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CNN This Morning
President Trump Defends Pardoning Violent January 6 Rioters; Evacuation Warning Just Issued As New Fire Erupts In L.A.; Trump Brushes Off Concerns Over China's Access To TikTok Data. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired January 23, 2025 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:34]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Its Thursday, January 23rd.
Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They were treated like the worst criminals in history. They knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote.
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HUNT: Standing firm. The president still defending his January 6th pardons as one, just released. Far right leader returns to the Capitol.
Plus --
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TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: So that's a game they want to play? Game on.
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HUNT: Immigration showdown. The presidents team rolls out their border blueprint, setting up court battles across the country.
And --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fire remains a difficult fire to contain.
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HUNT: Another scorching fire turning the Golden State skies red again.
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HUNT: All right. It is 5:00 a.m. here on the East Coast. A beautiful live look at the U.S. Capitol Dome on this Thursday.
Good morning everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
Donald Trump standing behind his sweeping pardons and commutations for January 6th rioters. Those pardons, issued just hours after the president reentered the White House. And they included hundreds of people convicted for felonies for violence against police officers that day.
In an interview on Fox News, the president calls the whole thing a hoax.
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TRUMP: You had 1,500 people that suffered. That's a lot of people. This was a political hoax. And you know what? Those people and I'm not saying in every single case, but there was a lot of patriotism with those people, a lot of patriots.
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HUNT: Now, with those newly signed pardon commutations, some of those set free. Going back to Capitol Hill, among them, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far right militia group who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy for his actions that day and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Now, he's meeting with lawmakers in the building. He was found guilty of helping attack and repeating conspiracies about the 2020 election being stolen.
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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So bottom line, no regrets?
STEWART RHODES, OATH KEEPERS FOUNDER: Well, I don't regret standing up for my country. I don't regret calling out the election as what it was which was stolen, illegal and unconstitutional. It violated many, many state election laws.
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HUNT: With hundreds of people now walking out of jails and prisons, the police officers who were attacked and who testified at their trials are seeing their own lives upended.
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JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MESSAGE TO AQUILINO GONELL: Please be advised that the offender is scheduled to be released on January 21st, 2025.
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HUNT: That's a voicemail that was left for the man that you see in this video here. Former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant -- Staff Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, who was attacked by rioters on January 6th while defending the Capitol. That automated message was informing him that the man he testified against at trial, who was sentenced to six years in prison, was being set free.
And he has received more than that. He posted this image on social media saying that each call and email that you see was a notification for a different person getting released. Now, Gonell and more than 140 officers injured during the attack are reliving that day.
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DANIEL HODGES, OFFICER ATTACKED ON JANUARY 5, 2021: I was beaten, crushed, kicked, punched, surrounded. Someone reached underneath my visor, tried to gouge out my eye.
And all these people were just pardoned by Donald Trump who says that they were the real victims, that they were the patriots.
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HUNT: All right. Joining us now to talk about this is Catherine Lucey, White House reporter for "The Wall Street Journal".
Catherine, good morning.
CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Good morning.
HUNT: He goes on to say there that he just doesn't understand what has happened here. That's Daniel Hodges. Officer Hodges was the one that the video has become well-known. He was -- he was jammed inside a Capitol, a door.
This clearly -- for those officers, a very difficult moment in time, and, of course, President Trump still trying to explain this because there was a point where the Trump team, when it was still the transition, was looking at making a distinction between violent offenders, people who assaulted police officers on that day and others who ended up doing time or being convicted or pleading guilty to, you know, entering the Capitol and yet not doing anything violent.
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What is the like the long term impact of all of this?
LUCEY: Yeah, and that's right. There were certainly people in his orbit saying, maybe we shouldn't do everybody --
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HUNT: His own vice president was out on TV saying it.
LUCEY: Yes, very publicly saying this. Yes. This wasn't a private conversation. And you saw on that on inauguration day, the outgoing and incoming president both taking different actions related to January 6th, with, you know, the former President Biden issuing pardons for folks associated with the committee that investigated it.
I mean, this really is going to have long term impact, I think. Both on how, you know, pardons are looked at. It really politicizes the use of presidential pardons and that power.
HUNT: There's Officer Hodges right there in that door continuing.
LUCEY: But also -- but also yeah, these sort of now dueling interpretations of what happened on that day. You had the president in his interview last night claiming these were all sort of minor offenses. And so that I think that is going to reverberate as we go forward.
HUNT: Let's hear a little bit more from Stewart Rhodes, whose sentence was commuted. And he again, was up on Capitol Hill yesterday. Again, he was convicted in the context of helping to plan a lot of this. Let's watch a little bit more of what Rhodes had to say.
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RHODES: We were railroaded for political purposes because of who we were, because of our identity, because we're Oath Keepers.
That's why we were prosecuted for seditious conspiracy. We didn't hatch a plan. There was no plot to invade the Capitol, and we didn't bring any weapons. It's just -- it's just all kabuki theater to justify trying to prevent President Trump from being able to run again under the 14th Amendment, trying to disqualify him or put him in prison. Either one of those things worked.
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HUNT: So, Catherine, in contrast, that this is, again, somebody who got out of prison with -- I want to show you what Congressman Jason Crow had to say, also because he met with some of those officers.
Crow, of course, was in the House chamber, was one of the members of the House that had to be kind of, you know, escorted out to safety because these rioters were threatening to breach the doors. Let's watch what Congressman Crow said.
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REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Hey, I just spent a time this afternoon with several of those officers who broke down in tears to me, trying to grapple with what this meant to them and their families. As these people walked free after doing what they did. Every American should be astonished that Donald Trump would do this.
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HUNT: And, of course, for these officers, there's now the question, why is the Justice Department sending all those messages to Aquilino Gonell? It's because there are questions about whether they may face threats or recrimination from people because they testified against them at trial. LUCEY: That's right. I mean -- and there's so much emotion around
this, and all of these people are in the physical place where it happened, right? I mean, we saw this at the inauguration -- at the inauguration, everyone is right there. Mike Pence, for example, all these people coming in and the experience of January 6th obviously was not a partisan one.
This happened to everybody. And I think there's a lot of people grappling with what this means for them right now, which is hard.
HUNT: All right. Catherine Lucey, thanks very much for joining us this morning. I appreciate your reporting.
All right. Straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING: burning again. Thousands ordered to evacuate their homes as a new fast-spreading wildfire erupts in Los Angeles.
Plus, how the Trump administration rapidly moving to seal the southern border. And the presidents anti-DEI orders gaining traction but facing resistance.
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REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): We believe the DEI is just an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): A lot of the decisions, including this one that Donald Trump did on day one don't do anything to address real issues that Americans are facing.
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[05:13:26]
HUNT: Welcome back. A new evacuation warning just issued in the L.A. neighborhood of Sherman Oaks because of a new fire there. People were seen leaving overnight as firefighters scrambled to try to put out those flames. Crews had already been battling the Hughes Fire, which started yesterday. As of this morning, that fire is about 14 percent contained.
You can see the smoke from that fire in this video from inside the cockpit of a California Air National Guard plane. Some people trying to save their homes from the flames.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody is watering their roofs. We are doing this house and the house next to us. We're hoping for the best. It's getting worse. It gets better, it gets worse. It gets better, it gets worse. But we have no expectations.
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HUNT: Joining us now is Ariel Cohen, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service station in Los Angeles.
Ariel, thanks for being back on the show this morning. I appreciate it.
Can you give us the latest on where this fire is, what the status is? Is it getting worse? Getting better at what the fight looks like?
ARIEL COHEN, METEOROLOGIST IN CHARGE, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE, LOS ANGELES/OXNARD: Yes, we have two wildfires right now in Los Angeles County that continue to grow at this point. There's definitely been a lot of work done also to slow their growth. And we're seeing that one is in northwest Los Angeles County.
That's the Hughes Fire. And that developed explosively during the daytime hours on Wednesday, early this Thursday morning. The environment remains highly conducive for these fires to continue to spread, and any new fires to develop and grow very significantly if there were to be ignitions.
[05:15:01]
The Sepulveda Fire also had expanded across portions of the eastern Santa Monica's, including the 405, threatening some areas that are very highly populated. And so, overall, we remain at a very high state of readiness when it comes to the fact that we're still dealing with this prolonged extreme fire weather event across southern California.
HUNT: Can you give us an idea, you know, for -- for people who don't live in the Los Angeles area but may be familiar with some of the many landmarks that do exist, this fire, I understand, is close to some of them. I mean, what areas might people recognize that are under threat right now?
COHEN: Exactly. The area around the Getty Museum is definitely an area where evacuation warnings have been issued. Earlier, and everyone needs to be paying attention to the potential for evacuation warnings or orders. The evacuation order is issued for your area.
You know, you have to take that seriously. Leave now. You don't want to wait at all seconds. Make the difference between life and death.
You know, this particular fire is not too far away from UCLA, not too far away from Beverly Hills area, although it is more located over the eastern extent of the Santa Monica mountains and southwest L.A. County.
Farther to the north, the Hughes Fire is located far from the main population center of Los Angeles. However, communities around Castaic and Castaic Lake are certainly being impacted by all of the smoke, as well as the fire spreading around the perimeter of Castaic Lake.
And so, you know, as we head through the remainder of the overnight hours, the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, we're dealing with a continued red flag, conditions, highly critical conditions. Everyone has to stay at a high state of readiness, not only for these fires. But any other fires that if they were to form, could grow rapidly,
grow explosively, and everyone needs to know where to go and have that go kit and have multiple ways to receive emergency information from emergency management officials and law enforcement because again, those seconds make the difference between life and death when it comes to these evacuation orders.
HUNT: Absolutely.
And, Ariel, the winds at what is the forecast in terms of how long those winds may continue to last, or will there be a reprieve here in the coming days?
COHEN: You know, unfortunately, we're looking at the strong winds to continue on and off, especially over the higher elevations as we head through the daytime on Thursday into Thursday night and even Friday morning. Red flag warnings remain in effect into Friday. Highest winds will be over the over the mountains, although foothills locations could also experience gusty winds again over the mountains. Gusts upwards of 60 to 65 miles per hour already occurring, and will continue at times all the way through Friday morning.
And so this environment continues to contain a volatile combination of ingredients, creating a very, very favorable setup for fires to grow rapidly. Everyone needs to be prepared, be thinking about what could happen if you were to be threatened by these fires and evacuation orders come. As we head into this weekend, a very dramatic change in the weather is expected as a storm system with a lot of cold air comes into the region. It will bring beneficial rains into many areas.
We're talking about amounts upwards of a half to an inch in many spots of Los Angeles, Ventura Counties, locally, higher amounts over the mountains, especially coast facing slopes of those mountains.
However, one thing to note is that if we were to get any thunderstorm cells or heavier rain cells set up, and if they go over some of the areas that were recently burned, that will be susceptible to debris flows, rockslides, mudslides and other flooding, talking about a very low chance, but one that's not zero, and we may not be particularly confident in those higher end impacts until right before they occur.
So if you have susceptibility, especially near these recently burned areas, Palisades Fire, Eaton Fire, Hughes Fire, and any other burn areas, be already thinking about what you would do if you were to experience a debris flow, because we could be looking at the low chance for that occurring this weekend.
Beyond that, things will be drying out next week, although we don't see any significant Santa Ana wind events on the horizon beyond the end of this week.
HUNT: All right. Ariel Cohen for us this morning -- sir, very grateful to have you on the show. Thanks very much for being here.
COHEN: Thank you for having me. And stay safe.
HUNT: You as well.
All right. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING: the snowfall has stopped across the south, but the danger still remains on the roads.
Plus, what President Trump says about TikTok and China possibly having access to your personal data.
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[05:24:30]
HUNT: All right, 24 minutes past the hour.
Here's your "Morning Roundup".
Today on Capitol Hill, a key procedural vote to advance the nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. The former Fox News host facing new allegations about his drinking. Hegseth's ex-wife reportedly giving a new statement to the FBI claiming that he, quote, drinks more often than he doesn't. Hegseth was grilled on his drinking and allegations of sexual assault during his confirmation hearing last week. Hegseth denies any wrongdoing.
President Donald Trump brushing off concerns about TikTok and whether China has access to Americans' personal information.
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He was asked about it on Fox News.
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TRUMP: Is it that important for China to be to be spying on young people, on young kids, watching crazy videos?
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HUNT: The president signed an executive order delaying a federal ban on the app. He has said he's open to Elon Musk or Larry Ellison buying TikTok.
The cold weather remains after this week's historic winter storm. That left at least 11 people dead. Some snow and ice is melting away, but that's causing dangerous conditions on roads as it refreezes overnight.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Super dark and the roads were very slippery and so we decided to pull off here at the first exit that we saw.
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HUNT: More roads and highways are expected to open today.
All right. Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING: dismantling DEI. How believers in diversity, equity and inclusion plan to fight back against the Trump administration.
Plus, major American cities bracing for an imminent immigration crackdown.
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HOMAN: More agents in the communities. More people arrested. More collaterals arrested.
REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): This will be another moral stain on our country.
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