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President Biden Delivers Address at State Department; House to Vote on Removing Marjorie Taylor Greene From Committees. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 04, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:02]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We started in day one with daily briefings of the press from the White House.

We have reached -- we have reinstituted regular briefings here at State and at the Pentagon.

We believe a free press isn't an adversary. Rather, it's essential. A free press is essential to the health of a democracy. We have restored our commitment to science and to create policies grounded in facts and evidence.

I suspect Ben Franklin would approve. We have taken steps to acknowledge and address systemic racism and the scourge of white supremacy in our own country. Racial equity will not just be an issue for one department in our administration. It has to be the business of the whole of government and all our federal policies and institutions.

All this matters to foreign policy, because, when we host the summit of democracies early in my administration to rally the nations of the world to defend democracy globally, to push back the authoritarianism's advance, we will be a much more credible partner because of these efforts to shore up our own foundations.

There's no longer a bright line between foreign and domestic policy. Every action we take in our conduct abroad, we must take with American working families in mind. Advancing a foreign policy for the middle class demands urgent focus on our domestic economic renewal.

And that's why I immediately put forth the American Rescue Plan to pull us out of this economic crisis. That's why I signed an executive order strengthening our buy-American policies last week. And that's also why I worked with Congress to make far-reaching investments in research and development of transformital (sic) technologies.

These investments are going to create jobs, maintain America's competitive edge globally, and ensure all Americans share in the dividends. If we invest in ourselves and our people, if we fight to ensure that American businesses are positioned to compete and win on a global stage, if the rules of international trade aren't stacked against us, if our workers and intellectual property are protected, then there's no country on Earth, not China or any other country on Earth, that can match us.

Investing in our diplomacy isn't something we do just because it's the right thing to do for the world. We do it in order to live in peace, security, prosperity. We do it because it's in our own naked self- interest.

When we strengthen our alliances, we amplify our power, as well as our ability to disrupt threats before they can reach our shores. When we invest in economic development of countries, we create new markets for our products and reduce the likelihood of instability, violence, and mass migrations.

When we strengthen health systems in far regions of the world, we reduce the risk of future pandemics that could threaten our people and our economy. When we defend equal rights of people the world over, of women and girls, LGBTQ individuals, indigenous communities, and people with disabilities, the people of every ethnic background and religion, we also ensure that those rights are protected for our own children here in America.

America cannot afford to be absent any longer on the world stage.

I come today to the State Department, an agency as old and as storied as the nation itself, because diplomacy has always been essential to how America writes its own destiny, for the diplomacy of Ben Franklin helped assure the success of our revolution. The vision of the Marshall Plan helped prevent the world from foundering on the wreckage of war.

And the passions of Eleanor Roosevelt declared the audacious idea of universal rights that belong to all. The leadership of diplomats of every stripe doing the daily work of engagement created the very idea of a free and interconnected world.

We are a country that does big things. American diplomacy makes it happen. And our administration is ready to take up the mantle and lead once again.

Thank you all, and may God bless you, and protect our troops, our diplomats, and our development experts and all Americans serving in harm's way.

[15:05:00]

Going this way.

Thank you all.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: President Joe Biden there, his first big trip to the State Department, first huge, really, foreign policy speech, addressing a couple of things.

Let me just read the headlines that I have for you, first of all, just really being tough on Russia, saying the days of the U.S. rolling over in the face of Russia's aggressive actions and cyberattacks and poisoning people, obviously referring to Alexei Navalny there, are over, he says, called for Alexei Navalny to be released immediately and without condition, said that the new defense secretary will be leading a global posture review of all of our forces worldwide.

Specifically called for an end to all American support for offensive operations in Yemen, and he's appointed this envoy to oversee a diplomatic solution there, he says. He will start increasing the number of refugees allowed in the U.S., of course, after the historically low numbers under the Trump administration.

So, those are the points that he hit on. I have got a lot of really smart people standing by to be able to talk through all of what we just heard.

And, Max Boot, I want to start with you.

And we should also note, just also context-wise, President Trump went to Foggy Bottom once in his four years. And here we have, what, within the first couple of weeks, President Biden there today.

Starting with you on Russia, just your impressions of the tone he took, specifically on Vladimir Putin, and also the calls on Alexei Navalny, saying that he's entitled to his rights, and he should be released.

What do you think?

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, it was a strong message, but it was very general. It was short on specifics.

I mean, he very clearly signaled that this is going to be a departure from the previous administration. He said, the days of rolling over for Russia, those days are over. And he called on Putin to respect human rights and to free Navalny, which is not something you would have ever heard Donald Trump say.

But there was no or else clause. It wasn't clear, what else are they going to do? Are they actually going to carry out the suggestion that Navalny and his allies have made, which I think is a good one, which is to target the financial accounts of Putin and the oligarchs that are in the West? He did not announce that action.

But simply announcing that this is a priority for the United States, I think that's important. That marks a change. And like so much of his speech, these are things that we would have been used to hearing in a previous administration that would have sounded like platitudes or banalities, but now they feel kind of fresh and new and important, because you could never imagine Trump saying them.

BALDWIN: Kylie Atwood, this is your beat. So I'm going to start with you. And then, Dana, then I will come to you, and, Laura, to you.

Yes, he says America is back. You hear Max saying, though, he thought this was short on specifics. What was the biggest headline for you and what was missing? KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, Max is right. I

mean, this was a bit short on specifics, but this was President Biden's first foreign policy speech of his presidency.

He came to the State Department to do it. And that sends a signal. And he said quite directly that America really needs to work on its muscle of diplomacy. He said that had been abused over the last few years, and that is something that he is committing to renewing.

We have heard this message from him time and time again, but he's reiterating it here today. And, as you have pointed out, he did make a very, very strong statement on Navalny, again calling for Russia to release him.

And as this review of the U.S.-Russia policy is under way, the administration hasn't actually done anything to follow up on what are those strong rhetorical comments right now. So, we're waiting to see that. But we should note that there was some policy that he did roll out here today.

He announced that there's going to be a new refugee cap for the Biden administration. He is raising it to 125,000 refugees. Now, that's significant, because, when President Trump left, it was left at 15,000. This is a dramatic increase.

And he says that this whole program really needs a lot of love because it has atrophied over the last few years. The other thing is on Yemen. The U.S. is no longer going to be supporting offensive measures in Yemen. And what that really means is that the U.S. is not going to be selling a certain types of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that are used to take on the fight in Yemen right now.

And he is putting diplomacy back on the table, announcing a State Department official that is going to be taking up this baton, so really focusing on diplomacy, as he's making these announcements, also reviewing U.S. force posture globally, and putting a hold on withdrawing U.S. troops from Germany at this time while that review is under way.

So, there were a lot of specifics, even though, broad strokes, where people are really looking, Russia and China and the like, we're still waiting for some details.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

Dana, bigger picture too. How much of this -- and I know we have talked about this in terms of Congress and E.O.s vs. actual legislation. But I'm sitting here thinking, how much of this is the Biden administration saying, all right, we have got this huge list of what we need to do foreign-policy wise, XYZ, ABC, vs. really having to take time to just undo so much of the, as they would say, damage that was done these last few years?

[15:10:20]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's the latter right now. That's what this speech was about.

Kylie is, of course, right on some of the specifics with Yemen and others. But on foreign policy, when you are an American president, and you make a statement, that statement is supposed to mean something. And the fact is, we haven't had anything this deliberate and sweeping, maybe broad strokes, fine, but deliberate.

I mean, it's very clear to anybody in the world who was watching that a new American president goes to the seat of diplomacy, the State Department, and utters these words. That is very intentional, and it is made very clear by where he is and by what he said.

And one other point that I want to make, as somebody who has traveled with presidents, with some of his predecessors abroad, that we are used to hearing presidents talk about a free press, not just domestically, but on the world stage intentionally in order to encourage democracy. We heard him say that very clearly.

And that was a real -- obviously, a very big departure from a guy who called us the enemy of the state. But it is also because, for the past four years, the rhetoric that people who were looking for excuses around the world to be more of a demagogue, what they heard from the previous president, they could take advantage of.

And that's another message that he was trying to send, and another episode of what I guess we're continuing to see, back to the future, which is what the Biden administration is trying to telegraph.

BALDWIN: And -- yes.

And, Laura, also, as I was sitting here listening to him talking about some of this substance regarding Yemen and refugee admissions programs and the global posture view of our forces and freezing any troop redeployments from Germany, he also said -- he's very firmly rooted in being an American president, obviously, with looking at this through the lens of a pandemic, thousands of people dying every day, the economy.

Millions of Americans are struggling. And he said: "Every action we take abroad, we must keep American middle-class families in mind."

Why make that point standing there at the State Department?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that's a point Biden has been making throughout his campaign into the general election, from the primary to the general, and even now into the office.

One of the core elements of his presidential campaign was talking about the middle class, was talking about Americans that he feels as though have been left behind and that are particularly struggling during this pandemic.

And so he mentioned that to show that, no matter what agency he's talking about, he has them in mind. He also mentioned, Brooke -- and this stuck out to me -- that racial equity is at the core of everything that he's doing as well. And so he mentioned that. It may sound like a throwaway line in this

large speech about diplomacy and about how he's redirecting the State Department. But the fact that he still said it there, the fact that he's saying it's going to apply to agencies that people wouldn't typically expect it to apply to it, that he's looking at everything through a racial equity lens, that's another thing that I don't think we would have heard from a president maybe ever before, but certainly not in recent history.

BALDWIN: I'm glad you pointed it out, a racial equity lens, yes. And, also, he reiterated protecting rights of LGBTQI individuals worldwide and looking at the world through that lens as well.

I want to thank all of you for going through the first real foreign policy speech there of the president at the State Department. Thank you, thank you.

We're going to move along, more breaking news ahead this afternoon.

Soon, the U.S. House will vote to punish Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for promoting conspiracy theories and expressing support for the assassination of Democratic leaders. The congresswoman today just tried to walk back some of her comments, but she also blamed cancel culture for the backlash against her. We have those new details ahead.

And the House impeachment managers today are asking former President Donald Trump to show up and testify under oath in the very same place he incited his supporters to attack.

Also ahead, a voting technology company filing a massive $2.7 billion lawsuit against FOX News, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell over what it calls a disinformation campaign that has threatened its very survival.

You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

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We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being here.

To our breaking news now.

Just days before former President Trump's second impeachment trial gets under way, House impeachment managers are asking him to testify under oath to get him out and on the record about his conduct and role surrounding the deadly insurrection at the Capitol back on January 6.

We are also watching Capitol Hill this afternoon, where the House is gearing up to vote on whether to strip Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments.

[15:20:04] As they debate the motion, the Georgia Republican is attempting a mea culpa, or maybe better to say she's maybe showing some regrets, a last-ditch attempt to whitewash her controversial past.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): School shootings are absolutely real. And every child that is lost, those families mourn it.

I also want to tell you 9/11 absolutely happened. I remember that day, crying all day long watching it on the news. And it's a tragedy for anyone to say it didn't happen. And so that, I definitely want to tell you, I do not believe that it's fake.

Big media companies can take teeny tiny pieces of words that I have said, that you have said, any of us, and can portray us into someone that we're not. And that is wrong. Cancel culture is a real thing. It is very real.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: She's calling this vote cancel culture. And that is not what this is. This

is a vote to decide if someone who has been a promoter of QAnon, a peddler of dangerous conspiracy theories and endorser of violence against Democrats should be held accountable.

So, let's start on Capitol Hill with CNN congressional correspondent Jessica Dean.

And, Jessica, just give me the state of play right now.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, what's happening right now, Brooke, is, the House is going through all of the procedure to get to the ultimate full House vote on this resolution to remove her from her committees.

So, right now, they're working their way through the rule to then get to that vote. We're expecting that to come later this evening around 5:30. But things remain fluid.

What we're keeping an eye on now is, of course, Democrats are moving forward with this. This is a Democratic resolution that they chose to bring to the floor, because they said Republicans would not act to do what needed to be done.

And they have really made a point of saying, this isn't about a difference of opinion or we don't like her. This is about -- in Nancy Pelosi's words, about Marjorie Taylor Greene threatening the lives of other members of Congress.

So, they feel like, even though this is going to be breaking with precedent in terms of bringing this to the floor, they don't feel like there -- that there is anything wrong with that, and they feel that it is the correct thing to do. Now, remember, Marjorie Taylor Greene met with the House leadership,

House GOP leadership. They have decided not, as of right now, to do anything. They are going to keep her on their committee. So now it goes to this vote.

The question is, will any Republicans join Democrats in this? And we saw her, as you played that clip right there, go to the House floor and talk a little bit about her views. Some Republicans said earlier they were looking for an apology, looking for her to renounce these views publicly.

Is this enough, what she did to just persuade Republicans to stay with her on this issue? That remains to be seen if any Republicans will be joining Democrats in this.

But, Brooke, the important thing to keep in mind as we're watching all of this play out is that this resolution needs a simple majority. And House Democrats do hold the majority right now. So that's what we're looking at.

BALDWIN: Jessica, thank you.

I want to have a conversation about all of this.

With me now, CNN political commentator and former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania Charlie Dent, and Bill Kristol, director of Defending Democracy Together, a conservative anti-Trump political group.

Gentlemen, welcome.

Charlie, this one is for you first.

So, another assertion made by Greene on the House floor today is that she says she never mentioned QAnon since she started campaigning for Congress. But here she was in July.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: In the video, you say -- quote -- "Q is a patriot."

Do you believe that? Is that what you believe?

GREENE: I have only ever seen patriotic sentiment coming out of that source and other sources.

I think Twitter has just announced recently last week that it'll be removing anyone that associates himself with QAnon. But yet there's never been any dangerous rhetoric coming out of people like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK. We all heard that, right? We heard that, Charlie, another -- the fact that also, watching her today, that a member of Congress had to go out on the floor and actually say out loud, yes, 9/11 absolutely happened or, yes, school shootings are real, what did you think?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, my reaction remains the same.

I said last summer, when it became clear she was going to become the Republican nominee in that Georgia congressional district, that the leadership at that time should have told her that, should she become the nominee and elected to Congress, that they will not welcome her into the Republican Conference or seat her on any committees, and that they would work with the Georgia GOP to defeat her in a primary in 2022, enjoy her time in Congress.

[15:25:02]

That's how you need to deal. That's how they shouldn't be dealing with these radical members or people who have these radical ideologies, anti-Semitism, anti-Islamic, conspiracy theories, 9/11 didn't happen, the plane didn't crash into the Pentagon, whatever she said, the insensitive comments she made about the shootings up in Connecticut at Sandy Hook.

I mean, how much more do we need? She should have been removed from the committees. It's that simple. And now -- the Republican leadership should have done it. Now they're going to have this spectacle today where they're going to have to vote on it and set a precedent that they'd rather not.

BALDWIN: Well, my aside is not only did you know it last summer, but Axios was reporting in the last week about how her primary opposition flagged this to party leadership.

They had this oppo research, and yet we see what the result was.

Bill, to you.

Was she said today effective in any way? Do you think it changes the dynamic at all with regard to this vote and her committee spots?

BILL KRISTOL, DIRECTOR, DEFENDING DEMOCRACY TOGETHER: It was awfully disingenuous. She made it seem as if she were the victim of social media, and got sort of forced to believe these things and accept these things, when she propagated them, and, as recently as two three days ago, was tweeting things about how critics of President Trump were pedophiles and so forth.

So it's a little ridiculous. But if you are a Republican member looking to stick with your party, looking to find a reason not to vote with the Democrats to kick her off the committees, maybe slightly genuinely concerned about the precedent this sets, you're going to take this as enough.

So maybe it will help reduce the number of Republican votes, Republicans joining the Democrats today.

BALDWIN: Bill, let me stay with you, because, as for the party itself, as for the GOP -- this is something some of us were texting about last night -- just the fact that there was the standing ovation last night.

It's one thing for her to say all of these wild and crazy things out loud. It's another for Kevin McCarthy to do absolutely nothing about it, which we will get to.

But, Bill, to have members of Congress stand up and applaud Marjorie Taylor Greene, my question is this. Do Republicans truly share her beliefs? Or is this really just all about winning elections and staying in Trump's good graces?

KRISTOL: Some of both.

But, I mean, you mentioned the key name there, Trump. I mean, this didn't happen on its own. And the Republican members of Congress would be a lot more willing to take on Marjorie Taylor Greene if she weren't embraced by the most powerful Republican in the country right now, who remains Donald J. Trump.

It's about Trump, really, fundamentally.

BALDWIN: So, you think they applauded her knowing that details of the committee hearing would be leaked, and they knew Trump would ultimately know, and they want to be on the -- quote, unquote -- "right side"?

KRISTOL: No, I think I mean, some of them believe she's being unfairly persecuted. And some of them agree with her. And some of them just think we have to have a big tent there, from crazy people all the way over to kind of normal conservatives, but -- so I -- who knows exactly what's going through their minds.

But the lesson they have internalized, unfortunately, over the last several years is no enemies to the right, never take on Trump or anyone Trump supports. We will try to pretend that these problems don't exist. Accept a fake apology, if there is one, just as with Trump after Charlottesville and many, many other times. Maybe there's a tiny concession, and you make it seem as if that's sufficient.

So, that is the Republican Party we have in the House. Ten people voted for impeachment after January 6. It's not clear. We will see what happens in the Senate. But that is the way it is.

BALDWIN: What about Kevin McCarthy, Charlie?

A source told CNN's Gloria Borger that McCarthy's actions were a real -- quote -- "abdication of leadership" and -- quote -- "potentially career-ending mistake."

I mean, he wants to obviously be speaker in 2022. Do you see it that way?

DENT: Well, I do think he made a mistake, but you have to understand what his calculation is, that Kevin McCarthy wants to be speaker.

And remember what happened to him in 2015 after John Boehner stepped down. McCarthy tried to elevate. And the Freedom Caucus would not provide the votes to help him. So, since then, Kevin McCarthy tried to co-opt the Freedom Caucus, or maybe they co-opted him. And so now he's in better graces with them.

So, if he punishes Marjorie Taylor Greene, he will likely lose their votes again going forward.

But the flip side of that is, by not condemning Marjorie Taylor Greene, I think he makes it harder for his caucus to get back into the majority, because members in the swing districts are going to be tagged with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Remember, Republicans also will hit Democrats for being tied to the Squad and AOC. Well, now it's their turn of events. They're going to try to attack Republican members over Marjorie Taylor Greene, making it harder to get the majority.

So, Kevin McCarthy is really in a bit of a pickle here. I think he's kind of twisted up.

BALDWIN: We wait to see what happens, whether or not they strip of her committee assignments. They do have -- Democrats do have the simple majority, which is all they need.

So, to be continued, gentlemen.

Bill and Charlie, thank you both so much for talking that through with me. We will talk about it tomorrow, I'm sure.