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New Day

Virginia Governor Target of Kidnapping Plot; Georgia Voters Stand in Early Voting Lines; Early Voter Lines and Delays. Aired 8:30- 9a ET

Aired October 14, 2020 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:33:53]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Developing this morning, an FBI agent testified that the suspects accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer were also discussing kidnapping Virginia Governor Ralph Northam because of his coronavirus restrictions. This is what Governor Northam told us just a few moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RALPH NORTHAM (D-VA): I don't govern under a cloud of intimidation. That's -- that's not who I am. And this is not about me, it's not about the governor of Michigan, this is about this country and it's about a president that is emboldening these individuals, these white supremacists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN contributor Miles Taylor. He's a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security.

Miles, thanks so much for being with us.

It was interesting to hear from Governor Northam. And I will not get over the headline here that there were people arrested for plotting to kidnap two sitting U.S. governors. That's just something that shouldn't wash over you.

Governor Northam makes the point that President Trump called on his followers last spring to, quote, liberate Michigan and also liberate Virginia. And now we see these allegations of plots to kidnap both of those governors.

[08:35:03]

What's your takeaway?

MILES TAYLOR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, look, John, I would say this, the big takeaway for Americans is that our city streets have now become the front lines in the war on terror. Now, in my time at DHS, I never saw anything like this on U.S. soil, right? The most insidious terrorist plots that we were tracking were hatched in overseas conflict zones, in war zones halfway around the world.

Now we're talking about terrorist plots hatched in the back alleys and backyards of our own country. I mean, John, let's look at this, this was multiple U.S. individuals across multiple U.S. states with ties to multiple U.S.-based militias. This was not a lone wolf operation. This was a terrorist cell in our own country with our own citizens targeting our own elected official.

My second point, John, would be that this is a serious threat and one that we need to take seriously. The light is blinking red when it comes to domestic terrorism in the United States and the expectation should be that the administration will take concrete steps to address it. They should release a domestic terrorism strategy, they should resource it with the people and dollars needed to go after these guys, but, unfortunately, this has been something I've been warning the White House to do for two years and they still haven't done it.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And One the other things, Miles, that makes it so chilling is that this -- I mean as crazy as it sounds, this was not a half-baked plan. I mean the FBI had infiltrated, thank God, these groups and they moved in and arrested them and swooped in because they were on the verge, the next day, of buying explosives to start putting their plan into action.

TAYLOR: That's right. I mean it was stunning. If you look at the details of this plot, in many ways it echoes some of the serious terrorist plots that we saw planned by groups like ISIS or individuals inspired by ISIS. They consider doing, you know, weapons training, allegedly, you know, some consideration of explosives, multiple potential targets, details about how they would go through with the operation, but also very importantly the recruiting and the networking that happened.

Additionally, there's some indication that these individuals were following operational security, you know, as they planned their plot as we've seen, you know, with other individuals from foreign terrorist organizations. So, yes, the sophistication here is what should be a major worry for us.

BERMAN: So, Miles, you worked inside the national security establishment as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. This morning we learned that despite the cries from the president and his supporters and an entire television network for years that something untoward was happening in the Obama administration, about unmasking, unmasking is asking for names to be unredacted in intelligence documents, there was an investigation by the Justice Department, "The Washington Post" reports this morning, they didn't find anything illegal, no criminal charges, they're not even going to write a report. Nothing to see here.

What's your takeaway from this, this morning?

TAYLOR: Well, I said this to someone yesterday and said it online, this really shows that the president of the United States has a pretty tortured relationship with masks. And we're not just talking about his unwillingness to wear masks with COVID-19. He's been so hyper focused on this practice of unmasking. But I'll tell you, as a former national security official, this is a very common practice. What happens is, you might get very sensitive intelligence information regarding very serious threats to the United States, and usually, and appropriately, the intelligence community redacts the names of U.S. officials and U.S. organizations. But if it's something serious that needs to be followed up on, oftentimes you might need to put in a request to find out who that individual was. There is a disciplined process for that, one that includes transparency, oversight, internal checks and balances because you don't want the names of U.S. individuals to be in intelligence that officials see all the time. But people follow that process so that they can make sure that Americans are protected.

But, again, there's oversight and transparency in that process. So what I believe that John Bash found, who was investigating this, was, there was nothing wrong here and that this was all bluster on behalf of the president.

BERMAN: That's a lot of taxpayer dollars down the tubes on that.

Miles Taylor, thank you for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

TAYLOR: Thank you.

BERMAN: We have live pictures we want to show you this morning. This comes from Georgia. Just a sampling of the lines we are seeing. Election Day for the next 20 days in America.

CAMEROTA: Where's your graphic?

BERMAN: Zero -- well, zero days until Election Day in America. We have a live report, next.

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[08:43:36]

CAMEROTA: Thousands of voters in Georgia braving long lines at polling stations. This is live. OK. They are back at it this morning. We saw it yesterday and they're doing it again this morning.

CNN's Amara Walker is live in Atlanta with more.

What are you seeing?

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there. Good morning, Alisyn.

Yes, well, the line here has been building since 6:00 this morning. That is two hours before this early voting location in Fulton County opened. You can see the line is quite long now. Forty minutes after this location opened, in fact, some people bringing their foldable chairs anticipating a long wait time.

Although we're told by the poll workers here that they don't expect the wait to be longer than an hour, an hour and a half right now, which is much better than what we saw yesterday where the wait time was about three hours. All in all I can tell you, Alisyn, the people are in great spirits.

The overarching theme really has been passion. People feeling so passionate about this election, knowing that Georgia is a presidential battleground state and they say that there are a lot of issues that are important to them and that their vote is going to directly impact their lives and their livelihood.

Here's more of what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARMAN WASHINGTON, GEORGIA VOTER: We heard that the lines have been pretty long everywhere across the state and so we just wanted to be here early to get it done and make sure our vote -- our vote is counted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a generational election. People have to get out and vote.

[08:45:02]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The lines are longer. In the primary we waited about four hours. But we're willing to do whatever it takes to get the vote in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: And the reason why we're seeing such long lines, Alisyn, is that we are seeing record turnout. The Georgia secretary of state said that more than nearly 130,000 Georgians voted on the first day of early voting, which was on Monday, and that was a record turnout.

Also what we're seeing are people showing up in person to vote despite having signed up for an absentee ballot. So a lot of people who had ordered these mail-in ballots instead are opting to show up in person. And that is, of course, also adding to the longer wait times.

Alisyn, back to you.

CAMEROTA: That's really interesting. Amara, thank you very much. It's amazing to see people exercising their civic duty there.

OK, so what's the latest on attempted voter suppression? We take that up, next.

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[08:50:01]

CAMEROTA: In-person voting already underway in many cities, but early voting has already been marked by very long lines and long wait times.

Joining us now to talk about all of this is W. Kamau Bell, host and executive producer of CNN's "UNITED SHADES OF AMERICA," and writer and comedian Hari Kondabolu. Great to see both of you there, the co-hosts of the podcast

"Politically Re-Active," which has just launched its new season with new episodes every Thursday.

Great to see you, gentlemen.

HARI KONDABOLU, COMEDIAN, WRITER AND PODCASTER: Thanks for having us.

CAMEROTA: So, Kamau, are we supposed to be heartened by all the civic engagement of this early voting and these long lines, or is it showing us that there's a system that is sort of stretched beyond capacity for various reasons?

W. KAMAU BELL, HOST AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, CNN'S "UNITED SHADES OF AMERICA": No, I don't think we should be heartened at all. I think we should see that voter suppression is baked into the system. Voting should be easy, accessible. It should be a system that takes just a few minutes. It should not be something that makes people have to make a plan.

I'm with the ACLU. I'm their celebrity ambassador for racial injustice. Yes, I'm a celebrity. And they encourage people to make a voting plan. The ACLU has encouraged people to make a voting plan, as do other groups, because you have to think ahead otherwise your vote may not make it there.

BERMAN: All right, I mean, I didn't hear anything besides I'm a celebrity there. Everything else was sort of (INAUDIBLE).

KONDABOLU: That's all I heard.

BERMAN: You know, so, Hari, it is interesting, though. We speak to experts, Professor Rick Hasten (ph) from California, Jessica Huesman (ph). When you're talking about the first day of voting in a place like Georgia and you see long lines, sometimes it's hard to know right away if it's about enthusiasm, which is at apparently record highs. I mean there are people showing up at twice the levels that they showed up before. Whether or not it's the enthusiasm or whether or not it's the incompetence or maybe even nefarious actions.

So how do you discern between the two? Can't -- can there be one without the other?

KONDABOLU: I mean, it could be a combination, but I know that this is a country that is actively tried to suppress the votes of human beings for quite some time. Even registration is absurd, as is the claims that there's voter fraud in this country. I mean this is a country where half the population votes, less than half the population votes. Like you're telling me that now people are voting multiple times or for other people to such a degree where it's going to turn an election? I mean that's not America. I mean if we're talking about people waiting online for Black Tuesday all night and then grabbing an extra Roomba, yes, that's realistic. Going over your Roomba limit seems realistic, not -- not voter fraud.

CAMEROTA: Kamau, on TV you have done all sorts of great reporting of going inside, you know, fringe groups, extremist groups and trying to understand them, trying to shine a light on them. And so with all the news that's been happening this week in terms of the plots against sitting U.S. governors, what's your take on this?

BELL: You know, currently, for the next season of "UNITED SHADES," we're working on an episode about policing. And one of the big things that we're talking about in the episode is the way in which black people and people of colors' bodies are criminalized even when we're not doing anything wrong. And I think we can see right now that even with this rise in right wing violence or even threats of violence, there's still -- white people are not criminalized in the same way.

If you look at Kyle Rittenhouse and the way that he was able to shoot people and kill people and just walk past the police, and then if you look at the way that the Sheriff Darliff (ph) in Michigan handled those 13 people trying to kidnap the governor and saying, well, was it a kidnapping or was it an arrest? And I think that's the -- that's why this violence is allowed to rise because generally white people aren't criminalized even when they're doing criminal things.

BERMAN: Hari, we were talking before about these plots that have been uncovered, these alleged plots to kidnap the governors of Michigan and Virginia. And I don't know if it's 2020 or not, but it seems like some people can say that sentence without taking a step back and saying, are you serious, there were active plots to kidnap two sitting governors?

KONDABOLU: I don't think it's year specific, I think this is years of not paying attention to these groups, not seeing this as domestic terrorism, the fact that people can rest on the Second Amendment to protect their right to have gun ownership and to form militias.

You know, the fact this has been ignored. We have a president that's condoning like such behavior. Meanwhile, like, we haven't been able to bring a full tube of toothpaste to the airport in two decades for fear of it being part of a terrorist plot. Like, where are our priorities as a country?

CAMEROTA: Kamau, tell us about the podcast.

BELL: Well, we were gone for three years. We were supposed to be out for one season until Hillary Clinton won the presidency, but then we stayed for two years. And then our fans demanded we come back. We thought we were done. But, you know, 2020's doing a lot of amazing things, even bringing this podcast back between two people who clearly hate each other.

BERMAN: You're there because the fans are demanding it.

KONDABOLU: Yes, I can't stand him.

[08:55:01]

BERMAN: Go ahead, Hari.

KONDABOLU: No, no, the -- we have fans. If you're asking if we have fans, we do have fans, and they are demanding it.

CAMEROTA: You're famous. I mean that's what we've gotten from this. You're famous and you have fans.

BERMAN: Celebrities. Celebrities.

CAMEROTA: Yes, celebrities.

BERMAN: What more can we say?

Gentlemen, great to have you on. Good luck on season three of the podcast. Really appreciate you being here.

KONDABOLU: Thank you.

BELL: Thank you.

KONDABOLU: Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: All right, coronavirus cases surging to levels we have not seen since early April. CNN's coverage continues right after this.

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Right now day three of confirmation hearings for President Trump's Supreme Court pick, Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett will face another round of questioning from senators. We will follow any developments on Capitol Hill.

Also this morning, 36 states are now seeing a surge in coronavirus cases. Hospitalizations rising as well nationwide.

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