Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Homeland Security Issues First Terror Bulletin for Domestic Extremists; GOP Embraces Twice-Impeached Former President Trump and QAnon Conspiracy Theorists after Deadly Capitol Siege; Dr. Fauci Says, Getting Vaccinated is Not a Free Pass to Travel. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 28, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Free or easing pressure on this prominent opposition leader.

[07:00:03]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: This is far from over. Matthew Chance, thank you very much for that reporting.

And New Day continues right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day.

The first-ever terror bulletin from Homeland Security, warning of the threat from domestic extremists, domestic extremists emboldened by the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, domestic extremists fueled by the lie that there was widespread fraud in the election, a lie created and touted to this day by the former president.

So it is deeply significant that the House Republican leader is going today to meet with that former president who fueled these lies. And we were just told in one report that the Republican leader is going there to kiss his ring.

Overnight, the FBI raised concerns about this unidentified person who placed two bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee on the day of the siege. One agent tells CNN they could potentially be building more bombs right now.

CAMEROTA: So, despite the threat of domestic terror, the Republican Party is rewarding a lawmaker who repeatedly indicated support for executing Democrats. Marjorie Taylor Greene also currently believes the insane conspiracy theory that the Parkland High School shooting was a hoax.

Her she is on video, harassing and heckling one of the survivors, David Hogg.

All right, well, we will show you more of that as soon as we cue it back up. How does Republican leadership respond, by giving her a plum assignment on the House Education Committee. Republican Adam Kinzinge is outraged. He will join us shortly, as will that Parkland survivor, David Hogg.

BERMAN: We'll start though with this first-ever bulletin on a domestic terrorism threat. Joining us now is CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Andrew McCabe. He's the former acting director of the FBI.

And, Andy, let me read you part of this bulletin. Information suggests that some ideologically motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence. Fueled false narratives fueled by the lie of widespread election fraud, so dangerous that DHS issuing this first-ever warning on domestic extremists, Andy. How significant?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Hugely significant, John, huge. Let's think about this. This started as the homeland advisory system, right, right after 9/11. And we put that out to come up with a way to disseminate terrorism information to the population, about threats from outside this country, potentially striking us here in the homeland.

Now, we've adapted that system to warn Americans about the terrorist threat that their fellow Americans present to them. We've all seen it, right? We saw it live and on television on January 6th. And this is the Department of Homeland Security coming out and saying some very, very strong things.

First, there is no question about who they're worried about here. It's the right-leaning groups. It is the alt-right. It's the militia groups. It's the white supremacist groups. It's all of those who are enraged by the fact that Trump lost the election.

And they're very clear about what is behind this threat. It is that false narrative about the fact that the -- you know, the election was allegedly stolen from the president. We all know that that's not true and that is the thing that is elevating this threat now, this threat that DHS feels compelled to warn the country about.

CAMEROTA: Andy, here's another part of that bulletin that got my attention. DHS remains concerned that homegrown violence extremists, inspired by foreign terrorist groups who committed three attacks targeting government officials in 2020 remain a threat. Foreign terrorist groups, what does that mean?

MCCABE: Well, Alisyn, as with many of these warnings, there are elements in the warning that reflect sensitive and sometimes classified intelligence that the government agencies have in their possession, but they can't overtly share with us. So my sense in reading that same passage was, there is some very specific threat information that they are referencing there. They're just not in a position to be able to share all the details with us. But even from our unclassified, open source knowledge of this threat, we have seen repeatedly right-wing and anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic extremists in this country reacting to and following in the example of extremists overseas. The Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand was an inspirational moment that drove individuals here, certainly the El Paso shooter in 2019.

[07:05:07]

So there is clearly a connection here between right-like-minded, right-leaning, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic terrorists.

BERMAN: I think it's notable within the 24-hour period that DHS issues this first of its kind bulletin, saying that these domestic extremists are fueled by the big lie, the big lie initially in most adamantly told by the former president that the House Republican leader is traveling to meet with him to kiss his ring today. That's the reporting we just got from Rachael Bade.

So, again, you have monitored these groups for years. What message will they take from this very public act of subservience from the House Republican leader?

MCCABE: Well, I mean, John, you call it unnerving, I'm going to call it despicable. The fact is we know that these groups and the individuals who are motivated by this ideology, day take very clear cues and inspiration from the acts of leadership.

So we know the impact that Donald Trump's comments after the Charlottesville riots and referring to good people on both sides. That was something that really emboldened and brought confidence and renewed vigor into these movements. You have to assume that the same is true today.

So when you have Republican leaders across the Hill who are still failing, not only failing to come out and condemn the big lie that's driving this threat, but actually catering to the prime purveyors of that lie, like the former president, like people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, it only makes this worse and more dangerous for all Americans.

CAMEROTA: Andy, you help us understand what's happening with the search for the killer of Officer Brian Sicknick? Why haven't we heard more about who that suspect is? Why aren't we seeing a photo, even a grainy image from some sort of video, a screen grab that's taken? Why isn't there a call for the public's help to try to identify this person?

MCCABE: Well, I don't know, Alisyn. We're all in the same dark regarding those facts. But I have to say this, I will give the FBI credit. Their first instinct is to conduct these investigations as quietly as they can. And my sense is that if they were really in a tough spot on this one without a suspect, we would be hearing more requests for help along the lines of what you've just described.

The fact that we haven't heard much on top of our knowledge that we have extensive video of the attack from that day leads me to believe that they probably have a pretty good idea of who they are looking for, and they are pursuing that person, building their case slowly, assembling the evidence they're going to need in a very deliberate and methodical way. At least, that's my hope, and that's what I've seen, of course, in my experience with the FBI.

BERMAN: So, Andy, we have this first of its kind bulletin that just come out. You've been there. So, once a bulletin like this goes out, what then happens? What is now happening behind the scenes among our security apparatus, I guess, in particular, in defense of members of Congress who might be targeted?

MCCABE: Sure. So, the FBI's primary responsibility, as you know, John, is to be the investigative element. My guess is that the FBI is re-evaluating their assessment and their understanding of domestic terrorist threats across the board right now.

There is a renewed vigor, increased manpower, increased supervision by FBI leadership over all the threats that they're aware of, and really tuning up the net, the collection of information and intelligence about those threats.

As they bring that information in, they are, I am confident, disseminating a much greater volume of threat intelligence to folks like the Capitol police, to ensure that the on-the-ground, kind of boots on the ground protection of our political leadership is stepped up.

This thing is for real. We know that and DHS basically said as much with the bulletin yesterday.

BERMAN: All right. Andrew McCabe, as always, thank you for helping us understand what we're seeing here. I appreciate it.

Andy just talked about the very real security threat of Republican leaders going to meet with the former president, the initial purveyor of the big lie of this election, a very real security threat. But what does it tell us politically? What does Kevin McCarthy who is going to kiss the ring of the former president tell us about where the Republican Party is today? We have new reporting, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:10:00]

CAMEROTA: This morning, the Republican Party appears to be aligning itself with a one-term, twice-impeached former president and QAnon conspiracy theorists. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is meeting with Donald Trump in Florida today. And remember, Kevin McCarthy accused Trump of inciting that insurrection at the Capitol and then quickly backtracked.

And wait until you hear how they're treating Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene seen on tape harassing a Parkland school shooting victim.

Let's bring in CNN's Senior Political Reporter Nia-Malika Henderson and CNN Political Director David Chalian, they are co-hosts of the CNN podcast, Politically Sound. Good to see both of you.

David, you say what is happening in the Republican Party this morning is astonishing. Why? Why does Kevin McCarthy feel the need to go curry more favor with this one-term president who lost Georgia for them, who lost the Senate, who lost the White House?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Because he's still the life force inside the Republican Party. I mean, yes, you are citing a correct track record, but, overwhelmingly, Republicans are very much still supportive of Donald Trump.

[07:15:00]

And just never mind Republicans broadly in polls across the land, right, but just look at how a majority of House Republicans, the vast majority of House Republicans still voted to overturn a legitimate free and fair election in the House of Representatives after it had been attacked by an insurrection. I mean, it's just -- it is mind-boggling to see the grip that Donald Trump still has on the

Republican Party.

The other reason, of course, that Kevin McCarthy is going there is because Kevin McCarthy wants to deliver the majority for Republicans in the House of Representatives in 2022. That's going to take a lot of money. And he wants to make sure that the party is as unified as possible and that money is flowing and Donald Trump can help that effort if you consider unity around the personality of Donald Trump, which seems to have been the unifying principle over anything else for the Republican Party for the last five years.

BERMAN: So, Nia, you have Kevin McCarthy going down to kiss the ring of the former president. You have Marjorie Taylor Greene and, Alisyn, I know we'll talk about this in a second, getting a plum committee assignment.

Chairman Mike Rogers was on last hour, I'm going to have Adam Kinzinger on next hour. They both say they are engaged in a war for the soul of the Republican Party. My question to you is, what war at this point?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Right. I think that's right. Yes, there doesn't seem to be much of a war at all. The Republican Party, from the average Republican voter to leaders all across the country, if governor's mansions and then on the Hill have made their choice. They are the party of Donald Trump. They are advancing the Trumpist agenda, fine with the Trumpist agenda. We always speculate, well, maybe they're just doing it for political expediency. Who knows? I mean, they act like they're just full-on Trumpists, in the mold of somebody like Jim Jordan.

We saw very clearly how small the sort of Romney contingent of the Republican Party is with that vote a few days ago around impeachment. The vast majority of Republicans voted with this president, voted to say that this was an unconstitutional impeachment trial. And we, of course, saw what happened in the House, with them going along with the big lie and essentially wanting to throw out the votes of millions of Americans.

I think the problem for the country is, it seems like we have one party that's dedicated to anti-democratic ideas and then there's another party, obviously, the Democratic Party, which does seem to be invested in multi-racial democracy. We have a party, the Republican Party, that does seem to be invested in conspiracy theories, and the big lie in QAnon. And that doesn't seem to be abating. It seems like that is the sort of becoming, almost, the mainstream of the party, whereas, it used to be the fringe. And that's a problem.

I mean, you think about QAnon, the FBI have said, they represent a domestic terrorist threat and you have at least two QAnon members in the House at this point.

CAMEROTA: I want to talk about one of them. So, as we're talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene, David, they have a problem, okay. Whether or not the Republicans know they have a problem, they have a problem. The most devastating, heartbreaking episode, one of them, of our country's history, Sandy Hook, she doesn't believe happened. She, according to her social posts, has questions about whether this was a hoax. She just -- we have the video of her harassing and heckling David Hogg, who survived Parkland.

This is a poisonous person. Please, Leader McCarthy, keep her away from children. Please keep her away from children, and yet she's been rewarded with a committee post to the House Education and Labor Committee? How? How can this be happening, David?

CHALIAN: And the rebuke of her that you heard from the leadership, oh, no, you haven't heard that, because there really hasn't been. Kevin McCarthy has said, I want to have a conversation. I want to have a conversation? There's a moral bankruptcy going on right now inside the Republican Party that is, for anyone who has watched, observed, reported on the Republican Party for the last few days, it's becoming unrecognizable.

As Nia said, there's always been a fringe and now it's just become the actual mainstream of the party. Because what is astonishing is this is the party of law and order. This is the party that promoted themselves as the party of sort of moral values. That is just blatantly out the window in the way in which it's conducting itself at the moment. And, by the way, it is because of fear that if they don't conduct themselves this way, that they will lose elections.

I mean, that's -- this is all -- they are making these calculated decisions because they think it is the way to win elections.

[07:20:04]

I would just say, it may be the way to win some House elections in some safely drawn districts, which so many of our countries is, I do not know the evidence show it is the way to win Senate races or the presidency. In fact, I would argue that the electoral evidence suggests that the Republicans have to rethink this strategy.

BERMAN: I get what you're saying on that. But in terms of what they are hearing from their own base, Marjorie Taylor Greene got 75 percent of the vote --

CHALIAN: In one these safely drawn districts.

BERMAN: It wasn't a squeaker (ph). And David Riggleman told me yesterday, former Republican House member, this is not an aberration. This is not an aberration. One of the ways he described it, and I'm trying to remember exactly what he said, he said, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a carrier of the virus, as it were, Nia. I mean, she is representative of something.

HENDERSON: She's representative of the Republican Party. Some of the polling I have seen on how many Republicans believe some aspect of this crazy and dangerous and anti-Semitic QAnon theory, anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of Republicans and Trump voters believe some aspect of it. So she is representing those people. Hopefully, it's just 20 percent, but even if it's just 20 percent, I mean, that's a big portion of the population. That's a big portion of the Republican Party. And, again, it seems to be growing.

And you see Kevin McCarthy, he, at one point, actually said that Marjorie Taylor Greene had denounced QAnon. She has not denounced QAnon and, of course, she got that plum committee assignment, as well. And there is this broad range of conspiracy theories these people believe, whether it's Sandy Hook trutherism, whether it's 9/11 trutherism, Marjorie Taylor Greene seems to be adherent to all of those. And, again, this seems to be metastasizing in the Republican Party and, again, it is not just crazy, it is dangerous.

And you saw that on January 6th. Some of those people had on Q T- shirts, they were QAnon adherents and believers. And you have Donald Trump as someone who also has embraced QAnon and embraced Marjorie Taylor Greene as the kind of future of the Republican Party.

CAMEROTA: It's a cancer. It's a cancer. And we have to protect our children from it. I know you guys have young children. It's so disgusting what we're about to see in this video that we'll show you in a moment.

David, Nia-Malika, thank you both very much.

And so, in a few minutes, I will be speaking with the Parkland survivor David Hogg about that moment where Marjorie Taylor Greene who is now a congresswoman chased after him and harassed him.

Okay, there's growing concern over the spread of coronavirus variants, specifically the one from South Africa. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us to talk about why health officials are so concerned, what they're seeing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

CAMEROTA: Nearly 4,000 deaths were reported overnight in the United States. January is now the deadliest month of the pandemic with more than 83,000 Americans killed so far. While the Biden administration is trying to boost the number of vaccinations, Dr. Anthony Fauci says getting vaccinated does not mean an immediate return to normalcy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You could conceivably get infected, get no symptoms and still have virus in your nasal pharynx, which means that you would have to wear a mask to prevent you from infecting someone else, as well as the other side of the coin, where you may not be totally protected yourself. So getting vaccinated does not says now I have a free pass to travel nor does it say that I have a free pass to put aside all of the public health measures that we talk about all the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now to help us understand all of this is CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. When do we have a free pass? I mean, at what point will we -- you know, what number can we start to return to normal, Sanjay?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, some of that was pretty sobering, right, in terms of how long this is still going to take. This is -- the answer to that, I think, sort of gets back at this issue of herd immunity. When are enough people protected, you are protected and enough people around you are also protected?

Once you get to that 75 percent, even if it's not 100 percent, they say that you have enough of a herd of protection within the country that the virus really shouldn't cause people to be getting sick or significantly sick anymore. But that could take a while. And, you know, there's all these other things that are sort of, you know, potentially impacting that, including the variants that many people have been talking about a lot.

So herd immunity, right now, maybe summer. We were still saying, that is likely the point where we get to that. And that is when many of these types of activities become safer to do.

BERMAN: We talked about the variant, Sanjay, and we are getting some new information about the variants, including last night you had a discussion about one of the treatments against coronavirus, the convalescent plasma and how effective it is or isn't against the new variant. And this is of concern. Why?

GUPTA: Think of it like this. You make antibodies if you've been infected, right? You have antibodies so you should have some immunity against future infection. You make antibodies in response to the vaccine, so you have protection against the virus.

What they have found in some lab studies, and I want to emphasize that it's lab studies, but we've got to pay attention to this, is with these variants, convalescent plasma, meaning people who had previously been infected, you take their blood, to take their antibodies and say, how well do these antibodies work against these variants?

And in some of these studies, they have found that the antibodies from convalescent plasma did not work as well against the variants. I know I'm throwing a lot actually there. But, basically, all of that is to say that the people who had been previously infected, their antibodies may not work as well against the variants and that increases the chance of re-infection.

[07:30:06]

We're not seeing a lot of re-infection yet, so we're not quite sure what.