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New Day

Committee Votes to Subpoena Trump, We Want To Hear from Him; Evidence Shows Trump's Premeditated Plan to Declare Victory; Final Debates Held in Key Battleground States as Voting Nears. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 14, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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


DR. TARA NARULA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Colon cancer last year to drop the age to 45.

[07:00:02]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN ANCHOR: Some very disturbing numbers there. Dr. Tara Narula, thank you so much for bringing us that new research. I appreciate it.

All right, New Day continues right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The January 6th committee taking its showdown with former President Trump to the next level with a subpoena.

I'm Brianna Keilar, John Berman is off and Alex Marquardt is here with us this morning.

It was a dramatic end to what's likely the final January 6th hearing before the midterm election, the vote to subpoena Trump unanimous. He is the one person, they say, at the center of all that happened on January 6th. Trump does say that he'll respond here in about an hour to the committee's demand that he answer their questions.

MARQUARDT: The January 6th committee also unveiling never before seen video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rushing to safety as the mob closed in, and later leading the charge as lawmakers scrambled to save the Capitol. CNN has exclusively obtained about an hour of additional material that was not presented by the panel. Here's part of that video.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 45th president of the United States of America.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We're going to walk down to the Capitol.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Tell him if he comes here, we're going to the White House.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're marching up. You can see them marching up.

TRUMP: Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore. And that's what this is all about.

PELOSI: I hope he comes. I want to punch him out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would pay to see that.

PELOSI: I'm waiting for this for trespassing on the Capitol grounds. I'm going to punch him out, and I'm going to go to jail, and I'm going to be happy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What if they try and run the Capitol?

PELOSI: If they stop the proceeding, they would have succeeded in stopping the validation of the president of the United States.

We have got to finish the proceedings or else they will have complete victory.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): We have some senators who are still in their hideaways. They need massive personnel now.

D.C. has requested the National Guard and it's been denied by DOD. I'd like to know a good god damn reason why it's been denied. I apologize for being so --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't apologize.

SCHUMER: I've never seen anything like this. We're like a third world country here. We had to run and evacuate the Capitol. They say they were full okay to give the National Guard. They say it was not denied. I'm going to call the effing secretary of DOD.

PELOSI: Thank you, governor.

SCHUMER: Virginia guard has been called in.

PELOSI: Yes, I'm just talking to Governor Northam. And what he said they sent 200 state police and a unit of the National Guard.

SCHUMER: And I want to ask you this, you know the Capitol has been totally overrun, and do you know there are certain senators and congressmen still in their offices there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard that.

PELOSI: And, quite frankly, much of it at the instigation at the president of the United States.

SCHUMER: Will you ask the president to make a statement to ask them to leave the Capitol?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, if you might guess, we're (INAUDIBLE) as quickly as --

SCHUMER: No, no. Please answer my question. Answer my question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One hell of a hurry, do you understand?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got you loud and clear, leader.

SCHUMER: This cannot be just we're waiting for so and so. We need them there now, whoever you got.

PELOSI: Just pretend for a moment it was the Pentagon or the White House or some other entity that was under siege.

Mr. Vice president? Hi, we're okay. We're here with Mr. Schumer, Mr. McConnell, the leadership House and Senate. And how are you? Oh my goodness. Where are you?

We're being told it could take days to clear the Capitol and that we should be moving everyone here to get the job done.

Don't let anybody know where you are.

TRUMP: This was a fraudulent election. But we can't play into the hands of these people.

SCHUMER: We shouldn't let them off the hook, Nancy. We issued a statement saying he has got to make a statement and he comes up with this B.S.

PELOSI: Insurrection. That's a crime. And who's guilty of it?

SCHUMER: Do you think we could get to the Capitol by 9:00, 10:00 tonight and finish this?

[07:05:02]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator, I can't give an answer how long it's going to clear, I don't know how many inside. So, it's a very complex operation we are going to have to conduct from the inside out.

SCHUMER: The sooner -- we have to make a decision whether to go back to the Capitol, if it's safe, which we prefer, or do it here if it's not going to be safe for a couple of days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Madam Speaker, I'm at the Capitol building. I'm literally standing with the U.S. Capitol Police. He just informed me that their best information is that they believe that the House and the Senate will be able to reconvene in roughly an hour.

SCHUMER: Good news.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: This morning, the January 6th committee setting up a showdown with former President Trump, the panel unanimously voting to subpoena him to answer for his actions, as they put it. But will he comply?

CNN's Melanie Zanona is with us now. Maybe one hint could be how Republicans are responding to this news.

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Well, you know, Brianna, we actually haven't heard from a ton of Republicans. We heard from Elise Stefanik. She's the chair of the House GOP Conference. She predictably called it partisan shams and this is just a political ploy ahead of the midterms, and most Republicans I talk to do not expect Trump to comply.

We will hear from Donald Trump at 8:00 A.M. I expect we'll get a better sense then. But for the most part, Republicans have chosen to ignore both the hearing and the subpoena. And part of that is because Congress is on a recess break. So, it's easier for them to avoid reporters like myself asking these questions. But the other part of it, it is a calculated strategy.

I talked to a source that's in House GOP leadership that said they went into yesterday with a game plan of trying to keep the message on the economy and on inflation. They think they're in a great position heading into these midterms. And, essentially, they don't want to rock the boat right now and some of these revelations are just hard for them to defend and talk about, really.

KEILAR: Of course, there's going to be a report that comes out from this committee, right, which I guess they could ignore, but do they have a plan for how they're going to react to this?

ZANONA: So, they do have a plan for a formal rebuttal. House Republicans have conducted their own, very narrow investigation, looking into the security failures on January 6th. It's not expected to look at Donald Trump's role in any way. But they have decided to save that report until whenever the select committee unveils their report so it can be sort of a direct counterprogramming, direct counter-narrative. So, there is going to be an effort to try to rebut what the select committee puts out but they, again, are saving that until later.

KEILAR: All right. Mel, thank you so much for that.

MARQUARDT: I appreciate it.

All right, well, the vote to subpoena Trump followed a damning testimony laying out the case that the former president had plans in motion even before Election Day to stay in power by any means necessary.

Joining us now with more is CNN Senior Political Analyst John Avlon. John, lay out for us the timeline of Trump's plans to declare victory in the 2020 election.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right, Alex. Look, I mean, this was at laying out a fact pattern that is truly damning, to the extent the president and his allies were telegraphing an intent to declare victory regardless of the results of the election well before the election.

Let's look at the timeline here. We now know that Brad Parscale, former campaign manager of his reelection, was talking about plans that were in discussion to have the ex-president declare victory as early as mid-summer, July. We've seen tape Roger Stone saying, we'll just declare victory regardless of what the results on Election Day. Steve Bannon, we've heard tape of him in October saying that that was Trump's plan. And then yesterday, we saw an email sent by the president of Judicial Watch Tom Fitton, two senior members of the White House saying -- basically proposing talking points for the former president, saying, we had an election today and I won, creating a fictitious Election Day deadline.

But that wasn't all in terms of the really damning evidence and testimony we saw yesterday, particularly with regard to Trump's state of mind. Aides like Cassidy Hutchinson saying they heard the president, directly and indirectly, admit in private that he knew he lost, clarifying the fact that this was a lie he was pushing to his supporters. Here's Cassidy Hutchinson talking to the former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who she worked for, Cass, he knows it's over, he knows he lost but we're going to keep trying.

And then there was this testimony, this clip we're going to play for you, Where Cassidy Hutchinson speaks to the president yelling, in effect, at Mark Meadows, his chief of staff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUES AIDE: So, he had said something to the effect, I don't want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don't want people to know that we lost.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: This is embarrassing, I don't want people to know we lost. In some ways, that was the most damming aspect of yesterday's testimony. It shows the state of mind for the president, he knew he lost and he was motivated by an inability to admit the results of the election, to push lie on his supporters and the American people that culminated in January 6th.

KEILAR: And, Avlon, what other new insight did we get into the warnings for potential violence ahead of the day?

[07:10:01]

AVLON: That's right. This is really key. The Secret Service, we now see, had gotten tips, was getting warnings by Trump supporters that violence was likely to occur on the 6th, as much as a week in advance. Here's an email they received from a tipster. This person saying, among other things, their plan is to literally kill people. Please, please take this tip seriously and investigate this further. So, the warnings of violence were being communicated to the Secret Service.

Why they did not take more aggressive action to try to protect the president, protect the Capitol more importantly, is still going to be open in investigation. But we know that there were plenty of signs of the violence to come. And we also know that the president's key advisers, like Roger Stone, when asked about the plans for violence and the violence took the 5th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you believe the violence on January 6th was justified?

ROGER STONE, LONGTIME TRUMP ALLY: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer your question on the basis of the Fifth Amendment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Such a contrast, you seeing there, Roger Stone, one of the president's advisers, taking the Fifth about violence, with the leadership of both parties trying to work together to bring peace order peaceful transfer of power back online. Extraordinary contrast yesterday.

KEILAR: It certainly was. John, thank you.

AVLON: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: Well, as John was noting, despite all the hearings and the evidence that we've seen so far, there are still many, many unanswered questions. For starters why did the Secret Service delete so many emails and texts in the wake of the January 6th attack? And what did those messages say? What did Ginni Thomas tell the January 6th committee? We know that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with them in recent days but her testimony did not come up during the hearing.

Now, of course, will Trump comply with the subpoena? That's a major question. The committee saying they're not planning to subpoena former Vice President Mike Pence. Why not? It seems like there could be a lot to learn from the testimony of the former vice president.

And then finally, who planted the bombs here in Washington D.C. the night before the insurrection? Nearly two years later, we still don't know. Brianna?

KEILAR: And joining us now is CNN Political Analyst and Senior Political Correspondent for The New York Times Maggie Haberman. Maggie, thank you so much for being with us.

Of course, we're awaiting the former president's response to being subpoenaed by the committee. He says he'll respond here at 8:00 A.M. Do you have any idea what he's going to say?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It could be anything under the sun, Brianna. Yesterday, he was telling some advisers he was inclined to want to testify as long as it would be aired live, which is not a condition that I'm sure that the committee would necessarily go along with. There are some who argue that they should, but we'll see what he actually says. He could say he's not going to. He's very worked up about a variety of legal fronts that he's facing. And he, as you know, tends to stress test these ideas in talking to people. So, we'll see.

MARQUARDT: Maggie, what would be the advantages of Trump testifying live? I imagine there will also be lots of disadvantages.

HABERMAN: Well, for both parties, right, for the committee and for Trump. For Trump, a disadvantage is there's the potential that he could say something that's not true while he's under oath since he says things that are not true all the time when he's not under oath. The advantage to Trump is that he could get his side on the record, which is something that he has been complaining about for a long time. This is a one-sided committee. Why aren't they showing the evidence, as he puts it, of what he has alleged without evidence that he's provided, is widespread fraud? So that would be an advantage for him.

For the committee, an advantage would be get to him on the record and being able to ask him questions, which they clearly wanted to do, even acknowledging that he is often not somebody who is forthcoming or honest about what he has done himself. The downside for the committee is the risk that Donald Trump turns this into a spectacle, and I'm not sure that they want that.

KEILAR: You said he's worked up about other legal fronts right now. He is looking toward a deposition here coming up very soon in another case.

HABERMAN: That's right. He is expected to be deposed in a defamation case filed against him by E. Jean Carroll, a New Yorker who has accused him of rape decades ago. He had tried to avoid giving that subpoena -- I'm sorry, giving that deposition, and he had been shielded from that, as this case was playing out while he was president. That's not the case anymore. He, I've been told by several people, went into a furry when he found out that he had to be deposed next week in that case.

MARQUARDT: And, Maggie, based on all of your reporting, do you believe that Trump wanted violence on January 6th?

HABERMAN: You know, I can't speak to his state of mind. It's pretty clear that by my reporting, your reporting, and what the House select committee has established, that, you know, if he didn't want violence, he was quite slow to stop it when it was clear that it was happening.

[07:15:11]

He said one thing to me in an interview for a book that I wrote about him that published recently where he talked about how he said something that wasn't true, which is that he really wasn't watching television while this was all going on. It's obviously been established he has. But then also he had, quote/unquote, confidence that the Capitol police could handle this. That was interesting because it did speak to the idea that perhaps he had thought about this beforehand.

KEILAR: Yes. And there's a lot going on, as you mentioned, besides just being subpoenaed. What is all of this doing to his energy for a presidential run? HABERMAN: It depends on the day, I think, Brianna. It depends on who you talk to. You can talk to six people who are in his orbit, who are uncertain that he's going to run. You can talk to six convinced he's going to. I think he has backed himself into something of a corner where he has to run because he needs the protections that if he became president again, that the White House affords a sitting president in legal cases. And I think that if he runs as a candidate, he can say this is political, they're going after me, and I think he would say that anyway, but I think that it would bolster his claim, at least, with his supporters.

His heart does not seem in it and has not and it's hard to imagine a candidate going out as if nothing is happening but he has done things like that before, so we'll see.

KEILAR: Yes, we sure will. Maggie, great to have you this morning. Thank you so much.

And just in, prosecutors are demanding an investigation into reports that one Parkland juror was threatened as parents criticize the jury for sparing the killer's life. We're going to speak to a mother of one of the victims ahead.

And this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): I guess what puzzles me about that is with that upbringing why is he turned against America? I mean, is he defying America often?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: A pair of debates in key battleground states heating up just 25 days before Election Day. We'll have all the highlights, next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

MARQUARDT: Debates in two key battleground states last night, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer going head-to-head on abortion rights with Trump-endorsed Tudor Dixon in the race for governor there. And in Senate race in Wisconsin, Senator Ron Johnson taking on Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes, where crime was at the top of the agenda.

CNN Correspondent Omar Jimenez joins us now with all the highlights. Omar, tell us about these debates.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alex. I mean, we're very clearly in the debate portion of this final push to Election Day, less than a month out. The latest two on both sides of Lake Michigan here and Wisconsin for the Senate and, of course, here in Michigan for governor, with many issues in common, including the economy, crime and, of course, abortion.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We drew names to determine who will go first.

JIMENEZ (voice over): Dueling debates in the Midwest, around two for Senate in Wisconsin, this time in front of a live audience.

JOHNSON: Take anything Mr. Barnes says with a huge grain of salt.

LT. GOV. MANDELA BARNES (D-WI): I absolutely would like to respond to that because --

JIMENEZ: The same night, a round one for governor in Michigan. In Wisconsin, the debate centered on topics, like the economy, abortion and crime.

BARNES: This is about making sure that law enforcement and communities have strong relationships. This is also about making sure we do the things that we know prevent crime from happening in the first place.

JOHNSON: The problem with the defund movement, which he has been a supporter of, it dispirits law enforcement, they're having a hard time recruiting members and we aren't going to have law enforcement officers we're going to need to reduce crime.

JIMENEZ: Barnes said he doesn't want to defund the police.

BARNES: No police officers in this country are more dispirited than the ones who were present at the United States Capitol on January 6th.

So, this talk about support for law enforcement, it's not real.

JOHNSON: I immediately and forcefully and repeatedly condemned the violence on January 6th.

JIMENEZ: With less than a month until Election Day, a statewide poll shows Johnson polling six points ahead of Barnes, 52 to 46 percent among likely voters, but still within the poll's margin of error. The poll also showed inflation as the top concern among voters.

BARNES: I know what it's like to struggle to pay the bills.

We need to give working class families some relief with a middle class tax cut. We need to make the child tax credit permanent.

JOHNSON: I was warning about stagflation early in 2021. So, the solution is stop the deficit spending, stop growing our debt.

JIMENEZ: Across Lake Michigan, a statewide poll also showed inflation and the economy as top concerns but right behind them, abortion.

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): When Roe fell, Mrs. Dixon celebrated that.

So, I've had my whole life have been ripped away from women and girls in this country.

JIMENEZ: After hundreds of thousands of signatures in Michigan, in a state supreme court decision, the right to an abortion in the state will now be decided by the voters.

GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE TUDOR DIXON (R-MI): I'm pro-life with exceptions to the life of the mother.

She will lie to you tonight and tell you that the governor can do something about a constitutional amendment.

WHITMER: Mrs. Dixon is either woefully underinformed about the office she's running for or she's lying to you, it's that simple. A governor will absolutely impact these rights.

JIMENEZ: After the debate was over --

DIXON: I feel like we had a strong debate.

JIMENEZ: And why do you feel that?

DIXON: I think we were able to point out a lot of things the governor hasn't been honest about.

WHITMER: I know we say every election is the most important of our lifetime. We're not being hyperbolic. It just that the stakes keep getting higher.

JIMENEZ: Back in Wisconsin, the live crowd was a factor throughout the debate, including during the topic of foreign policy, when Barnes brought up the FBI telling Johnson in 2020 he may have been the target of Russian disinformation. Johnson said he believed that it was political ploy.

JOHNSON: The FBI set me up with a corrupt briefing and then leaked that to smear me.

JIMENEZ: The debate ended with the candidates being asked to say one thing they admire about their opponent.

[07:25:00]

BARNES: I do think the senator has proven to be a family man and I think that's admirable.

JOHNSON: He had good upbringing. I guess what puzzles me about that is with that upbringing, why has he turned against America? I mean, why is he defying America often?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ (on camera): Now, as you can imagine, that live audience was not listening to the moderators telling them not to react. That was the final scheduled debate between Barnes and Johnson, the first of two between Dixon and Whitmer. But as contentious as those two may have seen tonight, down in my home state of Georgia, we've got the Senate debate between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. That may prove to be even more so, especially coming about a week after reports show that Walker allegedly paid for an abortion for a woman and encouraged her to get another. He has denied it but it will likely to come up in that debate in a state that will crucially help decide the power balance in the U.S. Senate.

MARQUARDT: Yes. Here we are in the final stretch, these races heating up. Omar, thank you so much for that report, I appreciate it.

KEILAR: And let's discuss this now with CNN Anchor and Chief National Affairs Analyst Kasie Hunt.

I mean, broadly, I'm just curious what your takeaway was from those debates.

KASIE HUNT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: There's a lot. There's a lot there, Brianna. I mean, look, on a crowd situation, first of all, I mean, that's kind of political campaigning 101, so either Ron Johnson's campaign failed to do anything about that room or Mandela Barnes' campaign did a good job of getting his supporters out.

KEILAR: Because he's leading in the polls, Ron Johnson is.

HUNT: Ron Johnson is -- at this point, has what everyone I talked to considers to be a pretty small but significant lead that's going to be really hard for Barnes to overcome. So, that was at university. So, I think you were seeing -- I wouldn't take away from the crowd response kind of anything about the actual state of the race.

Now, a couple of interesting things about this, I mean, first of all, the end, I'm not sure exactly what Ron Johnson is talking about. It's interesting considering he's defending law enforcement on the one hand, but on the other hand, he's suggesting that the FBI set him up in some way to try and get him for connections to Russia. I mean, there have been a number of instances of Senator Johnson kind of making claims like this, or, you know, we've even seen the issues with the fake electors, where he comes out and he says things that are just very, very hard to wrap your head around. I would put this in that particular category.

On the issues, though, I think what's really changed this race in Johnson's favor has been the crime issue. Republicans have been up on the air talking about Barnes' record on issues like defund the police and abolishing ICE. Barnes, during this campaign, has said he's not for those things. But in the past, I mean, there's plenty of video clips to show, he has said in the wake of the death of George Floyd that he was for defunding the police. That's something that establishment Democrats in Washington saw as very dangerous from a political perspective. And you've seen Barnes himself trying to back away from that stance. But the reality is those tapes are there and voters have seen them and it's become a central issue in the race.

MARQUARDT: Can we talk about Michigan for second, and, of course, they just had a debate, Tudor Dixon and Gretchen Whitmer. How is abortion and the governor's role in abortion right playing into that race?

HUNT: So, abortion rights in this governor's race in Michigan, I actually think, are really fascinating. I mean, it's clearly an issue that's important to Democrats across the country. But in Michigan, it's been particularly sharp. Whitmer was out in front leading a court challenge to a law that had been on Michigan's books for a long time that could have potentially outlawed abortion right away.

Now, she won in court, she protected abortion rights for people from Michigan. And now, a referendum on abortion is on the ballot, right? That makes it different than many other states because people are going to have a chance to vote up or down.

And as we've seen in places like Kansas, for example, voters decided that they wanted to protect abortion rights. It's a very different question than having to say and think about a candidate, a person who may have other flaws or you may disagree with in other areas, who happens to share your position on abortion. So, I think that dynamic is what you saw play out on stage here.

And I think it's easy to forget. I mean, the Trump effect, we've talked so much about it, was very much on display in Michigan, but Michigan really is a historically blue state. It is not one of these places. It is not the Deep South. It has got a different makeup. And so the way that Whitmer has positioned herself on this issue, I think, puts her in a position of strength. And the polling shows that, combined with Tudor Dixon's backing from President Trump and questions about the 2020 election.

KEILAR: These debates are appointment television, I will tell you that.

HUNT: I mean, for someone like me. I love them.

KEILAR: They're pretty wild.

HUNT: But, again, like I sometimes am entertained by C-SPAN, not true of everyone in America.

KEILAR: No. Even if you're not entertained by C-SPAN, these debates have something for you. Kasie, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

U.S. Veteran Dane Partridge killed in a Russian ambush while fighting alongside Ukrainians.

[07:30:00]

We're going to speak to his sister, ahead.

MARQUARDT: And the January 6th committee voting unanimously to subpoena former President Donald Trump. We'll be speaking to two Trump White House officials --

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]