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Capitol Police Unprepared and Betrayed; FBI Warns Extremists Discussed Posing as National Guard; U.S. Nears Milestone in Pandemic. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 19, 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]

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Unexpected. The U.S. Capitol police chief, who resigned after the assault, told "60 Minutes" he asked to activate the National Guard days before the siege, a request he says was denied by the sergeants at arms.

STEVEN SUND, FORMER U.S. CAPITOL POLICE CHIEF: We expected demonstrators with some potential for violence, not a directed, coordinated violent attack for the nation's Capitol. Make -- I consider those two different things.

SCHNEIDER: After the president rallied his supporters January 6th, one officer recalled a supervisor warning them on police radio about Trump supporters headed to the Capitol, not expecting the crowd to quickly devolve into a riot. There was not enough people to stop what was coming. What hurt us was these people, they planned for it. They knew we weren't going to shoot, an officer recalled.

And one black officer added, there was a lot of racism that day. I was called racial slurs and in the moment I didn't process this as traumatic. I was just trying to survive.

Once inside, some rioters surrounding and fighting law enforcement while on their rampage. An officer telling CNN, they came in packs and officers working inside are trying to lock down areas where members may be, trying to get members to secret hideaways and tunnels where they'll be safe.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was targeted in the insurrection, announcing last week an investigation into the security failures.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We must subject this whole complex, though, to scrutiny in light of what happened and the fact that the inauguration is coming.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced a retired general will lead that investigation into the security failures.

Meanwhile, Capitol Police did not respond to our request for comment. And an update now on Riley Williams, that Pennsylvania woman who the

FBI is investigating for potentially stealing a laptop from Nancy Pelosi's office and looking potentially to sell it to Russian's foreign intelligence service. She has surrendered to authorities, but it is still not clear if she actually did steal a laptop or if an informant was just exaggerating the details of what he told the FBI.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Jessica, thanks so much for that report.

We're also getting new reports this morning about fears of right wing extremists, including QAnon, trying to infiltrate the National Guard protecting the inauguration. How does this change the security plans for tomorrow? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:36:19]

BERMAN: Developing this morning, "The Washington Post" reports the FBI warned law enforcement agencies that, quote, QAnon adherence discussed posing as National Guard to try to infiltrate the inauguration.

Joining us now, Elizabeth Neumann, she's the director of the Republican Accountability Project and the former assistant secretary of Homeland Security in the Trump administration.

And, Elizabeth, add this to the fact that you have the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, these groups that do have an overlay with former military and law enforcement personnel, folks who have been arrested for the invasion of the Capitol, now concerns about QAnon and others trying to infiltrate the National Guard.

What do you see here?

ELIZABETH NEUMANN, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT: You know, I -- less concerned today than I was a week ago. I'm seeing U.S. Secret Service, FBI, everybody clicking into gear the way that we expect our law enforcement and security services to handle a threat of this type. It makes it very difficult for the extremist to be successful in their attempts at attack. We're seeing less chatter online, indicative of any large group gathering. That doesn't mean that they might not have moved to platforms that they can't monitor, it doesn't mean that there won't be attempts by maybe individuals as you suggested with "The Washington Post" reporting perhaps trying to infiltrate.

But everybody's guards are up. They're looking for things that look suspicious. We've already had a few incidents that caused all of us to raise eyebrows and then calm back down because there was -- there was nothing there.

But -- but that's what we want. We want everybody to be alert. We want to see something, say something. And we have all of that in place. I think it would be very difficult for anybody to do anything that would interrupt the inauguration proceedings or put the president-elect in harm's way.

I'm more concerned about perhaps the threat being dispersed to other parts of the country where we know there are a lot of anti-government extremist activity and maybe some indications that they do want to go to state capitols. They have less resources and, of course, that may mean that we might see some activity outside of the Washington, D.C., area as well.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Right. Elizabeth, it is so comforting to hear you say that some of your anxieties have been nullified.

When you heard that report, I don't know if you heard our last segment, but that the U.S. Capitol Police are saying how betrayed they felt during all of this because there was no grand meeting that they had beforehand that they normally have as they prepare for big events. And they weren't clued in to what was going to happen.

NEUMANN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Two weeks later, have you -- do you understand why they weren't and what went wrong there?

NEUMANN: I can completely appreciate their frustration and anger. It's very justified. I remember watching the attack unfold and was on the phone with some people and -- and going, what -- why don't they have any riot gear? How -- they look completely unprepared. Just maddening. I'm sure they were very frightened for their life. They did the best that they could. This was absolutely a failure of leadership. It wasn't a failure of intelligence. We now know that the Capitol Police intelligence unit warned them. So I'm looking forward for the investigation to come forward to find out why such bad judgment calls were made.

You know, at a minimum, it's really bad judgment. Perhaps there's something more nefarious. Who knows? We'll let General Honore figure that out. That -- they absolutely are heroes in my book. The majority of them did the best that they could to keep lawmakers safe and to try to keep a very volatile situation from more loss of life.

[06:40:00]

BERMAN: Elizabeth Neumann, thanks so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

NEUMANN: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: So I want to show you what is arguably the most important briefcase in the world. That is the so-called nuclear football. So with Donald Trump fleeing Washington before the inauguration, how will the military handle the handoff? We have incredible, new details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAMEROTA: It's a critically important but usually unseen part of swearing in a new president, handing off the so-called nuclear football. Given that President Trump will not be in attendance, how will this be handled?

CNN's Barbara Starr has learned about this. She's live at the Pentagon with details.

Hi, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Well, like just about everything else with this inauguration this time, when it comes to the football, it will be different.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice over): The most important briefcase in the world carried by the military and never far from the president of the United States. It's often called the nuclear football.

The case holds the highly classified equipment and authorities needed for a president to order the military to launch a nuclear weapon.

[06:45:09]

On this Inauguration Day, with President Trump planning to depart Washington early and not attend the swearing in of Joe Biden, there will be two nuclear footballs and the challenge of ensuring it goes smoothly. One for Joe Biden in Washington, D.C., the minute he becomes president. One that will accompany President Trump to Florida until he no longer has power and his nuclear authorities are deactivated.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned whether Trump should still have the authority to launch a war.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, I have sought information from those who are in a position to know that there are protections against this dangerous president initiating any military hostilities or something worse than that.

STARR: Pelosi recently said she spoke to General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the safeguards in place for ordering a nuclear strike. Senior military officials say, while the president has sole authority to launch nuclear weapons, he cannot do it alone.

If an adversary were to launch a missile at the U.S., the president would immediately be on a classified communication network, receiving minute by minute intelligence and recommendations on how to proceed.

There are safeguards against illegal attack orders, whether it's nuclear or conventional. To be legal, orders must have a legitimate target, a clear military objective and use proportional force. The general who recently commanded strategic weapons and is now number two at the Pentagon is adamant the military will not follow illegal orders from any president.

GEN. JOHN HYTEN, COMMANDER, U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND: If it's illegal, guess what's going to happen --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You say no.

HYTEN: I'm going to say, Mr. President, that's illegal. And guess what he's going to do? He's going to say, what would be legal? And we'll come up with options of a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is. And that's the way it works. It's not that complicated.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Barbara, next question, we know that you spoke to the Army secretary, Ryan McCarthy, about what happened during the Capitol insurrection. So what's his story? What did he tell you?

STARR: Well, Ryan McCarthy, as the top Army civilian, was in charge of getting the National Guard up to Capitol Hill quickly on January 6th. A lot of criticism that the National Guard did not go in time, that it just took too long to get them there.

So I started by asking McCarthy how close did this country come to disaster?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN MCCARTHY, SECRETARY OF THE ARMY: You saw a lot of people run to friction in support of the Capitol Hill Police. It came far too close. Something like this should never happen. This country has the talent and the resources to do anything. But the pre-planning and coordination and the intelligence were not really managed well and we were not in a position to be successful that day as a country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Not in a position to be successful as a country that day. Very sad and tough words from a man who is a former Army Ranger, who's one of the few in the Trump administration at top levels that's actually seen recent combat.

McCarthy says a lot of things need to change. And he says in Washington, D.C., the structure is not in place for the city to be properly defended in this kind of situation. Too many agencies, too many people, no one really in charge, no one able to make fast, quick decisions that were needed so badly on January 6th.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Apparently not as we saw on stark display on the 6th.

Thank you, Barbara, for all of that information and those interviews.

So, only 3 percent of the U.S. population has received the first coronavirus vaccine. How will Joe Biden ramp that number up? (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:53:11]

CAMEROTA: This morning, the United States is on the brink of 400,000 coronavirus deaths. President-elect Joe Biden will honor the victims this afternoon at a ceremony at the Reflecting Pool.

Joining us now, Dr. Peter Hotez. He's the co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and he's the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

It's interesting, Dr. Hotez, that -- that President-elect Biden will honor the victims. We don't often -- I mean we talk about the victims a lot. Nationally you don't hear the president or his team talk about the victims. And as we just said, there's about to be 400,000 of them.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, CO-DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT, TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL AND DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AT BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes, absolutely right. You know, as President-elect Biden's predecessor did everything he could to downplay the severity of this pandemic and epidemic in the United States and if you remember all last summer tried to attribute COVID deaths to other causes and did everything possible to avoid launching a national control program. And so the Biden administration is setting appropriately the right -- the right tone, reminding us that this is a horrible, horrible, deadly disease. And, remember, we're still in the -- in the middle of it all. As bad as 400,000 deaths are, we're looking potentially at 500,000 deaths over the next couple of months. So this is still -- we're still in free fall unfortunately.

BERMAN: So, Professor, you think we are at a critical moment right now. You think we are in a race at these different variants, the British, South African, some say the Danish variant come to the United States and spread. You think we're in a race between those new variants taking hold and getting these vaccines in people's arms.

What do you see really starting tomorrow with the new administration?

HOTEZ: Well, you know, we now have to recognize the daunting task ahead of us. It's not just the race with the variants, but the fact we've -- we've squandered every opportunity to control this virus and vaccinating is maybe our last hope for this.

[06:55:09]

HOTEZ: But the task is enormous. We're looking at having to vaccinate three quarters of the American people in order to interrupt virus transmission through vaccine-induced immunity. That's 240 million people, two doses of most -- with most of these vaccines. That's half a billion immunizations. And so far what have we done, John? Ten to 20 million?

So, you know, 10 to 20 million divided by half a billion is a rounding error. We've essentially not done anything to vaccinate the American people yet. And so we've now got to go from zero to half a billion in a very short period of time. And that is going to be the biggest challenge, the most important challenge that this administration's going to face.

CAMEROTA: Here are the latest numbers, because you asked, 31 million doses distributed, 12 million administered. And as you say, that's just -- it's almost zero in terms of the U.S. population.

And then when you look at the people hospitalized right now, Doctor, the seven-day moving average, if we can put that up, I -- you can't even see this with the naked eye. But basically there's a little line at the very end there, on the right, that show that it's possible it's ticking down a little bit.

Do you see a decline here? Is this reason for hope or is this just an anomaly?

HOTEZ: I wouldn't put too much stock in it. And, you know, those who have looked at it have also made the statement, well, remember the new variants are now going to be picking up. So those numbers will trend upwards again.

But there is going to be some normal variation. There's certainly no cause for celebration or declaring victory at this point. We're in terrible shape.

The good news is, we have a team in place now that recognizes the severity of the epidemic and is working towards a plan to opening up vaccination hubs and making it possible to vaccinate the American people.

And we're also going to need other vaccines to get up. So I think, in the coming weeks, the other big information I'm looking at is getting the J&J vaccine online, the Johnson & Johnson, maybe the AstraZeneca online. Of course we have a vaccine, Novavax, and that's going to be big news because we're going to need a bigger supply of vaccine to get the job done.

BERMAN: We've got about 30 seconds left, Professor. What's the one thing -- and I don't know how specific Joe Biden will get about coronavirus tomorrow in his inaugural address, but, generally speaking, what's the one thing you think he should say?

HOTEZ: The one thing he's got to say is, we're going -- we're going to conquer this and the way we're going to conquer it is through vaccination. And -- and we have to become a country again that is willing to do hard things. And in the -- in all of last year, we've looked for every shortcut not to do anything with catastrophic consequences. Now we have to -- we've got to -- it should be throwback comment to say, you know, we've always rallied together in hard times and this is how we defeated fascism in World War II, the Cold War, how we defeated AIDS, how we landed a person on the moon, two individuals on the moon in July of 1969, and we can do hard things again. And that, I think, should be the tone.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Peter Hotez, thank you very much. HOTEZ: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: And NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The nation's Capitol is a fenced in fortress.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we see in Washington, D.C., is overwhelming forces being deployed to make sure we have a peaceful transfer of power.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In coordination with the Secret Service and the FBI, they're screening all the personnel that are coming in.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's President Trump's final full day in office. He has now recorded this video, basically listing what he believes are his accomplishments of his time in office.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a unique challenge for Biden. On day one, he will be pushed. Waiting really isn't an option.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Trump presidency will be over and hopefully this very, very dangerous and frankly reckless experiment over electing Donald Trump will be over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY.

Twenty-nine hours until Joe Biden takes office. Twenty-nine hours left in the presidency of Donald Trump. Twenty-nine hours of anticipation, reflection and, frankly, trying to figure out what the blank just happened. More on that shortly.

First, every step of the inaugural choreography is poignant and full of history. Very shortly Joe Biden leaves Wilmington, Delaware, for the last time as president-elect. He arrives in Washington this afternoon. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is there already.

We have new details about what Biden is planning for his inaugural address.

As for Donald Trump, we have new details about his last grievance- filled day in office. Pardons, a video tape release, and general flouting of all traditions of grace and courtesy.

CAMEROTA: And this morning, flags, not Americans, will fill the National Mall because it's locked down after the Capitol insurrection from Trump supporters.

[07:00:07]