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Interview With Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) About Spending Bill; Senator Manchin Says He Won't Support Spending Bill; New Court Filing Shows Type Of Docs Trump Wants To Keep Secret; Trump Waited 187 Minutes To Intervene In January 6th Attack And Other Warning Signs; Interview With Gina McCarthy About President Biden's Address At The U.N. Global Summit On Climate. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 01, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Really is transformative, the Build Back Better Act, and the Infrastructure Bill. Together a significant investment into roads and bridges, but also universal childcare, pre- K, home and community-based care, health care, climate change, housing, extensive investments into housing.

And so we feel very, very good about where we are, and we're not giving up on anything else. We are also going to get immigration in this bill, something on immigration in this bill. Very, very important to us as a progressive caucus, and we will fight for that, and we will get those done, and I believe that the president is speaking out of the experience that he has had of negotiating and the conversations he's had with these senators.

So I trust the president, he's going to deliver 51 votes, and I think we just need to bring all the temperature down a little bit. We intend to pass both bills through the House in the next couple of days, and we are really looking forward to allowing the American people to see how we fought for them and how we delivered so their lives could be better.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: And you're going to vote for these two bills no matter what?

JAYAPAL: Well, as I said, we're finalizing the pieces on immigration, on prescription drug pricing and on the details of childcare implementation but as soon as those get finalized, yes, I believe, we will have the votes to pass both the Infrastructure Bill and the Build Back Better Act through the House.

BLACKWELL: All right, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, thank you.

JAYAPAL: Thank you.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BLACKWELL: Brand new hour. It's good to be with you. I'm Victor Blackwell. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota, last hour

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin delivered a blow to the president's social safety net bill. In fact, Manchin feels so strongly about this he held a press conference to say he cannot support the legislation until he knows how it would impact inflation and the debt.

BLACKWELL: Now the senator urged his Democratic colleagues in the House to pass that bipartisan Infrastructure Bill before tackling the larger spending bill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): Holding this bill hostage is not going to work in getting my support for the reconciliation bill. Throughout the last three months I have been straightforward about my concerns that I will not support a reconciliation package that expands social programs and irresponsibly adds to our $29 trillion in national debt that no one seems to really care about.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: CNN's Manu Raju was at that press conference.

Manu, you also listened to that discussion I just had with Congresswoman Jayapal in which she says they're going to vote for both of these pieces of legislation. Few final elements that have to be decided. And the House is moving forward.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. That was a big deal, what Pramila Jayapal just said to you, Victor. She of course is the ahead of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. They have been holding up final passage of the Infrastructure Bill because they have been demanding Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, they get behind that separate larger bill that has been under negotiation for months.

But what Jayapal just said was that she and her progressive caucus are no longer going to sit and wait and demand that Joe Manchin and Sinema say they will be a yes. She said instead they're going to let Joe Biden make that determination himself and do what the president promised them, that he will get those two senators to vote for the bill. She said I trust the president. So that's a sign, no longer will they be pushing for that.

Now what they plan to do is to vote yes, that means final passage on the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan that's been awaiting action in the House since August. And if they vote yes, that will go to Joe Biden's desk, and if she is indicating they will, once they finalize the negotiations over that larger bill, and by all counts, they are moving forward on those negotiations.

Remember, the larger bill, $1.75 trillion was released late last week. But behind the scenes there have been a lot of discussions about making some changes including dealing with prescription drug pricing, trying to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Those last-minute changes are expected to be added into the bill, potentially sometime this week, suggesting now that both bills can get out of the House. Now the question is the Senate, and what will happen on the larger

bill. Joe Manchin making crystal clear here he is not ready to support that plan. He has concerns about its impact on inflation, on debt, the growth of social programs. It's just a complete opposite view that most of his parties, and earlier at his press conference criticized them for, quote, "budget gimmicks" that he says actually don't show the true cost of this bill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANCHIN: There's more of the real details outlined, the basic framework are released, what I see are shell games, budget gimmicks that make the real cost of the so-called $1.75 trillion bill estimated to be almost twice that amount, if the full time is run out.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

[15:05:02]

RAJU: So what this suggests is that it's going to take some time to get Joe Manchin's support for the larger bill. They're going to have to make changes, they're going to have to continue to negotiate, and how long will it take to understand its true impact on the economy because that's what Manchin wants to know, what impact will this have on inflation, on debt and the like, and he's not ready to go ahead and vote yes.

So, Victor, the way this could play out is they finalize negotiations on the big bill. They vote in the House on both bills and the infrastructure bill goes to the president's desk, he signs that into law, and they still got to deal with Joe Manchin, and the question will be, can they get that across the finish line? And that's an answer we just don't have -- question we don't have an answer to just yet.

CAMEROTA: OK, Manu Raju, thank you for explaining all of that.

Let's bring in now CNN political director, David Chalian.

David, the past hour for political watchers like you has been fascinating.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes.

CAMEROTA: To see all of this, I mean, Joe Manchin comes out with this basically surprise press conference saying, whoa, timeout, I'm not there yet, and then Victor interviews Congresswoman Jayapal who says, no, we're pressing on with exactly the same plan and we might vote on it this week.

CHALIAN: Yes. And throw in a statement from the White House in the middle there. And what you have is Washington's version of hot potato. That's what we saw over the last hour. Joe Manchin sort of said this is where I am. I am not going to rush this process along simply because there's a framework that we're talking about and the progressives in the House want to vote on both together. That's not going to impact my timeline.

Over to you, Congresswoman Jayapal, over to you, Joe Biden. Now I think Victor's interview with Jayapal was really interesting because if you thought she was going to let Joe Manchin get under her skin and somehow escalate this, no, she said to you, this is a time to lower the temperature. This is a time for cooler heads, this is somebody who's leading that progressive caucus, not just to be a loud voice outside the process, but actually to be delivering on these bills and getting them across the finish line, which is just a different tactic than we have seen. This is somebody who is taking her position as the head of the progressive caucus and aligning it with action, not just words.

BLACKWELL: So, David, we know that Senator Manchin could vote no on that larger spending bill. If the House passes both the infrastructure bill, which then would go to the president, and then the spending bill goes to the Senate, and he's still not comfortable with it, what we know from progressives is that they have said all Democrats, actually, have said we need both but there is now a chance that they won't get both because Manchin may just at the end of it say I can't get there.

CHALIAN: There is that chance.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CHALIAN: And this is why when Congresswoman Jayapal cited to you, Victor, she said we backed off the demand that the Senate actually have a vote on reconciliation, on the Build Back Better agenda, before we move the infrastructure bill. That was a key moment where progressives said no, no, we're going to leave that up to Joe Biden to solve how it gets through the Senate, and we're going to trust that he can do that.

Instead, what we're going to demand is that the House pass both concurrently, and even Nancy Pelosi is on the record saying she didn't want to pass the Build Back Better bill in the House, guys, without knowledge that it will pass the Senate. But you just heard the congresswoman say, and you've heard Speaker Pelosi say this. The faith now from the House Democrats is in Joe Biden, and the pressure now gets added to Joe Biden.

This is where he gets that hot potato because now if the House does pass both bills as Congresswoman Jayapal said they would, that is now going to be on Joe Biden to deliver his agenda through an evenly divided Senate, meaning Manchin and Sinema get on board at the end of the day.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely, and I hear in the subtext of the statement that the White House just put out from Jen Psaki, them saying, basically, Senator Manchin, we've talked about this. You should know some of this because here's one thing that Jen Psaki says just -- and this is moments ago. Experts agree, 17 Noble Prize-winning economists have said it will reduce inflation. As a result, we remain confident that the plan will gain Senator Manchin's support.

CHALIAN: Yes. It's really interesting when you hear that Manchin concern. And Manu was just noting this when he said it's so different than the rest of his party. It's not just different than the rest of his party, it's actually sort of the Republican arguments against the Biden administration and the Biden agenda, that inflation is high, that it's too much spending, and that there's not enough fiscal responsibility there.

That sort of goes to the debt issue that Manchin is talking about. And so you see the White House wanted to immediately jump on that. This Democratic moderate senator sort of taking on some of Republican critique and put that at bay, and remind him, it's fully paid for. And if this is your criteria, we're pretty convinced that we can check those boxes for you.

BLACKWELL: How much work, David, is still happening to potentially build on to this framework?

[15:10:02]

We know that Budget chairman, Senator Sanders, he has talked about prescription drugs, that program as well. We know that there's been a conversation between Senator Sinema, one of the moderates, and Speaker Pelosi about adding to this. So how much is still in play?

CHALIAN: Yes. You -- and you heard Congresswoman Jayapal say negotiations are still going on here at the last minute to frame what that bill is.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CHALIAN: And I think those two pieces of data that you just suggested Sanders saying he really wanted to work on prescription drugs still, and learning of the Pelosi-Sinema meeting on that issue is probably what prompted Manchin to come out because there was this sense when the framework was unveiled by the White House last week that negotiations had sort of some to an end, that this is where the meeting place would be.

And when you saw progressives like Sanders and others from the House side sort of say, hey, we still want to try and do this. You saw Manchin come out and say this can't just keep happening in a cycle, and you're not going to pressure me to go along with this as you guys are still trying to put things in here. So I think that's probably what prompted it.

But, you're right to note. This is not apparently a closed negotiation with final text yet. That is still to come, so we'll see what more gets in there.

BLACKWELL: All right. David Chalian, CNN political director. Thank you.

CHALIAN: Sure.

BLACKWELL: All right. Turning now to the investigation into the insurrection. We are learning what the former president has been trying to keep secret. The National Archives, which inherited former president's papers, outlined in a court filing for more than 700 pages of handwritten notes and call logs with Vice President Pence, White House visitor logs, all related to January 6th.

CAMEROTA: The court filings are in response to a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump nearly two weeks ago. The former president is attempting to block congressional investigators from accessing these records, and now a source tells CNN that same committee is also working on legislation to protect the voting process of certifying an election in order to prevent another January 6th from happening.

BLACKWELL: Let's bring in now CNN senior legal analyst, Elie Honig.

So what do we know about these documents, how important they could be?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Victor. So these are going to be absolutely crucial documents. They go right to the heart of the January 6th Committee's investigation. Let's look at the people involved. These documents were created by and about the core people around Donald Trump, Donald Trump himself, the vice president Mike Pence, the chief of staff, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Kayleigh McEnany, Stephen Miller and Patrick Philbin, a lawyer in the White House Counsel's Office. So these are key inner circle players.

What do we know about the documents themselves? Well, we're talking about over 770 documents. They include handwritten notes, internal memos, calendars, daily logs, draft speeches and this thing called the daily diary, which shows the president's movements and communications almost minute by minute.

Now how do we get here? The January 6th Committee subpoenaed these records from the National Archives. Donald Trump filed that lawsuit to try to block it and then pretty much everybody else jumped in on the other side of the lawsuit. The White House, Congress, the Archives itself. That leads us to this dispute.

CAMEROTA: So explain to us Donald Trump's legal argument for not wanting them out there, and is it a strong one?

HONIG: Yes, so it's a good news-bad news scenario for Donald Trump. The good news for Donald Trump is that the Supreme Court has acknowledged that a prior president could have some right to invoke executive privilege. That was back in a decision back in 1977. The bad news is the Supreme Court also said that generally speaking it should be up to the current president.

That is what the precedent that we've seen has been, that generally speaking the current president gets to decide. But remember if Donald Trump does have the legal ability to invoke executive privilege, that doesn't mean he wins. The court still has to balance the need for secrecy versus the need for this information to come out in the public.

BLACKWELL: So what's next?

HONIG: Yes. So there will be an argument on Thursday in front of the district court judge. Her name is Chutkan down in Washington, D.C. Interesting to note, though, this judge has handled some of the January 6th criminal cases and has made very critical statements about January 6th. It is clear that she sees what happened on January 6th as a very serious threat. She said it was a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government and a very real danger to our democracy.

That judge will decide, I think, fairly quickly. At that point, whoever loses is going to try to take this case up to the next level, the Court of Appeals, and then whoever loses there is going to try to take this up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Will the Supreme Court take it? We don't know. They take only very few of the cases that come before them.

But this is a core constitutional showdown between the branches. It's the kind of case that sort of screams out for the Supreme Court to take a look.

CAMEROTA: Fascinating. Elie, thank you for laying all that out.

HONIG: Thank you, both.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Elie.

Also today, a "Washington Post" investigation reveals the glaring red flags that law enforcement failed to act on weeks before the Capitol was attacked.

CAMEROTA: Here's just part of their reporting, quote, "One of the most striking flares came when a tipster called the FBI on the afternoon of December 20th.

[15:15:04]

Trump supporters were discussing online how to sneak guns into Washington to overrun police and arrest members of Congress in January. The tipster offered specifics, those planning violence believed they had orders from the president."

Joining us now is one of the reporters who broke this story, Aaron Davis of the "Washington Post." Also with us, CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem.

Aaron, just when we think we've heard everything about January 6th, it turns out that we have not and there are still so much information that's coming out, and thanks to you guys and other investigative reporters, we're learning more. So tell us what you have unearthed and what was leading up to it, and how did the FBI miss these red flags?

AARON DAVIS, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, you know, still an amazing question that there was so much out there. We still have to really find what they knew, why it took so long for, you know, what seemed like a coordinated response on that day, and as we started to look backward from that question, we found, in fact, that there had been many warnings that had come into law enforcement.

These were warnings that came in from local officials, from social media companies, from FBI informants, former national security officials, researchers, academics, I can go down the list. And there were some tips that came straight in with very specific details. That one that you mentioned not only had the -- like coded language that they were using online, but also specifically named Senator Mitt Romney so that they would try to shield what they were writing online, saying -- prefacing everything with peaceful, so Senator Mitt Romney would peacefully get it first was one of the things, the posts that you cited.

And what was really interesting was that particular warning was assessed by the FBI and closed within 48 hours. And that doesn't even really explain how quick that was. It came in on a Saturday afternoon, it was closed on Monday morning. And they basically forwarded that information to the Capitol Police with the top of the warning saying no need for further investigation.

(CROSSTALK)

DAVIS: Sorry, go ahead.

BLACKWELL: No, I just want to get Juliette in this conversation because it's really not that the -- in all cases, the red flags were missed. The sensors were installed, some of them after 9/11, to pick up on this. It was just in many cases we learned from the reporting the decision not to flick the switch for the siren.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right. That's exactly right. I think this incredible reporting from Aaron and his colleagues really shows the extent to which January 6th was preventable. But if only you didn't have Donald Trump as president. And in other words, Trump is organizing this. Everyone knows he's organizing it.

And the information interestingly enough is really coming, a lot of it is coming from the local level. It's all of these sort of fusion center, these are the intelligence agencies within the state, that are picking up information in their own state. People are organizing, they're traveling, but the social media platform parlor, which is a sort of stew of hate is so nervous about what they're seeing, they actually notified the feds.

And the FBI, whether it's because they -- you know, it's easy to say, are they in collusion with Trump or they just -- they cannot get their head around the fact that the president of the United States is planning an insurrection? And I should say, it is not just that it was preventable. The rest of the reporting shows the extent to which Donald Trump is not a bumbling fool. He's not an idiot.

He is so diabolical throughout the day of January 6th. And then he has his minions in the Senate and Congress who really do cover up everything that he did, and ultimately later that day vote for not certifying the vote, which is, you know, it doesn't get worse than that, as I often say. It really was diabolical.

CAMEROTA: And on that note, we now know what the president did and what he didn't do, Aaron. 187 minutes Donald Trump did nothing. He stood down. He could have called for help. He could have prevented those 140 police officers from being injured. He could have prevented people from being killed that day. He does nothing for 187 minutes. What did your team learn?

DAVIS: Well, we did really try to look at January 6th. All the cameras were focused on the Capitol building and obviously what was going on there. We tried to flip it around and say, well, what was going on in those hours at the White House? And we were able to chronicle through a lot of interviews that over three hours had passed in between when he was first alerted to the situation and when he came out and made that first statement via Twitter, that, you know, and even then, it was a very muted kind of reaction.

[15:20:05]

We still love you, everybody has questions about this election, that was that kind of a tone he had in that first statement. His daughter came to him, Republican lawmakers came to him. His chief of staff was fielding calls from everyone, and repeatedly being asked to say something, to say something and actually had to rerecord his statement that he ultimately put out as we have been told that it wasn't strong enough, you know, to his aides' satisfaction, that it was even -- would really like to see what those first couple of versions of the video said because they ended up going with whatever the third or fourth account was that he put out.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Even the before, during and after context in which you tell the story, and then take this to Juliette. What we learned is that there were these exercises in fealty from members of Congress, and some of it we knew. Beyond for posterity, to just have it for the future, what this tells us as we look ahead to a potential Trump 2024 campaign, and many of those members still in office.

KAYYEM: Yes, so what gives me calm, at least, that's what I look for these days, is obviously it will be a President Biden during the election of 2024. He will not use the resources of the FBI, the White House, the Secret Service or the military to support an insurrection. One can assume definitely.

So, you know, Donald Trump was president. He had the tools of the executive branch and he had everyone in fear because he was president of the United States including clearly the FBI and the National Guard. So that's a benefit. But the reason why we need this accounting is just how, you know, how easy it was for Donald Trump to do this. I think we just need to like every once in a while just take a deep breath.

How close all of this was? He's sitting in the White House. His people are hearing nothing from him, right, so they're just doing their rampage, and they think they're going to be pardoned. They have guns. It's clear. And all of Congress is in -- or a lot of Congress has not been evacuated yet, and, you know, I can't get inside the head of a Republican who's, you know, claiming, you know, sort of allegiance to Donald Trump but history will not treat them well. I think that is clear.

CAMEROTA: We shall see. Aaron Davis, thank you for sharing your excellent reporting and your teams with us, really appreciate it. Juliette Kayyem, thank you.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

DAVIS: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Be sure to join Jake Tapper for a new CNN Special Report "TRUMPING DEMOCRACY, AN AMERICAN COUP." It begins Saturday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

BLACKWELL: Well, as his own ambitions on climate change hang in the balance, President Biden issues a dire plea to world leaders, take meaningful action now. The White House National Climate adviser joins us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:39]

CAMEROTA: Today at the Global Climate Summit in Scotland, President Biden told more than a hundred world leaders that now is the time to address the climate crisis, the, quote, "existential threat to human existence."

BLACKWELL: He called for this to be the start of a decade of transformative action.

Gina McCarthy is White House National Climate adviser, and with President Biden in Glasgow.

Thank you so much for sparing a few moments for us. Let me start here with your reaction to what we heard from Senator Manchin who is a crucial vote in passing the legislation with $555 billion to fight climate change. He's not there yet. Your reaction to what we heard from him that he still needs a lot of convincing?

GINA MCCARTHY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL CLIMATE ADVISER: Well, sure. Senator Manchin has been part of the discussion for a long time. The president has been negotiating with both him and others, and it's time to move this forward. I think Senator Manchin is going to do what he needs to do, and I'm pretty sure that the president knows we're going to have the votes we need to get this passed.

But the Senate was clear. He's just looking at a process question. He hasn't really said the substance so we'll wait and see. But I feel pretty confident as does the president that this $555 billion Build Back Better framework will move forward and the infrastructure bill will as well.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask you about basically what other world leaders are promising. So let me put up a graphic here because you can see the U.S. and China are the world's biggest greenhouse gas culprits, basically. The U.S. is 5.7 percent of the global emissions. Well, sorry. I think 11 percent of the global emissions. China is 27 percent of global emissions.

Do you think that China is committed to this? Can the U.S. do this without China?

MCCARTHY: Well, I think everybody's noticing that China isn't at the table right now, and we certainly gave it our best shot to convince them that this was something they should be attending for the very reason that you're talking about. We do need to work together with some of the world's largest emitters. Now, thankfully President Biden has put an aggressive agenda on the table where we're going to be able to effectively achieve half of the reductions in our current emissions, just in 2030, by 2030.

So we're excited about that. But you're right, we have to work with China, and we need to make sure this happens. Secretary Kerry who is the president's climate envoy has been meeting with officials in China. He's hopeful that continued diplomacy will get us there, but clearly President Biden believes this is not just an opportunity to address the climate crisis that we're facing.

But he made it very clear that he intends to use this investment to actually create more jobs in America. More clean energy jobs in America and frankly the world. We need this transition to happen for far more reasons than climate change because this is the future. This is how we're going to win the 21st century. And so we're hopeful that China will see that this is not a sacrifice, this is actually investment opportunity, and so we'll be able to get this done, and really move forward with the jobs of the future based on the economy of clean energy which we know has tremendous benefits.

BLACKWELL: Do you believe that the infighting that we see here domestically over this legislation, and of course the $555 billion investment undermines or weakens the president as he tries to take the U.S.' place again on the world stage on climate after what we saw during the Trump administration that this potentially weakens that stand?

MCCARTHY: Well, I don't think that we're seeing significant infighting. I think we're seeing an opportunity for debate as there always is. This framework just went over last week, and folks have given it great marks, both in cities and states out there. We're seeing real opportunity here. We're seeing continued investment in equity, environmental justice moving forward. You can't complain about cleaner water and cleaner air. You can't complain about trains and buses that are cleaner and get us where we need to go faster.