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Biden's Special Obamacare Enrollment Period Opens Today; Calls Grow to Launch 9/11-Style Commission to Investigate Insurrection; Former President Trump Acquitted in Second Senate Impeachment Trial; Former President Trump Faces Possible Legal Jeopardy in New York and Other States; Snow Storms Hit Parts of Texas. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 15, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): But really there is hope in recovery. I can't wait for you to meet my son. He is healthy and well. He's the father of two children. Another one is on the way. As I said, he is helping others.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I look forward to that. Congratulations to you and Harry. We never stop being parents. You can be a House impeachment manager, but you never stop being a parent, that's for sure. Madeleine Dean, thank you for being with us. Congratulations to you.

DEAN: Thank you for having me.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

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

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is a special holiday edition of "new day." erica, great to have you here.

I don't like to miss a holiday.

Who said it is our holiday. So, listen, we were talking about the Senate impeachment trial. It's over. The former president was acquitted again. But the legal problems for him beginning. According to our legal analyst we spoke to, on a scale of one to den,ten, he thinks the concer ask a ten. Here in New York a scrutiny, a criminal investigation for his attempt to overturn the election in Georgia. Senate Republican leader mitch mcconnell, you heard madeleine Dean unimpressed. He did say he gave a dereliction of duty. Now a law maker who both parties are calling for a 9/11 commission to investigate the attacks.

President Biden, meantime, squarely focused on the future. His $1.9 trillion relief package, which, of course, he wants to see action on. Speaker Pelosi wants that package passed by the end of the month, we know, on the president's desk before some of these unemployment benefits expire, that's March 14th. All of this as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continue to decline, but new this morning, researchers identifying seven new strains of coronavirus here in the United States, and many of them have the same mutation as those fast- spreading variants first identified in the U.K. and South Africa.

Also breaking overnight, a deep snowy freeze gripping much of the nation. Nearly 3 million customers waking up without power this morning.

BERMAN: We're going to begin, though, with the mounting legal troubles for Donald Trump. We are joined by CNN White House correspondent John Harwood and CNN political analyst Natasha Alford. She is the vice president of Digital Content and senior correspondent at "The Grio." John, I actually want to start with the current White House, President Joe Biden, because now that the impeachment trial is over, the White House, by the way, has never not been focused on pandemic relief and the economic crisis. That's what they have been focused on during the impeachment trial. But now I think a lot of people will been to notice what is going on at the White House and how much closer to a $1.9 trillion relief package the country is today. So where do you think negotiations stand? And how realistic is that, what is it, March 14th target date to get it passed?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there is two kinds of negotiations we are talking about, John. One is between Democrats and Joe Biden and Republicans. The other is internally within the Democratic Party. The former are still nominally only going on, but they're not likely to amount to much. The material negotiations are among the Democratic Party, within the Democratic Party, and there are no signs of division within the party that would pose a huge barrier to the passage of that bill. So they are now on track to pass that $1.9 trillion relief bill, or something very close to it. That doesn't mean there won't be changes, but something close to it to pass by mid- March.

And it is an astounding change in policy. You're talking not just those $1,400 relief checks, but you are talking about $300 monthly checks for people with kids under six-years-old, low income people with kids under six-years-old, $4,000 in child care assistance for those families, an expansion of the earned income tax credit. You've got a whole lot of benefits that are about to be showered on people who have been adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and those are nominally temporary benefits that will expire within a year or two years of this bill. But Democrats don't have any intention that they are going to be temporary. They're going to try to extend them just as Donald Trump when he passed his tax cut, it inspired after 10 years, they're going to try to extend those. Democrats are going to do the same with those benefits.

HILL: Natasha, those benefits, too, also put at the forefront of the conversation the need that has always existed in this country, especially for lower income families, and the difficulties of working and dealing with childcare, even when we are not dealing with a pandemic. How much do you think this is opening up that conversation and even advancing it?

[08:05:03] NATASHA ALFORD, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, I think that it's doing a great deal to get the country to focus on what people have been advocating for for years, but in many ways maybe didn't believe. And so as you mentioned, the pandemic has really magnified the ways in which working class people, the working core, people who are making minimum wage and still not making ends meet, are struggling every single day.

And I think that this is maybe what the country is ready for, the country is ready to move away from so much of the stalling and the political backbiting and fighting to focus on what the American people need, and this could restore faith in the government, restore faith that actually showing up to vote has consequences that are positives. So, I think that this is an important moment for the Biden administration to show that they can get something done, and the fact that they were working on this, even as the impeachment trial was playing out, speaks volumes.

BERMAN: Natasha, I wonder what reasonable expectation at this point they could have for any congressional Republican support? And there is a little tie-in with the impeachment trial here. Those seven Republicans who voted to convict, Richard Burr in North Carolina is one of them. The North Carolina Republican Party is going to hold a vote to censure him for that today. We saw similar things happening in Louisiana as well. It doesn't seem as the party apparatus certainly in the states is ready to let anyone, anyone veer away from support for the former president and his ideas.

ALFORD: Yes, it's a little scary, John, right? You are being censured for voting your conscience, for speaking up against something that was obviously destructive to democracy. We know that censure is not a formal penalty. Really, it's just a statement of disapproval. But I think it really points to the fact that Trump, this is Trump's GOP still. People are still answering to him. They still fear him. And they're still taking direction from him even though he is not formally in office.

And the GOP had every opportunity to distance themselves from him, but they are leaning into this. And so what does that mean when at a grassroots people believe in QAnon and they're advocating violence or excusing violence. So this has to be a moment where the GOP figures out what is their identity, and it's a little bit concerning that even with the Capitol insurrection, it was not enough for people to stand up and do something.

And the only members of the GOP who are really speaking out are those who feel secure, that they're either not running again or that their seat is protected for the foreseeable future. So I think it's a moment of reckoning for the GOP.

HILL: And it will be interesting to see, too, how the messaging continues, John. We've seen some of it, right, from this administration. There's a lot, of course, in the beginning with Vice President Harris, make your way to West Virginia. But as this messaging gets out there about the bill, right, and they're trying to get a little bit more bipartisan support, they're trying to bring Republicans in, the fact that the messaging has been targeted at a more local level, at the needs of Americans as opposed to the political nature of it, is that having an impact? Is there a sense, John, that that's working in some respects?

HARWOOD: Yes. You look at the polling, Joe Biden, first of all, personally doing well. Internally, he has struck a note of reconciliation. He stayed away from the Trump impeachment, tried to reach out to Republicans, not just in Congress but beyond the Congress. And if you look at the polling, you see that that is having an effect. The package is broadly popular. It's always hard to poll a specific piece of legislation because the pollster is describing it to the respondent and you could get different responses depending on how you word it. Nevertheless, the idea of a large COVID relief package is very popular.

I do want to address, guys, the point that you began the segment with, that is the issue of legal jeopardy for President Trump. I heard Ross Garber on your show earlier said 10 out of ten 10 danger for the president. I think that is exactly right. We talked about this last fall after the election when the president was in the process of fomenting that insurrection with these lies about the election. There was zero chance that that was going to succeed. We knew that. But it is part of the pathological self-destructiveness of Donald Trump that he pursued it anyway. Why is that self-destructiveness? Because the best he could have hoped for in leaving the White House would be that people would want to be done with them, and prosecutors like Cy Vance looking at those cases would say, not worth it, the Biden Justice Department, not worth it. Let's move along. Let's get to other business.

[08:10:04]

But in reality, what has happened is, the terrible nature of the president's behavior, as underscored by those 57 votes for impeachment, has shattered any belief that people should let Donald Trump go on. John, you asked Congresswoman Dean in your question, he got off. If you are the prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia, if you are Cy Vance in New York, if you're Tish James in New York, you're hearing constituents say he got off, and saying I have the power to not let him off. I have information that I can prosecute him for, especially Cy Vance who has been working this case for a long time. That is a powerful incentive for those criminal prosecutors, for people who would bring civil litigation to say, no, he got off in the U.S. Senate, but he's not going to get off completely.

BERMAN: John Harwood, Natasha Alford, thank you both for being with us. The alarm going off right there means the end of the segment. When the buzzer sounds, we got to go.

HILL: We're done, sorry.

BERMAN: Thank you both.

So nearly 3 million customers without power this morning. You are looking at live pictures from Dallas right now. Roads, you can see there, covered with ice and snow. This is not a typical picture. HILL: That does not look like Dallas.

BERMAN: If you know Dallas, Texas, you ever watch the show "Dallas," I don't think there was ever an episode where the roads were covered with snow like there. The temperature is the lowest they have seen in decades. CNN's Ed Lavandera is there. Windchill, at negative 11. Are you cold, Ed?

HILL: And you need a hat.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I don't really know what I'm doing, so bear with me as we try to plow through this report here this morning. This is incredibly strange. But on a serious note, a great deal of concern across the state as power outages, rolling power outages are being rolled out across the state to conserve electrical power here, and that is major news, so everyone across the state of Texas is being urged to conserve as much electricity as possible, because this could be a treacherous day here in this state.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

LAVANDERA: Here in Texas, residents are experiencing some of the worst winter weather of their lives. Two major storms hitting the state in the last five days, and another one on the way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have been here for about 30 years, and I ain't never seen nothing like this.

LAVANDERA: All of the larger cities in Texas have been hammered by snow and ice.

We at emergency management are asking our citizens, wherever are you currently, please do not move from that spot until it leaves, Tuesday.

LAVANDERA: In Houston, snow and freezing temperatures have forced many to seek out local shelters. City officials are warning residents that many shelters are reaching capacity and the mayor is telling residents to avoid driving on dangerous streets. The snow and icy roads have caused more than 130 traffic accidents on Sunday night alone in Houston.

MAYOR SYLVESTER TURNER, (D-TX) HOUSTON: It's not just the overpasses and the bridges. It's every street, every road in this crisis that is dangerous. So I want to encourage people to stay home, to stay off the roads.

LAVANDERA: In El Paso, this car pileup left tractor-trailers overturned. In Oklahoma, roads are hardly visible, covered with snow and ice. These tractor-trailers collided sparking a dangerous fire on an Oklahoma highway. Oklahoma City has gone a record five days with temperatures below 20 degrees. The state could see up to 12 inches of snow by Tuesday.

And over the weekend, Washington and Oregon saw huge amounts of snowfall, Seattle saw a record-breaking 11 inches. Truckers have been stranded for days in Oregon, trying to dig out from the snow. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's open, but I'm empty. And with these high

winds, it would just blow me off the road.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

LAVANDERA (on camera): And so Erica, here, as I mentioned, the rolling outages, power outages across the state will be of real concern as the wind chills are just absolutely brutal, well below zero in many parts of the region this morning. John and Erica?

HILL: Yes, downright dangerous. Ed, thank you.

BERMAN: He's got the frozen face. I have been there.

HILL: Go back inside, my friend. I feel so guilty having you out there. We're going to get Ed a hat. I'm worried about him.

As we look at all of this happening, it is not just Texas, as you heard in Ed's report there. In the bull's eye, though, of this snow and ice, and we're talking more than half of the United States under winter storm advisories this morning, CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers is monitoring all of this for us. Chad, hardly a corner is spared at this point?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right. Really, just parts of Georgia and Florida the only two real spots that didn't have any warnings at all yesterday, and they're posted all the way almost from coast-to- coast with the next storm coming in. Windchill factors don't affect your house. They affect your body. They affect your pets. You need to be very cautious of letting your pet out too long today. Make sure that they get some shelter and they are out of that wind.

[08:15:00]

Now, saying that it doesn't really affect your house, it does if your power is out and that wind is blowing through the windows or even a crack in your door that you don't have a good weather seal on. One million square miles are under a winter weather advisory, called a winter wind chill warning. That's how cold we're going to be today.

Oklahoma City will be 50 degrees below normal without the wind chill factor. There is your power outages, 2.4 million in Texas, rolling those they are saying every 30-to-40-to-45 minutes, you may get your power back on, they will shut you back off, because they're trying to conserve the energy.

There is the snow. It's snowing in Louisiana. That will be an ice event in Baton Rouge. There will be big ice in Nashville today. Heavy snow from Columbus to Cincinnati, all the way back up even into western and upstate New York.

There will be heavy thunderstorms in Georgia today, not winter weather, but certainly a part of the same system and there you go. Here goes the snow. Not one, Erica, but two -- two snow events. What we see now, the ice here in Nashville all the way up towards Pittsburgh and another event for the snow that will come in later on this week.

There is the snow here. Now this stops Tuesday. Now let me stop you on Saturday. Everywhere that you see that, that dark purple. That's 18 inches of snow on the ground -- Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: A John Berman said, he is done with winter, Chad. Now, he is done.

MYERS: Yes.

HILL: And he is not alone I think, thank you.

The Biden administration is extending a lifeline today to Americans who lost their health insurance during the pandemic. That's next.

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[08:20:16]

BERMAN: Starting today, millions of Americans will have a new chance to sign up for healthcare. So many people have lost coverage for one reason or another during the pandemic so President Biden just now ordering the Obamacare exchanges reopened for three months.

Joining me now is Cedric Richmond, senior adviser to President Biden. And Congressman Richmond, in just a moment, we are going to play a PSA there announcing that these exchanges will reopen and we are going to about that, but first, I want to get some reaction to this historic Senate trial, the former President acquitted.

On Friday, President Biden told our Jeremy Diamond before the vote, he said, "I'm just anxious to see what my Republican friends do, if they stand up." Well, did enough of the President Republican's friends stand up?

CEDRIC RICHMOND, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: I think a significant number of Republican senators did stand up. You had seven who voted to convict a former President of the United States for insurrection, for inciting a riot and invading the U.S. Capitol, which I was there, and so I think that's significant.

Look, this was not a party line vote. You had seven Republicans that said the President should be convicted, and I think that's significant.

BERMAN: Some Democrats have called for a September 11th-style commission to investigate what happened on January 6th.

Now, the September 11th commission itself was an act of Congress that was signed by George W.H. Bush. What is the White House view on a special commission?

RICHMOND: Well, I think the Speaker has already moved down a path. I think former General Honore -- Russel Honore from Louisiana is leading an investigation into what happened, who knew what and when and who did what. And so we will watch that go through the process and if the Congress

decides there is something else that they need, then we will look at that, but this should be in the purview of Congress.

They were there. They know what they want to see and so I think that you defer to them on this for now.

BERMAN: So no White House effort to push it one way or another?

RICHMOND: No, I really think that this is in the purview of Members of Congress to decide what they need, what information they need to move forward.

One, we need to make sure we protect the Capitol and the American people that are visiting there. And two, we need to make sure that we always defend and protect the Constitution.

BERMAN: So President Biden has ordered healthcare exchanges reopened for three months. This is no not the part of the year when they reopen, so this is a new action that will allow people to sign up again. The White House has released a PSA, a public service announcement to tell people that this can happen.

I just want to play a few seconds here so people can see it and then I'll let you talk over. Let's play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For those who have found themselves without health insurance during these challenges times, sign up now at healthcare.gov.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So what do you think this will provide? How many people do you see this helping?

RICHMOND: Well, we hope that we are making it accessible to everybody, and let me just tell you why. Because if you look at President Biden, you know he cares about people and he doesn't let the politics get in the way.

And so, right now, we know that there are millions of Americans who have lost their job, who are out of work and who don't have healthcare.

And so we wanted to open up the exchanges to make that available to people so that they could get that assistance. And then, if you combine it with the American Rescue Plan, which we are trying to push through Congress as fast as possible, it would provide the funds to make sure that no one paid more than 8.5 percent of their income towards healthcare.

So we are looking at it from a comprehensive approach, but most Americans know how important healthcare is, and they know that the Affordable Care Act allowed about a hundred million to get insurance that had preexisting conditions without fear of paying higher rates and 20 million students and others who were able to get it.

And so, we just want to use every tool in the toolkit to make sure people are covered in the middle of this pandemic.

BERMAN: You are talking about the American Rescue Plan, that is the $1.9 trillion relief or stimulus package, depending on how you look at it.

As you sit here this morning, how many Republicans have signed on in support of the plan?

RICHMOND: Look, you know, I was looking at that the other day. We have many Republican mayors, we have Republican governors, we have more than 50 percent of Republicans in this country, 46 percent of Trump supporters. There is just one place that we don't have anybody who has signed on yet and that is in the United States Congress.

But we are still working every day to see if we can earn Republican support for the plan, but what we won't do is slow down and not meet the needs of the American people by just waiting, where there is obstruction on inertia, President Biden is not willing to wait.

[08:25:18]

RICHMOND: And all five rescue plans passed by Congress have one thing in common, they were too little too late and President Biden and Vice President Harris, they don't want to do that. They want to make sure we stop chasing this pandemic and that we get in front of it.

And so, we're going to keep reaching out. We have Republicans in the White House, Republicans and Democratic mayors and governors in the White House last week talking to them about the plan, many of whom support it.

So we are going to keep moving on in a bipartisan manner, but we are not going to fail the American people.

BERMAN: One of the things that is still at least being discussed on the House side is increasing the minimum wage to $15.00. Now, in the Senate, you have both Democratic Senator You Joe Manchin and Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona saying they will not vote for the American Rescue Plan if it includes an increase in the minimum wage.

So as again, we sit here this morning, can you guarantee that an increased minimum wage will be part of the plan that the Senate votes on?

RICHMOND: Look, I can't guarantee anything in the Senate. I couldn't guarantee much in the House when I was a member of the House, but it looks like the House will pass out a plan with $15.00 an hour in it, getting to $15.00 by 2025, and the President supports raising the minimum wage.

We will see when it happens, what happens in the Senate, because Senator Sanders is pushing it. We know that there is some reluctance. But, look, that's not the real question. The real question is, why do

people in this country -- why do we think it is okay that people go to work for 40 hours a week and still make less than the poverty levels? That should not be acceptable in this country.

If you work 40 hours a week, you should be able to sustain your family. So that's where we are focused on. Again, this is not about us. This is about the American people who are suffering right now through an economic crisis and a health pandemic.

BERMAN: Cedric Richmond, thank you very much for joining us. Obviously, we have got a lot more questions for you, for the White House and for President Biden, himself, and luckily, a quick programming note, President Joe Biden will join Anderson Cooper for his first Presidential Town Hall live from Milwaukee. That's tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

So, new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are down sharply the last few weeks. But, there is still enormous concern about new information just announced overnight about new variants of coronavirus in the United States. We'll tell you what you need to know next.

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