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Andrew Brown Jr.'s Family Buries Him Today Amid Demands that Police be Ordered to Release Body Camera Footage of Fatal Encounter; Republican Divide on Full Display; The Global Coronavirus Catastrophe Hits a Crescendo in India. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 03, 2021 - 12:00   ET

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

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[12:00:20]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello, everybody. And welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing a very busy news day with us.

This hour a spotlight on Elizabeth City, North Carolina. You see it right there in a raw, racial wound. Andrew Brown Jr.'s family buries him today amid demands that police be ordered to more quickly release body camera footage of Brown's fatal encounter with sheriff's deputies.

The Republican divide also on full display this morning. Donald Trump hits send on more election lies, and Liz Cheney within the hour calls what the former president says "poison". President Biden is selling his big and, yes, expensive agenda today in Southeast Virginia in an (ph) elementary school and a community college. While (ph) the president stops back here in Washington, CNN has learned new details about new and bipartisan discussions on infrastructure.

And the global coronavirus catastrophe hits a crescendo in India. Get this. 400,000 new cases reported just Saturday. A record day of death on Sunday. 20 million total infections in India is an approaching and most unwelcomed milestone. Tomorrow, a U.S. travel ban targeting India kicks in.

More on the president's travels and the coronavirus crisis ahead, but first a Monday morning escalation in a very high-level Republican feud. A statement this morning from Donald Trump putting a new twist on his constant lie.

This, 9:34 a.m. Eastern, "The fraudulent presidential election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as the big lie." 53 minutes later this tweet from Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the number three in the House Republican leadership. "The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading the big lie, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system."

Already this morning even before this new back and forth there was talk among pro-Trump House Republicans of calling a new vote on Cheney's leadership job. Let's get straight up to Capitol Hill and CNN's Manu Raju. Manu, an escalation at a very critical time for Congresswoman Cheney.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's definitely a push internally to have another vote to oust her from the leadership job. John, you'll recall in the aftermath of her joining nine other House Republicans to impeach Donald Trump on inciting an insurrection, there was a vote that was pushed for by the House Republican Conference.

Typically the - mostly the - the staunchest Trump defenders in the Congress pushing for a vote to oust her. At that time Cheney said bring it on. She said let's have the vote. It happened behind closed doors in February. She one-handedly (ph) that secret ballot election (ph), but now things appear to be changing.

Whether there's enough votes to oust her remains to be seen. These are still secret ballot elections (ph), but in talking to a number of House Republicans, it's clear that the concerns about her are growing. In a large part it's about this feud with Donald Trump, some of it coming in the aftermath of critical comments she made about Donald Trump at the party's retreat last week when she was asked by reporters, but also this being such a central litmus test to among a number of House Republicans as well as the party at large whether or not Donald Trump won the election or not.

Most Republicans, House Republicans are now - won't say definitively one way or the other that Joe Biden legitimately won. Some still back his election lie, and others like Liz Cheney is pushing back, which is why you saw the tweet today. She is making it very clear that anyone who sides with the big lie is undercutting a pillar of American democracy, but that is not what we're hearing from the other members of the Republican leadership. That's certainly not hear - what we're hearing from Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican who has aligned himself with Donald Trump and is trying to, as he says, unify the party ahead of their efforts to win back the House in the midterms next year.

So the question ultimately for Republicans, John, is will they come and force a vote to try to oust her? Will Kevin McCarthy back her? Another big question. He did last time, but he could call for a snap election potentially as soon as next week. Unclear what he will do. John --

KING: As soon as next week. We'll keep an eye on that. A choice for House Republicans that it actually is the choice for Republican voters all across the country as we get closer to the midterms. Manu, appreciate the hustle and the live reporting.

Let's continue the conversation. With me to share their insights, CNN's Phil Mattingly, and former Republican Congresswoman from Utah, Mia Love. Congresswoman, I want to start with you. You know how this works in the House Republican family. You know this divide exists.

Liz Cheney has said for some time well I was asked to question (ph). Whenever she criticizes the former president and the things he says, she says she doesn't go looking for it. Today she tweeted 53 minutes after the president repeated his lie. She tweeted, so she's asking for the fight this time.

MIA LOVE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Actually, you know, what, John? I think that there's a bigger concern than that.

[12:05:00]

She is concerned that when the president puts out the fact that the election or his facts that the elections are stolen, she's afraid that people aren't going to get out and vote.

That that messes -- that instills fear or people are concerned about the electoral system, which we saw it actually hurt us in Georgia. So, I think that she's actually going out saying, look, everybody can get out and vote because the electoral system actually works.

And the other thing I want to say is that it's really important that Kevin McCarthy does everything he can to make sure that he tries and protects Liz Cheney, because of an opinion she has. This is not an -- this is not a policy divide. This is an opinion she has about a former president. And she is a one. One of the only women in Republican leadership. It would look really bad for the Republican Conference to oust here.

KING: I agree. Liz Cheney speaking the truth about happened in the election. She's speaking the truth that it is poison. It does poison our democratic system when you question results that have been already audited and looked at in any of the states were close.

But Phil Mattingly come into the conversation at this point. Kevin McCarthy who did back her last time as, as Manu rightly noted, he's kind of giving the green light now. He has been very non-committal to what happens next by saying its up to the Conference. And Congressman Love says he needs to stand with Liz Cheney. Is he going to have the spine to do that if Donald Trump clearly wants here to go?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't appear that way right now. Look, we'll have to wait and see. This is obviously moving fast, but it's moving fast against Congresswoman Cheney is not -- she's a very savvy politician.

She understands what's going on and she knows that it's not just the -- as Manu was saying, that the lawmakers that are so behind President Trump, it's also more moderate lawmakers right now who are starting to speak out quietly about the fact that, look, the bigger picture here is this is putting us in a bad spot.

And I think, look, there were a couple weeks in January where there were real questions about the role President Trump was going to play in this party. Those questions have long since been answered.

And they are answered by the posture of Kevin McCarthy. They are answered by the posture even of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who shares what Liz Cheney feels and thinks about President Trump, and yet won't engage on President Trump at all. He recognizes and I think everybody has made the calculation, morally

bankrupt or not, that you have to have President Trump on board if you want to win the majority in 2022, which is the calculation that Kevin McCarthy has made. It's the calculation that the rank and file Republicans have made.

You know, you made the point with the first snap leadership election Liz Cheney said bring it on. With that tweet today she is once again saying bring it on with the full recognition that saying bring it on this time around likely ends up with her out of Republican leadership, perhaps without a seat in the U.S. House.

And Liz Cheney seems to be, at least at this point in time, totally OK with that. Looking more, I think, towards legacy and how people will look back at this moment than what it means necessarily inside the Republican Conference at this moment.

KING: inside the Republican Conference, and you get the political calculations. President Trump is popular with Republicans. President Trump can help raise money. Yes, I get the politics, but there's a principle that Congressman Cheney is talking about today, because the 45th President of the United States again this morning, if he went quite that would be one thing.

But again this morning he puts out statement Congresswoman that is a lie. That is just a flat out lie, not about what day of the week it is and not about even a policy, but about the fundamentals of our democracy. He lost. The votes have been recounted. There's a quack reaudit going on in Maricopa County right now, but the votes have been counted.

But my question to you is how big is this? In the sense that in your state this weekend, we'll show some of this, Mitt Romney was speaking to the Utah Republican Convention. Mitt Romney like Congresswoman Cheney has her differences with President Trump. Mitt Romney like Congressman Cheney thought the president should be impeached, or in his case -- his case convicted in the United States Senate. He's trying to speak state Republicans and he gets this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R- UT): You might call me an old-fashioned Republican. I am. Been in our party --

(YELLING)

ROMNEY: Oh yes, you can boo all you like, but I've been a Republican all my life. If you don't recall I was the Republican nominee for president in 2012.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now I get this is a state Republican convention. That's where the loudest voices show up. That's where the more pro Trump voices are going to show up. Mitt Romney has been through this in Utah before. Is it the same or is it getting worse for him? As in are the pro Trump forces gaining steam or not?

LOVE: Well there was a censure, also a censure vote that was there at that day where it was 798 to 711. So he almost got censured, which is incredibly concerning. But when you talk about the big picture, the big picture is this.

Republicans are going to -- they -- Donald Trump may help in a primary but it's going to hurt Republicans in a general, because there are still -- this is convention, right? There are a lot of delegates that are very just hardcore on Donald Trump's side.

You want to ask any delegate how conservative they are the first answer they'll say is, you know, I supported Donald Trump. Where the rest of the world, the majority I think, center right, center left, you name it, they're like look we've got some policies that we have to live by and the president has not lived up to those policies.

[12:10:00]

So I think that the Republican Party really has to do a better job with stopping this infighting and starting to talk about the policies that they could capitalize on, especially when it comes to all of the things that the current president is trying to bring forth and how we're going to pay for that.

KING: It's an excellent point except, Phil Mattingly, I'll close on this in the sense that you can have principle and you can talk about policy or you can think, well, the Democrats have a five or six-vote margin in the House, and if we have a good year next year we take power back in the House Representatives. And to your point earlier they believe they need Trump on their side to do that.

This is Steve Scalise, the Majority Whip, "the idea that you must - that you just disregard President Trump is not where we are, and frankly he has a lot to offer still." That to Axios. Jim Banks, who many think would replace Congresswoman Cheney if she got voted out, "I think a lot of us would like to see her join the team, be on the same team, same mission, the same focus. Lance Gooden, the Texas Republican, tweeting this weekend, "Prediction; she'll be out of her GOP leadership role by month's end." They are thinking about getting the Speaker's gavel and the chairmanships back, not about are we supporting the big lie, the continuation of Donald Trump's big lie even though it is poison on democracy.

MATTINGLY: They are somehow able to ignore everything that happened from November 3 through January 6 to move on purely through the basis of will this get us closer to the majority. I don't think there's any question about that. I think if you asked them straight up they would probably acknowledge that.

I think the most interesting part, and Congresswoman Love brings it up, there are no shortage of issues for the Republican Conference to attack the current president on. When you look at what he's put on the table, just transformative economic policies that would push the country in a more progressive direction than its gone in maybe 50 or 60 years, this is the type of stuff that Republicans which should, would be looking at and saying let's go.

We can write ads off this every single day if we wanted to. We think we can win on this. These are our issues. Austerity, fiscal restraint, all of these types of things should be what Republicans would traditionally be talking about with a brand new president, and yet they have decided to pick these internal wars. And I think part of that is because they recognize that if you're going off historical precedent, if your going off just the sheer kind of very limited margin in the current House, they think that the odds are very much on their side to win the majority.

And so, they care more about positioning themselves and ensuring they keep as much of the party together than they do necessarily about attacking Joe Biden. I think (ph) the flip side of that is they're kind of opening the door right now to President Biden and his agenda because they're not necessarily going after it the way Republicans did back in 2009 with President Obama.

KING: Well so you think at times the fight is going to deescalate. Today more evidence that it's going to escalate as we go forward. Phil is going to stay with us. Congresswoman Love, thanks for your time today. I'm sure we will continue this conversation. It's crystal clear that we will continue this conversation as we move forward.

Up next for us, though, President Biden is on the road today and facing a big decision about his giant infrastructure push.

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Two stops for President Biden in Southeast Virginia today as he highlights key points of his $4 trillion infrastructure and economic plan. A community college stop is next, that after a morning visit to an elementary school where children can now be back at school four days a week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: York County's return to school plan, our students, yes, they're distanced. They have their mask on. They have their shields for the extra safety measures and their desks are wiped down, but they're still building relationships with each other. There's - they see me every day.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: How did you like doing this from home?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I liked it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was OK.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The road show sales pitch comes as CNN is learning some new details of new bipartisan talks on infrastructure. If the president believes a deal is to be had with Republicans, well some significant decisions will have to made about splitting up his plan into several pieces. Some Democrats worry some of their policy goals might get lost if that happens.

Still with us is our Senior White House Correspondent, Phil Mattingly. Joining the conversation, Tarini Parti, White House Reporter for the "Wall Street Journal".

Phil, let's start with this. Your part of the reporting (ph). It says, "the president is serious about this." He's trying to get back to Senator Joe Biden, the old Joe Biden. Let's try to cut a Republican deal. You know the tensions better than I do among Democrats like OK but only if they're serious. OK, but only if they come most of the way. OK, but what do we lose if we cut a deal with them. Where is it?

MATTINGLY: Yes, that's exactly right. Look, we're in a very small window of time. If something is going to happen, this is the moment over the probably the course of the next two weeks when it could. The president had a phone call directly with Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia Republican, who's really kind of taken the lead on the Senate Republican side on their own infrastructure proposal.

This is a very scaled back version of what the president put on the table. Roughly $600 billion where they do mostly the physical core infrastructure, and the president is willing to have the conversation. Likely in the next couple of days he will invite Republicans and Democrats to the White House for another Oval Office meeting, and I think both sides are now are trying to feel out what's possible, what's possible.

And I think both sides want physical infrastructure. There's no question about that. The president put that in his plan. Republicans want it as well, but it gets very complicated when you get into the details. That's on the policy side.

On the political side of things, look, the president doesn't have any desire to scale back his overall ambitions legislatively. They have made very clear they believe what they've seen through the pandemic has only served to exacerbate long-standing fragilities in the economy and it goes much further than just physical infrastructure.

And therefore, Democrats want to move on the entirety of that package. The big question as you noted, will the president take off a piece of it, move it one part at a time, and then maybe push everything else later on into a package that they would want to do with Democrats only?

Two things just to keep in mind, I think this is very early stage. One, the White House has to do this. Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, has made clear without a bipartisan effort I will not be onboard for a unilateral effort, so there's some of that in this as well. But also there's a lot of skepticism from Republicans here. They went through the American Rescue Plan, that $1.9 trillion proposal. They don't feel like there was a lot of good faith on the White House. They never came off their $1.9 trillion proposal, and that's why this week is so important.

Is the president serious?

[12:20:00]

The president, I'm told, is. Is everybody around him? About half and half.

And I think our Democrats on Capitol Hill very wary that this just going to be a repeat of Republicans drawing out negotiations and closing the window before we head into an election year to actually get done the big things the Democrats want.

KING: And Tarini, to that point, the president went largely -- he had some meetings with Republicans at the beginning of the last big COVID relief package, but it was pretty clear that he -- that was going to be a Democratic-only enterprise. Pretty clear from the get-go.

And listen here to Phil's point, progressives are saying, OK, I don't mind of you talk to Republicans but only if they're willing to come most of the way. Remember, Mr. President, they keep telling him you won the election, but listen here to Senator Capito saying I like talking to the president, but the taxes he proposes, I don't think so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO (R-WV): I personally don't want to see the taxes go up. I think it's the wrong time to be doing that and I don't think if we really concentrate on what we want to get done in terms of infrastructure I don't think it's necessary. And that would be very difficult to get a core member of our Republican caucus to go along with that if that was the direction that the president insisted upon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And so, how -- the question, and Phil teed it up quite well. How long do you keep trying if Joe Biden wants to raise taxes on corporations, he wants to raise capital gains taxes on the wealth? If the Republicans are saying no, how long do you run the clock?

TARINI PARTI, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": That's the great question here, John. And I think the key part here is that, you know, there's clearly disagreement between Joe Biden and Republicans on how to pay for his proposals, but there's also disagreement among some Democrats who are uncomfortable with the type of the plan that the president's put out in terms of how he would pay for infrastructure and some of the other things that he's laid out.

So, he not only has to get Republicans, at least some Republicans on board, but keep his party united. So, I think we're going to see a lot of outreach from the White House in the coming days, as Phil said, not just with Republicans but also in getting Senators like Joe Manchin on board.

And I think what we're seeing now is the president, you know, travel the country, really sell his plan and try to make the case that he can leverage the sort of broad bipartisan support that the White House is saying they see in polls into putting some pressure on these Republicans to really come to the table and negotiate quickly before May really passes and, you know, this thing drags on too long.

KING: And that's a fascinating point you make, because every day that passes, as Phil noted this as well, we're closer to the mid-term elections. The president traveling, he gets to touch and feel, talk to people first hand on the road. Any president will tell you that helps them. Where's the public on my plan.

If you look at this ABC News Ipsos poll, president's in pretty good shape right now. This is a good number for any president. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the direction of the country? Sixty- four percent of the country being optimistic about the direction. Now that's a wind at a president's back.

However, our Sunlen Serfaty went into Virginia to talk to some voters. Now Virginia's more of a blue state now than a swing state, but picking among some independents, listen here, concern over the price tag.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEWIS JONES, INDEPENDENT VOTER: The little guy's going to be given a leg up. And if that money is actually used to lift the little guy up and shrink the divide --

GENE SUTTON, INDEPENDENT VOTER: We can't do everything at once. Maybe pick and chose some programs that, again, both parties can agree on and go with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Tarini, to you first. That's the fight for the middle of the electorate. The Democrats are on the president's side. He has to keep watching the middle to make sure -- he believes he has it now, but hold it as he pushes this through.

PARTI: That's exactly right. And, you know, some of these Independents and Republicans who voted for the president in part voted for him because he said he would make bipartisanship a priority, that he would reach across the aisle. And we didn't really see him do that as much with his first COVID relief spending package. So, I think he, at least, has to try make the effort that he's reaching across the aisle.

That in these negotiations they're going to come up with, you know, some proposals that both sides can agree on. Might not be as big as he's proposing now, but then of course you have -- you have to look at the other side where some Progressives, who also voted for him, might not be so happy. So, it's going to be sort of a balancing act for the White House in the coming weeks. KING: And you mentioned that balancing act. You mentioned that even in his own team that the debate, which is healthy, you want to have your team air it out, but how closely are they tracking that mid- terms?

MATTINGLY: They -- I mean, I think they're close -- they're tracking the numbers very closely. They have a very good sense of where things stand. They feel good about the response to, even though they went unilaterally and even though they didn't come off his top line with the American Rescue Plan it was still popular in the country and they feel like he got credit for making a bipartisan effort, even though bipartisanship didn't come to fruition on Capitol Hill.

Will that hold? If that holds, given the fact that the individual pieces of these plans, almost in isolation, all of them poll very well, I think they would feel comfortable about going forward.

But if they start to see slippage, if they start to get concerned, perhaps more importantly if Democrats they know that are up in 2022 start to get concerned, if they start telling the White House I'm going to have problems if you want to move forward by yourselves on this that changes the dynamic.

[12:25:00]

KING: That's why we watch where the president travels. Phil Mattingly, Tarini Parti, grateful for your reporting and insights. Up next for us, the COVID challenge here at home and the COVID catastrophe in India.

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KING: One pandemic, but two very different realities when you compare the numbers right now, the United States and India. Let's walk through some of them.

If you look at the United States' situation right now, this is progress. 25 states holding steady, 18 states trending down, fewer cases now.

[12:30:00]