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Inside Politics

Today: Biden Holds Highly-Anticipated News Conference; Biden Battles Multiple Crises as he Closes First Year; Capitol Riot Committee, NY AG make Aggressive Moves; Jan 6 Committee Subpoenas Giuliani, Big Lie Pushes; Dems Worry White House is Unprepared for Midterms. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 19, 2022 - 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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JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Hello, and welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing this important day with us.

In just hours the president gives a one year mark news conference. His biggest problem is the country's COVID exhaustion. But new CNN reporting also details how many Democrats worry the Biden White House is not up to the midterm your political challenge.

Plus the New York Attorney General says the Trump business inflated its assets by get this hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, she wants the former president and his children to explain their fuzzy math under oath.

And America's top diplomat says Ukraine faces "Difficult days ahead". Russia just sent more troops to its borders. The worry is that an invasion is next. We begin this hour though with President Biden and his giant test on this day 365.

The president is holding a rare formal news conference in just a few hours. He will begin with his take on his first year performance and then the most pressing challenges as we turn the page now to year two and then the questions.

His leadership will be a focus of many whether the issue is another COVID Winner, the stalled Democratic agenda or a stare down with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine and with us this hour to share their reporting and their insights Dan Balz of "The Washington Post" and CNN's Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan let me start with you I will be fascinated by the questions. But I'm equally fascinated by how this president whose trademark is stubbornness walks into the room and assesses how does he grade his first year?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think John has to come in his aides have talked about this privately kind of with a sense of humility of recognizing where the country is right now - in his presidency and the issues that have arisen.

Of course, the pandemic is still number one on his to do list. Even this is not where they had expected to be one year down the road one year into office, and it is very much still an issue that they are dealing with. And you can see the White House tried to get ahead of some of the questions here by launching that website formally today to send free test to Americans of starting this plan to send mass to Americans to make them available at pharmacies for people to pick them up.

And I think of course, that is going to be the first priority for the president to talk about because that is when he came into office saying he could do better than the last administration, which is get a handle on the pandemic. And of course, some parts of that are unpredictable.

But he's got these other crises that are facing him, including the fact that what's happening on Capitol Hill right now, where there is this all-out battle in the Democratic Party when it comes to voting rights legislation, and the dead end efforts, apparently, of where that is headed, and what is the president's backup plan there.

And then, of course, you've got the other domestic problems at home with inflation, rising crime, and also these issues overseas, where there is a standoff between Ukraine and Russia. So there's a lot on the to do list for the president to walk into that room to talk about to try to project competency, which of course is what he came into office on, and what big questions are going to be about.

KING: And, Dan, what's more important? You and I have lived this movie in this moment several times before every president has some struggles in the first year. Some have a lot of successes as well, this president had some. But they're overshadowed at the moment.

Maybe the issue is Afghanistan to some voter, maybe it's COVID to another, maybe its inflation to another where they look at what candidate Biden said or President Biden said, and it doesn't match the reality. Is his challenge today the specifics, or is it more the big picture? I promised you competence. I promised you, new leadership? Where is it?

DAN BALZ, CHIEF CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: John, I think at this point, it is much more of the big picture. I mean, Kaitlan was writing outlining the - that the pandemic has cast over the country and now we're into the - you know, the third year of this starting as people are frustrated. People are cranky; lives are continuing to be lost. I think that's one of the big things that are overriding him. The successes that he has had and he has had successes have mostly come in the first six to eight months of his presidency.

The problems have piled up in the last few months, and particularly that last week of his first year, last week when he got hit from multiple directions. I think the question on the table right now is and we've seen it before and other presidents have used, as you've suggested, is this a moment to say we are going to stay the course?

Or is this a moment to say we are going to try to do some kind of course correction? You mentioned that the president can be a stubborn person. And I think that there's a feeling on some part of the in parts of the White House that they just need to kind of keep putting one foot in front of another and do the best they can and hope that that begins to unlock things and give people a different impression of the president.

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BALZ: But I think that the question for him today is how is he going to speak to people who are frustrated? Is he going to acknowledge those? And is he going to take any responsibility for the frustration they're feeling?

KING: And Kaitlan you write about this with several of your colleagues on our White House team, a string of setbacks at home and abroad, have eroded the year of competence that once surrounded the president and his team, who have spent most of their lives in government, the campaign for the job and a pledge of restoring order.

They do have deep experience; sometimes one of the challenges of experience is recognizing this is a different time. This is a different challenge, whether it's COVID, whether it's something else, and maybe the way we did it yesterday, or five years ago, or 10 years ago, doesn't work today. Are they doing that assessment in time to inside team Biden or to the point dad just race? Are they saying one foot in front of the other? We're right; we just got to slog it out.

COLLINS: I think it depends on the issue. I think when it comes to COVID. That is the mentality of keep your head down, keep doing the work. We are trying to adjust in real time to these issues that he will still face questions over testing and the nationwide shortage that we've seen with the Omicron variant.

I think a question about a change in tactic applies to when it comes to how he's dealing with his colleagues on Capitol Hill. And of course, this is a president who spent over three decades in the Senate. He relished his time there. But he often still operates as if it is that same Senate of 30 decades, 30 years ago, of when he was there.

And of course, we've seen how much that has changed. I think that's been a big question, because one thing that we found when I was reporting this with my colleagues, Kevin and Jeff was that when Democrats got the majority of the Senate, that razor thin majority with those two Senate seats in Georgia, you saw it kind of changed the expectation game of what Democrats could accomplish.

And one Democratic lawmaker we talked to yesterday said we're operating as if we've got 58 Democrats or 60 Democrats in the Senate when it comes to the agenda. And we do not have that. And that's why it's been so difficult.

So even though as Dan noted, the president has delivered when it comes to the American rescue plan, when it comes to infrastructure, he's ending his first year in office with people talking about what he has not gotten done yet. And of course, that is not really a position that any White House wants to be at.

KING: Dan you wrote about this smartly in the paper the other day to the point Kaitlan just made Joe Biden on Election Day thought he had a very different presidency, thought he had a Democratic House and a Republican Senate.

That's a very different presidency, then you win those two Georgia Senate seats, and you have the majority, quote, unquote, but you're 5050. So now the choices you wrote in your pieces, they're a second act ahead, he could scale back on some of the ambitions and accept smaller victories, but that would require him to confront a liberal activist wing of his party that has kept the pressure on him to deliver on big campaign promises.

A president facing a choice like this that is a big choice do you scale it back? Do you move more to the middle heading into a midterm election year, where you would be essentially just asking the liberal basic votes you need each appease?

BALZ: It's such a difficult choice for him. He has been under pressure from the activist wing of the party throughout his presidency. But to some extent, I think he played into that, by the decisions that he and his team made very early on, which was to go very, very big.

They decided that I think the combination of the end of the Trump era and a desire for at least some calming of the waters, but at the same time, the problems that had been exposed by the pandemic and the disruption that had been caused, gave him an opportunity to do some things that liberals have wanted to do for a long time.

And I think that they plunged ahead with that without taking full account of the fact that they have a 50 split Senate and a very narrow majority in the House as well. And they tried to do more than any president has tried to do with less in terms of their majorities.

I think another point about this is that, you know, there are two elements of a presidency. One is the ability to rally public opinion. I mean, it's been said that a president can only do as much as he can get the public to go along with this president has not proven to be effective as a kind of a bully pulpit communicator.

I think that's one of the questions about his leadership style. He has great empathy. He has passion, as we've seen in some recent speeches, but in terms of that kind of uplifting leadership. I think that's still a question about him.

And then the second is, as Kaitlan noted, he's, you know, he's operated as a Senator for a long time and he still has those instincts about quiet conversations and background, backroom conversations. But so far, those have not produced what he had hoped to produce. So I think the question is what does he do at this point?

KING: That's any moment for the president letter ahead. Dan Balz and Kaitlan Collins, appreciate you're getting started. We'll return to this a bit later in the program. But next, mounting legal challenges for Donald Trump and key family members new allegations from New York top prosecutor add a new focus for the January 6 Committee.

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KING: Now to the dramatic new developments in the investigation into the Former President of the United States in a new court filing Tuesday evening the New York Attorney General says it quite plainly. She says she has evidence proving the Trump Organization repeatedly committed fraud.

The New York Attorney General has keyed in on six Trump brand properties including his golf clubs. She accuses the Trump Organization of lying about the value of those properties by hundreds of millions of dollars in lying she says to lenders to insurers and to the IRS.

The disclosure puts the investigation at a legal crossroads. The Attorney General made that filing because she says the only way to clear up who knew what and when about those lies is to put three people at the top of the company in the witness chair that would be Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Donald Trump, the Former President.

Let's get straight to CNN's Kara Scannell in New York big escalation here if she can get that testimony?

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KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes John that is the big question that ultimately will be decided by a judge. But this filing she made last night was her best push to try to convince the judge why she needs this testimony.

She's saying that they have come through this investigation across specific detailed allegations of fraud and misstatements involving a number of his properties, number of those golf courses there, Seven Springs, upstate New York, as well as 40 Wall Street and a commercial building downtown Manhattan that they own.

And as well as the Trump Tower penthouse itself, where Donald Trump lives. I mean, she says that in 2015, he said that on his financial statements, it was 30,000 square feet and worth over $300 million. Three years later saying actually its 10,000 square feet worth $116 million.

Something they said Alan Weisberg acknowledged to them was a misstatement by $200 million is pretty significant. But a lot of these allegations are, you know, difficult to prove. She is looking at this she's laid these out saying that she needs to talk to Trump because he signed these financial statements while he was running the company.

She also said she needs to talk to Donald Trump Jr., because he took over the company when his father became president and he was specifically involved in one of these properties 40 Wall Street saying she also wants to talk to Ivanka Trump because she was a key liaison with Deutsche Bank. That's the German lender that loaned the Trump Organization more than $300 million.

Now, the Trump Organization again coming out saying that they have done nothing wrong in a statement they say the only one misleading the public is Letitia James, her allegations are baseless and will be vigorously defended. Ultimately, though, John, this will go down to a judge to decide whether and when these depositions would take place?

KING: Just the filing and now the judge's decision there moving it forward to two decision point, if you will, Kara Scannell grateful for the live reporting there. Let's get some perspective now from our CNN Legal Analyst Carrie Cordero.

So Carrie, I just want to put up some numbers here. You could sort of get why two - would want to go to the top of Seven Springs Estate and 2012 the Trump organized and valued at 291 million, then in 2016, it's suddenly only worth 56 million organization value of the Trump Tower triplex 327 million no never mind 200 million.

The Trump financial statement on the 40 Wall Street building 735 million, never mind a year ago, we said it was only worth 257. So you understand if they're making these misstatements to get loans, on the one hand, pay lower taxes on the other? And the like you could get how why is it important? Or is it important in your view that you want to know, if Donald Trump's the CEO and he signed the papers? He's liable anyway, whether he knew about it or not.

But why is it so important to connect the dots if you will try to connect the dots to the fuzzy math?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, so on one hand, as you just laid out, John; it shows that she does have facts that have been gathered through this investigation that indicate these substantial discrepancies. And so that's the basis of her investigation, which is a civil case, not a criminal case.

But what gives me pause in her filing about the prospects for a conclusion that is successful for the attorney general in this case, is that while she's asking for the court to enforce these depositions against the Trump family members, she says that Mr. Trump Donald Trump's actual knowledge, and his intent is essential an essential component to resolve her investigation.

Likewise, she says that the knowledge of Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump that their testimony is necessary. If she's relying on Trump family testimony to make her case I think that does not give a lot of confidence in the fact that she has enough documents and other witnesses to make her case.

KING: We'll watch that play out. That's interesting perspective. We'll watch this as the judge makes a decision. Let me bring your attention now to Washington, a couple of new developments from the January 6 Committee, - subpoenas for some of the president's closest friends, former president's closest friends, if you will, in promoting the big lie.

Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epstein, among those who helped the former president spread these allegations that the election was rigged. A, why is it important to you what significance that the committee would issue subpoenas hear and B, you know, it's coming, they're going to claim lawyer client privilege doesn't exist when they're going around the country giving these speeches.

CORDERO: Sure. So when it comes to the January 6 Committee, their primary objective is to establish a historical, factual, correct account of what transpired leading up to those events and then on the day itself, and so as they are continuing to investigate and receive testimony from at this point, hundreds of individuals who have cooperated or have come in to speak to the committee, they are now narrowing down to the inner circle of the former president.

These individuals were obviously integral to the efforts and his arguments to subvert the result of the 2020 election. Several of them will argue that they have attorney client privilege but attorney client privilege pertains to actual legal advice that is being provided to an individual much of the things that they were do doing were public work.

And we're in furtherance of subverting the election itself which would not be I would argue privilege.

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KING: We just talked about the New York Attorney General's focus on the Trump family. The January 6 Committee taking a peek as well we understand they now have obtained CNN is reporting they have obtained some records of phone calls of Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Eric Trump, obviously the president's son, Kimberly Guilfoyle, in a relationship with Donald Trump, Jr., both close to the President, the Former President of the United States.

We have learned that many of the advances in the evidence the committee has made is through these emails, text messages, metadata from phone records, digital, when you saw this, what goes through your head? Why is it important?

CORDERO: Well, I think the call detail records, which is the records of calls, not the contents of calls. This is again, going to help the committee establish a timeline. So they have already been provided with text messages from other individuals who have provided information to the committee.

And so then this is additional individuals and their call records where they can add that to the timeline and continue to build out the story of what transpired leading up to January 6 then on that day.

KING: It would be fascinating to see if the test - if the committee gets testimony. They're skeptical. You're skeptical about New York I'm skeptical about Trump family members cooperating with the committee.

We'll see how this goes forward Carrie Cordero grateful for the important insights. Up next for us, some brand new CNN reporting Democrats critical to the party's midterm campaign effort are worried they are pointing fingers at the Biden White House.

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KING: I want to bring you some detailed news CNN reporting right now on what I'll call a major case major, major case of democratic jitters. It is just January but a number of Democrats involved in midterm campaign strategy are deeply worried and deeply unhappy with a Biden White House political team.

They just do not see is up to the task or at least not giving 2022 planning the urgency, which they would wish. Who's in charge? Who's running the thing is how one exasperated Democratic House member put it.

Other Democrats say it's unfair to just blame team Biden, Senator Jon Tester of Montana, for example, in this reporting says we haven't talked about our accomplishments near enough. I point the finger at myself as much as everybody in the Senate, in the House and in the Executive Branch.

CNN Senior Reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere interviewed some three dozen Democrats for this important report. And he joins me now.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Hi John.

KING: Isaac on take us inside what you're hearing.

DOVERE: Well, look John, among the things that I've reported here are promises that Joe Biden made to Sean Patrick Maloney, Congressman who's the Head of the House Democrats campaign arm and Gary Peters Senator who's the Head of the Senate Democrats campaign arm saying I want to sit down and talk with you about the races.

I want to go through how I can help what I can do. Those conversations happened last June and July, their staffs followed up again and again. No meetings have been scheduled. But it's not just those people feel like one person said to me.

We it's not even that we don't get knows we don't get a response at all, and that they are feeling like they're being left out with a White House that is not feeling the urgency of what is ahead of them, given the situation the country given the president's approval ratings.

And of course, given the specter of what it would mean, if Republicans take control of the House or Senate subpoenas, impeachment, possibly problems with election certification come 2025. That's where they are. That's where they're thinking about this.

KING: And there's a lot of great depth in your reporting. And I urge people to go online and read it in full detail. But this is not just what this Congressman thanks or that operative thinks they're seeing evidence in focus groups that's scaring them take us inside that.

DOVERE: Yes. When you look at Democratic focus groups, and polling that's been done in states, for particular races for Senate Governor House races, they are seeing a really scary picture for democratic operatives. The president is coming off, detached, not part of the effort.

Not looking like he's on top of things looking like he's old, like he's absent from the conversation that is feeding into larger Democratic narratives of competence or lack thereof when it comes to the many problems that the administration is of course dealing with here, whether it's COVID, or inflation.

And there is this fears that by keeping Biden in Washington as much as he's been doing either event, the White House like the press conference later today, which of course haven't been many of or just short appearances at the White House.

Not playing into his strengths as a retail campaigner his the presence that he could have through maximizing the bully pulpit, that it's a problem. The good news for Biden is that a lot of Democrats are really eager to see him out on the trail and want to be seen with him if they can get them out there.

KING: If they can get him out there part. Isaac Dovere very important reporting I really appreciate it. Let's get some insight and perspective. Now joining us Seung Min Kim of "The Washington Post" Astead Herndon of "The New York Times" and POLITICO's Laura Barron- Lopez Laura, let me start with you.

You just heard Isaac say, you know, Democrats, you know, it's not uncommon. I've been around a lot longer than the three years. Not uncommon at this moment in time for people to get nervous about the midterm year.

But Democrat seems especially good at starting to point fingers a little bit early in the Biden White House. How do they answer the question when you say a lot of Democrats think you don't return their calls or you don't get it?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, a lot of times the answer has been that they that White House staff is constantly in touch with Democrats on the Hill or Democrats you know, that work in advocacy groups or operatives.

And that you know, they can't possibly answer everyone but that this is just whining from, and you know, either House Democrats that don't understand what their priorities are. Or that need to just suck it up.

I mean they take a pretty hard line with them but this is something that we've been hearing from Democrats for a while now which is that they want to see Biden be out there and --