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White House COVID Coordinator: Biden "Doing Just Fine" With COVID Diagnosis; House January 6th Committee Holds Primetime Hearing on What Then President Trump Was Doing During Capitol Hill Insurrection; Testimony to House January 6th Committee Indicates Former President Trump Said Former Vice President Pence Let Him Down during January 6th. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 22, 2022 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

CHARLES MARINO, FORMER SECRET SERVICE SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: I think it should move outside the realm of the I.G.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's a big question about where that investigation goes next. We will be watching closely. Charles, thank you for breaking it all down for us this morning.

MARINO: OK, thank you, both.

COLLINS: And NEW DAY continues right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, shocked, shocked. That was the word used inside Trump world in reaction to some of the testimony at the January 6th committee hearing overnight, shocked. I'm John Berman, Brianna is off. Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins is here, and it just happens to be your reporting from inside Trump world, hearing that they were shocked.

COLLINS: I think it was that chatter from the Secret Service radio for Pence's detail that really shocked people. And this is actually surprising because a lot of people who remain in Trump world have downplayed these hearings, said they are overtly political, nothing new. But I think that day kind of took people back to how shaken they were that day, because people were genuinely freaked out inside the West Wing. People who are now downplaying the hearings, they were freaked out that day because of what the committee laid out last night. Nothing that he saw changed Trump's perspective of what happened.

BERMAN: They were shocked when they heard that, shocked that it exists, that the recordings of it exist at all. And it was just some of the compelling testimony we heard last night, and in some cases laid out some new details.

COLLINS: Also, words from the former president himself, including he said, "Mike Pence let me down." Those were the last five words that an aide heard Trump say that day before he left the West Wing to go to the residence for the night. Nothing about the attack, according to the committee, just his grievances with Mike Pence.

Here is a review of some of the hearing's most notable moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president wanted to lead 10,000 people to the Capitol. I think that was enough grounds for us to be alarmed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you aware of any phone call by the president of the United States to the secretary of defense that day?

PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Not that I'm aware of, no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you hear the vice president, or, excuse me, the president ask for the National Guard?

GEN. KEITH KELLOGG, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you ever hear the president ask for a law enforcement response?

KELLOGG: No.

CIPOLLONE: I can generically say that I said people need to be told, there needs to be a public announcement, fast, that they need to leave the Capitol. Just to be clear, many people suggested it. Not just me. Many people felt the same way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hold, they've entered the building. If you're moving, we need to move now. Hold that door up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we're moving, we need to move now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Copy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were calls to say good-bye to family members, so on and so forth. It was getting -- for whatever the reason was on the ground, the V.P. Detail's office thought it was about to get very ugly.

JARED KUSHNER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: I heard my phone ringing, turned the shower off, saw it was Leader McCarthy, who I had a good relationship with. He told me it was getting really ugly over at the Capitol and said please, anything you can do to help. And I got the sense that they were scared.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "They" meaning McCarthy and people on the Hill because of the violence?

KUSHNER: That he was scared, yes.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R-KY) SENATE MINORITY LEADER: We're not going to let the people keep us from finishing our business. So we need you to get the building cleared, give us the OK so we can go back in session and finish up the people's business as soon as possible. CHRISTOPHER MILLER, FORMER ACTING SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Amen, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As he was gathering his things in the dining room to leave, President Trump reflected on the day's events with a White House employee. President Trump said nothing to the employee about the attack. He said only, quote, "Mike Pence let me down."

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defied the seat of -- it's defiled, right? I can't see it very well. But this election is now over. Congress has certified the results -- I don't want to say the election is over. I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election is over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: There was a lot going on last night in that hearing, two- and-a-half hours of so many moments. David, what stood out most to you?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I don't honestly think there were that many revelations last night. What made it extraordinary was that it filled in the portrait, and it wasn't just the portrait of dereliction of duty. It was cold. The juxtaposition of what was going on with Pence's detail and the email that the president sent, it was calculated. The fact that he told the photographer no photos, that there was no phone log, this is how mobsters act, right? And --

COLLINS: Don Jr. did incite --

BERMAN: "The Godfather."

COLLINS: Talk about "The Godfather."

AXELROD: No communication with anyone in law enforcement or the military who could have put this insurrection down.

[08:05:00]

Apparently, the only person he spoke with on the phone that we know of was Rudy Giuliani. And that really underscores the point, that day he was not the commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces. He was the commander in chief of the insurrectionists, and that's how he viewed himself.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He thought it was going to work. That's ultimately -- he was waiting to see if it was going to work. At the end of the night, he said Mike Pence let me down.

AXELROD: Yes.

JENNINGS: He thought it was going to work. They thought that the mob was going to break Mike Pence or cause the Congress to delay, and so that's what I got out of it yesterday. And then I think the clip that just played of the congressional leaders saying we have got to get back as soon as we can. So I just think McConnell, Schumer, the House leadership, they knew that if they didn't go back in that night and get the people's business done, that a day delay here would have emboldened the idea that maybe it did work, maybe they have put our process off the rails. So those are two things that stuck out to me.

COLLINS: There was a very real chance it could have been days, not the four or five hours that it was. That was the question, that was a fascinating moment there where it was McConnell, Schumer huddling, Pelosi there too, Steny Hoyer, saying how quickly can we get back in the room to finish our business.

JENNINGS: Absolutely.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So Axe, I would agree with the big point, which is that there wasn't really a revelation that came out. And certainly, legally nothing changes, I think, any of the possible charges that people were thinking about. But that may not be the right question to ask here, because if you step back and really think about the fact that the vice president of the United States' security detail was scared for their lives, that you had a president of the United States watching an insurrection unfold on television and any of these events --

AXELROD: Not just watching, but enflaming. He put the vice president in jeopardy of getting killed.

WILLIAMS: Yes. Any one of these things taken alone ought to be disqualifying for future office, or ought to at least cause all Americans to step back and say, my God, what happened in America on January 6th? And I think we've gotten almost into a loop of almost normalizing it.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Or legal technicalities. I look at the hearings not just in the legal sense, will someone be indicted, who is going to jail, but also are we -- is there a sort of deradicalization effort to them? Are we trying to sort of minimize violence as an extension of politics, which is what Trump essentially did? And in that sense, I thought last night was terrific, because I think what they're trying to do is isolate Trump as a loser, and a sore loser at that. He is isolated in his room, he's calling Giuliani, he has all his people around him telling him this is wrong.

And you're starting to see him, when Cheney opens up with the line, things are starting to give, right? She sort of says people are coming forward, we have more and more people, there is going to be more hearings. And I think it's important to view the committee as addressing violence and the threat of violence that exists today and in the future and trying to isolate it as well.

BERMAN: I am so fascinated by what Congresswoman Liz Cheney said at the end, the question she asked at the end and what she was trying to do with it. The question she asked was this -- can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again? Who is she posing that question to? Who is she suggesting take action there? KAYYEM: I think what she's doing is saying, there's no two Trumps. In

other words, so many people have justified their votes and people who voted for him two times even, Republicans who would support the agenda, there is no two Trumps. There is no Trump, I like his Supreme Court picks, Trump, I like his policies on the economics, and crazy Trump. Right, this is Trump. He is undermining our democracy, and they're basically just focused on that.

And I think that's really important, because then whatever happens with the party is whatever happens with the party, but what you want to do in terms of any deradicalization effort is make sure more people don't join violence. In other words, you want the leader to look like he's isolated. That's how violence grows is that the leader looks like he's a winner, and whether you call him a terrorist or violent insurrectionist, whatever name you want to use against Trump, what you want to ensure is that he comes out of this weaker, not stronger.

AXELROD: Can I just pick up on something you asked, we have the virtue of you. You're a great asset here because you spent so much time observing Donald Trump. The thing that strikes me is, you know, we can be appalled, and what we heard last night was appalling, but can we really be surprised? The history of Donald Trump is he doesn't care about rules, he doesn't care about laws, he doesn't care about institutions. He thinks they're for suckers. He spent his whole life flouting them. And everything he did during those five years sort of led to that moment.

This wasn't sort of kind of an unusual occurrence, and he did these things in ways large and small. The man was impeached before all of this happened for shaking down the president of Ukraine, who we now know very well.

[08:10:02]

WILLIAMS: But to Cheney's final point, who is the audience she's speaking to now? Maybe the Justice Department and certainly future primary Republican primary voters, more importantly, it's a shot across the bow to the Senate Republicans that voted against removing him from office or barring him from serving after the second impeachment.

AXELROD: I think, and you can speak to this, I do think she's speaking to Republicans. I think she's telling Republicans this is a bridge too far. We can't go down this road again.

KAYYEM: Here is your off ramp, we're giving it to you.

JENNINGS: There is a group of Republicans who voted for him twice. I voted for him twice. I'm a loyal Republican voter who gave him money, knocked on doors. They gave him their best effort. And I think the audience is that group. You gave Donald Trump your best effort. After seeing this, can you conclude that he gave you his best effort?

And in 2024, if you are mortified at the thought that Joe Biden might get reelected or Democrats might reelect someone even more liberal or more progressive, do you want to roll the dice on this guy again, after everything you did for him, based on what you've seen? And so I do think there is a growing group of Republicans who did everything they could do for him, who may want to do something else. More to come on that, but the polling evidence is there, and that's why I think he's looking at the race early now because he hears the footsteps.

AXELROD: She said -- it's pretty clear she would not vote for him, she was saying he cannot be there. Would you? If he were the nominee of the Republican Party? You say you're a loyal Republican.

JENNINGS: It would be a difficult -- I don't know who the Democrats are going to nominate, but it would be difficult for me to conclude that in trusting him with the power of the presidency again would be wise for the country. Now, that having been said, I am -- what Joe Biden has done to this country and what I think the Democrats are likely to do in the future is also terrible. And that's the thing. A rematch of these two people would put a -- millions of Americans of voters in a really, really bizarre and terrible situation.

AXELROD: Shouldn't fidelity of the Constitution be table stakes for being president of the United States?

JENNINGS: Yes, of course.

KAYYEM: I think what that also -- I was sort of amazed at two moments, to your point, whether the system can hold if he's president again. And I think the answer is no. I think once when you see the Secret Service and what happened to them, here is the Secret Service protecting the vice president. Their leader is the president. They know that the violence is coming from the president. We have a lot of bad things to say about the Secret Service right now, but the fear you heard in their voices is like -- we're not trained for this. President going after a vice president, what are we supposed to do? We can't shoot these people. We can't protect the vice president as we want to.

And you heard it later, Kaitlan and I were talking about the military, the vice president is not in the military chain of command, and here you have the Joint Chiefs calling him and saying, the president is saying nothing to us, can you help out, can you command us? The systems did not hold. If everything seems crazy, and they will not hold.

COLLINS: And that is one of the biggest black holes of that day is what took the National Guard so long to get there, what delayed that process. And Keith Kellogg was Pence's national security advisor and he was asked, did you ever hear the president ask for the National Guard. No. Did you ever hear the president ask for law enforcement response. No. The committee said, as someone who works in the national security space and the National Security Council, if there were going to trooped called for a rally, is that something you would have been made aware of? Yes.

KAYYEM: Absolutely. That's the chain of command. So it would go from the secretary of defense to the national security adviser or the White House and the president, especially with D.C. with its funky rules. So there would be -- so their inability -- so basically the military broke the chain of command, and I'm not sorry about it, because the president's not returning the calls, and so the Joint Chiefs and the national security staff have to go to someone. And it ends up being Pence, which, Pence, like, it is about time, right. We need to hear from you, that's how I left last night.

JENNINGS: This cannot become the norm. This cannot -- this process cannot break all the time. You can't have it so that the president is disconnected from the military chain of command.

KAYYEM: No.

(CROSS TALK)

BERMAN: I want to get in here, and then I want to follow up on that. Go ahead.

WILLIAMS: What I would say is, the question is can this -- what happens post Trump? And got to remember, this is not just Donald Trump, right. He is the symptom, not the problem. He is the fuel, not the fire. And there is an underlying rot in the country about mistrusting institutions, mistrusting law enforcement and courts and so on. He's the accelerant that made it much worse, but regardless of whether it's him, if you don't address that, and this is your area more than anyone else, Juliette, but if you have just that, the underlying problem, you're still back here --

AXELROD: A majority of Americans, A majority of Americans say they believe that the government is corrupt, and that it's rigged against them.

JENNINGS: And that justified extracurricular action.

AXELROD: I actually supported Trump's appeal because he was essentially taking a hammer blow to the institutions that many Americans believe are not functioning in our --

(CROSS TALK)

AXELROD: And that's something that has to be addressed.

[08:15:12]

WILLIAMS: The discourse that this was all Donald Trump, that, you know, he brought this to the United States, and if Donald Trump is removed as the source all Donald Trump, that, you know, he brought this to the United States, and if Donald Trump is removed as the source of it, it goes away.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: This loses oxygen if he's -- if he's weakened. They're listening to him, they're listening to silence, I focus on him because I view him as the leader of a violent organization or violent movement, and guess how you stop this or at least you minimize it? You're not going to end the ideology, you're going to minimize the strength, is you isolate the leader.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: To David's point, I don't think people who have lost all faith in institutions fully exist on the right. It is clearly also existing on the left, and I know -- I want to -- right now, I mean, for as much as Donald Trump's people want to smash Congress and do what they want to do on January 6th, there are people right now who would I'm sure would love to do that to the United States Supreme Court and urging Joe Biden to bypass the Supreme Court and bypass Congress and essentially rule by executive fiat.

These are all people in my opinion who've completely lost faith in the overall process of --

WILLIAMS: I don't think it is a fair argument to sort of both sides insurrection.

JENNINGS: You think it is not a fair argument to point out that someone tried to go kill Brett Kavanaugh or burn down the Supreme Court? These people have the same --

KAYYEM: That wasn't led by Biden. Come on.

JENNINGS: I'm not -- I'm not saying it was led by Biden. They coddled it. They coddled it.

KAYYEM: It doesn't matter.

JENNINGS: They coddled it.

(CROSSTALK)

KAYYEM: Whatever you believe, Scott, about what the Democrats are doing, just give us a break here on this one that Trump actually directed the violence. You don't think he directed the violence?

JENNINGS: Yes, of course I do. I said it many times, but I'm telling you David's point is correct, there is a whole group of Americans who have given up on our process and institutions and they don't fully exist on the right, which I think you think they do, but I don't believe they do.

KAYYEM: I talk about violence all the time for a reason because I want to separate the policy we have.

WILLIAMS: People are seriously talking about charging the president, the president of the United States with a crime of inciting an insurrection or obstructing acts of -- you just don't have -- I'm not -- I am not saying that -- or dismissing the conduct of people who threatened the Supreme Court justice. Of course not. I was a federal law clerk, look, come on.

But at the same time the president is literally being -- might be investigated by the Justice Department, being investigated by the Fulton County, Georgia.

AXELROD: Back for one second here, you know, as I said earlier, if the president of the United States openly and flagrantly says these rules, these laws, these norms don't matter, these institutions are crooked and corrupt, and anything you do there, for that crowd out there, it wasn't all Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, there were regular Americans who were told that the election was stolen and it was their patriotic duty to go down and disrupt this process.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And you know what? That was distilled in the outtakes of Trump's video when he said I don't want to say the election is over, I just want to say Congress has certified it.

AXELROD: Right.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He doesn't want to say the election is over today, which is why I want to wrap this up, by, again, going back to the question that Liz Cheney asked, where she said, can a president who is willing to make the choice that Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?

It is hard to imagine that was the rhetorical question, David.

AXELROD: I think this is the project she's been working from the beginning. She's talking to the Justice Department, but more broadly she's talking to her own party and the American people. She knows as someone who does believe in the Constitution, ultimately the people will decide whether Donald Trump should be entrusted with that power and she's making a case to them that that cannot be.

JENNINGS: He's not saying it as subtly -- or as directly, he's more subtle about it. This is the case that Mike Pence is making for president of the United States. I'm going to give you everything you wanted about the Trump presidency without the absolute horrific judgment that he had in and around January 6th. That's his message.

BERMAN: I'm not sure Liz Cheney wants to leave it to Mike Pence, but it is very interesting.

COLLINS: Maybe leave it to Liz Cheney, potentially.

BERMAN: Maybe so.

KAYYEM: I think we'll agree now, the policy without the violence should be the future of the United States. I think they have been successful on that.

BERMAN: All right. Juliette, Elliot, Scott, David, we got more than our money's worth. You guys have to come back. You guys -- that was wonderful --

COLLINS: It's worth for --

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Thank you, all, really, I mean it.

So, ahead, we're going to speak with January 6 committee member Jamie Raskin about some of the new revelations, and also, I think, importantly at this point, what's next going forward.

COLLINS: Yeah, what's happening in September?

We're going to get an update on President Biden who tested positive for COVID-19 about 24 hours ago, how he's doing and the treatment that he is now receiving.

Also, quite a scare on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LEE ZELDIN (R-NY): There is only -- there is only one option.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:20:02]

COLLINS: Congressman Lee Zeldin attacked in New York, and we have the full video.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: This morning, President Biden is isolating at the White House after testing positive for COVID-19.

White House COVID response coordinator Dr. Jha just gave John Berman an update on this in the last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ASHISH K. JHA, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: The symptoms were basically the same, again, he's got a little runny nose, he's got a bit of a dry cough, he was feeling, you know, he worked all day yesterday. He was on phone calls. He was on zoom calls, worked through the evening. And as of 10:00 p.m., when I talked to the folks -- his medical team who had last seen him around 10:00 p.m. or last talked to him around 10:00 p.m., he said he was feeling just fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: The president working via zoom like so many of us have done.

Joining us now to discuss is the former White House coronavirus response coordinator under former President Trump, Dr. Deborah Birx.

Dr. Birx, thank you for getting up with us this morning. Based en what you heard from the president's own officials, what is your assessment of his condition so far and what are your main concerns for him?

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Well, great to be with you, Kaitlan. And so great for the press conference and the clarity yesterday and the questions because I think they laid out what every American needs to both thrive and survive through COVID surges, including those over 70 who are still being admitted and dying at the highest rate across this country.

[08:25:08] And I think it was really clear that they proactively tested. And so found the president's case really early. Had that discussion been his primary care physician and the president to define what was best for him, the president selected to go on Paxlovid and was immediately available.

Those three steps are not available to every American across this country, and I wish they were, because we would have lower fatalities. But the president and his team did everything right to ensure the maximum outcome, including vaccination and boosting.

I'm very encouraged. I think he'll feel remarkably better today and tomorrow. And I think the outstanding question, what I'm most worried about, is the potential for rebound.

I think we really need to look at people over 70, yes, I know it is 5 percent to 10 percent in the average population, but what is it in people over 70 and do they need a longer seven or ten-day course.

COLLINS: And you are right. They have been very transparent at the White House about this and announcing this, bringing out officials to talk about this.

I do want to ask you more about Paxlovid. I do think even as officials are pushing it now and they're saying, we want every American who does qualify to take this to take it, rebounding is something that people are hearing about. And you hear from people like Dr. Jha say when you talk about that, it is just mostly anecdotal stories about that, not all the data, but what are you seeing in the data, because I know you're very big on numbers.

BIRX: Yeah. Very big on numbers. I'm very big on getting the data and the science. And the fact that we still have these questions about age specific rebound, and I do believe there is an age component to it, because I am seeing higher rebound in individuals over 70, and that makes sense to me, because they have what we call less cellular immunity. That's our cellular arm of our immune system. It wanes with age.

So they are more vulnerable to rebound, I believe, just scientifically. But we should know that. And we should know the rates of long COVID and we should know the rates of cardiovascular and diabetes as late, and the brain fog -- we should have answers to all of these questions and the impact of that on long COVID, on chronic disease post COVID infection. And we should have the same on Paxlovid.

So this is -- this always discourages me when the data is out there, but we're not bringing it in and analyzing it in real time so we can save more Americans.

COLLINS: And that's data that people want to know about, because, of course, people are still getting COVID as we have seen cases on the rise, including President Biden.

Dr. Birx, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

BIRX: Thank you for having me.

BERMAN: We're going to speak to January 6 committee member Jamie Raskin, the congressman from Maryland, a little bit later on NEW DAY. What is next for the committee?

And two different rallies for two different candidates, the rift within the Republican Party, the rift between Donald Trump and Mike Pence widening. They're endorsing two different candidates in Arizona.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)