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CNN This Morning

Today, Jan. 6 Committee to Vote on Criminal Referrals Against Trump; Officials Brace for Migrant Influx When Trump-Era Border Policy Ends; Jan. 6 Committee Considering At Least Three Criminal Referrals Against Trump. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 19, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

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[07:00:00]

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Good Monday morning, everyone, as you can see, obviously with that big giant Capitol behind us.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: We changed locations.

LEMON: Yes. Kaitlan and I are live from Washington D.C. There's a very good reason. They're trying to get this all done before the changing of the guard. What we're talking about, we're just hours away from the January 6th committee. They're going to take up criminal referrals against the former President Donald Trump. What will be revealed today?

COLLINS: Also this morning officials in Texas are bracing for the end of Title 42, that pandemic-era policy that allowed border agents to expel migrants. El Paso's mayor has declared a state of the emergency. We're live on the ground in Mexico.

Plus --

LEMON: SNL losing another fan favorite. We're talking about Cecily Strong. And she is saying goodbye after 11 seasons. We'll tell you why.

But this morning, we're going to begin with the January 6th meeting this afternoon, the January 6th meetings. This afternoon, they will meet for the tenth and final public meeting. The committee is expected to announce referrals to the Justice Department for criminal charges against the former president, Donald Trump, for inciting violence at the Capitol that day. As the committee prepares to deliver their closing arguments, let's take a look back at some of the biggest moments from the hearings.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the United States government to instruct that the Capitol be defended.

REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL): What made you decide to leave?

STEPHEN AYERS, BREACHED CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6TH: Basically when President Trump put his tweet out, we literally left right after that come out.

CHENEY: After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation.

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO TRUMP'S WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS: The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, sir, you need to take your arm off the steering wheel. We're going back to the west wing. We're not going to the Capitol. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel then.

OFFICER CAROLINE EDWARDS, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: What I saw was just a war scene. It was something like I had seen out of the movies. I couldn't believe my eyes.

SHAYE MOSS, GEORGIA ELECTION WORKER: This affected my life in a major way, in every way, all because of lies.

SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT TRUMP: I thought that the tweet about the vice president was the last thing that was needed in that moment. It was essentially him giving the green light to these people, telling them that what they were doing at the steps of the Capitol and entering the Capitol was okay, that they were justified in their anger. And he shouldn't have been doing that. He should have been telling these people to go home and to leave.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: So, let's bring in the person you just heard from there, former Deputy White House Press Secretary under former President Trump Sarah Matthews, who resigned from the Trump administration the night of the riots and testified before the committee.

You testified. You were one of the few people who went out and actually did it. A lot of other people superior to you in the administration fought appearing before the committee, including the former vice president. I wonder as we reflect on their work so far if you think that the January 6th committee has accomplished what they set out to accomplish.

MATTHEWS: I think they have been successful in their goal. I think that they wanted to shed light on what really happened. How could something like January 6th happen here in America? And what they uncovered is that this was a very orchestrated plot by President Trump and his conspirators.

I was inside the White House myself and I didn't even realize this was going on behind the scenes, the full extent of it. I was learning in real-time with the American people watching it unfold in the hearings. And I think the hearings were compelling and provided a lot of evidence to show that Trump tried to overturn the election and then did not act on January 6th to do anything when a mob that he incited stormed the Capitol.

[07:05:11]

COLLINS: And we're expecting criminal referrals that are coming. As Don was saying earlier, they have impact but they don't have teeth essentially, that it doesn't actually require the Justice Department to act. I wonder, as you've seen all of this put together, you were there on January 6th inside the White House, will you be disappointed if the Justice Department doesn't pursue that route?

MATTHEWS: I will be disappointed. I think that no one is above the law and it's important to hold people accountable, President Trump included. And I think that the -- it will be curious to see what DOJ has in terms of evidence compared to what the January 6th committee has. And the January 6th committee is planning to make all their evidence public from what I've heard, and so that's great. And then that could help potentially DOJ with their investigation.

But it does seem DOJ is following a similar route right now to what the committee has pursued in terms of witnesses that they've brought in and things of that nature. And so I hope that that's the case so that they'll pursue that route.

LEMON: I thought it was interesting to go back to something that you said. You said you were in the White House when it happened. And you found out in real-time what was happening along with the American people yet you were there. What is the disconnect between what was happening in the west wing and happening with the president and the administration and, quite frankly, members of the administration and the American people? Because I found it fascinating that people weren't screaming at the top of their lungs, stop this. It seemed like everyone in the White House should have known what was going on.

MATTHEWS: Yes. I think I was a couple layers removed being a deputy press secretary. I wasn't necessarily in those meetings privy to some of these conversations that some people that were more senior to me would have been.

LEMON: Was there an effort to suppress it or it's just sort of -- it just happened that way?

MATTHEWS: I think there was an effort to suppress it. I think people on the campaign side as well were trying to tell the president, hey, you know what, there's no evidence here. Once all his litigation failed, there's no evidence to overturn the results of the election. And that's when you started to see President Trump not listen to those folks anymore and then start to listen more to the people who are feeding him conspiracies and lies, and it seems he's convinced himself of those lies.

COLLINS: And in this time since January 6th, what I was struck by that day is speaking with people, your colleagues in the White House, people were so freaked out by what happened that day. A lot of people who were like you were so upset by what happened, not all of them resigned. I wonder what you make of how you saw your colleagues actually react to that day versus how people may try to portray what we see today, how they try to downplay the committee given it is coming to an end?

MATTHEWS: Yes. I think that that day, my colleagues inside the White House and, you know, Republicans that I'm friends with on Capitol Hill, everyone across the board was equally disturbed. I mean, it was one of the darkest days I think in our nation's history. But I do think it's strange how now some people, you know, who were a couple years removed from it seemed to have short memories and not realize how big of a deal that day was.

And I think a lot of Republicans would rather move on from it, whitewash over the events of that day for political expediency, which is disappointing, because I do think that, like I said earlier, no one is above the law, Donald Trump needs to be held accountable and so do his co-conspirators.

COLLINS: Sarah Matthews, thanks for joining us this morning. We know have a lot to cover today. So, thanks for sharing your insight on that.

MATTHEWS: Thank you.

LEMON: Also this morning, the southern border, we need to talk about that, cities are extremely strained by a major migrant surge and it's about to get worse. Once controversial Title 42 border policy ends this week, officials are expecting thousands more migrants to arrive each day.

CNN's David Culver live in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, with more. David, good morning to you. What are you seeing and what are we expecting, sir?

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Don and Kaitlan. Right now, it's quiet. But we know, having been here on and off over the course of a month or so that that can change. And it can get to be a steady pace, even at this hour, in the 4:00 hour in the morning, the 5:00 hour in the morning, it doesn't matter.

People are still continuing along from what has been a very long journey, and I'll show you where they generally go. They go down here towards this path. We just saw a couple. Let me see if they're still there. They've gone down closer to the river bank side and then they'll cross right on over from the Mexico side, where we are right there into the U.S.

And one thing we've noticed that's different in the past month is that U.S. officials have put up this chain link fence. A little tough to see, but you can see it perhaps under the light. And that is what appears to be an effort to funnel some of the migrants that are coming across into one space so they can be processed.

But this is what I really found interesting landing here over the weekend on this side of the border, the U.S. Side, El Paso. Let me show you the airport. This is what I stepped off midnight Saturday into early Sunday morning, and you can see several dozen migrants camped out there on the airport floor.

[07:10:08]

And I talked to one of the security guards and they didn't seem fazed by it. They said on and off in recent weeks this has been common. You see hundreds of people throughout that city and a lot of them, of course, starting here for their journey to get over and they anticipate that that's going to continue over the next few days. And, certainly, the focus is going to be on Wednesday, when Title 42 is expected to officially end.

Now, this is another interesting comparison. If you look at what we saw from above back in mid-November when we were here, and this is the day side image of this river bank side that we are on in Mexico, and you can see hundreds of tents. These tents were there for several weeks, some several months. These were folks who were camped out waiting for the right time to cross.

Now, let me show you what we saw over the weekend and, again, from up above, cleared out, all empty, Don and Kaitlan. And that's because they decided to empty this space for what they consider to be security reasons and a lot of the folks, of course, had either continued on to get across -- actually, I'm just looking over here. Do you see this over here? Let's me see if you can go back out here live. And those folks that I mentioned over there have already crossed. So, they're changing out from what they were wearing, because it's likely wet and it's freezing temperatures, putting on a few more layers and then they'll continue on to be processed, Don and Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Yes. And are you hearing -- we're hearing such concern from officials on the U.S. side of the border. What are you hearing from officials there?

CULVER: Yes, there is concern here too and there's a strain and the reality of resources that this city is dealing with as well in Ciudad Juarez. And if you look at what some of the tensions have risen to, let me show you some of these images from late last month. This is that camp being cleared out, the one that was right behind me. And it was a clash with Mexican police. So, Mexican officials were trying to carry out efforts to clean up the river side as they see it, to get people moving along.

And asked the mayor here, I spoke with him over the weekend as well, is he keeping in touch regularly with his counterparts on the other in the U.S. Here is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR CRUZ PEREZ CUELLAR, CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO: We have a lot of communication and we work together.

CULVER: What is your biggest concern when it comes to Wednesday and what could happen with the lifting of Title 42?

CUELLER: The real concern, you know, the real problem we can have and we have talked with American authorities is they have to try to process them quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CULVER: He's saying to process them quickly. He's putting a lot of that on the American side of things. Of course, he said there's good relationship in trying to coordinate but he wants the American side to process them quickly. Why would he want that? Well, Don and Kaitlan, he doesn't want a back up here on the Mexican side. So, it seems an effort to continue people moving along.

LEMON: All right. David Culver on the border for us, thank you very much this morning.

We want to get to someone who knows a lot about this, and that is Will Hurd, he is a former Republican congressman from Texas and former undercover CIA officer. It's good to have you on, Congressman Hurd. Good to see you. And as I said, you know deeply about this problem serving as a Congressman there.

You're in a boarder state. What are you seeing there in Texas? How do you think officials have been preparing for the end of Title 42 coming in just two days?

FMR. REP. WILL HURD (R-TX): Well, the officials here are freaked out, to be honest, about the impact this is going to have on local communities. When I was in Congress, I represented all the way from Eagle Pass to El Paso and saw those images that you all were showing are things that I lived when I was in Congress.

And it's get some context of this. The city officials from El Paso over the weekend talked about how they were dealing with about 2,000 folks coming across the border illegally a day, that when Title 42 goes away, they are concerned that the Biden administration and officials are going to allow ultimately up to 4,000, 5,000, even preparing for 6,000 people a day. These are crazy numbers.

And to give context, I think we've all seen the clips of JEH JOHNSON, the former homeland security secretary under President Obama, who once said during a hearing that if they were seeing 1,000 apprehensions a day, that that would strain the system. That's over the entire system. And just in El Paso, we're seeing 2,000 now potentially going upwards.

This really is a crisis. I think President Biden, to show that there's going to be a change, he has to get rid of all of his officials that were involved in border security, I think that includes Secretary Mayorkas, because they have no credibility in the United States, they have no credibility outside the United States, and people outside the United States think that the U.S. has open borders, which it doesn't.

[07:15:09]

And these communities, places like El Paso, these are inhumane policies. I can make an argument that President Biden's policies are more inhumane than Donald Trump's, and Donald Trump's was horrible. It was the worst of any president before him, because you're going to be having thousands of people sleeping on the streets of El Paso, and starting this week, it's probably going to be below 20 degrees. That's an inhumane policy and they need to do more.

And one of the other areas that we're seeing, the relationship --

LEMON: Well, Congressman, give us a little time here. I understand you have a lot to say. You said a lot of things here and we want to respond to some of it, but give us a little time here to ask you some questions. Kaitlan, go on, over to you.

COLLINS: Well, I was going to ask you about if Biden has the legal authority to extend Title 42, but you are saying he needs to fire his homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas?

HURD: Yes, of course, but this crisis has escalated under him. There's other ways to do expedited removal. You also have Title 8 authorities and what a new secretary of homeland security should be coming and saying listen, we're going to use Title 8 authorities to the same level that we're using Title 42.

Right now, you're not seeing a number of expedited removals that border patrol is legally allowed to do. Expedited removals, where people that don't have the right documentation, that lied about why they were coming into the United States and had come into the country or have been apprehended within 14 days of coming into the country and somewhere within 100 miles off the border. This is a title and a policy that has been used for many administrations. And why the Biden administration is not using it to the same level of authority they can, I do not know.

LEMON: You said -- listen. You said that, you know, the Trump administration, that the policies were horrible, you think that the Biden administration is worse. But, listen, you're putting on -- basically on this administration, you said a lot about it, and the buck does stop with the president.

Well, here's a question, both Republicans and Democrats have been dealing with this issue for a long time. Republicans have blocked a lot of legislation when it comes to border security. So, shouldn't it be the Congress and lawmakers? Shouldn't some of the onus be on them to come together and work to fix this problem instead of using it as a political back and forth and using immigrants as political pawns?

HURD: 100 percent, Don, I agree with you, right? Like this is -- I've always said that, unfortunately, immigration is one of those issues that politicians would rather use as a political bludgeon against each other than solving the problems. And so, absolutely, we should be streamlining legal immigration. We should be making sure the right technology is on the border to prevent people from coming in illegally. We should be using and focusing all of our foreign aid to address those root causes that are causing people to come here -

LEMON: Why isn't that happening?

HURD: -- to the United States illegally.

Well, it's not happening because there's no political will to do that in Congress to do that. And I will say that there's a piece of legislation out there that would help alleviate it. I know it because I helped draft it. It was called the USA Act. And a Republican speaker prevented it from coming to the floor and it would have had 240 votes. But guess what? A Democratic speaker could have picked that same piece of legislation up and moved it and they chose not to do that as well.

So, again, this current crisis started under the previous administration. It's gotten worse under the current administration. And the leadership of Congress has responsibility for this over multiple leaders as well. So, this is something --

COLLINS: But, Congressman, Don makes a good point about Congress passing immigration reform, something that's been totally elusive to them and with both majorities. But when it comes to President Biden, we heard Senator Manchin yesterday saying that he believes he can extend Title 42 acting on some kind of an executive order, potentially. Does he have that legal authority to extend Title 42?

HURD: I think there was a recent court case that makes that a little trickier, in my opinion, however, you have Title 9. And you have those authorities under that where you can do the expedited removals, which is being done under Title 42. That's the authority that has existed. And why this administration is preferring to use Title 42 instead of the existing authorities, I do not understand the reasoning behind that.

And, look, I agree, our legislative leaders have work to do on this. But, ultimately, it's the executive branch that executes our immigration laws. And when you're not using those laws to the fullest extent, it's the responsibility of that administration.

[07:20:02]

The degradation of the relationship with Mexico, the bilateral relationship right now is probably at one of the worst parts, one of the worst times in recent history. That's another thing that is exacerbating this potential problem. How have we not been working with some of the countries where the majority of folks are coming from to address those root causes?

And so, again, I think everybody in government and it ultimately what the American people want to see, they want to see people that have common sense, solve problems and fix this issue because nobody wants to see people dying on the streets in El Paso because they froze to death.

LEMON: I think that's all true. Listen, I think they want to see lawmakers come together. There's a lot of blame to go around here, but, ultimately, it's up to lawmakers to work together on this. This is a bipartisan issue. Thank you, Congressman Hurd, we appreciate you joining us.

HURD: Always a pleasure.

LEMON: So, the House January 6th committee, and this why we're here, is set to vote on criminal referrals against former President Trump. The former deputy attorney general, Donald Ayers, is going to join us live with his reaction. That's next.

COLLINS: Plus, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed a global peace message but FIFA blocked him. And now he is firing back on why they refused to show his video message.

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[07:25:00]

LEMON: Welcome back, everyone, to CNN This Morning, and we are live in D.C., where just hours from now, the January 6th committee is expected to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department for the former president and others, as sources telling CNN that those charges include insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the federal government.

We want to turn now to the former deputy attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, and that's Donald Ayer. Good morning to you, sir. I said Ayers earlier, pardon me --

DONALD AYER, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: That's okay, not a problem.

LEMON: -- for adding the extra S on. We appreciate having you.

So, what do you think, as the committee is meeting, what do you think of the overall work, the importance and what they've accomplished so far?

AYER: Well, I think it's incredibly important. I think it's been, first and most obviously, very important in really educating the country in what went on. And you had these series of hearings one after another, each one focused in a very careful and thorough way on aspects of this effort, essentially, to overthrow our democratic system.

And what we saw, I think, was news to pretty much everybody in the sense that what it showed was that Donald Trump was at the center of the whole process. He was the driving force behind it. He was the one who, in each instance, for example, the phone call to Brad Raffensperger, the intervention in trying to get the Justice Department to do things, the phone calls to other state officials, one thing after another involved Donald Trump taking action on his own. And even more, it involved him doing it over the objections of his own handpicked people, people who saw what he was doing and said in various ways at different times that he shouldn't do it.

So, what you have here is a wonderful presentation staggered over time, so people could absorb it and people who watched it I think did absorb it. And I think it's changed the way people who are paying attention in this country think about the entire situation of what should be done with Donald Trump. So, I think we've reoriented the country in terms of thinking about it, obviously, he still has his supporters, they don't agree. I'm not trying to say everyone is convinced, nut many people who would have said before, if asked should Donald Trump be prosecuted, would have said, we can't do that. You can't go after. It's like a banana republic. You can't go after a former president. Well, now we know, because of the committee, what he did, and that he was at the hub of just about the worst thing that anyone could do if you want to attack the country, to destroy the democratic process of the United States of America. He was at the center of it.

And so now I think many people who would have said no, I don't really think it's -- even though I may not like him, and I don't think it's -- I think now people are adjusted to it. And I think that's not only significant for public opinion but I think it's very significant in terms of framing the decision for the folks at the Justice Department who now have to go forward.

COLLINS: And you worked at the Justice Department under President George H.W. Bush. I mean, you are well versed in this. So, that is a question of what does happen -- what happens today, what does it mean for Jack Smith, the special counsel and what he decides and does it increase pressure on him, potentially?

AYER: I would not think of it as increasing pressure. What I would think of it as -- the Justice Department has been doing and is going to do the job that it does. One of the things that's frustrated a lot of people is that the way it works, and appropriately so, is it works in private. It works under cover of silence. It doesn't go out and try -- even though Merrick Garland's predecessor, Bill Barr, did, in fact, publicly comment on ongoing investigations in a horrendous way, aimed at essentially supporting Donald Trump's re-election effort, that isn't the way the department works normally.

And Merrick Garland has been quiet and a lot of people who want it to see more happen have said, why hasn't he said anything, why isn't he moving forward? Well, we are now is we have this whole backdrop of what occurred and now it's now in the hands of the special counsel, which I think was a -- I wasn't necessarily in favor of it at the time but I think it was a prudent thing to do.

[07:30:06]