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House January 6 Panel to Hold Final Public Meeting Monday; Documentary Crew Shares Footage of Pelosi on January 6; U.S. to Send Patriot Defense System to Ukraine; Russian Commander: Next Escalation Could Be Nuclear Weapons; Biden Signs Same-Sex Marriage Law. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired December 14, 2022 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. If you are just joining us, let me bring you up to date with the top stories.

A massive storm bringing blizzard conditions and severe weather across the U.S. Tornado threats will continue across the Southeast throughout the morning.

And the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to announce another interest rate hike in the coming hours. But with interest rates cooling experts predict it won't be as high as previous hikes.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. Justice Department is expanding its investigation into former President Donald Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The special counsel overseeing the probe, has now subpoenaed officials in Nevada, New Mexico and Georgia. The subpoenas asked for communications from June 1, 2020, through January 20th of last year with Trump, his campaign and number of aids and allies.

FOSTER: Meanwhile CNN has learned the Justice Department has tried to get access to House Republican Scott Perry's text messages as part of its criminal probe into the 2020 election interference. Perry believed election security was compromised contributing to Donald Trump's loss.

NOBILO: It's unclear if Perry's texts were disclose the since the Justice Department and Perry's lawyers refused to comment on the closed door court fight.

NOBILO: Now to what may be the final public meeting of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack. The panel will gather next Monday to approve the report it's been putting together and make announcements on criminal referrals to the Justice Department. CNN's Sara Murray reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: After more than a year of working and interviewing roughly 1,000 witnesses, the House Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol is finally on the brink of wrapping up its investigation. The chairman of that committee Bennie Thompson telling reporters that they will hold their final public meeting on Monday, December 19th. That's a couple of days earlier than they planned.

During that meeting they are expected to reveal their list of referrals. So, that means criminal referrals, that means potential referrals to ethics commissions, potential referrals to other outside entities. We're expecting the name of the folks who will be referred for potential criminal prosecution to the Justice Department, as well as the rationale for why they are being referred and potentially other top line management from the committee.

During that meeting the committee is also going to vote to approve their final report. That they're going to hold off on a couple of days. They're not going to make that full report available to the public until December 21st. After that the committee has pledged, they're also going to release as many of the transcripts as possible of their interviews with as few redactions as possible.

Sara Murray, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: We're still getting another point of view from what happened on January 6th.

[04:35:00]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter is a documentary filmmaker and was with her mother at the Capitol along with her film crew.

FOSTER: And what was supposed to be a record of the transition of power to a new presidency became much more than that. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Are they calling the National Guard?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Yes, Ma'am.

PELOSI: Did you reach McConnell?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We did.

PELOSI: Ad did he say, yes?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

PELOSI: And will call the National Guard?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's correct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We may get "All Heads Up".

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to (BLEEP) -- PELOSI: If they stop the proceedings, they will have succeeded in stopping the validation of the President of the United States. If they stop the proceedings, will have totally failed.

We have got to finish the proceedings, or else they will have a complete victory.

So, what's the prospect? We're going to stay here all day, for the rest of our lives, or what? We're here until what, until the National Guard decides to come and they get rid of these people?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: Filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi sat down with CNN's Anderson Cooper to talk about what she experienced that day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA PELOSI, FILMMAKER, "PELOSI IN THE HOUSE": You have the leaders of the house and Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, working together to certify the election results. They were planning on bringing the entire Congress from the Capitol -- from Capitol Hill to an army base to do it there. That's what they're talking about. They're making phone calls. Can we get buses. Do we get 435 members of the House. Do we get 100 Senators there. Calling Mike Pence. They're coordinating. And it's all working.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Speaker Pelosi and the leadership, they were determined to get this done on that day.

PELOSI: With the participation of the Republican leadership. So, it's important to point out that government was working that day. And since then, it's all been, you know, weaponized into political speech and it's all been turned to conspiracy theories. But on that day, that's what was happening. They were going to certify the elections no matter what.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Now exclusive reporting by CNN shows the U.S. is finalizing plans to send the highly advanced Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine. U.S. officials tell CNN the plan is expected to be approved soon by the U.S. Defense Secretary and President Joe Biden. And the Patriots could be shipped in a matter of days. CNN's Oren Liebermann has more details now reporting from the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Patriot missiles batteries are a system that Ukraine has been requesting near daily for quite some time now -- weeks if not months. And CNN has learned according U.S. officials, that the U.S. is preparing to send over a Patriot missile battery to help with Ukrainian air defenses.

Air defense has been one of the U.S.'s top priorities to get to Ukraine and a key focus of the international meetings to see what systems are available. The U.S. making the decision to send one of its most advanced systems, the long range Patriot which will fit on top of the systems the U.S. has already provided. At the beginning of the war, it was the short range stinger systems. Then more recently the NASAMS, a medium range air defense system. And the Patriot will fit on top of that at a crucial time as Russia carries out missile strikes, drone strikes and rocket attacks on Ukraine civilian infrastructure and energy infrastructure. Causing widespread blackouts and water shortages across the country. And that seems to be part of what tipped the scales in favor of sending over the Patriot missiles.

There was also a question of how long the training on these would take. Normally it takes months. But now that the U.S. sees this war as dragging on and as the U.S. is set to perhaps expand its training of the Ukrainian forces, the opportunity is there to provide the training to operate the Patriot missiles, so the Ukrainians can operate them, sustain them and maintain them effectively. That was one of the key decisions here.

How quickly could they get into the country? Well, the U.S. has repeatedly shown be it can move systems very quickly when it comes to HIMARS and howitzers. The bigger challenges the training. Ukraine has shown repeatedly that it can compress the training timeline on some of these more advanced systems. Still, this training normally takes months. How much can that be compressed? Well, we're about to find out.

Oren Liebermann, CNN, at the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: With Moscow's war efforts suffering so many setbacks, a Russian commander now says nuclear weapons may be the only way to win the war in Ukraine. He claimed on Russian state TV that Russia is now fighting the entire Western world.

[04:40:00]

FOSTER: Meanwhile, Ukraine's president says the country's air defense has shot down all 13 drones which attacked Kyiv early this morning. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says they were Iranian made drones used by Russia.

NOBILO: CNN's Scott McLean joins us now for more on this. Scott, tell us more about what this Russian commander said. This is obviously an increasing anxiety in the world that the more Russia gets pushed back an encounters more setbacks, that they might resort to more escalatory weapons.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we have heard a heck of a lot of saber-rattling from the Russians when it comes to nuclear war lately. But these comments that we heard from this Russian commander seem to sort of hit a new level. Thankfully they're not coming from anyone with the actual power to press the button. What he says on Russian state TV seems to confirm much of the assessments from West, that Russians seem to be sort of stalling in their advance of the front lines. He also says that the West involvement in this war is what he describes as a redline. So, here's part of what he said exactly. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEXANDER KHODAKOVSKY, RUSSIAN MILITIA COMMANDER, DONETSK REGION (through translator): We realize that our resources, of course, have their limits and the next spiral of escalation can only be one, nuclear. And we don't have the resources to defeat the NATO block with conventional means but we have nuclear weapons for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCLEAN: We have nuclear weapons for that. Now the Kremlin has not responded or has not commented on what this commander exactly said. But yesterday we heard from the head of the Donetsk Peoples Republic -- the occupied part of the Donetsk Region -- who said that, look, the Russian advance not going as quickly as they had planned.

Just days ago, we also heard from President Putin saying he's not taking off the table the possibility that Russia can officially change its policy toward one of, look, we're not going to fire the first nuclear strike, to one of opening the door for potentially a preemptive nuclear strike which obviously would change things. And this comes just as, you know, things seem to be escalating in this war.

We have those drone strikes deep inside of Russian territory that Russia blamed the Ukrainians on. We have the U.S. -- as we saw from Oren Liebermann -- sending these Patriot missiles to Ukraine, this long-range missile defense system. And now we also have another barrage of Russian drones aimed at the Kyiv region.

Now as you guys mentioned, none of them actually hit the targets according to the Ukrainians, but the fragments of these drones hit some things inside of the city. And one of those fragments -- at least according to the Ukrainian TV -- had an inscription on it which said, "For Ryazan" refers to one of the strikes inside of Russian territory. But again, the Ukrainians haven't officially credit for but they seem to have implied that they were behind none the least.

NOBILO: Scott McLean thank you so much. It is a really dangerous strategic conundrum when as Ukraine approaches victory, potentially Russia will react in a more escalatory way. So, we'll definitely keep an eye on all of that in their comments, thank you so much.

And still ahead, a historic day at the White House as President Joe Biden signs a same-sex marriage bill into law.

[04:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Singer Sam Smith and Cyndi Lauper at the White House on Tuesday as President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law. It provides federal protection to same-sex and interracial couples and requires states to honor marriages performed in other states. NOBILO: The landmark bill also voids the Defense of Marriage Act which

defines marriage as between a man and a woman. CNN's Phil Mattingly has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: For President Biden, of it a day that was in many ways a culmination, a culmination of a moment where he actually went out in front of the president that he was serving, not something any vice president, in which President Biden was at the time, would ever want to do. However, it was a reflection of where then Vice President Biden stood on the issue of gay marriage.

It was a watershed moment. It seems like a long time ago. A moment that wouldn't even factor into discussions based on how that issue has progressed over the course of the last decade. But 10 years ago, Vice President Biden was the highest ranking federal government official, definitely the highest ranking Democrat to take a position that gay marriage should be legal.

Now President Obama followed shortly thereafter. But it was a moment that was actually memorialized at an event with thousands of people celebrating the passage of a law that would serve as a backstop of sorts to the Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage. It would ensure every state, regardless of whether the state tried to ban gay marriage, would have to recognize gay marriage. Also struck down the Defense of Marriage Act which is still technically on the books despite that Supreme Court decision. It was a moment President Biden wanted to make sure he celebrated.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My fellow Americans, the road to this moment has been long. But those who believe in equality and justice, you never gave up. We got it done. We're going to continue to work ahead, I promise you.

MATTINGLY: But there was probably nothing that gave a better window into the evolution on the issue of gay marriage, not just for President Biden who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, or the Democratic Party, President Obama obviously forcefully out of it shortly after his vice president.

But then the composition of those who really spearheaded the effort on Capitol Hill, a bipartisan effort -- 12 Republicans in the Senate, 39 Republicans in the House. You got a majority of either conference but it does show that the issue that has moved so dramatically with the broader public over course of the last 2 to 3 decades, has certainly started to move that way inside the political sphere as well. It's something President Biden spoke about. But it's also something that underscored negotiations to get something across the finish line. It might not be something that LBGTQ advocates wanted. It certainly had a lot of opposition on the Republican side as well. But it got across the finish line and now it's the law of the land.

Phil Mattingly, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: The U.S. Department of Education is having to notify nine million people across the U.S. that their student debt still stands. They're having to correct an email mistakenly sent out in November by an outside vendor.

NOBILO: Joe Biden's plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans is currently held up in court. The Department of Education received about 26 million applications for relief. And while millions have already been approved, these 9 million still have to wait. The program can't proceed unless the Supreme Court allows it to move forward.

FOSTER: There's new hope in the fight against cancer. An experimental personalized mRNA vaccine in combination with immunotherapy reduces the risk of melanoma returning to patients -- that's according to Moderna and Merck. They announced the results of a preliminary study. The pharmaceutical companies say the treatment is for patients who have already had surgery and their findings have not yet been peer- reviewed or published.

[04:50:00]

NOBILO: Coming up, found from Mars and it's a devil of a dust up on the red planet. We'll explain when we return.

FOSTER: You'll need to.

NOBILO: We will.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: The British home secretary has reacted to the rescue operation underway currently in the English Channel involving a small boat off the coast of Kent. She tweeted that she's aware of the distressing incident and is constantly being updated whilst agencies respond.

NOBILO: The U.K. Coast Guard out of Dover, England, is working with France's Maritime Prefecture. A U.K. government spokesperson says all relevant agencies are supporting a coordinated response and more details will be provided as things are available.

FOSTER: The new Netflix documentary on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is now the platform's most watched documentary debut ever.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX: We're happy to lie to protect my brother. They were never wanting to turn the truth to protect us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prince Harry and Meghan Markel --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The rogue royals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: In it is -- well rather, in its first week of release the show appropriately titled Harry and Meghan has logged more than 81 million hours watched.

[04:55:00]

Part 2 of the special feature will show more than three episodes. And they're available to watch from Thursday. Buckingham Palace said it would not comment on the docuseries -- although haven't commented so far.

NOBILO: Meanwhile, the Prince and Princess of Wales have raised a new photo for their Christmas card. It's taken in Norfolk, England with their three children. And the photo was taken by Max Porteous, who spent years documenting fun and relaxed moments with the Royals.

And if you don't have enough spider man in your life, how do you feel about multiple spider man -- men.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Want to get out of here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wherever you go from here, you have to promise to take care of that little boy for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Eye candy, girls, I promise. Sony pictures has released the trailer for its new movie "Spider Men Across Spider-Verse." Is the sequel to the Oscar-winning "Into the Spider-Verse."

FOSTER: Many versus of spiders. Miles Morales reunites with Gwen Stacy for a trip into the multi-verse. That's where they encounter a team of spider people. The film hits theaters on June 2nd -- if we haven't given it all away already.

NOBILO: Not quite. What super hero do you feel most affinity with?

FOSTER: Superman.

The U.S. Postal Service is honoring the late civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis with his very own postage stamp. It will be available next year and features a picture of the long serving Congressman taken for a 2013 issue of "Time" magazine.

NOBILO: A follower of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis was the key note speaker at a historic March on Washington in 1963. And Lewis died in 2020 following a battle with pancreatic cancer.

FOSTER: That is the sound of Martian dust. A Martian dust devil. A towering whirlwind of dust pass right over the Perseverance rover as it explored the sight of an ancient lake on Mars in September 2021. And the rover as much been caught the sound. That's all going up there.

We are leaving you now from CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster.

NOBILO: And I'm Bianca Nobilo. Have a great Christmas. I'll see you after. And "EARLY START" is up next right here on CNN.

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