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Alec Baldwin Speaks Publicly For The First Time Since Film Set Shooting; CNN Uncovers Audio From Trump Lawyer Eastman On January 6 Riot; Interview With Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD); Court Filing Shows Type Of Documents Trump Wants Kept Secret; Biden Gets Win On Global Taxes At First G20 As President; Paid Parental, Medical Leave Axed From Biden's Spending Bill. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired October 30, 2021 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:25]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alec Baldwin tells paparazzi the shooting on the set of his latest film, "Rust" was a quote "one in a trillion event."

ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR: We were a very, very -- you know, well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: As the January 6th Commission investigates Donald Trump's role in the insurrection, new details on the huge trove of documents he's trying to keep hidden from Congress.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From his point of view, there's no good that can come from any light being shed on his activities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: January 6th Committee member Jamie Raskin weighs in.

BROWN: Just days before the polls open in Virginia's high stakes race for governor --

GLENN YOUNGKIN (R), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE FOR VIRGINIA: He wants to force you to join a union, he wants to raise your taxes.

BROWN: The candidates are making their final pitches, with more than a million early ballots already cast.

TERRY MCAULIFFE (D), VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: We work with reasonable Republicans, but Glenn Youngkin is not a reasonable Republican.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kids ages five to 11 could start getting Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine as soon as Tuesday.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: There is a really good reason to have the children vaccinated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM, and for the first time since the shooting that left a cinematographer dead and the director injured, Alec Baldwin is speaking publicly about the tragedy on his movie set. CNN's Natasha Chen joins me now. Natasha, what did Baldwin say?

CHEN: Yes, Pamela, Baldwin was being followed by cameras. He was with his family and he stopped his car to get out and talk to paparazzi really taking his time, but being careful not to say anything that would affect the ongoing investigation.

The person you see next to him, the woman there with her phone out as well is his wife. Here is all four minutes of their interaction with paparazzi.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I will. What do you want to know?

QUESTION: All right, Alec, what's the current state of what's going on with the case?

BALDWIN: I'm not allowed to make any comments, because it's an ongoing investigation. I've been ordered by the Sheriff's Department in Santa Fe. I can't answer any questions about the investigation. I can't. It's an active investigation in terms over one guy. She was my friend. She was my friend.

The day I arrived in Santa Fe to start shooting, I took her to dinner with Joel, the director. We were a very, very -- excuse me. We were a very, very, you know, well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened.

Now, I've been told multiple times, don't make any comments about the ongoing investigation and I can't, I can't. I can't.

QUESTION: And you met --

BALDWIN: What are the --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry.

BALDWIN: What other questions that you have other than that?

QUESTION: Have you met with -- I forge the name -- have you met with her family?

HILARIA BALDWIN, WIFE OF ALEC BALDWIN: Halyna. Her name is Halyna.

BALDWIN: Yes, I've met with her --

H. BALDWIN: If you're spending this much time waiting for us, you should know her name.

BALDWIN: You don't know her name? H. BALDWIN: Her name is Halyna.

BALDWIN: Halyna Hutchins, I met with her husband, Matthew, and her son.

QUESTION: And how did that meeting go?

BALDWIN: I wouldn't know how to characterize it. They are mortified --

H. BALDWIN: You guys. You guys, you know what, no details.

BALDWIN: Do me a favor, I'm going to -- I'm going to answer the question.

QUESTION: Well, I appreciate that he would probably be very upset.

BALDWIN: The guy is overwhelmed with grief. This is something that that -- you know, there are incidental accidents on film sets from time to time, but nothing like this. This is a one in a trillion on the set. It is a one in a trillion event.

And so that he is in shock, his nine-year-old son. You know, we are in constant contact with him, because we're very worried about his family and his kid. And as I said, we're eagerly awaiting the Sheriff's Department to tell us what their investigation has yielded.

What else do you have?

QUESTION: Would you ever work on another film set that involves firearms of that nature?

BALDWIN: I couldn't answer that question. I really don't have any -- I have no sense of it all.

I do know that an ongoing effort to limit the use of firearms in on film sets is something I'm extremely interested in. Where are you -- but remember, something that I think is important and that is how many bullets have been fired in films and TV shows in the last seven to five years?

This is America. How many bullets have gone off in movies or on TV sets? Billions. In the last 75 years, and nearly all without incident, so what has happened now is we have to realize that when it does go wrong and it is this horrible, catastrophic thing.

Some new measures have to take place -- proper guns, plastic guns, no live -- no real armaments and stuff. But that's not for me to decide. It is urgent. It is urgent that you understand, I'm not an expert in this field, so whatever other people decide is the best way to go in terms of protecting people's safety on film sets. I'm all in favor of and I will cooperate with that in any way that I can.

[18:05:15]

QUESTION: Do you have any further projects in the works at the moment or is everything on hold for you right now? BALDWIN: No, no. That's irrelevant to what we're talking about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, fair enough.

QUESTION: Do you think production will start up again on this --

BALDWIN: No, I don't. I am not (INAUDIBLE). Was there anything else?

QUESTION: Why Vermont, Alec --

H. BALDWIN: Because we just -- it is private.

BALDWIN: No, that's private. Yes, that's private. Anything else?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

BALDWIN: So just do me a favor, if you don't mind. My kids are in the car crying.

H. BALDWIN: Because you guys are following and we know.

BALDWIN: And all I want to do -- as a courtesy to you, I came to talk to you. I'm not allowed to comment on the investigation. I talk to the cops every day. I talk to them every day to find out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They know where you are.

H. BALDWIN: Of course.

BALDWIN: I'm cooperating with them. So my point is, is that -- it is that, I'm just asking, we sat down as a courtesy now to talk to you. Now, please would you just stop following us was for the rest of this. Just leave us alone.

H. BALDWIN: Just go home.

BALDWIN: We gave you everything we could possibly give you, okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

H. BALDWIN: Go home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Thank you. Condolences. Thank you.

H. BALDWIN: Now, turn it off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN: So you can tell, a very tense interaction, but relatively courteous. He did take his time to answer the questions that they have. Keep in mind that Baldwin is not only an actor in this movie, but also a producer as well.

The comment he made about talking to police every day, that tracks with what we've heard from the Sheriff's Office here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a source telling my colleague Josh Campbell that investigators have been in touch with him whenever they have follow up questions that he is willingly answering them.

At the same time on Friday, we saw the armorer release a statement through her lawyers saying that she has no idea how a live round got on the set. The Sheriff here is interested in doing a follow up interview with the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, as well as the assistant director -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Natasha Chen, thank you so much.

And now we pull back the curtain from behind the violent scenes of January 6th. There are new details tonight on the Machiavellian and arguably sinister tactics deployed as the U.S. Capitol was under siege and a potential coup was underway.

Many revelations involve the man you see speaking right here. That is John Eastman. You see Rudy Giuliani beside him. Unlike him, Eastman is a former Trump lawyer who spoke at the January 6th rally to promote the big lie that the election was stolen.

Eastman had been pushing for Vice President Mike Pence to block Congress's vote to certify the Electoral College results, something the Constitution didn't allow Pence to do, and that only enraged the rioters more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: (Chanting "Hang Mike Pence.")

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And as the mob came dangerously close to a fleeing Pence, Eastman fired off a shocking e-mail. He told a Pence aide that the Vice President was to blame for the violence, quote: "The 'siege' is because you and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened." End quote.

Joining me now is one of the reporters who broke this story. Josh Dawsey of "The Washington Post." Nice to see you.

It is interesting that in that e-mail, and I know that there were a series of e-mail exchanges that you are reporting on. He said, "What happened?" As though there was widespread fraud? We know that there wasn't and that it was a fair and free election, Josh. Tell us more about what you have learned here.

JOSH DAWSEY, POLITICAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": So what we learned is in the days leading up to January 6th, the Vice President and his team had had multiple meetings with John Eastman, Trump's lawyer, and he used the whole series of different theories, different arguments to make how the Vice President can actually not certify the election in his mind, and the Vice President did not agree.

And then when they got to the Capitol on January 6th and the rioters approached the Capitol when they were in the chamber, Greg Jacobs, a top lawyer to Vice President Pence, his chief counsel, sent an e-mail to Mr. Eastman and said, basically, he used an expletive, but he said basically, your actions are why we're under siege. You know, saying all of his arguments in Mr. Jacob's mind was snake oil, and that's when he wrote back. No, you're under siege because of what you did.

Later that night, even after the rioters have been cleared out of the chamber and Vice President Pence had gone back up to the dais to try and finish the certification of the election, Mr. Eastland sent another e-mail asking them to reconsider certifying the election after all of this had taken place.

BROWN: Even after all of this, he sent another e-mail asking. It is really stunning. How is Eastman responding to this?

DAWSEY: So, Eastman says that the only reason he wrote that e-mail on January 6th was because of the response from Mr. Jacob, Vice President Pence's chief counsel who has been a respected member of the Republican Bar.

[18:10:04]

DAWSEY: And Mr. Jacob wrote a pretty detailed draft op-ed saying that Mr. Eastman and others should face potential bar disciplining. You know, he should be in trouble for what they did. He said, because they repeatedly and in his mind knowingly misled the President of the United States.

Mr. Eastman continues to say the election, you know, was rigged. He has not changed his course on that, and he said that nothing that he did in the days leading up to the election was wrong, and he took no contrition for the e-mails he sent on the 6th.

BROWN: Josh Dawsey, thanks for bringing us the latest with your reporting there from "The Washington Post." We appreciate it.

DAWSEY: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Well, CNN has uncovered audio of John Eastman four days before the Capitol attack putting pressure and a potential bull's eye on Pence.

CNN's K-File team has this exchange between Eastman and former Trump adviser, Steve Bannon.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER DONALD TRUMP ADVISER: Are we to assume that this is going to be a climactic battle that's going to take place this week about the very question of the constitutionality of the Electoral Count Act of 1877?

JOHN EASTMAN, ATTORNEY TO DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think a lot of that depends on the courage and the spine of the individuals involved.

BANNON: When you just said the courage and the spine, are you talking on the other side of football? Would you be -- would you be -- that would be a nice way to say a guy named Mike -- Vice President Mike Pence?

EASTMAN: Yes.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BROWN: Eastman has since downplayed how sound his legal theories were and how seriously they should be taken. But as we just heard, that was not the tone of his message before the siege on the Capitol.

And also new today, a laundry list of documents that former President Trump wants to hide from House investigators focused on January 6th. Overnight, the House told a Federal Court, Trump has no legal right to protect those papers.

Let's break it all down with CNN's Katelyn Polantz and CNN senior legal analyst and former Federal prosecutor, Elie Honig.

Great to see you both. Katelyn, let's start with you. What specifically does the President want to block?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Pam, what we have here is what appears to be sort of like a treasure trove, for lack of a better term, of what Trump was saying and what people around him in the White House were writing down on the days before January 6th, and on January 6th about election fraud and the certification of the presidency.

So these are not documents we've seen. All this is, is a list so far from the National Archives that was put in a court filing that details the organization of all of the things that Donald Trump does not want to have out there in the public.

What we know is its White House visitor logs, its call records. Its 30 pages of Trump's daily schedule. Its officials' notes and memos on efforts to undermine the election. There's handwritten notes from the Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about election integrity, Trump's election fraud push. There are 600 pages in binders from Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany about talking points related to the election, and all of this is about January 6th.

It is documents the House is pursuing as they investigate that attack, and these are things that Trump says right now should be privileged, should be kept secret to protect the presidency.

BROWN: All right, so Elie, let's bring you and now because this is all caught up now in court. When could we find out more? I mean, could these documents potentially be released soon?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST Yes, Pam. So, there is a hearing scheduled on this for Thursday, November 4th, a few days from now. The parties will make their arguments about executive privilege, and then the judge I believe, will rule quickly because there's a November 12th deadline here, at which point National Archives will turn over these documents.

So I would expect the judge to give the ruling on November 12. Important to keep in mind, though, this is the District Court, this is the trial court level, the lowest of three levels of courts that we have in the Federal system, whoever loses here is surely going to go right to that next level, the Court of Appeals, ask the Court of Appeals to put this on hold while they rule, and then whoever loses at the Court of Appeals is very likely to try to get this up to the Supreme Court.

On one hand, the Supreme Court takes very few cases presented to it. On the other hand, it is harder -- it is hard to think of a case that more squarely presents constitutional issues that the Supreme Court might take.

So, this is going to take months to play out, but this week is going to be crucial.

BROWN: Basically, though, I mean, this is significant. This isn't just a few documents. I mean, it's hundreds of documents around the election and just before January 6th and after. I mean this is significant.

HONIG: Not only are these important documents, I think these could be the most important single documents in the entire case. You're talking about documents created by the key players about the key players at the key days and during January 6th.

I mean, looking at this from my former prosecutor's lens, it's hard to think of a more important trove of documents you could have than these.

BROWN: All right, Elie Honig and Katelyn Polantz, thank you both for helping us better understand just how significant this is.

[18:15:06]

BROWN: And Congressman Jamie Raskin from the Committee investigating the riot is here to drill down on all of this in just a couple of minutes. You're not going to want to miss this conversation.

And also ahead tonight, taxes, tariffs, and even some truffle as Joe Biden wraps a critical day at the G20 Summit.

Kids five to 11 years old could start getting COVID shots as soon as Tuesday. The Chief of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital joins me live to answer parents' questions about all of this.

And then get set for a light show in the sky that puts Clark Griswold's Christmas decorations to shame.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We are getting a glimpse of documents that former President Donald Trump wants to conceal from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol and they include visitor logs, call records, and even handwritten notes.

Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin is on the Committee and he led the impeachment prosecution of Trump on charges he incited the insurrection.

Congressman Raskin, thanks for being here with us.

[18:20:15]

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Delighted to be with you, Pamela.

BROWN: So let's talk about these documents. I mean, how critical is it for the Committee to see these documents? Do you think they can provide a roadmap?

RASKIN: Well, we want to document a complete record of everything that was going on, really minute by minute during the day of the insurrection. But to my mind, having gone through the impeachment trial, they're essentially backing up things we already know.

I mean, Trump tweeted out in the middle of the violence when scores of police officers had been hit over the head with Confederate battle flags or lead pipes when they had all of these injuries, when the Vice President is being hunted down, and Nancy Pelosi is being hunted down, he tweeted out that Mike Pence didn't do what he needed to do, and was not showing the proper courage.

So he continued to mobilize the kind of pressure that was suggested by "The Washington Post" article today. I mean, there was very clearly a plan on the political coup side to mobilize a campaign to get Mike Pence to block certification of the Electoral College votes. There was simultaneously the mobilization of the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys and Aryan Nations and the militia men and the QAnon followers to lead a violent insurrection against the Congress.

And what's starting to come into focus here is how these two streams of activity came together. The political coup directed not against the President, but against the Vice President, and the violent insurrection directed at Congress and the Vice President to try to overthrow the election.

So to my mind, the call records, the travel logs, the handwritten notes, all of those things are filling in the portrait, but the basic storyline we knew coming out of the impeachment trial.

BROWN: Well, then why haven't you subpoenaed John Eastman, who is emerging as a clear figure here in what you call the political coup?

RASKIN: Well, first of all, Eastman's activities are perfectly clear at this point. He was the architect of the legal strategy to claim for the first time in American history that the Vice President had the unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes that were the results of popular elections in Arizona, in Pennsylvania, and in Georgia. He was the one pressing that theory that was repudiated by the Vice President, by his staff, by his private attorney, Richard Cullen, all of whom rejected it and said that that was ridiculous.

But what's coming out now is the way he is continuing to press it and he is obviously a figure of intense interest to the January 6th Select Committee.

BROWN: So does that mean we can see a subpoena coming in the next few days? What can we expect?

RASKIN: Well, I don't want to talk specifically about what's going on in any particular case, but I will say that anybody who has got any information, especially those people who have the most information, are targets of great interest for us, because we want them to be able to turn over all of the information that they have.

And we've seen remarkable cooperation across the board from people who understand. It is not just their legal duty, but really, it should be their civic honor to be providing information about the worst attack on the U.S. Capitol since the War of 1812, an event that threatened something like Civil War-type action in the City of Washington,

BROWN: I just want to -- what do you mean by remarkable cooperation? Because I think there have been nearly 20 subpoenas sent from the Committee, but very few from our reporting have actually shown up to speak with the Committee and we know even like one of them, Mark Meadows. Our sources are telling us that the Committee is growing frustrated, their patience is wearing thin with him.

So what do you mean by remarkable cooperation?

RASKIN: Well, there have been dozens and dozens of interviews that have taken place with people who were involved both on the political coup side and on the insurrection side, and other people who have information about what was taking place. Obviously, we had to vote out criminal contempt charges to refer to the U.S. Attorney to take to the grand jury in the case of Steve Bannon because of his blatant refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena. He just didn't show up.

But we're being reasonable as the courts have always asked Congress to be reasonable. We have the right to all of this information. But if somebody can't show up Thursday at four, and they want to come Monday at nine, if they've got a doctor's appointment, they've got something else going on. We're going to, you know, participate in a process of accommodation with them.

And people have raised different kinds of objections to this or that, again, we're trying to be reasonably accommodating them, but --

BROWN: But like on Meadows, for example. I mean, patience is wearing thin we're told, like when will the committee get more forceful with, you know, being more aggressive to force his compliance?

RASKIN: Well, I mean, nobody is more interested in immediate compliance than we are, because the clock is ticking. We know there are people who want to run out the clock for the 2022 elections. We're not going to allow that to happen.

[18:25:08]

RASKIN: The request for records that we made in the National Archives is completely reasonable. It is everything having to do with the January 6th insurrection, which is based on our statutory authority by the legislation that created our Committee.

And so we have the right to all of that information, and the Supreme Court said as long ago as 1821, in Anderson versus Dunn that Congress has the right to get all of the information it needs for its legislative research, and we need to know what we need to put in place in order to prevent this kind of attack on congressional process in the future and attempts to overthrow presidential elections.

I mean nothing could be more important in terms of our democracy than securing the processes of the presidential election. And we saw an attack both on the formal process of the election and also on our physical sitting in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.

And the Senate, of course, was occupied by insurrectionist marauders who came in and took over people's desks and put their feet up, you know, with the President of the Senate's desk and so on. It was an absolutely shameful, scandalous assault on American democracy.

So we're going to get to the bottom of it. We're going to make a complete report to the American people about exactly what happened, what caused it, how the action went down, and then what needs to be done to make sure this never happens to us again.

BROWN: Okay, stay right there, Congressman, a few more questions for you right after this break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:31:06]

BROWN: New today, a wide-ranging list of documents that former President Trump wants to hide from House investigators focused on January 6th. Overnight, the House told the federal court Trump has no legal right to protect those papers. Let's bring back in Congressman Jamie Raskin from the Select Committee investigating the attack. He also led the impeachment prosecution of Trump on charges he incited the insurrection.

So I want to pick up with what you said in the last block. You said so far the committee has conducted dozens and dozens of interviews. Can you give us a better sense of who that entails and have you talked with any of the people who were actually there at the rally beforehand or outside the capitol building during the interaction?

RASKIN: Well, sure. First of all, we've got a remarkable staff of people, of lawyers, and investigators and researchers. There were hundreds of thousands of photographs taken that day, not just by journalists and video cameras in the buildings, but also by protesters. All these things have been put up online. There were millions of text messages and email messages, tweets and so on. All of that is part of the reconstruction of the events of the day. And there were, of course, 10s of thousands of people there, many of whom have come forward to talk. There are officers, of course, and we've had testimony from those officers. There were protesters there, staffers, members of Congress. There were tons of people in the executive branch who were involved in this.

And most people were shocked that this took place in the United States of America and have not gotten over it. And people are only increasingly scandalized that Donald Trump is trying to portray this as Dr. King's march on Washington part two. He said that the insurrectionists or the rioters were hugging and kissing the officers as they came in, which is presumably how 140 of them were wounded with broken arms, and legs, and noses, and jaws and necks and so on.

BROWN: You mentioned protesters, how many have you talked to?

RASKIN: I don't know the right answer on that.

BROWN: OK.

RASKIN: But clearly, we have a line where people are calling in on. We have people who are very repentant about having been part of this and being pulled into it. And a lot of people I've heard say publicly were drawn into it because President Trump said that the election was being stolen which, of course, is the big lie and they came to Washington for that reason.

And so we have to rewind the clock, figure out exactly what happened and why, what was the role of the social media, who financed these events, who coordinated the violence with the political efforts to isolate Mike Pence to get everybody chanting hang Mike Pence and to go after him. We're going to put together a serious chronology of events, so America can understand it.

BROWN: So let's talk about that. You mentioned social media. I'm going to get to that in a second. What about call records? We know that some sitting members of Congress, you have Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar had potentially relevant engagements, conversations around January 6. Would the Committee be willing to subpoena their call records?

RASKIN: Well, I don't know whether the Chairman has spoken on that issue yet and I don't know whether any decision has been made about any of that, so I can't comment on that, other than to say every patriotic member of Congress and I'm willing to believe that every member of Congress is patriotic, should turn over all of the information they have right now and should be willing to submit it because why not.

BROWN: So you Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, they should be ...

RASKIN: If they didn't participate in insurrection then they should have nothing to be afraid of. I mean, I certainly would have no problem with having any of my call records for the week leading up to that turned over.

[18:35:01]

I don't think they'll find any calls between my office and the White House. But look this is serious business, because we can't go forward in America, if we have outgoing presidents who have lost their election denying that they've lost the election, claiming that they won it and then mobilizing political coups and violent insurrections against the government, if that's what happened and that's what we're trying to determine here, that takes us into a very different form of government from everything that we've known.

And President Biden has said that the autocrats of the world, the Putins of the world, the General Xis and the Orbans. They say, Joe Biden, you're a nice guy but democracy can't work.

BROWN: And we cover that extensively on this show, just the state of democracy, what would it mean if democracy recedes and so forth. It is a really important topic. I'm just wondering, given all the people who have not complied with the subpoena. Would you be willing to grant, would the Committee be willing to grant immunity to anyone?

RASKIN: Absolutely.

BROWN: Has that happened?

RASKIN: I mean, I'm not speaking in any particular case. But as one member of the Committee, I would say if someone says, I think I might be incriminating myself under the Constitution, under the Fifth Amendment. We have a privilege against self-incrimination. So we would say, you tell us everything you know and we will not use against you any of that information.

BROWN: And has that happened yet?

RASKIN: I don't know whether or not that's happened yet, but I have no problem with that. And I think that, look, we are not a prosecutorial committee. We are a committee that is charged with developing a report back to America, back to the Congress and to the people of United States about what happened and how we're going to prevent this from happening in the future.

So right now we're turning over all information we have of criminal activity, but if someone comes forward and says I've got extremely relevant information, but I'm afraid that I may have committed a crime, then I would say they could enter into a conversation with our lawyers about use immunity.

Congress has statutory power to grant what's called use immunity. We won't use against you what you're telling us if you tell us everything you know and you tell us the truth.

BROWN: I want to ask you before we let you go about new reporting that I have with my colleague, Jeremy Herb and it is that the Select Committee is targeting a 150-year-old law in an effort to prevent another January 6. And we've heard that law reference with the John Eastman reporting now today. What exactly is the Committee looking at?

RASKIN: They were referring to the Electoral Count Act?

BROWN: Yes, the Electoral Count Act. Yes.

RASKIN: Well, look, the Electoral Count Act was simply an attempt to put some meat on the bones of the skeleton of the 12th amendment. And the 12th Amendment is what governs our joint session of Congress when we get together to receive Electoral College votes sent over by the chief executives of the states who are reporting, like the Governor of Pennsylvania, here are the electors that have been decided upon by the people of Pennsylvania in our election. Okay.

So the Electoral Count Act describes what happens. It was in response to a very close controverted presidential election in 1876. It took them like a decade to try to figure out what these details would be parts of it are somewhat inscrutable, but we have stuck to it very closely.

One of the things that Eastman was talking about was just trying to get the Vice President to declare that the Electoral Count Act was unconstitutional and the Vice President was going to impose his own system under his dream. Fortunately, Vice President Pence rejected all that. He released the memo saying I don't have the authority to do what Donald Trump is essentially asking me to do.

But we need to clarify that the Vice President's role is an administrative role. It's a sharing role. It's a ministerial role. It's not a role where Vice President Harris could just say, I don't like the way that state looks. I don't like the way that state looks, I'm going to dispense with their electors.

By the way, the state legislatures from Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia never asked for their electors to be returned. On the contrary, they were certified in those legislatures.

BROWN: They certified, right.

RASKIN: The governors turn them over, so it was all made up when you've got Steve Bannon or Eastman running around saying the states ...

BROWN: But the point is if this law could give - the point is, I think, what happened with January 6 and all the efforts to overturn the election results is that this law clearly could be clarified, there could be clarified ...

RASKIN: It could be clarified.

BROWN: ... and that is something that Committee ...

RASKIN: We agreed that this law could be tightened up to make sure nothing like 2020, January 6th ever happens again. And that means we can tighten up the procedures for objections, for voting on objections and for making sure that the popular will is vindicated.

The Electoral College is an old and somewhat creaky institution to the extent we're going to keep it, we've got to make sure that the popular will is protected in every step along the process, because done Trump has now essentially thrown every phase of the process into question.

[18:40:04]

BROWN: All right. Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you again for your time tonight.

RASKIN: Thanks so much for having me.

BROWN: Happy Halloween.

RASKIN: And you too, Pamela.

BROWN: We are hearing from Alec Baldwin for the first time since the deadly shooting on his film set calling it a one in a trillion event. We'll play that interview for you.

Plus, President Joe Biden and European allies say they could revive the Iran nuclear deal quickly. Our Phil Mattingly is following all the action from the G20 and he joins us live up next. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[18:45:06]

BROWN: Joe Biden getting a win at his first G20 Summit as president. Today he got world leaders to endorse a 15 percent global minimum tax. Biden is hoping to reassure them that America is back and committed to its allies. CNN's Phil Mattingly is in Rome covering the President's trip. So Phil, what's important about this global tax?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think what's most important, Pamela, is this has been an effort that's been underway for eight, nine, maybe 10 years at this point. And getting everyone in the G20 to endorsed this proposal as the leaders did today, nearly 140 countries are behind it is a significant step forward.

Now, what this proposal actually does is 15 percent minimum tax on large corporations and it also shifts where the revenue from that taxation goes to where customers actually buy those products versus where those companies are actually based. And that's important because what it's going after is basically companies that are locating themselves or perhaps their subsidiaries in low tax countries in order to dodge taxes from the countries where they sell their products.

It's been such a cute problem over the course of the last several years and this goes a long way to, at least, starting to address that problem. But Pamela, I think it's important to note, that was only one of the things the President secured today. The other was a trade truce with the EU. This has been an issue of significant tension over the course of the last several years since former President Donald Trump slapped steel and aluminum tariffs on and then there were recommended recommendations from the Europeans.

That is now put to the side, $10 billion in goods and exports will be affected by this. So that's another issue that was taken off the plate. You also saw the President talk a lot today about vaccine equity, every single leader in the G20. Backing the President's push to have 70 percent of the globe vaccinated by the middle of 2022.

So the President really going again in the opposite direction of his predecessor trying to go full on with multilateralism versus what we saw with the former president.

BROWN: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks for bringing us the latest there from Rome. Tough assignment to be there in Rome. Although I do know it's a lot of work as a former White House reporter myself. All right. Thanks, Phil.

MATTINGLY: It was good though. It was good.

BROWN: Food and maybe some wine, I don't know. All right. Thanks so much.

MATTINGLY: A little bit.

BROWN: Well, there are 195 countries on this planet, 188 offers some sort of maternity leave. The United States is not one of them. Why do some politicians think that's acceptable?

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[18:51:54]

BROWN: From 12 weeks to four weeks to absolutely nothing, paid family leave has become a casualty of politics yet again. Democrats caving to Senate moderates and dealing a heavy blow to House progressives, not to mention the millions of Americans who are forced to choose between their jobs and caring for newborns or elderly relatives.

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Cjoem2 To expand social programs when you have trust funds that aren't solvent, they're going insolvent. I can't explain that. It doesn't make sense to me. I want to work with everyone as long as we can start paying for things. That's all. I can't put this burden on my grandchildren. I've got 10 grandchildren and I just can't do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Russia, China and practically all of Europe grant six months or more of paid sick leave. By conservative estimates, at least 20 million Americans go to work sick every year because they can't afford to take an unpaid day off. New moms in Canada, Japan or Russia, they get 52 weeks or more of paid maternity leave. And in India, Venezuela or Chile, they get at least 26 weeks up to nearly a year. In Australia, Somalia, Brazil, at least 14 weeks of leave is paid for by the government.

In fact, there are only seven nations in the world with no national paid maternity leave. Apart from the United States, no other industrialized nations leave new moms out in the cold. Well, I'm one of the fortunate ones. My employer provided me with the paid time off to care for my two children as newborns, but also the time to recover as a new mom from a transformative and very challenging experience of childbirth and sleepless nights.

After my second child, I developed severe postpartum anxiety. My paid leave through work gave me the time to seek the treatment I needed and to recover mentally before going back to my demanding job. I honestly could not imagine having to deal with the stress of not having paid leave on top of everything I was going through.

How was it possible in this day and age the United States doesn't make this more of a priority given that research on maternity leave shows that it benefits bonding, increases immunization and breastfeeding rates and decreases hospitalizations from infectious diseases. It also shows a leave lasting three to six months is ideal for both mother and child.

The fight for national paid parental leave began in 1990, that's around the same time women were given the right to vote. But here we are in 2021 and lawmakers still can't get it over the finish line.

Well, be sure to stay with us. Alec Baldwin is talking publicly for the first time since the fatal shooting on his film set.

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ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR: She was my friend. The day I arrived in Santa Fe and start shooting, I took her to dinner with Joel, the director.

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BROWN: You'll hear more from Baldwin in just a few minutes.

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BALDWIN: I'm not allowed to make any comments ...

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[18:59:35]

BROWN: It's Halloween weekend, but there could be a light show in the sky tonight that puts Clark Griswold's Christmas decorations to shame. That is because a large solar flare that erupted yesterday is setting up a powerful geomagnetic storm. It could supercharge the northern lights and make them visible from Oregon to New York this evening and through much of Europe.

[19:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) the shooting on the set of his latest film Rust was a 'one in a trillion event'.