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Standoff over Biden's Agenda; Critical Moment for Biden's Agenda; Trump Files Lawsuit over Disclosure of Tax Documents; Trump Campaign New Conspiracies were False. Aired 9:00-9:30a ET

Aired September 22, 2021 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: These inspirational stories all week.

And be sure to tune in Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern for "Champions for Change," the one hour special.

CNN's coverage continues right now.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

Very nice to be next to you in New York.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: It's nice to do this whole thing in person.

SCIUTTO: Absolutely.

HILL: I'm Erica Hill.

Good to have all of you with us this morning.

Negotiator in chief. Hours from now, President Biden set to speak with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as other key Democrats. All of this, of course, as his economic agenda faces an uncertain future with a major divide between members of his own party.

Right now, liberal and moderate Democrats in a fierce standoff. Biden's $1 trillion infrastructure plan, we know that's in limbo. Progressives digging in their heels, confirming they'll vote against the bipartisan bill on Monday.

All of this playing out as moderates are adamant that the package be brought to a vote next week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We're going to get our work done on our reconciliation bills, as we have always said because --

QUESTION: By Monday?

PELOSI: Yes, that's the plan. That's the plan. QUESTION: But Pramila Jayapal said she will vote against this with

half of her caucus if it's not passed Congress by then, the reconciliation is not passed Congress by then.

PELOSI: No, no, no, just the -- you know what, we'll all cross these bridges when we come to them. This is called the legislative process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Division in the Democratic ranks, centered around a $3.5 trillion budget plan. Liberals are holding the bipartisan infrastructure plan hostage in order to get that giant budget bill passed. Though the problem, some members of their own party say that price tag, $3.5 trillion, is too high.

All of this as the White House faces yet another, at least the potential, of an economic problem with the House voting to avoid a government shutdown and increase the borrowing limit. It doesn't have the votes in the Senate, which means the Democrats may be forced to act alone to avoid a debt crisis. That would be bad.

CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox and White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond, they are following all of this, this morning.

Lauren, to you though, first, on The Hill. What's happening? I mean -- I mean is there -- is there a way to a deal here? I mean this is a case of friendly fire, Democrats versus Democrats. Is there a path out of this?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this week is really critical. And the meetings today at the White House, another critical moment as the president tries to make the appeal to his caucus, to members of the progressive and moderate wing, that this agenda has to be happening because both sides are giving something. And right now that's just not clear it's going to happen.

This is what the lead progressive, Pramila Jayapal, told CNN this morning about where things stand with moderates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Other people are willing to crash the entire Democratic agenda by refusing to come together on the reconciliation bill, which was the promise that was made. So, I want to be very clear, we are the only people in the room right now that have said we want both bills done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: It's unclear whether or not moderates would be able to give her some kind of promise that maybe would satisfy progressives at this point. But, look, I think the progressive wing of the party feels like they've already given a lot. They already came down from their $6 trillion price tag that they wanted for this bigger economic bill and they are now at $3.5 trillion. As you know, moderates in the Senate, like Kyrsten Sinema, like Joe

Manchin, think that $3.5 trillion is simply too high. They also have other issues with some of the tax increases on wealthy Americans that may be included in this bill and there are issues with a prescription drug provision. And that's just really naming a few.

So at this point it's not clear that moderates and progressives are going to come together. But the White House really going to try to drive home the point this afternoon in multiple meetings with both sides of this caucus that, look, you may not get everything you want, but if you want to get anything at all, everyone needs to sort of relax, give this time to play out, and make good on a promise to pass at least this bipartisan infrastructure bill in the meantime.

HILL: Lauren, thank you for that.

Jeremy, in terms of that meeting that Lauren just said, set to meet with Democrats later today, including Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, I mean, what do we really expect to come out of this? How much capital does the president still have left at this point to bring his caucus together?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, if you were wondering whether or not this is truly crunch time for this reconciliation effort, then all you have to do is look at the series of meetings that President Biden is going to be holding today. The fact that President Biden is going to be meeting not only with the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, but also meeting with key progressives and moderates in several meetings throughout the day, that just shows you how close we are to a do or die moment and how focused the White House is on trying to bridge those divides between the moderate and progressive factions of the Democratic Party.

[09:05:07]

Look, President Biden is somebody who has decades of legislative experience, and certainly Democratic leaders are hoping that he can bring those to bear today to try and find some way to bring these two sides, who are very far apart, back together in order to get something done. Even if it is not a perfect something, but so that Democrats can say that they delivered on something.

This is perhaps the last moment for President Biden and Democrats to deliver on major legislative priorities before the 2022 midterms. The White House is keenly aware of that, and so they are going to do everything that they can. And that's why you're seeing the president get so personally involved today.

Now, whether or not he can actually do that is a whole other question. We know that he was able to bring some of those Republicans on board alongside Democrats to pass that bipartisan infrastructure bill in the Senate earlier this summer. So, we saw some of his ability to, you know, do this legislation, this kind of legislative bargaining with Democrats and Republicans. Now the question is, can he do it within his own party, bringing these two different factions together to get something done.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it wouldn't be the first time you play a game of chicken and everybody loses.

Lauren Fox, Jeremy Diamond, great to have you both on.

All right, so the debt limit. When it comes to the debt limit, the U.S. is one of just a handful of countries in the world that even has one. It is, to be clear, the maximum the federal government is allowed to borrow to pay for last year's bills. This is not about future spending, it's about last year's bills.

So here are the facts on how it works.

Congress passed the first debt ceiling in 1917 in hopes that it might curb spending growth, but that's been, frankly, an abysmal failure because every single time it has come up in Congress since then, it has been raised. Seventy-eight times in the past 50 years, under both Republican and Democratic presidents and mostly in bipartisan fashion.

The U.S. currently has nearly $29 trillion in debt, trillion. And according to U.S. Treasury, roughly $8 trillion of that is from the Trump era, including principally his tax cuts and the early COVID stimulus plans. That's what Congress is faced with paying for right now, not any of the new proposals from the Biden administration, and yet Republicans are trying to justify their no votes by saying they don't want to fuel the Democrats' future big spending plans.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell taking a very different tone, you might note on this debt ceiling vote, than he did when Republicans were in power.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY) (January 14, 2019): Speaker Pelosi and her far left base decided that the politics of obstruction would come before common sense policymaking.

No negotiation. No collaboration. Political game playing.

MCCONNELL (September 5, 2017): To reject this proposal, Democrats would have to prioritize political combat with the president ahead of federal workers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: The government has never actually defaulted on its debt, to be clear. It's come close. But if that were to happen, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says it would set off a widespread economic catastrophe. She sent an open letter to Congress to urge them to raise the ceiling.

And in a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed this week, Yellen warned, if it does not happen, quote, nearly 50 million seniors could stop receiving Social Security checks for a time, troops could go unpaid, millions of families who rely on the monthly child tax credit could see delays. It would also have a lasting impact on interest rates, which means you

would pay more for, say, mortgage payments, car loans, and credit card bills. It's important, so you got to keep watching.

HILL: Yes, absolutely.

Joining us now, "Political Playbook" co-author Rachael Bade, and political investigations and enterprise reporter for "The Washington Post," Toluse Olorunnipa.

Good to have both of you with us.

You know, Rachael, I want to start with you.

As we see this back and forth, it was interesting, we heard from Congressman Jayapal just a short time ago here on CNN saying, quote, other people are willing to crash the entire Democratic agenda. It's very clear the messaging from these two camps here. But I think the reality is for people at home, they see it as Democrats not getting something done.

Who's going to blink first, Rachael?

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean your guess is as good as mine right now. I think, today, this is, obviously, a big test for President Biden. You know, he has sort of touted that he has these relationships in Congress and he can get stuff done when it comes to legislation. We did, as Jeremy said just a few minutes ago, see him do this with the bipartisan infrastructure deal. But this is a little different. I mean he's bringing these progressives and these moderates in the House who are at odds to come to the White House to try to make peace, but he doesn't have the relationships in the House that he had in the Senate, and still has in the Senate.

And so, you know, if you go back just a couple of weeks ago, he was trying to convince some of these very House moderates to support a budget deal in that chamber. It was actually Nancy Pelosi who convinced him to do it, not the president, which sort of shows he's got a problem here.

[09:10:03]

And that was a moderate Democrat.

He's going to have to convince progressive Democrats to accept this bipartisan infrastructure bill without the larger social spending package that they want as well to go hand and hand. And so I think it's going to be a really tough sell for him. As you're saying, they're both playing chicken right now. Clearly the first vote is going to be the vote on infrastructure on Monday. And so the big question right now is, can they get progressives to support something like this.

SCIUTTO: And let's be frank, the president's relationship with Democratic progressives right now, not great. I mean look at the reaction, for instance, to the Border Patrol response to the migrants on the boarder there.

Toluse, Steny Hoyer says he hopes that Biden has special sauce, in his term, to unite Democrats. I wonder where, in your view, the president's influence stands with Democrats right now? What is their perception of his leadership, of his presidency? Does he have waning influence and power?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, his poll numbers are definitely going down, and that makes it harder for him to sort of use the bully pulpit to gather the party behind him, saying I am a popular president, everyone get on board with my agenda.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

OLORUNNIPA: He has campaigned both as a progressive and as a moderate. He said he was going to work across the aisle. He said he was against things like Medicare for all and some of those other progressive -- things on the progressive platforms. But then he brought progressives in and he put forward a $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan that has a lot of the progressive ideals inside of it.

So, he has kind of been straddling between the two wings of the party and now he is at a point of choosing where he has to decide which side he is going to go with or how he's going to bring the two sides together. It's a very difficult thing for him to do, especially at a time when COVID numbers continue to be bad for him, the economy has gotten better, but there are still millions of people that are out of work and there still seems to be an issue with the president showing how he's going to move forward in terms of building leadership, everything from Afghanistan to how he's handling that migrant situation.

So, it is a difficult thing that he's going to have to do. It's been a tough summer for him. He's going to have to go into the fall and refigure out how he's going to move forward with the two sides of his party.

HILL: Well, and the reality, too, Rachael, is that so much of his -- not just his agenda, but, frankly, of his ability to get things done in his first term, that's all riding on this right now.

BADE: Right. And it's not just him. I mean, look, Democrats are going into a really tough midterm election year. Historically, the party in power loses two dozen House seats to the other party. And right now Democrats only have a three-seat majority in the chamber. So, they want to campaign -- a lot of them want to campaign on something. They want to take home a big bipartisan win. You know, say, look, we've give you family leave, something you've never had before. But the reality is, you know, there's a small faction in the party of moderates who would rather have neither of them if they're going to have -- over -- what they see as overspend. And so, you know, it's a real stare down right now and it could have serious implications on their ability to keep the House when they're already having this uphill battle to keep the chamber.

SCIUTTO: Toluse, timing wise, is this basically the end, in effect, because if you lose the House, as many predict in the midterms, you know, it's the first year, really, of the -- of the president's administration where he has his maximum legislative influence. If this fails, is the Biden presidency, the success of it, at risk?

OLORUNNIPA: Well, this is definitely time for the special sauce if the president has it. He did spend six terms in the Senate. He was the president of the Senate as the vice president for eight years. He does have some of those relationships. And this is the time, this is crunch time, for him to use some of those legislative skills to bring forth the sort of a rabbit out of a hat and get all of this done. And if he does, that would definitely be good for his prospects going into the midterms.

HILL: Toluse Olorunnipa, Rachael Bade, great to see you both this morning. Thank you.

BADE: Thank you.

HILL: Up next, former President Trump now suing his niece for at least $100 million for disclosing some of his tax information. Her response, she says he's a loser. We'll discuss whether that suit has any legal merit.

SCIUTTO: Well, plus, the search is intensifying for Brian Laundrie as an autopsy confirms that his fiance, Gabby Petito, was the victim of a homicide. Hear what investigators are focused on today.

And new details about the thousands of migrants at the Texas border. We're learning that DHS is releasing some into the U.S.

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[09:18:55]

SCIUTTO: former President Trump, perhaps familiarly, is suing someone else. This time his estranged niece and three-time -- and three "New York Times" investigative reporters, according the group -- accusing the group of hatching what the lawsuit calls an insidious plot to get their hands on private records ultimately published in a 2018 story about his taxes. Mary Trump identified herself as the source of the leaked documents last year.

HILL: CNN's Sara Murray joining us now.

So, Sara, just remind us what did those documents revealed?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, they revealed some of his tax information and so now the former president is suing his niece, Mary Trump, as well as these "New York Times" reporters, essentially saying Mary Trump is in breach of a contract and these "New York Times" reporters got in the way of the former president's contractual and business dealings.

Now, "The New York Times," of course, says it's going to stand by its reporters. It believes this is an effort to try to silence the paper. Mary Trump, though, had a slightly more colorful statement in response

to finding out about this lawsuit. She said of her uncle, I think he is a loser and he is going to throw anything against the wall he can.

[09:20:00]

It's desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick. As is always the case with Donald, he'll try and change the subject.

So, clearly, no sides backing down on this lawsuit at this point, guys.

SCIUTTO: So, another story, just more evidence that the big lie, such a lie, that even Trump's team knew it was a lie. "The Times" reporting that before Trump lawyers floated conspiracy theories about voting machines in the 2020 election, that they knew -- that they looked and knew that a lot of the evidence, or evidence they claimed to be evidence, was false.

MURRAY: That's right. I mean I think anyone who paid any attention around the election saw Sidney Powell, saw Rudy Giuliani out there floating these wild conspiracy themes about Dominion Voting Systems. But "The New York Times" got their hands on some court filings. This had to do with a lawsuit from a former Dominion employee who is suing the Trump campaign and other entities for defamation. And in this said there's this campaign memo that is debunking a number of these wild claims about Dominion, things like the notion that Dominion was somehow connected to Antifa.

A lot of this came before we saw Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell out there widely spreading these things. "The New York Times" says in a deposition related to this, Giuliani denies that he ever saw the memo. It's unclear if the former president ever saw the memo. But there is some pretty clear open source stuff and it was very obvious it was easy to debunk this.

Obviously, this has not stopped former President Trump from still trying to spread all of this information. Just days ago he wrote a new letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking Raffensperger to overturn the election in Georgia. It says, I would respectfully request that your department check this and, if true, along with many other claims of voter fraud and voter irregularities, start the process of decertifying the election, or whatever the correct legal remedy is, and announce the true winner.

Brad Raffensperger was on CNN earlier this morning to react to that letter. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: I look at his letters as a plea for attention. He knows he's lost. He's been told that multiple times by a lot of people. But at the end of the day, that information that he talked about, we opened up an investigation. We have lots of investigations that go on. And then once we have our findings, we report those to the state election board for final disposition. But the fact is, is that President Trump did not carry the state of Georgia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: You know, I think what this really shows us is that the former president is going to continue carrying on the big lie. It doesn't matter how many people tells him he lost, it doesn't matter that he's under criminal investigation right now in the state of Georgia for his efforts to try to overturn that election, he is still out there peddling lies. Of course, there was not widespread fraud, there were not widespread voter irregularities, the Georgia result is not going to be overturned.

SCIUTTO: Well, and, sadly, many Republican candidates for office and holders of office are repeating that lie.

MURRAY: Yes.

SCIUTTO: It's almost a litmus test now.

Sara Murray, thanks so much.

MURRAY: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Here to discuss, former federal prosecutor and CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates. She's also the host of Sirius XM's "The Laura Coates Show."

Laura, good to have you on.

Just briefly, if I can, on this Trump lawsuit, because Trump files a lot of lawsuits, most of them not serious at all. Is this one serious? I mean, because to pursue, he would have to see -- cooperate with discovery, you know, documents, which would arguably reveal more about his taxes and the tax returns than we know already.

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: He would actually have to do that. He'd have to also prove a number of other factors here. That we know it has already been an unsuccessful suit that was brought by a member of his family trying to stop the publication of the book initially. You had a whole slew of threats by the former president against media outlets who have published information about his private data, he says, or his financial data or attempts to do so. And part of what's included in this particular lawsuit is a discussion of actual malice, which leads me to believe they're conflating what he's already tried to pursue, which is First Amendment type litigation against news organizations, hoping to say that they did so or published data only with actual malice to get around that defamation criteria for a public figure like a former president of the United States.

But the idea here, as one of the journalists from "The New York Times" talked about, that they knock on the door of Mary Trump, she answered and is in that journalism. And so far we have not had a full accounting of whether there has been that confidentiality agreement that was signed 20 years ago, whether it still stands today, or whether it was so vague as to not be allowed to be or able to be followed. So we got a little bit ahead of us still.

HILL: I also want to pick up, Laura, on -- because we have a couple of topics this morning, what Sara was just finishing on there, with Raffensperger in Georgia. The fact that there's this new letter when there is still, as we know, a criminal investigation going on, how could that impact those efforts?

COATES: Well, it is surreal in so many respects that the former president is still knocking on this closed door. That he's still trying to use, at this point in time, extra judicial review of an area that has been decided.

[09:25:04]

And, really, it's -- it -- it shouldn't shock anyone that the big lie has continued to have legs because so many people have been supportive of it, have been speaking about it, in spite of, what Sara said, the actual knowledge that there is no truth behind it, nothing has been substantiated and even attempts to go into the court of law to say to judges who are receptive in wanting to hear information about any indication of widespread abuse or voter fraud, and they received and heard only crickets.

So this now, having somebody who gives further information, further evidence to support that they were trying in many ways to lean on a government official to try to change the election results is really shocking and it's one in which I'm wondering who his legal counsel is that's advising him. And we know that several other people who were in the legal counsel team of Donald Trump have already had either their license suspended or they're being sued for defamation, knowing what they said was false. And so it's really surprising that he continues to do so. My only guess is this is a political endeavor and a way to try to stay relevant.

SCIUTTO: Here's the problem, though, right, because this is a playbook to be used again for 2024. And, by the way, since the 2020 election, steps have been taken that make it at least more realistic to carry out the playbook, right? For instance, putting partisan Republicans into positions that typically were non-partisan, election officials who might very well say, well, actually, I refuse to certify this or there's an alternate state of electors.

I mean, looking ahead, as a lawyer, do you see Trump and allies and members of the party laying the groundwork to try this again and perhaps with a greater chance of success?

COATES: Yes. And not only should they -- are they doing so, creating that blueprint, it's being followed in places like Georgia already, although Raffensperger has been quite resolute in his opposition to it. Remember, the legislature in that state and others have tried to -- I think the phrasing was, tried to be proactive against the things that were alleged in spite of knowing that it did not happen. So the idea of taking it out of the hands of independent elected officials and being able to say, well, we're going to decide what ultimate votes should be counted. And, remember, we were talking about the section two of the Voting Rights Act, the intention of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to pursue litigation under that particular section, you're talking about an attempt and an acknowledgement by the attorney general that there will be future endeavors, not only to have a blueprint, but act on it and have states be the people to essentially carry out the directives of the big lie.

SCIUTTO: It is happening in plain sight. I mean that's part of the amazing thing about it, in plain sight.

COATES: Yes.

HILL: Laura Coates, appreciate it. Good to see you. Thanks.

Former President George W. Bush hoping to provide a boost to Congressman Liz Cheney's election bid by holding a fundraiser for her next month. That's according to a source who tells CNN Bush's support for the Wyoming Republican, that would, of course, put the 43rd president at odds with former President Trump, who's endorsed Cheney's GOP primary challenger after the congresswoman voted to impeach him earlier this year.

SCIUTTO: New details on the ongoing crisis at the southern border. CNN is now learning that some of the thousands of Haitian refugees crowded near the border are being released into the U.S. We're going to take you there live to explain in just a moment.

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