Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Nunes to Leave Congress; Alexa Ura is Interviewed about Texas' Redistricting; Meadows Not Cooperating with January 6th Panel; Energy Prices Tick Downward; Biden to Hold Virtual Call with Putin. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 07, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:32:19]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Representative Devin Nunes is stepping down from Congress and stepping up for former President Trump. The California Republican announcing his plans to leave the U.S. House. Why? Well, he's going to become CEO of the former president's new social media venture.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Lauren Fox joins us now from Capitol Hill.

Lauren, he was in line for arguably the most significant committee chairmanship on The Hill, Ways and Means. Why this move now? And, I'm curious, was redistricting at all part of the calculation?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, this is why this was such a surprising announcement yesterday when Devin Nunes said that he was going to be leaving Congress at the end of the year to take over the former president's media company. Now, one of the questions is whether or not he would have faced problems in redistricting. And early maps started to show that perhaps his district would be redrawn to favor President Joe Biden winning in 2020 rather than the fact that Trump handily won that district in 2020.

Now, there's always a possibility he could move to a more favorable district and there was a lot of speculation that that is in fact what he would have done if his district was redrawn. But there's also just an impact here on what this means about the Republican Party. Here you had a congressman who was in line, like you said, to take one of the most powerful committee chairmanships if Republicans took back the House in 2022, which right now it looks like they're poised to do. The House Ways and Means gavel. The Tax Writing Committee is one of the most powerful on Capitol Hill, one of the most impactful when you think about what Republicans may want to do if they take control of the House of Representatives, and yet he still chose to leave to go work for the former president.

What does that say, really, about the center of gravity of the Republican Party right now? I think it says a lot about the fact that people would rather be with former President Donald Trump than in Congress where laws are actually written, Jim and Erica.

So, a significant move by Nunes. Obviously, the fact that his district might be changing and swinging more Democratic may have been a factor here. But I think the fact that it was an opportunity to go work for the former president was another huge factor for the congressman.

HILL: Lauren Fox with the latest for us. Lauren, thank you.

The Department of Justice is now suing the state of Texas claiming the state's newly drawn legislative maps discriminate against Latino and black voters. The DOJ claims those maps approved by the state's Republican-controlled legislature were drawn with discriminatory intent and that they violate the Voting Rights Act.

SCIUTTO: White voters now account for less than 40 percent of the state's population, but make up the majority in 23 districts.

[09:35:02]

Latino voters also make up just under 40 percent of the population, own the majority, however, in just seven districts.

Joining us now to discuss, Alexa Ura, a demographics reporter for "The Texas Tribune."

Listen, redistricting and jerrymandering, a fact of life in this country. This is particularly marked here when you look at those numbers, 23 skewing white, seven Latino, though the population numbers are nearly equivalent here.

What justification do Republicans give for this district drawing and how do Democrats counter?

ALEXA URA, DEMOGRAPHICS REPORTER, "THE TEXAS TRIBUNE": You know, I think when you look at a state like Texas that is increasingly diverse and a state in which Latinos are equally the size of the white population, what Republicans are looking at is a map that becomes increasingly difficult for them. And so what they did in redistricting is that they bolstered many of the seats that had grown competitive over the last ten years. And in doing so drew lines that essentially gave white voters more control of the map and of the districts.

And for Democrats, you -- they focused on what this would do to voters of color and how this could diminish their influence on these elections. And the response from Republicans is that not only were these drawn blind to race but that they were focused, if anything, on partisanship and not race, which is a familiar argument when it comes to redistricting here in Texas.

HILL: This isn't the only challenge. There are a number of other legal challenges, not just the one from the DOJ. You know, based on your reporting, folks you've spoken with in the wake of those lawsuits, is there a sense of the impact here, right, because part of what the DOJ is asking for is that Texas essentially, correct me if I'm wrong here, Alexa, but not use these maps right now, specifically in talking about upcoming March primaries. The chances that, you know, these will be put on hold and what are you hearing about where those other lawsuits stand in terms of legal chances.

URA: You know, obviously, we're on a truncated timeline because of the delays in the census, that then caused delays to redistricting. And our overseas mail-in ballots are set to go out in the middle of January. So the timeline to address possible changes to this -- these maps is definitely much shorter than it was before.

I think the reaction that we saw from some of the parties that have sued the state before the DOJ stepped in is that they welcomed the DOJ throwing its weight behind these legal challenges. They are hopeful. But, obviously, the legal landscape and the courts have changed significantly in the last few years that there are still, you know, some pretty big concerns about whether these maps will be corrected or revised, even temporarily, in time for the March primary.

SCIUTTO: What do the lawyers saying about that because, as you know, the Supreme Court has gradually watered down Voting Rights Acts' protections against this just sort of thing, going back to the 2013 Shelby case. I mean do lawyers for the DOJ say they have a path given the current Supreme Court and the current standards established, weaker standards established by the Supreme Court?

URA: You know, I think what we saw yesterday from the DOJ was an acknowledgement that had the Supreme Court not weakened the Voting Rights Act that this lawsuit wouldn't have been necessary because the maps that Texas drew wouldn't have passed legal muster under what used to be Section Five in preclearance of the Voting Rights Act.

And so this challenge is coming at a time that will really sort of test what's left of the Voting Rights Act, and the courts' willingness to apply what's left of the Voting Rights Act. And, you know, some of these lines, if you talk to some of these lawyers, are egregious in their opinion. And I think the -- but the burden is now on them to prove that, instead of the state proving that these maps are actually legal, and that will be -- that's sort of an unprecedented challenge that they have in front of them, at least in sort of recent voting rights history.

SCIUTTO: No question. Consequential decisions to come.

Alexa Ura, thanks so much.

Still to come this hour, as the country waits to see the real impact of the omicron variant, with some encouraging news though out there about treatment, if you're diagnosed. We'll have that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:54]

HILL: Breaking news in to CNN. Former President Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, no longer planning to meet with the select committee investigating the January 6th insurrection.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that didn't last long.

CNN's Whitney Wild joins us now.

Whitney, I mean the timing here is interesting to me because he puts out this book, which Trump is clearly not happy with, giving details of just how sick he was. I mean are those events connected at all or is this purely a legal development?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's difficult to say. But what we know is that for the last several days we've seen more and more details coming out of this Mark Meadows book, some of -- you know, which he's discussed on the air, and it's information that the former president probably wouldn't like. But here in this letter we just obtained, this is breaking news, I'm going through it right now with you live, there is a key line here, or a few of them, actually.

So, Jim and Erica, his attorney for Mark Meadows says, we agreed to provide thousands of pages of responsive documents and Mr. Meadows was willing to appear voluntarily, not under compulsion of the select committee's subpoena to him for a deposition to answer questions about non-privileged matters.

However, this letter also says that now basically they're changing their mind.

[09:45:04]

In short we have now every indication from the information supplied to us last Friday, again quoting from this letter, upon which Mr. Meadows could expect to be questioned that the select committee has no intention of respecting boundaries concerning executive privilege.

Here's another key line. In addition, we learned over the weekend that the select committee had, without even the basic courtesy of notice to us, issued wide ranging subpoenas for information from third party communications provider without regard to either the broad breadth of the information sought, which would include intensely personal communications of no moment to any legitimate matters of interest to the select committee, nor to the potentially privileged status of the information demanded.

So, there's a couple themes here I think are important to explore. There are several people who have been subpoenaed who are basically saying, look, these communications I had with president -- then President Trump fall under executive privilege. That is the key debate here because Steve Bannon has tried to say that too and it was something that the select committee did not accept, which is why he's now going through this criminal process being held in -- attempted to be -- in at least being charged with criminal contempt of Congress.

So now Mark Meadows still basically using this line that he -- that these communications are covered by executive privilege.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WILD: He was the chief of staff. There is much more legitimacy to that argument than for Steve Bannon, who, we know was not an employee of the White House at this time.

So these are the key things that are going to continue to be debated. But now we're seeing this about face when last week our understanding was that Mr. Meadows had planned to cooperate.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WILD: So now, you know, this -- it throws the timeline up in the air. It is a new hurdle for the House select committee. So we'll see if they accept this or if he's going to join a growing list of people for whom this select committee would like to charge with contempt of Congress.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WILD: Criminal contempt of Congress.

Jim and Erica.

HILL: We'll be watching to see what comes out of that.

Whitney, appreciate you getting that to us right away, as soon as you obtained that letter.

Also with us now, CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, who's back.

So, Elliot, I know you're digesting that in real time, as we are. So let's make that our caveat here.

But one of the things I think that was always interesting for folks is the fact that Mark Meadows, you know, had intimated -- he was going to, you know, work with the committee, at least in some respect, and in certain areas. The fact that we're now back to this question of executive privilege, just broadly based on what we know here, is there anything that you can imagine that would involve communications with Mark Meadows that would not fall under executive privilege, that would be easier perhaps for the committee to talk to him about?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Sure, if he had conversations with other people who were not White House personnel. And it seems inconceivable that he did not.

Now, again, as we've talked about on this very program, the White House chief of staff is going to be in a different position than most of the other witnesses on account of the fact that he would have been face to face with the president for many conversations and a lot of those are going to be protected, even ones butting up against the planning of January 6th. It's just going to depend on each individual conversation.

Now, if Mark Meadows were having outside conversations, and this whole question of this other cell phone that may exist, what was he doing with it and to whom was he texting, it's hard to come up with any basis for thinking that those conversations or communications would not -- pardon me, would be protected under executive privilege. SCIUTTO: So he writes a book about it. He's just described the

president's health condition, right, which clearly the former president is not happy with, but he's not going to testify before the committee. Can you help our viewers understand, we're not lawyers like yourself, how that's possible?

WILLIAMS: Delusion is one hell of a drug, Jim.

Look, number one, that book is itself going to be testimony. Number two, while it is hard to -- harder to charge him with a crime than other people, this helps build a case for contempt. Again, I want to caution everybody here that this is just a harder individual to challenge just based on the nature of his relationship.

But, again, as we've talked about before, the devil was always going to be in the details of someone's communications -- how someone would ultimately come in to testify. And they might say, I'm going to -- I've seen it before a thousand times, Jim, someone might say they're coming in to testify, but the moment that first question comes, the moment a lawyer confronts them, everything falls apart.

So, I hesitate. I am just not shocked at all by this development here.

SCIUTTO: Well, it's interesting. Zoe Lofgren (ph) said on our air least week, I believe to you, Erica, wait a second, I'm not so sure he's cooperating.

HILL: Yes.

SCIUTTO: So, prescient words.

HILL: Yes. Yes, you're right, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Elliot Williams, thanks so much.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead this hour, an encouraging sight at the gas pump. You may have noticed. What's behind the latest drop in gas prices, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:54:01]

SCIUTTO: Promising news on energy prices, including gas prices you're seeing at the pump. After several weeks of increases, they're going down.

HILL: Yes, this is the kind of positive news we've wanted. You know, for weeks we talked about high gas prices at the pump, heating oil prices were going to be crazy this winter. Is that now changing, Matt?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Erica and Jim, yes, you know, sky- rocketing energy prices really has been at the heart of this biggest bout of inflation that the United States has seen in decades. But, yes, there's finally some good news there. First, let's start with prices at the pump.

Now, recently, they were at a seven-year high, but we've seen them tick lower. You see $3.35 a gallon nationally for regular gas. It's down about five or six cent over the last month to the lowest level we've seen since October.

Now, this is not all for necessarily good reasons. It's because oil prices have collapsed. Fist they took a big hit because o this U.S.- led intervention into energy markets. The Biden administration released all these barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But also oil price have come down because of omicron fears.

[09:55:04]

So part of the drop is reflecting the health crisis.

We've also seen oil prices tick back up, so there's some questions about how long gas prices are going to stay down.

The other element here is natural gas. Now, there's been a lot of concerns about natural gas prices spiking and what that would mean to home heating costs. But as you can see, prices have really come down from natural gas. They were down 10 percent yesterday alone, worst day in nearly three years. Natural gas is down about 40 percent from the recent peak, and that is because of warmer temperatures and it's also because of some of these concerns about the United States running out of natural gas were really overblown. I mean that was never realistic. The U.S. is the largest producer of natural gas in the world. So the concerns that what we saw in Europe would happen here, that was exaggerated, and we've seen that unwind here.

So, listen, the good news is, yes, we've seen energy prices come down, and that could eventually take some pressure off of inflation, and we know that energy prices really hit low-income families the hardest.

So, again, that is some welcome news. We'll have to wait and see, Erica and Jim, how long this lasts.

HILL: That is a much better headline, especially as we're talking about the holidays at the same time.

Matt, appreciate the reporting. Thank you.

Well, any moment now, President Biden set to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They're having a virtual sit down, a video conference call. Stay with us. We're going to bring you the very latest live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Good Tuesday morning. I'm Erica Hill.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Breaking right now, a consequential meeting with potential international ramifications. Any minute now, President Biden will hold a call -- a video call with Russian President Vladimir Putin as U.S. intelligence officials warn that Russia, poised to invade, at least prepared to, in the coming weeks if it chooses to do so. The Kremlin is already tempering expectations for the Biden-Putin call. It does not anticipate, it says, any breakthroughs, calling today's meeting, quote, working -- a working conversation in a very difficult period.

HILL: This will mark at least the third time Biden and Putin have spoken in the last six months. In recent days, however, U.S. officials have weighed whether to issue wide-reaching sanctions on Russia to deter it from launching an invasion into Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Our team following all of the latest developments from Washington and Ukraine.

Let's begin, though, with White House reporter Natasha Bertrand.

Natasha, you and I have been talking to sources about preparations for this that show the seriousness of how the U.S. views Russia's buildup there, including now making at least contingency planings -- planning to evacuate Americans in Ukraine.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, and to be totally clear, Jim, as we've reported, this is purely precautionary. This is so they don't get caught flat footed in the event that Russia does invade and the security situation does deteriorate significantly.

So, this is just prudent planning that's being led by the Pentagon at this point. And, of course, it comes after what we saw in Afghanistan, right? They don't want to be left in a similar situation. Of course, that was a very, very unique situation. All Americans were evacuated, or almost all Americans were attempted to be evacuated from Afghanistan. And it is unclear what the evacuation, if it did happen, if Russia invaded, would look like rom Ukraine.

[10:00:04]