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Congressional Leaders to Join President-Elect Joe Biden in Church Services in Washington, D.C.; Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) Interview on Agenda of Incoming Biden Administration; Analysts Reflect on Previous Four Years of American Politics Under President Trump; Washington Post: FBI Warns Extremists Discussed Posing as National Guard. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 19, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: About Mitch McConnell, and we're actually getting even more announcements from the presidential transition today.

M.J. LEE, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. This is a new detail that we are just learning about what Inauguration Day will look like tomorrow for Joe Biden. We understand now that he will be attending church services in Washington, D.C., and congressional leaders will be joining them. Among them, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. This is a sign of deference by partisanship and respect that, of course, Biden has not been afforded by the outgoing President Donald Trump. So very, very interesting indeed.

As for his final day here in Wilmington, Delaware, as president-elect, we expect him later in the day to attend a farewell event where we expect to hear briefly from the president-elect, and then he, of course, heads down to Washington, D.C. Originally he had hoped to take the train as he has done so many times throughout his Washington career, but no longer doing that due to security concerns.

And then this evening, once he arrives in Washington, D.C., both he and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris will be attending this memorial service honoring the lives, the many lives that have been lost throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, just such a stark reminder of what he is about to inherit as soon as he takes office tomorrow.

And then that speech that he will give on Inauguration Day tomorrow, one of the most important speeches that he has ever given. We know that he has been working on this for weeks, and that the theme of national unity will be a big one, particularly after what we saw happen on Capitol Hill two weeks ago, John.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I'll take it M.J. Thank you. It is just incredible to think about all that will happen in the next 28 hours.

Inaugural events kick off this afternoon under extreme security. "The Washington Post" reports that the FBI is warning law enforcement that far right extremists have discussed posing as National Guard members to disrupt the inauguration. CNN's Pete Muntean is live in Washington with more. What's happening at this hour. Pete?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, things only get more and more locked down here in Washington as the day goes on, as we move into Inauguration Day. Police are in the process of closing down the bridges between Virginia and D.C. This is one of those checkpoints staffed by members of the National Guard. And the FBI tells "The Washington Post" it is worried that armed insurrectionists could pose as members of the Guard. We have just learned that all 25,000 members of the Guard are now on the ground here in Washington. But now the big question is how long all of this protection will need to last. The head of D.C.'s Department of Homeland Security says it could be some time. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER RODRIGUEZ, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON D.C. HOMELAND SECURITY: Rightwing extremism is not going anywhere, and I think we can definitively say that. And so one of the things that we want to do is see, what does the new normal look like? And certainly, this domestic terrorism, this rightwing extremism is going to be with us for some time in the months and years ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: President-elect Biden will look out onto an entirely different inaugural crowd. Instead of the people in the audience, the National Mall completely cleared out right now, 200,000 flags representing the folks who would be here were it not for the pandemic and all of this protection. This is going to be an inauguration like no other, John.

BERMAN: Pete Muntean in Washington, please keep us posted.

Joining me now is Democratic Senator Chris Coons. He is a close friend of President-elect Joe Biden. Senator, thanks so much for being with us. Moments ago, we got word that, still, Senate majority leader, soon to be minority leader, Mitch McConnell, will attend church with the Bidens tomorrow morning. This sounds like something that Chris Coons has his fingers in. What do you know about this?

SEN. CHRISTOPHER COONS, (D-DE), SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: John, that's just an important and symbolic gesture of coming together, of the sort of unity that President-elect Biden has been calling for throughout his election and this transition. As you know, there are millions of us who are eagerly anticipating Joe Biden's swearing in tomorrow at the west front of the United States Capitol.

But if you look at everything that is a part of Joe's plans for his inauguration, it shows an entire focus on unity. Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day. Millions of Americans engaged in service as a part of the inauguration. Today we will have a farewell ceremony for Joe here in Delaware for him to travel, sadly, not by train, but to Washington, where he will join Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris in an evening tide lighting of the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial to remember the 400,000 Americans who have died so far in this pandemic.

And that church service tomorrow is an important part of respecting tradition and signaling the importance of faith in Joe's life. It's how he's been able to get up when life has knocked him down. It's central to how millions and millions of Americans have gotten through this pandemic so far. And it's an important reminder of who Joe is and of who we are as a nation, a nation that is hopeful and optimistic, and that's going to need a lot of help coming together.

[08:05:09]

BERMAN: You mentioned that Joe Biden will not be traveling by Amtrak, by train. Jeff Zeleny tells me he made 8,000 Amtrak, 8,000 Amtrak trips between Wilmington and Washington. You're in Wilmington. You have a sense of what's going on. Just what's the mood inside Biden world this morning with these few hours left to go?

COONS: Optimistic. Look, this is what Joe Biden's campaign for president was all about, which was a turning the page, ending a chaotic and divisive presidency, moving us forward. When I first talked to Joe about his running for president in early 2019, I told him I was convinced he was the right leader for this moment. I had no idea then, none of us did, that 2020 would be such a deadly, difficult, and divided year, and that he would become president at such a challenging moment. He will look out on a mall that is empty of Americans, that has hundreds of thousands of flags in their place, in part because of the pandemic, in part because of the violence and chaos of last Wednesday.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are absolutely the leaders we need for this moment. And on his first day, he will sign a whole series of executive orders to undo some of the damage and division of the last four years. But he needs partners in Congress, in the Senate. Later today we will hold the confirmation hearing for Tony Blinken to be his secretary of state, and I am working hard to make sure that there's a window for his core cabinet members to be confirmed later this week after the inauguration. That is one important way that Leader McConnell and Leader Schumer can show that we are indeed coming together and moving forward.

BERMAN: Yes, you talk about the confirmation hearing for Tony Blinken today. Almost impossible, unlikely. We do not believe that he will be confirmed tomorrow, which would mean that Joe Biden very well might likely be the first president we've seen in a long time not have any cabinet members confirmed his first day in office. Can you give me a sense of what day you think we will get some confirmations?

COONS: I'm hopeful by later this week we will see a core team of his Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State confirmed. We don't have exact days on each of them because, as you know, the power-sharing agreement for a 50/50 Senate and the terms of when and how an impeachment trial may begin are just being hammered out in final detail now between Schumer and McConnell.

But Joe Biden has nominated an incredibly skilled and capable cabinet, a representative and diverse cabinet, but folks who have worked together at the highest levels of government. In sharp contrast to the previous government, this is a confirmable cabinet of folks who can help lead us forward through this challenging and tumultuous moment. And the bold plan Joe put out, the American rescue plan, that includes everything from national service for addressing this pandemic, as you know, long something I've championed, as well as additional checks, more money for vaccination, support for schools safely reopening, extension of unemployment, Congress needs to act on that and act quickly.

BERMAN: You talked about unity and the message of unity that Joe Biden will send tomorrow. For you in the Senate, does unity include working across the aisle with Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley?

COONS: Look, as you know, I'm someone who believes in the possibility of reconciliation. A lot of my faith heroes and heroes in service are people like John Lewis who were able to be reconciled to those who opposed them, at times even violently. But part of my understanding of how we should conduct ourselves in this world is that true reconciliation only comes after repentance. And I'm looking to see whether my colleagues reflect on the chaos and violence of last Wednesday and take any responsibility for it and in any way show a sense of responsibility for it that could lay the groundwork for reconciliation. I have found a way, John, to work across the aisle even with Republicans I sharply disagreed with. But I thought last Wednesday's actions and those who stoked it and those who led up to it, like President Trump, were unprecedented in the modern era in the United States, and there has to be accountability for those actions.

BERMAN: Just on a positive note, backing up here a little bit, you've known Joe Biden for a long time. I think if I'm not wrong, you delivered a nominating speech for him in Iowa in like 2007 when he ran for president that time around. You were stumping for him before you were in the U.S. Senate. What's this like just for you right now?

COONS: It is a wonderful moment. My daughter's been singing "One Day More" from "Les Mis," another day, another destiny. To think that we are just on the precipice of a moment in American history where Joe Biden will become our next president is truly exciting to me.

[08:10:08]

It's energizing to many of us here in Delaware and across the country who worked so hard. I think that we have one last chance for the Senate of the United States, where he served for so long, an institution he loves, to return to functionality, to actually delivering results for the American people.

Joe is someone who has been knocked down hard by life twice. He knows what it means to lose things you love and to grieve. But he also knows how to get back up with the strength of his faith and family, and how to move forward. And that's always inspired me, his willingness to take on challenges and to serve. We need to take this opportunity, this moment, to move past these divisive, difficult, deadly last four years, to move past this pandemic, and to see the ways in which our country is divided and needs to heal. And I think Joe is just the right moment -- he's just the right man to lead us through this moment.

BERMAN: Senator Chris Coons from Delaware, proud senator from a proud state this morning, thanks so much for being with us.

COONS: Thank you, John.

CAMEROTA: Joining us now, we have CNN White House correspondent John Harwood and CNN political commentator Van Jones. Guys, we've been looking forward to talking to you this morning. And Van, I just want to start with you and get your thoughts on what these four years have meant for you, for the country, and now at the end of them, what we're supposed to take away from all of this.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it's been a tale of two countries. For the people I care about the most, people I talk to the most often, it's been a nightmare. And daily escalating series of norm-breaking, rule-breaking. And also I think we sometimes don't understand what this has meant at the grassroots level. I'm from small-town America. I grew up in Jackson, Tennessee. People just going to the store, people just walking down the street, people trying to interact at work, and just being hit with a growing sense of, frankly, physical danger as people are more and more emboldened to speak out and say crazy stuff in staff meetings, crazy stuff in the lunch rooms.

And then once you had the COVID thing hit it got a lot worse because people were even more isolated. So when you see people, there would be a look in people's eyes where they felt that their freedom was being impaired because somebody asked them to wear a mask, and these confrontations, some of what you see on social media. So this idea that this was just something that's happening in Washington, D.C. -- this was a culture shift in a negative direction. The entire culture jumped on a reverse escalator down and back. And people have been scared and are still scared.

And so, for other people, it was great to have the president who was, quote-unquote, speaking for them. But for the people who were not in that tight circle around his ideas that got more and more extreme and more and more bizarre, it's a nightmare, and hopefully tomorrow that nightmare comes to an end.

BERMAN: John, I quoted George W. Bush earlier in the show earlier. I'm not going to do it again because Alisyn doesn't like when I swear.

CAMEROTA: My virgin ears.

BERMAN: But during the first inauguration address W. said essentially that was some weird blank. As you sit here this morning, just finish this sentence for me. Well, that was dot, dot, dot.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wait, are you talking about the inauguration tomorrow --

BERMAN: I'm talking about the last four years. I'm talking about the last four years. As you look back on the last four years, finish this sentence. Well, that was -- HARWOOD: It's been horrible for the United States. And it is

fortunate for the United States that it comes to an end tomorrow. Look, Donald Trump was produced in large part by the backlash to President Obama, who embodied the growing diversity in the United States. He has -- there's an irony. He released this report yesterday on Martin Luther King Day which read like it was written by the high school Republican club decrying the fact that feminism and the civil rights movement have produced what it called identity politics. Donald Trump has practiced the purist form of identity politics, and that is the identity of white people who feel aggrieved by the way the country is changing culturally, by the way it's changing economically. He has stoked that anger.

After the election, which he lost, which he then falsely claimed that he had won and had been stolen from him, he stoked that anger so that it had no place to go until it exploded, as we saw on January the 6th. And we're now two weeks later. The president is about to leave, and Joe Biden is somebody who has instincts that run in the opposite direction of Donald Trump. And we'll see what his prospects are for trying to narrow at least somewhat the divisions that Donald Trump has exacerbated.

[08:15:12]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Van, tomorrow, President-elect Joe Biden has invited congressional leaders to accompany him to church tomorrow morning. Joe Biden is a true churchgoer. He really does that. It's not under duress. It's not faking it for the cameras. He doesn't just do it when there's a violent photo op that he's staging as we remember from -- this is President Trump.

And so, it seems that Joe Biden is opening his arms to people that he could harbor resentment towards, but he's opening his arms. And so, given that you say the past four years has been basically a nightmare, are you hopeful today?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, of course. Look, Joe Biden was not my candidate, and he wasn't the candidate at first of a lot of Democrats. We looked a lot of different places.

But he is the candidate this country needs, the president this country needs because he has the capacity to bring people together, and he knows who he is. He's got to do two things that would be impossible for an ordinary politician. On the one hand, he has an African- American base that turned out in record numbers and did extraordinary work because we have extraordinary pain.

You know, this virus has hit us first and worst. The effects of the lockdown have hit us first and worst. Black women are in freefall. Women are in free-fall and black women are in free-fall with a lead balloon. He's got to do something to respond to the pain of his base.

At the same time, he's got to reach out and bring along and bring on board millions and millions of white Americans that are -- have been, you know, told to be afraid of him. I think he -- I can't think of another politician who can pull off both. And for people who feel that he should only do one or the other, I

will say, if you abandon your black base, you're not going to be here 2024, and if we just throw away all these white voters that are mad, guess what, throw them away. We don't need these Trump voters.

You know what? Your trash will be the Nazi's treasure. We're not going to throw anybody away. I don't like Nazis and cultists enough to cede them 30 million people.

So, Joe Biden is the leader that can bring African-Americans up and bring white folks in. He showed it in the election. He showed it in the primary. He showed it in his whole life, and I expect he'll be able to do it again.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, it's interesting, John, listening to Van talk about the impact that this has had on America over the last four years. You don't just snap your fingers and have it change in one day. This isn't, as I noted before, Bobby Ewing in that season of "Dallas" in the shower where all of a sudden, it didn't happen.

It happened. It happened. And I don't know -- Joe Biden will give a speech about unity tomorrow. We heard some details about what he's going to try to do, but how hard will it be? What will be sort of the back wind that he will be facing as he tries to do this?

HARWOOD: John, it's going to be extremely hard for Joe Biden to do that.

But let's just step back and think about the journey that Joe Biden has traveled to get to this day. I'm older than all of you guys. I was there in the spring of 1987 at the Wilmington train station where Joe Biden announced his first campaign for president.

He was a young man then. He was going to galvanize the baby boom vote. New generation of leadership at a time when George H.W. Bush represented a previous generation.

I was there in the Senate office building when he pulled out of that campaign. He was a flawed candidate. Then, 20 years later, he tried the same thing in 2007, way overmatched by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That campaign was not a success.

However, Barack Obama saw in Joe Biden somebody who could help him succeed as president. And now we have found almost -- more than 30 years after that initial attempt by Joe Biden, he has arrived at a place where there is no politician in the United States who has a better opportunity by virtue of his personal characteristics and his experience to make the attempt to bridge the divide in the United States. It's going to be hard for him. It will be hard for anyone, and I think if you looked at it realistically you'd say it's not likely he's going to be able to do it.

But nobody has a better opportunity to do it than Joe Biden, and he's going to give it a shot in his inaugural address tomorrow, and it's going to be profoundly different from the era that started four years ago with Donald Trump. CAMEROTA: Van, you know, he's going to talk about unity and some

people think that that's a little premature given everything that we've seen over the past years and what we saw two weeks ago. And that maybe it's a little Pollyannaish.

What do you want to hear him say tomorrow?

JONES: Unity is not premature. It's long overdue to have the commander-in-chief say that we're one country and to mean it.

[08:20:04]

And to lay out ideas and principles and programs and plans that can bring us together. That's what I want him to hear. That's why people went to vote.

People didn't vote because we want to figure out a way to win a food fight in the middle of the pandemic and economic collapse. People want to end the food fight and get back to work, putting the country back together. And that's his job.

Look, it's easy to go on Twitter and say, oh -- nobody who is living in the real world wants more of what we just have been through. Yes, there has to be accountability. We have a white nationalist terrorist network more dangerous than anything al Qaeda could ever dream of. That thing needs to be gone after by law enforcement. And put to bed.

But that is not the vast majority of Americans on the right. It's not the vast majority of Americans, period. And so listen, if you love the past four years of food fight, you know, you go get your own ketchup bottle. The rest of us are going to figure out a way to come together and Joe Biden is going to have a very welcome message for most Americans tomorrow.

BERMAN: Van Jones, John Harwood, appreciate it. Great to have you on this morning to talk about this. Look forward to speaking to you over the next few days as this historic transition takes place.

And be sure to join CNN's all-day coverage of the inauguration of President Joe Biden. It begins tomorrow. We start our coverage quite early, 5:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

New this morning, an FBI warning about QAnon followers talking about infiltrating security for the inauguration. How does that impact how they will prepare, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:19]

BERMAN: We have new reporting from "The Washington Post" this morning that says the FBI is warning the QAnon followers have talked about posing as National Guard troops to infiltrate the inauguration ceremony.

Joining us now, CNN's senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe. He's former acting director of the FBI.

Andy, great to have you here. Look, when you hear QAnon is trying to get inside the National Guard to get closer to the ceremonies of the inauguration, that's of concern. And you add that to all these other concerns about some of these militant groups that have some overlay with law enforcement.

What do you see here?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I think the first thing that we're seeing, John, is that is a very reasonable overcorrection, right? So if you think back to the time, the days preceding the January 6th attack, I think what we saw was assumptions. People weren't considering some intelligence and some chatter in maybe the way they should have. But attacks have a way of refocusing your attention and causing people to recalibrate how they are -- what they're hearing. What they think of what they're hearing and how they disseminate that intelligence.

So, I think what you're seeing is the FBI being overly cautious, which is a good thing. Disseminating more broadly and maybe considering what they formerly dismissed as just aspirational chatter, now thinking like, hey, maybe some of these things could actually happen.

CAMEROTA: Andy, do we know yet the level of organization that went into what happened on January 6th? Were there leaders of it? I mean, again, people don't show up for a peaceful march with, you know, batons and ropes and --

BERMAN: Zip ties.

CAMEROTA: -- zip ties unless there was some plan or level of organization.

So what have we figured out about that?

BERMAN: Well, you're absolutely right, Alisyn. Those are all good indicators that at least some people were thinking ahead, were planning, were thinking about the equipment, the protective equipment or the zip ties and things they would need to execute their plans, i.e., they had plans.

What we're seeing now is the FBI is making arrests and going after people who are visibly associated with the militia groups, the 3 percenters, Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and they're getting deeper at those targets that may have actually been involved in like unit-sized planning, gathering together in groups, prepositioning at the Capitol and people who you saw using what appear to be tactics in the -- in terms of the way they communicated and moved.

These are different from the run of the mill Trump supporters who are being arrested for essentially trespassing and disorderly conduct. And once we start getting these folks in custody, some of them will talk, and then we'll find out exactly how much planning was going on.

CAMEROTA: Understood. Andy McCabe, thank you very much. So tomorrow's inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden will take

place on an empty National Mall. But a few people will be there, and we talk to one next.

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