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President Trump Refuses to Testify at Impeachment; Biden to Send Troops to Help Vaccinate; Interview with CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools Sonja Brookins Santelises. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired February 05, 2021 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump has refused a request to testify during his second impeachment trial. Democrats do have other options, perhaps, to force that. Let's talk impeachment with someone who teaches it, I'm joined now by CNN legal analyst Ross Garber, he teaches impeachment law and political investigations at Tulane Law School.

Ross, good to have you back, as always.

ROSS GARBER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So Democrats could subpoena the president. Would a subpoena hold?

GARBER: Well, first of all, a subpoena is very unlikely because of the question you asked. You know, first of all, the Senate hasn't authorized any subpoenas in this case yet, and so maybe the Senate would authorize subpoenas, maybe they wouldn't.

If a subpoena were issued, the big risk for the House managers and the Senate is that Trump would either refuse, just totally flout it, and force the Democrats to go to court to try to enforce it.

Or he would go to court and tee up an issue for the courts that Democrats don't want to be before the courts, and that's the issue of jurisdiction. That's been the Trump primary defense here, is that the Senate doesn't have the jurisdiction to do that. And that's one way that issue could actually get in front of the courts, is through subpoenas.

SCIUTTO: Can you do this trial? Can senators, can the House managers do this trial without calling witnesses?

GARBER: Well, they can. The first Trump trial was held without any witnesses. You know, you remember --

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: That's because it was blocked, right? By Republicans who held the majority, Democrats have the majority now. They fought that. I mean, I'm saying, like, can they make the case for high crimes and misdemeanors purely through videos and so on, which seems to be the focus here?

GARBER: Yes, as a practical matter, I think the answer is no. I mean, you know, we can all count votes. Right now, I think if a vote were held based on what everybody knows right now, it seems that conviction is just not going to happen, there's no way it's going to happen.

You know, for there to be a realistic chance of conviction, I think there's got to be new evidence, there have to be witnesses and you're going to have to convince a substantial number of Republican senators. And that means convincing a substantial part of the Trump voting public, that the former public should be convicted.

[10:35:03]

And that's not going to happen without -- probably not going to happen with or without witnesses, but it's not going to happen without witnesses.

SCIUTTO: Well, then haven't Republicans -- so rather the Democrats here already ceded the trial, right? I mean, if you need the witnesses, you need the subpoenas and so on to make the case, what's the point?

GARBER: Well, so what we don't know yet is whether the Democrats are -- you know, have given up on this issue of having witnesses. They -- is there a possibility that they do decide to call witnesses? You know, as you noted, we saw, for the first time yesterday, the House managers invite the president to come and testify.

This is all a moving target. Unlike the first Trump trial, unlike the Clinton trial, unlike every other modern impeachment trial, we are heading into impeachment trial week without even knowing the rules. The Senate has not adopted rules for, you know, witnesses, depositions, subpoenas, nothing like that. And so this is all a very, very fluid situation.

SCIUTTO: Yes, no question. All right, well, we'll see how that affects the bottom line. Ross Garber, thanks so much, always good to hear your experience.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Ahead for us, as many school districts push for a return to in-person learning, there is new data and it shows that there is a trust gap, particularly with families of color, in terms of sending their kids back to school. We'll talk about all of this, ahead.

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SCIUTTO: This just in to CNN, the Biden administration is expected to announce today it is sending approximately 1,000 U.S. troops to help across the country, getting people vaccinated. HARLOW: Let's go to our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, she

joins us now. Good morning, Barbara, what can you tell us?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to both of you. Think of this as a military down payment on the effort to increase vaccinations, the president wanting a million and a half a day. The military portion of this, likely to be about 450,000 vaccines a day.

So what we have right now is -- it is expected the Biden administration will announce later today about 1,000 troops getting the orders to be able to move around the country quickly to help with these initial vaccinations at some of these mega-hub sites that are being set up. That's about 1,000 troops, still working with FEMA to get the rest of that estimated 10,000 troops out there.

They will have to have a hard look, we know, at the mix of active duty and National Guard, medical professionals that will be able to administer vaccines, support personnel that will be able to help run the sites and get all of this up and running to meet President Biden's goal of a million and a half a day in the first 100 days.

So this is the first step. Now, the military's been very involved in this already, there have been a number of National Guard units, active duty units that have moved around the country to help overwhelmed hospital systems. But now, very much focusing on the vaccine problem -- Poppy, Jim.

HARLOW: Anything that can be helpful is very welcome, Barbara Starr.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Our thanks to them, and our thanks to you.

President Biden is pushing to try to get support, especially bipartisan support, for his $1.9 trillion COVID relief package. It includes some funding geared toward reopening schools. A lot of funding, actually, but that's a big sticking point.

It's part of his aggressive 100-day plan to get every kid back in school. Officials say the loss of in-person learning is hurting all children, but especially communities of color. It is exacerbating inequality, it also is exposing the lack of trust that some minority families have in sending their kids back to school.

SCIUTTO: So here's the sad reality in several cities. The "Chicago Tribune" reports that only a third of black families are willing to send their children back to classrooms. This compared to 67 percent among white families. In New York City, about 12,000 more white children have returned to classrooms than black students, despite black children making up a larger share of the district.

Joining us now to discuss why this is, what could be done about it? Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises, she is the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.

SONJA BROOKINS SANTELISES, CEO, BALTIMORE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Thanks for having me, good to be here.

SCIUTTO: So we're talked a lot on this broadcast, as have others, about vaccine hesitancy and the root causes of that. Can you tell us what's behind -- I mean, if you want to call it school return hesitancy? What's driving this?

BROOKINS SANTELISES: Well, I think one of the things we know and what we've been seeing is that, one, a number of our families of color, large percentages, already have seen the under-resourcing of their schools, already have distrust in both medical institutions as well as educational institutions.

So we've had to take that into account as we have increased our in- person learning opportunities, but it's absolutely real.

HARLOW: You know, I know that you have been fighting hard to get kids back in classrooms, so it must be pretty disappointing to you, to say the least, that there is this now additional two-week delay at least, to getting the -- you know, the teachers' union on board, et cetera.

But I'd like to hear from you about the actual impact on the kids, and the learning loss, and how profound that is, not to mention the fact that it's literally forcing parents -- largely mothers -- to choose between their job and staying home with their kid. What is it -- what is happening?

BROOKINS SANTELISES: Well, Poppy, you're absolutely right. What we're seeing, first, is that there are parents -- and parents of color in particular -- who do want an in-person option because, quite frankly, they've never had the choice to work from home. They want safe options for their young people.

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And we have families across our city in every neighborhood that are seeing increased depression, isolation, withdrawal from learning. We've had families come up and just hand us laptops, to one of our principals, and say, I can't do this anymore.

HARLOW: Wow.

BROOKINS SANTELISES: And these are already families under duress. And so part of what we are really working for is to give options for all of our families, whether they're low-income, whether they're English language learners, an option for their young people.

We're seeing the toll in academic outcomes. So we have a 20 to 30 percent increase in the number of our 9th graders who have failed one course, their first year, in 9th grade. And this has long-term implications, we know this already, that course failure in 9th grade reduces the likelihood that a young person (INAUDIBLE) from high school.

So we're seeing some of that negative impact alongside. Some families still (ph) want the virtual option. We're just saying all families deserve a choice, regardless of their zip code, regardless of their neighborhood, their first language or, frankly, their ethnicity or race. We want families to have a choice.

SCIUTTO: You know, the fact is that data shows it's safe, though. Like with vaccines, the vaccines are safe, the data shows it overwhelmingly. And reopening has been shown to be safe -- with mitigation. So I wonder, how do you get those facts through to help change some of these views?

BROOKINS SANTELISES: So one of the things we have seen, Jim and Poppy, is that when we proceed slow and steady, and we give families the opportunity to see for themselves, right? So we're hosting open houses at our schools so that families see that the soap that wasn't in place, prior to the pandemic, is now in place. They see the distancing, they see the masking.

And for a lot of our families, seeing is believing. They're not just going to take, you know, take our word for it because they already have challenges in relationships with institutions.

But we have seen that that slow and steady, when we began our student learning centers, we -- out of a thousand spaces, we only had about two to 300 filled. Within three weeks, as families saw that we were true to our word, we had all 1,000 spaces filled.

So I think that what we have to take into account is that we have to guide families through the procedures we're actually putting in place. And then the seeing is believing, their kids are coming home, feeling much better about being back and having those connections. But you've got to show you can do it safely.

SCIUTTO: Got to get buy-in, right? Sonja Brookins Santelises, we wish you the best of luck, the work you're doing is just so important.

BROOKINS SANTELISES: Thank you all, and thanks for getting the word out.

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SCIUTTO: And we'll be right back.

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SCIUTTO: A couple days from the Super Bowl, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell admits there were some anxious days, dealing with COVID-19 this season. I imagine there were.

HARLOW: I'm sure. Coy Wire is live in Tampa, site of Super Bowl LV, with the "Bleacher Report." Looks absolutely lovely where you are, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, finally warmed up a bit here, Poppy. Good to see you and Jim.

Look, football was deemed a super-spreader sport, right? By many ahead of this season. These athletes didn't have a bubble environment like other leagues. But here we are, just days before the Super Bowl, many thought it wouldn't make it this far. There were several games postponed, hundreds of tests, positive tests

over the course of the season, but zero games cancelled. Strict protocols and rules from, you know, Kinexon proximity bracelets to assist with contact tracing and minimize the spread of the virus, to simply wearing masks. And then being disciplined, of course, enough to adhere to those rules. All allowed for this season to continue on.

Commissioner Roger Goodell, as Jim mentioned, did say yesterday he wasn't sure that would always be the case.

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ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: Those were some anxious days, there's no question about it. But we believed in our medical experts, we believed int he protocols. We were able to get that under control, and we have learned a lot from that.

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WIRE: Now, this Super Bowl, unlike any other. Many events, traditions, called off due to the pandemic. But the Super Bowl Experience, open all week, had thousands gathering yesterday to kick field goals, visit an NFL museum. There were virtual autograph signings. Fans could run the 40-yard dash against digital versions of the NFL stars. That's all along Tampa's River Walk here.

Now, we will be talking more about the events here this week, and the big game. Join me, our Andy Scholes, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and some surprise guests for "KICKOFF IN TAMPA BAY: A CNN-BLEACHER REPORT SPECIAL." It's tomorrow at 2:30 Eastern, right here on CNN -- Poppy, Jim, back to you.

HARLOW: We will definitely watch, and Jim's going to handle the show Monday so that I can stay up and watch the Super Bowl, right, Sciutto? Right? Yes.

SCIUTTO: Sure. Let's do a $5 bet right now, Poppy, who's going to win? You choose.

HARLOW: A hundred percent, Tom Brady and Tampa --

SCIUTTO: OK.

HARLOW: -- only saying that because I love John Berman. That's all.

SCIUTTO: I'll take that bet, I'll take that bet, I'll go with the Chiefs, five bucks. You heard it, Coy.

HARLOW: OK, OK, five bucks. Thank you, Coy, have fun.

And thanks to all of you for joining us this week, it was great to have you. Big week next week, so we'll see you here -- I'll be here, Monday morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.

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SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto, NEWSROOM with Kate Bolduan starts after a short break.

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Hello everyone, I'm Kate Bolduan, thank you so much for joining us this hour.

[10:59:58]

And buckle up, this is an hour of live events. And we are going walk you through each of them as they are unfolding, starting with the coronavirus.