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Biden in Mexico After Visiting Border for First Time as President; Protesters Storm Brazil's Congress Over False Stolen Election Claims; House Meets Today After Long, Chaotic Battle to Elect Speaker. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 09, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Top the hour here on your Monday. I'm Erica Hill.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto, nice to be with Erica.

Right now, President Biden is in Mexico as he prepares to meet face- to-face with the Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that's later today, in what is a big week for U.S./Mexico ties. Biden made his first visit since taking office to the U.S. southern border on Sunday. Of course, enormous political implications here. He met with border officials in El Paso, Texas while highlighting the disturbing rise not just in migrants but in U.S. fentanyl deaths.

HILL: Also, we are following what is happening in Brazil, shades of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol after false claims of a stolen election, sounds familiar. Supporters of Brazil's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, laying siege on the capitol, smashing windows, as you've seen in the video here, clashing with police, breaking into congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court. Hundreds have been arrested.

Meantime, in Washington this morning with Kevin McCarthy finally locking up the House speakership over the weekend, GOP members set to meet at any moment to select their remaining committee chairs. All of this comes ahead to of a critical vote later today on the rules package, which McCarthy negotiated with those GOP hardliners in order to get the speaker's gavel.

We do want to begin, though, this hour in Mexico City with CNN's Priscilla Alvarez. So, Priscilla, this is President Biden's first full day in Mexico City. And there is quite an agenda when he sits down with the Mexico's president.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: And one of the key issues on that agenda is migration. This is an issue that has been a major political liability for President Biden at home and it is one that the White House is trying to reshape the narrative on, with his visit to El Paso just yesterday, and now in Mexico. If you put these two stops together, really underscores the predicament for President Biden, trying to find solutions at home while also trying to seek assistance here in Mexico.

Now, the United States has historically looked to Mexico to try to shore up support as they enforce the U.S./Mexico border and there is no exception here where President Biden is expected to talk with Mexican President Lopez Obrador about migration and ways in which they can stem the flow of irregular migration at a time of mass movement across the western hemisphere.

Now, administration officials tell me and underscored the coordination between the two countries up until this point, and they've also said that they hope that the discussions between these two presidents will reinvigorate that support. We got a glimpse of that last week when President Biden gave a border security speech and announced a program that migrants would use to apply to come to the United States legally. But if they didn't, they would be pushed back into Mexico under that Trump-era COVID restriction, again, something that requires agreement between the United States and Mexico.

So, those are the conversations that they're going to be having, in addition to also trying to tackle economic development, climate change and security. That, of course, includes fentanyl, as you mentioned.

SCIUTTO: So, there have been good relationships between the U.S. and Mexican presidents, some bad ones too and difficult ones. I mean, there are issues across the border that are tough to deal with. What is the relationship like between Joe Biden and Lopez Obrador?

ALVAREZ: Well, it has been tense at times, and that spilled into public view just last year when the United States hosted the Los Angeles summit to talk about migration. If you recall, Mexican President Lopez Obrador did not attend, he snubbed that summit because the Biden administration did not want to invite some authoritarian regimes to partake in the summit.

Now, of course, there was some representation there, so there were discussions but still, it can be tense.

HILL: Yes, certainly. Priscilla, I appreciate it. Good to have you on the ground there. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: All right, Brazil's new president and other world leaders are condemning rioters who stormed government building in the capital of Brasilia, over, this will sound familiar here, false election claims.

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HILL: Yes. The rioters, supporters of defeated former President Jair Bolsonaro broke into and vandalized congress, the Supreme Court, the presidential palace. And the arrest comes just a week after the inauguration of President Lula da Silva. It has drawn comparisons to the January 6th attack, the insurrection here in the U.S. Capitol.

CNN Brazil Senior Correspondent Americo Martins is live for us this morning. So, talk us a little bit more, Americo, about what the reaction has been to this situation. What are people saying in Brazil? AMERICO MARTINS, CNN BRAZIL SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. A lot of people comment on the accidents and the acts that took place yesterday. They were very angry. Most politicians in Brazil reacted against it. They condemned the attacks and then supported President Lula.

Today, the president had a meeting with the heads of congress, the heads of the military and some of his ministers, including also the head of the Supreme Court. They all discussed and they issued a letter together condemning those actions and fate of democracy in Brazil.

Another important point is that the military and the police in Brasilia were able to remove some supporters of President Bolsonaro who already camping in front of the army headquarters in the capital.

SCIUTTO: Americo Martins, thank you so much for covering.

HILL: Let's take you now to Washington, Capitol Hill. GOP lawmakers expected to meet and to pick their remaining committee chairs today. And then a little bit later this afternoon comes that major vote on the controversial rules package.

SCIUTTO: CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju joins us now. Manu, I feel like we asked you about a thousand times last week, does he have the votes? He finally got the votes for the speakership. Does he have the votes for this rules package?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that is what we're actually trying to figure out right now. They do expect that to pass. This package was part of some of the concessions that Kevin McCarthy had to cut in order to get this -- get the speakership. There are some key concessions in this package. Not all of them are in there but one of them in particular having allow one member of the full House to essentially call for a vote of no confidence in the sitting speaker, something that could create some instability in the speakership. That is one part of this rules package. Another part, making it harder to raise taxes, making it harder to raise spending, as well as providing new provisions to actually reinstitute actually an old rule but a new provision in here to target federal officials' salaries.

And here is the speaker. Mr. Speaker, are you going to -- what do you say to folks who are concerned about the concessions that you cut particularly on vacating the chair?

The speaker didn't answer that. He hasn't, in the past, when I've asked him about this specific issue, about vacating the chair, allowing one member of the House to essentially call for the speaker's ouster, he has said he's not afraid of that. He said bring -- he'll be able to survive this if it were to come to pass.

He was asked late Friday night after he secured the votes for the speakership whether or not he could maintain his -- keep his job for the next two years. How confident he is. He said he's a 1,000 percent confident he can keep his job. But the governing will get incredibly difficult. That rules package we've been talking about, we do expect at least one member of the Republican conference to oppose it, another one has raised concerns as well. They could only lose four votes on any party line bill, any four Republican votes. That will mean that there is very little margin for error.

And assuming that bill passes tonight, then we expect other legislation to move forward that Republicans have been talking about. One, to go after funding for the IRS, that was some of that Democrats had approved as part of their inflation reduction act plan that was enacted last year, as well as other number of party line bills that they planned to advance on energy, dealing with abortion and also creating a new investigative committee to look into the FBI and the Justice Department. That is a House committee, that select committee that they plan to approve later this week.

But, again, the challenges of governing only beginning here as McCarthy and other Republicans meeting in the room behind me to select their committee chairman in some of the key committees as those people will be central to shaping the legislation going forward and Kevin McCarthy's challenge lays ahead. Guys?

HILL: We will be watching. Manu, I appreciate you trying to get comment from him. We know you try hard every day. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Joining us now, Sarah Longwell, Republican Strategist and Publisher of The Bulwark, and Political Director for CNN David Chalian. Good to have you both on.

And, Sarah, I wonder, given these rules, given the power of that 20 hard-line right in the House, I mean, is the battle that we saw last week really going to be the rule as opposed to the exception as to how votes go through the House going forward or don't go through the House going forward.

SARAH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes. Kevin McCarthy's -- the difficulties for him are just the beginning. And, you know, I think while we were watching the speakership fight, it was easy to kind of look at it and see it as a bit of a show because the stakes were a little bit low.

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Somebody was going to be speaker. The stakes are about to get incredibly high in terms of what is going to come up in front of this governing body. We're going to see a fight over whether or not we're going to continue to fund Ukraine. Are we going to continue fund our military readiness? And that is something that looks like it is going to split Republicans against each other. You're going to see a fight over the debt ceiling. And that doesn't just -- that impacts all of us. It impacts the credit rating of the United States and it impacts whether or not the government shuts down.

And so you're going to have some members of the party who want to see -- who will want to negotiate lower spending and things like that but they won't want to shut down the government. But then you have that chaos group that really has so much control now and they have no problem shutting down the government, because for them, you know, gumming up the works is sort of the point. So, it is about to get even more complicated for Kevin McCarthy.

HILL: Right, yes. I mean, the talk is constantly about how from that group of hardliners, that small group, they want to show the government doesn't work at any chance they can to help make that happen. It seems that they will take advantage of it.

David, as we look at what is playing out today, I'm curious where you think things stand, this vote Jessica Dean said 5:00 tonight on the rules pack package. I mean, there is a chance this doesn't pass. I mean, how realistic is that chance?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I guess, obviously, there is a chance when you're dealing with such small margins and Speaker McCarthy can only afford to lose four votes on his side. But you heard Manu that the current reporting is that it is expected to pass. I think we've only heard of one member of the Republican conference, Congressman Gonzales, so far, come out to say that he is opposed to it. I don't think we know of an on-the-record plan for somebody else yet to vote against it, though, Nancy Mace and others have sort of said they're open and thinking about this. But the expectation is it will pass.

But, again, this is about organizing the House. To Sarah's point, I mean, I think what is going to happen here when we get to the big ticket items, like raising the debt ceiling, you know, it used to be what they called the Hastert rule in the Republican conference, when Denny Hastert was speaker, that if you had a majority of the majority, he could go to the floor and then wheel and deal as needed.

Well, this whole rule that Manu was just talking to you guys about and asked Speaker McCarthy about, only one person necessary to put into motion a vacate the chair and try to put another speaker election front and center, grinding everything to a halt, that is -- that allows every member to retaliate against McCarthy if indeed something like the debt limit, he needs to bring over Democratic votes, where it used to be a faction of Republicans may be angry about that, but now they actually have a tool in their hand to be able do something that would grind everything to a halt.

SCIUTTO: So, Sarah, let me ask you, you had some discussions last week, of course, I didn't come to be, of Democrats working with Republicans to pass a speaker. Could you have that kind of bipartisan cooperation to get over what David is describing there, for instance, for big stuff? I'm not talking about immigration reform. I'm talking about like just to keep the -- raise the debt limit, right, or keep the government open.

LONGWELL: Yes. My guess is that is going to have to happen. But as David points out, what is really complicated about that is that Kevin McCarthy with that narrow margin, and you saw this with the Democrats when they had a narrow margin, where they would -- on infrastructure, for example, they could get a faction of Republicans to work with them. And that is really important.

And there has been almost this shadow Congress that has worked together to keep governing going. So, that is possible. The problem is, as David points out, this new rule with the motion to vacate, what those chaos agents want in the Republican Party is to close off that lever. They don't want to see Kevin McCarthy negotiate with Democrats. And so this is the central most fundamental problem where nobody wants to see -- that chaos group doesn't want to see compromise, and so how Kevin McCarthy balances that is going to be really difficult.

HILL: So, David, to Sarah's point then, McCarthy is now speaker but is he actually leading the party, of the conference, I should say?

SCIUTTO: Great question.

CHALIAN: He is. It is a matter of how he does that leading, right? I mean, he is in the sense that, yes, he's elected to speaker. There is no doubt he had to make a series of concessions to get there that will challenge his ability to maintain that grip on the party that he was able to get at the end of the day on Friday in the wee hours of Saturday morning. So, he is a leader in name and the fact that he is elected speaker but it is not his conference to just sort of dictate here. It is going to be a constant negotiation with these more hard- line, or as Sarah is calling them, sort of chaos agents inside of the Republican conference.

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SCIUTTO: David Chalian and Sarah Longwell, it is going to be quite a ride. Thanks so much.

CHALIAN: Sure.

HILL: Well, right now, more than 7,000 nurses are on the picket line here in New York City. The strike forcing ambulances to divert to other hospitals. Babies are actually being transferred from the NICU. We're going to take you there live.

Plus, police say an elementary schoolteacher in Virginia is improving, in stable condition, after being shot by a six-year-old student. Authorities now trying to determine how they deal with the case.

SCIUTTO: A six-year-old?

Later, new revelations from Prince Harry just hours before the publication of his memoire, why he says his stepmother, in his view, his stepmother Camilla was dangerous.

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SCIUTTO: Right now, more than 7,000 nurses are on strike in New York after negotiations with two major hospital systems failed. Nurses working at Mt. Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center walked off the job. And, Erica, speaking with the union chief last hour, they sound overwhelmed, understaffed.

HILL: Yes, that is exactly what she told us. In some cases, she said where there were should be three nurses per patient, there were 20, the nurses say they have been working long hours, they cite unsafe conditions, saying it makes it is difficult for them to properly care for their patients.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is live at Mt. Sinai for us this hour. So, nurses across the country, Vanessa, we have heard about -- I think we have probably all spoken with them on our reporting over the last couple of years about how difficult it has been during COVID in terms of staffing, in terms of responsibilities. What are you hearing this morning from folks in the picket line?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Jim and Erica. And you have hundreds of nurses outside here in front of Mt. Sinai. This is one of two hospitals that failed to reach agreements with the unions. And the main issue that they are facing is staffing. That is the ratio of patients to nurses.

I want to bring in one nurse here who is on the picket line. This is Roy. He's a surgical ICU nurse. Roy, why are you out here today?

ROY PERMAUL, SURGICAL ICU NURSE: So, we're out here because we're trying to stand up for our patients. This is not about the nurses, this is not about us. We are trying to fight for our patients. We took care of patients before COVID, during COVID and after COVID. And COVID, the pandemic, was our breaking point.

YURKEIVCH: You are a surgical ICU nurse. That is a critical job here. Are you concerned about your patients that are inside right now while you're outside?

PREMAUL: Absolutely, the patients are most concerned. Those patients are double, tripled, even quadrupled of the care they're supposed to get right now from us. So, if you have one nurse, that is supposed to take care of two, one nurse is taking care of four patients. For critically care patients, that is unacceptable. It is not supposed to happen. But med surge nurses, they are supposed to have five patients, they have ten patients. And like they're saying, if you see our nurses outside, there is something wrong inside of the building. That is what is going on. So, why we're like enough is enough, we have to be outside. We're out here. that is it.

YURKEVICH: Thank you, Roy. So, Governor Kathy Hochul has recommended binding arbitration to introduce a neutral party to try to negotiate between the two sides. The hospitals, Mt. Siani and Montefiore, have agreed to that but the union has not.

So, until then, there are other things going on. They're rerouting ambulances, rerouting patients. They moved NICU babies to other hospitals. But until then, the people here these frontlines of the strike and also of the pandemic say they're going to remain here until a deal is reached. Just as Roy said, though, they would rather be inside with their patients than out here, but they are fighting for what they believe they deserve. Jim, Erica?

SCIUTTO: Meanwhile, a lot of consequences inside during the strike. Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks so much. HILL: A new, important news, Virginia elementary school is closed this week as authorities there try to determine how to deal with a case of a six-year-old boy who was accused of shooting a teacher in class. The teacher identified as Abby Zwerner is in stable condition. The boy, again, six years old, is in custody.

SCIUTTO: The police chief says the shooting was not accidental and they've been in contact with the commonwealth attorney and other agencies to help get services to the child. Authorities must also determine where exactly the gun came from, what led a six-year-old to shoot his teacher.

Joining us now, CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller. John, I mean, there is a lot to sort out here. First question I imagine is how the child got this gun, but then also how do you handle it from here?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, Jim, this is largely uncharted territory because of the age of the suspect here. It is hard to say six-year-old and suspect in the same sentence, even within the criminal justice system. So, going backwards, they've got to figure out where did that gun come from. The fundamental questions are going to be, did it come from the home? How was it secured? Why was it available to the child? If it didn't come from the home, did he find it? Did it come from somewhere else?

So, you have got a three-step process here. Number one, the legal piece, which is everybody in America has a fundamental right to a trial where they are competent to stand trial, assist in their own defense. There is a significant legal argument that suggests a six- year-old child is not able to understand the process or to effectively assist in their own defense.

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So, that puts it into the -- do we even have a criminal matter here even though it involves an intentional shooting, or is this a child in need of services rather than the criminal justice system? That is step one.

Step two is, if the child isn't culpable, who is? Is it negligence on the part of the people in the home for making that gun somewhere where it could be accessible? Is it someone outside the home? Is it an illegal gun possessed by an older brother or a relative that this child came into contact with? So, the first thing is to remove the child from the environment. So, the child is in custody of the state and being cared for. The second thing is to figure out what is the home situation, where did this weapon come from, someplace else?

HILL: So, authorities, we could see there are folks at home, they have not commented on the child's family. You talk about what we need to know about the gun. What do we know about the gun and where it came from this morning?

MILLER: Well, if this was New York City, this would be a very simple question. 99 percent of the handguns that would be found in a residence in New York City would be illegal guns. In Virginia, anybody who is a state resident can purchase and keep a pistol. So, there is a lot more guns available there. They will have to trace the weapon, when was it purchased, who was it purchased by and was that the actual owner or has it been handed off a couple of times?

HILL: But they would have that information by now. I mean, this was Friday. By now, they would have all of that.

MILLER: Yes, they would. But, I mean, that is going to be part of the criminal investigation about -- it is pretty clear at this point that the child is not going to be held criminally responsible but it is also pretty clear that a teacher was shot in an open classroom in front of other children. Somebody is going to be held responsible. And linking that gun not just to the purchaser but who ultimately had it when it fell into the hands of a six-year-old is probably the person that is going to be the focus of that prosecution.

SCIUTTO: John, is it criminal to, in effect, not keep that gun safe, therefore to prevent a six-year-old from getting access to a gun, assuming that is what happened here?

MILLER: So, there are safety rules about guns. But I think where we're going here is skipping over the gun itself and going to exactly what your pointing to, Jim, which is endangering the welfare of a minor through the negligence of having a weapon accessible one of the first things they'll look at.

HILL: I'm sort of speechless, and you and I were talking about this in the break because it is so unprecedented because you just don't think -- you think if something like happening and certainly when it's not an accident, as the school said.

MILLER: Erica, when people said, okay, so a kid might find a gun in the home, accidently shoot themselves or somebody else, we've seen that before in terrible tragedies, but the idea of a child finding it, packing it up, taking it to school, getting into an argument with a teacher, willfully shooting them and knowing how the gun works, whether it has a safety or not, aiming and firing, where does that come from, and the answer to that is video games, watching other relatives, what is on television, all we're seeing is people shooting guns at each other, and that is how a lot of that entertainment is defined.

HILL: Sadly in this country, even what is not entertainment, it has become clear that in many instances, people believe violence is an answer whenever they have an issue and perhaps even a six-year-old. And so that is something as a country that perhaps we need to talk about.

John, I always appreciate it. Thank you.

MILLER: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Well, Prince Harry expressing his disdain for the British press, also making some disturbing allegations about his relationship with his father and this, how believed for years that his mother actually had faked her death and was somehow still alive. We'll have more coming up.

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