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January 6 Committee Prepares Next Hearing; Bannon Trial Ramps Up; Global Heat Wave. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 19, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:26]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

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

We begin with big developments in the investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack.

On Thursday, the committee will make what may be its final case on prime-time television, and members now revealing who will be testifying at that hearing.

Former President Trump's Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger will speak. He resigned in the immediate aftermath of January 6, saying the attack was his red line. We also know that former White House press aide Sarah Matthews is scheduled to appear.

One person who will not be in the room?

BLACKWELL: Yes, that's committee Chairman Congressman Bennie Thompson. He's announced that he has COVID.

Now, it's not clear if the chairman will appear virtually, but he says that his COVID diagnosis will not disrupt the committee's plan. Members say this eighth hearing will focus on the 187 minutes that former President Trump failed to intervene as his supporters marched on the Capitol, swarmed the halls of Congress, and did this, took over the building there.

Also today, a jury has now been seated in the trial of Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon. Bannon is facing two counts, criminal counts, for failing to comply with subpoenas from the House January 6 Committee.

CAMEROTA: CNN congressional correspondent Ryan Nobles joins us now from Capitol Hill.

So, what is the committee hoping to learn from these witnesses, Matthew Pottinger and Sarah Matthews?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor and Alisyn, they're firsthand witnesses to what was happening inside the White House on January 6. And we know that the hearing on Thursday night in prime time is going to focus on what members have called Trump's dereliction of duty during that period of time during the Capitol siege, when they say they will show evidence that he just did not do enough to try and quell the violence here and tell his supporters to leave.

Now, both Matthew Pottinger and Sarah Matthews have firsthand knowledge of exactly what was going on during that period of time. And what's unique to both of them is that they both resigned almost immediately after what had happened on January 6, because they were so upset as to how the president responded on that day.

So it's not just these two that we're going to hear from. They, of course, will be the live witnesses. But we also know that the committee has deposed many, many people with unique insight into what happened in the White House on that day. And we do expect, as we have seen in prior hearings, to see clips from those video depositions, as they lay out the case on Thursday night.

BLACKWELL: Ryan, the House committee is scheduled to get these deleted texts from Secret Service January 5 and January 6. What do you know about that?

NOBLES: Yes, that's right, Victor.

So, the Secret Service has responded to the subpoena request that the January 6 Select Committee sent to them trying to obtain this information that may have been deleted, these text messages from both January 5 and January 6 that the Department of Homeland Security inspector general has said are possibly deleted.

Now, in the statement that they just issued in the last few minutes, they have said that they are continuing to cooperate with the January 6 Committee and their subpoena and that they have begun the process of handing over some of these documents.

What is still an open question is whether or not these text messages that could have been deleted are able to be retrieved and handed over, the Secret Service still not being 100 percent clear publicly as to whether or not that information still exists. Some members of the committee had said they were hopeful that the text messages would still be available to them. That is not certain right now.

And it also comes at the same time that the National Archives is now asking the Secret Service for a explanation as to why these text messages may have been deleted. A lot of pressure on the Secret Service right now. And, Victor and Alisyn, it's not clear if those text messages will ever be found.

CAMEROTA: OK.

And so then, Ryan, today, the committee is interviewing another former White House aide. And I believe we caught some video or photos of him coming in. What do we know about this one?

NOBLES: Yes, this is Garrett Ziegler. He's a pretty low-level White House aide, but he was in the midst of all the activity that was happening in and around the White House in that period of time, particularly in the month of December.

And Ziegler's most important role was that he was the White House aide that opened the door and allowed in Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn on the day of that raucous meeting that took place on December 18, which then laid the groundwork for Donald Trump to call his supporters to Washington.

You will remember he did that in a tweet the following day. Now, Ziegler told a right-wing podcast that after he did that Mark Meadows revoked his ability to allow people into the White House at that time.

[14:05:05]

So this is someone who has firsthand knowledge as to what was going on that day. We will have to see if he pops up as part of the hearing on Thursday night.

BLACKWELL: Ryan Nobles with the latest for us on Capitol Hill, thank you very much.

Let's go now to the second day of the trial of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. The jury has now been seated.

CNN's Sara Murray is at the courthouse.

So, Sara, we know that Steve Bannon for some time now has been asking for a delay. The judge suggested maybe a short one. But what happened after that?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right.

There was another effort to delay this, at first, a month. The judge shot that down, then maybe a day. It turns out that will not be the case. Things are finally moving ahead today. They have narrowed down their pool of 22 potential jurors down to 12. And there are two alternates.

So what's going to happen next is, these jurors are going to be sworn in. They're going to get their instructions. And then, finally, we will be moving on to these opening statements. I think folks had hoped that that would get started a little bit earlier today, but there was a pretty tense back-and-forth about what kind of evidence was going to be admissible in this case.

That took up a lot of the morning. But finally things are proceeding, so we should see these opening statements coming soon. And, of course, we will wait to see if Steve Bannon talks again to reporters when he heads out of the courthouse later today.

CAMEROTA: Sarah, thank you very much. Keep us posted on what's happening there.

All right, with us now, we have CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig. He's a former federal prosecutor. We also have CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins here in New York with us.

Great to have both of you here.

OK, so for this, some people are framing this as the finale of this series of hearings on Thursday nights. So what do we need? What else do we need to know about Matthew Pottinger and Sarah Matthews?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: So, these are important figures because they're not someone that most people would recognize. They are not household names, but they still are equally important for different reasons.

Sarah Matthews was a deputy to Kayleigh McEnany. She sat right outside her office in the West Wing. And we know Kayleigh McEnany that day was one of several officials who was going into the office, the Oval Office, trying to get Trump to respond, to call on the rioters to go home and to intervene, to some degree.

We may find out exactly to what degree from Sarah Matthews. That's likely what she will be asked about, how senior aides inside the West Wing were responding that day and trying to intervene with the president's response.

Matthew Pottinger is very interesting. He was deputy national security adviser, which is a very important position. And I'm told that, on January 6, he actually went down to the Oval Office after getting a call about why the National Guard had not arrived on Capitol Hill yet. He went to go to the Oval Office to speak with Trump.

Trump was not actually in the oval. He was in the small study outside the Oval, where he often sat and watched television, which we do know that he was doing during those 187 minutes the committee is going to be looking at. He didn't speak to Trump, but we do know he talked to Meadows about the National Guard.

So that will be something interesting. What can he talk about those interactions? But, also, he resigned that day. He was one of the very few senior aides who resigned. I think he will be able to shed some light on other senior aides who were threatening to resign as well.

BLACKWELL: Let's listen to Matthew Pottinger here from a podcast talking about his decision that day to resign.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MATTHEW POTTINGER, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: The events of that day, January 6, were for me a red line, decided that it was time to go. And I resigned that afternoon.

I stayed at my post for many more hours to make sure that I could leave responsibly. There were a lot of dangerous things going on in the world. But that was for me the moment that I had to go.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Elie, Kaitlan points out that Matthew Pottinger, Sarah Matthews not household names. But few people had heard of Cassidy Hutchinson before her blockbuster testimony.

These people who are not mostly like widely known can really put a case together.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely.

And so interesting to hear Kaitlan's perspective on who these folks are. You can make a case this way if you're a prosecutor or an investigator. We tend to fixate on the shiny objects, the big personalities? Where is Mark Meadows, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon? You don't need those guys.

I mean, as a prosecutor, you don't always get full truth or any cooperation from the big shots. You can make a case with the deputies. You can make a case from other people who were in the room. And, if anything, these folks seem like they have the right credibility and the right motivation at this point to come forward and tell the truth.

CAMEROTA: Kaitlan, about those 187 minutes where the commander in chief was MIA, has he ever explained what he was doing while a violent mob was trying to kill police officers at the Capitol and his vice president?

COLLINS: It's really been this black hole of reporting, which I think is fascinating, given the caliber of reporters who covered the Trump White House and how obviously forthcoming people have been about what was going on that day.

CAMEROTA: And how much he likes to take credit for things.

And the fact that he hasn't explained where he was.

COLLINS: And that -- well, we know he was watching television. We know he was in the outer Oval in the office right outside of it watching television, which we were told at the time was four borderline enthusiastic.

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I think they will focus on that lot on Thursday night. I am interested to see how they fill the time, because, basically, what we have heard from members and from sources is, he wasn't doing a lot. And he was fielding calls from people who were at the Capitol. That will be something that is interesting, if they have figured out exactly who he was speaking to.

We know he talked to people like Steve Bannon that day. But he wasn't doing a lot during that time period, beyond resisting efforts to get the National Guard involved and to put out his own response. So I think that's what's going to be fascinating for people to see, which is, what was that black hole filled with and how did they confirm that he wasn't -- it's not really the action he was taking. It's the inaction that is the problem.

And that's what the committee is going to be focusing on Thursday, I think. BLACKWELL: Yes, and then pushing this forward to the Department of

Justice, we heard from the deputy A.G., Lisa Monaco.

She was asked about the impact of a Trump announcement of a run for in 2024 on that investigation. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: There's now reporting that President -- former President Trump is thinking about declaring his candidacy for president early in an apparent attempt to try to maybe head off the investigation.

What impact would it have if President Trump declares his candidacy early, this year?

LISA MONACO, U.S. DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: We're going to continue to do our job, to follow the facts wherever they go, no matter where they lead, no matter to what level. And we're going to continue to do our job to investigate what was fundamentally an attack on our democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Is it that cut and dry?

HONIG: I mean, it's like one of those windup toys where you just get the same exact response out of Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco and Chris Wray every time.

Now, in fairness to them, they can't tell us, hey, everyone, here's where we're going, right, that they sort of have to toe that party line. But the rhetoric, we're going to go all -- wherever the evidence just takes us up the line, it just doesn't match up with reality whatsoever.

They're still literally at ground level. Every one of the 800-plus people they have charged, except for Enrique Tarrio, one exception, were at the Capitol, were at the scene of the crime. So when are they going to go up the line?

And, by the way, let's be realistic here. It's a year-and-a-half later after January 6. If Donald Trump announces his candidacy, no legal impact, but, politically, it's already hard enough. You going to get a jury to convict a former president unanimously for the first time. Now make him the nominee, it's going to be borderline impossible.

So they're doing this to themselves.

CAMEROTA: But, Kaitlan, did you hear what she said as, we won't be deterred by his announcement? Even if he's running, we won't be deterred in our investigation? Is that how we should interpret that?

COLLINS: That seemed to be what she was saying. And I don't think she could say, yes, we're not going to go after him if we have evidence that he's committed a crime because he's running for office. That would also, I think, be wrong on the behalf of the Department of Justice. I think they are treading very lightly here because this is a really

delicate situation. And I know there are critics of Trump's that say he should be arrested and indicted tomorrow. There are people who are fans of Trump who say he is wrongly targeted by the Justice Department.

I think for people in the middle they're watching to see where the facts bear out. And I think people with the Justice Department know it'd be a very, very difficult case to go after a former president for something like this, and when it's so obscure of what he was actually doing, what he was actually directing his involvement.

That's what the committee is trying to nail down and say, here you go, DOJ.

BLACKWELL: Kaitlan, Elie, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you both.

All right, grieving family members confronted elected officials at a heated school board meeting in Uvalde, Texas. Parents whose children were killed less than two months ago are still demanding answers. Others were outraged that there were not more protections in place for these kids.

BLACKWELL: Now, the parents of survivors said they were too fearful and angry to send their kids back to school in the fall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT CROSS, FATHER OF SHOOTING VICTIM: If he's not fired by noon tomorrow, then I want your resignation and every single one of you board members, because you all do not give a damn about our children or us.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

CROSS: Stand with us or against us, because we ain't going nowhere.

VINCENT SALAZAR, FAMILY MEMBER OF SHOOTING VICTIM: I lost a loved one right here, my only granddaughter. I can hold myself together now because I have done my crying. Now it's time to do my fighting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: CNN's Rosa Flores joins us now from San Antonio.

Rosa, we can all understand why those families are outraged. What are the plans from the school district?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The school district listened a lot. And then they also mentioned some of the things that they are planning to do for the new school year to make sure that students are safe.

Now, we want to put this list up for you on the screen. But think about it through this lens. We are in the United States of America, one of the most powerful nations in the world, a very wealthy nation in the world. And here is what these parents are asking for, very basic things for the safety and security of their children.

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The school is saying that they are going to improve fencing. They are going to have additional security cameras, upgrade doors and locks and access points. Now, the point here is that these doors didn't lock. And that's one of the big questions that these parents have is, why? Why were these doors not functional?

Here's another one. They plan to hire additional officers and personnel. These parents are asking that the police officers who work for the district be fired and replaced with officers who are actually going to do their jobs.

The district also saying that they plan to train and also have professional development for their staff. Again, these are very basic things. But here we are after the massacre in Uvalde a school district planning to do those basic things.

Now, that's not enough for the parents. That's not enough for this community. They are also demanding accountability. They are asking for the police chief, Pete Arredondo, for him to be fired. They are asking for the superintendent to be fired as well. They're asking for receipts as to account for the money that this school district is going to be using to keep children safe.

Now, children went to the school board meeting and put their fears into their own words. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My daughter has something to say.

MEHLE TAYLOR, STUDENT: This was the last dress that my -- all my friends saw me on. Most of those kids were my friends. And that's not good. And I don't want to go to your guys' school if you don't have protection.

JAZMIN CAZARES, SISTER OF SHOOTING VICTIM: How am I supposed to come back here? I'm going to be a senior. How am I supposed to come back to the school? What are you guys going to do to make sure I don't have to watch my friends die?

What are you going to do to make sure I don't have to wait 77 minutes, bleeding out on my classroom floor, just like my little sister did?

RACHEL MARTINEZ, MOTHER: My daughter Leila (ph) is so terrified of the thought of having to return to school in just a few short weeks that she comes to tears.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, a lot of parents in this community are saying that they are simply not sending their students, their children back to school. They're asking for virtual schooling. And the school district says

that they're considering it -- Alisyn and Victim.

CAMEROTA: Rosa, that is so remarkable to hear from all their parents -- all those parents, because I'm so struck by how reasonable and rational they are, even despite their grief.

They're just asking, what are you going to do to make sure that my other child isn't killed, that my other child doesn't bleed out? I mean, it's remarkable that this is what it's come to, that these parents are trying to get answers for that.

Rosa, thank you very much for bringing all that to our attention.

BLACKWELL: Scorching temperatures in Europe are fueling wildfires and drought. The U.K. recorded its hottest temperature ever. We will have a live update on the impact.

CAMEROTA: And the House is set to vote on a bill to protect same-sex marriage, but are there enough votes for it to pass in the Senate?

We're going to speak with the Ohio man whose Supreme Court case led to the legalization of gay marriage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BLACKWELL: More than 100 million people in the U.S. are under heat alerts today. Dangerous highs could reach 110 degrees across the Southern Plains in Texas; 80 percent of the people will see a high above 90 degrees over the next week.

Now, in Europe, the U.K. reached its highest recorded temperature ever, just above 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

CAMEROTA: Buckingham Palace guards were desperate for relief, breaking from there typically still extends for a sip of water, as you can see here; 21 countries across Europe issued heat warnings amid triple-digit temperatures.

Wildfires continue to rage across Western Europe. Passengers aboard this train in Spain were caught between a blaze spreading on both sides of the track.

Let's bring in CNN's Nina dos Santos in London. And CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Italy for us.

So, Nina, first to you. What are you seeing in London?

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN EUROPE EDITOR: Well, the capital is essentially paralyzed by this heat wave. Yes, parts of local transports are working. They're not air-conditioned. Only 50 percent of London transport is actually air-conditioned.

But if you're trying to get in and out of the capital, King's Cross station behind me the main rail hub, you can forget it, because there are no railway services operating, just a skeleton amount. This is because, as authorities are so concerned that the tracks could overheat, that it could actually buckle when the trains go over them.

We have seen airline services be affected as well. One of the main airports in London had to cease services to mend its runway after it melted at one point, so scorching were these temperatures.

This is the first time that we have seen the U.K. ever record temperatures in excess of 40 degrees Celsius. As you said, the mercury hit a new record, 40.3 Celsius earlier today. That's 104.5 Fahrenheit. And, essentially, the services here aren't used to coping with this.

But what's really worrying people across the British capital is the specter of wildfires, Alisyn. These wildfires, of course, we see year after year in a very grave way in Southern Europe are now starting to happen outside of the capital. There's a fire blazing about 3.5 miles from where I am in the east that has caused the fire brigade to declare a major incident.

So this is a country that's going to have to get used to more years, climate change scientists say, more years of 40-degree-plus heat. And it's going to have to plan in the long run for it, even if normally we're not used to this kind of temperature -- Alisyn.

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BLACKWELL: Yes, these pictures are unbelievable. You see the map where, across Europe, the fire icons, there are so many across the continent.

Let's go to Italy now.

Ben, you're there. These high temperatures could stick around until the middle of next week. What are you seeing?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, in fact, there is no rain in the forecast here.

And it's going to continue to be hot. I must point out that Italy, it's not unusually hot. It's normally hot at this time of year. What is different is, this country is struggling through its worst drought in 70 years. And a variety of circumstances have come together whereby, for instance, we're in Northern Italy, which usually has a lot of water that comes from melting snow in the Alps.

But, during the winter, there was very little snowfall there. There was very little spring rainfall here. So, this area, which is an important agricultural area, is going through a drought. We have spoken to farmers here who say that they expect to lose anywhere between 50 and 70 percent of their crops.

The Po River, which is Italy's major river, is at a historically low level. You can almost in some areas just walk across it because it's just a trickle in the middle. And this has created a situation whereby there's going to be competition between sort of use by civilians, water use by farmers, water use by manufacturers.

And, of course, much of the electricity generated in this part of Italy comes from hydroelectric power plants, which are normally powered by that water that comes from the Alps. So this is sort of climate change on steroids going on here. And the officials are scrambling to try to find out not only short-term solutions, but long- term solutions as well -- Victor, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Nina dos Santos, Ben Wedeman, thank you very much.

I mean, it just looks so grave, both of their situations there, as it is across Europe and the U.S.

BLACKWELL: Yes, let's bring in now Bob Ward. He's a policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Bob, good to have you.

I think Ben makes an important point, that it's hot this time of the year typically. But what we see in London, with the tracks buckling, potentially runways melting, is that so much of Europe is unprepared for sustained temperatures at this level.

BOB WARD, Grantham Research INSTITUTE ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ENVIRONMENT: Well, Southern Europe is used to dealing with hot temperatures, but, even there, they're getting record-breaking temperatures.

But London is just not prepared for this at all. And, remember, today's temperatures are a full 1.5 degrees warmer than anything we have had before. And we have had widespread failures of our infrastructure, rails buckling, mechanical breakdowns, electrical failures, but we have also got lots of people who are dying across the country because they have underlying health impacts and their homes overheat in this weather.

CAMEROTA: Bob, just to give our U.S. audience a little bit more context, there are so many stats here that I'm struck by.

London has reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit today. The city of Atlanta, which we here in the U.S. know to be very hot, has only had four days in its 150-year history of weather hotter than 104. And London is the same latitude as Calgary, Canada.

WARD: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And so it is, of course, mind-blowing for Londoners.

So it's going to take, you say, for them a mind-set shift. But what are they supposed to do? How are they supposed to get their heads around this?

WARD: Well, they have been warned for a long time that climate change is driving this. Heat waves are becoming more intense and more frequent. I have to say that most of us are shocked that we got to 40 degrees

this year, rather than in 10 years' time, but we knew it was coming. And we have to rebuild the cities, and the -- particularly like London, to cope with the heat. We need buildings that can cope with the heat.

At the moment, they let -- terrible housing stock. They are terrible at keeping the heat in during the winter and terrible at keeping the heat out during the summer. And we don't have traditionally shutters and blinds on windows to keep out the heat. People tend to open their windows in hot weather here, and it just lets all the hot weather in.

So, we need to adapt our buildings, but we also need to educate people about how to protect themselves in these extreme heat events.

BLACKWELL: And, Bob, is this emergency across Europe hastening that turn to policy to approach it long term?

WARD: Well, I'd like to think so, but we have had over the past week or so a series of hustings with potential candidates to be our next prime minister.

[14:30:00]