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New Day

Shocking Video of Insurrection at the Capitol; U.S. Nears Grim Milestone in Coronavirus; Forecast for Inauguration Day. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 18, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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


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[06:33:13]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we just showed you a very long chunk of this sickening, newly released video of the Capitol siege. It was shot by a war correspondent, which is fitting. He's from "The New Yorker." And he captured these insurrectionists hunting for lawmakers, looking for them, pounding on doors, and then photographing sensitive documents at their desks, taking stuff. This is senators' sensitive information.

Joining us now is Butch Jones. He's a former U.S. Capitol Police officer, and Elizabeth Neumann, she's the director of the Republican Accountability Project and former assistant secretary of Homeland Security for the Trump administration.

Mr. Jones, I just want to start with you because you were a Capitol Police officer. And when you look at these guys, the police officers who were so outmanned, and they're trying to reason with this deranged mob of Trump supporters. At one point you hear one of them say, is there way I can get you guys to leave the Senate chamber now? I mean the idea that they were even still trying to negotiate with them and being so reasonable.

What do you see when you watch that video?

THEORTIS "BUTCH" JONES, FORMER U.S. CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: When I watch this video, I see how easy -- it was too easy. And I think management and the police board and some members of Congress left the Capitol Police vulnerable. It should have been no reason why that multitude of demonstrations -- demonstrators was able to get in the Capitol so easy.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'll tell you what I see. I see radicalization. I see the results of radicalization.

Elizabeth Neumann, this has been your career watching people get radicalized. You hear people say, we're listening to Trump, your boss, they tell Capitol Police officers. Rifling through desks they're saying, I think Cruz would want us to do this, meaning Ted Cruz.

[06:35:02] These are people who have heard things that have inspired them to do this. That's radicalization.

ELIZABETH NEUMANN, DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT: That's exactly right, John. This is probably the most definitive evidence that we've seen so far, I think, for those of us that have been watching the president, watched his rhetoric heat up the two weeks prior to January 6th. We -- we could see that something was different about his rhetoric. You had intel analysts looking at the nature of the chatter online. They could see that the chatter online was different, but it was hard to pinpoint what might happen.

And -- and then the moment of January 6th, if you watched his rally and then you watched what happened, it was -- it was almost obvious that this was answering a call. But to see them do it on video is rather stunning, for them to draw that line so directly for us. And, in fact, in many of the FBI investigations, the indictments, you see that the people that have been arrested are saying, well, the president told me to do this and they're almost confused. They feel like they followed the president of the United States' orders to show up at the Capitol and fix the election.

So we have a very deceived, radicalized population on our hand. This is going to take a long time to address. I mean law enforcement investigations, absolutely important, but there are so many other people that weren't there on January 6th that also hold these views. We have a long road ahead of us.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Jones, is there anything that the U.S. Capitol Police would have done differently when you watch that video?

JONES: Yes. Number one is, when they was offered help, they should have -- they should have took the assistance of the FBI and the military. For them not to have park police and metropolitan police with them at the time, for them not to have an outer perimeter, inner perimeter, to me, it was too easy. And I think that they had help from members. Members had to know some of this was going on. And I think this is why one of the reasons why the demonstrators felt comfortable going into the Capitol to do what they did.

BERMAN: Well, look, whether or not they had direct help is something that is being investigated and very much an open question. They were certainly inspired by people on the inside. Cruz and Hawley, they mentioned by name. Hawley, Cruz, would want us to do this is the words they spoke. Those were the words they spoke as they were rifling through senators' desks and desecrating the Senate chamber.

Elizabeth, I'll tell you what, the AP is reporting this morning that the FBI is doing background checks on the 25,000 National Guard troops being sent in to protect Washington, D.C. We got wind of this last week. There's been some reporting on this before. But it's a stark reality. It's a really incredible thing if there is concern about the trustworthiness of the 25,000 troops who have been sent to D.C. to keep the Capitol and the next president safe.

NEUMANN: It really is stunning that this is where we are, that this was a -- a growing problem. It has been a growing problem for the last four years. And I wish there was something that we had done sooner so it wouldn't have had to come to what happened on January 6th. And now what is supposed to be this peaceful transition of power on Wednesday is going to look more like a war zone.

And I think that January 6th will be most likely safe. We do have a lot of really good screening and vetting mechanisms in place these days. And you can do name checks and a few other identifiers and they'll be able to run those names pretty quickly and discern if there's any problems.

But there are always, you know, people that are very closeted with their views, may have been very protective of who they associate with, and that's not going to be obvious in a simple electronic check. So there's still a need to stay vigilant on January 20th and -- but more so, I think, my concerns lie more in the other side.

This movement is here. They do have -- they have infiltrated into -- I don't think in large segments -- I don't mean to scare anybody, but I do think we have a problem with infiltration in law enforcement, in the military and it's going to take a while for us to both de- radicalize and remove those elements from positions of authority.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Jones, Elizabeth Neumann, thank you both very much for your expertise in this.

JONES: Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: So Putin critic, Alexey Navalny, speaking out for the first time after being detained when he returned to Russia. What he now says about the last-minute court hearing that is currently underway. We'll bring you up to speed, next.

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[06:43:56]

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, we're hearing from Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny for the first time since he was detained when he arrived in Moscow. That was his first trip back since he was poisoned last summer. In a video posted to Instagram, Navalny condemns the last-minute court hearing, which is currently underway at a police station where he's being held, calling it lawlessness at its highest point. Navalny has been recovering in Germany after he was poisoned by suspected Russian agents and nearly died.

Overnight, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned Navalny's arrest and called for his immediate release. We're watching these events very closely. We'll bring you the latest developments and any updates as they happen.

This morning, leaders in several states expressing concern over a shortage of vaccine doses. What happened to the reserves the Trump administration promised? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:48:53]

BERMAN: The incoming CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, says we could have 500 deaths from coronavirus by next month. We could pass 400,000 in really just the next day.

Joining us, CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a professor of medicine at George Washington University.

You get the sense that they want to brace us for what is inevitably going to happen. Ron Klain, the incoming chief of staff, Dr. Reiner, says things are going to get worse before they get better.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes, we're going to see a lot of deaths in the next two months. But there is a ray of sunshine. And if you look at the metrics, over the last several days, there is a definite decline in hospitalizations and also new cases. So hospitalizations -- and you think about hospitalizations, that's where the deaths come from. And over the last four days, for the first time in months, we've seen a steady decline, four days in a row, a thousand people per day fewer each day hospitalized in the United States.

And, again, we're seeing the same trend with new cases.

[06:50:00]

If you look at positivity rates in the United States, they had peaked at almost 14 percent a few weeks ago. They also have steadily declined now to about 11 percent. All of those metrics point to the conclusion that we may have passed the peak. So if we stay put now and we mask up and we get vaccines into arms as quickly as possible, we can start to get ahold of this pandemic.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, Dr. Reiner, that's huge. I mean so you don't think this is an anomaly, this isn't just a strange few-day blip. And it sounds like you're saying that it's not even that we're plateauing, you're seeing an actual decline.

BERMAN: Yes, we were up at 132,000 hospitalizations a week ago. We're down to 124,000 now. I mean that is a real decrease in a short period of time. I mean it's a very reason -- good reason to hope on that metric, which is consistently, you know, forebodes what's going to happen.

REINER: Right. You know, we hadn't seen a day with -- we hadn't seen a day where we were noticing fewer hospitalizations than in the day before for months. And now we're seeing a steady decline.

We're actually doing record amounts of testing in the United States. There are days now where we're testing more than 2 million people per day, yet our positivity rate is starting to drop. So I think these are the first rays of sunshine.

So now if we have a coordinated approach to doing all those things I just mentioned, particularly getting vaccinations in arms, and particularly our most vulnerable. Look, only 5 percent of our cases have come from nursing home residents, but almost 40 percent of the deaths have come out of that population. That population is still not fully vaccinated in the United States. We need strike teams finishing that job and vaccinating every single person and every single staff member in a nursing home because those are the folks who are dying. We need to get into our most vulnerable communities, the communities of color, disadvantaged communities in this country who are, again, disproportionately bearing the brunt and vaccinating people. We need -- we need a sense of urgency. I know the new administration has that, but this is an opportunity. And we've missed all of these other opportunities in the past. Now we have an opportunity to do this.

BERMAN: You've got concerns about vaccinating -- vaccines --

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, I'm happy to hear these rays of sunshine, but I think that there's still a storm cloud hovering. And that's because I have heard anecdotally from my mom and her friends that they are concerned that the states that they live in are running out of vaccine doses. And the reason they're concerned is because places like New York City have had to cancel some appointments because they're running out of doses. And then you get this letter from the director of the Oregon health authority to Alex Azar, saying, we are concerned when we discovered there were no additional doses for allocation. This is extremely disturbing and puts our plans to expand eligibility at grave risk.

So what's going on, Doctor?

REINER: So we've distributed to the states about 31 million doses of vaccine. We've only given 12 million doses. Some states are better. So West Virginia leads the country. They've administered 65 percent of the doses that they've received. Places like Georgia have only administered 28 percent, 28 percent of the vaccine doses.

So if we had some sort of central coordination, we would be shifting vaccine to places that can efficiently administer it and holding back on places that still have a lot on the shelf.

We have 20 million doses that have not gone into arms yet. On our best days last week, we gave up just about a million doses per day. That is the goal of the Biden administration, a million doses a day for the first 100 million -- 100 million -- for the first hundred days. So we have enough vaccine in the pipeline to -- even if there were no replenishments for the next almost three weeks, we need to focus on getting vaccine. We have vaccine to give to people, we just need to get it into people quickly and we need to be smart about how we're distributing it around the country.

BERMAN: Dr. Reiner, thank you so much for being with us and helping us understand exactly where we are and the opportunity we have if we do things right. Appreciate it.

REINER: All right. My pleasure.

BERMAN: So Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States in just two days. It will be unlike anything we have ever seen before. We have new details on what we're going to see, next.

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[06:58:41]

CAMEROTA: All eyes looking ahead to Joe Biden's inauguration on Wednesday. So what will the weather be like?

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers has our forecast.

What do you see, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Pretty good. I mean winds are going to be probably 20 miles per hour maybe later in the afternoon, but 40 degrees for the high. Feels like 33. Can't really argue with that. The nicest one we can remember in a long time.

Big stories today, cloudy skies. Some lake-effect snow for the Great Lakes. Also a fire threat across parts of California. Winds there could gust to 60 miles per hour.

This weather is brought to you by O'Keefe's, guaranteed relief for extremely dry, cracked skin.

So let's get to it. Yes, there's that cold front headed to the northeast, dropping your Wednesday temperature down to maybe 40 from 50 in D.C. But temperatures are mild for this time of year. We are five or 10 degrees above where we should be. Even the normal high, 43 for D.C., on Tuesday, all the way to 50. Slightly cooler on Wednesday.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chad, thank you very much for all of that.

And NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here on the streets of Washington, D.C., it does feel somewhat like the calm before the storm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a profound threat from domestic violent extremists of the nature we saw on January 6th.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't want to see fences. We definitely don't want to see armed troops on our streets. But we do have to take a different posture.

[07:00:02]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Protests have popped off in a handful of states.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We wanted to make sure that what happened in Washington did not happen here in Michigan.