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Chaos Intensifies as U.S. Government Frozen Without a Speaker; CNN Reports, Suspect Seen Placing Garbage Bags in Neighbor's Bins; Biden Expands Trump-Era Border Restrictions in Crackdown. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired January 06, 2023 - 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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REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I think the American people, no matter how you vote, are sick and tired of drama, and this is nothing but drama.

We're on multiple days now with multiple candidates from this group. So, I'm not sure how Lauren Boebert on one hand can demand so much out of Kevin McCarthy but then demand nothing out of someone else and be willing to vote for them be speaker.

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DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Marjorie Taylor Greene saying the American people are sick of drama. Has Marjorie Taylor Greene met Marjorie Taylor Greene? I mean, that's rich. Three days, 11 rounds of voting and still no speaker. Good morning, everyone. Kaitlan is in Washington D.C., again. And Kevin McCarthy is suffering a historic defeat. Hours from now, what will happy ahead of the chamber's 12th vote?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: They're hoping that there's a glimmer of hope. There have been some very tense negotiations happening behind closed doors, questions of whether or not a final proposal may be on the horizon, something that McCarthy and some of the party holdouts can agree on. We'll wait to see if those hard liners can, of course.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And also this morning what we are learning about the suspect in the murder of those four college students in Idaho. What we've learned happened moments before his arrest and what witnesses saw. That is ahead.

COLLINS: Yes. But in just a few hours from now, the House is going to resume here today, still no speaker in place. Kevin McCarthy is going to try to succeed where he has failed 11 times over the last three days. Could the 12th one be the charm? It's not likely. Vote after vote McCarthy has not gained ground despite concessions to Republican holdouts who have kept him short of the 218 votes that he needs to win the gavel. McCarthy doesn't appear to be worried. He said there's no time line for getting the 218 but the speaker's contest is already the longest in 164 years. So, there are major questions at this hour on whether or not his time is running out.

CNN's Jessica Dean joins us now. That is the question because he says there's no time line. But the question is whether or not those who are voting for him are willing to keep doing so or whether or not there reaches a breaking point for them.

JEAN DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That is exactly right. And there is -- look, these moderates and people that have supported him say that they're going to be there but their patience is only going to go so long. Eventually, he needs to show progress. That's what he was hoping to do yesterday. And if you ask McCarthy and his allies, they'll tell you they did show progress because they're getting ever closer to a deal with some of these holdouts. But the fact remains they're just not quite there yet. Here's what he said last night when he was leaving the Capitol.

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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): No, no, I'm not putting any timeline on it. I just think we have got some progress going on. We have got members talking. I think we've got a little movement. So, we'll see.

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DEAN: So, again, this was intense negotiations yesterday. We saw a lot of these holdouts going in and out of meetings with McCarthy allies, McCarthy himself stepping in there, key concessions that he continues to give away. But, Kaitlan, the fact remains that, okay, if he peels off some of these people today, which he's hoping to do today, I think that you could say it's fair to say the goal today is to solidify this deal and get at least, let's say, 10 or 12 of the 20 over on his side. Do the math. You still have to get to 218. He can only afford to lose four. So, he's still has to bring more over.

And, again, to your point, some of these more moderates are starting to get a little twitchy about all the things he's giving away. So, we're going to see how he continues to kind of do the splits here to try to win.

COLLINS: Yes, some coveted gavels. And I know on Capitol Hill that math is the point here, where even if he makes that progress, I guess the question is they could have pressured maybe on those remaining. But when Marjorie Taylor Greene says she thinks there are still going to be six absolute nos, I think that sends a message.

DEAN: That's right. Six absolute nos when he can only afford to lose four.

COLLINS: Yes. Jessica Dean, you have a busy day ahead of you, so thank you so much for joining us. Don, Poppy, I mean, just a remarkable moment playing out. LEMON: Yes, it certainly is. And we have to remember all of this is playing out, Kaitlan, on today, which marks two years since the attack on the Capitol. And some of the same people who voted against the certification of an election are up to their same tricks right now, ignoring the people's business. And if the inmates are running the asylum, it is Kevin McCarthy who helped hand over the keys to him.

Here's how. His leadership PAC has given more than $300,000 to 17 of the 20 Republicans refusing to vote for him to be speaker. One of the largest recipients is perhaps the ring leader of the group, and that is Scott Perry. He's gotten $50,000 for his campaigns in the past decade. And when it comes to some of the others, McCarthy defended many or remained silent when they were accused of inciting violence, except in private, didn't say anything publicly.

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Audio obtained by The New York Times reveal that McCarthy urged Republican leaders on a private call to monitor the public statements of lawmakers, such as Matt Gaetz, and alert him of any potentially dangerous messages.

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MCCARTHY (voice over): The tension is too high, the country is too crazy. I do not want to look back and think we caused something or missed something and someone got hurt. I don't want to play politics with any of that.

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LEMON: And, again, McCarthy called some of these fringe members a threat to their colleagues in private, but in public, he refused to punish folks like Paul Gosar, who posted a video depicting the murder of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. McCarthy opposed a resolution to censure him and remove him from committees.

And it's not just McCarthy. Fox media, which is a mouthpiece and agenda-setter for the party, has highlighted and put a spotlight on many of these Republicans for years. Take, for instance, Lauren Boebert. She and Hannity got into it over her opposition to McCarthy. Watch.

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REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): Kevin McCarthy does not have 218 votes.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: And you have 20.

BOEBERT: Kevin McCarthy will not be speaker. I -- Kevin McCarthy does not have 218.

HANNITY: I asked you a very specific question. If by Friday you don't have 30 --

BEOBERT: I will not, Sean. I will not withdraw. (END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Here's the thing, though, right, when you create the monster. The problem is Hannity has personally hosted Boebert at least four times since she has been elected, and Matt Gaetz, well, he has appeared on Fox a lot, more than 180 times since taking office in 2017.

So, if McCarthy handed the keys to the inmates. The Fox network gave them a map of the facilities. And perhaps the most noteworthy of all, the one who arguably gave birth to these hard liners is, of course, Donald Trump. He wants McCarthy. But they're not listening to the warden either.

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BOEBERT: Even having my favorite president call us and tell us we need to knock this off, I think it actually needs to be reversed. The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, sir, you do not have the votes and it's time to withdraw.

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LEMON: And here's Gaetz last night.

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REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): I love President Trump. I defended him a great deal in Congress, but H.R. wasn't always his strong suit.

I think President Trump is wrong to the extent that he supports Kevin McCarthy.

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LEMON: And in case there's any doubt that the wing doesn't have a plan or cohesive strategy, watch.

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GAETZ: So, I nominate President Trump because we must make our country great again.

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LEMON: Gaetz nominating the man who helped inspire the insurrection on the eve of the two-year anniversary. It says volumes.

COLLINS: It does. It's the kind of moment you can't miss, Don.

LEMON: Yes, right on.

COLLINS: And one of the people who you laid out there, Don, so well, the people that have been playing a central role in this, one of the people who say that they regret the role in the rise of the way the Republican Party looks now is the former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, who is joining us here.

When you look at what's happening, and Don was just going through kind of what has set McCarthy up for this moment, you believe that McCarthy is the reason that he is in this position right now?

FMR. REP. JOE WALSH (R-IL): Kaitlan, I think it's a perfect storm of the fact that you have got seven to eight members who would blow up that chamber if it would get them on Tucker Carlson's show, combined with the fact that McCarthy is weak and pretty untrustworthy. And that goes back to when I was in Congress, eight, nine, ten years ago. Members over the years just don't trust him because he'll say anything to anybody.

But, Kaitlan, this cannot be said enough. Gaetz, Boebert and a handful of these members love this. They love what's going on right now. In fact, these people would prefer to be in the minority so they'd have an opposition. They could go on Fox News about it and yell about it every night.

COLLINS: Yes. Well, some of them have said they'd be okay if it was eventually like a Hakeem Jeffries as the speaker of the House, because then they have a foil. But does part of this predate Trump? I know Trump gets a lot of credit for so much of this, but a lot of this is -- these are house freedom caucus vibes when John Boehner in 2015 and what it looked like when he was pushed from power.

WALSH: This goes back to the tea party caucus and then the freedom caucus in 2010-2012. And we made life hell for Boehner. But, my God, we wanted to be in the majority and we made life hell for Boehner, but it was always about policy, balancing the budget, limiting government spending.

There's no policy with Gaetz and Boebert and the rest of these hardliners now.

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It's literally all about being on Fox News, being on conservative talk radio. Kaitlan, they love this. I've spoken to a few members, though -- I mean, most of the Republican caucus knows this makes the Republican Party look bad.

COLLINS: What about like a Chip Roy or someone who is saying, actually, the reason we want to change this is because we fundamentally want to change the rules. We want more members to have a voice. That's what Brian Mast, who is voting for McCarthy, told me the other day.

WALSH: Chip Roy harkens back to what we were like eight, nine years ago, it's about policy, it's about process to him. Chip Roy, Kaitlan, knows what's going on right now is making this party look bad. But you have got the seven to eight to nine, Boebert, Gaetz, and the rest of them, who just don't give a damn. They want this.

COLLINS: And it's going more -- they have got more momentum, I think, than they initially believe. That's the concern I've heard from some McCarthy allies that I've been speaking with.

Even once this gets resolved, what does it look like, do you think, for the next two years? Are we basically seeing what the next two years of governing look like here in Washington?

WALSH: Kaitlan, this is a distraction. Because think about this, Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene are on opposite sides of the speaker debate. The minute this thing is over, they're allies again. They're all allies and they all want to investigate Hunter's laptop, they all want Fauci's head. It's way more than just these 20. So, when we get into all of these substantive battles and all the investigative stuff the next two years, it won't be 20, it'll be over 100 because the mega caucus of this party is a hell of a lot bigger than 20.

COLLINS: We'll see what it means for Republicans in the next election. I've heard implications for 2024. Joe Walsh, thank you for joining us on this morning and for joining us here on Capitol Hill.

WALSH: Thank you.

HARLOW: This morning, new details also from the affidavit offer really a much clearer picture into what happened on the night of the murder of the four college students in Idaho. We've also learned about a surveillance operation that led to the arrest of the suspect who was seen placing garbage bags into neighbors' bins.

John Miller, CNN Law Enforcement Analyst, is with us. Thanks very much.

The affidavit said so much because we didn't know much in terms of how they got to this suspect and why.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: The affidavit is the anatomy of a modern criminal investigation. I mean, how many times over the last seven weeks did we heard people say the case isn't going anywhere, the police aren't telling us anything, why isn't this solved already. But the affidavit tells us that, really, from the day of the murder, they start with the video canvas, then they develop pictures of a white Hyundai Elantra. Okay, it's a car, not a person, they don't have a plate. But then they ask other police departments to look for that car. College police officer finds one, they then look at the owner of that car.

On December 23rd, they get the cell phone records showing the owner of that car has been what appears to be from the records staked out in the area of that murder house a dozen times since August. So, they start to zero in on Bryan Kohberger. But when you get into the affidavit, the chilling details, downstairs surviving witness hears crying upstairs and a voice saying, it's okay, I'm here to help you, the dog barking, more crying, and then sees a figure clad in black walk out the door through the sliding glass wearing a black mask, it's frightening even to read.

LEMON: It turns out as people were saying -- and I guess everyone sort of thought what's going on? Doesn't anyone know anything? Isn't there any evidence? It turns out there was a lot that they were working on that we just weren't aware of.

MILLER: A whole lot. But just like -- and I've been in cases like this before, where you have great leads and they fizzle and then you have other leads working and them one of them starts to pan out. It was a lot of evidence but it came in bits at a time. And then, literally, two days before Christmas, really accelerates.

But some of the interesting things that haven't come out in the affidavit, they're staked out in Pennsylvania at Bryan Kohberger's house at -- at his family's house at a very rural area. And the surveillance team that's watching from a pretty great distance sees him come out and clean the car from top to bottom, inside and out, using surgical gloves to handle items as if the car was about to be sold almost. They see him taking out the trash at 4:00 in the morning, Bryan Kohberger himself, and then putting it in the neighbor's bin next door.

And why is he under surveillance? One, they're waiting to get probable cause to arrest him so he doesn't get away, disappear, they don't have to find him, but more importantly they're there to see if they can recover that abandonment sample, something they threw away that would have his DNA on it.

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That's why they went to the trash, collected it and made that match that allowed the judge to okay that warrant.

LEMON: The most important thing, though, is motive.

MILLER: So, we still don't have motive. And the clue to that is not only, Don, is it not in the affidavit but, Poppy, they came out, the day they announced the arrest and said, now, who knows something about this guy who can share it with us because they're still trying to get into that.

One other thing that nobody has talked about, Pennsylvania authorities are looking at this case that happened on the other side of the country but saying this guy lived here. And based on the offender characteristics of quadruple murder done with some efficiency in the dark, they don't believe that that is his first encounter with violence. Most killers don't start off with something like that.

HARLOW: You're right.

MILLER: So, they're going back through unsolved cases in Pennsylvania to say what fits an M.O., what fits the pattern, what fits the offender characteristics of the crime scene to see, do we have an unsolved case that fits here because now we have things we didn't have. We have a name, we have DNA, we have things to compare.

HARLOW: Wow, you're right, no one is talking about that. John Miller, thank you. We're grateful for your analysis.

President Biden facing growing pressure to deal with the surge at the border. We'll talk to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, he joins us now, about the administration's new immigration crackdown. That is right after this break.

Also this.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead and go over the cot. I don't like how he went down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to need everybody, all call, all call.

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LEMON: If you're going to want to hear this, it's new audio from the emergency response after Bills Safety Damar Hamlin collapsed. The latest on his condition, next.

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LEMON: So, this morning, CNN obtaining new audio of the urgent moments after Buffalo Bills Safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field. Emergency workers wasting no time coming to his aid.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead and go over the cot. I don't like how he went down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to need everybody, all call, all call.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come bring everybody. We need everybody. Bring the cot with the medics, all of you and get wheeled out here.

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LEMON: Hamlin's doctor say that he is making substantial improvement but he still faces many phases of recovery.

To CNN's Coy Wire now live in Orchard Park, New York, with more on this. Coy, good morning to you. It is amazing how this quick response saved Damar. How are his teammates reacting now?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes. Don, incredible work in that moment. The players are actually calling the trainer Denny Kellington, who leapt in and administered that life saving CPR as one of the heroes. Bills Coach Sean McDermott said that Denny is an assistant trainer. And for him to have the poise, preparation and fearlessness to step up in that moment is profound.

Now, as for the players, Don, it is easy to lead, right, on sunny days but great leadership shines even in the darkest storms despite being whipped by those winds of agitation. And it is powerful to hear how this team is processing all of this. We've seen, Don and Poppy, more and more professional athletes recently being open and honest about emotions, pain, Naomi Osaka, Olympian Simone Biles, prioritizing her mental health over medal count. And now this NFL team, these players, this coach making the unprecedented decision to quit playing in the middle of a game, demonstrating we don't have to play on just because that's what's always been done. Buffalo has smashed the status quo.

Here's how team Captain Josh Allen assesses how they're processing all of this.

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JOSH ALLEN, QUARTERBACK, BUFFALO BILLS: We have had some very open and honest and deep talks, some unbelievable, it sounds weird, but embraces as men, just hugging somebody and actually leaning into them. There's been a lot of that going around. And you need every bit of it. You really do. And, again, I think the fact that we just keep hearing good news about Damar, it just keeps pushing us forward.

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WIRE: So, they push on and push forward. About 48 hours from now, they're going to be stepping out on that field and they're going to be play for Damar. Their father told them, do it for -- Josh Allen said he's demanding that they go out there and do this for Damar Hamlin.

LEMON: Coy Wire, thank you so much. You've been really terrific on this story. We appreciate it.

WIRE: Thanks, Don.

HARLOW: He really has.

All right, President Biden has unveiled the new border plan that both accepts but also expels thousands more migrants. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is with us live next to discuss.

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HARLOW: Welcome back to CNN This Morning. President Biden has announced new immigration restrictions, including a program to expel migrants from four countries who fail to use the plan's legal pathways. At the same time, it expands a program to accept migrants from those countries who come legally. This all comes as the president, this administration faces growing pressure to confront the surge at the border.

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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Today, my administration is taking a several steps to stiffen enforcement for those who try to come without a legal right to stay.

My message is this. If you're trying to leave Cuba, Nicaragua, or Haiti or have agreed to begin a journey to America, do not, do not just show up at the border.

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HARLOW: So, this new program effectively expands the controversial Trump-era border restriction known as Title 42. But this is what President Biden said to reporters just yesterday.

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BIDEN: I don't like Title 42. But it's the law now. I have to operate within it.

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HARLOW: Our Rosa Flores, who has reported extensively on the border, joins me this morning from Houston. Good morning, Rosa Help us understand this because we thought the administration didn't like 42, it's in the hands of the Supreme Court now. What does this mean for Title 42?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it is effectively an expansion of Title 42. And, Poppy, in reaction to this program has been mixed. This is Republican Governor Greg Abbott calling it a band- aid, which really echoes a sentiment from other Republicans who say this is just not enough.

And immigration advocates on the border will tell you that they're disappointed of the Biden administration because, in essence, they say that this is the Biden administration using a Trump-era tool to manage the border when President Biden campaigned on much more humane policies and Human Rights First on the border has documented that thousands of instances of violent acts against migrants who have been expelled into Mexico under Title 42.

But here's the policy in a nutshell, Poppy. In essence, there are 30,000 slots from those four countries that you mentioned, Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua, that the United States will allow to enter.

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But there will be vetting, they will have to apply, they will need sponsors.