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Inside Politics

Senate GOP Poised To Oppose Commission To Investigate Jan. 6; Biden Says Private Diplomacy Helped Bring About Ceasefire; Many Biden Proposals Stalled In Closely Divided Senate; Biden Makes Counteroffer To Republicans On Infrastructure; Police Reform Bill Negotiators Won't Make Biden's Deadline; With Legal Battles Mounting, Trump Plots Return To Rallies; Intel Agencies Expected To Deliver A Report On UFOs In June. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired May 23, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

(MUSIC)

[08:00:36]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice-over): The fight over the insurrection investigation.

Republicans cry politics.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Democrats have handled this proposal in partisan bad faith, going right back to the beginning.

PHILLIP: Democrats cry foul.

REP. TIM RYAN (D-OH): Holy cow! We have people hitting the Capitol police with lead pipes across the head. What else has to happen in this country?

PHILLIP: Plus, a war in Gaza is President Biden's first foreign policy test.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm praying the ceasefire will hold.

PHILLIP: And Donald Trump promises new MAGA rallies this summer, even as criminal investigations ramp up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a scary moment for Donald Trump and the Trump Organization.

PHILLIP: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters, now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP (on camera): Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Abby Phillip. An independent investigation to investigate the Capitol insurrection

should be a bipartisan issue but in this Congress, the idea may be dead on arrival, thanks to Republican in Senate who had promised to block the bill when it comes up to a vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: Are they going to join us in pursuing the truth or are they going to cover for Donald Trump and his big lie?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: In the House, 35 House Republicans broke ranks in favor of the commission when Democrats conceded to most of their demands but there were plenty of no votes mainly driven by fear of one-man, ex- President Donald Trump. Trump predictably slammed the wayward Republicans who supported the commission and other Republicans worried getting to the bottom of the insurrection could hurt them politically.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Anything that gets us rehashing the 2020 election I think is a day lost on being able to draw contrast between us and the Democrats' very radical left-wing agenda.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And joining us now with their reporting and insights, Rachael Bade of "Politico", Vivian Salama of "The Wall Street Journal", Karoun Demirjian of "The Washington Post", and CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

So, Rachael, are Republicans really going to use their official first legislative filibuster of the year over this issue?

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, it looks like it's certainly heading that way. I mean, it might be shocking considering where we were in January. I know there are a lot of Republicans on "The Hill" saying they wanted a bipartisan commission that looked exactly like this.

And, originally, if you go back to late January when Nancy Pelosi started to first put this idea out there, you know, she had proposed a commission that would have been controlled by Democrats. Democrats would have been the ones who had the subpoena power and she has since given and basically caved on almost every demand that Republicans have asked for.

PHILLIP: Yeah.

BADE: You would think they would go for this.

PHILLIP: Yeah, let's look at some of these complaints that Republicans, or demands they had initially. You know, Senator Kennedy recently said the whole thing is a travesty, completely partisan. The reality is, it's an evenly divided Democratic and GOP committee. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says all the staff would be Democrats. The truth is both sides have a say in choosing the staff.

Senator Collins, we should make sure that the work doesn't go over into the election year. The final report is notably designed to come out by the end of the year, December 31st.

So, something has really shifted among Republicans in the Senate. I mean, the House, not so surprising, but in the Senate something has shifted.

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's interesting, I mean, look, the one change that wasn't made, of course, is the one change that Republicans who are most loyal to Trump want, which is don't just look at the pro-Trump people, don't just look at the extremist who fall in the right-wing camp. Look at the left wing, too.

You've been hearing them say "Antifa, Antifa, Antifa" this whole time without any sort of evidence, but they want to make sure that that probe is equal opportunity for everybody, even though everybody wasn't at the Capitol.

PHILLIP: But it's not ruled out in this committee that they could if the investigation took them there to look into that.

DEMIRJIAN: If it took them there, right, but the focus isn't there. I mean, the interesting thing is that the Senate Republicans have not had this much of a mandate from the House in a real long time in a critical issue. Thirty-five Republicans is no joke coming out of the House. And you have -- you know, potentially these secret Republicans in the Senate. We saw mike rounds come out from South Dakota.

[08:05:01]

And we very rarely pay attention to him, but he came out endorsing it.

So, you need to rely on these random Republicans in pockets we haven't been paying attention to, to flout Mitch McConnell's word and authority basically. That's a real tall order when you're talking about only a handful having the guts to do the impeachment.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: And Senator Richard Burr said no, and he was one of the ones who voted yes for impeachment.

PHILLIP: Right.

ZELENY: That basically sunk the whole thing, because it's impossible to get 10 (ph). But what's happened is that President Trump has -- you know, no one assumed or few people would have assumed at this point back in January that by the end of may president Trump would have reasserted himself so much. So, a lot of Republicans are afraid of the specter of him hanging out.

So, he weighed in this week with a statement to the former president, you know, urging people to vote against this. But you're right, 35 House Republicans voting for something. I don't know if the translation of that is in the Senate but certainly you can mathematically get to 10.

I mean, if just like ideologically speaking --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I mean, considering it was --

DEMIRJIAN: You had ten House Republicans in impeachment, seven senators. With this 35, maybe you could find another three but you already lost one.

ZELENY: Senator McConnell does not want this to impede their potential quest to win back the Republican majority.

PHILLIP: Well, at least one Republican who voted for this commission has the courage to put it this way in terms of what he thinks Republicans need to do for 2022 and beyond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ANTHONY GONZALEZ (R-OH): I think as a party, frankly, we need to be on the side of truth. We need to be on the side of substance. And that's how we're going to win back majorities, both in the House and the Senate and hopefully the White House in 2024.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, apparently Mitch McConnell disagrees that that is the path to win back the majority. Otherwise, he would be backing some kind of January 6th Commission. The idea seems to be anathema to him at this point.

VIVIAN SALAMA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You have a lot of moderates who are really pushing for the rule of law is what's at stake here. You know, we saw the insurrection on the Capitol which hasn't been seen in hundreds of years, so they have to take a stance to show that they're united as a party against it. But unfortunately, unity is not what we're seeing.

Mitch McConnell, Senate House Minority Leader McCarthy, they do not want Donald Trump to be dominating headlines, to have him on TV and, you know, in print every single day with his name. They don't want to alienate him either. So, there's a fine line they're having to walk where they don't want to be talking about him but they also don't want to be forming a commission that could find him at fault or anything like that.

BADE: It's interesting because one of the excuses they're giving for backing this, is that there are ongoing investigations, the Justice Department has been investigating this, arresting people. Congress is doing their own investigations in the Senate. There's going to be a report coming out of the Senate in a couple of weeks.

But these -- all of these probes, none of them are going to speak to what Donald Trump is doing in the White House. And that is a question, you know, that, frankly, hasn't been answered in detail. And how many months has it been? Five months, six months since the insurrection? And we may never know without a bipartisan commission what he was really doing when --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Well, that's a really important point because now, Democrats are talking about a select committee. They're talking about it almost in the mold of the Benghazi investigation, as if that's something they want to try to emulate. Is that actually a good strategy going forward for them?

DEMIRJIAN: Well, if you want to score political points off of it? Sure, why not set up as many committees as you can that have roles that you can control? But that would completely undercut what bipartisan constituency remains for actually doing this in a way that is as disassociated from politics as possible in Washington, right?

So, if they really get to the point where they figure, well, this isn't going to work so let's score what points we can, sure, but it's a different objective than what you're trying to achieve with this commission. I don't think that a select committee can replicate what a commission would do.

ZELENY: And, Abby, as you said Benghazi committee, I mean, I don't think anyone wants to repeat that. I mean, it just benefited either side, and no one in the end. It did not get to the heart of the matter.

This was supposed to be a 9/11 style commission. You have to wonder, thinking back, what if Speaker Pelosi would have said from the get-go, let's form a commission with equal Democrats, equal Republicans, and gotten buy-in really early.

Now time has passed, people have gone to their partisan corners. The elections are closer ahead. But all these intervening events, the impeachment, you know, the Liz Cheney fight, so many things have happened. You almost wonder, shouldn't this have already been under way?

PHILLIP: Was this effectively a trap, though? Republicans want to be able to say that this is a partisan investigation. At the end of the day, they're probably going to be able to say that if there is a select committee.

BADE: If you have that sort of talking point, it's such a shame because this was such an historic and terrible moment in our nation's history and what a select committee could potentially do, if you have Democrats taking it seriously, trying to take these subpoenas to court, Kevin McCarthy refusing to testify. Republicans are going to turn this into something they start talking about on the campaign trail, they're going after Trump, they're going after Republicans.

[08:10:01] And that's, you know, this is such a serious issue that we still don't have the full picture of, and it is very much going to turn into partisan issue.

DEMIRJIAN: One thing to just add, though, because just what Jeff was saying about closely done it right away, remember, the 9/11 Commission which was a model for this one took over a year after 9/11 to actually set up. It was late November 2002 after the September 11th, 2001 attacks. It actually got --

ZELENY: A couple of intervening events, though, the war and the fact that the country was traumatized.

DEMIRJIAN: Intervening event, no question, but there's been intervening events here, too.

ZELENY: Sure, sure.

DEMIRJIAN: This is supposed to be the domestic equivalent of what that was. It takes a long time to do these things. I'm not saying that's an excuse. But I'm saying like we're in a different political environment, but the actual nuts and bolts of putting this stuff there together, there is no quick model.

PHILLIP: Yeah, although it seems unlikely that even in the future, that we would revisit this in a bipartisan fashion. At the end of the day, it's the American people who lose out on all of that.

But coming up next, President Biden says America's support for Israel is unwavering. But some in his party disagree.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:l5:21]

PHILLIP: Three days in, the Gaza ceasefire appears to be holding and President Biden took partial credit to the end to hostilities after 11 days. He said U.S. support for Israel remains rock solid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: One of the reasons why we're able to get the cease fire in 11 days, we didn't do what other people have done. I don't talk about what I tell people in private. I don't talk about what we negotiate in private. I take Bibi Netanyahu when he gives me his word, I take him at his word. He's never broken his word to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, Vivian, something of a victory lap for Joe Biden. Does he deserve credit for the ceasefire?

SALAMA: Certainly, his top aides were working around the clock to get this -- make ceasefire in collaboration with the Egyptians and a few other allies in the region who were involved in it. So, certainly there is something to be said that the U.S. has influence over Israel that other countries do not, certainly not in that region.

And so, they were very critical in that. Whether or not it was handled properly and whether or not -- you know, this is something that everyone is going to be discussing sort of moving forward, as how -- whether it could have been handled better and where we stand in our alliance with Israel.

PHILLIP: There's a lot of reporting that suggests that Israel was already kind of at the end of their objectives anyway. So, how much did that play in, versus what Biden is talking about, which is the nature of his relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

DEMIRJIAN: I mean, this is the delicate dance of diplomacy, right? American president taking credit for -- look, it seems Israel had an objective, was testing how far they could go, had an end point in mind, and Biden steps in and makes a stronger demand for ceasefires at the very end.

But for several days, basically, we're actually not going to ask for a ceasefire. I'm not going to tell Netanyahu what to do. And then after the blowback from within his own party, frankly, decides to shift course.

And it doesn't seem like this was as much a smooth, you know, on -- a smooth plan from day one that the American president handled it so expertly, that we were done in less than two weeks in a region that often has conflagration. So much as other elements kind of at play that we're influencing what was going on, on the ground, and the way that outside people, including Biden, were talking about it, and how that changed it.

PHILLIP: The emphasis from the Biden world is on the quiet part of the quiet diplomacy. And part of it is because -- you know, first of all, Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu is different.

Take a listen to what he said about that in 2014.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I signed a picture for Bibi a long time ago.

He's been a friend for over 30 years. I said, Bibi, I don't agree with a damn thing you say, but I love you. But we really are good friends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, it's different, I say, compared to this, which is just a picture of the tension that used to exist between former President Obama and Netanyahu.

So, what happens the White House learned since the Obama years on how to deal with Bibi?

ZELENY: Well, I do think that the relationship with former President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu had some distinct and unique challenges, and Joe Biden would never have been that way because he has known him for so long.

What happened in the intervening years is President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu became so intertwined with President Trump. That is what set the table for Biden administration here.

Look, I think the long relationships absolutely help. What was fascinating on Friday when President Biden said I'm not doing what previous presidents have done, he was also talking about President Obama. It was a tacit rebuke on that, saying, look, I did not talk out loud. We spoke six times over 11 days.

He wanted the world to know that he was deeply involved in this, in a quiet way. So, I thought that was fascinating. We seldom hear President Biden rebuke or say anything slightly critical of Obama. And that's exactly what that was.

So, I just think the fact that this is one more example of Joe Biden's long experience from chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the vice president, now as president, plays in here. So, he deserves some credit. Not all credit, of course.

But he's navigating something and has done it skillfully for now. We'll, A, see if the ceasefire holds. Let's pray it does. And, B, he has not resolved the issues inside the Democratic Party about that --

PHILLIP: Look, to that point, Democrats have shifted on this, and pretty dramatically. I mean, take a look at this Gallup poll from 2002 to 2021. The Democratic sympathies have narrowed between the Israelis and Palestinians to the point where, today, you have Democrats being so vocal about they wanting Joe Biden to be more forceful on the issue of standing up for Palestinian rights and human rights in that region.

[08:20:18]

BADE: Yeah. For the first few months of this White House, I mean, the Democratic Party has been very united on a whole host of issues. I think this happened, you know, in Gaza very much sort of triggered the inner-party fighting that we hadn't seen for a long time and that you had progressives come out and say, Biden, you have to do more on this.

I mean, Rashida Tlaib, congresswoman from Michigan, met President Biden on the tarmac when he was in the area and specifically said, my grandmother lives in Gaza. This is really showing where the Democratic Party is divided, where more people are sympathetic to the Palestinian plight, and those civilians that are killed and want to see Biden take a more forceful --

SALAMA: We have our own social reckoning in the United States when it comes to matters of equality and racial issues and things like that. So the Democratic Party kind of taking that and looking at this situation and trying to kind of reflect what has been happening internally here.

Plus, it's important for viewers to remember 2014 to the last conflict that happened between Israel and Gaza. Gaza doesn't just spring back. Things are getting worse there, and the Israelis obviously have an upper hand in this. They're much more powerful.

Even if it's Hamas firing rockets, the Israeli military is much more powerful. And so, a lot of Democrats on the Hill saying, you know, this is not a fair fight anymore and they're really trying to raise awareness.

DEMIRJIAN: The thing that really changed -- OK, well, two things have changed. One, the politics have changed in that you got people like the squad members like Bernie Sanders, who made it okay to talk about this issue in a critical Israel fashion or more critical view than the past.

The other thing that's unique is you saw people openly challenging a money issue when it comes to Israel. The one thing that people have never -- back in 1991, sorry to do a little history lesson, but it's interesting background, right? George H.W. Bush was president.

He is the last time anybody, that was a powerful position said Israel, you're not getting these loan guarantees until you stop settlement construction. And his approval rating among Jewish Americans plummeted by about 25 percent. It's always considered you don't touch that area when you're criticizing Israel and discussing that policy.

This is the first time that's happened in a really, really long time and a little bit little too late with the $735 million arms sales of munitions, same type that they're using in Gaza. But it raises the question, how is this experience going to change things going forward, both on the Hill -- is this going to become an issue of debate that we haven't had for 30 years -- and also, you know, how is Biden going to react to that?

Biden's talking about having used his old relationships with an Israeli prime minister who has been in power for a long time but whose popularity in his country is in jeopardy. You know, like, what lessons do we learn from this for next time? Because I don't think the elements will look the same.

PHILLIP: Well, the Biden administration -- if they signaled anything this week, it is that they are reluctant to dive into these foreign challenges. They've got a lot on their plate domestically and only want to do so strategically. So, in this case, it seems like they will try to mollify progressives as much as they can in the time, while pursuing a pretty aggressive agenda.

But coming up next -- infrastructure talks, speaking of domestic agenda, inch forward. But both sides are wondering right now, can they trust each other?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: President Biden isn't ready to give up on bipartisanship in Washington. And he says the passage of a hate crime bill is intended to protect Asian-Americans is evidence that it is possible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BIDEN: We simply haven't seen this kind of bipartisanship for much too long in Washington. You're showing that our democracy can work and deliver for the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The relatively uncontroversial bill is the exception, though, not the rule. Nearly all other Democratic priorities, including the insurrection commission, voting rights and, of course, infrastructure seem stuck.

So, Jeff, Biden seems to be very hopeful about bipartisanship but the rest of his party is quickly losing patience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: No doubt. Part of that optimism for bipartisanship is part of President Biden's formula that he was elected on, that people have the idea that people can work together. Look, the White House needed to show that the United States was serious about this. And in fact, I think he was serious about a bipartisan effort. Not naively so but needed to have this to show that this -- you know, they were trying.

And I think we all know what is around the corner when the summer comes, they're going to go Democrats alone. And that is going to create issues in itself with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and others.

But, look, I think that the White House, in terms of these deadlines, the president is going to have the family of George Floyd to the White House on Tuesday to mark the one-year anniversary of his murder. And that is probably the biggest -- the only thing that's really lying out there that there could be bipartisan agreement on the police reform bill, much more so than infrastructure.

[08:29:54]

PHILLIP: We will talk a little bit more about that soon. But you mentioned Joe Manchin. And something a little surprising this week. Manchin seems to be really frustrated increasingly with his Republican colleagues over their opposition to this January 6th commission.

He says it's so disheartening, it makes you really concerned about our country. Asked if this was an abuse of the filibuster, Manchin says "I'm still praying we've still got 10 good solid patriots within that conference."

But he's clearly losing patience, losing confidence that there are reasonable Republicans left that he can count on to get to bipartisanship, right?

RACHAEL BADE, CO-AUTHOR, POLITICO PLAYBOOK: Yes. I mean we like to call him the other Joe with veto power. I mean Manchin has been saying this whole time when it comes to infrastructure, you know, it's not going to be like the pandemic bill. I'm not going to let my party just sort of ram this through the Congress. We're going to work across the aisle. And he said he would use his vote to sort of leverage that, to force it to happen.

And that's another reason why these talks have been going on. It's not just because of Biden. It's also because they don't have the votes yet. And right now --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: So if he determines that he can't work with the others -- Manchin, I'm talking about.

BADE: Right.

PHILLIP: What does he do? He supports reconciliation?

BADE: Well, I think that he wanted to see a legitimate effort to try to get to a bipartisan infrastructure bill. And so it will be a big question as to whether he feels like these counteroffers that have been going back and forth which both sides are sort of dismissing each other as using gimmicks, which is not a good sign for getting a deal.

Is this enough to sort of assuage him so that you can say ok, we tried. It's time to move on.

That January 6th commission I think in that quote that you guys just read, I think that that is going to be potentially key to his mind- set. He's really disgusted with Republicans right now. If they can't get behind a bipartisan commission to investigate January 6th, why would -- why would they strike a bipartisan infrastructure bill that would give the president a win going into the --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: It's a good question. On the infrastructure bill though, Biden did put a counter offer on the table this past week. He went down in price from $2.3 trillion to $1.7 trillion. He has eliminated some things from manufacturing and research and development, less money for broadband, less money for roads and bridges.

But it does still include a higher corporate tax rate. And Republicans are saying, we've been bamboozled. This is not what we discussed. It seems actually that now this counteroffer has not actually moved things along quite as much as the White House may have hoped.

DEMIRJIAN: Now there was some discussion about, you know, Republicans thinking this is a trick. You're just moving things into different, you know, pots.

PHILLIP: Yes.

DEMIRJIAN: Right, exactly. The shell game or something like that.

PHILLIP: A little --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Yes. DEMIRJIAN: I mean it just goes to show that there is extremely little goodwill to have these discussions in the first place.

There are Republicans in the conference who are willing to talk about having a higher corporate tax rate, you know. There are -- there are Republicans who are willing to talk about a -- you know, broader subset of issues that we would consider infrastructure, too. But you can't even have the discussion right now --

PHILLIP: Yes.

DEMIRJIAN: -- because it's so --

PHILLIP: And they're saying now that they believe that Biden and his staff are on different pages. I mean are they?

ZELENY: I don't think they're on different pages but President Biden in this respect has always been the good cop in terms of negotiations, in terms of working with Republican senators. And the staff is, you know, Ron Klain and others are watching the left wing of the party.

But look, I mean I think that we all knew the rubber was going to meet the road at some point on these negotiations. So I think it's probably getting close to that.

If they trim too much off of this, you're going to hear some progressives complaining about lowering the prices on world broadband, on the -- you know, on the money for other things here. So you know, they walk this line, but there's not, you know, much goodwill left on either side.

VIVIAN SALAMA, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": What's so interesting, too, is that President Biden, in terms of just the plain rhetoric, is selling it almost very similarly to how President Trump sold a lot of the stuff which is this is about jobs. This is about American competitiveness. And we've got to work together.

And so that is like something that everyone agrees on. It's sort of like across the board, the previous president was doing it as well. But unfortunately when it comes to the numbers here, that's when the bipartisanship in Washington really comes to the surface and everybody going at it.

And so President Biden likes to stress that he has a relationship with folks on the hill, that he goes way back with them and he knows how to maneuver but he keeps on hitting dead ends.

PHILLIP: And it's not just infrastructure, it's all these other deadlines that are coming up on policing reform, in particular where they are likely to miss the deadline.

Jeff as you mentioned, George Floyd's family will be meeting with Biden this week. but what is the significant of the stalled progress on some of this other stuff on Capitol Hill? BADE: I mean this -- you know, this anniversary that's coming up this

week, I think you know, will be another moment to sort of reset and have lawmakers sort of revisit this issue.

It does seem like there has been some progress on policing reform. No deal yet but we saw some Democrats come out and publicly say you know, that they will be willing to support a bill that does not get rid of this sort of shield that protects cops from being sued.

[08:34:54]

BADE: This is like qualified immunity. This was a top issue for Democrats, especially progressives because they wanted to see that totally gotten rid of. And there was this sort of agreement -- not agreement yet, but this sort of idea maybe you can sue departments but not police officers.

And that seemed to really move the ball forward. But yet we still haven't seen any specific deal or legislation out there yet. Talks continue.

PHILLIP: And many progressives are still not on board with shifting the goal post on that.

But what's been interesting over the last year is, you know, the polling suggesting that support for Black Lives Matter has waned since the protest last summer. So is there a loss of -- potential loss of momentum as we miss these deadlines and as we miss this anniversary and time goes on?

ZELENY: I think if, you know, as Congresswoman Karen Bass said a couple of days is not -- it's worth missing a deadline to get a broader deal. But if, you know, summer arrives and moves forward without any progress on this, I think that is a real problem for the Biden administration and really a pox on everyone's house, you know, to not be able to reach some type of agreement on this.

But that will take the president's leadership potentially to bring them together. And he, so far, has basically stayed out of this. This has been largely a congressional legislative effort, which is pretty unusual this day and age actually.

So we'll see if they can reach a deal with Tim Scott on one side, Karen Bass and many others --

PHILLIP: Yes. There's still some time and like you were saying, it would be a shame if after the high watermark of, you know, discussion about race and policing that nothing gets done at the end of the day.

But coming up next for us, his legal troubles are ramping up but ex- president Donald Trump is promising more MAGA rallies as soon as this summer.

[08:36:37]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIP: New York's attorney general says her probe into the Trump organization is now a criminal investigation. Even with those mounting legal problems, former President Trump is eyeing his political future and promising to restart his MAGA rallies this summer.

Meanwhile, his political allies are working behind the scenes to spread the big lie and push so-called election audits across the country.

So Rachael, these legal probes are happening and they're not seeming to affect Trump's plans to restart his political career. But should they?

BADE: Yes. I'm sure his lawyers would like to go on this nationwide tour to give rallies. I mean I was talking to a pretty high-ranking Republican last week about this.

And the number one takeaway from this person was they're grabbing (ph) it, and they really don't want to do it. But it sounds like Trump himself is the one who wants to go out there and say, you know, he won the election.

Republicans are going to be forced to answer for whatever he says when they go out. And that's why they don't want to talk about this anyway. They got rid of Liz Cheney. They don't want to have this you know, January 6th commission and they certainly don't want Trump out there talking about this because then they're going to have to answer for it.

That's less time about -- talking about Joe Biden, who they want to attack.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Well, I mean speaking of, here is Trump on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we can't convince people that that won't happen again or if we don't get right down to the bottom of it and change it, those people aren't going to be there to vote.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's your message?

TRUMP: The Republicans are going to have to do something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So not only is he, you know, knee deep in these ridiculous conspiracy theories, but he's also doing something that Republicans are really concerned about basically implying that Republican voters are going to stay home over this, just like they did in the Georgia special elections, which they lost, by the way. ZELENY: If it's about President Trump, they might. But I think look,

that's why many Republicans I talk to on Capitol Hill and elsewhere want the conversation as Senator (INAUDIBLE) said earlier to be about the Biden agenda, about how they view, you know, the extreme Biden agenda, the spending, everything else.

Look, I mean even though we're talking about President Trump, even though he's putting out so many statements, he is losing some ground inside the Republican Party in terms of visibility and other things.

But if he does rallies and other things, it's going to energize part of his base. But I think the bigger question which is kind of turning the head on this, are Democrats would be energized in the midterm elections.

Republicans we know certainly will be because the president's party always loses seats in midterm elections with two exceptions over the last century. So are Democrats going to be motivated?

And perhaps Trump could be a motivator for them because that is one thing that has kept the broad coalition of Democrats together over the years, rallying in opposition to Trump.

PHILLIP: This is the potential double-edged sword of Trump being front and center.

To your point about his growing irrelevance the "Washington Post" reports that in the last week, Trump's Website, including his new blog fundraising page and online storefront attracted fewer estimated visitors than the pet adoption site PetFinder and recipe site Delish.

That might be because of me searching for a new puppy and looking for recipes for dinner, but it also reflects that people have kind of moved on a little bit. But the reason we are talking about this is not because we want to always have conversations about Donald Trump around the table but also because there's something important happening.

These so-called audits, this effort to export the big lie across the country to other places at, you know -- New Hampshire, Georgia, Arizona, it's being led by Trump allies. You know, our own Eric Bradner reports that Cory Lewandowski, the one-time Trump campaign manager and Windham, New Hampshire said in a even with proponents of an audit there that he had discussed the town's audit with Trump.

And this isn't just about the town of Windham. We're seeing things take place across the entire country. So there's something really dangerous happening here. And it's being backed by Trump allies.

[08:44:52]

SALAMA: Well, it also undermines one of the most fundamental principles of the Republican Party, right? Which is that free and fair elections are a core value of the United States.

And suddenly you have President Trump and his allies kind of questioning the elections and the legitimacy and everything like that. It really kind of turns the party over on its head in terms of how do we proceed here? How do we rally voters to get out and trust that this is a real, you know that this is a real legitimate process.

So I mean they've been very powerful in it but you say -- I mean Jeff was mentioning like visibility. The president is not on Twitter anymore to kind of talk to his base and get them psyched and to, you know, vote for him. And so that's going to -- you know, that's going to probably impact him.

DEMIRJIAN: The problem with things like what Trump and his allies are doing is that it's very hard once trust is broken to build it up again and trust that is broken in the system can just easily metastasize. It builds and builds and builds.

So if they believe that Windham, New Hampshire or Maricopa County or whatever you want to say, you know, is broken, it makes it easier to believe the next allegation, and the next allegation and the next allegation.

And then you have the response, too, which is that you've got state officials in Arizona being like well, we lost the chain of custody on these machines which is not a conspiracy theory which is basically saying, you know, we're not sure we can trust them after you've handed them over to an outside --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: -- over to the Cyber Ninjas.

BADE: Right, exactly.

PHILLIP: And so it's a real question.

DEMIRJIAN: And it sort of just grows and balloons and grows and the problem is that the GOP is taking this position even if they don't want Trump, they're trying to appease Trump. When you appease that process it just keeps going and it will hurt you politically (ph).

PHILLIP: And it leads to real questions about 2024, not who is running but whether, if there is a Democrat who wins that election, if Republicans would allow that election to be certified.

ZELENY: Without question. And I mean, speaking of 2024, which we love to talk about on this show -- yes, it's too early -- the next thing as President Trump begins saying he's holding rallies, we see other Republicans already moving out front.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, he was in Pittsburgh this week, you know, talking to Republicans there. Chris Christie said he's going to go ahead regardless. So, you know, all of this does have big fall out effect.

But the big lie has taken hold among mainstream Republicans. So that's why President Trump is doing this for a reason.

So at the end of the day, though, you know, most of these audits are complete shams really. And it is just feeding the lie that we should point out clearly, the election was -- you know, there's no evidence of widespread fraud. None of these audit can do anything to reverse the outcome.

PHILLIP: It was free and fair, and there's no evidence of widespread fraud.

Coming up next, signs of extraterrestrial life or something else? Two presidents weigh in.

[08:47:38]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: Seems like everyone is talking about UFOs these days and that includes former President Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The truth is that when I came into office, I asked, right? I was like, all right, is there the lab somewhere where we're keeping the alien specimens and spaceships? The answer was no.

But what is true, and I'm actually being serious here, is that there are -- there's footage and records of objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what they are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And on Friday at the White House, President Biden didn't tamp down speculation. He was asked about Obama's comments and then he quipped to the reporter, ask him again.

But some more clarity could be coming next month when the U.S. intelligence agencies are expected to deliver a report on unidentified aerial phenomenon. One former intelligence official suggested it could be a real eye-opener.

So what do we make of Joe Biden, kind of -- maybe a little tongue in cheek here not really answering the question about UFOs?

ZELENY: It was sort of unclear if he actually knew what President Obama had said, I thought like in the moment. But look, it is this big question that's out there. And former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of course, Democrat from Nevada has long talked about this and in fact has an op-ed out on this. He did believe that --

PHILLIP: Right. And we have a bit of the op-ed.

ZELENY: Ok sure.

PHILLIP: So here is the part where Reid says it's unclear whether the UFOs we've encountered could have been built by foreign adversaries, whether our pilot's visual perception during some of the encounters were somehow distorted or whether we have truly credible evidence of extraterrestrial variations (SIC).

So I mean there are some real national security issues here but then there's just this big unknown about -- I mean aliens.

(CROSSTALK)

ZELENY: -- talked about this. When Harry Reid has long discussed this, when he was here in Washington and in power, he wanted more money to be given to --

PHILLIP: Right.

ZELENY: -- study this. So this is very much an open question, I think.

PHILLIP: And this is actually, the Trump administration, who commissioned this report that is going to come out soon. So, what can we expect from a practical perspective?

SALAMA: I mean perhaps informing our -- just what we already, you know, people speculate in public about it. But we know that President Obama actually received a briefing in 2009 from a gentleman named Steven Greer who is a ufologist who found this --

(CROSSTALK)

SALAMA: -- who founded the Center of the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Disclosure Project and he sent a briefing in 2009 to the president and said this could be one of the most important issues that you deal with in your presidency.

Now, of course, for a ufologist that's probably very true to him. But this is something that people are talking about more and more seriously, especially in the national security sphere, especially at the Department of Defense, where they're taking it very seriously.

[08:55:01]

BADE: I mean as somebody who has an alien magnet on her fridge -- I'm excited.

PHILLIP: I should have come to you first on this. I'm sorry.

BADE: It's going to be fascinating. Clearly a lot of folks in the national intelligence arena thinks that this is -- it could be, you know, other countries. Like what sort of technology do they have.

But then there are, you know, these reports about thinks that sort of defy gravity right these object that are flying out there and nobody seems to know what they are. I mean obviously it's a mystery. It's fun. So --

DEMIRJIAN: I don't know. Everybody is trying to take it with a grain of seriousness and gravitas and approaches this in really measured fun. Really -- I mean why wouldn't you have a little bit of fun with it, honestly, right? If Biden is being cagey, maybe he knows that we're going to have like an alien invasion. You've all seen the movies. You don't want to like incite (ph) and actually knows something we all don't know.

SALAMA: He knows something we all don't know. And he's keeping (INAUDIBLE).

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: They're coming for us. All right, guys. Well thanks.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS ON SUNDAY. Join us back here every Sunday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time and the weekday show as well at noon Eastern.

But coming up next on "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jack Tapper and Dana Bash, Dana's got the senior White House adviser Cedric Richmond and Senator Cory Booker.

Thank you again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. Have the great rest of your day.

[08:56:13]

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