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Lawsuit Claiming Rep. Mo Brooks Incited Insurrection Moves Forward; TSA: Air Travel Breaks Pandemic Record Over Weekend; The Influence And Impact Of Presidential Friendships. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired July 06, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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


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[07:33:25]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: A federal judge will hear arguments in the insurrection lawsuit between two members of Congress. Democrat Eric Swalwell sued Republican Mo Brooks, arguing that Brooks incited the Capitol riot by, in his speech to the Trump crowd just hours before the riot, making an appeal -- or actually, it was taking names and kicking ass. Now, Brooks claims that his words were protected speech -- protected as a member of Congress.

Joining me now is the attorney for Congressman Eric Swalwell, Phil Andonian. Phil, great to see you again as we sort of monitor the progress as this plods along, I will say.

PHIL ANDONIAN, ATTORNEY FOR REP. ERIC SWALWELL: Thanks for having me back.

KEILAR: Yes. Your argument here is that Mo Brooks was acting in his personal capacity. His response to the court -- he's arguing that it was in more of his professional capacity --

ANDONIAN: Right.

KEILAR: -- which is an important thing to note because he does have protections if he can convince the court that he was acting --

ANDONIAN: Right.

KEILAR: -- as a member of Congress.

How concerned are you about this argument?

ANDONIAN: Well look, it's not -- it's not a crazy principle that he's raising. As you said, members of Congress have cover for things that are within the scope of their employment and that includes giving speeches and doing things for their constituents, which is largely what Brooks alleges. And that's fine -- that's good. We want elected officials working.

The key though is what is within the scope of employment. And clearly, not everything a member of Congress or any employee does is within the scope of employment. That's why there's a test to figure out if it, in fact, was.

[07:35:00]

And that's the point that we think Brooks just completely misses or ignores, which is what happened on January sixth and the lead-up to that is absolutely not anything that is legitimate or that could even be construed as legitimate business of a member of Congress. It was a call to arms based on an entire fraud and fiction perpetrated on the country by Brooks and Trump and the other defendants in this case and it had no legitimate purpose.

And it's not like he was giving a speech at a bake sale or getting signatures for a petition looking to sternly ask Joe Biden to give the election he stole back. This was at a rally that had one purpose and that led to exactly what was foreseeable and intended.

KEILAR: He says he was representing constituents upset about the election -- the outcome of the election. He also alleges voter fraud in many states which, by the way, is verifiably not true. It just didn't happen.

ANDONIAN: Right.

KEILAR: So even so, his lawyers say this. Quote, "In Brooks' judgment, Donald Trump won the Electoral College and should be serving his second term as President of the United States. Brooks welcomes public debate with anyone who ignorantly claims otherwise."

OK, he is wrong, right?

ANDONIAN: Right.

KEILAR: So let's -- OK, he's wrong.

ANDONIAN: Right.

KEILAR: So if he is perpetrating a lie on behalf of his constituents -- that's his argument -- two things could be true. One, he actually believes it --

ANDONIAN: Right.

KEILAR: -- or two, he doesn't.

So let's start with the he doesn't because that seems, I think, a lot of members to fall into that one.

ANDONIAN: Right.

KEILAR: If he doesn't believe it but he's perpetrating it on behalf of his constituents, is he still possibly protected? There are many times where lawmakers may be perpetrating something that is not true --

ANDONIAN: Right.

KEILAR: -- on quote-unquote "behalf of their constituents."

ANDONIAN: Right. Well, I -- yes, I don't know what it is -- if he's just dangerously delusional or if he's dangerously dishonest. Either way, I don't think it's good for anyone.

But I guess my response to that is his constituents had their voice. They voted for who they voted for and they lost, just like many millions of other Americans did and do every presidential election cycle.

The test is not my constituents would prefer Donald Trump to be president and therefore, I'm just speaking their will. The test is we have an election. A person won that election. It wasn't Donald Trump.

Neither Brooks nor his constituents nor anyone else is free to then engage in willfully destructive conduct undermining democracy simply because they don't like the results of the election.

And as you noted, Brianna -- I mean, it's inarguably true that the election was secure and was not riddled with fraud. And so the fact that Brooks is probably lying through his teeth and knowingly running with something he knows not to be true makes it all the much worse. I mean, that's precisely the kind of thing we cannot have in a democratic society.

KEILAR: Really quickly before I let you go, next step -- what are we looking at in this case?

ANDONIAN: The judge issued an order yesterday asking for our response and actually, asking for DOJ to respond by July 27th. And then, Brooks will have another short period to reply to that. And then, presumably, the court will then decide whether or not Brooks is the proper defendant and then go forward from there.

KEILAR: All right, we'll be watching.

Phil, thank you so much.

ANDONIAN: Thanks, again.

KEILAR: An Ohio police chief caught on video putting a KKK sign on a Black officer's desk. See what happened next and how he explained it.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, breaking news. Hurricane watches now issued for parts of the Florida coast, and the storm has threatened to complicate the search effort in the Surfside condo collapse. We have a live report from the storm's path just ahead.

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[07:43:01]

BERMAN: Pain at the pump on your next road trip. Gas prices could rise again.

Chief business correspondent Christine Romans here with that. CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": And they're rising right now, John.

Oil producers canceled a key meeting on Monday. That was to discuss pumping more oil. And that dashed hopes for an agreement to lower prices here.

Let's take a look at where oil prices are right now. There are some analysts who are telling me they think we're getting close here to $80.00 a barrel. Brent Crude is trading above $77.00. And last week, oil prices finished above $75.00 a barrel for the first time in about three years.

In an otherwise roaring U.S. economy, it's a potential problem for the Biden administration. The White House said Monday it's closely monitoring the OPEC Plus negotiations.

"We are not a party to these talks but administration officials have been engaged with relevant capitals to urge a compromise solution that will allow proposed production increases to move forward." In other words, pump more oil.

The OPEC drama comes as Americans are back on the roads and paying the highest gas prices in seven years. The average price of a gallon of regular, $3.13. That's up 44 percent from last year -- almost a dollar.

Prices are rising as the economy is roaring back to life and there are dislocations after all of those shutdowns from the pandemic. Plus, there's this shortage of tanker truck drivers to deliver gas to stations. That's happening every day here.

Wall Street analysts tell us you really need to have OPEC Plus come to the rescue here by pumping more oil to meet surge in demand. And no new date has been set for a meeting here.

BERMAN: A lot of this is the economy is up and running again.

ROMANS: And this is the downside of a very strong economy. You've got people who are using more gas. You've got planes that are flying. You've got manufacturing facilities using more crude products.

BERMAN: Yes, but everyone knows -- everyone feels it. You know that gas prices are up when you go to the gas station.

All right. There's this new huge ransomware attack on a software company -- but it has, sort of, tentacles that reach out across the economy.

ROMANS: Yes, and I think we're going to learn more today about just how widespread this ransomware hack has gone.

This is a company called Kaseya. It's a software vendor. And it supplies -- its customers, in turn, provide I.T. services to small business. So, grocery store, accountants, doctors' offices. Just think about how far that can reach. [07:45:04]

We know that Kaseya has talked to the White House and brief the White House on this and trying to get back up and running here.

It was a ransomware attack over the weekend so a lot of these companies were closed for the long holiday. So in the U.S., I think today we'll get a better sense of how far it goes. The company says 800 to 1,500 businesses compromised. It could be bigger than that.

And we know that the ransomware group -- the firm that's located in Eastern Europe or Russia -- has asked for $70 million in Bitcoin, and then it will provide a universal decryptor.

That old thing -- it's just piracy again. It's a piracy where these hackers can come in, demand Bitcoin, and you can't do business until you pay. So it's a real problem.

BERMAN: And they seem to be able to find companies that you may not think of otherwise but are the lynchpins. They're sort of the center --

ROMANS: Exactly.

BERMAN: -- of hubs here and have a big ripple effect.

Christine Romans, great to see you. Thanks so much.

ROMANS: Thank you.

BERMAN: San Francisco's tallest tower is tilting and has been sinking for years. And there are new fears after the condo collapse in Florida. We're going to take you inside.

KEILAR: And is the Delta variant evading the vaccine? What this means for your immunity to the coronavirus, ahead.

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[07:50:15]

KEILAR: Just in to CNN, people are flying again. The TSA releasing July Fourth holiday weekend travel figures from the nation's airports.

And Pete Muntean, you are at Reagan National Airport where, certainly, a lot of folks have been flying out of. The numbers here are pretty big.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Very big, Brianna. The TSA screened more than 10 million people in the last five days alone.

But what's so interesting is that the numbers on some of those days have actually been bigger than 2019 -- back before the pandemic. The TSA screened 2.1 million people on Thursday and Friday, and then again just yesterday. Yesterday, just shy of the pandemic record -- the third busiest day of the pandemic. But what's so interesting is that Thursday and Friday numbers were actually larger than the same day back in 2019.

It really speaks to this whole notion of pent-up demand -- people just waiting on the sidelines to travel again.

The lines here at Reagan National Airport are the longest we have seen in months. And the TSA actually said that they were screening more people than back in 2019 at airports like Nashville and Myrtle Beach.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said he expected that Monday would be the busiest day for the airline in the last 16 months.

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SCOTT KIRBY, CEO, UNITED AIRLINES: Leisure demand is more than 100 percent recovered. It indicates a huge desire for people to get back to living life.

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MUNTEAN: Remember, this whole experience of coming back to travel has not been without its problems. Flight Aware says airlines canceled or delayed in the U.S. about 2,000 flights just yesterday -- a comparatively small number to what it was. But remember, airlines got a lot smaller during the pandemic and that means fewer people staffing fewer airplanes makes it harder for airlines to bounce back from things like maintenance and weather issues -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, really tough for flyers to get rescheduled and it certainly puts a crimp in their travel plans.

Pete Muntean live from Reagan National Airport. Thank you.

BERMAN: So, U.S. presidents often keep a close-knit group of officials advisers around them at all times helping them make important decisions for the nation and a legacy. But a new book explores the untold stories of unofficial presidential advisers and how these friendships influence history and the world. It's called "First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (and Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents."

The author, Gary Ginsberg, joins me now. Gary, great to see you.

I have to say, this subject so fertile. I think it's a great subject for a book. And the examples you chose are phenomenal. I mean, why did you decide to do this?

GARY GINSBERG, AUTHOR, "FIRST FRIENDS: THE POWERFUL, UNSUNG (AND UNELECTED) PEOPLE WHO SHAPED OUR PRESIDENTS" (via Skype): Well, since I was a young kid, I've always been fascinated by the American presidency. When I got older, I worked on presidential campaigns, and then I worked in the Clinton administration.

And I came to witness some really remarkable close friendships between leaders and their best friends, and I learned to appreciate how this friend could speak more bluntly and act more naturally than any staffer or aide could. And even in some cases, as I write, have a meaningful impact on some really consequential decisions.

To my surprise, though, there's been very little written about this dynamic -- really, nothing in presidential literature. There have been books about first wives, first pets, first chefs, even first butlers, but nothing about first friends, so I decided to write the book.

BERMAN: I think it's such a great idea and you talk about the impact on history.

How about the foundation of Israel, right? You have President Truman's friend Eddie Jacobson, right? Let me read an excerpt from your book here about this friend that he had from the haberdashery.

You write, "Truman would become known for his endless contradictions. Someone with deep-seated insecurities yet outsized ambitions. The most powerful leader in the land who never earned a college degree.

A man who used racial and anti-Semitic slurs but who recognized the state of Israel. For that latter point, in particular, it was Eddie Jacobson who played a crucial role."

Tell us about Eddie.

GINSBERG: It was, and I think that chapter is the most powerful example of how a lifelong friendship can change the course of history, as you just said.

They ran a haberdashery together in the early 1920s in Kansas City. It failed but they stayed best friends afterward.

And because of this friendship, which was a relationship built on total trust and total respect, Jacobson could fly halfway across the country and march into the Oval Office in March of 1948 -- he didn't have an invitation -- and he could speak to the president in the most direct and brutally honest terms using words and mannerisms that no staffer would dare try lest they get fired.

And all of this was to convince the president to do what he knew was right. But out of frustration -- that I detail in great length in my chapter -- he'd been resisting, which is recognize an independent Jewish state. And two months after Eddie walked into that Oval Office and spoke to him, only because of that intervention was Truman the first foreign leader to recognize the state of Israel 11 minutes after it was declared.

BERMAN: I mean, it's really -- the influence that Eddie Jacobson and the change in history that he may have made by that one trip is phenomenal.

[07:55:05]

You say that Bill Clinton may not have been president had it not been for Vernon Jordan -- explain.

GINSBERG: Well, Bill Clinton had this magical career but in 1980 when he was running for reelection of Arkansas governor, he lost, and he was just devastated.

And, Vernon Jordan called up Hillary and said I'm coming down to talk some sense into you guys. He came to Little Rock and over 2 1/2 hours, spoke in the most blunt terms to Bill, and said you've got to stay in the game. He was thinking about leaving, thinking about taking private-sector jobs, and other jobs. After that 2 1/2-hour conversation, he stayed in the game, became governor two years later, and then president 10 years later.

BERMAN: All right. Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed. This one is historically interesting. Why?

GINSBERG: Well, it's interesting because in 1841 -- first of all, they were sleeping together in the same bed for four years. You know, a little room above a store that Joshua Speed owned. And in 1841, Lincoln becomes totally depressed and he's thinking of killing himself. And Speed takes away all the sharp objects -- his razors, et cetera -- and essentially saves his life.

And then 20 years later, the first -- one of the first meetings that Lincoln has a president-elect is with Speed, and says please, come join my administration. And Speed says no, I'm too rich to do it, but I'll do something more important. I'll save Kentucky from seceding. It was one of the five border states really crucial to keeping them in the Union.

He does everything he can to keep Kentucky in the Union. They stay and then obviously, Lincoln goes on to win the war and the Union stays intact.

BERMAN: You, obviously, mention the fact that there are those over history who have said that Speed and Lincoln were more than just friends, but you said you found no evidence of that.

GINSBERG: No. You know, historians have been trying desperately to prove that they were lovers but there's just no evidence.

BERMAN: Former President Donald Trump. Now, it's interesting. He has certain types of friends -- friends like Rudy Giuliani, who helped get him impeached twice. But in terms of like --

GINSBERG: Yes.

BERMAN: -- close personal friendships -- you know, Trump's not included in your book. Why?

GINSBERG: Well, actually, I wanted to include him. And I called someone as close to Trump as anyone and we went back and forth -- is there a first friend? And even this person said at the end -- had to admit he's friendless. He's a guy who just doesn't need a first friend. He's constitutionally and emotionally capable of living without one.

I think at the end of the day, his first friend is really his Twitter feed for want of a better way to describe it. Just the adoration of his base. This friend said he would take a lot of people -- friends -- you know,

so-called friends and relatives up to Camp David. But then what he would do is he would just closet himself in the cabin and just call around to supporters to get affirmation.

So I just -- I couldn't find a Trump friend as much as I tried.

BERMAN: Maybe he needed one. I mean, maybe that is something -- because it -- because it can make a difference, as you point out in the book repeatedly.

GINSBERG: I think we saw that in the last two months when no one could kind of go into the Oval Office and speak the hard truth to Trump and tell him to get off the big lie. And maybe that would have saved him from that second impeachment.

BERMAN: Again, I have a little bit of extra time here so I can ask you about one of the worst presidents ever, Franklin Pierce, and one of the best American authors ever, Nathaniel Hawthorne. How could such a bad president be friends with such a great writer?

GINSBERG: Well, I think it's the saddest friendship in my book, to be honest with you. It's a story of two men who were deeply loyal to each other for 45 years and they were really against the world.

They were pro-slavery northerners who refused to abandon the morals (ph) of their community, and then they ended up paying a steep price in their reputations and careers. Both were ostracized, yet they remained intensely loyal to the end.

When Pierce took Hawthorne away when he was dying and actually had Hawthorne die by his side, it's kind of a touching but really sad chapter in my book.

BERMAN: Gary Ginsberg, I think you can see how much I like this book and enjoy all the stories in it. I encourage people to go get a look at it -- "First Friends." You will learn a ton. It is such a fertile area that hasn't been explored.

Gary, thank you very much.

GINSBERG: Thank you very much, John.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar.

On this new day, does the new Delta variant show signs of evading vaccines? A former White House COVID adviser standing by to talk to us right now.

Plus, new hurricane watches now posted for parts of Florida. We are live on the ground as tropical storm Elsa closes in.

KEILAR: And is the U.S. headed in the right direction? What more Americans are saying about that this morning and what it could mean for the next presidential race.

Also, high anxiety after the Florida condo collapse. Right now, the tallest residential building in San Francisco is sinking quite a bit and tilting.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Tuesday, July sixth.

And new concerns this morning.