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Russian Prosecutors Seek Jail Term for Navalny; Thousands Detained Across Russia; Myanmar's Military Seizes Power, Detains Aung San Suu Kyi; The Global Fight against COVID-19; Biden Hosts Republicans to Discuss COVID-19 Stimulus; Democrats to Accuse Trump of Intentionally Inciting Rioters; CDC: 471 Cases of New COVID Strains Detected in 32 States. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired February 02, 2021 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Wherever you are around the world, you are watching CNN NEWSROOM. Hello, I'm John Vause.
And coming up this hour, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny facing years in prison, a decision expected within hours.
Could that ruling also decide Vladimir Putin's fate as well?
Back to the future for Myanmar after the military seizes power, Western nations led by the U.S. considering harsh punitive sanctions.
And a world with two pandemics: the original COVID-19, which may have peaked, but now the new, more contagious and deadlier variants could be around for years.
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VAUSE: The fate of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been all but sealed after the general prosecutor's office called for up to 3.5 years in jail for parole violations. Russian courts rarely define recommendations from prosecutors.
The decision by the court is expected in the coming hours and will likely send thousands of protesters back onto the streets just as they done for the past two weekends in more than 100 cities across 10 time zones.
Navalny himself has called for nationwide demonstrations in direct defiance of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin. Our coverage begins with CNN international correspondent Matthew Chance in Moscow.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what the Kremlin does when it's threatened, it cracks down hard. Across Russia, mass protests calling for the release of key opposition leader Alexei Navalny were met with more than 5,000 detentions and of course, brute force.
In Moscow, this protester was repeatedly shot with an electric baton as he was pulled away in agony.
"I can't breathe," shouts another, as he's held down by riot police in the remote city of Chelyabinsk. But the heavy-handed tactics don't seem to be easing the public mood.
"We're all really fed up," says this woman.
"I've been waiting for the moment when finally revolt and demonstrations begin," she says.
This is what's been galvanizing them. Not just the horrific poisoning of Alexei Navalny in Siberia last year but also his defiant performance since recovering, returning to Russia to face arrests and calling for more protests from jail. He now faces a key court hearing to decide if he will spend years behind bars or be free.
Navalny's success online, it seems needling the Kremlin most of all. His team's latest anti-corruption expose detailing a billion-dollar palace alleged to have been built for Vladimir Putin has now been viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube. The Kremlin denies any connection to the building.
But there seems to have been at least one bizarre attempt to boost the Putin support online. This video posted on pro-Kremlin video showing workers with face masks in military style uniforms, performing this highly choreographed dance routine to patriotic Russian pop song.
"Putin is our president," they shout at the end.
More seriously, Russian riot police are being shown prepped to squash the demonstrations.
"The country is proud of you," they're told by their commander, "not the protesters outside."
It seems the battle lines have been drawn in this standoff playing out on Russia's streets. Neither side seems ready to back down -- Matthew Chance, CNN.
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VAUSE: Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian opposition politician and vice president of the Free Russia Foundation. He is with us this hour from Washington.
Vladimir, thank you for taking the time to speak with us.
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, VICE PRESIDENT, FREE RUSSIA FOUNDATION: Thanks for having me, John. It's always good to be back on CNN International.
VAUSE: That's great. From your experience, when you look at these previous mass protests,
have they been more about, you know, how the country was being run or poorly run by Putin and his government?
Now if you look at these new protests, I am wondering if, you know, the demonstrations demanding Navalny's release are really a direct challenge to Putin's legitimacy, to his hold on power.
How do you see it?
KARA-MURZA: Yes, it is absolutely. And I think one of the sort of defining features of these particular protest is that they are no longer really opposition protest as those previous demonstrations have been.
These are now truly national protests, popular protests against this aging dictator who has been running our country, you know, without free elections, without independent media.
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KARA-MURZA: And without such niceties as the rule of law and checks and balances and everything that you are used to in democratic countries for more than two decades now.
You know, we have a whole generation of people in Russia who have grown up not seeing any other political reality except Vladimir Putin's. And at the end of the day, it is just simply not OK in a European country, in the 21st century or anywhere really for one man to stay in power for that long.
VAUSE: And these protesters are turning up on the streets despite the fact they could be facing years in jail. The Kremlin has described them as hooligans, said they were backed by the U.S. as an attempt to destabilize Russia.
So with that in mind, here is the response to that from the new U.S. secretary of state.
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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The Russian government makes a big mistake if it believes that this is about us. It's not. It's about them, it's about the government, it's about the frustration that the Russian people have with corruption, with kleptocracy.
We're reviewing a series of Russian actions that are deeply, deeply disturbing.
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VAUSE: There's been a lot of criticism like that from other countries as well, including from E.U. countries. A lot of talk, not much action though, at least not yet.
Do you expect that to change? KARA-MURZA: I do and I certainly hope it will.
You know, one of the most sort of important aspects of everything that we're talking about is that, for so many years, Western countries, Western governments, Western leaders have essentially enabled Vladimir Putin's regime by providing safe havens for Putin's cronies and oligarchs to stash away that money, that they're looting from the people of Russian, in Western banks, in Western jurisdictions, in Western financial institutions.
You know, it's been said that the biggest export from Vladimir Putin's regime to the West is not oil, it's not gas, it's corruption.
But that, of course, is a two-way street and for someone to be able to export corruption someone else somewhere needs to be willing to import it. And we have seen no shortage of Western banks and institutions and governments that have lined up to welcome these it might have to welcome these crooks and their dirty money.
And so the most important thing Western democracies can do is finally put a stop to this, finally put a stop to this import of corruption, finally put a stop to this enabling, finally put a stop to this complicity by once and for all laying down the red line that those people, those cronies, those oligarchs, those high-ranking human rights abusers who have made a habit of stealing from our people in Russia and then going out and stashing away and spending that money in the West, will no longer be able to do that.
VAUSE: Well, a court ruling on Navalny's fate is imminent.
And on that you wrote in "The Washington Post" over the weekend, "There's little doubt he will be sent to prison. And this may be one of the Kremlin's biggest miscalculations, turning the opposition leader into a martyr and national symbol will only expand his appeal and raises moral clout."
What was the alternative here, though, for the Kremlin, if they didn't act?
Wouldn't they look as if they would be weak or that Navalny had won and help place them?
KARA-MURZA: Well, you know, there are no good alternatives, to be honest, for the Kremlin. You know, every dictatorship has its own expiration date and it looks like Vladimir Putin's regime is fast approaching its own.
There are millions of people in Russia who fundamentally reject the authoritarianism and kleptocracy and corruption that have been associated with Vladimir Putin's regime.
Alexei Navalny became sort of the embodiment of this movement, against everything that is wrong with Putin.
As you know, one of the immediate triggers for these protests has been, not only the arrest of Alexei Navalny but also the investigative video that Navalny's team has put out, detailing Vladimir Putin's lavish Italian-style palace on the Russian Black Sea Coast complete with swimming pools, vast skating rinks, oyster farms, wineries and so on, with a total price tag of $1.4 billion U.S.
This is in a country where 20 million people live below the poverty line, where 23 percent of the population lack access to essential sewage system.
To see such a shameful display of opulence and corruption from the ruling elite, you know, really drives the people nuts.
VAUSE: Yes.
KARA-MURZA: And after 21 years of this, a lot of people around Russia are saying enough is enough.
VAUSE: Very quickly, on the issue of Navalny and one of the other reasons he had such sort of moral clout or authority is because he was poisoned with the agent Novichok. He recovered from that and he has returned as well.
You as an opposition politician, you've been poisoned twice yourself. What is it like? What is that experience for you and for others who've gone through it.
KARA-MURZA: Well, I'm not sure it can be expressed in words. And you know, people who haven't gone through this, well it's really difficult and painful and terrifying when you're unable to breathe, when you're unable to move, when you feel your whole body just give up on you organ by organ by organ.
You know, both times that I was in a coma after poisonings in Moscow in 2015 and again in 2017, doctors told my wife that I had about a 5 percent chance to live.
So I cannot tell you in any words, how grateful and fortunate I feel to be able to even sit here and speak with you. And this is, of course, the favored method, poisoning, going back to Soviet days. The days of the KGB and it's really proliferated under Vladimir Putin.
That of course, is not the only method that they use. You know, at least I had a 5 percent. Alexei Navalny had a few percent chance and thankfully he survived.
In February of 2015 Russian opposition leader, former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov was gunned down by five bullets in the back.
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KARA-MURZA: Literally in front of the Kremlin walls in Moscow. This was the most high-profile political assassination in modern history of Russia.
Nemtsov was Putin's most prominent, most effective political opponent and to this day almost six years on, the organizers of that assassination continue to be fully shielded and fully protected by the Russian government, which again, it gives a pretty good illustration of just what Vladimir Putin's regime really represents.
VAUSE: Vladimir, we're out of time but thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.
KARA-MURZA: Thank you so much, John.
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VAUSE: A military coup in Myanmar has been widely condemned by world leaders but beyond that, it's not entirely clear what other action can be taken. Still, the U.N. Security Council plans to meet behind closed doors in the coming hours.
Troops and riot police have been deployed in the capital and commercial hubs as the generals tighten their grip on power, apparently bringing to an end five years of democratic rule in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
The civilian leader of the government Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior members of her party have been detained. CNN's Will Ripley following developments live for us this hour from Hong Kong.
Any word yet on the whereabouts of Aung San Suu Kyi?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are hearing that she and the other top officials who were detained in Monday's military coup are being held at a guest house in the capital of Naypyidaw.
There are actually images coming in of tanks, trucks and guards outside of this government guest house, where, as far as we know, there is very little, if any, communication with the outside world.
Of course Aung San Suu Kyi has been in and out of house arrest over the better part of 20 years. I think it was a total of 15 or so that she actually spent under house arrest during that she won the Nobel Peace Prize and was a darling of the international community as a beacon of the fight for democracy and freedom, although, in recent years, her star has certainly fallen in the eyes of many globally when she went to the United Nations and defended the very military that is now detaining her and has not allowed her government to assemble after a general election in November.
She defended them against charges of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim population, who were driven across the border to Bangladesh. There was a statement that came in from the party that she leads, the NLD, the National League for Democracy, calling for the immediate release of all officials detained in the coup, calling for the government to be allowed to assemble, calling for the military to honor the 2020 general election results and calling the coup a, quote, "defamatory act against the history of Myanmar and its government," -- John.
VAUSE: Just as far as the country itself is concerned, there are reports of phone and internet, which had been cut earlier, have been restored, banks planning to reopen on Tuesday as well. There does seem to be at least some kind of calm right now. RIPLEY: Apparently the bank closures, we're told, were tied to the internet disruptions. So now that the internet is more or less back up and running, the banks have reopened and seem to be operating normally.
We've seen video from the streets, quiet but pretty normal, especially in the largest city of Yangon. In fact, one thing that we're hearing is that while markets are open and people are out, police are definitely out in larger presence, stopping people from filming.
The journalist, who was taking some of these pictures for CNN, was actually stopped by officers shortly after capturing them. So while there is a heightened sense of tension, certainly there are questions and concerns about whether the country will return to those 50 years of brutal military dictatorship, where any opposition or public dissent was crushed.
However at the moment, at least on the surface, life returns to normal, with this state of emergency going on for a year, the military saying they're going to look into this unfounded claims of widespread election fraud because the election certainly didn't turn out in a way that they wanted, with a embarrassingly small number seats for the military proxy party in parliament.
Will they call another election, will they just do away with the facade that civilians actually lead the country, given the fact that the military helped write the constitution and still retain control over key levers of power?
I think the big questions to watch moving forward, John, who has the power, who wants the power and follow the money. Those are the things that usually motivate coups like this, as a lot of people are scratching their heads and wonder why a military that had so much power already would unseat a government that won reelection, in overwhelming numbers, even over what they got just five years ago -- John.
VAUSE: There are a lot of questions yet to be answered. Hopefully we will get some in the coming hours. Will Ripley in Hong Kong, appreciate it.
Still to come here on CNN, finding one COVID crisis after another, some experts fear new variants of the virus could lead to a second, much longer outbreak.
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VAUSE: Welcome back, everyone.
The global fight against the coronavirus may quickly become a battle on two fronts, to contain the original strain but also stop new variants from spreading.
Parts of the U.K. will start mass testing this week to contain outbreaks of the variant first detected in South Africa. It comes after a number of positive test results from people who had no link to international travel.
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MATT HANCOCK, BRITISH HEALTH SECRETARY: There is currently no evidence to suggest this variant is any more severe, but we need to come down on it hard and we will.
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VAUSE: As these new strains also spread across the United States, health officials are urging those eligible for vaccinations to do so as soon as possible. This is to prevent severe illness but also to limit more severe mutations.
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DR. MEGAN RANNEY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Right now we are in an absolute race against time with these variants. We're trying to get people vaccinated before they spread too much across our country.
It means that just going to the grocery store, to school or to work could become more dangerous. We have an already overtaxed and exhausted health care system. We have a little breathing room right now.
But if these new variants become dominant in our country, we are going to be right back where we were in November and December -- and perhaps even worse.
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VAUSE: To Washington now and CNN medical analyst Jonathan Reiner who's also a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.
Dr. Reiner, good to see you.
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Nice to see you, John.
VAUSE: In the last few days, health experts from Singapore to Denmark to the U.S. have started talking about two pandemics; the original COVID-19 virus and a pandemic of the new strains of COVID.
And on that, here's the director of the CDC. Listen to this.
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DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Variants remain a great concern and we continue to detect them in the United States with at least 33 jurisdictions reporting 471 variant cases as of January 31st.
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VAUSE: So this is spreading but the original pandemic seems to have peaked. But because these new variants are more contagious and possibly deadlier, some experts believe the second pandemic, if you like, could be around for a lot longer, maybe up to four or five years.
Is that a realistic assessment, how do you see it?
REINER: Well, I think coronavirus is not going to go away, we're not going to eradicate the virus.
I think what we're trying to do is change the nature of this virus into something that we can live with, something more akin to the seasonal flu. And we have the tools to do that.
What we've learned from the vaccine trials is that even if a current vaccine is less effective at preventing COVID-19 illness, particularly with these variants, the vaccines remain spectacularly effective at preventing hospitalization or death.
In fact in the J&J trial which had a heavy presence in South Africa which is where the variant is endemic now, there were no hospitalizations and no deaths.
So I think what we need to start thinking about is the coronavirus is going to be around for a long time.
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REINER: It's going to continue to mutate. But, as Tony Fauci said this past weekend, if it doesn't replicate, it can't mutate.
So the important endeavor now is to get vaccine in as many people as possible, mask up and block the spread of infection. The fewer people infected, the fewer opportunities for the virus to mutate into more troublesome varieties.
VAUSE: There was a very dire prediction over the weekend made by Dr. Michael Osterholm, a White House advisor on the pandemic. Here's what he said.
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DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, CENTER FOR DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY INSTITUTE: The surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next 6 to 14 weeks. And if we see that happen, which my 45 years in the trenches tells we will, we are going to see something like we have not seen yet in this country.
In advance of this surge, we need to get as many one doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can.
(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: And the logic behind that was that essentially put this two- dose regime on hold, get as many people over 65 at least protected with some kind of vaccine because that would be some protection rather than no protection at all. What's the argument against that?
REINER: I think there's really no good argument against that. So in the United States right now, the states on average are administering about 66 percent of the vaccine that they received from the manufacturers through the federal government reserving about a third of the vaccine for second shots.
No state should be doing that. First of all, the states should be trusting the pipeline. We need to get every vaccine that's received by the state into a patient, into a person.
I had a conversation last week with a government vaccine scientist who told me there's no reason to expect that there's any difference in efficacy for these vaccines if the second shot is given at three weeks or four weeks or five weeks or even six weeks. We need to focus not so much on the second shot but focus on the first
shot and that will dramatically increase the amount of vaccine available.
There's some very provocative data that just came online today that suggests that people who've had prior COVID infection may only require one vaccine jab. And the immune response that people who have had prior COVID infection is so robust, it actually exceeds the two-shot regimen.
So perhaps going forward if we understood that a person has antibody- positive prior infection, they may only need one vaccine. So there are a lot of things to learn.
VAUSE: Yes.
REINER: But I completely agree; we need to maximize doses into arms now. We have a window to do this but the window is going to close.
VAUSE: Right. And with that vaccination rollout moving forward at a much slower pace, face masks, it's guaranteed, will be needed for much longer than we expected.
REINER: Yes.
VAUSE: You noted on Twitter a short time ago, "Vaccinated U.S. senators outside the White House this evening wearing medical grade 3M N95 masks. This is a level of protection not available to most Americans. We should change that. Let's make N95 masks accessible to everyone."
So how effective are the current commonly used face masks at preventing the transmission of the new variants?
And if most could get access to an N95 or something similar, how much of a difference would make in terms of transmission?
REINER: So I'll answer the last part of the question first. It would make a tremendous amount of difference.
Think about the effectiveness of these masks in term of a gradient. The least protection from sort of a flimsy single-ply piece of cloth escalating to a three-ply surgical mask going up to a KN95 or an N95 medical-grade mask.
If you look at the rates of infection in hospitals now where most employees wear either a three-ply surgical mask or an N95 mask, it is in many places lower, much lower, than the community spread of the virus.
Masks are very, very effective. The more effective mask you wear, the more protected you are.
So my advice to everyone is get the best mask you can find online. Now it can be a little tricky, but if you can find a good quality N95 or KN95 mask online, that's what you should be wearing in public now. Particularly as the new variants become ascendant in the United States.
VAUSE: Good advice to finish on, Dr. Reiner. Thank you so much, we appreciate you being with us.
REINER: My pleasure. Thank you.
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VAUSE: Europe is struggling with a slow vaccination rollout, made worse by a vaccinate shortage. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer says it will be at least two weeks before it can increase vaccine shipments to Europe. More details now from CNN's Nic Robertson.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): More than a potential lifesaver. Each COVID-19 vaccination vital for each nation's recovery. And last week, the E.U. realized it was short.
MICHEAL MARTIN, IRISH TAOISEACH: There is significant tension across Europe in relation to the sense across Europe.
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MARTIN: That commitment entered into by AstraZeneca has not been fulfilled.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): The E.U.'s opening salvo in what is called here a vaccine war border controls on the island on Ireland reigniting simmering Brexit tensions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For years we were told after the European Union referendum vote that there couldn't be a hard border on the island of Ireland. And in one fell swoop, they put that hard border in place.
ROBERTSON: Foster's pro-Brexit party was already losing support but all Northern Ireland parties united, as the E.U.'s vaccine frustrations became their political problem. Collateral damage...
CLAIRE HANNA, M.P., SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC AND LABOUR PARTY: What it has done has righted a very suspenseful substantial bump in the road to stability and we were probably getting to a point where people were getting over the initial shock of Brexit.
ROBERTSON: -- from the former PM who helped bring peace to Northern Ireland more than two decades ago, disappointment with the E.U.
UNKNOWN: This is very foolish thing to do. Unfortunately, they withdrew it very quickly.
ROBERTSON: European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen backtracked on the contentious border controls and patched up supply problems with AstraZeneca. But even staunch supporters are frustrated.
ALEXANDER STUBB, FORMER FINNISH PRIME MINISTER: This smacks against all the basic principles of what the European Union stands for, not the least solitary or freedom of the good, so I hope this is the first and last time the European Union reacted in such a nativist than protectionist way.
ROBERTSON: The former Finnish PM and E.U. political insider warns COVID-19 isn't just a health threat; it's a potential danger to stability, too.
STUBB: This pandemic really is hybrid. It has an impact on politics, on economics, on health, on social affairs, on international politics. And we have to remember that we are really, really in this together. Vaccine nationalism, it doesn't get much stupider than that.
ROBERTSON: In Northern Ireland the past week, an object lesson of COVID-19's corrosive reach.
HANNA: It's worrying that it's so quickly and so soon in the E.U.- U.K. new relationship came to this and so soon in the rollout of vaccines that have come, I suppose to a flashpoint.
ROBERTSON: This unlikely to be the last skirmish of this sort after vaccines -- Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
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VAUSE: Still to come here on CNN, tough talk from world leaders.
But will they walk the walk as well?
After the military overthrows the civilian government in Myanmar.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The coup of Myanmar will be the focus of the closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council in the coming hours. Among those pressing concerns, the safety of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who did not flee the country during a 2017 military crackdown. We saw more than 700,000 Rohingya seek refuge in Bangladesh.
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Yanghee Lee is a former U.N. special rapporteur for Myanmar. She joins me now from Seoul. Yanghee Lee, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us.
YANGHEE LEE, FORMER U.N. SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR: Thank you for having me on again.
VAUSE: Well, as soon as the military-appointed president was sworn in, he declared a national emergency and, under the constitution. That gave him power to hand, essentially, rule over to the generals. Despite that, is there any doubt at all that this is a military coup? And the other question is, why now?
LEE (ph): It is definitely a military coup. Right now there's pure speculation that I can make and I can offer. There are probably three reasons.
One is that the NLD won with a larger majority this time, and so the military was becoming more anxious, notice, that their popularity was slipping.
The second reason is that Min Aung Hlang, the chief commander, he has to step down in June. That worries him and his followers, because he has a lot of financial assets within Myanmar, and his family does, too. And this stepping down with no powers will probably give him less access to his fortunes.
Third is that the coronavirus pandemic is the best time for them to seize power, because they can cut down telecommunications. They can do a complete lockdown, and people will not be receiving information.
VAUSE: Yes. There's already a nighttime curfew in place because of the pandemic, so that makes it a lot easier, I guess.
LEE: Absolutely.
VAUSE: The overthrow of the civilian government has been widely condemned internationally. The U.S., among others, considering new sanctions or reimposing sanctions. The current U.N. special rapporteur for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, supports that move. Here he is.
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TOM ANDREWS, U.N. SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON MYANMAR: The junta has always tried to convince us that it's impervious to international pressure. And I'm sure that they will continue to sing that song. The fact is they are.
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VAUSE: Are sanctions right now the only realistic option here for the international community? LEE: Well, you know the international community lifted the sanctions
too quickly, thinking that Myanmar was already on a right track for democracy. And I had insisted that even the U.S. should not lift the sanctions. This was right at the end of the Obama administration.
Targeted sanctions must be in place, targeted sanctions against the military and their cronies and their associates. Sanctions of arms embargo. That has to be in place. And also, I've advocated for the cessation of military to military cooperation in funding.
VAUSE: Yes. Well, it may seem like it's back to the future in many ways. There are differences compared to 1988, when Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma and was placed under House arrest for more than a decade.
Back then she was considered, you know, the Nelson Mandela of Asia, but as the civilian leader, she did nothing to prevent the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims.
The former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson noted this on Twitter. "Because of Suu Kyi's failure to promote Democratic values as Myanmar's de-facto leader, she should step aside and let other Myanmar Democratic leaders take the reins with international backing and support."
Do you agree with that, and how does her fall from grace complicate the international response to the military coup?
LEE: Well, her -- she never was the real human rights beacon. It was the international community that put her up on that pedestal. And it was the international community that rightfully took her down from that pedestal.
I -- I can understand why Ambassador Richardson is -- is saying that. There needs to be another second generation. And this was one of the pitfalls of the NLD, is that they did not cultivate a second generation to replace or to follow this current Aung San Suu Kyi and her followers.
VAUSE: Yanghee Lee, thank you so much for being with us. It is always appreciated.
LEE: Thank you very much.
VAUSE: U.S. President Joe Biden is hoping for a new era of bipartisanship in Washington, starting with his COVID-19 relief bill, but coming up, not much has changed in Washington, and Republicans and Democrats remain deadlocked, which means it's still not known what will happen with that next round of stimulus checks.
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VAUSE: The White House is hoping for bipartisan support of the coronavirus relief bill. U.S. President Joe Biden met with 10 Republican senators Monday. Both sides outline their proposals for relief, and at least both sides have agreed to keep talking.
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SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I wouldn't say that we came together on a package tonight. No one expected that in a two-hour meeting. But what we did agree to do is to follow up and talk further.
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VAUSE: President Biden believes the bill should pass, with or without Republican support and warned against passing a measure which is too limited, given the severity of the health and economic crisis.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins has more.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- back in the Senate.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Biden sitting down with ten Republican senators amid contentious negotiations over his sweeping coronavirus relief proposal.
COLLINS: Thanks for the opportunity.
BIDEN: Oh no, I'm anxious to talk.
COLLINS: Without taking any questions on the talks, Biden invited the GOP group, led by Senator Susan Collins of Maine, after they proposed a $600 billion counter offer to his $1.9 trillion package.
COLLINS: The White House downplayed expectations for the meeting while noting the Republican proposal was less than a third of what Biden offered.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What this meeting is not is a forum for the present to make or accept an offer. Clearly, he thinks the package size needs to be closer to what he proposed than smaller.
COLLINS: No congressional Republicans have signed on to Biden's plan, but the White House touted West Virginia's Republican governor's support for a bigger package.
GOV. JIM JUSTICE (R-WV): With what we've got going on in this country, if we actually throw away some money right now, so what? We have really got to move and get people taken care of.
COLLINS: The question of whether Biden will go big or go bipartisan has loomed over Washington as Democrats appear ready to go it alone.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): The question is not bipartisanship. The question is addressing the unprecedented crises that we face right now. If Republicans want to work with us, they have better ideas on how to address those crises, that's great. But to be honest with you, I have not yet heard that. COLLINS: Democrats hold a majority but only by a thread, causing the
White House to move quickly after an interview by the vice president antagonized one of the Senate's most moderate Democrats.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): I saw it. I couldn't believe it. No one called me. 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.
COLLINS: West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin complained after Vice President Kamala Harris went on local news in his state to sell the package, which he saw as an attempt to pressure him.
[00:40:06]
KAMALA PRESIDENT, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The American people deserve their leaders to step up and stand up for them.
COLLINS: The White House reached out to Manchin afterward but didn't say who called him.
PSAKI: We've been in touch with Senator Manchin. Not only is he a key partner and -- to the president and to the White House on this package but on his agenda.
COLLINS (on camera): Now after that meeting ended, Republicans sounded upbeat but noted they did not have a deal in hand. And the readout of the White House's version of that meeting where they said President Biden will not settle for a package that does not meet the moment right now. And they said he believed the plan that he crafted was carefully crafted to do so.
And so the question is whether they're going to go it alone, move forward with this reconciliation process, where they would not need Republican votes. The White House did mention that in their statement as a means to an end.
Kaitlin Collins, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: We'll know a little more about the historic second impeachment trial of one-term president Donald Trump in the coming hours when pre- trial legal briefs are filed. A source tells CNN Trump's defense team will focus on the constitutionality of the trial and not on his baseless claims of election fraud.
CNN's Manu Raju has details of what House impeachment managers are expected to say.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAN RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: On the House Democratic side, I am told from sources involved in the planning that they plan to detail a methodical case, laying out Donald Trump, in their view, intentional act to incite these rioters who came to Capitol Hill on January 2nd -- 6th and led to that deadly violence on that day as Congress was trying to certify Joe Biden's electoral victory.
They talked about how Donald Trump acted before the election, right after the election and then in that speech to those rally goers on January 6.
They were also going to make the case that this is a constitutional proceeding. That is important for them, because Republicans in the Senate have dismissed the idea that this is a constitutional act.
And that is what you can expect to hear from Trump's defense team, arguing that this should not be done by the Senate. It would create a dangerous precedent.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Meantime, Republican Senator John Cornyn told CNN it would be a disservice to Trump's legal efforts to keep arguing the election was stolen.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has gone out on a ledge to running an end to the fighting within his own party.
On Monday, he backed Congresswoman Liz Cheney. She's under fire from Trump loyalists, because she voted to impeach the former president.
In another statement, McConnell took aim at freshman lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia. Without naming her directly, McConnell said, "Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the party and the country."
Greene has claimed the 9/11 attack was an inside job. School shootings in the U.S. have been staged by pro-gun law reformists.
Well, there you go.
Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. I'll be back with more news in about 15 minutes. In the meantime, WORLD SPORT is up next.
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