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Pelosi: "Strong Interest" in Congress for 911-Style Probe of Riot; Pew: Trump's Approval Plunges to 29%, Lowest of Presidency; U.S. Says Capitol Rioters Planned to "Capture & Assassinate" Officials; Capitol Mob Included Veterans of Military, Law Enforcement; L.A. Running Out of Space for Bodies as a Person Dies Every 6 Minutes. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired January 15, 2021 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Will numbers like that impact, Gloria, how Republicans decide to vote when it comes to whether or not to convict Trump at his impeachment trial at the Senate?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It may impact some. It's very hard to say at this point, Bri.

I think the members who have already announced, for example, that Donald Trump ought to resign, like Lisa Murkowski, his poll numbers are not going to affect her one way or another.

But there are lots of people who are afraid of Donald Trump.

And those who are afraid of him, who might be up in the next two to four years, who might be worried about him not as king but as kingmaker, might look at those polls and say, wait a minute, what is his impact going to be. What had his influence going to be?

He has said he's going to challenge and get people primaried who oppose him. So, yes, they're going to be worried about that.

It's hard to say whether it would change anyone's vote.

But it's very clear to me that he's not invincible. And lots of Trump supporters, look at this and look at this insurrection and say, I want no part of that.

And in that same Pew poll, over half of the public, as you say, say he had a lot to do with and, therefore, if he had a lot to do with it, I'm done.

We really have to watch this kind of play out and see where voters line up and see how many Republicans decide that they can break with him and say enough is enough.

None except for Mitt Romney broke on the first impeachment, if you'll recall.

KEILAR: That's right. We'll see if it's more than that.

BORGER: Yes.

KEILAR: Gloria Borger, thank you so much.

BORGER: Thank you.

KEILAR: We have some more on our breaking news. Prosecutors say that capitol rioters planned to capture and assassinate lawmakers.

And this comes as the FBI warns that the domestic extremists, who believe the election was stolen, pose the biggest risk to the inauguration.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:36:34]

KEILAR: Capture and assassinate elected officials -- that's what the attackers at the capitol wanted to do, according to new court documents.

We learned this from a memo in the case of Jacob Anthony Chansley, otherwise known as the QAnon shaman -- you probably recognize him from a photo here.

And this was a memo that officials compiled to argue that he should remain in jail. They allege that Chansley's own words and actions supported that chilling intent to capture and assassinate officials.

And then, in Texas, prosecutors argued in court that retired Air Force Reserve Officer Larry Rendall Brock may have intended to restrain lawmakers.

Brock was photographed roaming the Senate chamber and he was clutching a white flexicuff at the time, which is used by law enforcement to restrain or detain subjects or suspects.

I want to talk about this now with our senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Laura Coates.

And we also have CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former deputy direct for of the FBI, Andrew McCabe with us. He is the author of "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump."

I wonder, Deputy Director, what is your reaction to learning of this plan by some riots to capture and assassinate lawmakers?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Brianna, I think we are starting to get a peek at the details of this attack, that acting U.S. attorney said a day or two ago, when we find out about them, we will be shocked and horrified.

I have to say I'm not surprised. But it's still a sobering moment to see prosecutors use words like that in a legal filing. It means they have evidence to be able to prove that allegation.

Of course, they do, right? These folks attacked the capitol with thousands taking videos of the attack while it was in play. So that is great evidence.

The challenge for prosecutors and agents now is to be able to attribute some of those statements to different people. But that's just work that takes a lot of time and they are sorting through that right now.

It's horrific. But it's great that we're actually able to hold people accountable for it.

KEILAR: There's also something else that's pretty alarming that we learned.

The "Washington Post" reports that one minute after the vice president was moved from the Senate chamber, because obviously he was there during the certification of this vote, a mob of rioters moved up the stairs to the second-floor landing that was outside the Senate entrance.

That's a video we have seen a lot of. But we didn't know when that was happening and where the vice president was, that he was so close at the time.

How could that happen?

MCCABE: Well, first, let me say thank you to the men and women in law enforcement who ensured ultimately that the vice president and his family and none of the other lawmakers were hurt. They were able to take people successfully to shelter.

However, any time you have a critical incident like this, it gives you an opportunity to go back after the fact and say, what kind of assumptions did we bring into this situation. Were they correct, were they incorrect? And how do we need to do things differently in the future?

I think that first question is one that's really going to capture the attention of law enforcement, Secret Service, FBI in that were they making assumptions about how this crowd would conduct itself that turned out to be horribly wrong.

[13:40:01]

So it will be interesting to see them get to the bottom of that.

KEILAR: Laura, there's a source that tells CNN that lawyers are expected to argue the president's fiery remarks, which inspired the attack on the capitol, fall under the category of protected speech. Do they?

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, that's the only argument they could possibly make. But they do have a very uphill battle in mounting that defense,

Brianna, because there's a fallacy that you can say whatever you want as long as it's free speech connotations in America.

We frequently proscribe the parameters of when speech is protected and when it's not.

And the number one way it's not protected is if you incite violence, if you intend to incite violence, if you say it in an environment where violence is likely to occur.

You have a whole bunch of contextual cues available to try to understand and evaluate that intent.

The president's comments prior to the rally, the president's comments during the rally, and his allies as well. And you have comments during the insurrection and afterwards.

All of that behavior and the timeline and the evidence can go towards the prosecutor's case to determine the intent. It's not just that smoking-gun statement that says, I directly and explicitly intend for you to incite violence.

We don't need to have that level. But you do need to have enough context, enough corroboration from people who either were heeding the words or understood them in a certain way or somehow were part of a conspiracy or plot to do so.

That can all goes toward proving that intent that can undermine any First Amendment argument that it's protected speech.

KEILAR: One of the visible rioters, the man wearing the horn hat and no shirt, is defending himself by saying Trump invited him and the others.

If this is a view which is widely held, which I think one would suspect that it was, will that defense work? And what does that mean for the president as he is trying to avoid culpability here?

COATES: It can almost fatally undermine the president's idea of saying he had no intent, and no reasonable person could construe his statements that he intended for this behavior to take place.

But the president opened himself up to this vulnerability the second he began to talk about these people as, first, special and he loved them, and, all of a sudden, became persona non grata when he talked about no true supporter of his. My prosecutor had immediately went on.

And I thought to myself, if I were building a case against any person who may have incited violence, let alone the president of the United States, I'm looking for people who are going to volunteer information, going to corroborate, might be able to cooperate in my investigation.

And the number-one people you can look to for that are those who the president has no affiliation with and are setting a 10-foot pole. So if there are more people like this particular person, or if there's

supporting evidence that it wasn't just in their mind, a coincidence that they appeared in this moment in time, it could undermine the president's case.

KEILAR: Laura, thank you very much.

Andrew, really appreciate you being here as well.

There's some chilling video emerging from the insurrection on Capitol Hill. It shows rioters dressed in combat gear, which prompts the question: Is the United States facing a direct insurgency? I will talk to a military analyst next.

Plus, CNN is learning some members of Congress are in so much fear for their lives that they're buying body armor.

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[13:48:03]

KEILAR: The more video we see of the siege at the capitol last week, the more we are learning about just how organized and prepared some of these rioters were.

They were dressed for combat, kitted out with tactical vests, helmets, body armor. And they were ready to do more than just raise their voices inside the capitol building.

Many national security experts says that we have witnessed a domestic insurgency.

I want to bring in General Wesley Clark to talk about this. He is a CNN military analyst and he is, of course, a former NATO supreme allied commander.

General, thank you for being with us.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thanks, Brianna.

Also, I fought in Vietnam. And during that period, all of us who were officers really studied insurgencies. And this has all the earmarks of an insurgency if you stand back and look at it.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: So to you -- so to you, there's no doubt this is a domestic insurgency?

CLARK: Well, if you call it that, it helps to understand what you have to do about it. It's not so much the label but how you look at it.

The investigation Nancy Pelosi has called for, that's the tip of the iceberg.

This is many, many years of disaffection with the United States government, armed groups, circles of supporters and sympathizers, people in the media, obviously, people in Congress or assistants in Congress, maybe, in political parties.

And I can tell you it's a very cohesive force. Because when I talk to people in the Republican Party, some of them tell me they were afraid, physically afraid to speak out against it.

They are threatened. They are threatened by legislators. They're threatened by their own constituents who label them as traitors. So we have to take this very, very seriously.

There's a substantial number of people in this country who don't accept the legitimacy of our form of government. Why is that and what can be done about it? So it's a much deeper set of questions.

[13:49:59]

You know, for 40 years, we've been downplaying the effectiveness of the federal government, really starting with President Reagan, who said, you know, let the private sector do it.

And everybody takes a knock on government. So people are then saying, well, what's the purpose of government?

And when you combine this with a lack of civic education in some high schools so people don't really understand government.

And then you look at people who are in the armed forces, who come back from combat and they're disaffected, they're angry, some of them have PTSD.

You can see that this is not just one incident that happened on the 6th of January. This really needs to be addressed very comprehensively, very calmly, very measured way by political authorities at all levels.

This is a serious issue with the United States of America. And this is what our allies would see looking at this country from the outside.

KEILAR: And when you look at this, and as you say, with your expertise and insurgency, this has hallmarks of it.

The presidential role in this, in his language, repetitive, one, saying that this election was stolen, when it wasn't, and then the call to action that he was giving them leading up to this event that preceded the riot and in his speech right before it.

What is his culpability? Should he face criminal charges?

CLARK: Absolutely. He has given -- he's given this raw-based insurgent movement a cause. Not an ideology but a cause, in this case, a stolen election, built on a lot of other lies. And he's the charismatic leader.

Every insurgency is different. This one is very strange in that he was elected president of the country, whose system of government he is trying to overthrow. But that doesn't make it any less of a crime.

And when he is out of office, he wants to remain as the leader of this group. That -- he's raised $250 million and he's trying to hold onto his power and money.

Does he really know what he was doing? Did he really intend to go after an attack, maybe have Mike Pence killed? We don't know that. We don't really understand what his intent was.

But he certainly was up there with his fist saying we're going to fight, they're going to fight.

And you have to look at this and think, this is not the constitutional way that the United States transitions power. We don't operate like this.

Historically, we're very proud of the peaceful transfer of power. It's one of the hallmarks of an established democracy.

And this man, who was elected to the presidency, is leading a movement that's trying to overturn it.

And, Brianna, simple facts are that, today, there's still millions of people in America who believe that the election was stolen, based on what President Trump has said.

And there are members of the Republican Party who voted not to certify the elections of these -- the results of these five states. And some of them are afraid to come out against President Trump.

So I think we have to take this very seriously. And we have to look again at his role as a leader as being culpable.

KEILAR: It is interesting to hear you say lawmakers fear the insurgency, which they certainly do.

General Wesley Clark, thank you so much for lending your expertise on this.

CLARK: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: We just got an update from the FBI on the capitol siege and they say that family members are tipping them off to track down rioters who were in D.C. We'll have some more details on that ahead.

Also, I'll talk with an EMT who says the pandemic is so bad in California, he has had to ration oxygen and leave patients in their homes. I'll talk to him, next.

[13:56:27]

KEILAR: Hospitals in Los Angeles County are running out of room for the bodies. Officials there are scrambling to find space to store the deceased as someone is dying every six minutes from coronavirus.

Right now, California is the nation's hot spot. And the virus has killed more than two million people around the globe.

Michael Diaz is an emergency medical technician in California and he's also the union president of the local International Association of EMTs and Paramedics.

Michael, tell us what it is like for you.

MICHAEL DIAZ, EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN & LOCAL UNION PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EMTS AND PARAMEDICS: Hi.

KEILAR: Thank you for being with us.

I know you're basically in the middle of fighting a war, you and your colleagues are. Tell us what it's like. What are you dealing with?

DIAZ: Definitely. It's really intense. I've been doing this for 11 years and I've never seen anything like this.

KEILAR: You've never seen anything like this.

So it's getting to the point where, as medics have to make decisions, they have to decide if they are going to transport someone or not.

Explain that process to us. How do you make that decision?

DIAZ: Yes. Definitely. Well, there's always been a type of that protocol alive for quite a bit in L.A. County.

But now it's gotten to the point, if somebody has coronavirus, specifically, we're just basically giving them 20 minutes, and if they're not viable after 20 minutes, we're making a rough decision.

KEILAR: So 20 minutes of, what, resuscitation of life-saving measures?

DIAZ: Yes, ma'am. Yes, 20 minutes of life-saving measures. And if there is no viability afterwards, we're -- we're ceasing to continue.

KEILAR: And so then, after that, what do you -- you leave the home? Do you -- do you call, then, the coroner? What is the process then? Basically --

DIAZ: Typically --

KEILAR: -- the family now is accepting that their loved one has died.

DIAZ: Yes. Yes. Typically, we have our colleagues at the L.A. County's Sheriff's Department there with us. After we make that decision, we basically instruct the county sheriffs to consult the family and contact the coroner.

KEILAR: Michael, I wonder for you and your colleagues -- we've spoken to a lot of people in the medical field who are dealing with this right now.

And when we think of one person dying in L.A. every six minutes, and we think how long this has been going on, you've been witnessing this for a long time.

What is that kind of trauma do, and that kind of elevated stress that you and your colleagues have been under? What has that been like?

DIAZ: Yes. We're definitely not doing well. This is a record turnover. We're having people that are good friends of mine that have been in the field a long time decide it's time to call it quits.

The hours are long. The working conditions are worse. And keep in mind, a lot of these responders do this for minimum wage in California.

KEILAR: That is a very good point.

Michael, thank you so much for being with us and for telling us what you are dealing with. And good luck. Good luck in this very difficult time.

DIAZ: Thanks for having us.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

KEILAR: It is the top of the hour. I'm Brianna Keilar.

And moments ago, the Justice Department revealed they have opened more than 175 criminal investigations following the insurrection at the U.S. capitol. And they estimate they will be up to 300 before the day is over.

[13:59:58]

They've also received 140,000 tips. And that includes video and photos. They have arrested and charged more than 40 defendants.