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COVID Variants Spreading in U.S.; Trump's Second Impeachment Trial Set For Tuesday. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 08, 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]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi there. You're watching CNN on this Monday afternoon. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being me -- with me.

We are now less than 24 hours away from the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. We're getting some new details this afternoon on exactly how this thing is going to proceed.

A source tells CNN that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are closing in on an agreement that would give each side up to 16 hours to present their cases. A final decision hasn't been made yet as to whether witnesses will be called, so stand by for that.

Also, as for the president himself, the former president, his legal team just unveiled a bit what have their strategy will be, accusing the Democrats of -- quote -- "political theater."

House managers just responded to that, filing this brief, saying this -- quote -- "The evidence of President Trump's conduct is overwhelming. He has no valid excuse or defense for his actions, and his efforts to escape accountability are entirely unavailing."

CNN's Jessica Dean is live on Capitol Hill for us.

And, Jessica, another little nugget we have learned, I know, is that they will have to -- obviously, because of COVID, there will be COVID precautions in place for the trial starting tomorrow, that senators may not be at their desks during the entire time.

But looking ahead to these next few days, what do you know about how this second impeachment trial will go?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, we're getting more details as today goes on.

And just, for example, we know that the House impeachment managers were just over on the Senate side kind of looking around, touring around the area where they are going to make their case later this week. So developments keep coming out. As you mentioned, we do know, according to sources, that Senate

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are finalizing their deal, which will lay out how this trial is going to go forward. And we're going to get more details on that likely later today.

But here's what we know as of right now. The very latest on this is that that deal is expected to read out that Tuesday, tomorrow, they will argue the constitutionality of this impeachment trial yet again. Remember, they did that not too long ago. But this will be up to four hours of debate on that.

Then, Wednesday, they will have up to 16 hours per side for those arguments. And one more thing to note. We're still waiting to see if witnesses will be called. We're being told that McConnell and Schumer will put in there that, if impeachment managers want to call witnesses, they will allow for debate and a vote on that.

Now, you mentioned, too, this is all happening as we're continuing to deal with the COVID pandemic. And that's a very real thing here at the U.S. Capitol, social distancing in place, masks in place, and that is going to affect just physically how they go through this trial, because, remember, the Senate floor is just not a giant place.

So we know that they won't be at their desks for the entire time. Remember, for this first impeachment trial about a year ago, that was the thing. They all had to be at their desks for that required amount of time, no looking at their phones, that sort of thing.

Well, this time, we're being told they will be allowed to go off to different areas close to the Senate floor, so they won't all be jammed in there together, that they will be able to watch on a television monitor or go out to another area as well.

And we're also learning more about these pretrial briefs, Brooke, that came in just this afternoon. We had one from Trump's defense. They are going to argue that he that -- this is unconstitutional and that he was using metaphors when he said things like fight like hell, and then the House impeachment managers then laying out their case, saying there's simply no defense for his actions and that he's responsible for what happened here, the deadly insurrection on January 6, and that they will lay that all out using things like video to piece it all together -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: The fight like hell point, that's what I want to get to with my next guest.

Jessica Dean, thanks so much for giving us sort of the lay of land for the next two days.

With me now, CNN presidential historian Doug Brinkley and CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, who is a former federal prosecutor.

General, welcome.

And let me read this. Elliot, this is for you. Trump's lawyers write this: "Despite the

House managers' charges against Mr. Trump, his statements cannot and could not reasonably be interpreted as a call to immediate violence or a call for a violent overthrowing of the United States government."

But let's just remind everyone, this is what the former president said:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country any more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: To that end, Trump's lawyers, you heard, are arguing that that was not meant to be taken literally, Elliot. How?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER DEPUTY U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Look, oh, sure, Brooke.

They have an entire section in their brief which they released today about the word fight, and they are fixating on just that speech as if the totality of President Trump's conduct was limited to the 11 or 12 or however many minutes he was speaking that day.

But, look, going back to December 19, the president was tweeting about be there, be wild. While his vice president's life was in danger in the United States House -- on the floor of the Senate, the president was tweeting at Mike Pence, calling him a coward, or talking about how he needed to show courage.

[15:05:12]

So, this is a pattern of conduct, frankly, stretching back to July, when the president of the United States first said on "FOX News Sunday" on July 19 that he wasn't going to accept the results of the election. So, yes, we can quibble about whether the -- what the dictionary definition of the term fight means, or the fact that the president of the United States engaged in a sustained effort to put people at risk.

It's almost like saying, look, I spoke for a whole half-hour, but you're just fixating on that one little insurrectionist sentence in the middle of it. And it's far bigger than that. And, yes, you can construe the word fight in the context of the bigger body of the president's conduct as inciting that conduct that we saw that day.

BALDWIN: Got another legal question. And then, Doug, I'm going to come to you.

But, Elliot, Trump's lawyers and some Republicans are arguing, as we have talked about on TV, right, that it's unconstitutional to try a former president. But then you have one of Washington's leading conservative constitutional lawyers coming out claiming that argument is illogical.

Charles Cooper is his name. He's close to many, many prominent Republicans, including the likes of Ted Cruz. Do you think his opinion could provide cover for some Republican senators to convict?

WILLIAMS: I don't think so, because of that vote where 45 of them have already said that they wouldn't likely not vote to proceed on this.

BALDWIN: The Rand Paul vote.

WILLIAMS: Yes, the Rand Paul vote.

Look, judges in normal cases and senators here like to not be able to reach the facts of the case. And this prevents them from having to reach the facts of the case. They can sort of wash their hands and say, this is unconstitutional, we don't even need to address the president's conduct, because they know they can't. The president's conduct on its face was unlawful.

BALDWIN: Doug Brinkley, do you think this trial is just as much about making the case to the American public as it is to senators, like, really make Americans question Trump's influence, not just on the Republican Party, but on American politics in general?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I do, Brooke.

And I think the Democratic Party had no choice but to go forward with this impeachment trial. I mean, the great poet Robert Frost used to say the only way out is through. The idea that we would just say bye to Donald Trump and let him get away with this ill thinking that he did from the election onward, it just doesn't fly.

So, I think the Democrats are going to have to go after Trump, put the evidence out there. The world is going to be watching on television. And at the very least, it reminds me, Brooke, of when Dwight Eisenhower went after the -- in 1945 to the Holocaust sites, the death camps.

And when he first saw one, he wired George Marshall and said, document it, document it, document it, or people will say it wasn't really that bad or it wasn't real.

So, that's what the Democrats are doing. At the very least, they're creating a historic record that scholars, journalists, historians will be able to use, like a 9/11 Commission report type of thing, to advance the story forward.

BALDWIN: Such an important point you just made.

This is also how this impeachment will be different than the last, Elliot. We are getting some sense of how the impeachment managers plan to handle this, when you -- especially when they're looking at the lessons that they learned from Trump's last impeachment.

The managers, we're learning, are going to be leaning heavily on video, to Doug's point. This is the first time that video is going to be used sort of more in totality, not bits and pieces of what happened to various members on January 6, but just stringing it together to really form this compelling story of what happened on insurrection day.

How effective do you think that will be?

WILLIAMS: Yes.

Brooke, it's very rare in any proceeding, in court, in impeachments, although we haven't had that many of them, where the -- all the evidence you need to convict the individual is on record. Lord knows, when I was a prosecutor, if I'd had this much video evidence in any trial, I don't even know how I would have done, because it's just -- it's simple -- it just wouldn't -- it just doesn't happen.

Yes, witnesses would be wonderful. There are many, many compelling witnesses, including ones inside the White House or the military, who could help fill and round out this case. But just look at what we have, again, from the video of the president giving the speech, all of the tweets, the president saying to walk back to the Capitol, countless statements of people on this -- like, they're recorded at the scene of the crime, saying: Our president sent us here.

And there's even some folks in "The Washington Post" having said today that we went home when the president told us to go home. So, yes, witnesses would be great. Witnesses are very compelling, they're human, they're warm, but also there's something incredibly human about watching the seat of democracy being put under siege on video, and we have all seen it, and we have all lived it.

And reliving that will be an incredible way to make this case.

BALDWIN: Doug, big picture, last question.

Here, we have this impeachment trial of a former president happening at the crime scene, with jurors who were victims themselves. How unprecedented is this?

[15:10:08]

BRINKLEY: Unbelievably unprecedented.

We're living in strange and weird times right now. But that started when Donald Trump started the birther conspiracy, began using Twitter, which he's not allowed to use now, started creating hoaxes.

Trump's going to be known in history for two things, maybe three, the lack of proper leadership through COVID-19, the big lie that the election was rigged, when it actually was an incredible free and fair election in 2020, and, thirdly, for causing the insurrection of January 6.

The evidence is already there. But this is not a court of law. This is politics playing out in Washington. And, as an American, you have to be proud that we're at least at this stage now where we can put the evidence together at the scene of the crime. It's a big, epic moment in U.S. history. And I think everybody's going to be watching.

BALDWIN: It all begins tomorrow.

Doug and Elliot, thank you both so much.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: As far as COVID is concerned, as vaccination rates rise, new concerns today about the spread of COVID variants and the strength of vaccines to fight them.

Plus: President Biden targeting child poverty with a new plan to provide monthly checks to struggling families. Will it have Republican support?

And the psychology of QAnon. It has been embraced by some members of Congress, but very few Americans actually support the movement. So why do seemingly sane people believe these bizarre conspiracy theories? And how do you bring QAnon believers back to reality? We will talk to a former member of a cult.

You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:35]

BALDWIN: We are back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

The first sitting member of Congress has died from COVID. Texas Republican Congressman Ron Wright passed away Sunday. He tested positive about two-and-a-half weeks ago and has also been battling cancer. He was 67. Congressman Wright's death is a reminder that the pandemic is still raging, and that now is not the time for people to let their guards down.

That contagious variant first detected in the U.K. has spread to at least 33 states, one health expert saying the U.S. is -- quote -- "in the eye of the hurricane."

But there is hope on the horizon. The country is averaging half the new daily cases it was seeing in mid-January, Sunday's total new cases the lowest in three months. Nearly 10 percent of the population has received at least one vaccine shot. And teachers in some public school districts are finally agreeing on how to safely reopen classrooms.

Nick Watt is our CNN national correspondent. He has this report from Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The lowest daily case count in the U.S. since early November was just logged Sunday, numbers in the hospital also falling fast, but still higher than the summer surge, and: DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: The continued proliferation of variants remains of great concern and is a threat that could reverse the recent positive trends we are seeing.

WATT: Nearly 700 cases of the more contagious variant first banned in the U.K. now detected here and doubling roughly every 10 days, according to a new study that's not yet peer-reviewed.

DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think we have to assume that there are maybe tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of those variants.

WATT: Meantime, nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population has now had at least one dose of vaccine.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: The encouraging news is that the vaccines that we're currently distributing right now are quite effective against that particular variant, less so against the -- against the South African.

WATT: In fact, South Africa just paused its rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine after a small study found it offers little protection against mild and moderate illness caused by that variant.

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND PUBLIC HEALTH SPECIALIST: If we allow the virus to continue spreading and mutating, we may well find ourselves in a place where the vaccines no longer work at all.

WATT: So, a negative test before you're allowed on even a domestic flight might become mandatory.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: There's an active conversation with the CDC right now. What I can tell you is, it's going to be guided by data, by science, by medicine, and by the input of the people who are actually going to have to carry this out.

WATT: Chicago and its teachers union just reached a tentative agreement to get back into the classroom this week. New York City now plans to bring back tens of thousands of middle schoolers end of the month.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's time for schools reopen safely, safely. You have to have fewer people in a classroom. You have to have ventilation systems that have been reworked.

WATT: Detailed CDC guidance on that and more is expected Wednesday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: And the CDC says more data is emerging to suggest you can safely reopen schools if you do the right thing.

And that really speaks to a problem that officials have experienced throughout. You're fighting a brand-new virus. You're trying to figure out how to fight the pandemic while you're in a pandemic, similar situation with that AstraZeneca vaccine.

[15:20:05]

Now, the makers say that they believe it will protect against severe disease. They just haven't had the chance to test it yet -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yes, we need more than believing.

Nick Watt, thank you.

WATT: Yes.

BALDWIN: Dr. Rob Davidson is an emergency room physician and is the executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare. He is fresh off his eight-hour shift there in the car, parked, for everyone watching and wondering.

And we will have a chat and then you can be on your way home.

Dr. Davidson, as you heard from Nick, there is some real hope here. Let's start with the positive, right? Vaccine administration does seem to be hitting a stride now. Hospitalizations and deaths are down. Are we officially turning the corner?

DR. ROB DAVIDSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMITTEE TO PROTECT MEDICARE: Well, we certainly are going in the direct direction now.

But, as he said, the numbers right now compared to the summer surge are still significantly higher. So, yes, we're going the right direction. We have to continue it. The presence of the variants popping up in many places is definitely concerning.

I think, not to beat the drum even more, but we have to keep doing the simple things, like wearing masks, like socially distancing. Super Bowl parties are concerning. The celebrations in the streets in Tampa are concerning. So, we really have to be diligent as we're ramping up the vaccines, two million a day.

These are these are critical numbers. These are benchmarks we had hoped for and we're getting to, but, yes, there's a long way to go yet.

BALDWIN: But to your point on the vigilance, because, yes, we have been reporting on various variants, but we are hearing now that there is a more contagious variant, the one that was first identified in the U.K., that is now here in the U.S. and rapidly spreading.

And for all of us wondering, all right, well, we are trying to stay away from COVID getting us, and now you have this really contagious variant of COVID, what do we do? Do we need to double-mask? Do we -- what do you suggest?

DAVIDSON: Yes, I would double-mask, I think to still be diligent about only going out when you have to, avoiding large groups, avoiding groups of people that are not in your direct home. And, really, the honest answer is, we haven't been sequencing these viruses to know where these variants have been all along. We started doing that more and more over the last few weeks. And we're now finding that these variants are here.

They very well have been here all along, or at least for longer than we know. And so some of the vaccine studies probably happened in the setting of having these variants around. So, I think there is hope. I don't think these variants have just emerged.

And there are likely other variants here in the U.S. that are more contagious that are a part of the mix of what we call COVID here in the U.S. that we will continue to find. But be hopeful. Those vaccines work, and we just need to keep getting those into people's arms.

BALDWIN: Good. I am feeling hopeful on that.

The but today is that South Africa has paused its AstraZeneca vaccine rollout, because they found it actually offers minimal protection against the variant there in South Africa. How can scientists change that? Can they improve the vaccine?

DAVIDSON: Well, they can.

I mean, the beauty of these mRNA vaccines is, they take just a sequence of the genetic code of the virus. So, if they get the sequence of that variants -- we know, back in January of last year, they got the sequence. Within a few weeks, they were already putting it into vaccines that they were starting to test.

So that I think Moderna is already working on different vaccines. We do this with influenza every single year. We have four variants of influenza for the tetravalent vaccine. This may just become a reality for us, that we get a booster with different variants protecting us at different times.

And so that's hopeful. It's another part of this new vaccine process that has become so fast and has been so effective that I think should offer us hope.

BALDWIN: Dr. Davidson, thank you so much. Safe travels home.

DAVIDSON: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Good to see you.

DAVIDSON: Thanks.

BALDWIN: President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan is facing a critical week here. Democrats are now debating over who should get the stimulus checks and whether to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. How that will affect you, we will talk about that.

And this week, CDC is expected to release new guidelines on reopening schools safely. But with some teachers understandably still reluctant to go back to the classroom, how will the White House make good on getting onto the promise of having kids back in school? We will talk about that too.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:29:05]

BALDWIN: A key part of President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan is set to be unveiled today.

House Democrats want to give millions of families up to $3,600 for each child under 6 years of age and $3,000 for older kids, which, big picture, could make a major dent in child poverty in this country.

But we are also seeing the Democrats divided over who should get stimulus checks and whether they should raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. The White House is making it clear today where President Biden stands on the minimum wage issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president is -- remains firmly committed to raising the minimum wage to $15. That's why he put it in his first legislative proposal.

And he doesn't -- he believes any American who is working a full-time job trying to make ends meet should not be at the poverty level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We start at the White House with our CNN senior White House correspondent, Phil Mattingly.

And, Phil, where are Democrats on this?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: So, this is the hard part.