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Inside Politics
Biden Faces Familiar Problems as he Starts 2nd Year of Presidency; Manchin: Need to Start from Scratch on Biden Agenda; Blinken Meets with Russian Counterpart Amid High Tensions; Blinken Warns Any Russian Invasion of Ukraine will be Met with a "Severe and a United Response" from U.S. and Allies; Trump's Legal Jeopardy Intensifies Amid Multiple Probes. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired January 21, 2022 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello, and welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing your day with us.
Not a negotiation that said is a high stakes meeting between the United States and Russia's top diplomats closes without a major breakthrough and with an American promise to punish any Russian incursion into Ukraine.
And this just in the January 6th Committee now has hundreds of pages of Trump White House records it ends a week of bad headlines for the former president including this one. CNN reporting shows Rudy Giuliani led a quiet coup attempt trying to install bogus electors in seven states, Trump lost.
And brand new numbers reinforce a crystal clear pandemic truth. CDC evidence out last hour shows the power of COVID boosters versus Omicron. Get that extra shot, and you will keep yourself out of the hospital.
We begin the hour with the president's hope for a second year reset. Today President Biden tried to connect his work with your anxiety highlighting a big new investment in the American supply chain.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: And it's about jobs, good paying decent jobs, you can raise a family on jobs, jobs now, jobs are the future. Jobs in every part of the country have jobs that show it bring the industrial Midwest back. It shows the world we're always going to fight for American workers.
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KING: The goal is for the president to spend less time talking about Washington process. The staff is supposed to handle most of that fresh evidence today the challenge is the same no matter who takes the White House lead. The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says sure you can lose a piece or two of the president's big social safety net plan. But the speaker says you cannot start over. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin says the party must do exactly that start over.
With us today to share the reporting and their insights CNN's Melanie Zanona, Alex Burn of "The New York Times" and CNN's MJ Lee. MJ, let's start with the White House what we just heard from the president, it will be weeks before we see if there's any evidence in the polling in the mood of the country, that the president's alleged new way of doing things is going to pay a difference.
But it was striking today to see him not - there at the White House not only celebrating this new semiconductor chip plant, but Rob Portman, a Republican Senator was behind him along with Sherrod Brown, the Democratic Senator, you don't see much of that in Washington.
MJ LEE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, it's very, very clear that the White House and the president are trying to do something of a policy reset. But even though it is a new calendar year, he has the same political problems.
And I thought, Senator Manchin's comments earlier this week, were incredibly telling, when he essentially said, look, we can turn to some of these bigger agenda items, when we have dealt with things like inflation, a problem like COVID, well, those two things happen to be the two biggest problems that the Biden Administration is facing, and he can't the president just wave a magic wand and have these issues go away.
We know that these are going to be problems that the president confronts for months to come. Now, aside from the policy reset, I think there's clearly a political reset that they are considering as well. And we clearly saw that laid out by the president in his own press conference, doing things like traveling more so that he is out there, making sure that he is talking a lot more about the Democratic Party's achievements.
And just going more on the offensive attacking Republicans more but I do think there were plenty of Democrats who were listening to that press conference and wondering why didn't those things happen a little bit sooner?
KING: Why didn't they happen a little bit sooner? And part of the challenge Melanie also is if the president wants to do things differently if he believes all this talk about Washington process, and Democratic infighting is hurting, he can change his MO, but he needs other Democrats to change it as well to do this quietly, not publicly.
If you don't want the American people to look at Washington and say, seems kind of messy. But as MJ just noted, and we said at the top of the program, this is Joe Manchin to CNN, we'll be starting from scratch.
We will be starting from scratch, the main thing we need to do is take care of inflation, get your financial house in order, get this inflation down, and get COVID out of the way. Then we'll be rolling. That's not exactly the White House approach, which says OK, let's find out where can we get to 50 votes, drop everything else move now.
MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Right. First of all, on your point about Democratic infighting, I don't see how this helps Democrats at all, whether they like it or not, they need Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema's votes, and they backed them into the corner with his vote on the filibuster that they knew was going to fail and they did it anyway.
And now you have Democrats, including Bernie Sanders openly talking about a primary challenge so they're just in a really tough spot right now. And then when it comes to the Build Back Better Act, I mean, look, the reality is, they're going to have to scale back their ambitions, their expectations whatever they pass is going to have to be on Joe Manchin's terms. I mean that's not a huge surprise here but that's the reality.
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ZANONA: And I think there is some hope that they can maybe get something a lot smaller with climate change provisions and maybe some childcare provisions as well. But the problem there is once you start leaving big priorities on the --, you start to lose other lawmakers who have drawn red lines in the sand on these issues.
We've already starting to hear some of those groups and lawmakers come out and say we can't have a deal unless it includes X, Y, Z priorities. So you're running into the same familiar problems that they had last year at the beginning of the negotiation.
KING: Right. It's a complicated family Alex. All the more complicated when you have only a handful of votes to spare in the House, you have no votes to spare in the United States Senate. We all lived it in year one, the challenge for Biden of the Democrats in year two is can they manage it differently?
Can they get to the finish line? But as Mel just noted, you need a much smaller plan to get Manchin in Sinema on board in the Senate. That seems pretty clear. But the House Speakers, maybe not listen.
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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): There are big chunks of the bill that had to be contained in the bill. But remember this, that this is a reconciliation bill. So when people say let's divide it up, then they don't understand the process. What can we agree upon? And I'm sure that we can agree upon something significant. Call it a chunk if you want. But whatever you call it, we want it to be able to make a difference.
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KING: You can take the president, I guess directly out of the kitchen. But that's a lot of process talk and a reminder that Nancy Pelosi's calculations are very different from Joe Manchin's. ALEX BURNS, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: They sure are, although the two of them actually do talk to each other and have a relationship that has maybe the potential to be productive a little bit later on the Speaker and Joe Manchin.
But look, I think that when you hear a Speaker Pelosi dismissing the idea of breaking everything up into chunks, I think it's clear enough that what she is recoiling from is the idea that you would turn this Build Back Better vehicle into seven or eight different bills that deal with, you know, climate here, childcare here, the child tax credit over here, and, you know, try to move all of them separately.
And in some ways, you know, I don't think that she is delivering this as a tough love reality check on her own party. But there is a little bit of an implied tough love reality check there, which is that if you start breaking off chunks of Build Back Better and saying listen, the main vehicle is going to be, you know, as Melanie said, maybe childcare plus climate, and we'll deal with A, B, C and D through some other method.
Well, A, B, C and D have a much tougher legislative path ahead of them. And you really do need to be able to, and this probably does fall on the shoulders of the president more than anyone else. You do need to be able to say to your own party, listen, these are my priorities, and I'm sorry, but the stuff you care about, even more than them, it just matters less to me right now.
KING: And this sooner they can either reach consensus or decide they have none in this election year. I think they probably they would agree the better in terms of going out there and campaign you need less of the food fighting here in Washington. But we will continue interesting attempt by the president. We'll see how it plays out in the days ahead.
Everyone stand by when we come back up next, the United States and Russia face to face no breakthrough but the Secretary of State Tony Blinken promises "Severe Response" if Moscow commits further aggression against Ukraine.
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KING: No breakthrough more diplomacy to come. That was the shared view of the United States and Russia after their top diplomats met for 90 minutes today in Geneva to discuss Vladimir Putin's massive troop build-up along the Ukraine border.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken says an exchange of ideas in writing comes next. And then in the meantime, Secretary Blinken says he left no doubt about the stakes.
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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We've been clear if any Russian military forces move across Ukraine's border, that's a renewed invasion. It will be met with "Swift, severe and a united response" from the United States and our partners and allies.
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KING: Let's get to CNN's Kylie Atwood at the State Department, Kylie that's Blinken publicly what are your sources telling you privately about whether this meeting is viewed as productive or not?
KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well John, there were a lot of questions about diplomacy heading into today if it was going to be dead ended. And what we are learning is that it's not right? There is new life that has been given to diplomacy because the two foreign ministers agreed that they are going to have another meeting.
The United States said that they are going to put on the table, a written proposal they're going to put some ideas some concerns down in written form next week for the Russians. The Russians have long been demanding that from the U.S.
Now substantively, we don't know exactly where that is headed? But that means that things are progressing forward. Now we should note that Blinken also made it very clear that any Russian troops that cross over Ukraine's border would be considered an invasion. And they would be met with swift and unified response by the U.S. and its allies.
Of course, cleaning up once again, the comments from President Biden earlier this week raising some questions some concerns about there being an allied response to a small scale, Russian incursion into Ukraine.
And Foreign Minister Lavrov was very clear in saying that Blinken didn't mince words here. Here's what he said about the top priorities that Blinken made clear to him in this meeting.
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SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Our American colleagues again tried to bring this issue to the forefront of the problems on the Russian/Ukrainian border as the main issue they tried to present de- escalation as the main thing. They repeated this like a mantra. In the end, we've agreed that next week we will receive written answers to all our proposals.
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ATWOOD: Now Lavrov, have also said he wasn't sure if they were on the right route or the wrong route that would be determined by what the United States put forth next week in these written ideas and concerns.
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ATWOOD: That they will be laying down. And for his part, Blinken said, listen, it's up to the Russians. They can choose diplomacy, they can choose discussion, or they can choose confrontation and consequences. All of this, John, we should know, comes amid the backdrop of incredibly high stakes, the Russians announced just today, they're going to be moving more military equipment into Belarus for military exercises next week, and they continue to bolster their military presence along all of Ukraine's borders, John.
KING: Kylie Atwood, grateful for the live reporting. Let's get some perspective now unique perspective from Leon Panetta, one of the most impressive resumes you can get Former White House Chief of Staff, Former CIA Director, Former Defense Secretary under President Obama.
Leon, grateful for your time today on this important day let me start with the cleanup operations. You just heard the very stern words from Secretary Blinken, has the Biden Administration moves - move past what was clearly just a mistake from the President of the United States the other day when he said.
Well, if it's a minor incursion, it might depend, as I noted, whether you were serving as White House Chief of Staff, CIA Director or Defense Secretary, or your phone would have lit up if a President of the United States said something like that. The White House believes it has now reset, if you will, made clear what it means have they?
LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, they certainly have made a strong effort to clarify the president's comments by making clear that any incursion, any incursion, would be considered an invasion.
But this is a moment in time, when very frankly, the United States and our allies have to draw a very clear and distinct line with the Russians. And there is no room for either speculation or ambivalence. So I hope that everybody stays on message from now on.
KING: And part of the challenge here is trying to interpret what the Russians say? What is their next move? You spent a lot of time with this one you were serving in government, I want you to listen here. Sergei Lavrov has this way about him.
Number one, he gets indignant at the idea you say, well, why does Russia have 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border? He says, how dare you suggest we're going to invade when sort of the facts sort of speak for themselves? Listen to him here about this is the question. Is Russia planning to invade?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible)
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KING: Unless the United States doesn't go to bed with Ukraine I don't think so. I assume he's meeting unless the United States doesn't say, hey, we're going to invite Ukraine into NATO next week or less, the United States doesn't put U.S. troops or more U.S. weapons in Ukraine. But how do you translate that? PANETTA: Well, I begin on the premise that you don't trust, either with Lavrov or Putin say, and what you're - what you're trying to do here is determine whether or not they're playing for time, whether or not they're stalling, or whether there is a serious effort to try to look for some kind of diplomatic solution here?
We don't know the answer to that. And I don't think we can assume that just because Lavrov says that Russia is not going to invade that that's the case. So I just think we have to assume the worst at this point. These are adversaries, their whole intent is to basically weaken the United States, weaken the alliances undermine our democracy.
And I think it's very important for the U.S. and our allies to be very strong about the kind of response that will take place, if they invade.
KING: The preparations at the moment you mentioned don't trust factor, which is huge here. There's an arms transfer, the both the United States and the United States also approved for NATO allies to take U.S. arms they might have and transfer them into Ukraine.
Ally sending anti-aircraft and anti-tank systems requesting the transfer of some high technology helicopters to Ukraine, A, are those the right steps? And B, what else would you be recommending to the President of the United States right now?
PANETTA: Well, I think I it's very important that that we move forward, both with economic leverage and military leverage as well. The Russians are going to pay attention a lot more to the military steps we take than almost anything else.
They've been through the sanction game. But I think it's on the military side, where you can send a very strong message. So I think any movement of our forces north to NATO, towards the - towards the border is important. I think providing a defensive weapon to the Ukraine Army is very important right now.
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PANETTA: Anti-aircraft, Anti-missile, Anti-personnel, that is very important to give the Ukrainians the ability to be able to resist an all-out invasion if that happens. In addition to that, I would be using cyber, to basically make clear that we can undermine both their command and control capability and their communications capabilities.
Let them know that cyber is a weapon here that we're not going to be afraid to use, and then make clear, obviously, the sanctions, both with regards to cutting them off from international banking, but also making clear that we will not support this pipeline, if they invade the Ukraine.
KING: One of the potential issues there, and we're speaking in January of an election year, is that if there are stiff sanctions against Russia, not only might the Europeans see much higher energy costs, it's possible Americans will see much higher energy costs because of the turmoil in the world.
Should the President of the United States be doing more to prepare the American people to say, look, this may hurt but it's important?
PANETTA: I think it's important to make clear that if we have to take the steps, that not only are we going to be impacting on Russia, that we're going to have to be prepared for the consequences ourselves, and that we have to prepare for that. So I don't think we ought to kid people, that this is just a one way street.
The fact is that the United States and our allies will also bear the consequences of this action. But right now, it is very important. This is about deterrence; I wouldn't assume that the Russians automatically are going to invade. We still have a chance to deter them, not only through our military assistance, but also through this diplomacy that's going on at the present time. So I think we still have some options here and that's important.
KING: Leon Panetta, grateful for your time today. We'll keep in touch as we go through these next several tense days. I really appreciate your insight, sir.
PANETTA: Thanks, John.
KING: Thank you. Up next, a week of setbacks for Donald Trump, in new details of how his friend Rudy Giuliani tried to steal the election?
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KING: Important breaking news to share the January 6th Committee has now received "Hundreds of pages of Trump White House documents from the National Archives" according to a source close to that panel, that of course after the Supreme Court gave the green light earlier this week.
Plus, some new CNN reporting today only adds to a week of troubling revelations and legal setbacks for Donald Trump. The reporting details how top Trump campaign officials and allies led by Rudy Giuliani oversaw efforts to try to steal the election by putting forward illegitimate electors from seven states Trump lost.
The reporting details a much higher level involvement by the Trump inner circle and was previously known. That scheme is part of the House Committees' investigation and it could factor into a separate Georgia probe.
Consider just the last few days; the Fulton County District Attorney requested a special grand jury to investigate Trump's effort to cheat in Georgia. The January 6th Committee asked Ivanka Trump to voluntary cooperates and it has subpoenaed phone records from other Trump family members. That Supreme Court defeat that we just discussed, allowing the committee to see those hundreds of pages of Trump records and the New York Attorney General detailing what she calls substantial evidence of fraud by the Trump Organization as she asked the judge to order Trump and two of his children to answer question.
Our great reporters are back with us. Melanie Zanona, let me start with you. The Committee has been trying to put together a very detailed timeline, essentially minute by minute, second by second of January 6th, and they say these documents are crucial. Now they have them. And there's a possibility right that we will see some of them?
ZANONA: Yes, I think we will at some point. We haven't seen them yet. But we know that they have obtained these documents. And I think what's pretty clear is that the Select Committee is making some serious headway in this investigation.
They're closing in on Trump's inner circle, and they have the receipts whether it's documents that the Trump team failed to prevent from being handed over, or from people going and talking to the committee.
They sent a letter to Ivanka Trump this week, and it detailed a bunch of new information that we did not know that they haven't covered in the investigation. So there's a lot there that we still don't know about.
KING: And the detailed history is critical. We all remember January 6th number one, but you also have a Former President of the United States who A, is planning a comeback and who B, continues to live in a fantasy world of lies. Listen to this, this is Donald Trump just last night describing January 6th.
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DONALD TRUMP, 45TH U.S. PRESIDENT: Believe me there was a lot of love and a lot of friendship and people that love our country. These are great people. And I felt it was going to be a very big crowd. I wanted to have soldiers or and I would have been soldiers and or National Guard. And Nancy Pelosi turned it down. And if she didn't turn it down, you would not have had any problem. It would have just been absolutely a lovely day.
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KING: Alex Burns number one; it's just a fantasy recollection of that day. Number two, you don't have to go to this part of it if you don't want to 39 minutes, 39 minutes he's talking with Sean Hannity 39 minutes.
He's not asked about the New York state investigation about the Fulton County investigation about the Supreme Court ruling about the documents being handed over. It's just - it's - well, but. So that's why this committee's work is so important though because Trump is still telling his people that day is not what everyone else says it was.
BURNS: He is telling him that and John I do think that when you sort of stack up the events of the last few days.
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