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Lawmakers Target Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH); President Joe Biden Plans Speech to Make One-Year Anniversary of Jan. 6th; Merck Gets Authorization for Antiviral Pill. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 23, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, you had conversations with him on (ph) January 6th.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Yes, but I have -- I have conversations with the President all the time.

RAJU: But if he said -- if he asked you to come, you would say --

UNKNOWN: What -- what -- what -- what?

JORDAN: Yes, if they -- if they call me. I've got nothing to hide.

REID: They actually use that language, "I've got nothing to hide," in the letter to Jordan.

Look, targeting this particular Republican lawmaker is a significant move by the committee. And one that could inflame partisan tensions around this investigation. Jordan was, of course, originally selected actually to serve on the bipartisan committee, but that idea was rejected by Democrats. And Jordan has also previously threatened political retribution if investigators were to target GOP lawmakers in this probe.

But the Congressman is actually the second GOP lawmaker and Trump ally to receive a request like this. Earlier this week, the committee sent a similar letter to Representative Scott Perry requesting his cooperation, a request he has declined.

As for whether Jordan will cooperate, yes, it seems like a long shot. Last night, he said his office is reviewing the letter.

But Jim, one other thing we're also watching today, another key aspect of this investigation: today is the deadline for Trump to appeal to the Supreme Court his so far unsuccessful battle to block the January 6th Committee from obtaining some of his White House records.

Twice now, federal judges have ruled against him. It's not even clear if the high court would take up this case. But it would have ramifications for other witnesses like Mark Meadows who has cited executive privilege as one of the reasons for not cooperating with the committee.

SCIUTTO: Paula Reid, that's another Supreme Court case to watch. Thanks very much.

Well, the one-year anniversary of January 6th is fast approaching, just a couple of weeks away. President Biden is planning a speech to mark one year since the attack on the Capitol. Former President Trump has announced he's going to hold a news conference. As you know, President Trump continues to defend the insurrectionists and to claim the election was stolen.

Three retired generals are now warning that the military needs to take action now to prevent another insurrection. They wrote in part in "The Washington Post" quote, "We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time ... without constant maintenance, the potential for a military breakdown mirroring societal or political breakdown is very real."

It's a chilling warning. Two of the men who wrote that warning join me now, retired U.S. Army General Paul Eaton, and retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Steve Anderson.

Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining me this morning.

STEVE ANDERSON, RETIRED U.S. ARMY BRIGADIER GENERAL: Merry Christmas, Jim.

PAUL EATON, RETIRED U.S. ARMY GENERAL: Jim, good to be with you.

ANDERSON: Great to be here.

SCIUTTO: General Anderson, you note in your piece how 1 in 10 of the Capitol rioters charged in the insurrection had ties to the military. How far do you believe extremist views, as well as ties to extremist organizations, extend in the military? And potentially, are you saying here it's enough of a group that it could lead to a mutiny?

ANDERSON: Absolutely. I mean, we're very concerned. And we think that that's -- one of the things that we recommend in our piece is that we gather intelligence about our workforce and make sure that the people in the military are not part of extremist groups.

DOD just issued some policy prohibiting active membership, but allowing membership nevertheless. And we believe that that's just not going far enough.

The FBI has a list of gangs and extremist groups. And I submit to you that if you're a soldier in United States Army, you can't be a member of that gang or that extremist group and also be a member of the United States military. I mean, membership allows -- membership in groups like that allow them to legitimize their organizations, incite military members as leaders.

In the Army as a team, we fight and win as teams. And being a member of a hate group is antithetical to everything American. Serving in the military is a privilege and not a right. And our soldiers needed to know that. So we need to gather intelligence to make sure we identify those folks that might potentially be -- succumb to that kind of hateful rhetoric. SCIUTTO: And essentially -- you know this better than me certainly, but an essential feature of military service, General Eaton, is, of course, obeying the chain of command.

We've seen examples where that's been broken. One being, and you mentioned this in your piece as well, the commander of the Oklahoma National Guard refusing the Commander-in-Chief's -- that is, the President's -- order for vaccinating members of the military, claiming that the Oklahoma governor somehow was his commander-in-chief.

Explain to folks at home how damaging that could be. If soldiers, members of the military decide, "I'm not going to follow the Commander-in-Chief."

EATON: Well, Jim, if you insert doubt in the electoral process in the United States, the entire nation will be a shuttling to some level of confusion. If you do that and have some level of confusion in greater America, you're going to have the same thing in the United States military. We're a very hierarchical organization. We are very clear in what the chain of command is.

[09:35:07]

EATON: And the governors of Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, with respect to their National Guard chain of command have inserted doubt already. So it behooves the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and everybody in the Pentagon to -- to go through an education process on civics and on chain of command.

SCIUTTO: And as you note and we note frequently on this broadcast, the former President continues to sow that doubt.

One of your recommendations -- in addition to an Intel operation, in effect, to seek out folks who hold these views, have ties to these organizations -- is for the military, General Anderson, to war-game this out as it does for a whole host of international threats, foreign threats. But to war-game out what would happen domestically if you had division in the ranks and the possibility of violence. In your experience as a military, every war-gamed out a domestic threat like that?

ANDERSON: Well, we've have done that in the past. We need to do better though, obviously. We need to imagine the unimaginable, Jim. I mean, who would have thought a year ago that thousands of people could storm the U.S. Capitol as they did?

I mean, we need to think about all threats. Now, one of the things that the military is really good at strategic planning and war-gaming. And so, we need to start thinking now about what things we can do to make sure that we're prepared for 2024 because we know that the bad guys, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, they're out there planning right now.

So we need to think about all potentialities, all threats, physical, cybersecurity and the like. They are out there trying to do what they can do to get ready for 2024 and to be more successful than they were in 2020. And the military needs to be thinking about that right now.

SCIUTTO: You -- I'm going to quote again from your piece here. Because again, here, we have two serving -- now retired, but folks who served at the highest levels of the U.S. military. You did your time, decades of military service to your country.

You write, "Under such a scenario, it is not outlandish to say a military breakdown could lead to civil war." And, you know, I read that and that sent chills up my spine here. And I know, General Anderson and General Eaton, you don't say this lightly here.

Do you believe, General Eaton, that our leaders have sufficient appreciation of this? Let's set aside, sadly, most of the Republican Party at the leadership level, who either are staying away from this, some of them actively participating in questioning the outcome of the 2020 election.

Are our serving leaders, the President, democratic leaders, aware of this sufficiently and doing enough to contend with this?

EATON: Jim, Steve already brought up a failure to imagine that we've had in the past. And the reason that we war-game and the reason that we put role-players with great imaginations into the war game is to identify the faults, the cracks and to develop contingency plans to address those cracks.

When you have a major political party start playing with fire the way they are doing right now and inserting doubt into our electoral process, that doubt will compromise all entities in the United States. And that includes all our police forces both federal, state, local, and the United States military.

So the Republican Party, and it is the Republican Party, has got to redress, has got to turn and with this very dangerous approach that they've applied right now to electoral validation.

SCIUTTO: Well, and as you noted to me in the break, both of you said you were long-time Republicans. This is not a partisan issue for you, I know. It's a patriotic issue.

Major General Paul Eaton, Brigadier General Steve Anderson, thanks so much to both of you.

ANDERSON: Merry Christmas, Jim.

EATON: Jim, thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead this hour, we are tracking the impacts of the pandemic around the world, why 13 million residents in China are now on lockdown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:39]

SCIUTTO: Breaking news, some more good news when it comes to the pandemic. Another antiviral pill to treat coronavirus has just gotten the green light from the FDA. Now, Merck getting authorization for its treatment.

CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now. So we have two pills authorized to treat infection, basically to keep you from getting serious illness and out of the hospital. Tell us the significance and what exactly this pill is.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. So the significance is that up until these antiviral pills, Jim, if you got COVID and you were in the early stages, there was really not much that you could do. There was no medicine that you could take, except for one where you had to go and find a place to get it, in injections or infusions. And it was very difficult to find.

These are pills that your doctor can just call in a prescription. And the results have been really, really dramatic, both for Pfizer's pill and for Merck's pill.

When people got this pill, there were no deaths in the groups in the clinical trials that got these pills, whereas, folks who got a placebo, which is a pill that does nothing, there were many deaths. So these pills really do seem quite effective.

There are some safety concerns about Merck's pill. The Advisory Committee to the FDA that greenlit it, barely greenlit it. The vote was very, very close.

But to have both of these pills available could really make a difference in the treatment of COVID-19. The safety concerns weren't so much immediate safety concerns. They were more, in some ways, theoretical concerns if you will.

[09:45:11]

COHEN: Now, availability is really going to be the question here. How quickly can the government get this out on the market? Also, these pills need to be taken just within days of feeling symptoms of COVID- 19 and getting tested. And knowing that you have COVID, that's going to be tough given the current testing situation. Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. So more options means easier availability. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much.

So just a month before the Winter Olympics in Beijing, officials in one city in central China, a big one, have instituted strict lockdown measures on all of its estimated 13 million residents. It comes after detecting 63 new COVID cases there.

From Asia to South America to Europe, our CNN Correspondents are following the impact of the Omicron variant around the globe.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: I'm Salma Abdelaziz in London. The Omicron variant is driving record-breaking case numbers yet again here on Wednesday. More than 100,000 positive cases were recorded in England. That's the first time that we've surpassed 100,000 cases in a single day since the start of the pandemic.

Still, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said no new restrictions will be announced before Christmas time. It comes as there is some promising news coming from a preliminary pre-print paper from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

It shows that the Omicron variant may be milder. So again, this non- peer-reviewed paper says that the risk for hospitalizations was reduced by two-thirds if you compare the Omicron variant with the Delta variant for those who are double vaccinated.

It's giving health officials some hope, but still the fear is that the sheer number, the sheer volume of people who are positive with COVID- 19, whatever portion of them winds up in a hospital could still be enough to overwhelm the health care system.

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am Stefano Pozzebon in Bogota, Colombia.

And across the Caribbean Sea, authorities are closely following the situation on board two cruise ships with multiple COVID-19 cases on board. One of them, the Seven Seas Mariner was placed under lockdown yesterday in Cartagena with passengers not allowed to land. But how the situation will evolve on board those ships will impact the entire travel industry this holiday season.

Meanwhile in Colombia, authorities have refused to announce further restrictive measures this Christmas despite the country reporting the first a three Omicron cases on Monday. With 40 percent of the population living in poverty, the prospect of lockdown on Christmas is more daunting for the economy than the virus itself.

SCIUTTO: Stefano Pozzebon, Salma Abdelaziz, thanks very much.

Still ahead, families that had relied on the child tax credit to stay afloat, there are millions of them, now got to find a plan B. We're going to hear from some of those parents about the effects of all this

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:52:38]

SCIUTTO: Thirty-five million American families lost their enhanced child tax credit when Senator Joe Manchin rejected President Biden's Build Back Better legislation. Now, parents nationwide are stuck worrying how to make ends meet.

As CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich reports, some of those parents say they don't know what they'll do.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANETTE VIRUET, MOTHER RECEIVING CHILD TAX CREDIT: I see you.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A window into the Viruet-Lopez (ph) family reveals Christmas cheer. VIRUET: I feel like the chocolate is gone. I wonder where it went.

YURKEVICH: But come New Year's, they'll face a tough financial reality, along with 35 million other families.

VIRUET: We were at a tight budget already. And with this being, like, removed, it's going to be even a tighter budget.

YURKEVICH: Mom, Janette Viruet, referring to the enhanced child tax credit. Congress failed to pass Build Back Better in time to extend these critical benefits into next year, up to $3,600 per child. The Lopez-Viruet (ph) family was receiving $800 a month for their three children under nine.

YURKEVICH (on camera): What are $800 a month mean to you?

VIRUET: It's enough to get us by just because price of food went up, gas went up. So I feel that that has helped us a lot. And we look forward to that. And we try to stretch it as much as we can.

YURKEVICH: How far does it get you?

VIRUET: Just a couple of days before the next one. That was your first.

YURKEVICH (voice over): Checks were coming monthly, giving families income they could count on. Last month's checks kept 3.8 million children out of poverty.

YURKEVICH (on camera): What is the plan?

VIRUET: At this point, I don't know.

KATHERINE KERN, MOM RECEIVING CHILD TAX CREDIT: How was school?

YURKEVICH (voice over): Single mom, Katherine Kern, will likely have to take a second job to support her teenage son and daughter, something she did when they were younger.

KERN: Even before, when I had to do jobs, like, to not be able to watch his games because, you know, on the weekends I was working. So to not be there for him, that was sometimes a little difficult.

YURKEVICH: She's also getting a master's in psychology just months away from graduating this spring, hoping it will further her career and increase her salary.

KERN: It's going to be a really difficult to do that and then also, possibly, take on a second job.

YURKEVICH: The $500 a month they get in child tax credits help with rising costs, making it easier to drive her daughter, Isabella (ph), to routine doctor visits for her complex heart condition.

KERN: We had to spend some time, just like, you know, getting there and getting back. And then, you know, just all the little extras, like taking time off of work and everything. It's sort of, you know, adds up.

[09:55:13]

YURKEVICH (voice over): The child tax credit is popular across party lines; 75 percent of Democrats support it and so do 41 percent of Republicans, which makes its failure in Congress even more puzzling for these families.

VIRUET: I feel that if they were put in our shoes for a couple of days, their decisions would be different just because we don't have that freedom to spend our money the way we want to. We have to spend our money planned, paycheck by paycheck.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YURKEVICH (on camera): And that is how many American families live, paycheck to paycheck. That's why these enhanced child tax credits have been so critical at covering bills, rising costs, and digging a lot of these families out of the financial hole that they found themselves in during this pandemic, Jim.

And President Biden has said that he believes that they can still pass Build Back Better next year. However, these families have been watching these negotiations for the past few months between the White House and Congress, particularly with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

We still have no deal, Jim. So these families aren't super hopeful they'll see these enhanced child tax credits anytime soon. Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. His offer to this point to renegotiate does not include the child tax credits --

YURKEVICH: Yes.

SCIUTTO: But we'll see where that goes. Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks so much.

YURKEVICH: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, another tool in the fight against coronavirus. How doctors will soon be able to use not one but two antiviral pills. It's good news for all of us. That's coming up.

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