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Trump Pardons January 6th Insurrectionists; Trump Kickstarts New Term with Wide-Ranging Executive Orders. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired January 21, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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


KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Tuesday, January 21. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

[06:00:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These people have been destroyed. What they've done to these people is outrageous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Sweeping pardons. Donald Trump delivering on his promise to pardon nearly every single person charged in the January 6th riots.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The golden age of America begins right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Power moves. President Trump signs a bundle of orders to immediately reshape American policy.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: People are going to come pouring through the wall like nobody's ever seen before.

I made it my No. 1 issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Border emergency. The new commander in chief immediately closes a key pathway for asylum seekers at the Southern border.

And then --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.

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HUNT: Two genders. Trump takes immediate action on a big issue at the center of America's culture wars.

Six a.m. here on the East Coast, a live look at the United States Capitol. Welcome to the Trump era, Trump era two.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Promises made, promises kept. President Donald Trump, just hours into his second term, making good on this signature campaign pledge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So, this is January 6th, and these are the hostages. Approximately 1,500 for a pardon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TRUMP: Full pardon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Full pardon of commutations?

TRUMP: Full pardon. We have about six commutations in there, where we're doing further research. Maybe it'll stay that way, or it'll go to a full pardon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That, the president of the United States signing an executive order granting clemency to almost 1,500 people convicted or charged in connection with the deadly assault on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pull them this way. Pull them. (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

DANIEL HODGES, METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICER: Ow!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The clemency includes more than 600 people who were found guilty of assaulting or impeding police officers.

The president also commuting the sentences of 14 far-right extremists who were convicted or charged with seditious conspiracy. Among them, members of the Oath Keepers, including their leader, Stewart Rhodes. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, sentenced to 22 years in prison, received a full pardon.

The executive order also expected to end more than 300 ongoing prosecutions. President Trump, so eager to see the pardons enacted that he insisted

the order be delivered before he would continue signing others.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, this is an executive --

TRUMP: Can we get that down so they can get them going right now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: That OK?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: As news of Trump's action broke, family members and supporters of those imprisoned for charges related to January 6th, they gathered outside the jail here in D.C.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): And the home of the brave.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): And the home of the brave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): And the home of the brave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Just three hours after Trump put pen to paper, the first people convicted of violent crimes during the assault on the Capitol walked free.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL INGRASSIA, WHITE HOUSE LIAISON TO THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: This is after President Trump signed his pardon today. It's official: they are released.

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HUNT: That's Paul Ingrassia, the new Trump White House's liaison to the Justice Department, announcing the freedom of Matthew and Andrew Valentin.

Just last week, those brothers were sentenced to two and a half years each after pleading guilty to assaulting police officers.

The allegations: they rushed the police line. They pushed a metal barricade into a line of Capitol Police officers. One of them grabbed a police baton and tried to wrest it away, and also sprayed a chemical irritant at the cops.

[06:05:06]

The other brother? Yes, he threw a chair at the police.

CNN has reached out to their attorneys. We've not yet received a response.

Metropolitan Police Office Michael Fanone, among those injured by the rioters on January 6th last year. Daniel Rodriguez pleaded guilty to assaulting Fanone with a stun gun, tasing him in the neck, and he was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison.

Last night, Rodriguez received an unconditional pardon from Donald Trump. Here's how Officer Fanone reacted after learning about the pardon last night on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL FANONE, FORMER METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICER: I have been betrayed by my country, and I have been betrayed by those that supported Donald Trump. Whether you voted for him because he promised these pardons or for some other reason, you knew that this was coming. And here we are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Here we are, indeed.

My panel is here: Jonah Goldberg, CNN political commentator, co- founder of "The Dispatch"; Tara Palmeri, senior political correspondent for "Puck"; Kate Bedingfield, CNN political commentator, former communications director for the Biden White House; and Brad Todd, CNN political commentator and a Republican strategist.

Welcome to all of you. Thanks very much for being here.

Jonah Goldberg, I'd actually like to start with you, because, you know, if you had told me in January -- on January 6th, 2021, or really any day before that day unfolded, that Republicans were going to be pardoning people who violently assaulted police officers, I would have told you that you were living on a different planet than the one that I was living on.

What did we just see happen here?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. So, I'll just be clear. I think yesterday is a first in American history, where two presidents have so abused their pardon power as to make me want to amend the Constitution to get rid of the pardon power.

James Madison, during the debates over the ratification of the Constitution, said that a president who used the pardon power to advance, you know, essentially criminal or selfish schemes for his own benefit should be subject to impeachment.

I think both of them deserve -- did -- did an impeachable offense yesterday. This is grotesque. I fully expected a thousand people to get pardons

or clemency of some kind or another, the nonviolent ones; you know, the ones where it was a gray area, and stuff like that. But the blanket pardons for all of them is, I think, just flatly indefensible.

And -- and it's going to have just -- both of the pardons, both Biden's and Trump's, are going to have unbelievable moral hazard, knock-on effects and set terrible precedents going forward.

HUNT: Let's look at what a couple of Republicans had to say about the distinction you're making there between those who were not violent on that day, or at least not violent towards police officers, and others.

Let's start with Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House. This was a little bit -- just over this weekend. Watch.

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KRISTEN WELKER, HOST, NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": Mr. Speaker, do you believe that someone who assaulted a law enforcement officer on January 6th deserves a pardon?

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): No. I think what the president said and the vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, has said, is that peaceful protesters should be pardoned, but violent criminals should not. That's -- that's a simple determination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: A simple determination, he says. Let's then look at what he was referencing, which was J.D. Vance talking about this same issue. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's very simple. Look, if you protested peacefully on January the 6th, and you had Merrick Garland's Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned.

If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn't be pardoned.

And there's a little bit of a gray area there, but we're very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law. And there are a lot of people, we think, in the wake of January the 6th, who were prosecuted unfairly. We need to rectify that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Tara Palmeri, that interview was nine days ago. That man's now vice president of the United States. It seems to suggest he had no idea what was going on inside the Trump team at the time, because they clearly have been working on these pardons for a while.

TARA PALMERI, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "PUCK": Right. HUNT: What does it say here that, you know, Republicans -- and what's

Mike Johnson going to have to say today?

PALMERI: Well, this is going to be the issue for the next four years. How are Republicans going to react to everything that Donald Trump does?

I do think, though, you know, Biden's pardon 15 minutes before the inauguration gave Trump a little bit more of a leeway when it comes to the ability to pardon, you know, violent offenders, in the sense that, like, a lot of people are going to say, well, look at what we just saw from Biden. Now, maybe, perhaps Trump.

But a lot of these Republicans cannot keep up with Trump. And we saw that in the first term. You know, he says one thing; he does another. He changes his mind at the last minute. They perhaps were doing this all along but didn't keep their -- their team in -- in -- in, you know, in communication. Or maybe it was a last-minute decision.

But I think Trump wanted to absolve all of these January 6th pardoners of their sins, because he's attached to that. Everything that they did, he was the leader of that. So, he needs to, like, move that aside so that he can be, you know, cleared himself.

[06:10:03]

HUNT: Well, to -- to the point that he talked about, well, if they have weapons in -- in that crowd. He said, take down the mags, right, at the Ellipse, because he knew -- he was like, these people are not here to -- these people are here for me. They're not here to hurt me.

PALMERI: Right.

HUNT: Brad Todd, I'm going to put Kate Bedingfield on the spot on Biden in a second. So, I just would like to kind of -- I understand that there's some ties to these. That these things are going to end up being tied together.

But I really am interested in your assessment. I mean, you work with candidates, you know, across the ballot, right, up and down, Republicans.

Is there going to be a price, a political price to pay for the sweeping nature of what Trump did: pardoning violent offenders, as well as the leaders of some of these groups that were convicted of seditious conspiracy?

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the 14 commutations and maybe a couple dozen others are going to be controversial.

And I think that you may see Republican elected officials -- you will see a lot of Republican officials come out against those.

CNN's own reporting says that the majority of these people were peaceful. They were -- they were just wandering around the Capitol, sucked up in the mob. Most of them have already served their jail time. And this -- this is really a formality for those people.

But I do think there will be about three dozen or four dozen of these that are going to be politically sticky, and you'll see Republicans oppose them.

But the real problem for a lot of Republicans, what I'm hearing is that this drowned out a lot of good that happened yesterday. Donald Trump stepped on his own good news.

You know, most of his --

HUNT: We're not playing his speech here, right?

TODD: His executive orders yesterday also made a huge impact and kept his promises on the border. He undid a lot of Joe Biden's bad executive orders. We would be talking about those without the January 6th pardons being done today.

HUNT: He did promise it on day one, of course.

So, I do -- again. We are -- as Jonah noted, we saw two sets of pardons yesterday. President Biden preemptively pardoning January 6th Select Committee members, as well as members of his own family.

Donald Trump was asked about that by a reporter as the pool was watching him last night in the Oval Office, signing more of these executive orders. Let's watch what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I was surprised that President Biden would go and pardon his whole family, because that makes him look very guilty. I could have pardoned my family. I could have pardoned myself, my family. And I said, if I do that, it's going to make me look very guilty. I don't think I'd be sitting here, frankly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Kate Bedingfield, a pretty frank political assessment from President Trump there. What has -- I mean, how do you feel about Biden pardoning his family members, especially on the way out, in a preemptive way? And, you know, how much damage do you think he did? How much damage do you think Democrats think he did?

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It was a disappointing move. I was disappointed in it. I think he has spoken so eloquently about the need to preserve the rule of law.

He -- as he was coming into office in 2020, he talked about the idea of Trump pardoning his family and said that it would send a bad message. And I think it's hard to argue that it didn't yesterday. I will be totally candid. I think it was disappointing.

I also think you have to recognize that we are now in a Trump 2.0 era, where Trump has been very clear that he intends to use the arm of -- the arm, the long arm of the government, to go after his political enemies. And I can understand why Joe Biden might look at his family and say, I'm going to do everything in my power to protect them on the way out the door. I think as a human matter, I can understand that argument.

I think politically, I don't buy the argument that somehow, what Biden did yesterday gives more leeway to Donald Trump. Donald Trump was going to come in and issue a blanket pardon for people who assaulted police officers in the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. It did not matter what Joe Biden did or did not do. That was going to happen. And that's something that Donald Trump's going to own.

And I think, first of all, it clearly puts a lot of Republicans who have said that you should not give a pardon to somebody who assaulted a police officer --

HUNT: Yes, police officers that, by the way --

BEDINGFIELD: -- in a bad spot.

HUNT: -- protecting people like Mike Johnson on that day.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes, exactly, exactly.

But I also -- I actually -- I think Trump is -- is misreading what swept him into office here. And the fact that he's not spending -- he didn't spend his first day talking about what he's going to do to lower prices or, you know, highlighting the executive orders that he signed that he claims are going to lower prices.

I think his base wanted to see what he did yesterday. I think the -- actually, the vast majority of people who voted for him were uncomfortable with January 6th but said, I think the different direction he's going to take the country on the economy is what matters. And I think he's misreading, and I actually think that's going to be a political vulnerability for him moving forward.

TODD: January 20th -- January 2020, or 2021 has always been an Achilles for Donald Trump, and it's always held him back from his better days, talking about what he wanted to do for the American people.

I think a lot of Republicans are hoping that, now this is out of his system, right, that now he can turn the page from the 2020 election; he can move forward. This is -- he's -- he's used all his power to put -- put it into the book. And so, now let's see if he can move onto other things.

HUNT: I'll believe it when I see it.

PALMERI: Yes, I think it's interesting to what you brought up about the fact that he could have pardoned himself in advance. He talked about it. He thought about it back in 2020.

But I think he didn't have that political power. He can't -- He left on such a low note.

But he has such a strong mandate right now. I think he feels like he can -- he's invincible. And that's why he took that step.

But I think Donald Trump, even he understands that he won't have that power in a few months.

[06:15:03]

HUNT: Jonah, I want to give you the last word.

GOLDBERG: Yes. Look, I mean, Brad, I -- you know, I love you, man. This -- this -- this --

TODD: Uh-oh.

GOLDBERG: This -- this eternal dream, this Lucy-and-the-football eternal dream, this "Waiting for Godot"-like desire to see Trump pivot to be a responsible, you know -- "today, he's now president of everybody" moment. It hasn't happened. I don't think it's going to happen. This is an Aesopian thing. His nature is his nature.

And he will -- he craves -- he would much rather positive attention than negative attention, but he'll take negative attention over no attention any day.

So, he will create many, many, many more moments that create bowel- stewing panic for Republican candidates, trying to figure out what to say.

TODD: I'm an American optimist.

GOLDBERG: Bless your heart.

HUNT: All right. This is the first full day of the Trump administration. And here we are.

All right. Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, from gender to censorship, and even electric vehicles. President Trump wasting no time on some of the cultural issues that galvanized his base during the campaign.

Plus, the president trying to end birthright citizenship. So, what about the 14th Amendment protecting it?

And the big rollback of President Biden's four years of policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'll revoke nearly 80 destructive and radical executive actions of the previous administration, one of the worst administrations in history. Maybe the -- not one of them. The worst.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[06:20:50]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Protecting women from radical gender ideologies.

TRUMP: Ooh.

They'll have 100 percent tariff if they so much as even think about doing what they thought.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This next order relates to the definition of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment of the United States.

TRUMP: That's a good one. It's ridiculous. We're the only country in the world that does this with birthright.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. With just a stroke of a Sharpie, President Donald Trump looking to dramatically reshape American policy on his first day in office, signing dozens of orders, from delaying the TikTok ban to withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization.

His actions delivering on campaign promises and then some. The vast scope, all part of what Trump declared as the beginning of a golden age of America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal.

Today, I will sign a series of historic executive orders. With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It's all about common sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, Jonah, obviously the -- the details here are what will ultimately end up being important. But the way of governing that has emerged here, where, you know, you just on day one, you walk in, you undo everything the guy before you did with the pen and the phone, because Congress -- I mean, they've got their own -- they've relinquished a lot of their own responsibility. We can blame them for that.

But Trump is going to have taken some significant actions here. What of this should we be paying attention to here? And what is your sort of big-picture sense of what it all means?

GOLDBERG: Yes, I've been complaining about this -- this tendency -- I started writing columns about this about 15 years ago -- of people -- candidates in primaries pledging all these things they're going to do on day one, as if we live in a plebiscitary parliamentary system, where you're voting -- you vote for this person and --

HUNT: It's the first time that word has been used on this set, for the record --

GOLDBERG: -- and they're all going to just play.

TODD: And the last.

GOLDBERG: Oh, I'll use it again.

And like, but it's this idea that like somehow, you know, like Kamala Harris said on day one, we're going to take all the guns or whatever. No, you're not, because that's not how our system works. Right?

And similarly, a lot of these things just don't work, right? I mean, like the birthright citizenship thing, there are going to be more lawsuits, more -- the Supreme Court's not going to get his back on that.

So, a lot of these things are essentially press releases that kick the can to the courts or to Congress to clean up the mess, but he gets the credit on day one; sets this expectation that he's done some of these things.

And then there are other things that are real that he's actually done, or can do. And I think this is one of the distinctions that the press really needs to keep in mind: is that there are things the president has the authority to do, but maybe not the ability to do. And there are things that he has both.

He can issue an executive order about the gender stuff throughout the bureaucracy, I think, pretty easily. I mean, some lawyers may correct me on that.

Deporting 10 million, 12 million people, regardless if he has the authority -- and I think he has some authority -- that is a massive coordination, political challenge, where you have to get law enforcement at every level of government to work together. You need funding from Congress to provide all sorts of things they don't have.

HUNT: I was going to say, they're already saying they can't even implement the Laken Riley Act.

GOLDBERG: A stroke of a pen doesn't do any of that.

TODD: But a lot of things he did yesterday on the regulatory front, that is the way you do it. And it has to be done with the pen and the phone.

There are things on the asylum program that Joe Biden screwed up in his first couple of months in office, that Donald Trump will now undo, and that will have a meaningful effect if you care about the border.

There are a lot of things on energy that Biden did in his first couple of months that Trump undid yesterday, or proactively went further. That will have a big signaling effect on people investing in American energy projects.

Some of it is -- is hooey, right? But the birthright citizenship is not going to be ended. I'm a strict constructionist, and strictly reading the Constitution, it's pretty clear what it says. And it's also pretty clear from the debate in 1868 when they passed

the 14th Amendment, that they considered this, and they decided to do it anyway.

So, the Supreme Court will strike that one down. It will be there as fast as it can get there.

So, some of this was signaling, much like Joe Biden trying to say the ERA is added to the Constitution by executive order on his last day. It's -- that's -- a lot of that's just showmanship.

HUNT: And the archives had to say, well, actually, no, it's not been ratified.

TODD: Executive orders have become showmanship, in addition to actually running the government.

[06:25:04]

BEDINGFIELD: Yes. Their message, I mean, Jonah's -- Jonah's point is right there. They're largely messaging vehicles. I shouldn't say largely. Many of them are messaging vehicles that are going to run into reality in the courts.

This issue of the president doesn't have appropriation authority. So, you can sign a piece of paper saying, we're going to deport every person who wasn't born in the United States, but he doesn't --

GOLDBERG: Or create DOGE.

BEDINGFIELD: But he doesn't have -- or create DOGE. But he doesn't have the money to fund it until the Congress moves.

So, it's -- it's messaging vehicle. Every president -- I mean, look, when we came into the Biden administration, we spent the first week laying out executive orders.

Because you have this moment where you command the stage, and you want to communicate to people, here's what we're going to focus on.

And he's doing that. But a lot of it will be -- a lot of it will meet reality very quickly.

HUNT: All right. Still coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, a Southern snowstorm. Some 40 million people dealing with winter weather like this today.

Plus, Donald Trump's new action on the border. The former acting director of U.S. Customs and Immigration [SIC] -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement is going to join us live.

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