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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Major Security Break in the White House; Interview with former Head of Secret Service Ralph Bashar; Climate Protest On Wall Street; Ravens Owner: ESPN Report On Rice Video Untrue; Christie Drops 85 Lbs. But Thinking Big

Aired September 22, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

Also in our national lead, Omar Gonzalez, the Iraq war veteran who jumped over the fence at the White House Friday evening and managed to get into the White House itself with a knife in his pocket before being detained by the U.S. Secret Service, will be held in custody until his next hearing. Today prosecutors argued and the judge agreed that Gonzalez poses a risk to President Obama. Thankfully this incident ended without anyone hurt or killed. But Gonzalez's ability to hop the fence and actually get into the White House building raises some troubling not-so-wild hypotheticals such as what if he - what it weren't the act of one man but 15 armed terrorists as CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta explains, the Secret Service is facing many difficult questions today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The additional U.S. Secret Service officers now on foot patrol along Pennsylvania Avenue may be just the beginning after a stunning breach of White House security. In less than 20 seconds, a man armed with a small knife jumped the fence that runs along Pennsylvania Avenue Friday evening and raced inside the north portico entrance to the White House. The alleged intruder, 42-year-old Omar Gonzalez is described by a relative as an Iraq war veteran with posttraumatic stress disorder.

In court, prosecutors say Gonzalez has had run-ins with law enforcement before. In July, he was arrested by police in Virginia with a sniper rifle and a map circling the White House. In August, he was stopped walking around the White House with a hatchet and on Friday night after his arrest, investigators say the Secret Service found 800 rounds of ammunition in Gonzalez's car. In the Oval Office, meeting with former secretary of state Colin Powell the president said he still has confidence in the people protecting him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Secret Service does a great job.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I appreciate the ... (CROSSTALK)

OBAMA: I'm grateful for sacrifices they make on my behalf. And my family behalf.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Still, in light of the critical security lapse, the president received frequent updates on the status of the investigation over the weekend.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: His family lives in the White House and so he is obviously concerned by the incident that occurred on Friday evening.

ACOSTA: Some key questions at the heart of the internal Secret Service review, where were the trained security dogs and the White House K-9 unit? They weren't deployed and why was that north portico door unlocked? A policy that changed immediately.

EARNEST: The Secret Service has changed the procedures for ensuring that the entrance to the White House is secure.

ACOSTA: With so many visitors to this tourist hotspot, a law enforcement source tells CNN, the Secret Service is considering random back checks of pedestrians around the White House. But there's a problem. Which department would handle that? As the Secret Service, the National Park Service and the D.C. police department all patrol the area. With ISIS threatening to raise its flag over the White House and this recent image that's under investigation of somebody holding a cell phone showing an ISIS flag on Pennsylvania Avenue, members of Congress want answers.

REP. MIKE ROGERS, CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: It's just a matter of the Secret Service upping their game to make sure that they can maintain that every detail matters.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: As for that other incident that occurred on Saturday where a man refused to leave one of the secured entrances here at the White House, the Secret Service stresses that was not a security lapse. It's a situation that they deal with often. But Jake, as for that front door behind me of the north portico of the White House, it's now locked. Jake.

TAPPER: I would hope so. Jim Acosta from the White House, thank you so much.

The job of protecting the president looks very different from inside the White House fence, of course. Ralph Basham headed up the Secret Service for three years under former president George W. Bush before going on to found the security firm Command, the consulting group. Ralph joins us right now. Ralph, there's talk right now of all sorts of measures to prevent what happened from ever happening again, from closing off Pennsylvania Avenue to traffic, to expanding the security perimeter. But let me play devil's advocate here. Why should the public pay a price for what looks like to be the Secret Service not on its best?

RALPH BASHAM, FORMER SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR: Well Jack, I'll tell you, the Secret Service is still the best at what it does in the world. And they're going to have incidents over the years. And when they have these kinds of incidents, they are going to take a hard look at them. They're going to learn from them. They're going to adjust their protocols, their processes, their security measures. But when you have a situation which exists on Pennsylvania Avenue -- and I'll point to you this picture, the fence --

TAPPER: You think that's the problem?

BASHAM: That is the problem. That is the problem.

TAPPER: Because ...

BASHAM: Do you know how long it takes -- it took this individual less than 30 seconds.

TAPPER: So, how high is that fence?

BASHAM: That's probably eight foot.

TAPPER: Eight feet. So you think it should be a higher fence?

BASHAM: No, I'm not necessarily saying it should be a higher fence. Perhaps it should be a different construction. Perhaps it should be at the top of that fence, maybe higher with a tilting sort of fence at the top. Perhaps even some sort of a nonlethal shock wire that's put across the top of that fence. Perhaps we should construct another fence in front of that fence, something that would be appropriate that would be, you know, acceptable.

TAPPER: But you're saying in 2014 that fence belongs to a different era?

BASHAM: I do believe it does. I truly believe - And but you're dealing with so many different entities that have an interest -- the White House Association, you know, the National Capitol planning commission. All these entities have to be satisfied when you're dealing with this simple sort of question. Could we not enhance this type of fence and make it more secure? Build another fence?

TAPPER: Look, it's the age-olds debate in the United States about any number of issues, freedom versus security. But I do wonder, do you think the president had left ten minutes before. Do you think it's possible the agents were not on their guard as much as they would have been had the president been there?

BASHAM: First of all, I don't believe that for a moment. The same team that was on the White House grounds during that incident was on the grounds a week before where they apprehended another fence jumper.

TAPPER: Why didn't they release the dogs? I know you spoke with the director of the Secret Service Julia Pierson.

BASHAM: I talked to Director Pierson yesterday and that's going to be one of the focus points of an internal investigation that the Secret Service will conduct. They're going to know - want to know, what was the decision -- why was the decision made not to and what was the circumstances that were in play at the time? As you may well know, these dogs, they don't separate the good guys from the bad guys.

TAPPER: Right.

BASHAM: So I don't know what the clutter was there. I don't know how many other people were there. But when the dog is released, the dog is going to go in the direction in which its handler is pointing it. It' snot to say the dog is going to say, OK, this is a uniformed division officer, so I'm going to go after him or her versus the bad guys. So, I don't believe for a minute that they let down their guard because the president -- because the uniform division's responsibility is the complex.

TAPPER: But I guess the question is, it just boggles the mind that first of all the White House front door is unlocked.

BASHAM: Right. Right.

TAPPER: So how soon do you think any changes will take to be implemented?

BASHAM: I think the changes that the Secret Service has within their power to change will happen very quickly. Those things that the Secret Service would want to do to enhance the perimeter, for instance, what you are talking here, that is going to take some amount of time. So what's going to happen is the service is going to have to deploy additional resources in the form of officers and agents on that perimeter. I don't think anyone in this country wants to see a White House that's got concrete walls and concertina wire across the top and guard towers on the corners. That is unacceptable.

TAPPER: No, that's not.

BASHAM: And that's the challenge that the Secret Service has. It's almost like our borders. How do you secure the White House complex but at the same time allow free access to those people that want and feel it's their home, it's the - the White House is their home?

TAPPER: All right, Ralph, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

BASHAM: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: Coming up, the owner of the Baltimore Ravens is right now responding to an explosive report that the team knew all along about that Ray Rice video and did everything it could to stop it from getting out. He was asked if anyone will be fired. His response coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: Welcome back to "THE LEAD." I'm Jake Tapper. Our Money Lead now. I used to think that I was cool running around on fossil fuel, James Taylor once sang, until I saw what I was doing was driving down the road to ruin. Apparently singing from that songbook, the Rockefeller family who made a fortune on fossil fuels say they're getting out of that business.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund says it will try to sell 99 percent of its holdings in coal and oil sands by the end of this year. Meanwhile, environmentalists are trying to turn up the heat on other investors and crowding the streets of Lower Manhattan.

CNN's Alison Kosik is in New York where the protest is taking place. Alison, what's going on there?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, this has been going on for over four hours, Jake. They came here to Wall Street to shut down the New York Stock Exchange, which is right here. What they didn't do is shut down the New York Stock Exchange. But what they did do is shut down the street that runs alongside it,

Broadway right at Wall Street and most of the day was very peaceful. There was actually a mass sit-in.

A lot of the protesters really just sat right in the middle of the street, right in the middle of New York City for several hours. And then a few minutes before 4:00, the closing bell, they marched to the gates of the New York Stock Exchange.

I say gates because there are barricades there. Police were waiting for them and this is the first time we saw police actually interact with them. We saw the protesters try to storm those barricades and police actually fired back with teargas. We are sitting with the protesters sitting what they're going to do next -- Jake.

TAPPER: Alison Kosik, thank you so much.

The Sports Lead now, did the Baltimore Ravens merely drop the ball in its handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case or was something more sinister at play?

Right now, Ravens owner, Steve Bisciotti is addressing the media for the first time since ESPN released a bombshell report, which claimed that Ravens officials knew about the videotape that showed the team's star running back hitting his then-fiancee long before it went public back in February.

The Ravens and the NFL have denied seeing the video. They also say Rice wasn't completely honest with them about what happened. The report also quotes anonymous sources who claimed Raven's president, Dick Hass, was told by Rice's attorney that the video of Rice was expletive horrible.

This is back in April and that Ravens executives pleaded with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to go easy on Rice. And that Goodell did so by initially suspending Rice for two games. Of course, as a favor to the owner, the story says. In the news conference that just took place moments ago, Bisciotti called the claims untrue and called it an attempt by Rice's camp to get the running back reinstated.

Joining me now with reaction is "Washington Post" sports columnist, Mike Wise, and espn.com columnist, Kate Fagan. Kate, let me start with you. Do you feel like he did enough in this news conference, Bisciotti, to persuade fans that he's been truthful about how all this went down?

KATE FAGAN, COLUMNIST, ESPN.COM: I don't think so. I think we're kind of caught in some theatrics right now. Obviously in all of the NFL. This entire press conference kind of turned into a train wreck the longer it went on.

And certainly there are important details that we need to know the nuts and bolts of this Ray Rice case, who knew what, when, whether the Ravens knew, whether Roger Goodell and the NFL saw that video?

But it really feels right now like we're spiralling into this he-said, she-said and not keeping our eye on the bigger picture, which is how poorly the NFL has responded to domestic violence in its history and what it can change going forward.

Now I know there are key points we need to know about this case. But the press conference we just heard really was just an old-fashioned he-said, she-said.

TAPPER: That's true. We do need Mike Wise here in studio with me. We need to keep our eye on the bigger picture, which is how the NFL deals with this. I do want to get your response to Bisciotti just moments ago responding to this report, if I could play that sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BISCIOTTI, RAVENS OWNER: Almost everything in there is anonymous, but it's clear from the subject matter that it's Ray's attorney, it's Ray's agent and it's Ray's friends. They are building a case for reinstatement. And the best way to build a case for reinstatement is to make everybody else look like they're lying. So their accusations didn't jibe with what we knew as fact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Mike Wise, your response?

MIKE WISE, SPORTS COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": This followed up, by the way, Jake, a 15-point memo put out on the website by them. They've put more effort into this than any scouting report for any player in the draft.

For me, this was, thou doth protest too much. A couple of things came out in the press conference. When you don't have a person as lawyerly has Steve Bisciotti, you like that he can be forthright and off the cuff. Well, the flippantness seemed to hurt him. He said something about not a lot of women in the front office. That was callous. And the second thing was when he was asked clearly, do you have a zero tolerance to domestic violence, he never said yes.

And he actually cautioned about it later saying, this is an opportunity for players to get set up essentially if you have a zero tolerance domestic violence policy in the NFL. That to me informs the culture we're coming through right now in the NFL in a very small way.

TAPPER: Interesting. Kate, your response?

FAGAN: At one point he said, this is going to be handled like men. The question there is, what does that mean? To this point, it has only been handled by men. If you look back in the history of the NFL, it has only been handled by men. And look where we are in a massive crisis. There were so many moments in that press conference that were borderline disastrous.

TAPPER: He also said no one from his organization is going to be fired. Are you surprised by that?

WISE: I don't know who you actually throw out -- there was someone fired, by the way. His name is Ray Rice.

TAPPER: Right, right.

WISE: And for a very good reason. This to me is such posturing. The NFL and the team knew six months ago relative to -- whether they saw that video or not, the police report said, rendered unconscious.

The first video of Janay Palmer-Rice being pulled out of that elevator shows that she was unconscious. I would submit to Steve Bisciotti today if I were at that press conference, how do you think she got unconscious? How do you think she became unconscious? How do you think she became physically incapacitated? And everybody knew that long ago.

TAPPER: Yes. Mike Wise, Kate Fagan, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Great to have you on the show.

Coming up, he's dropping weight but he's thinking big, like maybe 2016 big. Chris Christie's latest moves in blue territory, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. The Politics Lead now, he's an irresistible force within New Jersey and hopes to make his mark nationally as well. But before Governor Chris Christie can cross that bridge. He's still got questions to answer about another bridge and some other things.

CNN's chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, is covering New Jersey's governor -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, you know the M.O. of the Republican Party usually is that they have an establishment candidate in waiting. You remember somebody usually who lost before or came close, John McCain and Mitt Romney, for example.

Somebody who captures the money and momentum early on like George W. Bush in 2000, but that hasn't happened so far this year, which is making Chris Christie viable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): It's been Chris Christie's calling card, a Republican who can get Democratic votes. This week, Christie travels to three blue states -- Illinois, Connecticut and Michigan to show Republican gubernatorial candidates what's done.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: I've known all along this is a partisan pursuit.

BASH: His busy campaign travel comes as federal law enforcement sources say so far they have no evidence that Christie was involved in closing lanes of the G.W. Bridge for political retribution. Christie is clearly relieved.

CHRISTIE: You're always grateful to hear that, you know, the things that I said appear like they're going to be confirmed and if these reports are accurate.

BASH: But it's not as if Bridgegate ever stopped him from preparing a potential 2016 White House run. He's been getting in better shape. GOP sources confirmed to CNN, Christie has lost 85 pounds, which he revealed at a private fundraiser hosted by David Koch.

The donors Christie would need for any presidential race. In fact, CNN is told Christie discussed his weight in response to a donor's question about his health. And then there was Mitt Romney's anecdote about Christie's diet.

MITT ROMNEY (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I brought all this food and put it out in front of the table and Chris picked at a couple of pieces of lettuce.

BASH: Still it's Christie's political not physical prep that's most telling. Christie is making lots of friends, using his platform as chairman of the Republican Governor's Association to raise $75 million this cycle.

Traveling around the country, meeting people who could be helpful in any presidential run, especially early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina where he campaigns with candidates on the ballot this year.

And going to key swing states like Florida and North Carolina, plus red states like Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma where the New Jersey governor could use some "get to know you" time.

But along the way, evidence of conservative skepticism, not about scandal, but issues where they accuse the garden state governor of being too liberal, like with the judges he's appointed. Even buying billboard space to slam Christie in conservative South Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Another potential problem for Christie is that New Jersey's credit rating has been downgraded more than half a dozen times since he became governor five years ago, and that has a lot of real-life negative implications for the garden state and politically nationwide.

If you're a fiscal conservative looking for somebody to retire the country's debt, it could be a deal-breaker. I spoke to his aides today and several of them said this is -- these are fiscal problems that started before he took office five years ago that led to the downgrading. That's what he keeps arguing.

TAPPER: A little bit more complicated than that. Dana Bash, thank you so much. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @jaketapper. Check out our show page at cnn.com/lead for video, blogs, and extras.

That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. I turn you over now to Wolf Blitzer now in "THE SITUATION ROOM." He is live from the United Nations in New York City -- Wolf.