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House GOP to Hold Secret Ballot to Oust Cheney; Kinzinger: 'History Won't Be Kind' to GOP if It Ousts Liz Cheney; Violence Between Israelis, Palestinians Escalates Toward War. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 12, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Brianna Keilar alongside John Berman on this NEW DAY. And it is a consequential day for the future of the Republican Party. Truth or Trump. Liz Cheney is about to find out just a short time from now.

[05:59:41]

Plus, on the brink of an all-out war, the bloodshed is growing as Israel and Palestinians fight the worst violence in nearly a decade. CNN is there.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A landmark day as the CDC gets ready to approve a COVID vaccine for adolescents in what could get us closer than ever to normal.

And a new book suggests two of Donald Trump's family members got, quote, "inappropriately and dangerously close" to Secret Service agents.

KEILAR: A very good morning to viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Wednesday, May 12, and we begin with a pivotal moment for the Republican Party and for America.

In just a few hours, House Republicans are all but certain to vote Liz Cheney out of her leadership position. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy making it clear there is only room for Republican leadership in the House for those willing to fuel former President Trump's big lie about the 2020 election.

BERMAN: "New York Times" columnist Tom Friedman put it this way, quote, "If House Republicans follow through on their plan to replace Cheney, it will not constitute the end of American democracy as we've known it, but there's a real possibility we'll look back on May 12, 2021, as the beginning of the end." That's today.

The beginning of the end, says Tom Friedman. Last night, Cheney in a defiant speech, vowed not to remain silent, calling out other Republican leaders who ignored Trump's lies, emboldened him and threatened democracy. This is some of what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Today we face a threat America has never seen before. A former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol in an effort to steal the election has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence.

Millions of Americans have been misled by the former president. They have heard only his words but not the truth as he continues to undermine our democratic process, sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all.

I am a conservative Republican, and the most conservative of conservative principles is reverence for the rule of law. The Electoral College has voted. More than 60 state and federal courts, including multiple judges the former president appointed, have rejected his claims. The Trump Department of Justice investigated the former president's claims of widespread fraud and found no evidence to support them.

The election is over. That is the rule of law. That is our Constitutional process. Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the Constitution.

Our duty is clear. Every one of us who has sworn the oath must act to prevent the unraveling of our democracy. This is not about policy. This is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans. Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar. I will not participate in that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now is Miles Taylor. He is the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. He was the anonymous author of an op-ed and subsequent book about the resistance inside the Trump administration, and he's now joined with more than a hundred other Republicans who are preparing to release a letter as soon as today, threatening to form a third party if the Republican Party doesn't make certain changes, which Miles, it does not seem there is any indication they will.

So what was your reaction to what was really an incredible moment? This was Liz Cheney on the House floor, and with the exception of one Republican, the entire conference vacated to basically shun her.

MILES TAYLOR, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Well, Brianna, it was an extremely symbolic and powerful moment that showed exactly where the GOP stands.

Liz Cheney is one of the few Republicans that still maintains her spine in a sea of spinelessness, and that's why we are doing what we're doing. We are saying enough is enough.

Yes, there was the January 6th insurrection, but it hasn't stopped. The GOP has continued to perpetuate lies that are tearing at the fabric of our democracy. So this group of 100 Republicans tomorrow, we are going to come out, and we're going to say we will no longer stand for it. We are going to issue a call for American renewal. And what you will see is those prominent former Republicans and

current Republicans say enough is enough, and we need to offer a commonsense coalition for this country and a more unifying alternative vision than what we're seeing from the present GOP, which has now become rotten to its core for the persistent attacks on our democracy. So our message is it is time to either reform or repeal the Republican Party.

[06:05:14]

BERMAN: Miles, why not join the Democratic Party? I can see the Democrats looking at this and saying, OK, you know, it's that you're not supporting these Trump Republicans, but if you're going to split off and form a third party, you're going to actually maybe hurt more than you help.

TAYLOR: Yes. Well, we would say, first and foremost, look, a lot of Republicans, conservatives and centrists, have differences with the Democratic Party. The one place we are united with Democrats right now is in defending our democracy.

But in the long run, John, we think it's absolutely critical for a pluralistic democratic system to have multiple parties, competing ideas.

The irony now, John, is right now in my life, whether it's ordering an Uber or a Lyft, or ordering, you know, clothes or food online, I've got a choice. But right now in my democracy, ironically, there's no choice, and there's no competition, because the big party monopoly over our system has made it closed off. Consumers, voters, they want more choice, and we want to try to break open that system.

How are we going to do that? Well, if we operationalize this movement -- and mark my words. This is more than a statement we're issuing tomorrow. We are committed to actually taking action. Namely, defending the good Republicans that are out there, the Liz Cheneys, the Mitt Romneys, the Adam Kinzingers. But also opposing the radicals out there in the party.

And then more importantly, incubating and accelerating pragmatic, principled candidates around this country to go run against the extremists, and to be an insurgency of the pragmatic people in -- in the center and the center right to restore sanity to our politics.

KEILAR: So, Miles, that takes a lot of money, right? You're talking about, it sounds like, fundraising, recruitment. You're talking about immobilizing, I would assume, some high-profile appearances to back lesser-known candidates. What is the infrastructure that is, I guess, being contemplated or has been put together here?

TAYLOR: That's a great question, Brianna, and we are in very active conversations behind the scenes about that. I mean, the message I would send to Kevin McCarthy right now is if he thinks that ousting Liz Cheney means an end to the civil war in the GOP. My message to him is the civil war within the GOP is not ending today.

It is just beginning. And what we're going to be doing over the next few weeks is you're going to hear more announcements from this group and this movement about how we are going to organize around this effort. It's important, because we are seeing a demand signal within the Republican Party.

After January 6, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Republicans nationwide abandoned the GOP in droves, but they still want to see a rational Republican Party. And then within the GOP, recent polls have shown that 20 or 30 percent of people who stayed in the party are dissatisfied with its direction. We want to marshal those people into a unified coalition to strike back and again restore sanity to our political system.

BERMAN: Miles, we have to let you go, but in ten seconds or less, which current office holders do you have joining this coalition?

TAYLOR: Well, I can't get too ahead of our numbers, but we've got a lot of prominent former governs, senators, congressman.

BERMAN: Current, current.

TAYLOR: People who have held cabinet positions. The focus hasn't been on that. The focus has been on the people who have been in these positions on the outside. We do hope some of those other individuals who stood up for truth will come join us once we go public.

But the last thing I'll give you, John, is if you can think about the existing GOP leadership as the dinosaurs, we're about ready to be the asteroids.

BERMAN: Miles Taylor, asteroid. Thanks for joining us this morning.

TAYLOR: Thanks.

BERMAN: Joining us now, John Harwood, CNN White House correspondent and S.E. Cupp, CNN political commentator.

So S.E., I actually want to go back to Liz Cheney specifically for a second here, because one of the things that Kevin McCarthy says directly and other members of the House Republican leadership say is we're getting rid of Liz Cheney because, you know, she's a distraction. She's distracting from the message we want to be sending and the things we want to be doing here.

You say that it's McCarthy who is the big distractor here. How so and from what?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it's clear he's decided to be distracted by this. He's obsessed over this. And I think it's -- I think there are a few reasons.

One, I think he wants to make an example of Liz Cheney. Two, I think it's signaling a message to Donald Trump: he's got your back. And, three, I think they're really out of ideas. I mean when this is, you know, your incoming message coming into a

2022 midterm election, you're not talking, really, about Joe Biden's record all that much. This is the main story. I think it's because you want it to be.

[06:10:05]

KEILAR: And, John, I wonder, once Liz Cheney is gone, then what for Republicans? You hear Miles Taylor saying this isn't the end. It's the beginning. Do you see it that way?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes. The question is how long does it take to get from the beginning to something different.

Political parties change when they get beat and when they get beat soundly and consistently. Republicans have lost the House, Senate and presidency in the last several elections. But they still have a chance of winning back the House.

Obviously, what Miles is doing, what Liz Cheney is doing, is not hiving off a big chunk of the Republican Party. It's sort of an ice cube off of an iceberg.

But what it does is clarify what has actually happened to the Republican Party. Jeff Flake, the former Republican senator, outlined it in an op-ed in "The Washington Post" today.

What he said is it's not just a singular lie about the election that's sprung up. It's lies over a number of years about Obama, lies being shot through the Trump campaign, lies about his embrace of Russia. It wasn't a hoax. Lies about the attempt to extort Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden. Lies about the pandemic.

It is as the Republican Party has become more difficult in a changing America for the Republicans to gain power. They've gotten further and further away from logic and reason and competition. That's why Republican state legislatures around the country are trying to change voting rules to make it harder for people who would vote against them to vote.

It is a challenging situation. And the question is how long can they sustain it before they embrace the effort that Miles Taylor is trying and Liz Cheney are trying to change.

BERMAN: S.E., you've got something to say about this.

CUPP: Well, I think it's going to take a long time. John is actually, you know, absolutely right. It's going to take a very long time. The Miles Taylor efforts are good ones.

But, look, I think something that Lindsey Graham said yesterday was the most honestly naked thing I've heard about the modern state of the GOP and what's happening to Liz Cheney. He said, Look, if we drive out Donald Trump, half the party will leave, to which I would say, you promise? But you have to wonder who -- what half is he talking about? He's not

concerned that the good conservative, the Liz Cheney, the Mitt Romney, the Adam Kinzinger, the Jeff Flake, the Cindy McCain. He's not concerned they're leaving. They're actually being shoved out the door.

So who's left? Well, it's the QAnon crowd. It's the Capitol Hill insurrectionists. It's the Proud Boys, the white supremacists. That's who Kevin McCarthy and GOP leadership is bending over backward to keep inside the party, to keep satisfied. That tells you everything you need to know.

And so if that's the project, to keep concentrating the base so that it's pure Trumpism and nothing's left, I think that's the only way the party sort of rids itself, becomes so small it becomes completely irrelevant. It becomes a side show and a cult.

I -- I'm not so optimistic that the other sort of above-board efforts are going to be as effective as quickly as you might -- as you might -- you and I might want.

BERMAN: Let me read you something that Adam Kinzinger said yesterday, S.E., because it gets to this point you're making.

Kinzinger said, "Kevin McCarthy (an employee of Donald Trump) may win tomorrow, but history won't be kind. Never has our party gone after its own leadership like this, but Keven and Steve Scalise made history because Trump has thin skin. I'd be embarrassed if I was them."

The thing is, S.E., they're not embarrassed. They're not. And my question to you is why not? Why aren't they embarrassed by this?

CUPP: Well, I think they made a calculation a long time ago. I mean, I trace it back to 2015, you know, when Donald Trump ran and then -- and then later when the RNC, you know, raced down to New York to get Donald Trump to sign a loyalty pledge.

I mean, I think they've made a number of decisions over the course of the past five-plus years to abandon principle and make Donald Trump the front and center, the nucleus of the party, at the expense over and over again of principle.

I mean, this didn't happen just today. This has happened over and over again, where Republicans in leadership positions, from McCarthy to Scalise, you know, on down have made the decision to put Trump before principle, to put Trump ahead of voters.

Put another way, if the party rid itself of Trump, drove Trump and Trumpism out, think about all the white suburban women voters that might come flooding back in, and all the other -- the independents and moderates.

You might, in fact, have a pretty decent -- decent-sized party if you did that. They're not interested in bringing that wing of the party back and speaking to them. They were happy to see us leave.

[06:15:11] So they're very clearly making a calculation that they've made over and over again. This is just more of the same.

KEILAR: And they're doing this because of one person, Donald Trump, right? They are giving in to what he wants because of his ego, because of the lie that he perpetuates.

And I think it's something, Harwood, that we should all be concerned about. But I wonder how Democrats are looking at this. Are they viewing this with some schadenfreude, or are they alarmed?

HARWOOD: Well, yes, schadenfreude. They enjoy seeing the Republican Party in agony. But they have reason to be worried in the short term.

Long term, the Republicans have lost themselves to a losing strategy, a shrinking coalition. They're not expanding their base. Demographically, the blue-collar whites they're depending on are -- are getting smaller and smaller as a share of the electorate.

However, Donald Trump has been very effective at arousing that shrinking base, getting them to turn out the vote. And if you do that, you can hold off long-term decline for a while.

They happen to have a situation where Joe Biden won narrowly. Democrats lost seats in the House. They have an extremely narrow majority in the House and no margin for error whatsoever in the Senate.

So the tides of history tell us that they have a very good chance of losing control of the Congress in 2022 in which redistricting is happening. The Republicans control a lot of legislatures. They could create a situation with election rules where it is difficult to stop what the dissident Republicans were able to stop in 2020, which was Donald Trump's attempt to steal the election.

So Democrats have a narrow window here, and they could have some -- some short-term setbacks.

Now, if you talk to Biden's political team, what they will tell you is, no, forget history. We have a unique set of circumstances created by Trump, by the pandemic. If we deliver in our administration, the first two years, we can define history and actually do well in the midterms. We will see.

It's a -- it's a test of whether or not we're actually in a unique historical moment or if the tides of history are going to reassert themselves.

KEILAR: We're certainly in a place where a minority party can operate as a majority party in Congress.

HARWOOD: That's right.

KEILAR: We are seeing that. It's very real.

John Harwood, S.E. Cupp, thank you so much to both of you. Just ahead, Tiffany and Vanessa Trump having a, quote,

"inappropriately close relationship" with Secret Service agents. This is according to a new book.

BERMAN: Plus, a former Trump official will testify today about why the administration delayed help during the insurrection. We have his answer.

And Israel and Gaza on the brink of all-out war. The violence intensifies. CNN is there. This is NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:22:21]

BERMAN: This morning, the Israelis and the Palestinians on the verge of all-out war. Overnight, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, with some intercepted mid-air by the Iron Dome missile defense system that Israel has.

Israel responded with one of its most intense air campaigns in seven years as unrest spread to cities and towns beyond Jerusalem. The fighting in the region is now blamed for 40 deaths since Monday.

Our Hadas Gold, who's covered this from the beginning, live in Jerusalem with the very latest. Hadas, what are you seeing today?

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, air-raid sirens have continued to wail in southern Israel all this morning as the Israeli military says it continues to target Gaza militants in the Gaza Strip, all of this coming as the U.N. Middle East envoy is warning that the tensions here are close to reaching an all-out war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOLD (voice-over): An exchange of air strikes and rockets between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants with tensions in the region escalating into dangerous new levels.

Sirens blaring through the streets of Lod near Tel Aviv, a warning of incoming rockets launched by Palestinian militant groups in Gaza. And in Tel Aviv, people running for cover as rockets lit up the sky, some with more than a thousand fired into Israel so far this week, with its air defense system intercepting most of them.

Hamas saying the most recent attacks were response to Israeli air strikes. And earlier, its leader vowed they will not back down.

ISMAIL HANIYEH, SENIOR HAMAS POLITICAL LEADER (through translator): If Israel wants to escalate, we are ready for it. And if it wants to stop, we're also ready.

GOLD: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sending a warning of his own.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Hamas and the Islamic Jihad will pay for this, and they will pay a heavy price.

GOLD: Meanwhile, in Gaza, the destruction from hundreds of Israeli missiles is evident. This tower block completely collapsing.

The Israeli army saying it was a key Hamas intelligence site and others heavily damaged. And with hundreds of injuries, the human cost of the conflict is high and likely to grow.

Israeli air strikes have killed at least 35 people in Gaza, including 12 children, according to Palestinian health officials. And at least five Israelis have been killed by rocket fire, the Israeli military said.

The international community calling for calm in the region and condemning the attacks, including in the United States, where President Joe Biden has received a briefing on the ongoing violence from his national security adviser.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Since last week he has directed his team to engage intensively with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials, as well as leaders throughout the Middle East. His team is communicating a clear and consistent message in support of de-escalation, and that is our primary focus.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[06:25:07]

GOLD: And this is a quickly developing situation, John. We are receiving some updated numbers in the past hour. So the death toll in Gaza, according to the Palestinian ministry of health there, says there's been at least 45 people, including 13 children.

The Israeli military says they've killed at least 20 militants. In Israeli, there have been at least five killed by rockets. And just in the past few hours, the Israeli military says an anti-tank missile was fired from Gaza. Three Israelis were wounded, one of them possibly fatally -- John.

BERMAN: As we said, this is developing, Biden made it clearly, heading in a bad direction. Hadas Gold, we're lucky to have you in Jerusalem. Please stay safe. We'll talk to you again.

BERMAN: So a major report this morning in the fight against coronavirus. We'll lay out all the positive developments that indicate the U.S. is now at a turning point. Some of them may surprise you.

KEILAR: Plus, new details about former President Trump's relationship with the Secret Service, who he wanted to fire and why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)