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L.A. County Sheriff: A Miracle Tiger Woods Is Alive And Well; House GOP Leaders Disagree Over Trump's Role In The Party; Biden Admin Prepares To Open Overflow Facility For Migrant Kids. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 24, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:42]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Tiger Woods is described as awake and responsive after a lengthy surgery on his lower right leg and ankle, that surgery after a rollover crash so serious the county sheriff says Woods lucky to live through it.

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DEPUTY CARLOS GONZALEZ, LOS ANGELES COUNTY: Arrived on scene. The vehicle is rolled over onto the driver side door so there is no way to open the door and he was still seat belted in.

SHERIFF ALEX VILLANUEVA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY: That he's alive and well is good, it's nothing short of a miracle considering the damage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Omar Jimenez joins us live now from outside the hospital with the latest. Omar, what do we know?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well John, by all means when you look at the condition of that car, it is a miracle that we're not here in the Los Angeles area talking about the loss of another sports icon. Thankfully we're not. What we know about Tigers condition right now is as you mentioned, he is awake, responsive, and recovering right now after emergency surgery.

They had to have -- he had to have a rod inserted to stabilize both the tibia and fibula bones in his right leg and screws and pins inserted to stabilize his right foot and ankle bones. Now, a big question in this moving forward not just on his health, he is expected to be OK by the way, but also about how this crash could have happened. Out at the scene, there were no skid marks, no indications of breaking according to law enforcement.

When deputies responded, there was no indication of any sort of impairment at least visually on the initial scene, though it's unclear if further toxicology reports will be conducted. Though the sheriff's office says he was going fast and this happened at a known trouble spot down a hill or that goes down a hill and straight into a curve, so a lot to look into on that front.

But the reason Tiger was here in the first place was he was taking part in the Genesis Invitational this past weekend here in the L.A. area but also shooting the -- a Golf Digest and Golf T.V. series where he gives on the course instruction to celebrities. So just a day in two days prior he was out on the golf course with Dwayne Wade, David Spade, other celebrities having a good time. But of course that changed in just a matter of days. And here we are, John, a waiting to see what the future of Tiger Woods will hold.

KING: Giant question for Tiger personally and for golf. Omar Jimenez grateful you're on the scene for us as we flesh out this reporting. We'll stick on top of the story. Thank you, Omar.

[12:33:03]

And up next for us, back to politics. The key Republican declares the GOP civil war is over. Well file that one under easier said than done.

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KING: In a moment, the Republican Party's conspiracy problem, first though, its fantasy problem. Senator Rick Scott of Florida is in charge of helping Republicans win back the Senate in 2022. So you cannot blame him for wanting to gloss over divides and focus on areas of unity. But wishful thinking does not an identity crisis erase. Quote, the Republican civil war is now cancelled. That's what Senator Scott wrote yesterday in a memo sent by the Republican Senate Campaign Committee.

Well, let's just say there are plenty of Republicans who did not get that memo. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is among the incumbents on the ballot in 2022. At a hearing yesterday, he quoted from a known conspiracy theorist and suggested those Trump supporters we all saw storming the Capitol, were not true Trump supporters.

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SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): A very few didn't share the jovial, friendly, earnest demeanor the great majority, some obviously didn't fit in and he describes four different types of people, plainclothes militants, agents provocateurs, fake Trump protesters, and then discipline uniform column of attackers. I think these the people that probably plan this.

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KING: Senator Johnson was quickly criticized by a Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. Kinzinger voted to impeach Trump. And Kinzinger says the party must now reject the former President's embrace of lies and conspiracy, disgraceful, disservice, dangerous, all labels, Congressman Kinzinger attached to Senator Johnson's remarks.

With us to share their expertise and their insights, the former Utah Republican Congresswoman Mia Love and longtime Republican strategist, Scott Jennings. Congresswoman Love, I want to start with you, your old friend in the House, thinking that he must call out what he heard from Senator Johnson in the Senate. Is it helpful to the party if leading members like Senator Johnson continue to promote conspiracy theory and things that our own eyes tell us are not true?

MIA LOVE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I really don't think it's helpful. And I've said it over and over again. I've worked with Adam Kinzinger. He's a great friend of mine, and he's doing everything he can at this point to try and save the Republican Party. I talked about this with Adam at length, and he said we need to start talking about what we are looking towards the future or what we're looking forward to, which is our policies that are good for America, not the past, not Donald Trump. We need to start getting away from the Trumpism as he would -- as you would say.

[12:40:03]

KING: But Trump remains quite central to this, Scott, as you well know. You still consult with the Republican Leader Mitch McConnell who wants to move the party away from the President. I want to come to some specifics on that in a minute. But Trump comes up all the time, a friend and ally of Congressman Kinzinger, who is Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who gave a speech to the Reagan Institute yesterday, in which she said and the fact that any politician of any party has to say this is stunning, it's critical for the Republicans to make clear they're not the party of white supremacy.

That you have to say that, tells you right there, you have a problem. Today at the House Republican Leadership Conference, the question of President Trump in his plans to speak at the CPAC meeting this weekend came up. Listen to this.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you believe President Trump should be speaking or former President Trump should be speaking at CPAC this weekend?

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Yes, he should.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congressman Cheney?

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): That's up to CPAC. I've been clear on my views about President Trump. I don't think that he should be playing a role in the future of the party or the country.

MCCARTHY: On that high note, thank you all very much.

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KING: It's both funny, and it's not in the sense that you see the open tension within the House Republican leadership. The former President is going to come back to the stage this weekend. At a meeting CPAC, it used to be called the -- it's still called the Conservative Political Action Conference, but I'm going to call it a Conspiracy Political Action Conference. They have a whole bunch of workshops on the big lie, Scott Jennings. Is that helpful to the party as it tries to build for 2022?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, no, I mean, I think on November the 6th, last year, we saw, we reached the limits of Trumpism, right? We saw what he can do, and that was before the insurrection. And so now we have -- what he could do plus the new stuff. And it just strikes me as unlikely that if we put Trump at the center of our election strategy in '22 or '24 that we would do any better than we did in November, which is to lose the national popular vote.

I think what a lot of Republicans are wondering is, you know, how do you continue on with some of the new people that Trump has brought to the party, which is undeniable, while at the same time recapturing some of the old people, which is probably more that he drove away. I mean, I think what we learned is a lot of folks didn't really mind so much the policies, I mean, look down ticket, but they just didn't think that Trump was a responsible governing person that he was responsibly running the country.

And so I think that's the question for the Republican Party, are we going to tell and show the American people that we can be trusted with a high level of responsibility? And that's why we got rejected last year. And it's not helpful if you go around trying to deny what happened at the Capitol on January 6th.

KING: We don't know. We don't know what the climate will look like in November 2022. But we do know history tells us the Republicans have a pretty good shot to take back the House and take back the Senate, given the narrow majorities right now, given that a president's party normally loses seats.

One person who thought he would not have come back is the former Republican Senator David Perdue of Georgia who just narrowly lost in one of those runoff elections, he went down to Mar-a-Lago, to see President Trump, to think about this race. This is from "The New York Times," Congresswoman. The meeting did not go well, people briefed on it said. Mr. Trump was focused on retribution, particularly against Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, now the Minority Leader, excuse me, and Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican whom Mr. Trump views as having betrayed him.

This is the subtext of any republican trying to run for any competitive important seat anywhere. Do you want to deal with the press, the former president's insistence that if you want my backing, you have to continue to push the big lie?

LOVE: Yes. This is going to be a mountain that Republicans are going to have to climb. And Donald Trump has made it very clear that his agenda is to actually go after Republicans who weren't 100 percent supportive of him, which the leadership really has to do something about that. They really have to find a way to get Trump out of the picture and start talking about those policies.

Remember, the House of Representatives is only won by the Democrats by 31,000 votes, a little over 31,000 votes is what splits the majority between Democrats and Republicans. And there are some people still there, trying to figure out where to go, what precedent that they could support. And I -- is Biden is working towards stimulus and it's totally partisan. And we see all of this issues that's going on in terms of partisanship in the -- in Congress, this would be a great opportunity for Republicans to regain the House and even gain the Senate.

But if Republicans continue to fight each other and continue to put Donald Trump as the center of the party, we're going to lose and they're going to lose big.

KING: And so what are the conversations, Scott, among the especially in McConnell in, for example, I won't run the sound. But yesterday, he was asked, you know, he gave a very devastating speech against the former president after voting to acquit him, by the way, Democrats think that's hypocrisy, but a very tough speech against the former president saying he wants him out.

He was asked about it yesterday. He said I really don't have anything to add on that subject. Is that the McConnell approach, just not talk about Trump and hope people eventually stop asking?

[12:45:00]

JENNINGS: Well, I think he is -- I don't think he plans to mention Donald Trump again. I don't think they're going to speak again, at least in the short term. But I think what he's thinking about are all these Senate races that exist in a 50-50 world where Republicans do have a real chance to regain the majority. That's the difference, I think between McConnell and Trump is McConnell has this one singular mission, which is to get up and go to work every day and to keep his conference unified, and to try to win back the majority. And Trump has a mission that's more personal, which is a revenge tour.

These things are not necessarily, you know, going to be able to coexist in all races. But in some races, I would expect everybody agrees on, on who the right candidate could be. So I think where the rubber is going to hit the road here is when the party wants to try to do something in a race and thinks that moves them towards getting the majority back and Trump wants to do something different. What's that going to look like? And I suspect that that drama is going to play out in a number of states, hopefully, not all of them, but at least in some of them.

So, I think the conversation, John, are just simply this. What do we have to do in enough states to get back the majority? It's for Mitch McConnell, you know, it's not emotional. It's not personal. It's just you can't govern unless you have the majority and to him a political party as opposed to win races for the purpose of governing. I think Trump, for him political parties have a different purpose, which is not necessarily winning or governing or having a policy agenda.

KING: If the former president can't talk to the top Republican in the Senate, then Senator Scott might have to rewrite that civil war is canceled memo, this one man's perspective anyway. Scott Jennings, Congresswoman Love, appreciate the insights. We'll continue the conversation. It's going to be fascinating going forward. Up next, the Postmaster General apologizing for you already know, last year's slow mail delivery.

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[12:51:17]

KING: Topping our Political Radar today, we could get details as soon as tomorrow by who the intelligence community believes behind the murder of The Washington Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Three sources familiar with the plans tell CNN, the U.S. intelligence community will soon give Congress that long awaited unclassified report on the 2018 murder. We know the CIA assessed with high confidence that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had personally ordered that killing. But no intelligence officials have spoken publicly or presented their evidence.

The Postmaster General Louis DeJoy apologizing again today for slow mail during the peak holiday season calling it unacceptable.

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LOUIS DEJOY, U.S. POSTMASTER GENERAL: We must acknowledge that during this peak season, we fell far short of meeting our service targets. Too many Americans will left waiting for weeks for important deliveries of mail and packages. This is unacceptable. And I apologize to those customers who felt the impact of our delays.

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KING: As to how long he was planning to stay on at the top of the USPS, DeJoy told the House Oversight and Reform Committee quote, a long time, get used to me.

Up next for us, the Biden administration and the border already a political flashpoint.

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[12:57:02]

KING: Early Biden administration actions affecting the U.S.-Mexico border are drawing fire from both the right and the left. It is just day 36 for the new administration. And it will take some time to implement the major changes team Biden promises from the Trump approach at the southern border. And so it will take time to have a more thorough assessment of their impact. But these early days are quite busy.

The White House issued a 100-day moratorium on deportations but a federal judge is blocking that change from taking effect. The Biden team is still using a Trump administration order that allows it to use the threat of the coronavirus to turn away migrants who approach the border. And Biden administration plans to open an overflow facility for unaccompanied migrant children under fire from a leading House progressive. The Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeting, this is not OK, never has been OK, never will be OK, no matter the administration or the party. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is with us to help us sort through all this. Priscilla, if you watch conservative outlets, Biden is open the border. If you look at liberal Twitter feeds, Biden is continuing a lot of Trump. Where are we and where are we going?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: So the reality on the border, John, is that migrants continue to come to the southern border in addition to the thousands who are still there under a Trump-era policy. So the Biden administration is in this juggling act where they're trying to take a more humane approach to immigration, while also trying to manage the increase of migrants on the border.

So they're leaning on a Trump-era border policy to do that. And so border officials can turn away migrants who arrive at the border, meaning that they can kick them back to Mexico or their country of origin. Now the makeup of who is coming includes families and children. And that's where trouble comes up.

So, as you mentioned, there's an overflow facility that was opened up this week for children who arrived to the U.S.-Mexico border alone because of limited capacity and facilities and because honestly, border patrol facilities are just not equipped to take care of children. So again, this really boils down to the Biden administration trying to execute on its campaign promises, while contending with the realities on the ground.

KING: And in some cases, having to contend with pending court cases, right, including this judge who blocked the deportation policy.

ALVAREZ: So, correct. And what is going to happening now is that the Biden administration wants to lean on this Trump-era border policy, but soon it may not be up to them. The lawsuits are in federal courts challenging the use of this public health order on families and unaccompanied children. So, in time, the courts that make the decision for the Biden administration on how it proceeds with this border policy.

KING: Priscilla Alvarez, grateful for that reporting. And another wrinkle we'll see if it comes up is whether Congress gets involved from this and does anything as well. That's quicksand when it comes to politics as well. Priscilla Alvarez, grateful for the context with a lot of dust about this issue as it plays out.

Thanks for joining us in Inside Politics today. We'll see you back here this time tomorrow. Don't go anywhere. Ana Cabrera, on a very busy News Day picks up our coverage right now. Have a good afternoon.

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