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President Biden Speaks on Infrastructure Hours After Pittsburgh Bridge Collapsed; January 6th Committee Subpoenas 14 People Tied to Fake Electors Plot; Joint Chiefs Chairman and Defense Secretary Deliver Update on Russia-Ukraine Tension. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 28, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

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ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Thank you for giving us a glimpse of your special report. I hope everybody tunes in, it's called "TRAFFIC STOP: DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS." It airs this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern here on CNN.

That does it for me. Thank you so much for being with us. I'll see you back here Monday. Until then stay safe and be warm. The news continues with Alisyn and Victor right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to NEWSROOM.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell.

Up to 10 million people in 10 states are under blizzard warnings in the northeast. The weekend nor'easter is expected to create white-out conditions with no visibility at some points. Now an estimated 75 million people from the southeast all the way up to New England may face heavy snow and near hurricane-force winds.

CAMEROTA: More than 1100 flights have already been canceled. Towns and cities are preparing for potential power outages, coastal flooding and more. We'll have more on that in a second.

Meanwhile, any moment now, President Biden will be speaking in Pittsburgh. He was originally heading there to talk about the American economy, but then this morning a frightening new headline presented itself.

BLACKWELL: Yes. The president arrived in Pittsburgh just hours after a major bridge collapse in the city. A few moments ago the president visited the collapsed bridge to see the devastation for himself. Now the pictures, they are striking. You could see a bus, look at this, dangling over one part of the bridge. As several vehicles were crossing the snow-covered bridge when it collapsed, 10 people were injured, three were taken to the hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries. There are no known fatalities. That collapse cut off a major artery in the city.

CNN's John Harwood is traveling with the president. John, how does the president, rather the collapse, I should say,

impact what the president will say, we expect?

JOHN HARDWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, it underscores the point he's making about the need for investment in infrastructure. He will surely refer to the visit to the site, remarks when he was there at the bridge. He reminded as he does many times, we used to be number one in infrastructure, now we're not. Mention that Pittsburgh has more bridges than any city in the world, and said that all of their soundness would be assured by the money in this infrastructure package.

More than $1.6 billion will go to the state of Pennsylvania. And he's going to try to both highlight the fact that they passed that bill, that they're taking care of that problem, also the positive economic news. We got yesterday a strong news about the size of economic growth, more than 5 percent, strongest since 1984 in the year 2021. And at a time when so many people are discontent with his leadership, discontent with inflation, the White House is looking for positive signs to highlight and he's going to do that today.

CAMEROTA: OK, John, thank you very much. Stand by if you would for us because we are just getting some breaking news right now on the January 6th investigation. So the House Select Committee has now issued subpoenas for people tied to that fake electors plot.

BLACKWELL: Let's go to CNN's Ryan Nobles on Capitol Hill.

Ryan, talk to us about the subpoenas.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Victor and Alisyn. The January 6th Select Committee issuing 14 subpoenas to the individuals that were behind this push to send an alternate slate of electors to the United States Congress and in an attempt to subvert the will of the American people, and the certification of the election that would and ultimately did name Joe Biden the next president of the United States.

Now these 14 individuals are the folks that were listed on these electors as either the chairperson or secretary from these seven swing states where this push was made. So we're talking about states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And these are not household names. These are not names that people that are even familiar with politics probably know on a day-to- day basis.

But there are still some people that are very significant actors. People that play very prominent roles in the state parties in these various states. For instance, David Shafer, he is the chairperson of the Georgia Republican Party. He was part of a lawsuit that was filed shortly before the certification of the election in an attempt to prevent Georgia's electors from being awarded to Joe Biden.

Also, Michael McDonald, he's the current chairperson of the Nevada Republican Party. And then you have Andrew Hitt who was a former Republican Party chairman in Wisconsin and was also someone that served for the former governor there Scott Walker.

So what this shows is that the committee is taking this push very seriously. There have been some talk that this was just a symbolic effort from some of these Republicans, that there was never any real attempt to them to subvert the will of the people. But what the committee revealed in their information and in the letters that they sent to these subpoena targets is that these electors, this slate of electors was sent to the United States Congress and it was also specifically sent to the then Vice President Mike Pence to give Pence the opportunity to set aside the duly impaneled electors and use these ones instead.

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And so the question has to be asked now, Victor and Alisyn, are we now talking about this being an actual criminal act? We already know that the Department of Justice is looking into it from that perspective. That this was actually something that was done with criminal intent. That this wasn't just a symbolic effort and that there was a real problem here. So this is a significant development and in large part, you know, CNN has done a lot of reporting on this, this push for these fake electors.

And we should also point out there are a number of individuals that have already been subpoenaed that were directly tied to this including the former mayor of New York city, Rudy Giuliani, who was serving as the president's personal attorney at that time. We have reported that Giuliani was essentially the ringleader of all of this.

He was the one coordinating this effort between all of these different Republican officials in these seven states getting them altogether for what appears to be more and more like a tangible plan to subvert the will of the American people through this claim that the election was conducted fraudulently, which of course we have shown time and time again is just based in complete falsehoods -- Victor and Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: Ryan Nobles on Capitol Hill. Stay with us.

I want to bring in now senior legal analyst Laura Coates. She's a former federal prosecutor, also author of "Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness."

Laura, first, your reaction to the breaking news now that these 14 party leaders across these seven states have been subpoenaed as part of this probe specifically into these fake slates of electors.

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: First of all, it's shameful behavior if what is alleged is actually what happened and we're seeing the anatomy of the big lie. We've been told time and time again to sort of forget it and put it into the past, this is a way of moving forward and why keep focusing on the issue of what happened on January 6th. Because it was not a spontaneous occurrence, as you say, Victor.

It's the idea of the culmination it seems, time and time again the more information we learned that there was strategic initiatives that were actually sought after and implemented and even attempted to even influence the vice president who really remained the last essentially ideological line of defense in not taking the advice and going down this route.

But at different levels, different state coordination, leaders in the Republican National Committee as I think Ryan will put it, as well in different states, and the idea of each of those people potentially having the influence or acting at the direction of either members of Congress or somebody perhaps higher up, this is all really part of what the -- where a committee needs to be looking at for the exercise of its legislative and oversight function, and the DOJ for the criminal component as to interfering potentially with an election or providing false documents, akin to fraud to government officials.

CAMEROTA: Ryan, this is beyond a harebrained scheme. I mean, they did this. They sent it to the National Archives. Ryan, do you have any reporting or sense of how was this supposed to work? Did they think they were going to trick the vice president? Did they think they were going to trick Congress that didn't know what this -- the real names of the slate of electors were?

NOBLES: We don't have all the details yet, Alisyn. But when you start to piece together the bits of evidence and information that we're starting to gather as a result of this, what it appears is that there was at least some in the Trump orbit that believed that if Vice President Mike Pence had this slate of electors at his disposal, that he somehow had the authority under the Constitution to get rid of the actual electors from the seven states that basically won the election for Joe Biden and replace them with these electors.

And that if he single handedly could somehow stop the certification process and replace them with these electors that somehow that would pass and then Donald Trump would remain in office. You know, that is one of the potential working theories as to what they thought was going to happen. It doesn't seem as though they thought that this was, you know, kind of an effort to dupe anyone. What they're hope was is that everybody was going to be kind of be in on this con and that there were going to be enough Republicans, keep in mind that Republicans still have control of both the House and Senate at this point, that there would be kind of, you know, a rolling momentum behind this to actually try and use these as the actual electors that would ultimately keep Donald Trump in office.

Now obviously, and I think as Laura aptly points out, you know, Mike Pence served as kind of the stonewall, the defense to prevent all this from happening and there were a number of kind of crazy legal theories at that time that were, you know, giving Mike Pence all this power to try and stop the certification process when most legal scholars believes that his role was completely ceremonial.

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That was something that the vice president himself ultimately came to as well. But I think it's so important to point out the fact that they sent it directly to Mike Pence, show us that they really hoped something would happen with this. That this wasn't just, you know, hey, look, we've got these alternate slate of electors, you should pick these. They actually thought someone should use them and put them into practice and, you know, their long-term goal of keeping Donald Trump in office.

And I think that's why you're seeing individuals like the Department of Justice taking this seriously enough to launch an investigation. There's been a lot of, you know, accusations about things that have happened as it relates to January 6th that the Justice Department has stepped away from and said that they aren't going to look into. The fact that they're willing to do this shows that this is just much more than a political problem. That there's actually more to it.

BLACKWELL: Laura, let's lean on that DOJ investigation. How could this not be a crime? I mean, if they created this document and from we've seen they're created to look like the actual document for the actual electors, submitted them, as Ryan says, we've learned from these new documents, submitted them to Congress, and to Vice President Pence, to give him that option to do the, quote, "right thing," that those rioters outside of the Capitol were calling for the vice president to do. How is that anything other than criminal?

COATES: Well, you know, you'll be continuously surprised about the chasm that sometimes exists between what ought to be illegal and what is actually done. And I would tell you that, as we know from Lisa Monaco, there's been recent reporting, she has said there is an ongoing investigation that she won't comment on. Of course alerting you that there was in fact an investigation. But in terms of the bevy of choices, there are laws about interfering with an election.

There are laws against providing fraudulent documents to government. Whether it meets all of those (INAUDIBLE), we'll see. The reason I hedge there a little bit is because some of these electors that were presented I think in Pennsylvania, for example had some sort of a caveat-based language or a contingency.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

COATES: Should this actually arise, then this would happen. And so that language apparently an attempt to couch one. But let's think about the bigger issue here which is so important. You asked the question about being duped, I think Alisyn as well, part of this was about the planting of seeds and that's part of what is so infuriating for those who believe in democracy. The integrity of our elections was questioned to such an extent that January 6th actually occurred.

And so the idea of not actually being able to prove it but enough to say, hey, and call into question, what about these slate of electors. I think may have been in some respects part of the goal to sort of stir that pot, and plant these seed-like notions that somehow the ones that were legitimate and lawful should not be trusted. Much like the big lie has done to say that even when there is not fraud, that people would question that these particular ballots should not be counted.

And really that is how you see how nefarious it is. So even from the investigation out of Fulton County all the way to the criminal investigation potentially in DOJ, to the select committee's point of view about trying to help restore or instill a sense of feeling of integrity, look at how wide-reaching this really is. Even if Mike Pence was not to be duped, was the point to dupe the people who were already susceptible enough and willing enough to go to the Capitol and try to disrupt it? That is a scary, scary proposition.

BLACKWELL: Yes. You make an important point there that there were two of the seven slates that classify themselves as electors in waiting. So we'll see if there is a legal distinction there. That they weren't trying to present themselves as the official electors but just in case. We'll see if there is one.

CAMEROTA: Yes. OK --

NOBLES: Victor, to that point. Can I --

CAMEROTA: Quickly, Ryan.

NOBLES: Yes, to that point, that is almost more evidence that they actually wanted these to be used.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

NOBLES: The fact that they were creating this scenario by which if these other electors don't work, use these ones instead and the word that I keep coming back to is conspiracy. As Laura points out, seeds being planted everywhere. You plant seeds if you're part of a conspiracy and you have to wonder if that is where the investigation is headed.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I don't think you go through these measures if you didn't want that slate of electors to be used. Great point.

Laura Coates and Ryan Nobles, thank you for all that breaking news.

BLACKWELL: All right, now back to that winter storm that is impacting millions of people up and down the East Coast.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's get right to CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar.

Allison, these severe weather, as I understand it, is expected to start tonight. Where exactly is it going to hit?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right, so we start basically in the southern Appalachians in the mid-Atlantic and then it continues to slide up the East Coast. So eventually by northern New England, the focus will be tomorrow morning. But we've got a lot of areas for this storm to hit. Here is where we're seeing the activity right now. You can already see some of that rain-snow mix across areas of the Carolinas, Virginia, and yes, even some snow already starting to fall in and around Washington, D.C.

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Once we get later on in the evening, that's when you're really going to start to see the activity peak in and around Washington, D.C. and then after say midnight tonight, that's when we're going to start to see the activity begin to push into New Jersey, New York and eventually in towards Connecticut, Massachusetts, and eventually in towards Maine. But most of that really begins to peak by Saturday morning and will continue throughout the day on Saturday.

Before that low pressure system began really starts to push away, you've got a lot of focus here right near the coast because that's really where we're going to see some of the highest snowfall totals. Take Boston, for example, that 18 to 24 inches is the best forecast that we have right now. Those wind gifts could be as high as 70 miles per hour. So power outages are going to be a very big concern there.

New York City, likely about eight to 12 inches but again there is a huge discrepancy among the Long Island. If you go farther east say to Montauk, the Hamptons, now you're talking maybe as much as two feet of snow. So just a little bit, just a few miles can make all the difference in the world with this storm.

Philadelphia, right now about four to eight inches, winds gusting up to about 35. But again same thing. If you live on the east side of Philadelphia, say, over into New Jersey, now you're talking probably twice as much snow. So again, a few miles making all the difference in the world. We've got all the winter weather alerts. You've got winter storm warnings, blizzard warnings even in effect because again the focus there is really going to be sustained winds triggering incredibly poor visibility.

So if you do not have to go out, don't. Stay at home. That's the best- case scenario for all of these people up and down the East Coast and even a little bit farther inland. You may not get as much snow when you go farther inland, say, to interior New England but you are still going to have the wind. That wind is really going to stretch pretty much covering, Alisyn and Victor, almost the entire northeast.

CAMEROTA: My gosh, I hope everybody has a supply of hot chocolate waiting on their shelves right now. It sounds --

BLACKWELL: I'm going to need a little more than that.

CAMEROTA: I was thinking you'd say that. Well, let's start with the hot chocolate.

BLACKWELL: All right.

CAMEROTA: It sounds like it's going to be a while. Allison Chinchar, thank you.

BLACKWELL: Thanks, Allison.

So listen, the top U.S. general is painting a grim picture of the capabilities Moscow has built up on the Ukraine border. He's warning that the civilian population of Ukraine will suffer immensely if Russia invades.

Stay with us.

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BLACKWELL: Last hour the Pentagon delivered a critical update about where tensions stand right now between Russia and Ukraine. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley made it clear that while the U.S. does not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a final decision about whether to invade Ukraine, he clearly now has the capability. And Ukraine would need additional help to defend itself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MARK MILLEY, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN: There are many people and highly dense population centers throughout Ukraine, and if war were to break out on a scale and scope that is possible, the civilian population will suffer immensely.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Secretary Austin says the U.S. troops on alert have not been moved anywhere.

With us now, we have CNN Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann, and CNN senior international correspondent Sam Kiley is live for us in Kyiv.

Oren, do we know why Secretary Austin felt it was important to do this briefing today?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, first, it's not often we hear from both the Defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs together. In fact the last time we heard from both of them at the same time was on September 1st right after the evacuation and withdrawal from Afghanistan. So just the fact that we're hearing from both of these at same time is an indication of the seriousness and the significance of this particular moment, and seeing the two of them add weight to that.

Of course the unified message that we hear from them both that the U.S. stands with NATO allies and is ready to support NATO allies, that's incredibly important as well. In addition to the assessment of what they see as Russian President Vladimir Putin's thinking and the array of military forces near Ukraine, Milley made it clear that those forces include air, sea, land, cyber, special operations, ballistic missiles deeper inside Russia, and everything needed for a ray or a spectrum of different possibilities that Putin now has in front of him. From destabilizing operations all the way out to an all-out invasion.

Now Secretary Austin said the U.S. doesn't know what Putin has decided to do but he has options and each day that passes brings more steady increase of Russian forces along Ukraine's borders and more options, more possibilities for Putin. Here's what he said about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LLOYD AUSTIN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We don't believe that President Putin has made a final decision to use these forces against Ukraine. He clearly now has that capability. And there are multiple options available to him, including the seizure of cities and significant territories, but also coercive acts or provocative political acts like the recognition of breakaway territories.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: These two Pentagon leaders were also united in saying that there is time for diplomacy to work here. And that's the option that Putin should choose. Milley said it would be horrific, it would be terrible if Putin decided to conduct an all-out invasion of Ukraine and basically to topple the current government to take the entire country and he also says it would be unnecessary, it would be a mistake.

There are diplomatic talks in the future here. There is still time for diplomacy and both of these say that should be where Putin takes all of this. But as Austin said, it's unclear what Putin will decide to do even after they've watched this for months.

BLACKWELL: All right, Oren. Let's go to Sam now. And Sam, we got, I would say, a bit of nuance today about this disagreement between Washington and Kyiv about how imminent this potential invasion is. Talk to us about that.

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SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think the key aspect of this to take away, especially if you look at the press conference given by President Zelensky in its entirety, is really trying to say to the United States and I have to say General Milley's and Austin -- and Secretary Austin's press conference would not been not what they wanted to hear. You have to try not to play into the hands of Vladimir Putin by causing economic chaos before having to apply any kind of the military muscle moves that are so feared at least by the United States.

And the reason for that is that this is all about hybrid warfare and that is something that the Ukrainians think that they really know about. This is how Mr. Zelensky put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: They are saying that we have some misunderstanding. We don't have any misunderstandings with President Biden. I just deeply understand what is going on in my country. Just as he understands perfectly well what is going on in the United States. That's it.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

KILEY: Now the economic results of the United States embassy saying it's going to draw down these personnel in line with some of the other foreign embassies, the warnings of imminent war coming out from the Pentagon have had an economic effect. There is capital flight from Ukraine and that could potentially can lead to political instability. Political instability is part of what the Russians might want to see here instead of or as part of a wider military assault.

CAMEROTA: OK, Sam Kiley, Oren Liebermann, thank you very much for explaining all of that.

Joining us now we have CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier and CNN military analyst, Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel, I just want to start with that, the messaging that the U.S. is doing. I appreciate of course as a journalist all the transparency that the Pentagon is giving us, that President Biden also answers every question he's asked about where he thinks Russia is right now or Ukraine. But it does seem to be creating an atmosphere that is ripe for misinterpretation.

Do you think that the U.S. in terms of messaging is talking too much, playing their hand, letting Vladimir Putin know exactly where they stand?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Alisyn, I think that is the dichotomy between, you know, trying to placate a possible domestic audience and to tell the domestic audience what is going on from a military perspective, or what could potentially go on from a military perspective, and then how that is perceived in a foreign capital, whether that capital is Kyiv or Moscow.

And I think it is certainly possible that this could play into Putin's hands because what you're doing is you're telling, you're giving your frank assessment. General Milley you know is certainly one not to mince words and I think it is very clear that he is painting a scenario as to how bad it could be, how bleak this could be for the civilian population in Ukraine and that is a good realistic thing to do.

But on the other hand, it could also sow the seeds of panic. But, you know, you have to say that, you know, it's better to be prepared with realism than it is to be -- or sugar coated, you know, I think sugar coated for you and that I think is not a good, would not be a good way to go either.

BLACKWELL: Kimberly, I think we learned a lot today from this news conference with President Zelensky in which he acknowledged, yes, he knows that potentially an invasion could be imminent. He knows better than anyone being the neighbor next to Russia. However, he's trying to protect his economy. He's trying to protect the degree of stability in Ukraine and for the U.S. to continuously say it's imminent, Americans, it's time to leave, pulling diplomats out, plays right into the Russian game of destabilization. And they're winning before they even send a troop across the border.

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Exactly. He is in the toughest of all spots in that the U.S. strategy right now is to message, message, message. Message Russia, message its European partners, and to keep the pressure on by having these press conference. The U.S. has also called for a U.N. Security Council meet on Monday. All of this is a sort of rhetorical saber rattling to remind Putin that there are real world consequences if he takes these steps.

However, from Putin's point of view, this is just underlining that nobody can really stop him if he wants to do this. Are there consequences? Sure. And they're laying some of those out. But the -- Russia is just about to take the presidency at the U.N. Security Council. They won't be able to keep putting the highlight on the powerlessness of Washington and NATO and Europe to make those Russian troops back off. And from some of the diplomats

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