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Biden links Trump To Capitol Riot In Campaign Speech; Blinken In Middle East Amid Israel-Gaza Conflict; Supreme Court Considers Trump's Ballot Eligibility; NRA Chief Wayne LaPierre Resigns Amid Corruption Allegations; Strong Finish For U.S. Labor Market In December; Florida Abortion Rights On 2024 Ballot; Biden Contrasts Washington With Trump At Valley Forge; Colorado Faces Deadline For Candidate Certification; NY AG Pursues Corruption Charges Against NRA; DeSantis Equivocates On Election Results In 2024 Hint. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 05, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden set to make his first campaign speech of 2024 here in just about an hour. His message, democracy is on the line, and his address happening a day before the third anniversary of the U.S. Capitol riot. We're going to bring that to you live. Plus, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a whirlwind tour. Of the Middle East, again, pressing Israel as its war in Gaza enters a new phase all while trying to stop the conflict from spreading. We'll look at his high-stakes mission.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And Supreme Court justices meeting behind closed doors today, deciding whether to take up cases barring former President Trump from the ballot in Colorado and Maine. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Brianna Keiler alongside Boris Sanchez. And right now, President Biden is in the 2024 battleground state of Pennsylvania. Next hour, he'll deliver a pointed speech near Valley Forge ahead of the third anniversary of the Capitol attack. And Biden will argue that former President Trump was directly responsible for the events of January 6th and that he continues to pose a threat to the Constitution.

SANCHEZ: The Biden campaign has amped up its anti-Trump messaging in recent weeks, clearly preparing for what looks like a 2020 rematch. They're confident they can frame another Biden - Trump race around the issue of protecting America's fragile democracy. CNN's Arlette Saenz is there awaiting Biden's speech. So, Arlette, what are you hearing from the White House about today's address?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, President Biden's adviser that I spoke with heading into this speech say that they really view it as a chance for the president to lay out the foundational arguments of his campaign. President Biden here in remarks in just a little over an hour will warn that democracy is under threat. And former President Donald Trump is the major reason why.

They are using the January 6th anniversary, the third anniversary of that insurrection at the Capitol, really as this moment to make this argument because they believe it's an issue that resonates with voters. And as one adviser described it, they believe that January 6th will be a moment of reckoning heading into the 2024 election. Now, the president is also expected to speak in stark terms about what happened on January 6th, as well as the role he believes former President Trump played in that.

And Biden will also condemn political violence in this country, saying that any candidate for president should be able to unequivocally say that political violence will not be tolerated. Now, the president is also delivering these remarks just a few miles away from a historic revolutionary war site. He is actually there right now in Valley Forge. Valley Forge is where George Washington commanded his troops during a very long winter. The president was there laying at a wreath at a national memorial arch. And he's also currently getting a tour of General Washington's headquarters.

A lot of the president's speech will be drawing from the words and symbolism of George Washington and his troops. The president is expected to really portray this election as a question of whether democracy remains a, quote, sacred cause in this country. That is a phrase that George Washington used to describe the mission and resolve of his troops as they prepared over that long winter. The President is also expected to make this really stark contrast between Washington, who ceded power willingly after two terms in office, and former President Donald Trump, who has refused to accept the results of the 2020 election.

This all comes as Biden's team is really eager to ramp up the contrast with Trump as the Republican primary field and calendar is really getting ready to kick off with the Iowa caucuses in just less than two weeks away. Of course, one of the challenges for President Biden will be trying to keep this democracy front and center for voters. They do believe that it's something that will resonate, and they're hoping that this will be the opening salvo of a long campaign.

SANCHEZ: Arlette Saenz live from Pennsylvania. We look forward to the president's remarks somewhere in the next hour or so. So, President Biden is intensifying his argument that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy.

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The question is, are Americans receptive to that message? From past polls, we know a majority of, a major portion, we should say, of Republicans buy into the lie that Donald Trump won the election in 2020. And beyond that, there's a stunning new poll that shows a significant chunk of the country thinks that the January 6th attack on the Capitol was an inside job by the FBI. KEILAR: It's really stunning, that statistic there. Let's bring in CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy. Oliver, this may be a conspiracy theory, but based on the numbers, it's not just the fringe that believe in this.

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: That's right. And it's a conspiracy that's taken hold because of a very sophisticated propaganda machine that has pumped out this lie to the American public. And you mentioned that a quarter of Americans believe that the FBI was somehow behind or instigated the January 6th attack. That number is much higher when you look at those who consume right-wing media.

And so, 39 percent of Fox News viewers believe that the FBI was supposedly taking part in a false flag operation there. And 44 percent of Trump voters fall into this trap. And I think, Brianna and Boris, this just really highlights how potent propaganda can be. You know, we watched just three years ago with horror and dismay as rioters pushed back authorities and stormed the U.S. Capitol after Trump had incited them on the National Mall. And just a few years later, after hearing all these lies, after right-wing media pumped the public discourse, really saturated it with these lies about a false flag attack, you see public perception changing. And this is something that the public is going to have to really grapple with as it heads into the 2024 general election.

SANCHEZ: And, Oliver, another trend that I found notable is that the number of people who blame Donald Trump for the events of January 6th has also trended down.

DARCY: That's exactly right. And that's because probably they're blaming now the FBI, the so-called deep state. And I think if you look at the numbers and they don't lie, that's a significant portion of people who are living in this right-wing universe, who are believing these lies. And if you don't pay attention to it, it's maybe difficult to understand how so much people, so many people can fall for these absurdities.

But when you're watching Fox News, you know, you had Tucker Carlson being now a firehose, but he was really one of the great components of this. When you listen to talk radio, when you hear people on these podcasts and in the online space, they are really pushing this narrative that Donald Trump was not responsible and that maybe it was a deep state operation aimed at framing Trump voters. And this is very pervasive. And so that's why you're seeing so many people believing this falsehood.

KEILAR: All right, Oliver Darcy, thank you so much for that. Let's discuss this further now with two professors of government at Harvard, Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. They are the co-authors of two very relevant books, How Democracies Die, which is actually a book that former president or that President Biden, when he was a candidate, was touting on the campaign trail and also Tyranny of the Minority, Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. Thank you so much to both of you for joining us. Such a relevant time to discuss all of this. Stephen, how do you make sense of those numbers that you just heard Oliver going through there? Twenty five percent of Americans thinking the Capitol attack was an FBI plot. And what is that an indicator of to you?

STEVEN LEVITSKY, CO-AUTHOR "HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE": I think most importantly, and what this discussion is missing so far is the role of Republican leaders. One major reason why mostly Republican voters or many Republican voters believe this stuff is that their leaders are not telling them the truth. Whether it's Donald Trump or other congresspeople or other major Republican figures, if they were to stand up and tell the truth about what happened and importantly defend unambiguously, democratic institutions and denounce and reject the use of violence of that number would be much lower. Just a little bit of evidence in Brazil.

Brazil, as you know, suffered a pretty similar uprising on January 8th, 2023. Jair Bolsonaro, the president who tried to overturn elections there and who was a Trump ally. His supporters also basically copied the U.S. and stormed the presidential palace and the Congress. But in Brazil, right wing politicians almost to a person denounced that supported an investigation into the uprising and made it absolutely clear that they had no sympathies at all with the uprising.

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You know how many Brazilians think that this was an inside job or something to be sympathetic with? Ten percent. Eleven percent of Brazilians sympathize with the uprising. The vast majority of them reject it. What leaders say matters.

SANCHEZ: Daniel, I'm curious to get your perspective on this, because it was soon after the events of January 6th that we started to see certain lawmakers essentially equivocate over what happened. I remember at least one congressman was talking about how Antifa was involved in what was happening on January 6th. If the message was different from the Republican rivals of Donald Trump headed into the Iowa caucuses, could that make a substantial difference going into this election?

DANIEL ZIBLATT, CO-AUTHOR OF "HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE": I think so. It's becoming increasingly hard, though, of course, I mean, really, the key moment was after January 6th. There was a really a moment of opportunity there where Republican leaders could have told the truth. You know, to be a politician committed to democracy means three things. You accept election results. You don't use violence to gain power. And then you distance yourself from actors who use violence to try to gain power or to prevent a transfer of power.

Republican politicians didn't really. You know, there was a brief moment, 48 hours or whatever, you know, a couple of weeks at most, where Republican leaders were willing to distance themselves from this. And condemn this. But that moment was too short. And political leaders began to tell their voters, began to equivocate. And it's really important here to the point about equivocation, because you know, they turn a talk out of both sides of their mouth. They'll condemn it but say, well, but it was maybe an inside job. Leave some room for doubt. They have to be unambiguous. This is what politicians committed to democracy do. They're unambiguous. They're explicit.

And if we look back throughout the history of democracy in the 1920s, 1930s, when politicians, when mainstream politicians behave this way, democracy gets into trouble. So, it's really critical for voters to hold these kind of politicians to account or else our own democracy will get into trouble as well.

KEILAR: Danielle, the way you have President Biden situating this moment is he's saying, you know, it's an existential moment for democracy. How do you see this moment? How do you see this election?

ZIBLATT: I agree. I agree. You know, it's very hard to sustain. The historical record is very clear that throughout the 20th century, Latin America and Europe, if you don't have two political parties committed to democracy, at least two political parties committed to democracy, if you only have one political party really loyal to democratic rules of the game, then democracy is going to be fragile. It's going to be unstable. And we've experienced this even over the last several years.

You know, with the kind of gridlock that we see in Washington, D.C., the crisis over the speaker of the House, our democracy is not functioning by anybody's account in the way that it ought to. And the main culprit here is this transformation of the Republican Party. The Republican Party, you know, don't forget, is the party of Abraham- Lincoln. It's the party of Ronald Reagan. You know, whatever one thinks of Ronald Reagan, this was somebody who was not overturning elections.

The reason we are in this crisis that we're in is because of this transformation. And, you know, we'll continue to have this sense that every national election is a national emergency, potential national emergency, until some kind of transformation takes place. And so that's where we are today.

SANCHEZ: I just want to point out to our viewers, this is live footage of President Biden touring George Washington's headquarters in Valley Forge. This is meant to draw a contrast that sources indicate we'll hear from Biden during his speech later today about the comparison between George Washington, who served two terms and then walked away from the presidency, and his likely opponent going into 2024, Donald Trump, who did everything he could to stay in power, even after losing an election. Steven, I'm curious to get your thoughts on the 2024 field, because just yesterday there was an interview with Ron DeSantis where he was asked about the legitimacy of the 2024 election. We have a soundbite here. This is with NBC News. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Would you accept a Biden victory?

RON DESANTIS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (R): I'd have to see what happened. I mean, you know, if it was if it was a transparent victory, obviously you accept the results. But I don't know what Democrats have up their sleeve. I mean, what you're saying, if there was fraud, I'm just supposed to turn a blind eye. No, I'm not going to do that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Steven, that that sort of cuts to what Daniel was saying regarding not only not having tolerance to accept the legitimacy of your political opponent, but then also sort of equivocating and saying, well, we don't know. We're sort of asking questions. What do you make of those remarks?

LEVITSKY: It's utterly dishonest because DeSantis knows very well that elections in the United States are free and fair in his state and elsewhere. So, he's being dishonest. As Daniel mentioned, the cardinal rule of democracy is that politicians have to be willing to unambiguously accept election results, win or lose. And when politicians stop doing that, democracy invariably gets into trouble.

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And what this suggests, what this clip by DeSantis makes clear, and we argue this in our book, Tyranny of the Minority, is it's not just Trump. The problem, unfortunately, is no longer just Trump. This turn away from democracy, this willingness to condone violence, to accept violence, and to not accept the results of elections has pervaded the Republican Party.

SANCHEZ: It does strike me as sort of a chicken and egg dynamic because the main Republican that's been calling Donald Trump out for his election lies is Chris Christie, and we don't really see the support for him that we see even for DeSantis and Nikki Haley. Steven and Daniel, we very much appreciate the podcast. We'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us.

LEVITSKY: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Still ahead, we're standing by for news from the Supreme Court. The justices meeting right now, and we could hear from them any minute about whether they're going to take up the issue of Donald Trump being banned from state ballots.

KEILAR: Plus, an abortion rights group getting enough petition signatures to put the question of abortion protections on the 2024 ballot in Florida. We'll have one of the leaders joining us live ahead.

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SANCHEZ: All eyes right now are on the Supreme Court. The justices are meeting today behind closed doors to decide if they will weigh in on Donald Trump's eligibility to run for president again. This week, Trump asked them to overturn that historic decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that kicked him off the state's primary ballot under the 14th Amendment's Insurrectionist Clause.

KEILAR: And the timing here is critical. Colorado election officials are facing a deadline today to certify their candidates. The Colorado Secretary of State has said Trump will be on the ballot unless the court acts in some way. With us now, we have CNN chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid. Paula, what are you learning about when this could come?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It could come at any time. We're watching the Supreme Court today, especially closely, because, of course, they're meeting behind closed doors. But it's possible we won't hear anything about whether they're going to take up this question of former President Trump's ballot eligibility. But let's look at the stakes here. This is the biggest test of chief. Justice John Roberts career, and this issue arrives at a court that has been battered by scandals and recent controversial decisions like overturning Roe v. Wade.

I'm sure that the chief justice would happily avoid controversial issues or politically fraught questions related to Trump. But here he may not be able to do that. Not only are we looking for whether the justices will consider this issue, we're also going to look over the next couple of weeks and months at how exactly they're going to consider this issue. Which questions are they going to take? Because they have several different questions in front of them. One, obviously, the meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the so- called insurrection is banned. Another question about who gets to decide who appears on the ballot. Is there a role for Congress? Should it be left up to the states? The GOP of Colorado, they are asking if they have a First Amendment right that should be at play here.

Then there's also this question of whether Trump engaged in an insurrection, though it's likely the court may not want to get into that question. There's a lot of pressure here for the chief justice to build consensus and to likely make a narrow ruling if they choose to take up this case. The other big thing we're looking at is timing. The one thing that all the parties involved in this case agree on is time is of the essence. So, will they schedule oral arguments? What does the briefing schedule look like? How long will it take them to issue a decision?

Time is of the essence not only because, of course, we have the election in November, but there's also questions about whether you want people voting in primaries, where Trump will appear on all the ballots at this point if you don't know for sure if the supreme court is going to hold that he is eligible. So all eyes on the supreme court today and really until we get some sense of whether they can take this up.

SANCHEZ: Paula Reid thanks so much for the update. We know you'll stay watching that closely for us. So still ahead the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has now landed in Istanbul for his fourth trip to the middle east in just three months amid exploding tensions in the region. We'll break down what he's hoping to accomplish. And the U.S labor market closed out 2023 in strong shape the December jobs report just out this morning beating expectations once again.

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[14:25:19] KEILAR: We have breaking news. Longtime National Rifle Association Chief Wayne LaPierre announcing his resignation. The announcement coming as LaPierre is set to face trial in the corruption case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. We have CNN contributor Stephen Gutowski joining us on this. How big is this? And tell us what this means, but also what it doesn't mean.

STEPHEN GUTOWSKI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: This is huge. I mean, Wayne LaPierre was a staple of the NRA and the gun debate for the last several decades. He was the leader of the gun rights movement in this country for forever. And he's been at the one at the center of a lot of these corruption allegations that are at issue in this New York case for the last four years with and he's refused to resign, you know, that they had decided to fight this, it seemed, but this really feels like an attempt perhaps to try and find a settlement in that New York case by getting rid of the person kind of at the center of it all.

SANCHEZ: Walk us through what the case entails. There were allegations that he was using NRA money to fund very lavish trips, et cetera.

GUTOWSKI: Yeah, that's exactly right. The allegations were that he diverted him and other members of leadership at the NRA over decades had diverted millions and millions of dollars from the NRA's, you know, nonprofit arm to their own lavish personal expenses. Things like private flights, things like expensive suits, things like luxury vacations overseas, and so that's taking money that is given by NRA members. And there's, you know, that's how the NRA funds itself is with these members and using it for their own personal gain, essentially.

KEILAR: If he's gone, does that necessarily signal a big cultural shift at the NRA or the NRA's contributions to sort of political culture or no?

GUTOWSKI: I think it's really hard to tell what where this ends up after with him gone. He was a survivor. He survived through multiple internal fights since the 1990s. This was not the first time that there was a big blow up at the NRA where internal forces were fighting and there was outside scrutiny. With him gone, people who are now in place, Andrew Arulanandam the new executive vice president and Charles Cotton remaining the president of the NRA.

Those are staunch Wayne allies, and they have been for a long time, and I don't know that they're going to change anything philosophically about how the organized organization approaches things, but it's really hard to tell because the guy who was the guy is gone now.

SANCHEZ: He does cite, we should point out, according to the NRA statement, health reasons as why he is resigning, what comes next for him? He's obviously a huge figure.

GUTOWSKI: Yeah, and look, he's he is getting up there in age and maybe this legitimately is health related issues, and he just couldn't go on anymore because there wasn't any sort of sign that he was going to give up the fight, although it is the timing is pretty, pretty suspect on that front.