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First 1/6 Hearing Tonight To Show New Video Of Capitol Siege; Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AR) Discusses About His Expectations Out Of The January 6 Committee Hearing For Americans; White House Rolls Out COVID Vaccine Plan For Children Five; PGA TOUR Suspends Golfers Participating In LIV Golf Event. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 09, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: It's the top of a brand new hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Victor Blackwell.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

In less than five hours, the January sixth hearings will begin on Capitol Hill. The House Committee investigating the Capitol attack will hold its first session at 8 Eastern tonight. Committee members are promising never before seen footage and testimony and that includes video from a documentary filmmaker named Nick Quested that ABC News obtained. Here's a portion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not allowed to say what's going to happen today, because everyone's just going to have to watch for themselves, but it's going to happen. Something's going to happen, one way or the other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That film maker will be one of the witnesses to testify tonight.

BLACKWELL: He had unique access to the far-right group, the Proud Boys and he captured video of the rioters inside the Capitol as they scream for Speaker Pelosi.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We wanted Pelosi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A member of his film crew capturing the scene outside Nancy Pelosi's office.

CROWD: Nancy. Nancy.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLACKWELL: The Committee says the vast majority of the footage

tonight has not yet been seen publicly. Now the goal is to make the case to all Americans that former President Trump was at the center of the coordinated multi-step effort, they say, to overturn the 2020 election. CNN's Manu Raju joins us from Capitol Hill. Manu, let's take a look ahead. Give us a preview.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This is going to be the culmination of the interviews that have occurred over the past several months, depositions, more than 1,000 witnesses have come before this Committee behind closed doors. They've reviewed more than 140,000 pages of documents and the effort here is trying to show that Donald Trump was at the center of this campaign to try to overturn the election and everything that led up to the violence on that day of January 6th and his inaction during the day of January 6th when all the violence was unfolding.

We do expect some video of showing depositions of Trump officials, Trump campaign officials and some Trump family members as well. And we do have - expect two witnesses to testify in public. Those witnesses, Caroline Edwards, the Capitol Police Officer. One of the first to actually respond on that day. She was injured on that day. As well as the documentary filmmaker that you mentioned that was alongside with the Proud Boys that had direct access to some of those militia groups and we'll hear testimony from him as well.

Now, Republicans on Capitol Hill for the most part on the House side are dismissing this effort say - contending that this is not a legitimate line of inquiry. But there were 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump over his actions on January 6, accusing him of inciting that January 6 insurrection. One of them is Tom Reed. He's a Republican from South Carolina. He's locked in a tough primary battle against a Trump-inspire challenger.

Ahead of a Tuesday primary, he told me he's probably not going to watch tonight's hearing, but he indicated that he still is most concerned about Trump's inaction on that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Do you think he was directly responsible?

REP. TOM RICE (R-SC): I don't know what that means. I think he certainly round the crowd up as McConnell said and what got me was he didn't take any effort to stop it once the violence started.

RAJU: Mm-hm. And do you - are you concerned? I mean, this could cost you your seat, your vote to impeach?

RICE: I've been over this a million times, man. I'm sick of talking about it.

RAJU: But I mean, are you - I mean, I - but there's like ...

(END VIDEO CLIP) RAJU: He didn't want to talk anymore about the fact that that vote to

impeach Donald Trump put him in the crosshairs of Trump supporters. Another person who has been in the crosshairs of Trump and Trump supporters, Mitt Romney, the Utah Republican senator. I asked him about what he hopes for out of this hearing tonight and he says he wants to know what the president was doing on that day.

So we'll see if we'll actually learn some new information, but that's exactly what the Committee is promising, the detail of what Donald Trump was doing, was not doing and provide new information for the public has not yet seen. Guys?

BLACKWELL: Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. Thank you, Manu.

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is one of the last lawmakers to leave the house floor during the January 6 insurrection.

[15:05:00]

He's Congressman Ruben Gallego. He's a Democrat from Arizona and a member of the Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for being here. You lived through, as we just said, the hell of the instruction. I think we have a picture of you that day trying to help other frightened lawmakers. So what do you want the American people to see tonight?

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Well, I want them to see the truth. I want them to see that there was a conspiracy to stop the transfer of democracy that we have had in this country for more than 200 years. I want them to see that there was a very deep conspiracy that involved many layers of the Trump administration, allies, political allies, both in Congress as well as outside of that, such as extremist groups of the Proud Boys and the so-called Oath Keepers, who are actually oath breakers.

That's what I think we have to show the American public. We have to show that there was a danger there and there's a danger going into the future and we need to actually take actions to prepare ourselves for future threats that are going to arise.

CAMEROTA: I noticed that you didn't mention former President Donald Trump. I mean, you mentioned his - the deep conspiracy of his allies, do you think that the Committee will try to connect him directly to the organizing or the conspiracy?

GALLEGO: I think that it's possible, but Donald Trump has his very mob-like capability of being able to order people around without actually ever giving the direct order. And I think you're going to see something similar akin to that. He is more of someone who kind of like setting up the scenario and hopes that everything goes in that way and uses his underlings and people that are misinformed to basically try to sway outcome to his benefit. But either way, the danger is real and we have to make sure that we understand it.

CAMEROTA: Obviously, there's so much consuming the American public right now. There's gas prices, there's inflation, there's gun violence. I mean, it's a very intense news cycle. Do you think the substance of what the Committee is presenting tonight and in the next days to come will cut through?

GALLEGO: I do think so. Look, it's - without a doubt - the American public and the American people right now are hurting, but these things are transitory, maybe they'll take a lot longer than we want. But the threat to democracy is existential. It - once it goes away, we're not getting back. Once we have the stain of losing this democracy and it's something that I think we're always going to regret and it would not be a pretty one either, it'd be a very violent attempt.

I think we had to remind also the people that there were some real attempts also for this President to actually have an illegal outcome. The fact he was calling the Secretary of State of Georgia and asking for fraudulently for him to add votes, I think pretty much is also a very direct example of the President actually trying to overturn a free and fair election.

So there's going to be a lot that we have to go there, but we really have to put aside our cynicism. And I say we, politicians, people in journalism, people in general and understand that the American public cares deeply about this democracy. Many of us are willing to die for this democracy. And I think once we see and show how dangerously close we were to actually losing it, I think there's going to be some very positive reaction to that.

CAMEROTA: You've been very vocal about thinking that the Justice Department is not moving with enough urgency. What do you want Merrick Garland to do?

GALLEGO: Well, I want Merrick Garland to do his job, I want Merrick Garland to care more about democracy and the - and this institution of democracy, more so than the institution reputation of the Department of Justice. I want them to understand that let - there's politics involved in everything, but you can use as an excuse to actually stop accountability. And lastly, I want them to understand that there is a ticking clock that's going and it's getting faster and faster. President Trump when he feels ...

CAMEROTA: When does that window close for you, in your mind?

GALLEGO: I think the window becomes very dangerous post election, because you're going to have a Republican Party that potentially will be in power and will use this office to restrict the department justice. I think you also have potentially Donald Trump actually announcing in early 2023 that he's running for president to put the department justice in a very weird position where they probably may not want to actually prosecute or indict someone who's running for office as per their office protocols.

And so the urgency needs to exist. He needs to move fast. He needs to understand that this country is perilously close to losing its tradition of democracy. And the norms of customs that he's trying to establish are not going to protect us.

CAMEROTA: While I have you I want to quickly ask you about what Congress is doing about gun violence. As you know, there's a bipartisan group in the Senate that's trying to come up with some new measures. Some Republicans seem to be on board. Others seem resistant. Here's Congressman Steve Scalise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): I go back to September 11th, airplanes were used that day as the weapon to kill thousands of people and to inflict terror on our country, there wasn't a conversation about banning airplanes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:10:04]

CAMEROTA: Are you optimistic when you hear things like that?

GALLEGO: Well, number one, that's a really stupid comparison. After 9/11, we started the Department of Homeland Security. We added TSA agents that were actually trained by the federal government. We put magnetometers (ph) everywhere and then when we found somebody attempted to actually take on a plane, we actually started making people take off their shoes.

So Steve is really just - I don't even know how to describe it, it's so dumb. But it doesn't give me hope when someone like that who's supposedly a leader of the Republican Party is using such a dumb analogy. With that being said, I do hope that the Senate actually comes up with a compromise. I'm not going to let the perfect be the enemy of good. I think we need to find the movements that we can to actually move forward and hopefully in the future, should we have a better political situation, we should come back and revisit this and try to find some really true gun safety regulations.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Ruben Gallego thank you very much for your time.

GALLEGO: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Let's bring in now former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman, the host of the Talking Feds podcast, CNN Political Commentator Scott Jennings, former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig, former federal prosecutor. Gentlemen, welcome.

Elie, I'm starting with you. You've prosecuted cases, you've had to build a narrative, how do you structure this? Do you hit with the hardest facts early? Do you save them till late? What do you think?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: You hit it early and at the end. Those are the most important things. Anyone who has taken high school level psychology and I did, not to brag ...

BLACKWELL: Okay.

HONIG: ... understands the primacy and recency effect. We as human beings tend to understand, remember what we hear first, and what we hear last the best. Now when you're a prosecutor, you build that in. But here's the difference, when you're prosecuting a case of criminal trial, you know for sure that your audience, the jury, whether they like it or not, they will be there at the very end.

Here, there's no guarantee that the audience that tunes in tonight will be tuning in at the very end, several weeks from now. So if there's any notion on the Committee that we're going to have cliffhangers here, we're going to try to string people along or build to some suspenseful climax, I think that's a mistake. They need to start strong and finish strong.

CAMEROTA: Scott, I know that you want to hear something new, meaning what?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think if your goal is to change public opinion, I guess that's what it is here, then you're going to have to offer something new that isn't already baked in and internalized by the American people. I mean, the thing about this event is it all unfolded live on our television screens. We all saw it. I think everybody here has formed an opinion about who's responsible and what happened, and so on and so forth.

And so in order to break people out of those hardened opinions that had been formed over the last year and a half and were really formed in the moment, a long time ago, you'd have to bring some new information to materially change public opinion or to make this more salient for the upcoming midterm. My thinking is this is really not going to matter in November. It may, however, manifest itself in 2024. If, of course, Donald Trump runs for president again.

BLACKWELL: Harry, let's talk about the use of the video that Scott just referenced. We've heard from the Committee that mostly what we'll be seeing tonight is previously unseen video. If it's just a new angle of the same violence or from a different camera, it doesn't answer a question. Is it useful when you're trying to build this case?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: So the short answer is yes. They've got a set of challenges. They've got to work really fast, 90 minutes, and they do need dynamics to change things up a bit and keep it flowing. But I think their first job has to be to return, and Scott's right but it was a long time ago, what happens in a big trial, especially if it involved famous events is you need to return the jury, hear the American people to the hell as you just put it, Alisyn, in the sense of shocked, appalledness (ph) that we all had on January 6th, that's how you have to catch them. That's at the beginning.

Then the new information basically here might be known to many of us, but not to the American people is the through line, the way this all goes back to November and the way it involves many, many people. When last we heard about this as a country in the impeachment trials, it was the events of January 6, possibly a political riot - political demonstration got amok.

Here they have to show and they will show a through line of a series of interconnected plots starting shortly after November. CAMEROTA: Elie, we just had Congressman Ruben Gallego on who doesn't

think that the DOJ is moving with enough urgency on this. You probably just heard him say that. And so who's the audience tonight? Is it just the American public? Is it Merrick Garland or does he already know everything, all the elements that we're going to be seeing tonight?

HONIG: I see two audiences. Obviously, the American public, in the history books I would include that. But yes, I think DOJ is part of the audience here. Merrick Garland by all indications is behind wherever the Committee is in terms of its investigation. We know that because we learned a couple of weeks ago that Merrick Garland asked the Committee, "Hey, can I get everything that you guys have?"

[15:15:04]

It should be the opposite. DOJ has way better tools to investigate much more quickly than the Committee. So I think one of the things and we're seeing it in the interview you just did with Representative Gallego. We've seen it from Liz Cheney and others. I think the Committee is trying to increase the political pressure on DOJ to at least move quickly, one way or the other. Whether that will work, whether Merrick Garland is subject to political pressure, we don't know. But I think that's clearly going on here.

BLACKWELL: Scott, you said that Americans, everyone, including Republicans should watch the hearings to learn of what happened leading up to January 6th. We are hearing though from House Republicans their intensified rebuttal, here's the Minority Leader today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I don't see any primetime hearing set for gas price, for battling inflation, for feeding our children, for making the streets safer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: What do you make of the strategy that they're executing here?

JENNINGS: Well, they're responding to the public opinion polls. I mean, if you look at what people are worried about right now, it's all the things that Kevin McCarthy just laid out and they're betting that Democrats are making a huge mistake by saying, we're going to make the centerpiece of our arguments right now to the American people about our national public affairs, something that happened 18 months ago, as opposed to the things that are happening today.

That's the bet Republicans are making is that Democrats here are gambling on not looking like they're being responsive to the problems of the moment and I suspect as a political matter, Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans are going to be right about that vet. We'll see how the hearings turn out, but my suspicion is just given all the polling I've seen, they're likely to be right about this tactic. CAMEROTA: But didn't President Biden just have a primetime hearing

about gun violence and making the streets safer? I mean, that's (inaudible) ...

BLACKWELL: Yes, the prime-time speech, yes.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Yes, he did.

CAMEROTA: Okay.

BLACKWELL: All right. Elie, Harry, Scott, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you, guys.

BLACKWELL: Be sure to join CNN special coverage of the hearings starts tonight at 7 pm.

CAMEROTA: Well, the long wait for many parents is finally coming to an end as the Biden administration rolls out its COVID vaccine plan for children under five.

BLACKWELL: Plus, the PGA takes action and suspends all golfers playing in a Saudi-backed tournament today. Details ahead.

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[15:21:39]

CAMEROTA: News today that many parents and pediatricians have been waiting for, the Biden administration is laying out its COVID vaccine rollout plan for children under five.

BLACKWELL: Officials say doses will start shipping out as soon as the FDA gives its authorization. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen has details for us, so how is this going to work?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Victor, this is going to work a little bit differently than the adult vaccines which relied quite heavily on pharmacies and not on doctors' offices. This one will be a little bit different. So let's take a look at what is being planned.

First of all, it is possible that this could start the week of June 20th and that's because FDA advisors are meeting next week to vote on this and after that will come a few more votes. And then if everything goes as expected, then the rollout could be the week of June 20th, 10 million doses are available for preorder.

It will be mostly pediatricians and other doctors' offices, that's where parents are familiar with their doctors probably who they're most likely to trust, but it will also be available at pharmacy, schools and libraries. And let's talk about the two different vaccines that couldn't be available. So we've all heard of Pfizer and Moderna. Pfizer for children will be

three doses. Moderna will be two. Clinical trials for both of them showed that they are safe and effective. And this last part is really important. These trials were done during the reign of Omicron when Omicron was the dominant variant, that's not true for the adult trials. That was way before Omicron.

So it's certainly good news that these vaccines work so well against Omicron because that of course is what we're facing now. Victor? Alisyn?

BLACKWELL: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you.

The PGA TOUR has suspended all golfers playing in the Saudi-backed LIV golf events.

CAMEROTA: Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson are among the 17 players penalized. Commissioner Jay Monahan accuses them of turning their backs on the league. In a memo to members he writes, "These players have made their choice for their own financial-based reasons. But they can't demand the same PGA TOUR membership benefits, considerations, opportunities and platform as you. That expectation disrespects you, our fans and our partners."

CNN Sports Analyst and USA Today Sports Columnist Christine Brennan joins us now. Christine, I know you've had some scathing analysis about the choice that these guys made. I mean, basically is the gist that you think they've sold their souls?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: Oh, without a doubt, Alisyn. These guys are now in business with murders, the Saudi league that they started out today in London is backed by MbS, Mohammad Bin Salman, who according to human rights organizations and other authorities was responsible for the killing and dismembering of Washington Post Columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. There's no doubt about it.

So what they have done is leave the tour, the multimillion dollar lifestyle they have, the shackles - shedding those shackles of that terrible life they had to go and run for blood money. There is no other way to describe it. And as a sports journalist, we've talked a lot over the years, I've never seen anything quite like this where you would literally be able to say that Phil Mickelson is now in business with a murderer, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia and the others and there's more coming other than the 17, so the PGA TOUR had to do something.

BLACKWELL: Well, Phil Mickelson has responded to some of the criticism.

[15:25:00]

Let's play what he said this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PHIL MICKELSON, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: I don't condone human rights

violations, I don't know how I can be any more clear. I understand your question, but again, I love this game of golf. I've seen the good that it's done and I see the opportunity for golf to do a lot of good for the game throughout the world and I'm excited to be a part of this opportunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: He says this could be good for the game. Also, he said it could be good for his life balance. What do you think about we heard there?

BRENNAN: Victor, certainly good for Phil's pocketbook, there's no doubt about that. Phil Mickelson is a smart guy. He knows exactly what he's doing and revealed in the last day or so are talking points that the Saudi League has given to people like Phil just to answer exactly that way. There is no doubt that they are part of a new term or relatively new term to me anyway, sports washing.

They are - this is not like going and playing in one tournament or us buying gas or something like that. This is Phil actively leaving his life and his livelihood to go to another one. He knows, of course, the history of MbS, he knows where the money is coming from and he's doing it willingly and he's helping MbS to burnish his image. He is has really been bribed to be a part of the PR machine of the Saudis.

And so let's call it what it is, he can do that if he wants, but there's no doubt that Phil is doing that and trying to make it sound like something different than that.

CAMEROTA: Christine Brennan, great to talk to you. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Breaking news out of Michigan, the police officer in Grand Rapids who fatally shot a 26-year-old black man during a routine traffic stop has been charged with murder. We've got details ahead.

CAMEROTA: And the Texas House Investigative Committee looking into the Uvalde massacre met today behind closed doors. We'll discuss next with a lawyer representing four of the families whose children were inside that Robb Elementary School.

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