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Trump Intensifies Pressure On Pence To Thwart Electoral Vote; Soon: Congress To Affirm President-Elect Biden's Win. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 06, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

RICK SANTORUM (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Clearly there was fraud in the 1960 election that got John F. Kennedy elected. And yet he put the country ahead of that situation and made a speech that was seen as his, you know, very statesman like.

I think that the Vice President will not give a similar speech. But I -- he may say some nice things about Donald Trump, but I think if he says anything, he's going to talk about his constitutional duty.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And what do you make of, I mean, after all, you know, this for years with this president, this is what it how it ends for him. What do you make of what you heard from him today?

SANTORUM: You know, I don't think it -- I think this is going to be a great moment for Mike Pence. I think --

COOPER: No, no, for President Trump.

SANTORUM: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you'd have --

COOPER: Yes.

SANTORUM: It's just been thoroughly disappointing over these last two months.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: But not surprising.

SANTORUM: Disappointing that the President has remained as focused as he has on this. And the consequences have not been good for him and the long term viability of the changes he's made to our government because we're going to lose two seats in Georgia. It's all pretty certain at this point. And it's pretty clear that if you look at the Georgia election from last night, and you compare it to two months ago, and the President two months ago said I won by half a million votes, right? I won by half a million votes.

Republicans actually did better two months ago than they did last night, everybody on the ballot, I mean Loeffler and the Republicans generally in the Senate. And no one is contesting this election as last night as being at all fragile. In fact, they was talking about how well, well, but no, I don't hear any substantive claims that there was any irregularities from anyone in Georgia about this election.

And yet, two months ago, when there were irregularities, Republicans did better than last night. That's -- it's just hard to square that if I'm sitting in the Congress right now and I look at what happened in Georgia. And if I had any -- and I know a lot of people feel that there was a lot of irregularities that went on. And I believe in Pennsylvania play there were a lot of irregularities that went on. They weren't sufficient to overturn the election. But there were irregularities.

Anyone who looks at what happened in Georgia and sees those election results from last night and sees how the state of Georgia I mean, I know the state chairman of Georgia, they had poll watchers, they had -- I mean, this was a well watched election and certainly Brad Raffensperger and the Governor were going to make sure everything was followed to a tee. And republicans did worse.

That it's hard to say that somehow another Georgia was stolen. And if Georgia wasn't stolen at 11,000 votes, it's hard to then go back and say well, at 80 some thousand votes Pennsylvania was stole. I just think congressmen and senators looking at what happened last night. Rationally, I've had a lot of their wind taken out of their sails, whether that means they're going to act differently. I don't know.

But I think some of the rationale and some of the zeal of what people thought happened last night, Georgia sort of said maybe it didn't happen into the scale that was necessary to change --

BORGER: Could it be that they are so cynical, and that they were doing what they might do later because they think it will help them in their next election or run for president and that perhaps today, they think Donald Trump will be a little bit less useful to them than he was yesterday.

SANTORUM: I think that a lot of Republicans are worried. I talked to a lot of House members, senator, state, in Pennsylvania, and other places. And they look, the big concern is that Trump is going to stay active and engaged and is going to take on everybody who didn't stand with him.

COOPER: Which is what Downey Jr. and the other --

VAN JONES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: He actually said -- the President actually said that today at the speed. I mean, I wonder what he's going to do. He literally said if you watch the speech today, that he's going to -- he say we are going to primary the people who are quote unquote, weak Republicans. He's sitting on a quarter billion dollars of money. A quarter billion dollars is a lot of money in politics, especially if you're a state or a congressional candidate.

First of all, I think what you just said is part of the beauty of this country. What I hate about what's going on right now is that the ugliness from the President is overshadowing a lot of beautiful stuff. That was a courageous balls and strike comment you just made. And you also have a bunch of people at the grassroots level on both sides who worked their butts off for democracy because they believe in democracy, and the system is working.

The reality is this President blew it. That's just the reality. We have a pandemic that's completely out of control. We have an economy where people are not getting the help that they need. And when that happens, the system is supposed to respond, people squatter, organize, and give a different team a chance. That's what happened. That's democracy.

If you don't like it in two years, you can do something about it. That's our system. You don't have to pretend that the Vice President of the United States is suddenly the most powerful human being in the history of the world. You don't have to win anything. You don't have to get anybody's Electoral College. You just have to have the Vice President stand up there and say, you get to be president.

[12:35:11]

That is a complete fantasy and a complete lie. If you don't like what's happening right now organize. That's the lesson of the day. The rest of us being overshadowed, nothing overshadowed by the nonsense.

SANTORUM: The reason I've talked to a lot of really good people on our side and everyone understands the President and his, you know, dynamic. But they're so afraid of what the other side is going to do. There is such -- we are so -- there's so much fear from our folks about what the left is, the socialists are going to take over -- which really concerns me that, OK, we have to break the law in order for them to stop to, you know, to stop the bad guy from breaking the law. No, you don't do bad things to stop bad things. You do good things to stop bad things.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. But that is the result of four years of Trump basically disregarding laws and rules and norms that's the culmination of it.

BORGER: That's the problem.

COOPER: We are following all the developments from Washington. We'll be right back with our continuing coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:08]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: We're back with our special coverage right at the top of the hour. In less than 20 minutes, Congress is about to count and announce the electoral vote with Trump loyalists planning to challenge the will of the American people. Manu Raju was up on Capitol Hill. Manu, set the scene for us, what are you learning?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we expect at least three states to be objected to by House and Senate Republicans. It's uncertain if there'll be more than three states. This is ultimately a doomed effort to try to overturn the will of the voters and unprecedented action that Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly oppose.

But there are a small number of House members and Senate Republicans who plan to try to object to three states, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. And I've been speaking to a number of Republican senators this morning. And it's not clear of any will try to object to more states. There are House conservatives who are trying to push objections to six states which could extend this debate that is typically could be over just a ceremonial situation here, instead try to prolong this typical sort of ceremonial event to into the wee hours of the morning.

Now, increasingly, we are seeing a divide play out among top Republicans. Two senior Republicans just came out opposed to the effort by the President and his allies to overturn the election. One of them is a member of the Senate Republican leadership, Todd Young who said that this is not the way to go as well as Thom Tillis, who was a senator who just got reelected from the state of North Carolina.

But we're seeing some Republicans and the upper echelons of the party side with the President including Steve Scalise, the number two Republican. So, Wolf, expect this division to play out through the course of the day today. Ultimately it will be a fruitless attempt to overturn the elections and Republican divisions will play out as this debate also does.

BLITZER: Yes. In 14 days, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the next president of the United States, stand by. Phil Mattingly is also up on Capitol Hill. What are you seeing, what are you hearing, Phil?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf. Manu laid out the objections that will occur and what that will actually result in, debate and an eventual vote. But I'm told pay attention to some House Republicans who may try and raise some of the very issues that President Trump has been raising. And to be very clear, these are fringe issues. These are issues that have no bearing on what's going to happen today.

However, it doesn't mean they won't be brought up at all ideas, like the possibility of competing slates of electors or that Mike Pence in the chair, as Vice President and President of the Senate would have the option of unilaterally rejecting electors, even the possibility of trying to force adjournment so a 10-day Election Commission can be put into place, keep an eye on all of those things being possible. It's the type of thing that President Trump has tweeted about. It's the type of thing people in his periphery have said is possible.

Let me make something abundantly clear. It is not possible under the Electoral Count Act, there are a very specific set of guidelines statutorily that must be followed on this day. There are parliamentarians in the House and the Senate who met with Vice President Mike Pence. He knows what he can and can't do. Those objections may lead to some brief chaos, but they will go absolutely nowhere. They might impress the President, but they will fail, Wolf.

BLITZER: We will be knowing for sure in the next few hours. Thanks very much, Phil. Brian Todd is watching the protesters, the pro-Trump protesters that have gathered here in Washington D.C. What are you seeing, Brian?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, lots of energy up here on the east front of the Capitol. This crowd has been building for the last couple of hours. And we know it's going to grow significantly in the next couple as people from the ellipse where the President has spoken are going to start making their way up here. We know there are thousands of people down there on the ellipse down near the White House.

Many of them going to make their way up Constitution Avenue to where we're standing right here, but we've got hundreds of people here who have been here for hours. Just, you know, they -- we had saw a motorcade come up here a short time ago. We're not sure if that's Vice President Pence or not, but a lot of people chanting, you know, we want Trump, fight for Trump.

Come on over here, we'll show you we'll set the scene a little bit. Something People are speaking from megaphones up here on this rise. And, you know, what we talked to a couple of organizers of these protests. One of them told me that a lot of these people feel like they haven't had what he called their day in court. And this is kind of the way they want to affect that. They want to come here and start to, you know, chant for Congress to as they say, do their job and decertify the results.

[12:45:22]

They know a lot of them know that can't happen, but they still want to have their voices heard here. This one organizer told me that as long as the President keeps fighting, excuse me, sir, as long as the President keeps fighting, they'll keep fighting. So, you know, and I asked him whether you're going to come back to the inauguration, he was kind of noncommittal. But you get the impression that a lot of these people do want to at least keep this fight up for the next couple of weeks up to the inauguration.

Security is a major concern here. The Capitol Hill police are the barricade over there. We just saw a phalanx of Capitol Hill police walk through here, just to show their presence here. Law enforcement authorities are wary of people possibly coming here bringing firearms. They're warning people that you're going to be arrested if you carry firearms in the open. This is not an open carry city. So they're concerned about that. There have been 10 arrests made overnight, by the way, we should say, charges ranging from assault to illegal possession of firearms.

So they are concerned about that, Wolf, as people make their way here. They're going to keep a close eye on people bearing firearms in public. So far, a very peaceful protest but officials here, huge security cordon around this area of capitol hill and down Constitution Avenue, massive police presence, and police say that they're going to, as they say, surge personnel into areas where there could be trouble, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Brian Todd, watching all of this unfold. Brian, thank you very much. And, Jake, I just want to point out. It's so sad that the Mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, had no choice but out of an abundance of caution to ask to mobilize the National Guard or the D.C. National Guard here in the Nation's Capital.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: That's right. A lot of American citizens who have been lied to by President Trump and mega media, perhaps understandably outraged based on all those lies. Let's bring in Alan Frumin. He's a former parliamentarian of the United States Senate, also Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics czar for the Obama administration. We're all going to ask you questions. Gentlemen, thanks for joining us.

Alan, let me start with you, and just the elephant in the room, the obvious question, is there anything that Vice President Pence as the President of the Senate can do to stop President-elect Biden's electoral count recognition, the official counting in Congress today?

ALAN FRUMIN, FORMER SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN: There is absolutely nothing of which I'm aware in the Constitution and the relevant statutes in the precedence of the Senate and the House, in conventional practice, and in common sense, that gives the vice president any ability whatsoever, legitimately to halt, stop or delay the proceedings that are about to take place.

TAPPER: And Norm, you are the White House ethics czar among other jobs you've had. One of the things that we've seen repeatedly with this whole effort, stop the steal, all these lies and conspiracy theories pushed by President Trump pushed by Senators and members of the House is that a lot of people are getting a lot of money out of it. There's a lot of fundraising going along with it. President Trump's put, you know, is sending out dozens and dozens of texts and e-mails, raising money that I believe he does not have to spend most of it at all on any legal challenges at all. Is there anything illegal about any of it?

NORM EISEN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ETHICS CZAR: Well, he's allowed to raise the money. It's terribly wrong. It's unethical. It's a betrayal of his duty to the country. The illegal part comes when he demands his vice president to do unlawful acts like decertify. There's no such thing under the law as decertifying these votes. Of course his call to Georgia was illegal. And we'll see. We don't know all the details about these hundreds of millions of dollars yet.

Where Trump goes, illegality follows. Fortunately, today, it looks like Congress is going to definitively reject that.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: You have been through, you know, your share of these events, these constitutionally mandated events that happen on this day at this time, every four years. Have you ever even just privately had members of Congress come to you and ask them, we've seen objections publicly, but ask if something this frankly ridiculous is possible? Have you had conversations that come even close to what we're going to see them, attempt to the show that we're going to see them put on today?

[12:50:12]

FRUMIN: I'm not sure if that's addressed to me or to Norm?

BASH: To Alan Frumin.

FRUMIN: Go ahead Norm.

EISEN: Oh, I think --

FRUMIN: The short answer, Dana, is no.

BASH: The short answer to you is no.

FRUMIN: I'll take the question, as I as said, is no, conclusively no.

BASH: And Norm, yes, I mean, you haven't been a parliamentarian per se but you've certainly been involved in conversations about, you know, how to work through what is necessary, constitutionally and what is a possibility, politically.

EISEN: Dana, as you know, when I was counsel for the House in the impeachment and the impeachment trial, we constantly work through these issues, including spending two weeks on the floor of the Senate with the parliamentarians. And I can tell you that my conversations then, and since what is going to happen today by these few rogue members of the Senate, and unfortunately, a larger group of the minority in the House is repugnant to the rules, to their fellow senators and House members.

And you will hear from the parliamentarian today. And Alan knows that parliamentary staff well. If there is any effort to color outside the lines, that it is a violation of the rules. Hopefully the Vice President as the presiding officer will go along with that.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And Alan to that point, this is Abby Phillip. Coloring outside of the lines is actually something that there seems to be an openness to from the Vice President in terms of at least voicing some kind of concurrence with the idea that he supports, you know, dissenting the electoral votes being counted from certain states.

Is there room in the process for the Vice President to say in his ceremonial position that he supports the idea that these electoral votes shouldn't be counted, even though he ultimately will have to count them?

FRUMIN: Abby, if there's room in the process, I've never seen it. I've got a bunch of papers here in front of me, I've got the Constitution, I've got the relevant statutory language. I've looked all over for something that would authorize the Vice President to speak and to express an opinion, and it's like trying to find Waldo, it ain't there.

TAPPER: All right, Alan and Norm, thank you so much, really appreciate it. Wolf, back to you.

BLITZER: Very interesting indeed. I want to go to Arlette Saenz. She's joining us from Wilmington right now. She's covering the Biden transition. I'm curious, Arlette, what are you hearing about Senator, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her role? What is it going to be today? What is she planning on doing?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be up on Capitol Hill for that joint session of Congress as they are heading into counting and certifying the electoral votes. And I'm told that the Senator and Vice President-elect will be voting during today's proceedings, but she is not planning to speak as they enter those debate periods, as senators are expected to raise some objections to this.

She will be there in her capacity as a U.S. Senator, which she will be doing for the next two weeks until she formerly resigns before becoming Vice President-elect. And as one Harris Senate aide put it, they said that the American people did their job. And now Harris will be doing her job today, as she is looking ahead to voting during these proceedings that really should just be a formality. But some Republicans are putting up objections to, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Arlette, thank you very much. I'm here with John King. We're watching what's happening, a historic moments. This is a joint session of the House and Senate. We're looking at live pictures. Senators will be walking over to the House of Representatives. And we're seeing that unfold.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: All right when you have the joint session. Again, it's supposed to be a celebration, a ritual, a reaffirmation, an affirmation of the strength of our democracy. They come to a joint session for a day like this. They come to a joint session for the State of the Union. They're supposed to be celebrations of the American democracy and what makes America exceptional as I said earlier, today, we're going to have a display of a firewall, if you will.

We're showing you the live pictures of the Senate right there. But the Republicans who stand up and object during this process are essentially trying to say that this didn't happen, that this didn't happen, at this, you know, the map here. We're showing the picture of the floor here that this election did not happen. The election happened. They're going to object. This is done in alphabetical order. They bring in the state electorals and they try to report them and put them on the record.

You can object that is part of the process. It was just detail by the excellent attorneys, but they have no basis. You're supposed to only object if you have a basis. Arizona's going to come up first. The objection in Arizona will come up first because -- as they go through the states beginning in A, they went to court in Arizona. Yes, it was a close election. Yes. First time a Democrat carried Arizona since 1996. A big deal for Republicans to lose that state but Trump lost.

[12:55:10]

The Republican Senate candidate lost, they had a chance to appeal. They went to court. They didn't succeed, because they had no evidence. And then we'll move to Georgia at least, and then Pennsylvania. And you see the senators on the floor here. And it's fascinating here. This is the tone and tenor not only the end of the Trump administration, but the beginning of the Biden administration.

And I'm fascinated, Wolf, to watch this play out. Because you see, the Democrats largely kind of sit back and watch because they think this Civil War within the Republican Party, do you stand with President Trump or do you finally say, let's try to push President Trump to the sideline? It's going to be fascinating and divisive on a day that is supposed to be a celebration.

BLITZER: What President Trump has been doing since the election certainly did not help his fellow Republicans in Georgia.

KING: No, look, again, if you want to, you know, so the President says he was robbed. Then you have two Senate elections in a state that for more than a generation has been solidly Republican, that has a republican governor, that has a Republican secretary of state, all the statewide officials of consequence are Republicans. It had two Republican senators. It now we'll have most likely, we haven't called the Ossoff race yet, two Democratic senators. So in the aftermath to the election, the President challenges the system in the state of Georgia once again says go away.

BLITZER: We're seeing the Vice President Mike Pence was also the president of the U.S. Senate. Jim Acosta is joining us right now you're getting some new information, Jim. What are you learning?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, Vice President Pence, he knows he's in a difficult position right now, because he's under so much pressure from the President. He has just released a statement, talking about essentially what he plans to do, how he plans to preside over today's ceremonial counting of the electoral votes. And what he is saying in the statement, Wolf, and I can read it to you is that basically he is not going to do the President's bidding and overturn the election results or attempt to overturn the election results, something that he cannot do.

I can read some of this to you. It says Dear Colleague today for the 59th time in our nation's history Congress will convene a joint session to count the electoral votes for President of the United States. Under our Constitution, it will be my duty as Vice President and as President of the Senate to serve as the presiding officer. He goes on here in this statement to essentially acknowledge some of the President's misgivings about the election.

He says after an election with significant allegations of voter irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law, I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of this election. But he goes on to say, there's some other context here I think I can go past. He goes on here to say given the controversy surrounding this year's election, some approach this year's quadrennial tradition with great expectation, others with dismissive disdain. Some believe that as Vice President I should be able to accept or reject electoral votes unilaterally.

Others believe that electoral votes should never be challenged in a joint session of Congress. After a careful study of our Constitution, our laws and our history, I believe neither view is correct. He goes on to say the President is the chief executive officer of the federal government under our Constitution, possessing immense power to impact the lives of the American people. The presidency belongs to the American people and to them alone.

When disputes concerning a presidential election arise under federal law, it is the people's representatives who review the evidence and resolve disputes through a democratic process. Our founders were deeply skeptical of concentrations of power and created a republic based on separations of power on separation of power and checks and balances under the Constitution of the United States.

He goes on to say vesting, the Vice President with unilateral authority to decide presidential contest would be entirely antithetical to that design. He -- so he is essentially at that point, Wolf, in this statement, saying, the Vice President does not have the unilateral authority to decide presidential contest. He says that would be entirely antithetical to what's in the constitution and his role as vice president in these procedures.

So Wolf, the Vice President is now throwing cold water as these proceedings are about to begin. He is throwing cold water on the President's demands that he toss out the results or attempt to toss out the results of the November 3rd election, Wolf.

This is an historic moment, because the President has put the Vice President in a vise. He is attempting to pressure and cajole the Vice President into operating outside the constitution and tossing out the will of the American people. And the Vice President is telling the President he is not going to do his bidding. He is not going to defy the Constitution and the will of the American voter, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, very significant statement by the Vice President of the United States. Indeed, you know, John, he's about to be introduced. The speaker is there. This is a joint session of the House and the Senate. They will receive the Electoral College results. They got the boxes over there. And the Electoral College convened.

[13:00:04]

Let's listen.