Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Security Failures of the U.S. Capitol; Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is Interviewed about the Violence at the U.S. Capitol; Congress Certifies Biden Victory; Trump's American Carnage. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 07, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: To simply arrest people. You bring up some buses, you get the D.C. police mobilized, you take out the hats and bats. You come in riot gear and you start letting people know there are going to be some consequences. A lot of the stragglers, a lot of the folks who were maybe a little bit ambivalent will get the picture that they have to go home. But none of that happened. And we really deserve answers about why.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Mike Rogers, help us understand it. You are the best equipped. You've been a congressman in this chamber and you've been an FBI agent.

How did this happen?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Well, clearly the Capitol Police were not prepared for people storming the Capitol, which is a little bit surprising because in every big gathering down in D.C., they tend to get prepared. So I do think there's a lot of questions that they're going to have to answer for.

Even when you saw some of the footage inside some of the areas of -- of the -- which are, you know, national monuments, by the way, there just was hardly any Capitol Police officers visible. I mean one or two. And, you know, one or two are not going to be able to stop 30, 40, 50, 100 people milling around. But there didn't seem to be any arrests made. And that, to me, was a little bit surprising that we didn't see them take any action, especially when we saw them breaking windows. So there was clearly violent acts to breach the Capitol. There should have been a much different, more certain response.

And I would add this. I believe that they need to go with the full force of the law against the people who we have video proof and evidence that they were in violation of the law of the United States, when they went into the Capitol. It's the only way to send a message that this was, a, not funny, this is not selfie time, it's not put it up on your FaceBook and be proud of your moment. This is go to jail time. We cannot tolerate peaceful protests spilling into violent acts. And that's exactly what we saw yesterday.

And, again, I do think there were elements of that crowd who had completely different motives, anarchists, pipe bombs as an example of that and other pretty -- that people who had come to the Capitol equipped for violent acts. Boy, that's a whole different matter altogether. And we ought to step up pretty -- pretty -- link arms in the United States and say, we're not going to tolerate this.

And our standing in the world is already under question, already under question going into this event. And now we've given b-roll to every anti-American propaganda campaign around the world. I mean this is going to leave a scar and it's something we're going to have to deal with. And I would argue the best way to do this is be certain about the folks that we go after, who broke the law, and we can prove that they broke the law at the Capitol.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: What about the people who sent them there? That's an open question, as well.

Elizabeth Newman, Chairman Rogers, Errol Louis, we thank you all for being with us this morning.

So a Republican congresswoman who had been a pretty big supporter of President Trump now says all of his accomplishments over the past four years have been wide out. She joins us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:37:18]

BERMAN: New calls this morning to invoke the 25th Amendment after President Trump encouraged a mob of domestic terrorists to storm the U.S. Capitol. Four people are now dead. Pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails found at the Democratic and Republican Party headquarters. One lawmaker we just heard from said she feared it could have been a mass casualty incident.

Joining me now is newly elected Republican member of Congress, Nancy Mace. She was just -- Nancy Mace. You were just sworn in on Sunday.

Look, congratulations on your election and your new job. I'm very sorry this has been what your first week is like.

How do you explain what happened in the Capitol yesterday?

REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): You can't -- you can't explain what happened yesterday. It was a sad day for our nation. I was shocked. I was heartbroken. And I was pissed off and angry by seeing this violent mob. This wasn't protests, this was anarchy last night.

And this weekend -- I got sworn in on Sunday. I swore an oath to the Constitution. I brought my two children, I'm a single mom, I'm the first Republican woman elected to Congress from South Carolina.

But the rhetoric that I was seeing online, on social media, I was worried about the outcome of the rally on Wednesday. I sent my children home on the first flight Monday morning because I was so concerned about it.

This is un-American and it's wrong. And I woke up this morning being criticized for voting to certify a legally certified election, in all 50 states, for certifying the Electoral College. This needs to stop. Enough is enough.

BERMAN: You say you were concerned by the rhetoric. The rhetoric from whom? Whose rhetoric caused you to send your kids home?

MACE: From -- from the president on down, to my colleagues here in Congress that when you -- when you speak like that, when you incite this kind of violence, rhetoric has real consequences. I -- someone threatened to shoot me recently on social media. I was accosted on the street of -- on a street of D.C. on Tuesday night here. It's wrong. It puts people's lives at risk.

BERMAN: So was it six or seven U.S. senators, more than a hundred members of the House still voted to overturn the election after the attempted insurrection here.

MACE: Well --

BERMAN: What's your message to those people?

MACE: I'm disappointed right now. I think that after last night -- and I'm on my 100th hour of being a member of Congress. I'm working on about two hours of sleep. I'm distraught. We've got to rebuild our nation. And we've got to rebuild our party. This is -- this is not who we are. It's extremely distressing. And it's saddening. It's heartbreaking.

BERMAN: What does this do -- I mean you were supportive of President Trump during your campaign. I mean you're a Republican.

MACE: Yes.

BERMAN: What does this do, do you think, to his legacy?

MACE: Everything that he's worked for, and I'm a fiscal conservative, I appreciated the lower tax rates that we had, the economic growth, Operation Warp Speed during the pandemic, all of these were great for our country.

[06:40:07]

But all of that, his entire legacy, was wiped out yesterday. And we've got to start over. We don't have the ground that we need to push forward and do the things that we need to do to be successful and work for and be the voice for hard-working Americans that believed in his message. We cannot condone the violence. My colleagues need to continue to condone it. We need to have leadership right now more than ever in our country. We've got to rebuild our nation and rebuild our party.

BERMAN: How much responsibility and culpability do Republicans who have been in Congress -- and you haven't -- over the last four years, because a lot of what the president said the last few weeks isn't any different than what he said over the last four years. So what responsibility do people have for creating this permission structure for this?

MACE: Right, I -- they should be taking 100 percent responsibility for this. They've enabled this. And I was shocked, as anybody, that -- that the words turned to action yesterday. The videos that I was being sent from constituents who came up here thinking they were peacefully protesting and when things went bad, iPhones went up. And seeing some of the videos where someone's shouting, send your women home and go get your guns! This is -- this is un-American. A pipe bomb, multiple pipe bombs, allegedly, dropped off at the headquarters of the Republican Party. This is -- this is third world country stuff. And it needs to stop.

BERMAN: So you were so concerned by what the president was saying earlier this week that you sent your children home. And, again, I'm sorry you had to do that. I know you wanted them there with you all week, your first week of Congress. How great would it have been from them to do remote learning from your congressional office?

MACE: First week of Congress -- right, COVID-19, they're unable to go to school. They do virtual learning. And I thought, how neat would that be to roam the halls of Congress, to do your virtual classes, be part of history. And, instead, I put them on the first flight home Monday morning.

BERMAN: So if you --

MACE: Because I was worried. And my fears came true yesterday.

BERMAN: So I guess my question is, if it's not safe enough for your kids to be with you on Capitol Hill because of what the president has been saying, why is it safe enough for America for the next 13 days to have him in the Oval Office? How serious do you think the discussions need to be about the 25th Amendment this morning?

MACE: Well, yesterday I was urging the president to get off Twitter and to get on television, to urge calm and peace for our nation. Somebody needs to do it. And that's where I am today. I'm a hundred hours into being a member of Congress. I've slept for two hours last night. I am distraught. I'm trying to urge my colleagues to extend that leadership, stop this rhetoric, stop objecting to and using the language of the rigged election.

Now is not the time to be talking about that. We -- the weeks leading up to this have led to this violence and it needs to end. There will be a time and a place to look at voter irregularities, voter fraud, and what did or did not happen. There are a lot of folks in states, state legislatures that are concerned and are trying to still find relief in courts, whether that's state or federal. Those things need to be adjudicated there. We can't adjudicate voter fraud in an hour- long debate on the House floor.

This -- what happened yesterday is because millions of people across the country were misled by Republicans and by the administration that members of Congress could overturn and usurp the Electoral College in a single vote to object yesterday. And that's simply not true. Millions of people were led to believe that the vice president could overturn the results of the election yesterday, single-handedly. And thank God Vice President Pence spoke up yesterday morning and said, no, that's not the case, and ended that rumor.

But the expectations were set very high for these folks. They were lied to. And it's dishonest. And I -- you know, voters' hearts, minds, and worst yet their wallets were taken advantage of.

BERMAN: Yes.

MACE: And we've seen the outcome, anarchy. We're not the party of Antifa. We're the party that protects our police, we don't attack them.

BERMAN: So --

MACE: And I'm going to continue to stand for freedom and the Constitution and the rule of law.

BERMAN: The Constitution does allow for the removal of the president with the 25th Amendment. My question to you is, there are 13 days left. If the president were to resign this morning and turn it over to Mike Pence, would you welcome that?

MACE: I don't -- I don't deal in rumor. I'm going to take the facts as they hit us. I've been on this job for a hundred hours. This is not an easy job. It's a hard job. And I was built for hard. And I promised my constituents every decision I made, every vote I took, every position I took would honor and support the Constitution and the rule of law.

BERMAN: Do you feel safe with the president in the Oval Office today?

MACE: Well, I will tell you this much, I didn't go to my hotel last night because I didn't feel like it was safe to do so. I was accosted on the street -- on a street of D.C. on Tuesday evening before all of this happened. We don't know what will happen today. I hope that our leaders of our nation will encourage peace and ask people to peacefully return home so that it is safe out there, not just for a member of Congress, but for every -- every American citizen in D.C. and across their cities across the nation today.

BERMAN: Congresswoman Nancy Mace, we appreciate your time this morning. Again, congratulations on your election.

MACE: Thank you.

BERMAN: I hope -- I hope this term gets better for you over the next few days, weeks, and months. Thank you for your service.

MACE: Thank you. Pray for our country. Pray for peace. And, thank you.

[06:45:00]

BERMAN: Congress has officially now counted and read aloud the votes. Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20th. The president-elect is forcefully condemning the violent mob that stormed the Capitol. We have much more on all these developments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Breaking news, Congress has officially certified Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. It happened at 4:35 a.m. Eastern Time after a day filled of deadly chaos.

President-elect Joe Biden condemned the violent mob at the Capitol and we will hear from him again in a few hours.

CNN's Jessica Dean is live in Wilmington, Delaware, with more.

What do we need to know, Jessica?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you, Alisyn.

We are going to hear from the president-elect later today. That's because he's formally announced Judge Merrick Garland as his nominee for attorney general. He also named a number of other top positions within his Justice Department team. You see additional names there, as well. This is the team they will formally unveil today.

Garland, of course, was a top contender in this big decision that Joe Biden had to make and one of his last remaining cabinet decisions.

[06:50:09]

He said he didn't want to wait until after the Georgia runoff to make this decision. That is what happened. Of course there were concerns over a court vacancy with Judge Merrick Garland coming off the court and going to be attorney general. But with Democrats now taking control of the Senate, there are less concerns about that, as well.

All of this coming at a very interesting time, after yesterday's violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. And we heard President-elect Joe Biden speaking out against that violence.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT FOR THE UNITED STATES: Let me be very clear. The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are.

This is the United States of America. There's never, ever, ever, ever, ever been a thing we've tried to do, that we've done it together, that we've not been able to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And, John, it was interesting to see President-elect Biden yesterday coming out and quickly, forcefully condemning the violence there at the U.S. Capitol over the last four years, when things like this have happened, not that there's anything to compare yesterday to. But when there have been violent events and clashes, we've waited for President Trump to condemn that. Will he condemn it? Will he not? Certainly a very different approach from President-elect Joe Biden.

And, John, we will hear more from him and his new justice team later today.

BERMAN: We will come back to you when that happens.

And not only did President Trump fail to condemn it in a timely fashion yesterday, he called for it. He sent this mob to march on the Capitol.

Jessica, thanks so much for being with us.

So we just talked to Congresswoman Nancy Mace from South Carolina, who said that the president's actions over the last week have wiped out his entire legacy. That was from a Republican member of Congress.

So how will this presidency be remembered in history? We'll discuss, next.

Oh, wait, no, it's not next. I'm just going to go right to John Avlon, whose here now.

CAMEROTA: I would do that if I were you. Do that.

BERMAN: I wasn't sure.

CAMEROTA: Don't make us wait.

BERMAN: I had reasonable doubt of what was coming up next, because it wasn't at all clear.

John Avlon here with a "Reality Check."

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: All right, guys.

There is now no question that Donald Trump will go down as the worst president in American history. The storming of the U.S. Capitol by right-wing rioters is a monument to his misrule.

This was an attempted coup, encouraged by the president of the United States, designed to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

And while the heart of our legislative branch was being trashed, a source tells CNN, Trump resisted calling in the National Guard.

Donald Trump's legacy is American carnage. Our country's far more divided, violent and deranged than before he entered office. But this is what happens when hyper partisans indulge lies, corruptions, and conspiracy theories for political gain.

They can't say they didn't see this coming. Trump's rhetoric already led to death threats against honest election officials across the country. And the 138 Republican House members and seven senators, including Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, are also culpable for this violence because they stoked its fears without any facts.

So is Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who demanded trial by combat at Wednesday morning's rally. And now we are all reaping what they've sewn, as Trump watches it all burn on TV from within the White House.

But then there are some men who want to ruin, if they cannot rule. No hostile foreign power has done more damage to what President-elect Biden called the citadel of liberty since an invading British army burned it down in the War of 1812. And there's no question that the enemies of democracy are cheering the actions yesterday.

It is a stunning, but not surprising to see some self-styled constitutional conservatives who yelled about mob violence default to rationalizing this violence through a flurry of what-about-ism (ph). Folks who proclaimed facts don't care about your feelings, certainly seem to care a lot about the feelings of certain people who commit political violence. And that's usually a definition of terrorism.

But these attackers were not contained or confronted or even arrested in large numbers. If they'd been black or left wing or Muslim, the calls for violent retribution by the president and his allies would have been deafening. Instead, the mask has come off. The calls for law and order were really about race. The calls for respecting democratic traditions apparently only mattered when elections were won by Republicans. And now there will need to be accountability.

For the president, there are calls for his impeachment and reportedly discussions about the 25th Amendment. And there is certainly cause, but probably not time, though censure remains an option. But his legal problems will just be beginning on January 20th and Twitter should de- platform him permanently.

[06:55:00]

For the rioters, there needs to be arrests and prosecutions and an investigation into how they were able to storm our Capitol. And for those who voted to contest the election results, even after the attack, they should not be forgiven, but targeted for political defeat.

We will overcome this assault on our democracy, but only if we confront the cult of Trump and those who have enabled it by resolving to learn the right lessons. That democracy's guardrails need to be strengthened, that character counts above all in a president and that hate and lies can never be channeled in a constructive direction.

And that's your "Reality Check."

CAMEROTA: John, thank you very much. Just looking at the pictures, I can't get use to them. It's sickening every single time I see the same pictures. Thank you very much for putting all of that together for us.

AVLON: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: President Trump finally conceding the election that he lost, but only after he promoted a deadly insurrection inside the U.S. Capitol. Our breaking news coverage continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:00:05]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers.