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CNN Live Event/Special

Trump Signing Ceremony at U.S. Capitol; Trump to Pardon Nonviolent January 6 Defendants, Commute Sentences of Others Convicted of More Serious Offenses; President Trump Attends Congressional Luncheon. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 20, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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


[14:00:00]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: -- was stolen and that was why he ran in 2024. Of course it wasn't. And he made false claims that he's repeated many times about Nancy Pelosi in the National Guard.

But I just think, Jake, listening to Trump that is what Trump really sounds like. That is him off prompter. I should note there are no prompters up there. This was not a scripted speech in any way, shape or form. And that was where he said he was essentially saying all the things that he didn't get to say in his inaugural address.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Yeah. And Kaitlan, before I bring in Daniel Dale to do some fact checking on some of the things he said that were not true about January 6, 2021, I think it's important to point out that the Trump-Vance campaign in 2024 was a very disciplined campaign.

And did a decent job of depicting President Trump as somebody who obviously had strong feelings on the border, somebody who had strong feelings on inflation and a disruptor, but somebody who was within the realm of normalcy, which is not obviously what we just heard from the new President there in Emancipation Hall.

COLLINS: I mean, Trump has always operated on his own agenda and way. I don't think that's surprising to anyone, any of his aides. His campaign itself may have been more disciplined in terms of what the staffing looked like and not as much backbiting and leaking as there was in 2016. But in terms of the candidate himself, I mean, this is Trump speaking his mind and saying what he really believes.

And he's walking into the presidency this time around way more emboldened than he was in 2017 when he was more easily convinced by his advisors or even Republican lawmakers that he had not yet facilitated the kind of relationships that he has with them now. He's entering this presidency feeling the height of his power. It's very clear there.

And also those grievances do still remain in terms of the clear anger at someone like Liz Cheney or General Mark Milley, who I should remind people Trump actually picked Mark Milley to be the Joint Chiefs Chairman when he was initially put in that position, hand selected him, as he did some others. And so it just speaks to the moment really, that we're in. And also seeing what changes are about to be made now that Trump is back in the Oval Office.

TAPPER: Yeah, General Mark Milley, who -- to whom President Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom before Milley did a couple of things that he did not like. Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.

Let's bring in Daniel Dale. And Daniel Dale, I know there's a lot of familiar lies that were just told. But bring us up to speed on what you think the biggest ones were.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: There were a bunch, Jake. I thought it was interesting that the president gave a scripted inaugural address in which honestly, there was not a ton to fact check. I'd say a smattering of falsehoods. And then immediately after, in this unscripted speech, he returned to his familiar lie a minute style.

So he said the 2020 election was totally rigged. We know that's a lie. He said his opponents tried to rig it this time. That's more nonsense. He said California Democrats tried to cheat and that he thinks he would have won the state this time if it were not rigged. Well, it was a free and fair election in that state as well. He lost by more than three million votes.

He claimed he won Alabama this time by 48 points or like between 30 and 31. And then on immigration, he spoke of the jails of every country in the world being emptied into this country. He has never provided any evidence for his familiar claim that foreign countries are deliberately emptying prisons to send people here as migrants.

He boasted of building 571 miles of border wall. Official statistics show it was actually 458 miles. And then he turned to January 6th. He spoke at length about, he said the Committee deleted all evidence, almost everything. It simply did not. That did not happen, although there is a dispute about the preservation of some data and some video interviews that the Committee conducted.

And he repeated this claim that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has admitted that she rejected a Trump offer of 10,000 National Guard troops on January, 6, 2021. First of all, there is no basis for the claim Trump even made her such an offer. It wouldn't even have made sense given that he, the President, is the commander of the D.C. National Guard. The speaker of the House has no authority to deploy them or thwart a deployment.

And second of all, she never admitted that such an offer was made. She is steadfastly rejected that. She is on tape on January 6th expressing, expressing frustration with the security failure that day and saying that I take responsibility for not having them better prepared. But that kind of vague assertion that I could have done more here is not an admission that she turned down any specific security offer. She has never made such an admission whatsoever. Jake.

TAPPER: So, Daniel, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

And while we get Evan Perez up to give us the update on what he knows from the Justice Department in terms of the pardons and commutations that are ready to come. [14:05:09]

We should note that for career officials at the Justice Department, this is a really crappy day because it starts with these sweeping pardons that President Biden, former President Biden now, is giving to his immediate family --

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Preemptively

TAPPER: -- preemptive pardons for his brothers Frank (ph) and Jimmy (ph), to his sister Valerie, and then to, I think, a couple in laws.

BASH: Spouses, yeah.

TAPPER: Yeah. And that to a lot of people, you know, this is not -- this did not go through the regular pardon attorney, the pardon process. And Biden in 2020, when I interviewed him right after he'd been elected, had some very harsh things to say about the idea of Trump giving preemptive pardons to his family members. He said it would set a horrible precedent.

Now, Trump didn't do it. Joe Biden did. And we can come back to that subject later in the day. But then beyond that, now, these same career Justice Department officials are preparing for a swath of other pardons --

BASH: Right.

TAPPER: -- that they may find unseemly.

BASH: Well, look, you could clearly tell that President Trump was really ticked off at what President Biden, now former President Biden, did on his way out the door. With regard to the Liz Cheney and other members of the January 6 Committee and their staffs, that's where he started his speech list of grievances at the beginning there before he went off on other familiar political tangents.

In his inaugural address, he talked about justice and restoring justice to the courts, to the system. I think I take your point about it being very controversial, what Joe Biden did on his way out the door. But it's going to be just as, if not more controversial, what Donald Trump is going to do, which he promised to do over and over on the campaign trail --

TAPPER: Yeah.

BASH: --in that building where he is, a lot of violence took place and the people who were convicted are going to not pay the price.

TAPPER: So let's go to our newsroom now where CNN's Paula Reid and Evan Perez are standing by. And Evan, I understand that you have this new reporting. Tell us.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake. This is going to be a mix of pardons and commutations is something obviously that the President, Donald Trump, and his team have been working on for four months, frankly. And he's been pushed back and forth on whether to make the pardons apply to everyone or to have some commutations. Obviously, one of the big concerns was the people who attacked police officers on that day, the violent rioters that we saw all on camera that day.

For the numbers, right, we have 1,600 people who've been charged, 1,200 of those people have already been convicted. There are about 700 people who've already completed their sentences. And so what we're going to see in this executive order in the next couple of hours from the income -- from the new President is a mix whereby you're going to have pardons for people who are viewed as misdemeanors, people who were not violent.

And then there will be commutations for some of the people -- including some of the people that are big names are names that we've seen all on video and in the last couple of years as part of these cases. So the question is, you know, how does this all square with what the Trump team has been working on?

And Paula and I, you know, we've been doing a lot of reporting on exactly what the push and pull behind the scenes has bee, right? Where certainly some people in the Trump transition, we're saying there needs to be a process so that you make sure people who did attack cops did not just get off scot free. In the end, the President decided he wanted to go big, as you heard in some of his comments at the -- in that speech just now.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: And the problem with process, we're told from our sources, is that it takes a long time because usually clemency is evaluated on a case by case basis. But they said this is really important, the President wants to do this on day one. And if we evaluate people case by case, we're not going to be able to get this done on day one.

And Trump's promises have evolved. He said he would pardon anyone involved in January 6th. But then President Trump and Vice President Vance, they started to issue more nuanced statements saying, well, for example, Trump said in an interview with Time Magazine, if someone was really out of control, he may not pardon that person.

And it appears the way they're going to thread that needle is that they will offer commutations to some of the more serious offenders, but full pardons to people who were charged with nonviolent offenses. But I'm still interested to see what do you mean by nonviolent?

[14:10:00]

Because some of the most serious cases those individuals were charged with, for example, seditious conspiracy, these were people who weren't even in D.C. but they were leading the violence. So is that someone you would consider violent?

Also, when you consider someone who's charged with assault. That covers a broad range of conduct from things that are mildly violent to extremely violent. So I know they were really struggling over the past month or so with how to handle this. So be interesting to see once he finally releases these --

PEREZ: And real quick, Jake, one of the things that we also expect the Justice Department, the new Justice Department to do in the coming days is to dismiss cases that are still pending, people who have not yet gone on trial. And so keep an eye on that in the coming days.

TAPPER: Okay, but just to put a point on it here, just we don't know yet what exactly they're going to do in terms of who they're going to pardon and whose sentence they're going to commute. But it does appear that at least some people who did commit violent acts, even violent acts against police, might have their sentences commuted. In other words, they get out of prison today or tomorrow. Am I understanding you correctly?

PEREZ: Right. Exactly. And those are the people, Jake, who may not fall under the bucket of actually being on video attacking people, but they're still in prison right now. Those people could very well be walking out of prison in the coming days once the President signs this official order.

REID: And I also want to note, Jake, that when we were talking to our sources about this process and we said, aren't you concerned that some of these pardons could be too broad? The name that was immediately mentioned was that of Hunter Biden, who shortly before we had these conversations had been pardoned by his father. They told me point blank they believe that President Biden's pardon of his son at that time gave them broad license to pardon people related to January 6th.

TAPPER: All right, Paula Reid, Evan Perez, thanks so much.

Let's go over to Donie O'Sullivan. He's at the D.C. jail and is getting a reaction to this breaking news. Donie.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jake, look, I mean, this is what activists who have been gathering here for actually years now. You know, quietly, during, throughout the Biden administration, actually for more than 900 nights, so called J6 activists have been holding a vigil outside the D.C. jail. We're only about a mile or two away from the capital, of course, where the attack on January 6th all played out. And these activists who have been here, they want everybody pardoned, everyone from the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, violent and nonviolent on down.

The news is starting to trickle in here. There is a lot of excitement here. Just in terms of the sheer logistics of what -- how they are preparing for this. The organizers we've been speaking to here are prepared for January -- people who are serving time for January 6th to be released as soon as this afternoon or tonight.

They have houses and homes and different accommodations across the country waiting for a lot of these people. There's even some talk that people are providing private jets. That's mentioned by a couple of activists here. We haven't -- don't have that confirmed. But in terms of that to bring some of these criminals, basically, back to their homes. Look, there is a lot of groups. There's almost a sort of whole movement that has built up around this, Jake, within the MAGA world, there are a dozen or so organizations all designed to raise money and to support both people who are serving time for January 6 and also their families. So really, they're about to kick into action over the next few hours. But certainly a celebratory mood here.

TAPPER: Donie, are any of the people you're talking to over there differentiating between J6 prisoners, people who broke the law, who did so with violence, and those who did not do so with violence? Is there -- I mean, is the group there aware of the differences between the violent ones will get commuted and the nonviolent ones will get pardoned?

O'SULLIVAN: No, Jake, in a short -- in terms of the world of which many of these folks live in, right? And the information environment they live in, they saw the actions of January 6th as justified because they bought into the lies about the 2020 election.

And we've seen over the past four years how just our understanding and the. How the facts of what happened on January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol, how that has been turned upside down, how, you know, for many in the MAGA Trump movement, it's everybody else's fault apart from the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. There's conspiracy theories about all sorts of other different actors being involved.

[14:15:03]

So it's a combination of both the election lies and also how that truce has been warped over the years. So notice this --

TAPPER: Okay, Donie, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Donie.

So here we go. President Trump is in the President's room in the Capitol. We're expecting he's going to sign a number of executive orders. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, 45TH AND 47TH U.S. PRESIDENT: So what would you like us to do?

MAN #1: Sign your order (inaudible).

WOMAN #1: Sign official documents.

TRUMP: Okay. I assume they're going to be happy with these documents?

WOMAN #1: Yeah, (inaudible).

MAN #2: It is the next step (inaudible).

WOMAN #1^ It's the tradition.

MAN #3: Sir, the first is 22 cabinet and cabinet level appointments for your signature. TRUMP: Okay. Okay.

MAN #3: The next one will be -- excuse me, next one will be 47 sub- cabinet level appointments, sir.

MAN #4: But you don't have to sign 47 (inaudible).

TRUMP: I know. And then?

MAN #3 Thank you, sir. Now, 31 acting designations and appointments to effectively take control of the government.

MAN #5: Let's do that.

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's important.

TRUMP: That's important (inaudible).

MAN #5: Thank you.

MAN #3: I think we have 15 commission chairman and acting chairman appointments.

TRUMP: (Inaudible)

MAN #3: Commission chairman and acting chairman.

TRUMP: He was number one at Harvard hall (inaudible), you know that?

MAN #4: Good counsel.

TRUMP: They have something in common.

MAN #3: Thank you, sir. Lastly, we have a proclamation ordering all future inauguration days, including this inauguration day that flags shall be flown at full mast.

MAN #5: Very important.

TRUMP: That was a beautiful place to have an inauguration tonight. The sound was so good. The temperature was 72 degrees.

WOMAN #1: I know.

TRUMP: But the sound was so good (inaudible). Maybe something to think about, I don't know.

MAN #3: Thank you, sir.

TRUMP: Okay.

VANCE: Good acoustics.

MAN #5: Yes.

WOMAN #1: All right. Now we can -- thank you. We go to lunch. VANCE: Great.

MAN #5: Very good.

TRUMP: It's nice to meet (inaudible) lunch. Take that. All right. Steve (ph)?

MAN #5: Thank you, sir.

MAN #6: Thank you, Mr. President

MAN #7: Mr. President, can you have a good meeting with former President Biden?

TRUMP: Very nice. Very nice. It's a beautiful custom.

MAN #8: Mr. President, (inaudible).

TRUMP: He goes back as long as (inaudible) comes. Before that, it was a stage coach. It was a -- I thought it was beautiful.

WOMAN #1: Thank you, (inaudible).

WOMAN #2: Good job. Thank you.

WOMAN #1: Thank you.

MAN #8: Mr. President, do you have any reaction to the pardons President Biden did at the last minute?

TRUMP: Well, I'm not going to discuss it now. I thought -- I think it was unfortunate that he did that. We won't discuss it now. There's plenty of time to discuss it.

MAN #9: Thank you, (inaudible). Thank you very much, guys.

WOMAN #1: We go to lunch.

WOMAN #2: Okay, yeah.

MAN #9: (Inaudible). Thank you very much.

WOMAN #1: Okay.

VANCE: Head to lunch?

WOMAN #1: Ready for the lunch?

MAN #10: Yeah.

WOMAN #2: Okay.

WOMAN #1: Thank you.

MAN #5: (Inaudible)

MAN #3: If you guys (inaudible).

WOMAN #1: Yeah, all right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

All right. So President Trump signing some documents there on Capitol Hill in what's called the President's room. We understand that the executive orders that he just signed were relatively non-controversial ones or entirely non-controversial ones, procedural ones. Ones having to do with the appointment of his Cabinet. Ones having to do with the flag being at full staff for his inauguration day as an exception for the one day and the 30 day mourning period for President Carter.

There's much more coming up as President Trump is now heading to a lunch with lawmakers. We're going to continue to break down the President's official speech, his unscripted remarks, his first ambitious round of executive actions. Our special coverage continues after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:23:52]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: At the U.S. Capitol, President Trump is about to celebrate his inauguration at a lunch with lawmakers as you can see there. His inaugural ceremony is running way behind schedule. He delivered those off the cuff, rambling comments a little while ago, told with familiar grievances that, of course, have been scheduled to be just a couple of minutes, but it went on for nearly half an hour.

So that has put everything a little bit behind schedule here. The President leaving huge crowds of his supporters are there here waiting for him at the Capitol One arena in Washington.

And as our special coverage continues, I'm Erin Burnett inside the arena along with Kasie Hunt. We have been here throughout the day along with about 20,000 of Trump supporters. And they are here and they are eagerly awaiting him. Brianna Keilar is also here with us in the Capital One Arena.

And Brianna, you know, here in this room right now, you're going through their speakers who are getting ready. They're anticipating the President coming over here. So we've heard from Kellyanne Conway. We've heard from Ronny Jackson. And this is a crowd that is really waiting for the main event.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: They are. And they're going to have to wait for a while, as you said.

[14:25:01]

And this all kicked off this -- you guys have noticed this has a bit of like a thrown together convention feel. And it really was thrown together. They had about 48 hours to put this together after deciding the parade had to come inside. The first speaker of this group of speakers that they're having as a prelude to J.D. Vance and Donald Trump was actually Peter Navarro, the first in the Trump group of associates who went to jail on a contempt of Congress conviction. So that was just a noticeable choice. This is an incredibly enthusiastic group of Trump supporters, about 20,000 of them.

And what we've noticed is really how they have been reacting to the events of the day and also to Trump's inaugural address. It's been really interesting. They have been roaring for Trump, roaring for J.D. Vance and all of those in his circle.

But there have also been a lot of boos for Joe Biden, for Kamala Harris, and anyone who's a perceived enemy of Donald Trump, even for Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff. We actually heard the crowd breaking out into Nana (ph), hey, hey, goodbye as Joe and Jill Biden made their way out of the Capitol.

Mike Pence boos. Barack Obama boos. There have been a lot of boos. There have been a lot of cheers. And this crowd has been very animated by what they have heard from Donald Trump. They've actually been a little subdued here, but we'll see as these speakers are getting more animated, that's something that they're starting to reflect in the energy.

And we also are wondering, there is a small desk on this stage. You can't really miss it. And there's a presidential seal on it. There's a microphone and a leather chair behind it. So we're very curious about what Donald Trump might sign here. He certainly has an audience that will be eager to see the answer to that question. Guys.

BURNETT: Yeah, absolutely. You know, Brianna, as we're talking here, you can all hear behind us. I mean, this is where everyone is. It's cold outside. 20,000 people. I'm here with Kasie. The first 20,000 Trump supporters that they could fit in, they're here.

KASIE HUNT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.

BURNETT: And they are ready. You know, Brianna was talking about the boos at the end of the ceremony when Joe Biden, this room erupted in boos. And then the cheers. The cheers were for take back the Panama Canal, the Gulf of America, Mount McKinley.

HUNT: Two genders got very loud cheer from this group of people during the address.

BURNETT: I mean, this is -- these are the most famous faithful of the faithful, and they are here and they are awaiting. And right between us, we can see the red desk. And I know as he took the oath of office, they came out and put the seals on that desk. And we do anticipate that's where he's going to sign a lot of executive orders.

HUNT: We do. And, of course, this is part of how Donald Trump choreographs these kinds of events, leaves people in suspense. He loves, he feeds off of the energy in a room like the one that we're in. I mean, being here feels like a Trump rally. The last time I was in a room like this was probably the Republican National Convention, right? You see people in Trump hats. They're selling Trump merchandise, all of it. And it really feels, I think, Erin, as we kind of reflect on what we've seen today, big picture.

There is this sense of vindication among the supporters here. You heard it from Peter Navarro on the stage. You're seeing it in the immediate actions that Donald Trump has taken. The pardons, for example, for nonviolent January 6th offenses, but then the commutations of sentences for people who did much more than that, including potentially hurt police officers on January 6, 2021.

And you have seen, as his address unfolded, as all of the kind of people here in this arena, their energy feeding off of each other, it all adds up to this kind of overarching sense of feeling like they were pushed out into the wilderness and they came back at anyway.

BURNETT: Yes, yes. A true sense of indication. And as we're watching here, the Capitol Hill luncheon where the President is going to be having a lunch with, obviously members of Congress going to be there, then expected to get in the presidential motorcade and come here.

HUNT: Right.

BURNETT: We're expecting those executive orders, also the somewhat truncated parade performances of marching bands that he is going to essentially review from the stand behind where Kasie and I are sitting, all of that. But there is just a palpable sense of indication. This is our moment, we are back. That is the feeling in this room. There's no question about it --

HUNT: You lost, we won, and we are going to do it our way. And honestly, you know, what President Biden has done today as well contributes to that sense of two Americas and two ways of looking at this day. On the one hand, President Biden found it incredibly important to take that limousine ride with Donald Trump.

BURNETT: There's J.D. Vance and Usha Vance walking in right now to the luncheon, the Capitol Hill luncheon. So we anticipate President Trump, along with Melania Trump, will be behind them momentarily.

HUNT: We should see him momentarily.

BURNETT: And this, you know, to be clear, as you pointed out, Kasie, just because of the -- he just took that opportunity to speak for --