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Jeremy Peters is Interviewed About his New Book "Insurgency"; Benedict Asks for Forgiveness; Severe Weather Outlook for the Nation. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired February 09, 2022 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Coy Wire, a pleasure to see you there. Thanks so much.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: So, right about now you're hitting the grocery store in preparation for Sunday, right? Well, grocery prices are on the rise. And that means that the price tag for your Super Bowl party this weekend could be higher than last year.

We have chief business correspondent Christine Romans here to break down how much more you'll pay on the big deal.

What are we looking at?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John and Brianna, I've got two words for you. Hot dogs. You're going to have to rely on hot dogs here. That's the only thing that won't cost more this year for your Super Bowl party are hot dogs.

Inflation, the uninvited guest to that party. The grocery bill for the Super Bowl party, 14 percent more than last year. That's according to Wells Fargo.

Watch out at the meat counter. Those hot dogs actually cheaper this year. But all the other meat, way more expensive. For your chicken wings, fresh and frozen chicken prices are up nearly 12 percent. Ground beef for your chili, 13 percent more expensive. Forget about serving steak, although I would never serve steak at a Super Bowl party. Too pricey in any year. But those prices are up more than 21 percent from last year.

Another way to save money, go big on chips and dip. Potato chips are only about 1 percent higher than a year ago. And holy guacamole. Avocados the big wildcard here. "Bloomberg" found that exporting Hass avocados from Mexico cost nearly 25 percent more than last year. So, watch the guac.

Of course, it won't be a Super Bowl party without drinks. And the picture there is mixed. Beer prices up 4 percent from last year. Wine, OK, a reasonable 3 percent. The biggest price hikes, though, nonalcoholic drinks. A 2-liter bottle of soda, 12 percent more than last year. BERMAN: So drink it straight.

ROMANS: So -- right, exactly. Perspective here. Last year you didn't even have a party, right? So, this year, you're going to pay a little bit more. And there are ways to be creative to keep the costs down. Hot dogs, chips, wine. And it's still cheaper than going to the actual game. This year's Super Bowl tickets are the most expensive ever.

And, you know, I was talking to a grocery store chain owner the other day who said, you can beat the grocery store prices. He says there's way around the inflation, right? You've got to find the things that they're stocking. There are sales. Chicken wings, you can freeze those. You can stock up on them when they happen to be on sale.

You also have more choices than you did in the '80s when inflation was last this hot. You've got multiple stores, the big box stores, you've got the Costco of the world, right? So there are ways to try to tamper down that inflation story. But you'll see it on the grocery bill for sure.

BERMAN: Are you here on behalf of the hot dog lobby?

KEILAR: And the beer lobby?

ROMANS: I'm just saying, hot dogs. The 2-liter bottle of soda, that's going to be pricy when kids are chucking the soda.

BERMAN: So drink it straight and have hot dogs. A friend in the food business told me something and it blew my mind.

ROMANS: What?

BERMAN: You know hot dogs and bologna are the same thing.

ROMANS: Are they really?

BERMAN: Yes. The meat in the hot dog and the meat in the bologna, basically the same thing. I'm just saying. Like, that will just change your view on life.

ROMANS: Are you -- I mean are you a hot dog (INAUDIBLE)?

KEILAR: Bologna comes from a giant hot dog is what you're saying?

BERMAN: Basically, yes.

ROMANS: I was actually thinking about cutting up a little hot dog and making, you know, like the pigs in blankets with the hot dogs and, I don't know.

BERMAN: Yes.

KEILAR: You could make mini baloney sandwiches.

BERMAN: Yes. Yes.

ROMANS: Just watch the game.

KEILAR: Tiny, tiny bologna sandwiches for your Super Bowl.

All right, Christine, the takeaway, drink alcohol, not soda. Interesting. All right.

BERMAN: And hot dogs.

KEILAR: So, up next, they chanted "hang Mike Pence." It sounds like a threat and looks like a threat, but if you ask Trump, it wasn't real.

And ahead, thou shalt not steal. Why this nun embezzled more than $800,000 from a school to fund a particular habit and the sentencing that she is now facing.

BERMAN: Habit. I like what you did there.

KEILAR: Right.

BERMAN: All right, plus stunning dash cam video shows a Tesla on autopilot crashing into patrol cars and almost hitting officers. What the driver was doing moments before impact.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:37:52]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So that was just a figure of speech, apparently, if you are former President Trump. Trump telling "New York Times" reporter Jeremy Peters, quote, I think it was an expression. I don't think they would have ever thought of doing it.

Peters' new book also sheds light on the fear that Trump's top allies felt during the Capitol riot. Congressman Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician, went into fight or flight mode. According to the book, when he heard that the Capitol Police were locking the chamber doors, Peters writes, Jackson took off his necktie. If the mob did get inside, he told himself, it was best not to give them something to strangle you with.

And Jeremy Peters is with us now to talk about his new book called "Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted."

Jeremy, thank you so much for being with us to talk about this.

JEREMY W. PETERS, AUTHOR, "INSURGENCY: HOW REPUBLICANS LOST THEIR PARTY": Thank you. KEILAR: I know this is sort of a labor of time and love for you that has taken several years to put together. But I want to talk quickly just about the overall theme, which is, if you can distil for us, how has Donald Trump fundamentally altered the character of the Republican Party, and is it reversible or not?

PETERS: So, I would say that we are not at the end of this story, as much as many people would like us to be, including Mitch McConnell and many establishment Republicans. I think, right now, we're only in the middle somewhere.

And what Donald Trump did was to activate these insurgent elements in the Republican Party that have been there all along. If you look at the modern history of the Republican Party, it's all about insurgencies, revolts that have destabilized the leadership. And Trump's was just the one that finally broke it.

But going back to Pat Buchanan in 1992, Sarah Palin in 2008, the Tea Party in 2010-2011, it's -- the GOP has a history of inviting inside the big tent people who want to disrupt it. They don't want to be active partners in governing. They want to be in charge themselves. And they've ended up overthrowing or at least seriously rocking the foundation of the GOP for a long time now.

[06:40:02]

BERMAN: You know, again, on the big themes of this, and you noted this in your book, and I find this to be so fascinating, there was the autopsy after the 2012 loss to Barack Obama.

PETERS: Right.

BERMAN: And these party leaders got together and gave a list of prescriptions about what to do going forward. And Trump did the exact opposite, and they won.

PETERS: Yes, and what was so fascinating to me about reporting that chapter is that the Republicans who put that together, who were at the RNC at the time, you know, it was mostly establish-type Republicans. People --

BERMAN: Ari Fleishman.

PETERS: Yes, yes, people aligned with the Bush wing of the party, right? They had in front of them all of the evidence that they needed to see that the prescriptions they were laying out wouldn't work, right? Like there was a survey that I found in my research that said, don't approach Hispanics as if immigration reform is a cure-all, as if it's going to open the door and suddenly they are going to -- to vote -- start pulling the lever for Republican again.

So it -- there was a sense at the top of the party, the donor class, that if they talked about immigration reform, which was, of course, what all of the wealthy donors in the Republican Party wanted to push through for, you know, their own reasons, there was a sense that that would somehow cure everything. And what ended up happening was that just made the voters angrier, the grassroots, who are much -- who constitute much more of a segment of the party than the elite donor class.

Then there's one example from Ari Fleisher, I'm glad you brought it up, it was very interesting, was interviewing him. He was going through his notes that he had taken of his interviews with people he did during the autopsy and this is seven years after the fact. And he's reading to me and he's like, oh, look at this, there's this -- Amy Kremer (ph), a Tea Party activist who famously spoke at the January -- before the January 6th insurrection at the Trump rally, she said we ought to look at somebody like Donald Trump. And Ari had put a star in his notes next to it and circled it and then forgot about it for seven years until I interviewed him.

So, a lot of it was right there staring him in the face.

KEILAR: You talk a lot about how Republicans, or establishment Republicans, had tried to harness a power that they don't understand. And there's one moment with Steve Bannon that really stands out about something maybe they didn't understand. And this is about the moment where Donald Trump comes down the escalator at Trump Tower. Bannon taught Trump looked like Hitler as he descended the escalator. You write, and when he saw Trump make his entrance that morning, he thought he knew exactly what he was seeing. That's Hitler, Bannon thought, as the opening scene of Leni Riefenstahl's seminal work of Nazi propaganda, Triumph of the Will, flashed through his mind. He meant it as a compliment.

PETERS: He did. And I asked about that again. And what he meant by that is that Trump was a master manipulator of public opinion and of images and can -- could rouse the sentiments, the anger, the frustrations and emotions of the people who supported him. And that Trump was, as we know, somebody who understood how to use the media almost better -- not almost better, better than a lot of us in journalism did. And it's something that -- in line with that, that one of Trump's aides told me, his pollster Tony Fabrizio told me, is that he did a panel discussion with a bunch of journalists afterwards, after the election, after Trump won, everyone was all surprised and said, how many Republican primary voters do you think actually check Twitter once a week? And it was something like 20 percent.

BERMAN: Wow.

PETERS: It was a really small number. But, guess what, journalists were checking it every week and Trump then decided that he was going to -- he nicknamed himself the Ernest Hemingway of 180 characters because he knew that once he tapped something out on his phone, it would be up on the screen.

BERMAN: So, you say you think you're only in the middle of this story right now, which is so interesting, which requires a look forward also. And you do that. And there's this point in the book where you talk about what Trump wants to see going forward, what he wants his legacy to be or who he wants it to be, right? And there's a quote in here from Steve Bannon, Trump's not looking to mentor guys. Do you think Trump wants a guy to win after him? He wants the guy following him to lose by 40.

PETERS: Right. And I think his language was a little saltier than that in the actual book. But it's true. I mean, think about it, has Donald Trump ever expressed any interest in naming or grooming a successor? No. He's out there trying to take credit for everybody who could be a possible successor.

When I spoke to him, he specifically singled out Ron DeSantis, whose political career Trump is taking credit for. He said to me, look, I helped Ron at a level no one has ever seen before.

And there is some truth to that. I mean, Trump, when he did rallies for Ron DeSantis, he helped elevate his profile. It was a very close race. But Trump sees the success of the Republican Party during his time as his, right? And that's why, at least this is kind of what I took away from my conversations with him, that's why he can't get his head around the fact that he lost.

[06:45:04]

He can't -- he's talked himself into this idea that this has been stolen from him because Republicans did so well down the ballot otherwise.

BERMAN: Isn't it a -- it's a problem for them, though. If he doesn't want anyone to win after him, it -- that -- that's a --

PETERS: That's exactly right.

BERMAN: That's a problem for the Republicans.

PETERS: It is a problem. And it's a huge problem for Mike Pence, which is why it was so interesting to see Pence's pivot after five years of going along with Trump, capitulating, you know, from Charlottesville to January 6th, now Pence has decided that he's going to stand up for himself. But I think it may be little -- too little too late because that model of the Republican politician Pence represented, the, you know, pious social conservative, Trump shattered that when he gave social conservatives everything they wanted.

BERMAN: Jeremy Peters. The book is "Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted." It's wonderful.

PETERS: Thank you.

BERMAN: And it's great talking to you in person.

PETERS: Thank you.

BERMAN: Great to see you, Jeremy.

So, Joe Rogan now playing the victim card, even though it was Joe Rogan who used the racial slurs on his podcast. His response this morning.

KEILAR: And Pope Benedict is apologizing over his handling of the church's sexual abuse scandal. But why isn't he taking any personal responsibility?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:03]

KEILAR: Pope Emeritus Benedict is asking for forgiveness. Last month, a church commission report into abuse by Catholic clergy criticized Benedict's handling of cases involving pedophile priests in the 1980s while he was archbishop of Munich. The former leader of the church expressed his profound shame and deep sorrow, while continuing to maintain his own innocence.

Joining us now is Katie McGrady, who is a host on The Catholic Channel on Sirius XM, and she's the author of the book called "Lent: One Day at a Time for Catholic Teens." Especially relevant here shortly.

OK, so, Katie, I want to ask you I think the question that his -- it's kind of an apology, but he doesn't actually admit wrongdoing. So how do you make sense of this? He's not admitting any responsibility.

KATIE MCGRADY, HOST, THE CATHOLIC CHANNEL ON SIRIUS XM: Yes, it's -- you know, as a Catholic, any time you hear news of sexual abuse, like this Munich report that came out, it reminded me of the Pennsylvania grand jury report from not long ago. Now, there's this immediate sadness and this immediate, oh, my gosh, like, who's responsible and shed light on everything because we need to bring it into the light. Transparency is necessary.

I would make note, though, it's interesting, while Benedict didn't necessarily lay out, I knew this, I knew that, I did this, I did that, he did say he is sorry and he did say, I am holding within me this grievous fault. So it's not a particular, this is what I did or this is what I knew, but it is a -- in the twilight years of my life, I'm recognizing mistakes were made and I'm sorry and I'll be judged for that.

So, as a Catholic, who has long admired Pope Benedict XVI, I mean I studied theology while he was pope and loved his writings and still very much admire him, I read this and kind of, this is awful and, yet, at the same time, he didn't have to say anything. And I'm grateful he's asking forgiveness.

BERMAN: So, the question is asking for forgiveness for what. It is part of asking forgiveness and repenting, is acknowledging specifically what you are asking forgiveness for.

You know, Brianna and I cover politics, right.

MCGRADY: Yes.

BERMAN: And so we hear a lot of apologies. I apologize if you took offense.

MCGRADY: Yes.

BERMAN: You know, like, or, I apologize that this happened. Not, I apologized -- I apologize for what I did, or I apologize that I, dot, dot, dot.

MCGRADY: Yes.

BERMAN: And there is a difference there, right?

MCGRADY: There is. I mean you're -- you're escribing confession. You're describing what we do when we walk into a confessional and we say, this is what I did, number, kind, and reason. And that's a hard thing to grapple with. You know, as a Catholic, I want -- I want somebody to be held accountable. I also recognize that I'm not necessarily the one to be the one who holds him accountable. I'm a Catholic who admires, I'm a Catholic who looks up, I'm a Catholic who trusts, but I also recognize that's the job of God.

And there's a lot of difficulty in that. Forgiveness is something very easy to talk about and then very difficult to give and then very difficult to receive. And it's definitely one of these, again, I feel like I always come on here and tell you guys it's nuanced. But I feel it's one of those things, that as Catholics, we have to -- we have to really grapple with, we have to take to prayer. We have to recognize none of us are really beyond a need to ask for forgiveness, including the pope.

And I would note as well, the Munich report that outlines what happened and the claims that are made, Pope Benedict knew in four specific instances, and really at dispute is this one particular meeting. Was he at this meeting? Were things discussed at this meeting that would have moved a priest around who then abused again later on? And Pope Benedict's people did issue three documents that verified their versions of events. So, there was some particulars beyond just this letter that everybody's reading. There was, this is what he did know.

The letter is more the reflection of this 94-year-old man in retirement saying, I'm sorry. And I think -- I think that's important to note as well.

KEILAR: I know. We can't ignore some of the shift (ph) that he made himself on holding priests accountable. But I will say, forgiveness is difficult. It's harder without atonement.

MCGRADY: Yes.

KEILAR: And I think that for some of the victims, they may feel that way looking at this.

MCGRADY: Absolutely. Oh, I agree, 100 percent.

KEILAR: Yes.

Katie, really appreciate you being with us again.

MCGRADY: Thanks so much.

KEILAR: Coming up, CNN is on the front lines in Ukraine where thousands of Ukrainians are rallying in unity amid tensions with Russia. What they're saying as they brace for a possible attack.

BERMAN: Plus, she asked him to wear a mask. He told her to kiss my ass. Congressman Joyce Beatty will join us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:58:53]

KEILAR: While 16 million people in southern California are under a heat advisory, the Great Lakes region is preparing for a new storm system that will bring more rain and snow.

So, let's go now to meteorologist Chad Myers to look at what we're expecting here.

Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it really has been a country cut in half. Snow on one side and just excessive heat watch for California yesterday turned into a heat advisory for today. It's going to be 86 in L.A. for all you visiting Cincinnati fans.

This weather brought to you by the Jamaica Tourist Board. Plan your vacation at visitjamaica.com.

So, here we go. It's hot out there. It's a little bit windy as well. The heat advisory in effect. Temperatures tomorrow going to make a run at 87. That's 20 degrees above where you should be. So, yes, I know it's warm and, yes, it's California, but that's still way, way farther than you should be on the thermometer.

Colder air coming into the Great Lakes, as you mentioned, as well. It will bring some snow. Not a major snow event, but two to four inches in some spots. And then the Great Lakes get going with some lake- effect snow. We'll see that by the time we work our way into Friday and Saturday.

Highs across the East Coast, though, fairly warm.

[07:00:00]

D.C., 56 today. Your normal high is 47. I think you can take that.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Barely, Chad. Barely. All right. Thanks, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.