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Special Grand Jury Approved For Atlanta Area Trump Probe; Pres Biden Get Caught On Hot Mic; NYC Mayor: Anti-Gun Unit To Use Cameras, Be Better Trained. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 25, 2022 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be a paper trail on what he wanted, which is the whole goal in getting these e-mails of from John Eastman, because he dictate -- he, the former president dictates, it is possible that you're going to see e-mails from or texts from or to his aides, his assistants that will explain exactly what he wanted. That is really the key here. And it is yet another big indicator that this Committee is going straight for questions about the former president and his role.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: And Nicholas, you and your colleague, Kyle Cheney write about this in the case of another huge conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, sitting down with the committee, repeatedly refusing when with the Committee to answer questions, but then going on his programming, and talking about some of it.

NICHOLAS WU, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Exactly, yes. Alex Jones had also been one of these longtime targets of the Committee. He sat for what it looks like it was a virtual interview with the Committee on Monday evening, and then, yes, just went on his show after it and laid out everything that he had told them in what he called his kind of unofficial testimony. And among the more interesting things was that he said that Caroline Wren, this Republican fundraiser, who was involved in planning some of these rallies on January 5th, and 6th had been his liaison, his go between, between the White House and, you know, folks like him.

And so, you know, this starts to show, you know, more detail around how these rallies were planned something that had been a goal of the Committee from the very beginning. And, you know, even with someone like Alex Jones, who didn't necessarily want to comply with the Committee in the beginning and said, who plead the fifth, they're still able to get some more information around it.

KING: Right to piece together the time talent. Outside of Washington, Ayesha, significant development, the Fulton County District Attorney now has permission to convene a special grand jury with subpoena power as she tries to investigate Donald Trump's effort to reverse the results in Georgia, significant because they can now get testimony from people who have refused to cooperate. But we've all lived through Trump, impeachments and the like, listen to Preet Bharara, he's a former federal prosecutor, CNN lead contributor says, hey, this is a big deal but.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PREET BHARARA, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, he's in criminal legal jeopardy. I would say that, you know, we've been down this road before, where particular prosecutors or enforcement agencies open up investigations of people up to and including the president. And, you know, we all follow it. And we think it means sometimes more than it means.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: There's skepticism there jumps out because there are a lot of people left of center who think this is the investigation that's going to get Trump and now they say, well, maybe not.

AYESHA RASCOE, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Well, that's always the case. Because what Trump is going to do is he's going to call it political and he's going to fight them every step of the way. He's going to take, do every bit of legal maneuvering possible under the sun to try to slow it down. And so far, he's been successful with that with those strategies.

KING: We'll continue to follow these cases as they go forward.

When we come back, interesting political moment, President Biden apologizing that after calling on a "Fox" reporter on an open mic, what the President did to try to make amends.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:37:46]

KING: Topping our Political Radar today, London Metropolitan Police now investigating the alleged lockdown parties of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's official residents. The Prime Minister welcoming the investigation saying it will quote give the public the clarity it needs. Johnson reportedly attended two birthday gatherings in June 2020, one, may have included 30 guests. A spokesperson says it included a group of staff working in number 10 that day, who gathered briefly according to the spokesman to wish the Prime Minister Happy Birthday. A report on just what happened expected to be published this week.

The Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, remember his heroics back on January 6th, while he's talking now about what happened that day. Remember, you see Goodman there he was the opposite leading protesters away from the Senate. He says that they could have turned much more violent than it was.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OFFICER EUGENE GOODMAN, CAPITOL POLICE: It could have been, easily been a bloodbath, so kudos to everybody there that showed a measure of restraint with regards to deadly force because it could have been bad, really, really bad. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: President Biden caught on a hot mic Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Will you take questions on inflation then?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you all.

DOOCY: Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's a great asset, more inflation. What a stupid son of a --.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The President later calling the "Fox" correspondent, Peter Doocy to apologize. According to Doocy, Biden said he was calling to quote, clear the air. Our reporters are back with me to discuss Ayesha Rascoe, you covered the Biden White House not the first time he has said something critical of a reporter in an open mic. Why?

RASCOE: Well, look, I think he's having a rough run of it now. But, you know, presidents often they get mad at the press like that is not unusual but Biden like everybody else, he has to talk about people behind their back and not to their face. And that is where he got in trouble this time. So, you know, I think that that was the really big issue at that moment.

KING: Right. The use of the language, Dana, is what jumps out. Look, the President has sparred with Peter Doocy before. I will say as someone who covered the White House for 10 years. Peter Doocy handled it perfectly. The President of the United States called, I'm not always a fan of where Peter Doocy works, that's quite clear. But the President called him, essentially said I'm sorry, said he wanted to move on in clarity, and Peter Doocy said fine, I'm going to be back at work tomorrow. That's the way to handle it. But what's up with the President?

[12:40:13]

BASH: It's not the first time that he's said something, been caught saying something about a reporter. It's not the first time he's been caught on a hot mic. Remember, the big blanking deal when he was vice president, and he was hugging then President Obama. But I think more broadly, back to I was thinking about Sam Donaldson and Ronald Reagan, presidents have a, there's a benefit for presidents to use certain reporters as foils, and sometimes depending on the dynamic, definitely, in this case, in the case of Doocy and "Fox," there's a benefit for them to do the same. The fact that the President apologized is good, the fact that Doocy handled it with grace and class is even better.

KING: And Nicholas, I guess the question is, is this an isolated incident, President Biden and a "Fox" reporter, President Biden also had a recent open mic about another "Fox" report or is it part of the increasing tension, sometimes increasing verbal combat between people in our business and politicians? You get a lot of this up on the Hill, especially from Republicans who to Dana's point, I think that the quote unquote, mainstream media is the perfect foil.

WU: That's for sure. I mean, like Dana just said, you know, we've seen Biden, you know, on the sort of hot mics before, but this sort of salty language is something that you see, it's not just limited to Republicans. I mean, you know, we hear it from both Democrats and Republicans on the Hill too, you know, look at times when Senator Jon Tester is quoted and said something kind of salty. And so, you know, it's all part of the game here in some ways, but it's not an isolated incident to have this sort of sparring and back and forth.

KING: There are sort of two rules that people continue to break, one goes all the way back to all the north, they keep e-mails, you can delete an e-mail, you think you deleted but they keep them and guess what the microphone is always open. And a lot, the third one, the phone has a camera. We shall see as we go forward, politicians sometimes continue to forget the obvious. Thanks, everybody for coming in.

Up next for us, crime and punishment, the New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he has a plan to combat rising gun violence.

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[12:46:58]

KING: New York City Mayor Eric Adams says one part of a new effort to stem violent crime will be reviving a controversial police anti-gun unit. That unit was disbanded back in 2020 because of abuse and other complaints. But Adam says it is needed and that it will operate with new rules.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK CITY, NY: We're going to reinstitute an anti-gun unit where police officers will have a modified version of police uniform apparel. They're going to be better trained. We're going to use technologies with cameras to video every interaction. And I'm going to make sure the right officers are assigned there with precision policing to go after those who are dangerous gangs and carrying guns in my city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: To get some perspective now, with us is Errol Louis. He's a CNN political commentator and the host of New York1's Inside City Hall, Errol grateful for your time today. This is a giant challenge for a guy on the job for a little over three weeks. And he's not afraid to bring back this controversial unit. Put that into context for us of what it means.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, the context is that it was not just controversial, but it was deadly and it was disbanded for a reason, John. Back in the 1990s, there was an anti-gun unit that had hundreds of officers and they ended up killing a man named Amadou Diallo, perfectly innocent man, shot 41 times on the front step of his own house, because he was reaching for his wallet.

So when they're not trained, these units can do quite a lot of damage that led to national demonstrations and so forth. And so it was disbanded, the mayor now, because he was a police officer for 22 years. He thinks he can do it in such a way that it properly calibrates the need to get illegal guns off the streets with the need to actually be trained, be precise, be careful and not abuse the rights or indeed the lives of New York City residents.

And so, it's an odd kind of a mix. And it's very subtle, but they're going to be wearing uniforms, but there'll be in unmarked cars. You know, part of the way they used to operate it was really kind of scary. I saw them an operation in the past. They occur with screech up onto the sidewalk, a bunch of guys jump out of it, start throwing people up against the wall, yelling and cursing and waving guns around.

What he's saying is that we're not going to go back to that cowboy style, that's it's going to be much more precise. And it's going to be done in a way that makes people feel safe rather than threatened. We'll see if he can get it done.

KING: Right. And it'd be one of the many things we watch as he tries to tackle. And this is why. I just put the numbers up on the screen. The numbers tell you why the mayor needs to make this an urgent issue. Crime in New York City from last year up 35 percent, shootings up 16 percent, hate Crimes up 18 percent. Violent Crimes there which is why the mayor says we have to work on this anti-gun unit. But listen to this interview this morning where he also is here criticizing, he says the D.A. can do his -- that has to do his job. Criticizing his own local prosecutor and prosecutors nationwide who he says letting too many crimes go. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADAMS: We must deal with a city and cities where we are telling police officers that people can walk in stores, steal items off the shelves, and no one is going to prosecute them. When you can do fare evasion in the city and no one is going to prosecute. Well, you can pour water over the head of a police officer and a person who did that is not going to be held accountable for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:50:07]

KING: He says he will make his views known to the local prosecutor, that seems to me to be a big issue ahead.

LOUIS: Yes, well, look, at the same time that Eric Adams was being elected on a vow to restore order to the streets, prosecutors were also being elected. And the Manhattan prosecutor in particular, has the approach and frankly, the backing of the voters in saying that we don't want to spend a lot of time with prosecutors and cops going after people who were engaged in shoplifting, disorderly conduct, public urination, you know, that it's a waste of time, because you want to make cases against gun trafficking and domestic violence and, you know, illegal drug sales, you know, that's what the cops and the prosecutors ought to be involved in.

It's an old conversation. It's an old debate. How do you get the right balance, do smaller crimes lead to bigger ones, you know, if you catch people jumping over the turnstile without paying their fare to get on the subway, yes, you will find some people who are carrying guns. But for the most part, that's not how you break up the gun trafficking rings that have caused so much havoc in the city. So they're going to have to continue talking and figure out the right way to get this done.

KING: And as we have the conversation about the new mayor in America's largest city in New York City, I just want to show a map of the country. You know, 10 of our biggest cities, set homicide records last year. You see them on the map there and they go from coast to coast from Philadelphia out to Portland, they're in the northeast, they're in the Midwest, they're in the south, across the as well.

Mayor Adams as the mayor of America's largest city knows whether he wants to be or not to be, he's going to be part of a national example here A$s cities try to deal with this. In his case, though, he seems to welcome the spotlight.

LOUIS: Oh, he very much welcomes it. He says over and over again that, you know, he's a general who's going to lead from the front that, you know, when the game is on the line. He wants the ball, all kinds of different metaphors. He says he's spent his entire career getting ready for this moment. And that includes the 22 years he spent as a member of the NYPD. If he does get this right, we perhaps will have learned something. But just as your earlier questions suggest, John, it's not just the cops. It's not just the mayor. It's prosecutors. It's state lawmakers. It's the public itself that has to make up its mind about the right way to go about this.

And again, get the right balance between really get going after people who are a serious menace and maybe not sending everybody to prison just because they, you know, were caught shoplifting or have a drug problem that hasn't been treated, or some other kind of minor nuisance type offense as opposed to a serious crime. We'll have to figure that out together, not just in New York but all around the country.

KING: In the first chapter here of how the new mayor deals with it. Errol Louis, appreciate you're teeing it up and putting into context for us. We will circle back in the tests -- testing weeks and months to come ahead, Errol, thanks so much.

LOUIS: Thank you.

KING: Coming up for us, here check your pharmacy and check your mailbox, free masks and home test starting to arrive. The fight against Omicron continues. We'll have the latest numbers, next.

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[12:57:34]

KING: Don't forget if you missed the show, or you want to listen again, you can always catch our podcast. To listen, scan the QR code right down there on the corner of your screen or search Inside Politics wherever you get your podcast. Some important COVID news to bring you today, Pfizer announcing it is now running a clinical trial for its new Omicron specific Coronavirus vaccine. That study will evaluate up to 1,400 adults. And the company says it hopes to have the shot ready by March.

In the meantime, new CDC numbers leave no doubt, absolutely no doubt, getting a booster is an important weapon against Omicron. Let's walk through the latest numbers. To the point about the booster, this is a study from the CDC, compiled by the CDC, you are 90 percent protected against hospitalization, 90 percent protected if you are boosted, 90 percent. Look at that number. You are 81 percent protected against hospitalization if you're fully vaccinated, and your second shot, your last shot was less than six months ago. It drops to 57 percent if you're fully vaccinated, but that last shot was more than six months ago. So the data is clear, get boosted, you stay out of the hospital.

In Israel the conversation now about do we need a fourth booster shot, the health ministry expert panel recommending a fourth shot five months after your third booster shot. So that'll be a conversation that comes to the United States quite soon. But here's the issue right now. Right now the issue is not so much a conversation about a fourth shot. It's about getting 61 million Americans who are completely unvaccinated getting them to get shots. They would be further protected. There are 86 million Americans who are eligible for boosters but have not gotten a booster, not gone to get the third shot.

There are 20 million young children who are simply not eligible yet, the government says those under five are not eligible. This is where Dr. Fauci says we can talk about a fourth shot down the road, we can talk about a new variant down the road, get vaccinated and get boosted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, PRESIDENT BIDEN'S CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER: Quite frankly, the more people that we get vaccinated and the more people we get boosted, the less the likelihood that we'll be seeing these return of variants that keep challenging us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Again, the message there, get boosted and worry about everything else down the road. And that point, this is a conversation we've had before. But look at the map, the darker the green, the higher the percentage of the citizens who've been boosted. So you see Vermont leading the pack with 44 percent, Maine and 39 percent. New England states tend to be darker. Out in the Midwest, the Northwest you see darker, where is the problem right where it was when we started the vaccination campaign and across here right here. You see the numbers in the teens right here. So still a problem getting people boosted there.

And lastly, you look at the transmission map everyone says better days are ahead, yes, they are. The numbers are beginning to plateau and come down but only five, only five of 3,200 counties in America do not have high transmission right now, still a lot of work to do against Omicron.

[13:00:11]

Appreciate your time today in Inside Politics. We'll see you back here this time tomorrow. Busy News Day, Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.