Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Ukraine "Shocked, Stunned" Biden Giving "Green Light" to Putin; Democrats Lose Effort to Change Senate 60-Vote Rule; SCOTUS Denies Trump's Attempts to Keep His White House Documents Secret. Aired 5- 5:30a ET

Aired January 20, 2022 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:12]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. It is Thursday, January 20th. It's 5:00 a.m. here in New York. Thanks so much for getting an EARLY START with us. I'm Laura Jarrett.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world.

We enter year two of the Biden White House this morning with the president hoping for a reset and also a bit of a clean-up mode here.

First, on foreign policy, President Biden predicted Russian will, in his words, move into Ukraine. But then Biden went further causing an outcry in Ukraine when he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Russia will be held accountable if it invades he, and it depends on what it does. It depends if it's a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, et cetera. But if they actually do what they're capable of doing with the force amassed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Unclear exactly what constitutes a minor incursion, but it caused enough of a stir that the White House had to clarify the president's remarks last night. We'll have more on that in a live report from Moscow in a moment.

On domestic policy, the president signaling a new approach could be on the horizon. He's hoping to revive his currently stalled plan to remake America's social safety net suggesting Congress could pass big chunks of Build Back Better.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: It's clear to me that we're going to have to probably break it up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Break it up.

And breaking overnight, a major defeat as expected in the push to pass voting rights legislation in the Senate, reforms that the president said were so needed that without them, the coming midterm elections could be viewed as illegitimate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I'm not saying it's going to be legit. The increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these, these reforms passed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: All right. We have team coverage from every angle this morning starting with Nic Robertson in Moscow.

Nic, clearly the president's remarks in Ukraine did not go over well in Kiev or Moscow.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, one Ukrainian official described it as an effective green light for President Putin to invade Ukraine. This was not the language that they were expecting, not what they were prepared for. The White House clearing it up and saying, look, President Biden is very clear of what is seen in the past of Russia's actions, be it invasions, be it cyberattacks, be it paramilitary attacks. There is and will be a joined up response from the United States and its allies, so trying to clear that up.

Meanwhile, here in Moscow, the Kremlin is really trying to interpret what they heard. President Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked in a meeting a few minutes ago how he interpreted what President Biden was saying and was this a softening of the language. He didn't really seem quite sure how to respond to that. But he did seem to indicate that this gave them a little certain amount of hope that there was some space for diplomacy.

The foreign ministry spokeswoman here, however, her language was much tougher today saying that what they've been hearing about, you know, the indications from President Biden that he thought there would be an invasion coming, that this was really Ukrainian and Western media trying to create a narrative, a pretext for the cover for some possible big provocation, including military provocation and the spokeswoman went on to talk about how the British had been sending in weapons to Ukraine over the past few days, military weapons, to support the Ukrainian army. She said that this was, in effect, NATO trying to draw Ukraine into

its orbit. I think in Moscow at the moment, similar tough language to what we've heard in the past. A little bit of uncertainty over what President Biden has said, but they are still sticking to their language that they want to see these written answers from the United States about their security proposals, and that's something Secretary Blinken has said he won't be delivering to the foreign minister of Russia, Peskov, in Geneva tomorrow.

ROMANS: Yeah, this minor incursion language is getting a lot of attention this morning. But we should point out and you heard the president said there, he said invasion by Russia into Ukraine would be a disaster for Russia. That was the message he was trying to drive home there, too.

All right. Nic Robertson, thank you so much for that.

Laura?

JARRETT: All right. As Christine mentioned at the top of the show, Senate Democrats' effort to pass new voting rights legislation was dead on arrival last night. They knew it. Their attempt to change the Senate's 60-vote threshold to pass the built was defeated when two Democrats, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, joined every Republican in voting no.

Let's bring in CNN's Daniella Diaz live on Capitol Hill for us this morning.

Daniela, good morning.

So, what's the path forward now on voting rights?

[05:05:03]

I understand some senators are looking to do some more modest proposals.

DANIELLA DIAZ, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: They're looking and discussing a partisan proposal that would have a minimal effect on voting rights legislation. But, really, Democrats here, Laura, are back to square one. They were really hoping that they could change the minds of Sinema and Manchin, especially Democratic leadership, President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and they were unsuccessful in changes the minds of Manchin and Sinema so they could pass legislation, voting rights legislation with just 51 votes instead of the 60 needed to break the filibuster.

So, late last night, even though they knew Sinema and Manchin weren't going to support this, and no Republican senator supported this either, Democrats -- Democratic leadership still had a vote in the Senate. They wanted it on record. And Manchin and Sinema's vote on record they did not support the rules change.

And as you said, Laura, dead on arrival. They back to square one with the voting rights legislation, but there is a bipartisan group of senators working on possibly reforming the Electoral Count Act and changing how the joint Congress certifies election results. But that is a more, smaller scope of change that Democrats were hoping. They wanted a larger scale to counter all the Republican-led state legislatures, voter restrictions that have been passed the last couple months.

JARRETT: Sure. Not to mention making election day a holiday so people don't have to take off work to vote. Daniela, while I have you, I also want to talk about what the president said when it comes to build back better, floating this idea of? How doing it in chunks. Do we have any idea how that would work, what might come first?

DIAZ: That's really interesting, Laura, that he said that because President Joe Biden essentially acknowledging that he can't work with Manchin to pass a full bill, that $2 trillion bill we talked about for months last fall. What they're probably going to do instead is split up that bill and focus on more popular provisions like lowering prescription drug costs, funding to combat climate change, expanding the child tax credit, and try to pass those separately because they are hopeful that they might be able to get some sort of Republican support. Some of these provisions are popular with some Republican senators in their home states.

But really, the bigger picture here is president Joe Biden is acknowledging that State of the Union is coming up. It's on March 1st, and right now they can't tout voting rights legislation, passing that in the Senate. So they are going to shift their focus on trying to pass more smaller provisions of the Build Back Better Act instead of that whole bill that we covered last fall.

JARRETT: Yeah, the timing piece of this really interesting as you mention.

Daniela, thank you for your reporting as usual.

So, the president spent much of his nearly two-hour press conference Wednesday playing defense, but he did take aim at some of the Republican obstructionism he sees that that's holding back his agenda in Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I did not anticipate that there would be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn't get anything done. Think about this. What are Republicans for? What are they for? Name me one thing they're for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: All right. Let's dig a little deeper into the thinking at the White House this morning after the big reset press conference.

"Politico" White House correspondent here with us today, coauthor of the "West Wing Playbook", Alex Thompson.

Nice to see you bright and early this morning. So much to talk about. You know, the president, Alex, he covered a lot of ground, right? But

it was comments on Ukraine, comments on the midterms being illegitimate, that's what's making headlines this morning. It's probably not the reset the White House was hoping for at the outset.

ALEX THOMPSON, POLITICO WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, it was definitely a mixed bag. I don't think any time you have to have your press secretary come out with a clarifying statement about what is an invasion versus what is an incursion, usually is the best result. At the same time, I can tell you that often White House aides -- not all of them, but many, sort of have this pang of anxiety whenever Biden is out there talking to press because he has a habit of speaking off the cuff. He can obviously make a lot of mistakes.

He gave the longest press conference in recent history, longer than the longest one by Barack Obama, by President Trump, by President Clinton, and the fact that he still only had a few of these flubs I think hardened them. At the same time to your point, there were a bunch of things they had to then sweep up and try to clarify afterward.

ROMANS: You know, Alex, it's interesting because there are some this morning saying the media just want to attack Joe Biden no matter what. They're just going to go after him. He may have been trying to draw a line, avoid drawing a red line about Ukraine and Russia to give the U.S. more wiggle room. But that's not how we see it. We want to go after him. You know, that's part of the narrative I think this morning, too, because there was a lot in that speech.

[05:10:05]

THOMPSON: Oh, absolutely. I think some of the response, you know, from the media is coming from the Ukraine/Russian side in which they feel very frustrated by virtue, of course, the White House has long felt that the media is a little bit too tough on them and is trying to pick out things. In fact, I think you could even make an argument, I think some Republicans watching part of the speech yesterday were like, they should let him do this more because, yes, while reporters may nitpick at stuff, Biden is sort of getting out of the basement if you will, and actually starting to communicate, could actually be helpful for his political prospects which at the moment, it couldn't hurt.

JARRETT: Every White House complains that the media is too tough on us. That's our job.

One of the surprising things about what the president said last time, notable, after eight years in the Obama administration as vice president, he was somehow surprised by the GOP's intransigence, I guess, especially in Congress. My question to you, why did he think he was special?

THOMPSON: Well, I can tell you that a lot of members in the Obama administration are asking themselves this exact same question this morning. I think there were a lot of private eye rolls to Biden saying that. Not only because it struck them as a little bit naive, but also because I think a lot of people from the Obama era think it's just not true.

The fact of the matter is you had Mitch McConnell vote for one of Biden's signature accomplishments in the bipartisan infrastructure bill. You had Mitch McConnell didn't play brinksmanship with the debt ceiling earlier this winter, in which case a lot of his Republican colleagues were upset with him for not playing harder ball. Now, of course, they stood up to the voting rights bill, but I think it's a little unfair to say so far in his first year, they've been more obstructionist than they were during the Obama years.

ROMANS: That's a good point.

Our Jeff Zeleny was there to ask the president what he plans to do differently in year two. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Out of this place more often. I'm going to go out and talk to the public. I'm going to do public fora. I'm going to interface with them. I'm going to make the case of what we've already done, why it's important, and what we'll do if -- what will happen if they support what else I want to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: I mean, in particular he's saying the public supports these little elements and big elements of Build Back Better. He has to take the message to them.

THOMPSON: Yeah. You know, when every president is in trouble, they always say we're just going to communicate more. And we will see.

JARRETT: Just go on the road.

THOMPSON: Yeah, exactly. We're going to go on the road. Now, we'll see. Is he going to start taking a lot of his weekends he's been spending up in Delaware, is he actually going to start hitting the road? I guess it's yet to be seen. I'm still not sure.

JARRETT: Alex, finally for you here, I wonder about what you thought about what he said about breaking up Build Back Better. Obviously he wants to get something passed. It's stalled right now. What do you think, can he get it done?

THOMPSON: The White House remains cautiously optimistic they're going to get something done. Whatever they get done is going to be just pale in comparison to their original ambitions here. I think the most likely thing we're going to get is some sort of climate package with some sort of early education thrown in there, but it's not even close to the $3 trillion, $6 trillion they were originally envisioning over the next decade.

ROMANS: All right. Alex Thompson, "Politico" White House correspondent, thank you.

And, Laura, it's interesting, selling that Build Back Better, and the elements of it, it feeds into this inflation fighting mode the president wants to be in, right. He can go around the country and say you're concerned about higher prices. By the way, that's the Fed and that's not in our hands. Well, then, we need to make sure we get money into families' pockets so they can absorb it better. That's the message I think they'll be trying to push out.

Meantime, the president said it is the job of the Federal Reserve to fight inflation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: A critical job in making sure that the elevated prices don't become entrenched rests with the Federal Reserve, which has a dual mandate, full employment and stable prices. The Federal Reserve provided extraordinary support during the crisis for the previous year and a half.

Given the strength of our economy, and the pace of recent price increases, it's appropriate as the Federal chairman, Chairman Powell, the Fed Chairman Powell has indicated, to recalibrate the support that is now necessary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So if you read between the lines there, the president signaling to the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, the White House won't push back hard on interest rate hikes. Those are coming, by the way. In fact, it could be read as the president's tacit endorsement of tightening with 7 percent inflation in 2021, Mr. Biden's approval rating is suffering. The Fed is trying to pivot carefully away from its ultra low rate without hurting the economy.

[05:15:05]

All right. In terms of inflation, laundry now the latest victim of the big I-word. Proctor Gamble saying it is raising prices by an average of 8 percent next month for retailers, on Tide and Gain detergent, Downy fabric softeners, Bounce dryer sheets. P&G says it is trying to offset cost pressures.

And after a brief retreat into December, prices at the pump are on their way up again. We'll talk to a petroleum analyst about that coming up in just a few minutes.

JARRETT: All right. New this morning, a prominent Texas congressman under investigation it appears by the FBI. The agency said in a statement last night it was conducting a court-authorized search of Democrat Henry Cuellar's home. "The Monitor" newspaper reports agents loaded large bags, plastic bins and a computer into a government pickup truck there. Cuellar's spokesperson told CNN the congressman will fully cooperate with any investigation. It is unclear what the issue is, Christine.

ROMANS: Yeah, we'll continue to follow that for more details.

All right. Up next, the pivotal Supreme Court ruling on Donald Trump's White House documents. He can't keep them a secret anymore.

JARRETT: And breaking right now, new arrests in the U.K. over that attack on a Texas synagogue.

ROMANS: And developing overnight, high drama on the high seas as a U.S. destroyer challenges China.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:20:43]

JARRETT: Welcome back.

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed a win to the January 6 Committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol. In a short order last night, the justices rejected Trump's efforts to block lawmakers from getting their hands on hundreds of pages of White House documents. I'm talking about documents that include call logs, internal memos, speech notes from then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz joins us live from Washington on this story.

Katelyn, I understand the National Archives has already started turning over hundreds of pages to the committee since the ruling came out last night.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: That's right, Laura. We don't actually know what the White House is getting yet, but we did hear in a statement last night from them that they are starting to receive these documents. And really, this Supreme Court case is quite a big decision against Trump. It is the end of the road for him.

He had come to court back in October to try and block these documents to keep them from the House. They are documents the House believes were quite crucial to understanding what was happening around the top advisers of Trump leading up to January 6 and on January 6, and because he was in court up to this point, he was able to block them from these documents. No longer. That's it.

Now, what this decision does is very important. Basically, the Supreme Court is agreeing with a lower court's ruling, they're signing off on a lower court's decision that the reasons Trump had given to try and stop the House probe, to try and claim executive privilege, those reasons just weren't good enough.

And what the lower court had actually found was that the reasons Trump was giving, they he weren't good enough if he was the former president, and they weren't going to even be good enough to stop the House if he was the sitting president. That said, the Supreme Court also did not go there on the big question that Trump had raised in this case. He had wanted them to look at the power of a former president to step in and keep secret information from his White House, the Supreme Court did not get to that. This was quite narrow actually.

JARRETT: So, given that narrow decision from the high court, what does this mean for other Trump allies who have been stiff arming the committee, people like Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows, what does it mean in implications for executive privilege claims there?

POLANTZ: We don't actually know yet. We do know Meadows has been using this ongoing court case to say, I can't talk to the committee about my documents. You can't get access to them because Trump was trying to keep them secret.

But what we're seeing here is momentum from the committee. I mean, there is someone who had hundreds of pages of records that were held up in this court fight. That's Kayleigh McEnany. CNN did report earlier this week that she had gone in and spoken to the committee.

So the House is gaining momentum. They're gaining more documents. They're gaining access to people and the people who were using executive privilege as a shield to not talk to the House are now going to have to make a choice. Do they try and bring a fight similar to what Trump has done in this and still try to use executive privilege as a reason they can't talk to the committee? Or do they just relent and go in at this point?

JARRETT: And, Katelyn, quickly while I have you, I know you've been following this interesting thread about somebody anonymous trying to keep their identity secret who has been suing the House Select Committee. The chief judge now says they have to come out with who they are.

What do you know about that?

POLANTZ: That's right. This is one of 17 people who have gone to court and sued the House Select Committee saying that they shouldn't have subpoena power.

This was a person, we don't know who it is, we don't have speculation of who it is. They just said that their identity -- it was immaterial to this case. What they just wanted to do was block a phone record subpoena. So it was someone, one of hundreds of people that the house had requested phone records on.

And all of these cases except for this one, we have known who is suing to challenge the house. It is people like Mark Meadows as I mentioned. People like Alex Jones. Michael Flynn brought a case at one point.

All of these cases haven't be gotten far off the ground. But I will tell you, today in court, we do have one of them before a judge, Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Trump, he is trying to get a court to get rid of records that the House has already obtained related to his financial records -- Laura.

ROMANS: Well, I know when you find out who this anonymous person is, you will bring it to us.

Katelyn, thank you.

[05:25:01]

POLANTZ: Thanks.

ROMANS: All right. Twenty-four minutes past the hour.

Happening right now, snow for the morning rush hour in Washington, D.C. and New York City, parts of Tennessee and Kentucky, too.

Let's get right to Derek Van Dam live in Atlanta.

The snow is not quite here yet. It's rain, cold rain where I am.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, that's because the temperature is well above freezing. In fact, a little bit warmer than what we anticipated.

Let's talk about what the storm isn't. It's not a block buster storm, but it is the timing you mention that makes it so difficult for people. And temperatures here are ranging anywhere from 40 to 42 degrees across the major metropolitans from New York to Philadelphia and D.C. But believe me, the cold war is crashing near the front. That is going to transition from rain to snowfall between the 7:00 and 8:00 hour when most of us head to work in the mornings.

We have winter weather advisory across this particular region, over 60 million Americans feeling the impacts from this long very drawn out cold front. You can see the precipitation across the Long Island region into New York as well as Connecticut. Still rainfall right along the coast, about you that shading of white indicating the snow that will start crashing in along the I-95 corridor within the next couple of hours.

This extends right into D.C. where it still is rain, but again, that precipitation also starting to transition as well. Ice storm warnings newly issued this morning across the Carolinas. Heads up on that, up to half an inch possible in and around Wilmington.

Laura, back to you.

ROMANS: All right. Derek, thanks for the heads up.

Laura?

JARRETT: Next, we have breaking details on two new arrests in the Texas synagogue attack.

ROMANS: And a dazzling new discovery deep in the Pacific Ocean.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)