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Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) is Interviewed about Impeachment; House Democrats Reject Narrowed Stimulus; Pfizer Increases Production; Hacker Tries to Poison Water System in Florida. Aired 9:30-10a ET.

Aired February 09, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:51]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: With the start of former President Trump's second impeachment trial just hours away, one of the ten Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach has a powerful message for his GOP Senate colleagues.

In "The Washington Post," Representative Adam Kinzinger argues that a vote to convict is necessary, writing, quote, it is a matter of accountability. If the GOP doesn't take a stand, the chaos of the past few months and the past four years could quickly return. The future of our party and our country depends on confronting what happened so it does not happen again.

Joining me now is Congressman Kinzinger.

Thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): You bet.

SCIUTTO: This is a stark message. It's a message of accountability. I wonder, if Trump is acquitted again, will Congress, in your view, in effect set a precedent that such behavior, not only encouraging the mob, but also making repeated attempts to overturn a free and fair election, that that is somehow acceptable by a president?

KINZINGER: Yes, so I'm glad you mentioned that. That was one of my kind of points I wanted to make today was, you know, first off, I do think the impeachment has an impact, whether he's convicted or not. And I think history -- you know, history has a way of judging things kind of perfectly. And I don't think people are going to look back in history and say impeaching him was the wrong thing.

And so you think about, when it comes to politics, everything is a precedent. So, you know, we always had this kind of rule that governed presidents in terms of, you're supposed to try to unite, even in divisive times. You're supposed to, you know, encourage people's better angels. And, instead, what we've had for the last four years of a president that's focused on division, stark -- stoking the darkness in everybody's heart. And I fear what happens is there will be another president some day that sees that as a model and decides he or she is going to emulate that, and that's frightening.

SCIUTTO: You say that you've heard from thousands of constituents, Republicans, who have welcomed the stand that you've taken here. I wonder, have you heard from members of Congress who support your effort privately but say that if I do this in public, I'll lose my seat?

KINZINGER: Yes, I have. You know, I think lately they've been a little quieter because, you know, they -- they know that there's focus on -- especially after the Liz Cheney secret ballot, 140 people voted to keep her, rightly. But, yes, I've heard that. Or people that would say they were, you know, right on the bubble and because of process they went a certain way.

I get it. I don't -- I don't blame anybody for their vote. I just know this, you know, at the end of my life, I have to look in the mirror and say, what did I do with especially my time in Congress, which is a real huge gift. And I want to know that I did everything to defend this Constitution and I feel totally at peace with that.

SCIUTTO: Do you think you've changed anyone's minds in your party, sitting members of Congress, because you've got senators who are saying, I mean the majority is saying their mind is already made up?

KINZINGER: I -- you know, yes, I think. I don't know about the Senate. I know in the House, having -- being outspoken, it's tough. But I think it's given people a little courage. I think, you know, when you look at ever going against the grain, whenever people stand up and present a competing vision, and I'm not doing it for me, but because, really, nobody else has.

[09:35:08]

And I think it's made a difference. And it's beginning, I think, to wake people up. You can see it in the polling in the base. You can see it in, you know, the polling across the country. And that's why I actually launched the whole country first thing movement with a one (ph), countryfirst.com, is basically just telling people, look, look how far we've come in a bad way. But here we can go again. And it can be OK.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

There are some in your party's leadership, Kevin McCarthy among them, who are refusing to confront the president. In fact, Kevin McCarthy, he's confident that on this tack, Republicans will win back the House in 2022, charting the party's future as not just a populist kind of workers party, but in effect consistent with the party of Trump.

I wonder, do you believe he has the politics right?

KINZINGER: Not really, no, I don't. Now, it's possible we could still win the majority on this track, you know, because you never underestimate the Democrats' ability to self-destruct, like we have the ability to self-destruct. But I don't think it's a long-term path to success. I think winning blue collar voters, which we've been doing, and making gains in the minority communities is great. The problem is, the message has been feeding fear. It's been feeding division.

If we can inspire people again and talk about how great this country is and how great it could be, can you imagine the innovation and that excitement we could unleash across everywhere with no regard for demographics or whether you live in the city or the rural town. And that is the winning thing for any party. But as a Republican, particularly, for the Republican Party.

SCIUTTO: I just wonder, though, I mean you have Republicans did well in the state legislatures in this election as well. We're going to be in a redistricting phase again. You've got a lot of efforts to roll back measures that made it easier to vote because many Republicans calculate more votes as bad for them.

I just wonder, given all those structural things, which you know create the districts which further divide, right, you know, elect folks to Congress that have no political incentive to compromise. Given all that pressure, does this really change?

KINZINGER: I think it can. And it's not going to change by just me. It's not going to change by a state legislature. It's going to change by everybody kind of waking up and demanding better.

You know, Illinois is the opposite. We have a totally Democratic controlled redistricting process. And what it creates is where the only people you have to care about if you want to get elected is your base. And they are not reflective. A typical base, Democrat and Republicans, is not reflective of the country as a whole. So there's got to be some long-term changes.

But I'll tell you, I really believe it's been a month since the insurrection. It feels like it's been a year. But I think people are waking up and kind of saying, like this is not the country we want to live in. It's not going to be changed from a guy like me. It's going to be changed from the American people that demand better of the people they elect.

SCIUTTO: Final question, and I appreciate your optimism because I think folks listening now want to hear optimism. God knows there's enough negativity out there. But let's look at precedent if we can. Just -- all we have to do is look back a year. The president was impeached. He was acquitted. Folks said, oh, he's learned a lesson. He didn't. I mean you could see by his behavior he was emboldened. He got the message, I can do whatever I want, right, including attempting to overturn an election.

If we are in two weeks where the conventional wisdom says we will be with most Republicans saying they're not going to vote to acquit, where are we? You know, do we have an emboldened Trump wing of the party? Do we have an emboldened Proud Boys, the folks who stormed the Capitol? KINZINGER: I think maybe because, I mean, only Donald Trump can be

proud of being impeached twice and acquitted. Every other president, every other person in the presidency would be ashamed of that. So he'll, you know, stoke the base up.

But I don't think it's a lasting proposition. I just think -- I mean you look at, you know, Sarah Palin, who was very important for a couple of years, and we don't talk about her anymore. I think he's going to go that way. If he doesn't, the Republican Party is in real trouble.

SCIUTTO: Congressman Adam Kinzinger, we appreciate your straight talk, as always.

KINZINGER: You bet. See ya.

SCIUTTO: Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Jim, that was a great interview. I mean it struck me to hear him say it's a privilege to be in Congress, to have that seat. I realize we don't -- we almost never hear that from sitting members of Congress.

SCIUTTO: We don't. I mean, listen, and this is not a new phenomenon for either party on Capitol Hill, right, that political survival is usually the driving force, right?

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: But every once in a while we see folks who are willing to take risks, right?

HARLOW: Yes. There you go. That was a great interview.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Thank you.

HARLOW: Anyway, we'll be -- yes, we'll be right back.

SCIUTTO: We'll all keep up the conversation.

We'll be right back.

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[09:44:08]

SCIUTTO: Next hour, we're watching as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and top Senate Democrats meet on Capitol Hill going over their final plans to push forward with President Biden's rescue package.

HARLOW: This comes as House Democrats are moving ahead with their plan for more targeted stimulus payments for Americans and rejecting Republicans' plan to lower payments, also narrowing eligibility requirements.

Jeremy Diamond is at the White House for more on where these negotiations stand.

Are they still like actual negotiations?

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes.

HARLOW: Is there a movement happening?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, as former President Trump's impeachment trial gets underway, we're -- what we're seeing now is Democrats actually moving forward with the business of writing President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal into law. And we're seeing that primarily on the House side right now.

You can see, though, that the difference between what House Democrats are moving forward with and that proposal by those ten Republican senators, there is still a huge gap.

[09:45:01]

First in terms of the overall price tag, of course, but also in terms of these stimulus checks. House Democrats are phasing out those stimulus checks more quickly than under previous coronavirus relief bills, but you can see that it's still very different from what Republicans are proposing. Democrats saying $1,400 stimulus checks beginning to phase out at $75,000 and then over $100,000 for individuals, you don't get any money at all.

And then House Democrats are also moving forward with the proposal to expand the child tax credit and proposing a child tax credit that would be received by individuals on a monthly basis to help families that are struggling during this coronavirus pandemic. Expanding that child tax credit to $3,600 for children under the age of six and then $3,000 for parents with children between the ages of six and 17.

And so, as you see all of this work beginning to move forward, of course there will be that looming impeachment trial this week, which will get a lot of attention. But Democrats are trying to show that they are also focused on this coronavirus relief bill.

Next hour, we will hear from the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, who's expected to address this coronavirus relief proposal, the work they're going to be doing on this. And then we will also hear this afternoon from President Biden, who is eager to show that he is not focused on this impeachment trial. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, saying yesterday that he doesn't plan to watch much of this impeachment trial at all. The president, this afternoon, meeting with the Treasury secretary and business leaders to talk about his coronavirus relief proposal.

Jim. Poppy.

HARLOW: OK, Jeremy, thank you for the update from the White House.

Ahead for us, Pfizer says the upgrades in the production process have helped the company double its vaccine output in the last month.

SCIUTTO: Double. That's big.

HARLOW: Good.

SCIUTTO: CNN's Elizabeth Cohen is following.

Elizabeth, you know, supply has been an issue here in trying to get those numbers up, like we see on the side of the screen, 42 million. Want to get it higher. Does this solve that problem?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't solve the problem, Jim, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. And, Jim, I can't tell you how many people have said to me, what's the problem?

They just need to make more of this stuff. Making more of this stuff is difficult. It's not like making more of say a blood pressure drug or a cholesterol drug. That's relatively easy. Vaccines are live, biological material. It is a tough manufacturing process. And these are mRNA vaccines which have never been produced on a massive scale ever before. So we are talking about a steep manufacturing learning curve.

So let's take a look at what Pfizer says that they have been able to do. They say that they've doubled their production output in the last month and they say that looking forward production time will be cut nearly in half. And so they say from the very beginning, when we started this rollout in December and through the end of May, 200 million doses will have been distributed by Pfizer.

Now, 200 million, if you look at that number, that's only 100 million people, right, because everybody needs two doses. So that's good, 100 million people. But in a country of more than 300 million people with only two vaccines on the market, that is still not enough.

Now, as far as how to get these vaccines, CVS and Walgreens will begin their part of the federal vaccine rollout. Later this week they say they'll be putting shots into arms. It was hoped that you could go online today and make an appoint. We tried just now, couldn't do it at either website. Hoping that that will happen soon.

Jim. Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Yes, you're hearing that a lot of places, these websites getting overwhelmed. That's why these big centers they're talking about, we hope, will make a difference.

Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much.

Federal and local officials are investigating after they say a hacker tried to poison the water system of a Florida city. One lawmaker already calling this a matter of national security.

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[09:53:14] SCIUTTO: Well, officials in Florida say that thousands people living near Tampa were at risk of being poisoned. This after someone hacked into the town of Oldsmar's water supply and tried to increase the levels of sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, also a poison.

HARLOW: Yes. And now federal investigators are looking into this breach. They're calling it a national security threat, for obvious reasons.

So let's bring in our national security correspondent Alex Marquardt.

How on earth did this happen and how is it -- was it caught, you know, before anyone got hurt?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, this shows how vulnerable these small towns are. Oldsmar is 15,000 people. You have lots of facilities like this all across the country and simply don't have the resources to protect themselves.

Luckily, this looks like a rather unsophisticated tactic. The way that it was detected was that the operator at this water treatment facility literally saw the mouse being moved across the screen, seeing this hacker carrying out this hack, which at its core was designed to hurt people because, as you mentioned, it was trying to increase the levels of sodium hydroxide, or lye, which is also used as a drain cleaner, by more than 100 times the normal levels. The hacker increased the level of lye from what is normally 100 parts per million to over 11,000 parts per million according to the county sheriff.

Take a listen to a little bit more of what he had to say.

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SHERIFF BOB GUALTIERI, PINELLAS COUNTY, FLORIDA: Somebody hacked into the system, not just once but twice, and controlled the system, took control of the mouse, moved it around and opened the program and changed the levels from 100 to 11,100 parts per million with a caustic substance.

This type of hacking of critical infrastructure is not necessarily limited to just water supply systems.

[09:55:05]

It could be anything. It could be sewer systems. It could be a whole variety of things that could really be problematic.

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MARQUARDT: Now, luckily, the sheriff did say that at no point was anyone really in harm's way. It would have taken 24 to 36 hours for that water to actually get through the system and out of the faucets. And there were a number of other redundancies and alarm systems that would have -- would have gone off and detected that. But that does not make this any less urgent. We now have, of course, the county investigating, but they're also being helped out by the FBI and by the Secret Service.

Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, well, that's absolutely stunning and terrifying.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

HARLOW: Alex, we're glad you're on top of it. Thank you very much.

As we mentioned, it's a big day ahead. In a matter of hours, the Senate will take up the second impeachment trial of former President Trump. We'll tell you what that will be like, next.

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