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White House Press Briefing; Psaki Questioned On Any Changes To Family Separations At The Border; More Protests Expected In Moscow After Navalny Sentenced; House Democrats & Trump Defense Team Reveal Pretrial Arguments; FOX's Tucker Carlson Defends Marjorie Taylor Greene As GOP Decides Her Fate. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 02, 2021 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Another vaccine question.

You mentioned you ramped up 16 percent distribution last week and 5 percent, 70 million doses going out to the pharmacies as well. Jeff was talking about how this is a ramp-up of Moderna and Pfizer.

What kind of visibility are you getting into what's coming? Like did you know the 15 percent or 16 percent last week was coming? Did you know -- how long in advance did you know?

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Did we know we can plan to announce the new --

MATTINGLY: Announce things and kick them into gear?

PSAKI: Yes, we're working on trying to be able to be have that ability and assessment. As governors, I'm sure will tell you or have told many of you, that's also what they're looking at.

So we're trying to get to a place where we know what's coming, so governors and local officials know what's coming to them and they can assess where to distribute it in their states.

The process is at the early stages. But our goal is certainly to have an understanding of when we will be able to ramp up distribution to states.

MATTINGLY: On something like today, how many days ago did you know, OK, on Tuesday, we can announce that, on February 11th, we've got a million doses going out to pharmacies? What's the turnaround on that?

PSAKI: That particular announcement has a couple of components, right? It's, of course, engagement with states and governors and engaging with them is pivotal but also with pharmacies and ensuring they're able to do it.

If you log on to CVS to do an appointment to get a new flu shot, you want to know the system will work. There are a lot of steps in the process. I'm not sure how many days in advance we knew it was full to go, not

many.

It takes a great deal of coordination to make sure governors feel comfortable with the announcements being made that we're fully coordinating with them, that they can explain to their public that, of course, pharmacies are just a part of what we're doing, right?

It's not -- a million doses is a lot. It is not going to vaccine the entire country. We're going ramp it up. That leaves some onus on them to people able to communicate with other people, where other people can also get their vaccine.

That coordination is a key part of it. Several components in this one. But we don't usually sit on these announcements so I don't think that long.

Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Senator Schumer just came out and said he had a, quote, "really good lunch" with the president and Secretary Yellen. He also said that the president told Republicans last night that the $600 billion was way too small.

Does that track with what he -- what was your understanding of what he actually said last night?

PSAKI: Yes, the president has been clear our risk is not having a package that's too big. It's having a package that's too small.

There have been public proposals, of course, by these Senators and by others to split the package, to do a smaller package.

And his view is that there are key components and funding that would be needed in order to ensure millions and millions of people have checks, you know, in their hands.

That we make and ensure people are getting those $1,400 checks, that we ensure that we're properly funding schools to reopen, that people can -- we're getting -- we have the funding needed to get shots into the arms of the American people.

So that is not a cheap endeavor and one that -- those key components are all a priority to the president.

Go ahead, Anita.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: To follow up on the meeting last night. In the readout and all that we heard is about the relief bill.

Did any other issue come up? It was quite a lengthy meeting, a couple hours. I wondered if the president brought up anything or if the Senators brought up executive orders or other policy issues or was it solely focused?

PSAKI: It was focused on the American rescue plan and they had a robust discussion about it. I don't have any more of a readout for you than what we provided last night.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The lunch I think was happening --

(CROSSTALK)

PSAKI: I know it's happening right now so I don't actually know but we will put out a readout of it afterwards.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And the bill was just discussed --

(CROSSTALK)

PSAKI: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

PSAKI: Exactly. Obviously, people raised what they want to raise. I'm sure Democratic Senators will share what they raised.

But the focus of it was to discuss the American rescue plan, path forward and imperative of moving it ahead.

Go ahead in the back.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is there any plan or date set for the president to address a joint session of Congress? And are you guys already working on his address?

And is selling the American rescue package a part of that, and in what way?

PSAKI: Not yet, and not yet to the first two questions. And it really depends on the timing.

Of course, there's urgency, as you heard the president say, all of us say, moving this package forward. And he also said in his primetime address when he announced the American rescue plan, he also announced plans to Build Back Better agenda.

Our plans will be to do that once we're at a point that can be the next priority. We really don't have a date yet. It depends on what that date is and what the focus will be. We're not working on it quite yet.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So on the UAE tariff announcement, I know the president said he wants to do a former review of former President Trump's tariffs before acting on any of those. And the former president signed that out December 31st.

[14:35:03]

Should we take this announcement as an indication that that review is completed, or is this just a one-off instance, specifically pertaining to UAE? PSAKI: So as you said, and for people who are not totally as familiar

with this issue as you are -- I know there's a lot going on in the news.

Shortly before the inauguration of President Biden, the United States lifted a 10 percent existing tariff under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act on aluminum imports for the UAE.

His campaign promise included a commitment to carefully evaluating all steps taken by the previous administration on trade, as you also said, including the private deals and assurances that may have been made.

As part of its campaign commitment, we are conducting an immediate review. So the review is under way of the previous administration's trade policy to determine what steps need to be taken.

So that includes, you know, decisions on tariffs, and you know, the previous administration's decision to lift the existing tariff on the UAE under Section 230 at the last hour -- was made clearly in our view on the basis of foreign policy policies unrelated to trade.

So it's all part of the ongoing review.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, Jen.

PSAKI: Great.

Thanks, everyone. See you tomorrow.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right, Jen Psaki there finishing up the White House press briefing, as it is clear at this point in time that the White House is not bending, that President Biden is not bending on the large price tag that he wants on that COVID relief package.

I do want to bring in Kaitlan Collins, Dana Bash, and our CNN Espanol anchor, Maria Santana, to be with us.

Kaitlan, to you first.

They appear to be proceeding, Democrats do, without Republicans on this. And despite meeting with Republican Senators, it is very clear that the White House says $1.9 trillion it is.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they don't seem any closer to an agreement or to what that Republican package was, given it was less than a third of what Biden had actually put forward.

Because she said President Biden does stand by that $1.9 trillion price tag of his bill. That compares to the one the 10 Republican Senators brought him, which was a lot closer to $600 billion. Of course, that's a lot smaller. There's a big gap between those two.

Brianna, it's not even just she stands by the price tag. It's also what's included in Biden's proposal, which is that federal minimum wage, stimulus checks that some Democrats, some centrist Democrats have agreed with some Republicans, are not targeted enough to certain families.

She said he still does believe that certain families should be able to get that.

That's going to be a big question moving forward because we're already seeing Democrats start to move ahead on Capitol Hill with this process and basically taking the steps, laying the groundwork to confirm this and get this package passed without Republican support.

So, yes, you did see those 10 Republican Senators -- actually nine, one on the phone -- come to the Oval Office last night for about two hours. But they walked out of there without a deal.

And it doesn't appear that President Biden is budging much on what his initial proposal was to come forward to what it was that they wanted to see.

The question here will be, for people like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who said earlier today he does not agree with raising the federal minimum wage to $15 -- that's something -- the question is whether or not that's a sticking point for him and if the White House relinquishes on that. That's the answer we don't know yet.

Of course, the ultimate test here is whether Biden decides to pare this back to get some Republicans on board with it.

Right now, based on what she said there, it sounds like they're standing firm on the $1.9 trillion package.

KEILAR: Dana, certainly, that is the case.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No question. I think what we will start to see now is a pivot or maybe just a real drilling down on negotiations among Democrats.

Kaitlan mentioned Joe Manchin. One of the things we're going to be following in the coming weeks is how much the Biden administration is going to tailor the package, not to Republicans, but to moderate Democrats that they need, in order to pass this by the bear minimum 51 votes because they don't have a vote to spare in the U.S. Senate.

Things like Manchin's call to move the $15 minimum wage to another package, not to do it through the COVID relief plan.

Things like Manchin saying these stimulus checks, which the Biden plan is now $1,400, he said it must be much more targeted. Because people who didn't need it last time around got it. And there was a survey that said 70 percent of those haven't even spent that money.

Those are the negotiations that we will be following really, really closely.

Bri, it's like when you and I were covering the ACA debate and all of the negotiations over Obamacare on Capitol Hill, that was the dynamic. It was a 60-vote threshold because they had 60 Democrats but it was an intra-Democratic negotiation and that's clearly where we are. [14:40:04]

KEILAR: And, Maria, I wanted to ask you about the White House. The press secretary there being pressed on the policy of families at the border and what has and hasn't changed when it comes to family separation.

What stood out to you?

MARIA SANTANA, CNN ESPANOL ANCHOR: Well, I think that this is going to be one of the biggest challenges of the Biden administration, when it comes to immigration, is trying to reunite these children that were separated by the Trump administration at the border from their parents, trying to reunite them with those parents.

I think Jen Psaki did a really good job trying to explain what the challenges are. The challenged str they have to first identify these children. Where are they? Who are they? How many are there?

She mentioned between 600 and 700, That's the number we hear from advocates and lawyers in nonprofit organizations trying to do that work. There are about 611 children who still haven't been able to be reunited with their parents.

Then, of course, they have to identify the parents. Who are they? Where are they?

Most likely they were already deported to their home countries without their children.

People that have tried to search for these parents in these nonprofits say they have very little information to go on because there's no central database kept by the Trump administration with these details.

It's like the children went to HHS and parents went to ICE, were put in immigration's detention. And those two systems never talked to each other once the children were separated.

She also talked about what the task force can actually do. Those details we don't know yet.

And she was asked a very good question, are these children going to be reunited with their parents here in the United States or their home country. And she said, first, we have to identify who they are and do that on a case-by-case basis.

So definitely this is going to be a challenge. And it's one of those long-lasting policies that -- that have long-lasting effects from the Trump administration that they're going to have to deal with -- Brianna?

KEILAR: It's really a heartbreaking remnant of the last administration and it's not going away. As you said, a lot of unanswered questions that we will be looking for.

Maria, thank you so much. SANTANA: Thank you.

KEILAR: Kaitlan, Dana, thank you as well.

The White House is also weighing in on the breaking news from Russia, where opposition critic, Alexei Navalny, has just been sentenced to two and a half years in jail.

The judge saying he violated his bail conditions because he was treated outside of Russia after being poisoned with a nerve agent last year.

A CNN investigation showed that attack was likely carried out by Russian agents.

Chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, is in London. She worked on that investigation.

It was fantastic, Clarissa.

Navalny's team has called for more protests in Moscow this evening. What are we expecting here? Are there going to be large crowds?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's always so difficult to gage, Brianna.

We certainly have seen Russia special operatives fanning out in the square where they called for the protests. They will do their damnedest to make sure the crowds don't turn out.

And the judge even kept the proceedings going long so the reaction or verdict would come out in the evening, thereby, hopefully, containing protests.

But obviously, the question is in the coming days and in the coming weeks: Are we going to see a lot of momentum behind the opposition movement? And I would say, at the moment, it's really difficult to tell.

While there's no question that we have seen significant protests across the country, these last couple of weekends, it remains to be seen how the Russian people are going to respond to Mr. Navalny's verdict.

Many people will be outraged. Other people who we've seen out on the streets are maybe not so much interested in Navalny himself, but more upset with the current system, more upset about corruption, cronyism, souring on Putin, certainly, according to many polls.

But at the same time, we also hear they're not looking for an uprising. They're not looking for a revolution just yet.

So it's a little difficult to predict what we're going to see on the streets in the coming weeks.

KEILAR: So help us make sense of this if you can. Russian agents, it appears very much -- and your investigation sheds amazing light on this -- are behind the poisoning of Navalny.

He goes to Berlin to seek treatment and now he's in trouble because he left Russia, which is -- that's who was targeting him. He left Russia for treatment?

WARD: Yes. I mean, let's be clear, it beggar's belief. It's astonishing. On the one level, it was completely expected. The Kremlin clearly sees Alexei Navalny as a threat. Right?

[14:45:02]

They understand by putting him in prison, they're creating several problems. They're turning him into a martyr. They risk Western sanctions.

But at the same time, they're willing to sort of roll the dice and do that because they need him off the streets.

You heard the way he was speaking in the courtroom, Brianna, just extraordinary. Lashing out that President Vladimir Putin will be remembered only as Putin the poisoner. Calling him at one stage an evil little man in his bunker.

I mean, whatever your opinion is about Alexei Navalny, let it never be said that this man does not have courage. He was incredibly bold, incredibly brazen.

And he's proven very popular with the younger generation, targeting younger people with these exposes of the Kremlin's corruption, putting them out on his YouTube channel. His last one on Putin's palace, 100 million views.

This is serious for the Kremlin. This is something they do see as a threat.

So despite the absurdity of sending him to serve jail time on a sentence that -- he had a suspended jail sentence that he was able to serve at home and then you will send him to jail because he was poisoned with Novichok and was in a coma in Europe recovering in the hospital. I mean, obviously, it's absurd.

But at the same time, it's clear the Kremlin does not see, at this stage, that it has a lot of great options for dealing with Alexei Navalny.

KEILAR: Clarissa, thank you so much for your continued coverage on this story and for joining us today.

We do have some breaking news in the second impeachment trial of the now former President Trump. The House impeachment managers and the Trump team have both filed pretrial briefs. These spell out their arguments ahead of next week's trial.

The House impeachment managers called the former's president's role in the insurrection, quote, "unmistakable." They write, 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."

The president's team denies that he started the insurrection and is focusing more on the constitutionality of the trial and the president's First Amendment right to free speech to question the election.

They write, quote, "Insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th president's statements were accurate or not, and he, therefore, denies they were false."

Joining me now is chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, and Philip Lacovara, the former counsel to the Watergate special prosecutors.

Gloria, to you first.

They're really arguing there was no way of knowing the president's bogus claims were bogus.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: And in fact, they're arguing that the president's claims were not bogus. And there's one point in the brief where the 45th president performed admirably in his role.

This is where you see the president of the United States telling his lawyers, in that brief, I want to talk about the fact that I won this election. So figure out how to put it in there. And so they did.

So they didn't mention the 60 court cases they lost, including a Supreme Court decision. They didn't mention their own Justice Department said they could find no evidence of fraud.

They didn't mention their own campaign autopsy, which we just seen today, said the president really lost because he didn't get control of COVID, et cetera.

So this is where you see the influence of the president on his new attorneys saying, you do what I want you to do.

KEILAR: And, Philip, what was your biggest takeaway from these pretrial briefs?

PHILIP LACOVARA, FORMER COUNSEL TO WATERGATE SPECIAL PROSECUTORS: I think the Democrat House managers made a compelling case that both the president was guilty and the Senate has jurisdiction to conduct the impeachment trial.

Which is another one of the lines of defense that the Trump brief tries to sketch out, tying into what the Senate voted last week to deal with.

Which was the 45 Republicans who said at least there's an unwillingness to treat the jurisdiction of the Senate as a clearly established constitutional principle. The other point I would make about the Trump brief is, as Gloria just

mentioned, they keep referring to Trump as the 45th president of the United States. They don't call him the former president.

And I'm sure that was a soft to the president's unwillingness to view himself as the former president.

Although. one of their main lines of defense, keying into the Republican efforts to get out of this, is that the Senate no longer has jurisdiction over him because he's not in office.

KEILAR: Yes, that's a very good point.

Philip, Gloria, thank you so much to both of you.

BORGER: Sure.

[14:50:00]

KEILAR: There's some serious crazy coming out of FOX primetime these days. But before we talk about it, some context.

Ever since former President Donald Trump soured on the network for reporting the outcome of the election, ratings have taken a hit. Primetime ratings down 25 percent.

As FOX viewers have headed over to alt-right-wing networks like OAN and Newsmax, one FOX host, who has been manning the exists, is imploring viewers to stay by giving them exactly what they want.

And last night, boy, did he deliver, making a claim guaranteed to get some notice, like a toddler banging their head against a wall to get attention.

As House Republicans try to think of what to do with a newcomer to their conspiracy caucus, Tucker Carlson defended Marjorie Taylor Greene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX HOST, "TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT": So how dangerous, just how dangerous is this three-named congresswoman you probably have never heard of?

So dangerous that, in the name of democracy, she must be expelled tonight from the Congress. That's what they are saying.

In the new democracy, CNN gets the veto. If cable news doesn't like your views, you have to leave Congress. That's the rule.

The test is entirely ideological. You don't actually have to harm anyone to lose your job.

This new member of Congress has barely even voted. She just got there the other day. But CNN says she has bad opinions, therefore, she's the greatest threat we face. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Opinions. That's what he calls the following games this rep Taylor Greene has made.

That she pushed QAnon quackery, that Trump was the leader who would take out a satanic pedophile cult in government and Hollywood.

She's a 9/11 truther. She questioned the attack at the Pentagon, saying, quote, "There's never any evidence shown for a plane," unquote, going into it.

She's confronted a Parkland survivor, a survivor of one of the biggest mass school shootings in U.S. history, after questioning whether the attack was actually a false-flag operation carried out to mobilize people against gun rights, a claim that she walked back last night in an interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): These are not red-flag incidents. They are not fake. And it's terrible the loss that these families go through and their friends as well. And it should never happen. And it doesn't have to happen if we would protect our children properly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Before joining Congress, she appeared to endorse the execution of Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats.

She suggested that the 2018 midterms where the first two Muslim women in coming were elected were part of, quote, "an Islamic invasion of our government."

She's called Jewish Democratic donor, George Soros, a Nazi.

She falsely claimed former President Barack Obama is a Muslim. And she also suggested that Obama and Democrats were coordinating a war to overthrow Trump.

Now, those aren't opinions, Tucker. They are lies, unfounded and absurd conspiracy theories.

And his claim that Marjorie Taylor Greene's opinions haven't harmed anyone -- tell that to the families of victims killed in these school shootings that the congresswoman has questioned.

Like Linda Beigel Schulman, the mother of a teacher, who was killed in the Parkland shooting as he held open a door to help students escape the shooter, who spoke with us yesterday about confronting the congresswoman over her false claims about the shooting this past weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINDA BEIGEL SCHULMAN, MOTHER OF PARKLAND SHOOTING VICTIM: February 14th was a really hard day. So you know what? I do say to Marjorie Taylor Greene, please, you know what, find your conscience. You're a mother. Man up or woman up, whatever you want to say, and tell the truth. Tell everybody what you told me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It is curious whose opinions Tucker Carlson chooses to defend. Rep Taylor Greene's are fine.

But when Democratic Congressman Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, criticized the United States over its immigration policies, he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: She has undisguised contempt for the United States and for its people. That should worry you. And not just Omar is now a sitting member of Congress.

Ilhan Omar is living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country. A system designed to strengthen America is instead undermining it.

We're importing people from places whose values are simply antithetical to ours.

After everything America has done for Omar and for her family, she hates this country more than ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And when Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Asian-American, Purple Heart recipient, who lost her legs in Iraq while co-piloting a chopper, said she was open to debate about removing statues honoring historical figures like George Washington because they enslaved black people, he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: But when Duckworth does speak in public, you're reminded what had a deeply silly and unimpressive person she is.

But to morons like Tammy Duckworth, Washington is just some old white man who needs to be erased.

Tammy Duckworth is not a child. At least not technically. She's a sitting United States Senator, who is often described as a hero.

Yet, Duckworth is too afraid to defend her own statements on a cable TV show. What a coward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:55:05]

KEILAR: Now the difference between Tucker Carlson's disdain for the opinions of his two frequent Democratic targets and his affinity for the cuckoo-for-Cocoa Puffs spewing of the Georgia congresswoman is a glaring one.

Carlson's viewers believe him and that is a shame.

Last year, a judge overseeing a slander case against FOX, which was dismissed, quoted FOX's lawyers for making an argument the judge deemed credible.

Quote, "The general tenor of the show should then inform a viewer that Carlson is not stating actual facts about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in exaggeration and non-literal commentary."

The judge goes on, quote, "FOX persuasively argues that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer arrives with an appropriate amount of skepticism about the statement he makes."

FOX called it a victory for all defenders of the First Amendment.

So let's just remember that as Tucker Carlson sets out on his latest sad quest for relevancy, even his own employer, the corporation that writes his checks, says he's full of it.

Just a short time from now, President Biden will be taking action on immigration executive orders. We'll have details on what it means for those families who were separated at the border and remain separated and those who are still waiting to have their asylum cases heard.

Plus, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez details the harrowing story of how she hid from attackers during the capitol riots and reveals for the first time how she's a past survivor of sexual assault. We'll share her words.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi, there. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank for being with me.

Several major developing stories right now. House impeachment managers have unveiled their strategy for convicting former President Donald J. Trump ahead of his second impeachment trial next week.

[15:00:00]

They say he's, quote, "singularly responsible" for inciting that insurrection at the capitol last month.