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"Washington Post:" Giuliani Asked Michigan Prosecutor To Give Voting Machines To Trump Team In November 2020; Fauci: U.S. Is Heading Out Of "Full-Blown" Pandemic Phase; WaPo: National Archives Asks DOJ to Investigate Trump's Handling Of White House Records. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 09, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: It feels good that it's out, but then also, I really need to address this. I mean, it seems like there are three different narratives that are coming.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: I think -- listen, I think he's saying out loud things that we want people who are caught doing horrible things to say, which is, I'm going to do better. I feel ashamed of this. I'm sorry about this. I think that all of that great.

I think where there's the misalignment is he said, how dumb are you if you're taking medical advice from me, okay? I pose that same question about Joe Rogan. The people taking medical advice from him, how dumb are they? But he has this huge platform that does influence, you know, millions of people.

So, there's a misalignment between the sort of personal responsibility and the size of his platform.

BLACKWELL: So, I think the COVID conversation, the media advice is a separate conversation from two dozen uses of the N-word on a podcast. I think we should separate those and treat those differently. And he's now being relieved that this is out, it doesn't align with and I'm so sorry that I ever said those things, to me. That's his explanation. We'll see if there's accountability, not cancellation which some people conflate accountability.

CAMEROTA: Let us know what you think. You can find us both on social media.

(MUSIC)

BLACKWELL: Brand new hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Victor Blackwell.

CAMEROTA: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

We begin with the new twist in Donald Trump's attempt to over turn the 2020 election. "The Washington Post' is reporting that around November 20th, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani asked a prosecutor in the swing state of Michigan to give Trump all the counties' voting machines. BLACKWELL: Now, last hour, we spoke to one of "The Washington Post"

report who broke that story and he explained that this is all because a small county initially had an error in its unofficial results.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The unofficial results that said that Joe Biden had won, in fact, Donald Trump had won. It was corrected quickly and they moved on. But the president's team sort of seized on it to try to prove that the election had been stolen essentially. And as part of that effort, Rudy Giuliani and members of his team called the local district attorney and asked him is there way to get the voting machines from the county and pass them to us. We want to look at them and he declined.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Joining us now, CNN congressional correspondent, Ryan Nobles.

Ryan, Antrim county, and this is a country we're talking about in Michigan, small county, disproportionate influence over the narrative from former president and his team. Talk about that.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Victor, and aside from the controversy that's associated with members of the Trump campaign actually reaching out to the district attorney and asking them to seize the voting machines is there's this backdrop of the way that the Antrim county was used in the rhetoric surrounding these false claims about election results. Former president would use this during his rallies to talk about this example of a Republican county that initially showed a 3,000-vote lead for Joe Biden on election night but then later show that he had actually won that county.

And county officials are quick to point out that yes, they saw there was an error in their counting. They actually went to the hand ballot counting. Made sure they had the numbers correct. They quickly corrected them and the official record reflected the accurate count. That's how the system is supposed to work.

But instead, the former president used this as a narrative of widespread fraud happening all over the country where there wasn't fraud happening in this instance. It was a mistake they fixed and also there were no other examples of this not anywhere else in the country, let alone just in Michigan which is state where Trump said there was a big problem here.

So, you have to aspects of this story which are explosive. The first being that Rudy Giuliani and his cohorts wanted the voting machines but they didn't get but also the broader issue here that this was used to paint a picture that just didn't exist and perhaps led to what we saw here on January 6th because many Americans believed that the election was stolen despite the lack of evidence -- Alisyn and Victor.

BLACKWELL: Ryan Nobles on Capitol Hill, thank you. CAMEROTA: Joining us now is the member of the House Committee

investigating the January 6 insurrection, Congresswoman Elaine Luria of Virginia.

Thanks so much for being here, Congresswoman. I'm sure it's a busy day for you. Let's start with Rudy Giuliani. I understand that your committee was supposed to have a deposition with him yesterday. It was cancelled and rescheduled.

Why? And when will you be talking to him?

REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): Well, of course we think that Rudy Giuliani is somebody who has lots of information relative to what was going on in Trump world and the schemes and plots. I'm not going to talk about specific individuals, when they are coming, when they might come in the future.

[15:05:06]

But obviously, he's got a lot of information that is important to our investigation and whether we get that directly from him or the people surrounding him, it really does inform what happened on January 6th and leading up to January 6th.

CAMEROTA: I mean, now that you heard the new reporting about trying to get the actual voting machine from this county in Michigan, what's your biggest question for Rudy Giuliani?

LURIA: Well, I say there's lot of questions. How many iterations of plots that have been hatched and reported first, second, third hand about voting machine, who was going to take them, where, which company. I mean, all of it is showing there was a lot of desperation going on. Anything that seems they could think of to come with up that they could use to create maybe a kernel of disbelief in people's minds, it seems like they were trying anything and everything they could.

CAMEROTA: So, when do you think you'll be talking to him now?

LURIA: You know, I don't have exact information on when we might be talking to him. I would say this is yet another reason this new information that you just mentioned is something we would want to ask him about.

CAMEROTA: And just very quickly, did he cancel yesterday or did your committee cancel?

LURIA: Like, I said, before, I'm not going get into specific schedules of which people appear on which days. It's obvious that Rudy Giuliani has knowledge that is important to the investigation and we would like to hear from him.

CAMEROTA: Okay. I want to ask you about former Vice President Mike Pence. He said something last week that to many ears sounded remarkable about former President Donald Trump. Let me just replay that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: President Trump is wrong. I had no right to over turn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: What did that moment mean to the committee?

LURIA: You know, I think I did what I did right now when I know I heard it again. Each time I've heard it replayed, I thought to myself, you know, thank God that he has the courage and backbone to come out and say what is obvious is that, you know, none of these plots that different people were trying to hatch to pick different electors were within the law. And he never had the authority to do that. He clearly lays out that is what the president wanted him to do. He knew it was wrong and he wasn't going to do it.

And sort of following on from that is, you know, we're seeing a divide and a crack that is quickly forming here in the Republican Party. I mean, I think people have a choice. Republicans and the Republican Party have a choice. Are they going to be on the side of Mike Pence or are they going to be Liz Cheney Republicans or are they going to continue onto be Donald Trump Republicans in this cult of personality. I think that's going be a test as we move forward.

CAMEROTA: Our reporting is that since he made that speech that former Vice President Mike Pence has been heartened by all of the support that he has gotten from donors and fellow Republicans, you know, behind the scenes. And so, I'm wondering does that make the committee more inclined the speak to him in person. Is it more of a chance today that's going to happen?

LURIA: You know, I can't weigh in specifically on whether the particular comments he made and the reaction to those will influence the committee's plans to speak to him or his desire to speak again even more publicly than he did the other day. I would say that it really should be something that's a relief to the American people that former vice president is clearly and openly standing up and saying that former President Trump was wrong. There's no legal way to change the result of the election and he's on the right side of history.

And I hope that some of my other colleagues in the House will choose more -- of my other colleagues in the House will choose to join the former vice president and Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and these others who have acknowledged that the election was not stolen.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about one of your colleagues in the House, and that is Congressman Jim Jordan. He's been confused about his conversations with former President Trump on the day of January 6th. He hasn't been able to say what time they happened, how long they were for. What has the committee learned about those phone conversations?

LURIA: Well, we're pretty confused too in the sense that he just keeps changing his story. If somebody asked me what calls did you have on a particular day, I think I could go back to my own phone logs and figure that out.

He seems unwilling so far to do that and even just understand the facts from his own records about what happened that day. But, you know, as previously been reported and confirmed, he had a conversation. Like a 10-minute conversation on the morning of January 6 with the former president.

And that's why we would like to hear from him to the committee and understand what that conversation was about. So, it remains something very important to our work.

CAMEROTA: Are you willing to subpoena Congressman Jordan to get the answers to that?

LURIA: Any future subpoenas are not something that we're not going to, you know, discuss publicly. But it, again, it's information that we want to hear. You know, my colleague Zoe Lofgren mentioned last night, the fact that, you know, Jim Jordan said shortly after January 6th, he didn't have anything to hide. He was going to talk about any information he had. And, you know, for some reason, we would love to know why he's changed his tune.

CAMEROTA: Do you know who else President Trump spoke to that day?

LURIA: I suspect it was lots of people. That's part of what we are doing with our work. We're pulling together all the different records, all testimony we have from other people who have come before the committee and shared information about their conversations. And so, you know, that is really part of the picture we're trying to paint. I

It's 187 minutes between the time the capitol rioters broke in and the president made a statement. That's one to have key focuses is to understand what happened during that more than three hours, as well as like we said, part of the investigation is to understand what happened before and leading up to the events of January 6th.

CAMEROTA: Our reporting is that President Trump had a habit of tearing up important White House documents and that even those were sent to the National Archives. Are you seeing that when you have gotten stuff from the National Archives, you seeing them in pieces and patched back together?

LURIA: I can say that the condition of different document we have got from the archives varies and that, you know, reporting people had first hand of him tearing things up, that would appear to be true for some of the things that have come across our desk in those records.

CAMEROTA: Congresswoman Elaine Luria, thank you very much. Obviously, we'll be watching all of what happen next.

LURIA: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: More states are announcing the end of mask mandates in the next few weeks. Some expert say this is the wrong time. We'll discuss that ahead.

And there's this division within the Republican part over the three words, legitimate political discourse. Those are the words from the RNC to describe the insurrection, and they are driving a wedge between top Republican.

CAMEROTA: And right now, Roger Goodell is answering questions from reporters. The NFL commissioner is expected to talk about the allegations of racism and discrimination within the league.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:58]

CAMEROTA: Dr. Anthony Fauci says he is hopeful the coronavirus restrictions will end soon. He told "The Financial Times", quote, as we get out of the full blown pandemic phase of COVID-19 which we are certainly heading out of, these decisions will increasingly be made on a local level rather than centrally decided or mandated.

BLACKWELL: The CDC still recommends masking in areas of high transmission but more states have announced plans to lift some mask mandates and a lot of the states are led by Democrats. Governors of Illinois and New York, Rhode island, California, Delaware have said that they will end indoor mask mandates this month. Massachusetts joined New Jersey, Oregon and Connecticut to lift mask requirements in schools over the coming weeks.

In a recent "Washington Post" op-ed, three doctors lay out how they believe the schools can safely make masks optional with the CDC's new guidelines.

Joining me now to discuss is one contributor to that article, Dr. Shira Doron. She is a hospital epidemiologist and infectious disease physician at Tuft Medical Center.

Dr. Doron, thank you so much for your time.

DR. SHIRA DORON, HOSPITAL EPIDEMIOLOGIST, TUFTS MEDICAL CENTER: Thanks for having me.

BLACKWELL: I want to start here. Before we get to the content, I want to talk about this reaction that you receive. I'm going to read three sentences from this op-ed. Respirators and other highly quality masks are highly effective at protecting their wearers, regardless of what people around them are doing. That makes the old mantra "my mask protects you and your mask protects me" obsolete. As a result, schools can violate safely make masks optional for students and staff.

You got this vitriolic backlash. Tell us what the response was from some to that op-ed.

DORON: Yeah, I mean, we were trying to find a way forward on this really polarizing issue. And when the CDC changed its mask guidance a couple of weeks ago to say the public should now consider purchasing medical grade personal protective equipment, if you wear a high quality mask, you can protect yourself. The main backlash was the equity issue, which is a very valid concern. These medical grade masks cost money.

So, it's going to be important to be addressed at the local levels so people can't afford to buy them can use them.

BLACKWELL: Yeah. You know, I want to talk about the equity issue. You cite in this article, Hopkinton High School in Massachusetts where they had this temporary pilot mask optional program. The school said for their students and you quoted it, smiling is more contagious than COVID-19. But vaccination rate there is far higher than it is in the rest of the country. And certainly in the high school age group we know nationally that it is for younger children.

So, could that work in Huntsville, Alabama, or in Oxford, Mississippi where the rate of childhood vaccination for COVID is low, in some cases single digit percentage low.

DORON: Right. So, that's another equity issue that I take very seriously. And so, you know, I would say that first of all, in these next weeks while we are planning, while various states are planning to drop those mask mandates, it is critical to keep trying and beyond to keep trying so that every last person in the school communities vaccinated.

That being said, what omicron has just done is leave behind a lot of immunity due to the infection. And so, I think that we will see that in the next months there is a fair degree of protection in the school community compared to where we were at the beginning of the school year and last year.

The other piece, though, is that treatments are becoming much more readily available. Here at my hospital, we have oral agents, we have the monoclonal antibodies and most of those are approved for age 12 and up. And so, that really changes the game now as well.

BLACKWELL: Help me understand something that you wrote here in this op-ed. Let's put it up where you write maintaining aggressive mitigation policies including strident mask rules also sends children, families and staffers message that schools are not safe. That's simply not true.

I mean, obviously, there's nothing innately safe about the building. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC says that what makes those school safe. Are the policies of adjusting lunch periods, universal masking, social distancing. So, without those, as you call them, aggressive mitigation policies, how are schools safe? Don't you need those to keep them safe?

DORON: Well, I think, you know, first of all, I live in Massachusetts where there's not been a mask mandate since May 28th. Things are wide open. And the only place where there are any restrictions is schools, K through 12 schools and colleges, which seems backwards. We do need to stop using blunt public health instruments and really focus public health efforts where they matter most, in older people vaccinated and use (INAUDIBLE) treatments to people, getting testing access to be better.

I think that we are also moving to a place where we need to focus on counting cases and more on preventing illness and disease and part of that is getting to treat this virus like other viruses that we are accustomed to dealing with particularly in the winter season, given widespread vaccine, given broad immunity in the population.

BLACKWELL: All right. Dr. Shira Doron, thank you so much for your perspective.

DORON: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Well, three words have sparked public division in the Republican Party. We have new details about the RNC's last minute decision to call the Capitol riot, quote, legitimate political discourse. That new reporting, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:27:58]

BLACKWELL: All right. This just in, "The Washington Post" is reporting that the National Archives has asked the Justice Department now to investigate Donald Trump's handling of White House records. Now, it is not clear whether the DOJ will investigate former president for a possible crime.

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is former federal prosecutor, Renato Mariotti, and CNN's chief political analyst Gloria Borger.

Well, Renato, this is -- I mean, here do I begin? From the man who led rally after rally --

BLACKWELL: Start with the irony, yes.

CAMEROTA: The hypocrisy, okay?

BLACKWELL: Yeah, that's true.

CAMEROTA: Obviously, that he was so incensed by Hillary Clinton's use of private e-mails. Now we find out he absconded with 15 boxes of White House documents, in other words, historical documents, American documents, back to Mar-a-Lago. He also tore up all sort of important documents that had to be pieced back together.

How could this not be a crime?

RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it is unlawful. It's a violation of the presidential records act. I think the question of whether it's a crime is a little more complicated than that. So, it is certainly against the law but the presidential records doesn't have an enforcement mechanism. The question is what was he hiding, what was he tearing up, what was in the burn bags, what was the intent behind it?

If the intent was, for example, to obstruct justice, to hide wrongdoing or other unlawful activity, that would be a crime depending on the intent of the person doing it. But otherwise, it's very -- very wrong, unlawful but there's no enforcement mechanism and at least no obvious criminal penalty there.

BLACKWELL: So, Renato covered the legal element of this. Gloria, the political hypocrisy is the right word, irony I'd say as well of Donald Trump who railed against Secretary Clinton in the 2016 campaign for her handling of information. Now is potentially going to be -- we don't know if the DOJ will follow up, the subject of an investigation for his handling of government documents.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure.