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Senate Democrats Meet to Map Out COVID Agenda During Impeachment; Live Coverage of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Impeachment Comments; QAnon Supporters Look to March 4th. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired February 09, 2021 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:30:24]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Senate Democratic leaders, they are meeting this morning to map out how to try to keep working on the COVID relief bill, and trying to make momentum and negotiating during this impeachment trial. The Biden administration says it's focused squarely on passing his American Rescue Plan, not on impeachment.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: CNN White House correspondent John Harwood joins us now.

So the Biden team, lawmakers on the Hill haggling over key points like who should get stimulus checks at what income level. I mean, where is the haggling, right? Who's haggling with whom here? I thought Democrats and the White House decided to move ahead without seeking Republican votes.

HARLOW: Right.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's Democrats wrangling with other Democrats, Jim. They've got to maintain unity, they have very narrow margins in the House, no margin for error whatsoever in the Senate. And so when you've got to accommodate views within your caucus -- even if you don't need any Republicans, that requires some nipping and tucking.

And so what you're seeing from the House is trimming. They decided not to, for now at least, not to lower the thresholds at which -- which qualify for those $1,400 checks, but accelerate the phase-out. So if you make -- if you're a family with more than $200,000 income, you don't get that money.

This is an attempt to keep everybody on the same team, to avoid the charge that you're wasting money by giving -- giving it to people who don't need it.

And as for Joe Biden, there's no percentage for him to be involved in this impeachment trial. It's going to go on anyway. What he wants to do is shepherd this COVID relief plan, let the Senate do what it's going to do. There's no upside for him in trying to influence that, and the COVID relief plan is the critical first element of his agenda. SCIUTTO: Yes, so many legal hoops to jump through to get it through

via reconciliation as well. John Harwood, great to have you at the White House.

Still ahead, QAnon supporters are still rallying behind former President Trump in a new and slightly incredible way. Why some believe he's going to be sworn back into office next month.

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SCIUTTO: Live pictures here, this is the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, about to comment ahead of this afternoon's start to the impeachment trial. Pictured there with leaders in the Senate, let's listen to what he has to say.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): -- the chairman, I was almost going to say ranking member, but that was the old -- that was then and this is now. The chair members of so many of our committees that are involved in the COVID legislation.

But first, I want to say a word on impeachment. The Senate has a solemn responsibility to try and hold Donald Trump accountable for the most serious charges ever, ever levied against a president.

Those who say, let's move on, that brings unity? Are false. When you had such a serious invasion of the Capitol, incited by a president, who we know urged people -- told people the election was false, urged people to come to Washington, urged people to march on the Capitol. The Senate has to find is he guilty of inciting the violence that ensued.

When you have such a serious charge, sweeping it under the rug will not bring unity, it will keep the sore open and the wounds open. You need truth and accountability.

I believe the managers will present a very strong case, the evidence will be powerful, the evidence -- some of it -- will be new. And I urge all my colleagues to pay careful attention to the evidence. I particularly urge my Republican colleagues, despite the pressure on them, to pay very real attention to the evidence here because it's very, very serious.

Every senator, Democrat and Republican, has to approach this trial with the gravity it deserves. And that is really important for the future of this country. A mob of white supremacists and insurrectionists and domestic terrorists falsely believe the election was stolen and tried to overthrow the government.

And as I said, the trial is about whether the president -- the man chiefly responsible for feeding the mob with the lies that motivated their behavior, who told them to come to D.C., directed them at the Capitol -- is guilty of inciting the violence.

Now, to why we're here. You know, it was said, a few weeks ago, in all the punditry and everywhere else, that the impeachment trial would throw a wrench into President Biden's early agenda. We are here today to say --

SCIUTTO: That was Chuck Schumer, laying the stage, setting the stage for the beginning of the impeachment trial this afternoon of former President Trump. We will bring any updates we hear from the Hill.

Security will be extraordinarily tight all around the Capitol today. National Guard service members continue to patrol the Capitol grounds where, now, eight-foot-tall, razor-wire-tipped fencing is still up in some areas. It's an alarming thing to see up close.

[10:40:10]

HARLOW: Yes, really is. And within the halls of Congress itself, all nine House impeachment managers will be flanked by a security detail today as they move around the Capitol, and for the remainder of the trial. All of this is just a stark reminder that lawmakers still fear for their safety, more than a month after the insurrection at the Capitol on January the 6th.

So let me bring in two of our colleagues, two CNN journalists who were there that day, doing their job, covering this. And also witnesses to all that was happening. Brian Todd, Donie O'Sullivan are with us.

Thank you for what your reporting and what you did that day, and being here today.

Brian, I wonder, as you reflect on that moment as we head into the impeachment trial of the former president, what stands out to you?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, what stood out to me that day was that that crowd was riled up when they got there. I've covered a lot of protests that went wrong and went violent very quickly, I've covered riots: I've never seen anything like that. That crowd was riled up when they got to the Capitol.

What also stood out to me about January 6th was, when they got there, they got a sense very early on that they had the numbers that the police were overwhelmed, that the police were not ready for them. They had a very clear sense of who their perceived enemies were that day: it was the police, and it was us in the media.

Our teams got threatened several times, we were harassed several times. We had to use every bit of tactical advice and training that we had gotten before that day to try to get out of some pretty scary situations.

You know, the real thing that stood out to me was the sheer fury of that crowd, the anger, and the purpose with which they stormed the Capitol. They knew that they had the advantage, they knew they had the numbers, they went in and they went in with a fury and they were not about to leave.

I mean, they had an incredible amount of confidence that day. We heard it in their voices. They were screaming it at us, they were screaming it at the police. I heard one protestor say, when things were kind of winding down, to the police, he screamed at them, he said, "You didn't take it back, we gave it back." So they had this just incredible confidence, all day long, that they had carried the day. In a certain sense they did, unfortunately.

SCIUTTO: Donie, you spent more time than most inside these groups, speaking to them about what they believe, what drives them. When you were on the Capitol that day, prior and since then, describe what their motivation is, right? And crucially, how much were they driven by Trump himself and his words?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, they were -- I mean, these are people who literally marched from a Trump speech to the Capitol. And we were at that event at the White House, where Trump spoke, where Giuliani spoke about trial by combat. And we walked with these marchers to the Capitol, to the west front.

And we were actually there at the moment they breached that first small barricade, the first small police barricade that they got onto the lawn. And that was the moment that we really realized, we were like, something is going terribly wrong here, terribly bad.

And to Brian's point, people were so amped up that day. Forty-eight hours before the insurrection, you might remember, Trump was rallying in Georgia, in Dalton, Georgia, on the eve of the Georgia Senate runoffs.

And all the Trump supporters I was speaking to there, so many of them kept saying Wednesday, January 6th, you know, it's going to happen, it's going to be the day that Trump wins back the election. They were repeating all the hatred and criticism of Pence. Everybody was expecting something big to happen that day, and it did.

And also, you know, worth pointing out that at that -- outside that rally in Georgia that day, with Trump, was the QAnon Shaman, he was in attendance.

HARLOW: Yes, that's right.

Brian, I wonder what you remember about specifically what people in the crowd were saying, particularly in terms of motivation for storming the Capitol, it's one thing to peacefully protest, right? That's a protected American right. But to then, you know, lead this insurrection. Were they talking about motivations for that part of it?

TODD: Well, Poppy, they were talking mostly about their belief that the election was stolen. They were talking a lot about, you know, that Trump was their president, that he should remain their president. They didn't specifically say at the time that he had directed them to come down there.

But now, of course, we know that when you have more than 200 people charged in this case, a lot of them -- a lot of the defendants in these cases are saying -- they're using the Trump-told-me-to-do-it defense. Now, we'll see if that flies in court. But what they were saying, then, was Trump was their president, that it was -- the entire thing was a sham, that the election was stolen and that they were there to take it back.

And as Donie pointed out, they were saying this in the days and weeks ahead of time. I covered a rally the night before the January 6th insurrection, where they were saying that this was going to be a battle the next day.

SCIUTTO: Donie, so, amazingly, after all this, even as many of them go to jail -- right? -- you have new reporting that QAnon believers somehow believe Trump's on his way back in March.

[10:45:00]

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: How, why?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes. I mean, it's obviously absolutely ridiculous. But as we have seen, we need to be aware and we need to be very, very mindful of what conspiracy theories are being pushed online. Have a listen to what some people who are followers of QAnon or people in the QAnon world are saying online this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trump will take office as the 19th president of the United States on March 4th, under the restored republic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, hey, hey, it's your favorite truth-seeker, holding the light for everyone out there who's given up hope that Trump is not the president of the United States of America, when in fact he is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: And, Jim and Poppy, I mean, this conspiracy theory, it's so convoluted to even begin to explain. But basically, March 4th is this date they are convinced that Trump is going to come back. So March 4th is going to have to be a date that law enforcement and others are going to have to watch out for, another potential flashpoint.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes, we've seen this before.

HARLOW: Trying to pick my jaw off the ground, Donie, after listening to that. But there's real danger associated with it, as we saw. Thank you for the reporting, again, today, guys, and what you did on the ground that day.

We'll be right back.

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[10:50:45]

HARLOW: So this morning, the White House is ramping up genomic sequencing to track COVID variants spreading across the United States. This as the CDC confirms 700 variant cases have already been found.

SCIUTTO: CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta joins us now.

So, Sanjay, there's a lot of news about variants out there, some of which genuinely concerns people. I imagine they're having trouble trying to weed through to see what it actually means about this. Tell us what they should be aware of, and is the White House moving fast enough to track these new variants.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, we're dealing with some degree of a randomness here. You know, as viruses circulate, they accumulate mutations. Most of them are pretty inconsequential. Think about it, you know, we went through about a year of talking about this pandemic before we really started talking about variants, right?

Then there was the one that seemed to emanate from the U.K., form South Africa, from Brazil. So there is a randomness to this, it's hard to say exactly what the race is. It is a race, but it's a race against this sort of random accumulation of mutations.

What we know is that the more you sequence, the more likely you're going to find these variants. And what is the right percentage to sequence? Again, that's a point of somewhat -- or debate, but between five and 10 percent.

So if you've got 100,000 roughly people being infected every day, you know, if in a weekly -- on a daily basis, you could be doing several thousand sequences on a weekly basis, doing more than 10,000, I think is makes a big difference in terms of not only finding out how many variants there are, but where they are in the country as well.

HARLOW: So, Sanjay, on the issue of Dr. Fauci saying guidelines on what people who have been fully vaccinated can and can't do is coming soon, and I think it matters a lot, right? I mean, I -- great news last night, I have a family member -- older -- who's going to get vaccinated this week, and all I thought was, oh my gosh, what does that mean then? When are people going to actually know what they can do?

GUPTA: Right. Well, look, it's a really interesting conversation. And you know, the thing about a pandemic is that no one is immune from this, right? Everyone's talking, having these same conversations. I had this conversation with my own parents, in their late 70s in Florida, pre-existing conditions.

What I can tell you is the last year, there's been a psychological worry for them. I mean, they were worried. They're high risk by age and by pre-existing condition, they were worried that they were going to get sick and maybe need to be hospitalized. Now that they've been vaccinated, they wake up, you know, in the morning, knowing that the likelihood of that happening is tremendously, exponentially reduced.

So that's -- I -- you know, I bring that up to say that I don't want to minimize the impact of vaccines on individuals who have been vaccinated. They have that psychological comfort now. In terms of what they're able to do, I think the way to really think

about it is this, is that the vaccines are really effective at preventing you from getting seriously ill, but we're still not confident that they can prevent you from, A, carrying the virus and, B, potentially transmitting it.

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GUPTA: So just how do you want to live your life then? I know I won't get sick, but what is my obligation to make sure you won't get sick. It's why even though I've been vaccinated, I still wear a mask. It's as simple as that. When enough of the country can say the same thing, then we can start to dial back the masks and things like that.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: All right, going back to school, we know last August, you and your family decided to keep your daughters at home from school. Now they've decided to go back -- and this is a question parents, Poppy and I have talked about this many times --

HARLOW: All the time.

SCIUTTO: -- others around the country, making this judgment, how should they best make the judgment? And is it just safer now?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, you know, it's not an easy decision. I mean, people look at the same data that I looked at, and arrive at different decisions. I had this conversation with Ashish Jha and other people at the time who made different decisions.

But for us, it was, you know, I laid it out. I looked at everyone has to become an amateur epidemiologist, I said what is the circulating virus in our community, what is the positivity rate in schools, can they do the basics, do they have enough square footage to space, do they have masks, hand hygiene, resources, all those types of things.

And I basically -- you know, I was talking about this with my kids on a daily basis because they wanted to go back to school. What we find is that the schools actually have a lower positivity rate than the surrounding community, that was important.

[10:55:10]

SCIUTTO: Wow.

GUPTA: They could wear masks, they could do -- yes, significantly, Jim, I mean, 0.3 percent, I can tell you, in our kids' school district compared to close to eight or nine percent in the surrounding community. That was significant.

Everybody has to make that decision on their own though.

HARLOW: Yes. Sanjay, thank you for being here. We'll have you back very soon.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GUPTA: You got it.

HARLOW: And I'm happy for your girls, they get to be back in school.

GUPTA: Yes, they're happy (ph).

HARLOW: Thanks to all of you for joining us, we'll see you tomorrow. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: Yes, lots of news today, keep watching. I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with Kate Bolduan starts right after a short break.

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