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New Day

Biden's Big Threat to Russia, No Pipeline if Ukraine Invaded; 31 States Using New Electoral Maps After Redistricting; National Archives Says, Trump Took White House Records, Kim Love Letters, Obama Note. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 08, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRISTO TOFALLI, OWNER/OPERATOR, YE OLDE FIGHTING COCKS PUB: Obviously the brewery have always been good to me.

[07:00:06]

Breweries don't have a good name in the U.K. That's 100 percent. And I'm well versed in saying that. But Mitchell and Butler have been good to me throughout. I would like to think we had a really good mutual beneficial business relationship. We grew the pub out of beyond proportion and to be the first in many times. So, we're hopeful.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We wish you the best of luck. We really, really do. I will raise a glass to you tonight and keep my fingers crossed. Thank you so much and good luck.

BIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: He's saying there's a chance, I think.

BERMAN: He's saying there's a chance.

KEILAR: He's saying there is. All right, New Day continues right now.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Tuesday, February 8th. I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar. I had to check. I can't keep track of what day it is.

KEILAR: I know.

BERMAN: Center stage this morning on two continents, frantic diplomacy as world leaders race to avert a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Happening right now, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has arrived in Kyiv to speak with the Ukrainian leader, Zelensky. This is continuing his shuttle diplomacy efforts. He was in Moscow just a few hours ago where he met with Vladimir Putin urging the Russian leader to deescalate the tensions on the border with Ukraine.

In Washington, President Biden and Germany's chancellor, Olaf Scholz, they tried to present a united front, but that front has a few cracks in it. Biden made it clear that if Russia invades, the Nord Stream 2 National Gas Pipeline will not go forward, that's Biden's view. The pipeline, which is built but not yet operational connects Russia to Germany. This is what the president said at the news conference.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be -- there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.

REPORTER: But how will you -- how will you do that exactly since the project and control of the project is within Germany's control?

BIDEN: We will -- I promise you we'll be able to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, the German chancellor was much less clear on his intentions, refusing to explicitly mention the pipeline by name. And later, in an interview with our colleague, Jake Tapper, instead he reiterated that the U.S. and Germany are on the same page. And despite the apparent disconnect on the gas pipeline, insisting that NATO's response will be unified if Russia invades Ukraine.

In the meantime, President Biden now advising American citizens who are currently in Ukraine to get out, leave immediately.

Joining us now is Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council and former National Security Council Staffer under President Bill Clinton Jamie Metzl. Jamie, thank you so much for joining us.

To put this into context, I mean, talking about this pipeline, which is something that would hurt Putin so much, it's sort of as if I was trying to say, well, John Berman, will lend you his car and John Berman isn't committed to doing that. Well, it's not my car, it's his, right? So, what is going on here? You heard the puzzlement of the reporter saying, but how would you that? This is Germany's decision.

JAMIE METZL, SENIOR FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Well, it is Germany's decision but the United States provides most of Germany's security. That's why Russia doesn't have more leverage over Germany and the E.U. because they all exist under the American security umbrella. We have a long relationship. And so the Germans at the end of the day won't risk that relationship by building their reliance on Russia through Nord Stream 2, if it comes to that.

And that's why we heard Chancellor Scholz yesterday trying to balance, trying to equivocate a bit because he has a lot on his mind, not just the security issues but climate change commitments that Germany and Europe have made, balancing the needs of different European states. Austria is 75 percent dependent on Russian gas. So, there are a lot of things that are happen. He's trying to maintain wiggle room but that wiggle room is shrinking.

BERMAN: So, one of the things that happened just a few hours ago is the Russians made clear, Putin said it yesterday and then Prime Minister Peskov said it overnight, was that they claim Russian troops will leave Belarus after their joint exercises are done. I don't know how significant that is because the joint exercises could go on for one, two, three, four years.

But my question is, Jamie, if Putin did want a way out of this, if he did want to deescalate, what would that look like? What would the actual signs be? Because I don't think he would just stand there saying I'm leaving, we're done.

METZL: Well, he doesn't have to. And that's why what Putin is trying to do is push this crisis forward on his terms.

[07:05:02]

He hasn't done a lot of propaganda inside of Russia, so he has wiggle room. And if he were to start to pull back a small number of troops but to say we're going to keep a level of readiness on this border because we're so -- we, the Russians, are so afraid of encroachment by NATO, he would be able to do that.

And you look at what's happening now, Putin is setting the terms. He's got everybody in Europe all a Twitter, and that's really a concern.

And what he is trying to do is to drive wedges between the United States and NATO within the E.U., to try to get concessions by causing all of -- by kicking up all this dirt, and he's getting concessions. Yesterday, Macron told the media that a Finlandization option was potentially available for Ukraine. And if Ukraine is neutral, based on the Finland model, that essentially accommodates one of Putin's main desires, which is to remove the future possibility of Ukraine joining NATO.

So, Putin is gaining in many ways and the western alliance and NATO will need to hold together or we'll be in big trouble.

BERMAN: Jamie Metzl, great to have you here with us. Thank you so much.

METZL: My pleasure.

KEILAR: We do have some breaking news this morning. CNN is learning more about the deadly shooting at a Fred Meyer in Richland, Washington, that happened late Monday morning that claimed the life of one person and injured a second. Police released this photo of the suspect, 39-year-old Aaron Christopher Kelly, who is now in custody.

CNN's Lucy Kafanov has been tracking developments of this shooting at this grocery store. Lucy, what can you tell us?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brianna. The suspect in that fatal supermarket shooting, 39-year-old Aaron Christopher Kelly, was arrested on Interstate 90 late last night after a man hunt, this is about more than 100 miles northeast of where the shooting took place. He's accused of shooting up a Fred Meyer grocery store, killing an instacart employee and critically injuring a grocery store worker.

Now, Richland Police have identified the person killed as 38-year-old Justin Krumbah. Authorities said that Kelly was seen in surveillance footage having a discussion with the victim before he opened fire at around 11:00 A.M. Pacific Time yesterday, but it was not known what was said. Police believe that Kelly then fled the scene after the shooting in a silver 2005 Honda Civic, with authorities describing him as armed and dangerous, issuing a $1 million nationwide warrant for his arrest.

Richland Police said that he will be booked in the Benton County Jail on charges of first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder.

The other victim in that shooting identified as an employee of the supermarket remains in critical condition at a local hospital. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Lucy, we know you'll keep an eye on that. Thank you for that report.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking overnight, the U.S. Supreme Court basically said that Alabama congressional districting map drawn by Republicans can stand. What that allows for is one predominantly black congressional district. The lower court said they should have more than that. So, this is seen as a victory for Republicans.

This is a key moment in the redistricting effort that's going on around the country, so where does that stand?

Senior Data Analyst Harry Enten here with me right now. Where are we in the process?

HARRY ENTEN, SENIOR DATA REPORTER: We're moving along on the process. We're nearly there. We're nearly there. So, 37 states, this includes those six states that only have one congressional district, have completed redistricting, and that includes 71 percent of all congressional districts. So, we're more than two-thirds there. The long, arduous process is nearly over.

BERMAN: Who has the upper hand right now?

ENTEN: So, this is so interesting to me. If you asked me before redistricting, would there be more or less or fewer or whatever it is, I'm not a grammar boy. Biden won districts after redistricting, I would have said there would be fewer. But, in fact, there are more.

So, look at the redistricting effect in the completed states. This is 2020 results. So right now, there are 40 more Biden-won states than Trump-won states before under these old lines in the states that have completed that were just 30 more. So, there are slightly more states or slightly more congressional districts that went for Biden under the new lines than the old lines.

The other thing I will note, the other key thing, is the number of competitive districts have dropped. So, under the old lines, there were 61 competitive districts. That is districts that had a final tally within ten points by the 2020 vote, under the old lines. Under the new lines, just 42. So, there are more Biden-won districts but there are also fewer competitive districts.

BERMAN: It may not have been as bad for Democrats as some had predicted or some Democrats had feared. What states are left?

ENTEN: Yes. So, there are still a lot left on the table, so we'll have to wait basically wait and see what occurs. [07:10:02]

But, look, there are still a number of states, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, are the big ones, you can see here, 28 seats, 24, 15, 17. And you'll notice here, that's a lot of Supreme Court action that's going on. So, basically, in North Carolina, Ohio, state Supreme Court blocked those, and then right here in Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court chooses the final map. So, a lot of court involved going on.

BERMAN: And especially in these two states. There could be huge swing one way or the other in terms of which way those seats go.

I'm going to change subjects here completely.

ENTEN: I like changing subjects.

BERMAN: Because in the Senate right now, there are discussions about reforming the Electoral Count Act. And also we heard from Vice President Mike Pence, the former vice president of the United States, who said that he did not have the power to unilaterally overturn the election. What's the public opinion on that?

ENTEN: Yes. This is one of the most popular reforms that we possibly can have. So, after states certify their election results, Congress must accept those results. 75 percent of Americans agree with the former vice president on this, 75 percent. Congress can accept or reject them, which is obviously the argument of some Republicans, including the former president of the United States. Just 25 percent of all Americans agree on this. So, Pence is very much in the majority on this.

BERMAN: What's the party split?

ENTEN: Yes. There's basically no real party split going on here. This is uniform across the aisle. So, Congress must accept those election results, 86 percent of Biden voters, 73 percent of Trump voters, 81 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans. Basically, everybody agrees that Congress should have to accept the election results.

BERMAN: And one of the things we are talking about this last hour is that there's a notion you don't want to upset Trump base voters by going against him, like Pence did. It's not totally clear that on this issue, they firmly believe what Trump is saying here.

ENTEN: They do not. In fact, this is one of those key things where Trump says a lot of things, but oftentimes, Trump is just following his base. In this particular case, his base is in a different place. They may not believe that Biden won legitimately, which, of course, is false, but they do believe that Congress must accept those election results.

BERMAN: All right. So, when Mike Pence came out publicly and said that he did not have the power to overturn the election, that Donald Trump is wrong, right, why is it different when Mike Pence says that than maybe some other Republicans?

ENTEN: Yes. So, basically, look, it's not a big surprise if Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney says something against the former president, and they are not popular figures. Look, their favorable opinion minus their unfavorable, minus 30, minus 40. But Mike Pence is actually a pretty popular fellow among Republicans nationwide. Look at that the net favorability, that's favorable minus unfavorable, plus 38, plus 38. So, Pence has much more of a leg to stand on and it's much more likely that Republicans will listen to him.

And a lot of Republicans, in fact, I was looking at the polling last night, about nearly three quarters of them actually had approved of his job after January 6th, basically in the weeks surrounding it. So, Mike Pence is in a much better position to convince Republicans, they're not going to say, that's another never Trumper. That's not the case with Mike Pence.

BERMAN: The guy Republicans like. Harry Enten, thank you very much.

KEILAR: We heard that Supreme Court action that Harry was talking about there, a decision by the Supreme Court that is allowing a Republican-drawn congressional map to stand despite one lower court saying that it would hurt black voters.

So, joining us now to talk about this is Laura Jarrett, Anchor of Early Start and Attorney at Law, who puts her shingle outside of our new day studio here. Okay.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: I need a backup plan.

KEILAR: Right? We all do. Hopefully not.

Okay. So, this Supreme Court decision, explain to us what is going on here, what's at stake.

JARRETT: So, this is really about gerrymandering, which is about power when it comes to elections. And we're going to see more of these fights play out across the country, as Harry is laying out there, because of the 2020 census, a lot of redistricts or a lot of districts are being redrawn and some people are saying they're unfair.

So, what's happening in Alabama is despite the fact that the population of black voters went up, so it increased, Alabama tried to have only one congressional district to jam all of the black voters in and the claim by advocates here is that dilutes the voting power, because you have everyone jammed in one and the rest of black voters are sort of spread across the state.

Now, the lower court says that's unfair. That violates the Voting Rights Act. So, Alabama now has to add a second congressional district, in addition to the one that it already had. Last night, the Supreme Court comes along and says, oh, no, let's put a pause on that lower court ruling. Let's put a pause on the plans for the second congressional district because -- why? The majority doesn't explain it. And that's what's known as the shadow docket, where they do all of this without oral argument. All we have to go on here is an opinion from Justice Kavanaugh, a concurring opinion which essentially says, you did this too close to an election time.

[07:15:01]

You have primary races coming up in May. You have early voting happening in March. So, this happened too close to an election. Federal courts don't get to do this too close to an election.

Justice Roberts, usually reliably conservative vote, along with Justice Kagan, come along and said that's madness. The lower court followed every Supreme Court precedent we've asked them to do. They heard hours of testimony. They reviewed thousands of pages of documents and they found that this violated the Voting Rights Act. So, we should keep it in place.

Bottom line here though is there is still only one congressional district that is made up of a majority of black voters heading into the midterms this year. That's the law that's going to stand. Now, the court did agree to take up this case on the merits but that's going to happen next term and it's going to be another fight over the Voting Rights Act, which has already been chipped away by the conservative majority on this court.

BERMAN: All right. On another matter, Sara Murray had a really interesting interview with Fani Willis, who is the Fulton County district attorney, the one that's investigating Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the elections in Georgia. What did you find most interesting about this?

JARRETT: The confidence she's trying to portray going into a legal battle with someone that we know tries to do everything to delay, delay, delay. She sat down with our Sara Murray and she basically said, I won't be intimidated. Take a listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FANI WILLIS, FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA DISTRICT ATTORNEY: This is a criminal investigation. We're not here playing a game. I plan to use the power of the law. We are all citizens. Mr. Trump, just as every other American citizen, is entitled to dignity. He's entitled to be treated fairly. He will be treated fairly in this jurisdiction, but I plan to do my job. And my job is to make sure that we get the evidence that gives us the truth. I'm not concerned at all about games to delay this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: One of the games she's, of course, talking about there is this idea that a former president cannot be prosecuted. It's one of the arguments that we have heard already sort of floated by Trump's legal team, that's something that Sara tried to press her on and she essentially said, that's not a worry for me. My grand jury is going ahead. We know she is set to have that special grand jury start their work on May 2nd and will probably start producing witnesses, and they're allowed to subpoena witnesses, like the former secretary of state, who is a key fact witness in this case. And so we'll see that play out probably this summer.

KEILAR: Yes. We'll be watching this for sure in the next few months. Laura, thank you.

JARRETT: Sure.

KEILAR: So, hear what the National Archives found when they had to retrieve 15 boxes of White House records from Mar-a-Lago that the president had taken with us when he left Washington. The items include love letters.

And Peloton losing its footing, why the company is cutting nearly 3,000 jobs and kicking out its CEO.

BERMAN: The protests in Ottawa getting out of control. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau says he is fed up. It's a major supply chain artery and something the White House simply can't ignore.

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[07:20:00]

BERMAN: This morning, where are the documents and are they in one piece? Sources tell CNN that former president trump would routinely rip up documents, drafts, reading materials, and he took several boxes, according to The Washington Post, more than a dozen boxes of White House records to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House.

This is raising concerns about his preservation of presidential records, as is required by federal law. The boxes at Mar-a-Lago contain several personal mementos, including correspondence with Kim Jong-un, which Trump once described as love letters. The Washington Post first did this reporting.

Joining us now is Presidential Historian Lindsay Chervinsky. First of all, when you see this reporting that, first of all, the former president would rip documents up, second of all, that he took 15 boxes with him to Mar-a-Lago, what jumps out to you?

LINDSAY CHERVINSKY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, it's a pretty shocking disregard for the Presidential Records Act. A little bit of a tear of one piece of paper here and there or perhaps an accidental discard can be understood as maybe just a slip, but this is a concentrated effort to really avoid the accountability that is built into that legislation.

KEILAR: What did you think about -- he took the letter from Obama, he took the letter from Kim Jong-un. Are some of these things oversights or are some of these things obvious considering he clearly has had his opinions about people violating records acts, like Hillary Clinton in the past?

CHERVINSKY: That's right. It does sort of strike a little bit of hypocrisy given the concern about Hillary Clinton's emails. My understanding is that President Trump also took the famous map that he drew on with a sharpie having to do with the hurricane trajectory.

And so my guess is these are items that either he cared about personally or he might have thought would be embarrassing to his political futures and, therefore, wanted to keep them private and in his own hands.

BERMAN: So, as you said, there's a law here, it's the National Records Act. But there's not like a National Archives police squad to go and crack down on people who violate this. A lot of this is done on handshakes and winks and stuff. So, what happens here? I mean, have there been prosecutions for this?

CHERVINSKY: It's a great question. And you're right, the National Archives while they have very diligent archivists, they don't have a police squad. They did send reminders for the duration of the Trump presidency to the White House Counsel's Office and Don McGahn, reminding them that President Trump had this obligation to preserve these documents and try to collect them and save them.

There has never been a prosecution under the Presidential Record Act because no president has ever flouted it to this extent.

[07:25:00]

There are other punishments that are written into the legal code that are separate from this legislation that could perhaps be enforced. I am, of course, not a lawyer but I think the big question here is what happens next? Because the president has never tried to flout the law in this way, the enforcement, the punishment, whether or not the Department of Justice or U.S. attorney would be willing to take up that case is an open question.

KEILAR: Just real quick, Lindsay, you mentioned some of these things could be embarrassing. One of the things that occurred to me was maybe they could be valuable, right? If you're going to auction something off, you auction off the funky map with the sharpie, you auction off the letter with Obama, the letters with Kim Jong-un. These are things of value.

CHERVINSKY: Yes, that's a great point. They're both monetarily valuable but it's also raises the question of are they valuable to the state? Are they important for national security? What sort of state secrets are included in these documents?

KEILAR: Yes.

CHERVINSKY: The whole point of this legislation is, of course, to keep things safe, but then also to ensure that there's a public record going forward and that the next administration has access to these things.

BERMAN: Lindsay Chervinsky, great to have you on this morning. Thanks so much.

We should note that --

CHERVINSKY: Great to be with you.

BERMAN: -- Lindsay is the author of The Cabinet, George Washington and the creation of an American Institution.

So, a Chinese dissident getting backlash for his artwork, protesting the Beijing Olympics, even at a U.S. university. He will join us live.

KEILAR: And Peloton spinning out, the company announcing some major shakeups and big layoffs this morning.

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