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Donald Trump Excited About 2022 After Senate Acquittal?; Trump Faces Legal Problems Post-Acquittal; New Cases Of Coronavirus Dipping In The U.S.; QAnon Dividing Families; GameStop Faces Congressional Probe. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired February 14, 2021 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: So if you had any doubt about whether a deadly riot would definitively shift Republicans away from the MAGA movement, think again.

And what about the Democrats who prosecuted Trump who were unable to convince enough Republicans to vote for a conviction? At least one impeachment manager telling CNN it came down to a lack of courage by Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STACET PLASKETT, DELEGATE TO HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FROM U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS, IMPEACHMENT MANAGER: Just so the American public is aware, witnesses in a Senate hearing do not come and stand before the senators and make any statements. It's a deposition. It's videotaped and that is brought before the Senate.

So I know that people are feeling a lot of angst and believe that maybe if we had this, the senators would have done what we wanted, but listen, we didn't need more witnesses. We need more senators with spines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN's Boris Sanchez is in Florida near Donald Trump's Mar-a- Lago estate. Boris, it looks like Trump's role at least in the near term is shaping up. What specifically can we expect him to do?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ana, well at least in the coming days what I would expect is for Donald Trump to give some sort of (inaudible) statement, likely his first remarks after Joe Biden was inaugurated last month. It will be in the coming days.

We should point out he already put out a statement last night, one that largely foreshadows that he intends to flex that muscle of the 74 million plus voters that cast ballots for him in the last election. And that he said that he had a lot to share with his supporters.

Easy to read between the lines and figure out that Donald Trump is likely going to go after those Republicans that he feels betrayed him, those that voted to impeach him and those that voted to convict him and even those that he believes did not defend him strongly enough.

You mentioned Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He apparently had a conversation with Trump post acquittal and he says that Trump is still mad at a lot of people but in this case Graham is sticking with the former president. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Yes. I spoke to him last night. He was grateful to his lawyers. He appreciated the help that all of us provided. You know, he is ready to move on and rebuild the Republican Party. He's excited about 2022. And so to the Republican Party, if you want to win and stop a socialist agenda we need to work with President Trump. We can't do it without him.

And to you, president Trump, you need to build the Republican Party stronger. I'm into winning. And if you want to get something off your chest, fine, but I'm into winning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's ignore for a moment that so many other Republicans like Liz Cheney and Senator Ben Sasse and Adam Kinzinger do not believe that the Republican Party can win with Trump given the fact that he just lost the White House, Republicans lost the Senate. They couldn't win a majority in the House of Representatives.

But let's point out, the obvious hypocrisy here from Senator Lindsey Graham. Listen to what he said shortly after the riot Trump incited on the Capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: Trump and I, we've had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way. Oh, my god I hate it. From my point of view he has been a consequential president, but today, the first thing you'll see. All I can say is count me out, enough is enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Count me out. Enough is enough. A month later, let's stick with Trump. He'll help us win. Ana?

CABRERA: Lindsey Graham just seems lost. Boris Sanchez, appreciate your reporting. Thank you. Let's go to CNN's Suzanne Malveaux on Capitol Hill. Suzanne, Trump has avoided not one but two Senate convictions which sets a dangerous precedent that even a president of the United States can violate his oath of office and avoid punishment if enough senators stand by his side. How are Democrats planning to move forward now that this trial is over?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, House Democrats, Ana, feel like they made a very strong case against the president, that they had enough evidence to build against him and they won over those seven Republicans. On the Republican side they really see this very differently here.

They talked about the process being un-constitutional. What is happening here, there is a call for a bipartisan, independent commission very similar to the one that you had shortly after 9/11.

The founders of that commission asking for both Republicans and Democrats to set up a body that is independent, bipartisan, that essentially could answer a lot of unanswered questions they feel. One of them being what did Trump know as this violence was unfolding at the Capitol?

Why didn't he do anything to protect his vice president? Why did he not immediately call reinforcements while U.S. Capitol police were in trouble? What this commission would be tasked to do is essentially come up with a narrative, collective facts that most people will agree on and a timetable as well. It does have some support from Republicans and Democrats alike but for very different reasons.

[17:05:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): I do think that we need to spend months and months unearthing all the evidence that can possibly be gotten to through a 9/11 style commission. I frankly at that time did not think that spending months fighting over additional witnesses would have changed the outcome of this trial one bit, and the House managers agreed.

GRAHAM: We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again and I want to make sure that the Capitol footprint can be better defended next time. So I want to look at what Pelosi knew, when she knew it. What president Trump did after the attack, and on the Senate side, was Senate leadership informed of a threat?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, Ana, having covered the 9/11 commission report, there are a number of things it concluded. Essentially it was a failure of imagination to connect the dots to realize such a simplistic plot of flying planes into buildings would create this monumental terrorist attack.

There are a couple of challenge the 9/11 style commission would have in this case. First of all, it would require a great deal of time likely as well as money. That was the last go round. The commission did not expect it would need either one of those as much as it did.

And, also, after September 11th, those attacks, the country was unified. You don't have that kind of atmosphere now after the Capitol attacks. And so that is something that they would really have to deal with in trying to find independent, bipartisan members of the community, some in Congress, to really put forward to get that information. They would have the power to subpoena witnesses, documents, and videos

to put this together and, of course, it would start with in the formation of Congress to see how this would look. Ana?

CABRERA: It'll be interesting to see where this heads next. Thank you, Suzanne. With us now, CNN's senior political analyst, John Avlon and the host of "Firing Line" on PBS, Margaret Hoover. She was a staffer in the George W. Bush White House and is a veteran of two GOP presidential campaigns.

All right, guys. So, you heard from Lindsey Graham. I want to play another clip after he talked to Trump following his acquittal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: I'm going to go down to talk with him next week, play a little golf in Florida, and I said, Mr. President, this MAGA movement needs to continue. We need to unite the party. Trump plus is the way back in 2022.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: John, not even 24 hours after Trump was acquitted, right back on the Trump train again.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. It's sad. It's pathetic for a number of reasons. First of all, Trump was acquitted, but it was the largest bipartisan vote to convict a president in American history. Not even close. Not just in the House but the Senate as well. Seven Republican senators.

And as folks have said, if it was a secret ballot it would have been probably closer to 90/10. And for the hard core Trumpers, I mean, you could have had someone sitting in the well of the Senate playing banjo and they would have accepted it as an argument.

The reality is Donald Trump has been a disaster for the Republican Party. They lost the House, the Senate, and the presidency in four years under his watch. Since the attack on the Capitol, which was the culmination of his misleadership, 140,000 Republicans have deregistered across the country.

So, you know, Lindsey Graham looking for approval from Donald Trump is really more of a personal predilection on his part rather than anything resembling strategy.

CABRERA: Margaret, John is referencing this data that the "New York Times" compiled when it comes to Republicans jumping ship. It was in fact I think 25 states, 140,000 Republican Party voters just, you know, abandoned, more than 10,000 in Arizona alone, changed their registration.

So, you know, Trump is not bringing more people into the Republican Party. In fact, there is evidence quite the opposite. So when given a chance yesterday to give Republicans an off ramp at least in the Senate, why didn't Mitch McConnell take it? What was his goal in blaming Trump yet voting to acquit?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Ana, I've long suspected that Mitch McConnell would lock arms and jump if there were 16 other Republican senators that would have locked arms and jumped with him. And I think he didn't have the votes and he wants to maintain as much -- he is really the glue amongst the Republicans in the Senate.

CABRERA: But that's following not leading.

HOOVER: I can't tell you why he didn't do it. I, honestly, I'm not in Mitch McConnell's head. I can't tell you why he didn't do it. But here is what I do know. What I know is Mitch McConnell, you know, you can say it is the height of moral contradiction and hypocrisy that he went to the well and renounced Donald Trump's leadership, you know, called out his calling on the insurrection and let him off on a procedural ground.

But what you see is the fissure of the fight and the civil war of the Republican Party in the next two years. Mitch McConnell knows that Donald Trump is the reason he is not the majority leader.

[17:09:59]

Mitch McConnell knows that if Donald Trump continues to be part of the Republican Party there is no hope for a future Republican Party in the Senate and building out. I mean, those numbers from the "New York Times," 140,000 Republicans who have delisted and chosen no longer to affiliate with the Republican Party; that is not getting any better if Donald Trump stays part of the party.

So, Mitch McConnell knows that. I can't speak to why he didn't vote that way, but we know and what I know and what all of the numbers know and if you look at it, is that if the Republican Party is going to rebuild, it's got to rebuild from the center. It's got to be able to reach out. Go ahead, sorry.

CABRERA: No, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, though, she is, you know, continuing to insert herself in the conversation about the soul of the Republican Party and this fight over it. She is attacking fellow Republican Jamie Herrera-Beutler after she shared what Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had said to Trump in the middle of the riot. That was really damning for the former president.

And then Greene called Herrera-Beutler in a tweet, "The gift that keeps giving to the Democrats," and she writes, "The Trump loyal, 75 million are watching." John, 43 Republicans allowed Trump to be acquitted. Has the extremist wing of the GOP coalition grown too big for the party to confront?

AVLON: Look, it's clear that the Trumpist denialist wing of the party is a clear majority. The party probably super majority for now. It's also clear that history doesn't look kindly on conspiracy theorists. And in a contest between lies and truth, truth will ultimately win.

The Republican Party has got profound problems with its base. It's a problem that predated Donald Trump. Donald Trump was the metastasization of it and QAnon apologist in the caucus are a latest sign of the sickness, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the seven Republicans who stood up will be regarded as profiles in courage over time.

That Kinzinger and Cheney will ultimately win the argument over the Marjorie Taylor-Greenes. And for folks who think this is a jump ball, they're just moral cowards.

CABRERA: Margaret, GOP senator Lisa Murkowski is one of those seven and she is up for re-election in 2022. She put out this statement about her vote to convict Trump.

"If months of lies, organizing a rally of supporters in an effort to thwart the work of Congress, encouraging a crowd to march on the capitol, and then taking no meaningful action to stop the violence once it began is not worthy of impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from holding office in the United States, I cannot imagine what is" -- which begs the question, is impeachment meaningless as a tool to hold presidents accountable?

HOOVER: Look, impeachment isn't meaningless but impeachment is by the design of the founders, the highest bar of political damage and ramifications and accountability that one can be held to. And when you combine that with the most hyperpolarized moment we've had in modern American politics, you know, we just -- the Republicans, Democrats together weren't able to clear that threshold.

That was by design very -- intended to be a very high bar by the founders. There are other measures. They can pursue censure. They can pursue, you know, first of all, I mean, there are people like Joe Manchin who all along said the place to hold Donald Trump accountable is through the criminal justice process.

AVLON: Which was what --

HOOVER: And that is also what Mitch McConnell said as well. So, this president I think must be held accountable. It's just that the political mechanism of impeachment in a hyperpolarized time wasn't able to be that accountability.

AVLON: But, Ana, I'll go further than that. I think it's clear it's broken. And it's broken because the founders anticipated a lot of different eventualities, but they didn't anticipate and they warned against hyper-partisanship. They warned against someone like Donald Trump without ever meeting him.

What they didn't anticipate is that senators would actually put their own institution, their own co-equal branch of government below loyalty to a demagogic president. They didn't anticipate quite how deeply this rot has got. It is a high bar. No one has ever passed a two-thirds vote.

But to the point of Murkowski, to the point Ted Olson made and many, many others, if inciting an insurrection to overturn the constitutional counting of electoral ballots isn't impeachable, what is? This goes to the heart of the question of the founders intended impeachment to address. So, the system is broken right now because of hyper-partisanship and polarization. It's a cancer on our body politic. There's no question about it.

CABRERA: John Avlon and Margaret Hoover, thank you as always. So nice to see you.

HOOVER: Thank, Ana. Happy Valentine's Day.

CABRERA: And John, of course, you'll be back later to talk about the new CNN series "Lincoln: Divided We Stand." Happy Valentine's Day to both of you. Love the red, white, and pink today.

Another programming note for everybody, President Biden is going to join Anderson Cooper live from Milwaukee for an exclusive presidential town hall. It all starts Tuesday night at 9:00 here on CNN.

Up next, oh, baby. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle just revealing they are expecting their second child. The details coming up, live in the "CNN Newsroom."

[17:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:20:00]

CABRERA: Despite being acquitted in his second impeachment trial former president Donald Trump isn't out of the woods legally speaking. CNN has learned that he has privately voiced concern in the last couple of weeks over potential future charges related to his role in the January 6th insurrection.

Former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams is with us now. Elliott, how worried should Trump be about future charges related to this attack?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, pretty worried because number one, there is the prospect of criminal charges. Now, of course, criminal charges are always going to have a higher standard. They're going to be harder to bring than civil claims by individuals or civil claims by individuals.

And there's any number of individuals who could potentially have civil suits to bring against the president starting with, you know, staff, congressional staff members of Congress who were there that day, reporters who were there that day, the Washington, D.C. police force.

Any individuals who had to expend money on account of the conduct could potentially have suits to bring against the president. I'm not saying they're going to win, but if this were a law school exam and I were asked to identify all of the places someone could sue, yes. There are many folks who could.

CABRERA: And apart from the insurrection, we know there are ongoing investigations that, you know, Trump could potentially be in legal jeopardy when it comes to what's happening with the Manhattan D.A.'s case looking into him and his finances and his organization in New York as well as what's happening in Georgia in regards to that, you know, phone call he had with the Georgia secretary of state pressuring him on the vote count.

I know you say in that case the challenge goes to intent and lawyers will have to show that Trump intended for the Georgia secretary of state to commit a crime and that could be harder said than done. How so?

WILLIAMS: Yes. So again, this is where it gets tricky and I know this is very unsatisfying to many people because it seems obvious on its face. Look, the president, you know, ending with inciting insurrection. You know that the president was attempting to overturn the results of the election.

But directing someone to commit a crime is very different than directing someone to, say, find votes that they believe were legitimately there. And if the president and his attorneys can claim that they weren't actually trying to get the secretary of state to engage in an act of fraud but to just certify the results of an election that they had evidence to believe was wrongfully certified, then certainly, you know, criminal charges would be hard to bring there.

I don't want to give the president a free pass here. His conduct, frankly, misconduct going back to last summer around the certification of the election, number one, should have ended in his impeachment and removal from office.

Then when he left office, it should have ended with his disqualification from office. So I don't want to suggest that by saying that he may not be charged in Georgia that the conduct wasn't itself horrible. It's just proving intent can be incredibly challenging in criminal cases and I think we're going to see that here.

And moreover, it's not just the call to Brad Raffensberger. The president is also being investigated for a call to Cobb County, Georgia officials for wanting them to "find the fraud."

Now, again, that's language that kind of go both ways. Is he seeking them to have them manufacture fraud or is he seeking to have them investigate fraud that he rightfully believed could have existed? And these are the kinds of questions the prosecutors are going to have to answer in deciding whether to bring charges against them.

CABRERA: When it comes to the impeachment trial, you predicted the outcome, acquittal, despite what you characterized as really lousy representation from Trump's lawyers writing in part, "A robust defense doesn't include misleading the public and the senators adjudicating the president's conduct. In another universe, Trump's lawyers' conduct could have had serious consequences either for their own futures or their clients." First explain that. How bad was this legal defense?

WILLIAMS: It was really bad. And the president was blessed. I think the first line of my piece there was, man, the president should thank his lucky stars because he's lucky he just drew -- I hesitate to call them a jury because they are the Senate -- but he drew a pool of folks, many of whom were predisposed to rule in his favor in a way that wouldn't have been the case in a criminal trial. It would have been un-constitutional to have that kind of jury.

So, the president is just very lucky. So, for instance, number one, on style and substance it was very poor of legal representation. On style, the pounding the table and banging and getting red in the face might work on Perry Mason or "Law and Order" but that's not really how lawyers operate, the sort of representation that he got.

And number two, there were a number of material misstatements of fact that his lawyers made sort of about Antifa or about the timing of the president's tweets that were this another attorney could have led to sanctions for them or could have led to their client losing.

The point I get to at the end of that piece though is that, you know, a lot of black and brown defendants in America when they get bad representation or public defenders who are quite good but just vastly overworked aren't able to fare as well as the president does.

[17:25:06]

So, yes, the president was a very lucky man this week and he, you know, his lawyers could have gotten by without bringing much of a case or without saying much, but they did and he still managed to succeed.

CABRERA: And as you put it, it's such a reflection of the inequity that's in America's justice system right now.

WILLIAM: Yes.

CABRERA: Elliot Williams, thank you. Thank you for being with us and your smart analysis. We appreciate it.

WILLIAMS: Thanks.

CABRERA: For the first time in months, the U.S. is now averaging fewer than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases per day. So, is this the light at the end of the tunnel we have so desperately hoped for? A doctor who has spent more than a year now treating COVID patients in her emergency room joins us next. Stay with us. You're live in the "CNN Newsroom."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:30:00]

CABRERA: A positive sign is emerging in the coronavirus pandemic this weekend. For the first time in months, the U.S. is averaging fewer than 100,000 new cases a day. But during the same time frame, keep in mind, the U.S. went from averaging fewer than 1,000 deaths per day to averaging more than 3,000 deaths per day.

So, I want to bring in Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University and co-founder of getusppe.org. And I have to wonder, Doctor, we're seeing the cases really start to come down now. When will the deaths follow? They're just barely ticking down so far.

MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY: You know, Ana, I am definitely feeling the decrease in new cases in my own emergency department. I spent the last two days working and you could feel a palpable difference in the number of new folks that were being diagnosed with COVID-19 and being admitted to the hospital.

But the thing is our hospitals are still full of people that were diagnosed over the last two months. And as we know, COVID very rarely kills immediately. It lingers. And those deaths continue to occur. So we're going to keep seeing deaths for weeks yet.

When will we start to see deaths fall? Probably a month from now, but that's if all goes well. If we can keep those new variants at bay and of course of we can get vaccinations into arms quick enough to keep the number of new infections low.

CABRERA: So you said you're starting to see a little bit of lifting in the emergency room on the front lines as you fight this pandemic. Can you tell us a little bit more about what it is like right now?

RANNEY: Yes, I mean, we're all tired and worn out at this point. Here in Rhode Island it's been a full year that we've been dealing with COVID. Our first case was diagnosed at the end of February last year, and we're sick of it. We're sick of COVID. We're sick of telling people that they've got it and admitting them and not knowing when or if they'll get out.

But we, ourselves, are now vaccinated and protected. I'll tell you we've seen a dramatic drop in the number of health care workers who are getting infected now that so many of us have gotten two shots of vaccinations. And the other thing is that we're seeing fewer people come in who are really sick and needing to get admitted.

And that's just a lift. We need that right now. We need that as a country. We're all exhausted, but we're not quite through yet. We're on mile 23 with of the marathon. This is not the time to give up.

CABRERA: Absolutely. I want you to hear what Dr. Fauci had to say about the vaccines and the variant first identified in South Africa.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: In South Africa, there were people who got infected with the original virus, recovered, and then got reinfected with this new variant, the South African variant, which tells us that prior infection does not protect you against reinfection at least with this particular variant.

Somewhat good news is it looks like the vaccine is better than natural infection in preventing you from getting reinfected with the South African isolate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Dr. Ranney, he says the vaccines provide better immunity than the antibodies from a previous infection. Why do you think that is?

RANNEY: Well, the vaccine for COVID like vaccines for many diseases create a stronger immunity than a natural infection for a couple of reasons. One is that you get a standard dose of exposure, right? So everybody is getting exposed to the same kind of thing.

And then you're also getting that second booster shot which puts your immune system into overdrive and makes it much more ready to fight off the infection if and when it does see it in reality.

And that's just tremendously good news because as I said, we're in this tug of war of time between these new variants, which threaten a fourth surge of the infections and deaths, and getting vaccines into arms. That news gives me hope that those who are vaccinated will stay protected but we've got to get them out a little more quickly.

CABRERA: Dr. Megan Ranney, it's always good to have you with us. Thank you as always for all you do and for sharing some of your expertise with us.

Up next, how dangerous QAnon conspiracy theories are ripping families apart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIELLE MARSHALL, MOTHER BELIEVES IN QANON: I just want to have a mom who loves me. We're just -- we're past that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:35:00]

CABRERA: How would you react if your parents started posting QAnon conspiracy theories on social media or if you went home to your parents' house to find they had stocked up on ammo and meat based on some far-fetched falsehood? CNN's Donie O'Sullivan talked to two women who are living that reality.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSHALL: I live just a few blocks south of the Capitol and so I started seeing people walking on the sidewalk heading up to the Capitol with Trump flags and red hats and I thought to myself I wonder if my mom is here. I just thought to myself, let me check her YouTube. Lo and behold she was.

UNKNOWN: We are here at this rally. Look at this.

UNKNOWN: I will never stop loving my parents, but it's this switch that flips in them when they are talking about what the latest Q drop means. They are not logical anymore. They are not understanding and often they're not kind.

MARSHALL: Not only does she really believe it, but it intersects in her mind with her religion.

She has never put anything else on the pedestal equal to the bible, and it really feels like that with this QAnon stuff.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): A conspiracy theory has taken over both these women's lives but not by their choosing.

MARSHALL: I just want to have a mom who loves me. We're just -- we're past that.

[17:39:59]

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): They say their parents have been sucked into QAnon.

UNKNOWN: My childhood was as perfect as any childhood could be. In the recent year or two years where this has become so much stronger within them, they've become completely different people.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This woman is still desperately trying to save her relationship with her parents. It's why we've agreed to hide her identity.

(On camera): How did this all start with your parents?

UNKNOWN: All through growing up it was constantly, oh, my, gosh, like the Clintons. Oh, my, gosh, the illuminati. Things like that, but it all started really in the 2016 election cycle. Hillary Clinton and all of the Democrats are pedophilic and cannibalistic people that are trying to control the world.

Things definitely heightened when I got to college. They would background search my professors. Hey, your professor, yes, like they're a registered Democrat.

MARSHALL: She knows my wife is a Capitol police officer. When she did that, that said everything to me that she was willing to put my wife's life in danger. And if she had called me up or texted me later that day or the next day and said, hey, listen, I was at this rally. It got way out of hand. I'm really sorry. How are you guys? That would have changed everything, but it's been crickets. I haven't heard from her.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): We repeatedly reached out to Danielle's mother for a comment and she did not respond.

(On camera): Have they changed their lifestyle in any way as a result of this?

UNKNOWN: Well, last time I was there, at my family's house, they told me that they have three years' supply of meat in the freezer. Told me that they bought up a bunch of ammo.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Are you concerned that they might blow their life savings on these freeze-dried foods and 300 pounds of meat?

UNKNOWN: Their life savings, my college tuition, right? That's hard. O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Whoever is the person that was running this Q

account, what would you say to them if you could sit down and talk to them?

UNKNOWN: I'd tell them that they ruined my life, that they've ruined my family. That they took what is supposed to be the best, most consistent, most loving part of my life and they turned it into evil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: That was Donie O'Sullivan reporting there. Now, this week, Congress will ramp up its investigation of the GameStop frenzy that took Wall Street by storm. Here is Christine Romans with our "Before the Bell" report. Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ana. Wall Street has moved on now from the GameStop frenzy, but Washington is just starting to ask questions. On Thursday, the House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on the market volatility involving GameStop and other stocks.

The CEO of trading app Robinhood is invited to testify. Financial regulators and other market participants are expected to appear as well. GameStop shares and other stocks boosted by day traders on Reddit, they've fallen sharply in recent weeks, but lawmakers want to probe potential market manipulation and the systemic risk posed by the recent volatility.

The market overall has climbed as the GameStop mania has calmed. Last week, stocks hit fresh record highs. Solid corporate earnings and vaccine optimism has boosted sentiment. Investors are also betting on more fiscal stimulus.

This week, congressional committees keep working on President Biden's $1.9 trillion rescue package. In New York, I'm Christine Romans.

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[17:45:00]

CABRERA: Some very exciting news for the royal family today. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announcing that their son, Archie, is going to be a big brother. They released this lovely picture. You see there, the Duchess of Sussex and her baby bump.

Now, the timing of their announcement is likely a nod to Princess Diana. The papers announced her pregnancy with Harry on Valentine's Day as well. The spokesperson for the couple says they are overjoyed to be expecting their second child. The queen is also delighted, according to Buckingham Palace. No word on the baby's gender or due date.

Abraham Lincoln is often hailed as one of America's greatest presidents who ended slavery and saved the country from collapse. But the truth is a lot more complicated than that. Here is a preview of the new CNN Original Series "Lincoln: Divided We Stand." (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: A lot of people think Lincoln was a fiery opponent of slavery from the day he was born. And that's not quite true.

VAN JONES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It turns out that a great way to put down the rebellion is to yank the enslaved Africans out from under his enemies. And the guy was really freeing slaves hoping they'd go back to Africa. They don't tell you that in second grade.

UNKNOWN: The sin of slavery has loomed over America for centuries and it was not absolved with emancipation.

UNKNOWN: Lincoln died close to Easter so this made it easy for people to imagine that he died for the sins of the nation.

UNKNOWN: The martyr narrative made it possible for us to think of Lincoln in a simplistic way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN's senior political analyst John Avlon is back with us. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, mark your calendars and write this down, "Lincoln and the Fight for Peace."

[17:49:58]

John, so fascinating. Lincoln did bring an end to slavery. That's what a lot of people know about him but that doesn't necessarily mean he was in favor of equal rights for African-Americans, right?

AVLON: Well, look, I think in the context of his time, and this is a key point, it's difficult if not impossible to project the values and ethics and morals of the president on the past easily.

Lincoln was an absolute opponent of slavery, specifically slavery's expansion. He believed that, you know, the slavery was wrong. He also believed that constitutionally he didn't have a unilateral ability to end it.

But he was such an opponent of slavery that remember, upon his election, the mere fact of his election spurred seven states to secede. And so the civil war ended up ending slavery and pushing the emancipation proclamation was a huge thing to do. So was the 13th amendment. Lincoln did all those things.

And as Frederick Douglass once said, by abolition of standards, Lincoln could be criticized as being slow moving, but by the standards of politicians at that time, he was a resolute country resolute leader who moved the country forward, and that's what he did.

CABRERA: What do you think the history books got wrong about him?

AVLON: You know, history books often simplify necessarily. What I think is much more interesting is to take historic figures off the pedestal because it makes their wisdom more accessible if we understand them as flawed humans.

And Lincoln was flawed in many ways. I mean, he was depressive. He used humor as a way to self-medicate, frankly. And in many pivotal moments in American history, he was criticized for reading pamphlets of his favorite humors at the time to try to lift his spirits over the war.

He had a very complex and tempestuous relationship with his wife Mary who was frequently critical even in public and was a source of some pain. He suffered the death of his son Willy in the White House casting a huge shadow that he never fully overcame.

And he was frequently at war not only on the battlefield, but on the political front because he was trying to be a centrist leader and there were radicals in his own party that wanted retribution. And at the end of the war, he wanted reconciliation.

That emphasis of being a reconciler-in-chief is a very difficult line to walk. And it's easy to look past, you know, the rearview mirror of history and look at the mistakes he made and the ways that reconstruction went off the rails. But Abraham Lincoln's leadership stands the test of time because he was both great and good. And that combination, I think, speaks to our deeper selves.

CABRERA: How do you think his legacy continues to play out in today's racial and social justice movements?

AVLON: Lincoln is so central to our politics to this day for so many reasons, right? I mean, you've heard even in the last several weeks Lincoln be invoked by politicians on both sides of the aisle around Donald Trump's impeachment.

CABRERA: Yes, just this week in the impeachment trial.

AVON: Absolutely. And I think it's because, first of all, Lincoln reminds us that presidential leadership matters. Our greatest president is bookended by two of our worst, James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. That's a reminder of how key presidential leadership is.

It's a reminder that character is the quality that counts most in a president, and Lincoln have that. For all his inexperience entering office, no military experience, no executive experience, character is ultimately what counted.

And he was able to summon the better angels of our nature, to focus on what unites us not what divides us, even in civil war. Even his enemies admitted he was honest. And he never took the road of the politics of personal destruction. So, in many ways, he remained so central.

But as David Blight, the historian, once said, as long as we have a politics of race in this country, we will have a politics of civil war memory. And slavery is the original sin, and we still have not got out from under it.

So, Lincoln's leadership in the remains inspiring, but the lessons to learn of how we fell so short, especially after Lincoln's death are ones we cannot learn enough. We need to keep it central in our mind as we face the future.

CABRERA: And I want to ask you more about those lessons learned or what can be applied to Joe Biden's presidency, because obviously, it was such a divided time in American history under Lincoln's administration. Here we are today with, you know, a country that is coming apart at the seams in many ways. What should Joe Biden look to Lincoln for in terms of guiding him through this moment in time?

AVLON: A reminder that focusing on reconciliation can be done with integrity, that it doesn't mean splitting the difference, that progress and moral courage matter more than the idea, the false idea that right makes -- that might makes right. Lincoln believed that right makes might.

Presidential leadership matters. That a president even in the most divided of times can help a nation re-discover its better angels. And you've got to fight some tough fights at times.

CABRERA: Yes. Yes.

AVLON: But if you do that resolutely with an eye towards uniting the nation, we can accomplish great things. And history provides hope. We have been much more divided before.

[17:55:00]

The civil war reminds us of that. But Lincoln can inspire us and particularly presidents, to reach for that higher level and inspire the rest of us to be that way.

CABRERA: Okay, John Avlon -- thank you so much, John. Good to have you here. Don't forget to tune in, "Lincoln: Divided We Stand" premieres tonight at 10:00 right here on CNN. And that does it for me. I'm Ana Cabrera. Thanks for being here. Pamela Brown picks up our coverage right after this. Have a great week.

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