence at all times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: What do you think about him saying there shouldn't be video?

LITMAN: Yes, it's a common kind of defense claim, oh, we will stipulate. There has to be video. That is the evidence. And the fact that everyone saw it and they were victims only makes it more vivid. Plus, there is video from many different directions that tend to show more clearly than others that one little line they rely on, go peacefully, in fact, this contradicted by everything he did including after.

If this were someone who really had unintentionally let these forces loose and was horrified, he'd, of course, then would have done everything to tamp it down right away. Instead, he's silent for two hours, and by many accounts, he is sitting back delighted.

So the video -- and it couldn't be clearer what happened. And, of course, that's going to be the centerpiece of the evidence.

KEILAR: And we are awaiting certainly what will be a very visual trial. Harry, thank you so much. Laura, thank to you as well.

LITMAN: Thank you. Thanks.

KEILAR: As Donald Trump's second impeachment trial nears, there is one senator who led the charge to challenge the Electoral College count and enthusiastically threw his weight behind multiple efforts to undermine the democratic presidential election and is now trying to cleanse himself of the stain of those actions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): President Trump's rhetoric, I think, went way too far over the line. I think it was both reckless and irresponsible because he said repeatedly, and he said over and over again, he won by a landslide, there was massive fraud, it was all stolen everywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz now says Donald Trump crossed the line. But before insurrectionists attacked the Capitol in a deadly siege that cost at least one Capitol Hill police officer his life, Cruz didn't seem to mind the, quote, reckless and irresponsible rhetoric from the president. In fact, Cruz joined in speaking to voters in Georgia in early January, just days before the Senate runoffs there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: I am inspired. Each of you look around, the men and women that are gathered here, you are patriots just like the patriots gathered at Bunker Hill, just like the patriots gathered at Valley Forge, just like the patriots who forged this nation. The men and women gathered here and across the state of Georgia are fighting for the United States of America.

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KEILAR: Fighting for the United States of America. I know it sounds familiar, because we also heard that rhetoric a few days later on January 6th right before Trump supporters tried to pay Ted Cruz and his colleague a visit with flexi cuffs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

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KEILAR: Cruz, on his recent revisionist history tour, went on to criticize Planet Trump for failing to produce evidence of these baseless accusations of a stolen election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: That evidence, the campaign did not prove that in any court.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

CRUZ: And to make a determination about an election it has to be based on the evidence. And so simply saying the result you want, that's not responsible. And you never heard me use language like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Never heard him use language like that, he says. Well, remember, this is Senator Cruz who signed on to a Texas lawsuit that challenged the election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Senator Cruz, who former President Trump wanted to front the lawsuit before the Supreme Court, if it had ever made it before the justices, it didn't, of course, because the court tossed it out, this Senator Cruz calling out Planet Trump for baseless claims when he was very much aware of the long list of court cases that the Trump team or his allies lost or dropped between November 4th and January 6th, the day of the insurrection when he stood on the Senate floor and still challenged the election result in Arizona.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: But for those who respect the voters, simply telling the voters go jump in a lake, the fact that you have deep concerns is of no moment to us, that jeopardizes, I believe, the legitimacy of this in subsequent elections.

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KEILAR: For this, he lost his communications director who reportedly resigned over his act.

And, by the way, I do want to address the question that you are no doubt asking, which is, what's up with this random show featuring a sitting U.S. senator in a lounge chair?

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

CRUZ: Let me say to all our viewers, it's good to be back with you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So this is a podcast shown on YouTube that Cruz started up during Trump's first impeachment trial. It's complete with fancy graphics. There is a floating monitor, a carpet square, there was a cactus and it rocks a leather chair masterpiece theater style. And like master piece theater, Cruz's podcasts include adaptation of fiction.

In this recent episode, Cruz tries to absolve himself of his participation in the big lie. His performance of ridding himself of the stink and stain of it appears to be a very loose adaptation of Lady Macbeth, saying out damn spot. And in another clip, he makes reference to more contemporary works like, Avengers Endgame and Watchmen, the comic book-based hit series.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: Have you noticed in how many movies how often rabid environmentalists are the bad guys? Whether it's Thanos or go to Watchmen. You know, where the view of the left is people are a disease.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That reference prompting a writer and producer of the show, Watchmen, to tweet at the Senator quote, literally, what the bleep are you talking about, which is also an acceptable response to another comment that Cruz, with the help of those armrests made on his podcast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: Reuters polling shows 39 percent of Americans believe the election was rigged. That's a terrifying statistic.

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KEILAR: Says a guy who spoon-fed Trump supporters the big lie, who helped dig a hole only to marvel curiously at how deep and dark it is as he stares up at us from the bottom of it, insisting he's not in a hole at all, because Cruz's masterpiece theater rewrite of history is just that, theater.

And just in, the Biden administration making a big move to speed up the vaccine rollout. Plus, once you get the vaccine what can you do, what can't you do? The former CDC director is going to join us live to sort that out.

And protests in Russia right now building as Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is sentenced to more than two years behind bars. We will take you there.

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[13:20:00]

KEILAR: We do have some breaking news from Russia, where opposition critic Alexei Navalny has just been sentenced to 2.5 years in jail. I want to bring in CNN's Fred Pleitgen. He has more now from outside of the courthouse in Moscow. Tell us what's going on, Fred.

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Brianna. Well, it's still a massive scene here outside the courthouse. And I want to show you this real quick because there is a huge amount of riot cops who are out here securing this courthouse. There some vans coming out there. We're not sure whether or not Alexei Navalny like actually be in one of those vans. They're unmarked vans so we're not sure.

But he was, as you said, is going to spend at least the next 2.5, possibly the next 2.8 years in prison. What happened was that a suspended jail sentence that had been put on him in 2014 was turned into a real jail sentence because this court deemed that the fact that he was poisoned by Novichok and had to get treatment in Germany was a violation of his probation.

Now, we we're able to speak to Alexei Navalny's legal team and they said they are definitely going to appeal all of this. But, of course, at this point in time, it's not looking good for Alexei Navalny in terms of him probably spending the next couple of years in jail.

His supporters have already called for protests in Central Moscow around the Kremlin for tonight. We're going to wait and see how that pans out. I can tell you that at this court and throughout the city, there is a gigantic security presence by security forces, by riot cops, like the ones that I just showed you. We visit -- we witnessed dozens of arrests and detentions throughout the day. The latest number that I have is that just around this court building, more than 350 people were detained today.

Another quick word, Alexei Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who, of course, has been through all this with him, throughout this entire process, she was in the courtroom today. She was very composed when that verdict came down. He drew a heart on the glass that he was in. He was inside sort of a glass aquarium inside that courtroom.

KEILAR: Unfortunately, we have just lost Fred's signal from Moscow, so we'll follow up on that. Fred Pleitgen, thank you very much.

With less than 2 percent of the nation fully vaccinated, the Biden administration just announced starting next week a million vaccine doses will go directly to pharmacies. But officials also made sure to manage expectations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Due to the current supply limitations, this will be limited when it begins next week. In this first phase of the program, supply will be at about at only about 6,500 stores nationwide before expanding. And in the early phase, many pharmacies across the country will not have vaccine or may have limited supply. People should first make sure they meet their state's eligibility requirements for vaccinations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The COVID response team says the million doses for pharmacies is in addition to the 10 million doses that it has promise per week to states. All of this coming as a result of Moderna and Pfizer scaling up production. Some states are currently offering vaccines through pharmacist.

Also today, Biden's response team says FEMA will reimburse state for some cost incurred during pandemic, specifically that personal protective gear and for deploying the National Guard.

And as millions are waiting to get vaccinated, there were 134,000 new infections on Monday. But if you look at this map of green and tan, it indicates that all states are steady or seeing a decline in new case trends, right? This is what we want to see. In fact, nationwide, there is a double digit drop in the seven-day average of new cases, down 14 percent and the same average for hospitalizations is also down, more than 11 percent.

Dr. Richard Besser is with us now. He served as acting Director of the CDC and is currently president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

We wanted to talk to you because starting in two Thursdays, February 11th, the White House is going to send these million doses to pharmacies directly. So why isn't this something that was being done at a federal level before? DR. RICHARD BESSER, PRESIDENT & CEO, ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION: You know, one of the big challenges, Brianna, is the demand, the need for vaccine is so much greater than the supply of vaccine. And the earliest phase, the desire was to make sure our health care system would stay up and running. So vaccinating health care workers from doctors, nurses, receptionists, environmental hygiene people, getting everyone you could in the health care system vaccinated.

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And then vaccinating those who are the greatest risk of dying, and that was people in long-term care facilities. So that was that first group and so a pharmacy approach wouldn't work there.

As the vaccine supply increases and hopefully it will continue to increase, you want to make sure that you're able to get it out to where people are. And one of the biggest concerns I have is that, in most states, we're not seeing data broken down by race, by ethnicity, by occupation. We know that this pandemic has hit black and Latino and Native Americans the hardest. And if states aren't collecting and sharing the data on how they're reaching the most at-risk populations, I worry that our numbers can look good but those who are really at the greatest risk of infection, hospitalization and death will still be at risk.

KEILAR: Leading Infectious Disease Expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says South Africa is seeing a higher rate of re-infection with this variant that is showing some resistance to the vaccines and he said that there could be a higher rate of re-infection with this new variant. Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER: If it becomes dominant, the experience of our colleagues in South Africa indicate that even if you have been infected with the original virus that there is a very high rate of re-infection to the point where previous infection does not seem to protect you against re-infection.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: What do you make of that?

BESSER: Well, it's very concerning and it's something we're going to have to watch out for. And it puts more and more pressure on all of us to do our part to slow down transmission.

You know, I look forward to when I can get a vaccine when my group is called, but in the, meantime, what we can all do is wear our masks, keep apart, wash our hands, avoid crowded indoor places. That will help slow this down.

And, you know, when we think about these new variants, they're not going to spread unless we allow them to spread. And so if we decide as a country to all do those measures, to really shut this thing down, we will see less spread of these variants. And, you know, if it turns out that you can get one of these other variants after you had an infection with this strain circulating here, that changes the ball game. And that says that we could be dealing with this pandemic for a very long time.

KEILAR: There's a new study that suggests people who have had coronavirus may need to only get one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. We should certainly point out here that the study has not yet been peer reviewed. But what are the implications potentially of this if it is found -- if it is peer reviewed and found to be reputable?

BESSER: Well, you know, the thing that's true about any new infectious disease is that we're learning as we go. And if it turns out that one dose is sufficient to protect people who've had infection before, then it becomes some of a logistical challenge of how do you identify people who truly had COVID before, is it true for people who had asymptomatic COVID earlier or just those who had symptoms.

There's a lot more to learn here. But if there's a population that can get away with just one dose of a vaccine, that extends the -- increases greatly the number of people who we would be able to vaccinate with the existing, you know, products that run the market.

KEILAR: And, finally, Dr. Besser, before I let you go, I'm wondering as people are getting vaccinated, you know, obviously, there's a sense that you can go back to normal, but what can they do or what should they do and what should they maybe refrained from doing still even after they get vaccinated?

BESSER: Yes. I mean, this is a really challenging question, Brianna, especially with your earlier note from Dr. Fauci about the new strains coming in and how little we know about them. You know, I think what you can do after you've been vaccinated is breathe a little easier and recognize that you have been vaccinated with a product that's highly effective at preventing serious disease. That's an amazing thing.

I think that it would make sense and it would be acceptable for -- if everyone in the household has been vaccinated and you're friends coming over who have been fully vaccinated that you can get together for small gatherings. You know, I'll be looking to see public health recommendations on that.

But we want people to get vaccinated. And one of the things that you wanted to do is show people the upside. And the upside in terms of mental health is really high because you can feel some sense of relief since you're not spread this to loved ones and I think that you will be able to do increasingly more activities with a level of comfort.

KEILAR: But let's -- you said two groups of friends who are two households that are vaccinated, what about a household that's vaccinated and one that isn't?

BESSER: No, then you got to play it like you are all not vaccinated, because those people who aren't vaccinated, you don't know what their status is, you really want to be careful there. But if everyone has been vaccinated, you know, I think that will allow people to visit loved ones in long-term care facilities, which is a great thing.

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