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McConnell: "Looney Lies" Spread By Rep. Greene Are A "Cancer" On The GOP; Biden Meets With Senate Republicans To Discuss Their Relief Proposal; President Biden To Sign Executive Orders On Immigration Today. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 02, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: "That horrifying school shootings were pre- staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.'s airplane is not living in reality."

Now, I can't think of a time when Mitch McConnell has ever said something like this about a Republican member of Congress.

Joining us now, CNN senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, and CNN political director David Chalian. They are the co-hosts of the groundbreaking CNN podcast, "Politically Sound."

So, David, you know, you say how the Republican Party handles this will tell us everything we need to know about how the party intends to pursue a path back to power. How so? What are the options?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR, CO-HOST, CNN PODCAST "POLITICALLY SOUND": Well, I think there are two things coming to a head this week, right?

We know this Kevin McCarthy meeting with Marjorie Taylor Greene -- does he stand up in sort of a leadership moment and explain to his party, to the Congress, to the country that what she has said is totally unacceptable and doesn't belong in the Halls of Congress and she should not be on these committees -- and dole out some form of punishment and recognition that that's not the way we expect members of Congress to behave? That's one opportunity.

And the other piece about the future of the Republican Party Mitch McConnell also weighed in on John, which is Liz Cheney, one of those 10 Republicans who voted to impeach the president. Number-three Republican leader in the conference, in the House. When the whole conference gets together there's going to be a moment of sort of airing frustration with the position that she took and affording her the opportunity to sort of defend her stance, which she called a vote of conscience, to her members.

How -- whether or not she stays in that position, whether or not the conference still wants her as its leader -- I think those two things combined are going to tell us so much about how the Republican Party in Washington wants to proceed in this post-Trump era. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: But, Nia-Malika, you point out now Mitch McConnell is shocked by conspiracy theories, now he's shocked by repugnant things that Marjorie Taylor Greene says, but not the lie that Donald Trump had been peddling that caused an insurrection on the Capitol and got five Americans killed?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER, CO-HOST, CNN PODCAST "POLITICALLY SOUND" (via Cisco Webex): I think that's right.

And even if you go back in time a little bit more you think about who Donald Trump was as a candidate. He was a birther. He was always a conspiracy theorist and the Republican Party largely let that go uncontested.

And so you saw throughout his presidency more conspiracy theories about the deep state, more conspiracy theories about, supposedly, things that Hillary Clinton had done or Barack Obama had done, and Mitch McConnell and most Republicans were silent.

So now, to come out and say that Marjorie Taylor Greene is somehow a cancer when the big cancer is Donald Trump who, again, Mitch McConnell, even as he was going to court (Donald Trump), Mitch McConnell essentially said look, let this play out -- we'll see how it goes -- and we saw how this ended.

So listen, I don't think Mitch McConnell deserves any praise, any kind of pat on the back for picking on Marjorie Taylor Greene, who certainly deserves criticism. But it's a much larger problem than Marjorie Taylor Greene.

We'll see what Kevin McCarthy does, but we already know what he did do, which was not back her opponent and put her on this committee, obviously, as well. And he's dragging his feet at this point, right?

Everything we know about Marjorie Taylor Greene and some of the things she said is out there. A lot of the stuff she's said is horribly offensive and racist as well. And so, Kevin McCarthy has to have a meeting to discuss what the options are rather than acting swiftly to deal with her.

I think, you know, it's a little too late not only for Mitch McConnell but Kevin McCarthy as well to rein in parts of the party that have been out there for years and years and years and have been allowed to metastasize, to continue this cancer metaphor that Mitch McConnell brings up.

BERMAN: Just one last thing on this point, David. Again, I don't think I've seen McConnell do this with another Republican member of Congress, but I also don't think I've seen him put this kind of really direct pressure on Kevin McCarthy before.

I mean, this is a power play, in a way, with Sen. McConnell to Congress and McCarthy. I just don't know how McCarthy responds. It puts him in a bit of a corner.

CHALIAN: Without a doubt. I mean -- and again, when -- you remember when Liz Cheney announced that she was going to vote to impeach, the same night we learned McConnell was open to impeachment.

Again, I take Mia's point this is all too little, too late. Look at where we are. I mean, the only thing Kevin McCarthy did was vote to challenge the electoral votes after the insurrection at the Capitol. So, yes, no profile in courage for either of them.

But John, I think politically, you're right. Not only is Mitch McConnell speaking out against a fellow Republican in Marjorie Taylor Greene without naming her and the way she is, but he's sort of delving into Kevin McCarthy's turf. It's a House member; it's not the Senate. And Mitch McConnell is not being shy about the fact that he expects Kevin McCarthy, clearly, to take some action here and he's laying out the parameters of how he sees the debate.

[07:35:13]

CAMEROTA: Nia-Malika, let's talk about something that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talked about last night.

So she did -- on social media, she revealed the trauma that she was experiencing during the January sixth insurrection. And one of the things that she revealed that I don't believe she's ever said publicly before is that she is a survivor of sexual assault. And as we know, trauma comes back, you know -- PTSD. There are triggers and the trauma comes flooding back.

And so she talked in more vivid detail than she ever has about what happened during the insurrection on January sixth, including when a Capitol police officer came into her office saying where is she, loudly. And he didn't identify himself, she says, and she didn't know if she was going to be killed.

So here is a moment of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): And I'm here and the bathroom door starts going like this. Like the bathroom door is behind me or right in front of me and I'm like this, and the door hinge is right here. And I just hear where is she?

I mean, I thought I was going to die and I had a lot of thoughts. I felt that if this was the journey that my life was taking that I felt that things were going to be OK and that, you know, I had fulfilled my purpose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: It's pretty intense.

HENDERSON: It is. And I have to say I -- this is the first time I'm hearing this, the first time I'm watching this because I didn't want to watch it. I didn't want to relive that with her.

She, of course, lived it. Other members of Congress did, too. It really reminds you how dangerous a situation that insurrection was and that it was really just sheer luck that additional people weren't killed and that those members of Congress remained unharmed because they were being hunted.

And it wasn't surprising that -- given some of the rhetoric that we've heard from folks who participated in that, it's not surprising that she was afraid for her life. Nancy Pelosi and other folks as well.

I imagine these are the kind of testimonies and sort of sense of fear and trauma that will come out in that impeachment trial. Those people and I think particularly, the women as well if you see a lot of the women coming out and talking about the fear that they had because they were the ones on the list, in many ways. They were ransacking Nancy Pelosi's office, for instance, and looking for people like AOC because they are kind of the face of the party and very famous and very vilified on the right.

So, you know, really painful I think for people to see what AOC had to go through in those -- in those minutes and hours in that insurrection where she was a target. And again, thank God that nothing worse happened. Four people obviously sent to their death, and then that Capitol policeman, as well, died. But it could have been much, much, much worse.

CAMEROTA: And again, just so that people know, they should go watch this entire thing that she talked about --

HENDERSON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- on Twitter because that was the beginning. So when that police officer came in and she was so scared because he wasn't identifying himself, that was just the beginning.

After that, he had to tell her another building to go hide in. She did that with colleagues for hours. She had to find shoes so she could run for her life because she was wearing high heels. They had to find her sneakers. Like, that was just the beginning right there with all that calculation of whether or not her life was about to be over.

Nia-Malika, David Chalian, thank you both very --

CHALIAN: Thanks, guys.

CAMEROTA: -- much.

HENDERSON: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: The White House and Senate Republicans remain far apart after this meeting. They met for two hours last night on this COVID relief bill, but they seemed hopeful that conversations would continue at the staff level. So a top White House economic adviser joins us with what's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:43:22]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I wouldn't say that we came together on a package tonight. No one expected that in a two-hour meeting. But what we did agree to do is to follow up and talk further.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: President Joe Biden met with Republican senators for nearly two hours as they pitched him their scaled-back relief proposal.

Joining me now is Jared Bernstein. He's a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Jared, great to have you on the show. Thanks so much for being here.

In what ways --

JARED BERNSTEIN, MEMBER, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL ON ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Thanks for inviting me.

BERMAN: In what ways this morning are you closer to a bipartisan agreement on a relief plan?

BERNSTEIN: That's a great question. I think that probably the most important way -- the key way is that coming out of that meeting there's a real sense of urgency in moving forward.

I mean, look, the president is clearly happy to sit down and have a fulsome exchange with folks from all sides of the aisle about how to best accomplish this goal. And by the way, I should say this dual goal of both finally controlling the virus and distributing the vaccine and getting a robust, inclusive, racially-equitable recovery finally launched in earnest.

And, you know, his view has consistently been that the American Rescue Plan is the best plan to build this fiscal bridge for the other side of the crisis. Now, he's clearly happy to talk about and hear other people's views about how they think we should get there, but inaction, delay -- that's going to be unacceptable. And I thought I heard that coming out of the meeting from both sides.

BERMAN: So an agreement to do something soon. As regards to what to do, let's put up on the screen so people can see the differences between the two plans.

[07:45:06]

The White House plan is $1.9 trillion. It includes direct payments of $1,400, federal unemployment increase of those weekly benefits of $400 to September, and then a big chunk of state and local aid. But a Republican plan is just $600 billion, the direct payments of $1,000, less in federal unemployment, and then no state and local aid.

So where here -- in these four items alone where, there, do you see room for movement?

BERSTEIN: Well, I think part of what's going to happen now is that -- and I think some of this is being kicked to the staff level -- is that we're going to make our case to support those differences. And Democrats across the Congress and in the White House -- we've long recognized that the danger is not doing too much, it's doing too little. And thus far, that has plagued our ability to really get the escape velocity we need to launch the recovery and to put the -- to put the virus behind us.

So if you -- take opening the schools. It's so important to reopen schools. It's important for kids' learning. It's important for the two million parents, mostly moms, who have had to leave the labor market. It's important for unemployment rates that are still close to 10 percent for African-Americans.

We have $170 billion in there to reopen the schools; they have $20 billion. Now, that's a pretty big gulf. And when we look at the numbers it's going to take a magnitude of the type of proposal we're putting out there.

If you look at the checks, $1,400 versus $1,000, OK? Not just Joe Biden, by the way, but many Republicans have supported the higher amount. And so we think that's what it's going to take to reach people.

By the way, I did a little calculation yesterday and found that if you look at a -- say, a schoolteacher who makes about $70,000 a year, she gets a check from us. She doesn't get a check from the Republican plan. So that's a kind of a flaw in our view that we'll have to -- we'll have to argue about.

BERMAN: I'll circle back to the checks in a moment and the amounts there because I do think it's interesting.

But first, the CBO (the Congressional Budget Office) came out with a report yesterday that suggested that the economy as a whole -- the economy has bounced back quicker than anticipated and will recover more quickly in the next year. And already, some Republicans are saying well, if that's the case, it means we don't need to pump as much money into the relief plan.

What's your response to that?

BERNSTEIN: You simply cannot gauge the needs that are met by this relief plan by looking at a forecast for gross domestic product or GDP.

First of all, we know that if we don't get control of this virus this economy is just not going to hit the kind of recovery that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris envision. And that's going to take virus control and it's going to take vaccine production and distribution, and that is at the heart of the American Rescue Plan.

We also know that this is a k-shaped recovery. There are a lot of people, myself included, who have never missed a paycheck throughout this crisis. But on the bottom leg of the k, there's a lot of folks who have been disproportionately hit with economic losses and with health care crises. And so, we can't just look at these aggregate numbers and say we're going to be OK without addressing those who have been hit the hardest -- and not just in this crisis, but for years on end.

BERMAN: And look -- and I'm sensitive to the two arguments that the White House is making. Number one, that this isn't -- bipartisanship isn't the goal. The right relief plan is the goal.

And in the CBO case -- yes, the economy might be improving but that doesn't necessarily mean that the jobs are improving. In fact, the CBO said it would take some time to get the jobs back.

But on that specific point, if your goal is to help people who have had their jobs or livelihood affected, then how does $1,400 to someone making $75,000 or family making $150,000 that has never lost their job, that's received their paycheck every month during this entire pandemic -- how then does that $1,400 help?

BERNSTEIN: Yes, and I think that's a good question.

First of all, yes, the people who lost their jobs have faced some of the deepest hardships. But there's also people who kept working and yet, they've lost hours or someone else in their family has lost a job or they've had difficulty meeting their rent or their mortgage.

So one of the things I looked at --

BERMAN: That's reflected, though, in the amount. That's reflected, though -- that is -- would be reflected in the target amount.

BERNSTEIN: Well, wait a second.

BERMAN: Go ahead.

BERNSTEIN: So let me talk -- so let me -- let me talk about that.

If you look at the savings of people in, say, the $60,000 to $80,000 range, those people often have zero negative low rates of savings. And what they've done with these checks, in many cases, is they've initially saved them. They haven't spent them right out of the box.

[07:50:00]

And then, as the crisis has proceeded and the uncertainty that's embedded in this has plagued families even at that income level. They've spent down those checks to meet their rent, to meet their mortgage. And, in fact, in many of the cases we're talking about, these families have been going through forbearance on their mortgage or forbearance on their rent. That means they have a big bill coming due.

So if those dollars aren't spent immediately but they're saved and then spent shortly thereafter, that's still very effective in tackling the uncertainty that's engendered by this crisis.

BERMAN: Jared Bernstein, out of time. Listen, thanks for coming on. We look forward to speaking to you again about this. I know it will be a process. Appreciate it.

BERNSTEIN: Thank you.

BERMAN: The president will sign a series of executive orders on immigration today and work to reunify families separated by the past administration. We have a live report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:55:06]

CAMEROTA: Later today, President Biden will sign executive orders on immigration trying to reunite those children who are still separated from their parents as a result of the Trump administration's order from years ago.

CNN's Ed Lavandera went to the border for a look at the impact of the Trump administration's policies. Ed, it's unbelievable that we're still dealing with this.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, and President Biden is expected to sign a series of executive orders beginning the rollout of an immigration plan. And even though he might be talking about unity and bipartisanship, immigration is just one of those issues that makes that aisle much wider and much harder to reach across.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): The immigration debate in America is a political minefield and right out of the gate, President Biden is facing legal challenges. The president issued a 100-day pause on deportations but a federal judge has temporarily blocked that move. But Biden is ready to move on other issues.

Ilse Mendez came to Laredo, Texas with her parents at the age of two. She's now 33. Everyone in her family, including her four children, are now U.S. citizens, except her.

Mendez is one of the hundreds of thousands of people known as Dreamers. President Biden is proposing a pathway to citizenship for these immigrants who have been able to live in the U.S. because of the Obama-era program known as DACA.

ILSE MENDEZ, DACA RECIPIENT: We have lived four years of Trump stringing us along with fear and anxiety. So I'm hopeful that something will -- something positive will come out of these different legislations or these executive actions that Biden has brought.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): The Trump administration rolled out four years of controversial programs that critics have often described as inhumane, but that many conservatives have celebrated.

There are still 611 children separated from their parents as part of the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy. The Biden administration is proposing a task force to reunify those families. JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will accomplish what I said I would do -- a much more humane policy based on family unification.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): There are still about 28,000 migrants sitting in Mexican border town seeking asylum through the controversial Remain in Mexico policy. Advocates have pushed for these migrants to be allowed into the country while their cases are handled in immigration courts.

Former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Ronald Vitiello warns that Biden's immigration policies could create another surge of migrants at the southern border.

RONALD VITIELLO, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: My warning would be learn from the history that we already have. When you roll back those elements of what's in place now, then you're going to -- you're going to encourage people.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): And then there is the issue of the border wall.

LAVANDERA (on camera): How much do you enjoy this view?

JOSEPH HEIN, TEXAS LANDOWNER: Well, I'm going to see it through bars. It's going to be horrible.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Last year, Joseph Hein was bracing for construction of the border wall across his ranch on the bank of the Rio Grande in Texas. We returned to see him after President Biden halted all construction.

HEIN: Along the road that they have built they have put these markers.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): But now, Hein feels like he's won the border wall fight, at least for four years, anyway.

HEIN: The way I saw it, it was a hostile takeover of my property and I was being treated like a second-class citizen -- and they were fine and dandy with it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: And Alisyn and John, President Biden is also talking about proposing legislation that would create a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants already in the United States. That plan, according to the Biden administration, would include criminal background checks and proof that the immigrants are learning English.

But these are just the types of issues that you can expect a long series of legal challenges and fighting over in the weeks and months ahead -- Alisyn and John.

CAMEROTA: Ed Lavandera, thank you very much for all of that reporting from the border for us. And NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: I am hopeful that we can pass a sixth bipartisan relief package.

GOV. JIM JUSTICE (R), WEST VIRGINIA: With what we've got going on in this country, if we actually throw away some money right now, so what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: While there were some broad areas of agreement, the president and the vice president specifically reiterated he will settle for nothing less than what is needed.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I believe an impeachment of the president is unconstitutional, so I'm confident of the outcome here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A source said to me that the focus is going to be on what he called the unconstitutional nature of the Democrats' impeachment witch hunt.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): It will be his own words. It will be an open and shut and pretty straightforward set of evidence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY.

Your move, Kevin McCarthy -- your move. McCarthy, of course, is the leading Republican in the House. The top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell.