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New Day
Mexico To Vote After Assassinations; VP Gets Border and Voting Rights Jobs; Capitol Police Officer on Capitol Nightmare; LeBron and Lakers Eliminated. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired June 04, 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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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Mexico is holding critical midterm elections this weekend as 89 candidates and politicians have been killed in the run-up to election day, 89. And a lot is at stake here as the outcome determines who controls congress for the remainder of President Lopez Obrador's term.
Matt Rivers is with us now on this story.
Matt, I should mention that the number of dead political figures keeps growing, even just as we had edited this, we had to upgrade the number. This happened overnight.
MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, Brianna, it's an ongoing problem in Mexico, something that the president of Mexico has not accused of not taking very seriously. That in addition to what he's doing to the political institutions in Mexico. Something his critics are saying is actually tearing down the fabric, as they say, of Mexico's democracy. And how his party does this weekend is something that the United States is going to be watching very closely.
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RIVERS (voice over): Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, AMLO for short, a man who, depending on who you ask, is either a demagogue or a (INAUDIBLE).
Plenty here love him. His consistently high approval ratings built on a folksy image, a champion of the poor, bashing Mexico's elite and promising a redistribution of wealth.
We said even before taking office that a transformation was needed to reverse Mexico's breakdown, he said. And the way he wants to solve Mexico's myriad problems is by centralizing power in the presidency.
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Mexico's democratic institutions are so broken, his argument goes, that only he and his party can be trusted to fix things. Disagree and you're the enemy. RIVERS (on camera): Among the independent institutions or groups that
AMLO has attacked recently, the judiciary, independent election officials, the central bank, a government transparency database, opposition candidates, the free press, feminists and green energy supporters.
RIVERS (voice over): If that all sounds strikingly familiar to the playbook of a recent U.S. president, well, it is. And yet the Biden administration has stayed very quiet about AMLO's assaults on Mexican democracy. A few hours ahead of a virtual meeting last month with Vice President Kamala Harris, AMLO accused the U.S. of, quote, promoting coup plotters because the U.S. provides some funding for a Mexican anti-corruption group that's been critical of AMLO. At least in public, Harris didn't take the bait.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This partnership, I believe, couldn't be more important today. Our nations face serious challenges.
RIVERS: Challenges like migration as hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving at the U.S. border pose a big problem for the U.S. Some believe staying quiet on Democratic abuses helps ensure AMLO's cooperation in one key area.
JORGE CASTANEDA, FORMER MEXICO FOREIGN MINISTER: Keeping the Central Americans out, basically doing the United States' dirty work for it. I think that's -- that was Trump's quid pro quo, and for all appearances, it's Biden's quid pro quo.
RIVERS: At least for now. The Biden administration might be waiting to see what happens on June 6th when Mexico's midterm election will help decide if Morena (ph), AMLO's political party, wins super majorities in Congress. That could mean pushing through constitutional reforms that might even include extending AMLO's time in office.
CASTANEDA: This kind of power grab, this kind of concentration of power in a country like Mexico can only lead to economic collapse, to further violence, to further corruption.
RIVERS: Now, those are all things, of course, the U.S. doesn't want to see on its southern border. Now some foreign (ph) policy experts I spoke to recently say they do expect the U.S. to begin to address these concerns publicly, maybe use economic leverage to push AMLO in a more democratic direction. But the question is, if his party does well in this weekend's midterm elections, does that make AMLO less willing to listen, Brianna, to what the U.S. has to say?
KEILAR: Yes, it seems like it certainly would.
Matt Rivers, we know you'll be keeping a close eye on this. Thank you for that report.
Vice President Kamala Harris gets the tasks of the border and voting rights. So how do her big projects compare to her predecessors?
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, for the first time ever, LeBron James is out of the NBA playoffs in the first rounds. Details in the "Bleacher Report" ahead.
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BERMAN: The looming voting rights battle just the latest task on the expanding portfolio for Vice President Kamala Harris. The White House says it's all part of what makes a modern day vice president. Harris is already leading the diplomatic efforts in the Northern Triangle to stem the flow of migration across the U.S./Mexico border.
CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali with me for more on the challenging jobs that vice presidents face.
Let's talk about Vice President Kamala Harris here, this dual portfolio. What does it signify?
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, Vice President Harris is, in many, many ways the first of a new kind of vice president. Not only is she the first person of color to be vice president, the first woman to be vice president, she's the vice president for the oldest man to be president and the oldest man to be president in his first term. By the end of his first term, we will have a commander in chief, Joe Biden, who will be in his 80s. And so I think it's important to look at the assignments she's getting as different from normal assignments for a first term vice president. In some ways, President Biden is signaling that she may be the future of the Democratic Party.
BERMAN: So not the first vice president to get an assignment, though. This goes back to, you know, start with Richard Nixon.
NAFTALI: Well, Richard Nixon was the first modern vice president. In other words, he's the first vice president who was brought into the policy-making circles of a president. Prior to that, the vice president was largely a legislative figure who sat around in the Capitol waiting for the president to die. Vice President Nixon, however, gets a very tough job from Dwight Eisenhower. Dwight Eisenhower's not a politician. He doesn't like politicians. He wants Vice President Nixon to coral the far right of the party, and that means Joe McCarthy, tough assignment.
BERMAN: LBJ.
NAFTALI: Lyndon Johnson -- poor Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson said yes to being John F. Kennedy's vice president because he thought he had power. He was convinced that he would still be able to lead Democrats in the Congress and he expected an office in the West Wing. Oh, no, John F. Kennedy had no interest in giving him power. He makes him the head of the National Space Council. It sounds really cool, except when John F. Kennedy he did that, he was not expecting to send people to the moon. LBJ was not a happy guy.
BERMAN: Turned out OK for him, though.
All right, let's talk about Vice President Al Gore and perhaps the least sexy sounding one here, reinventing government. NAFTALI: Al Gore -- Al Gore, when Bill Clinton chooses Al Gore, he
makes it clear, another southern politician, both young men, they're going to be partners. Al Gore got substantive assignments in 1993, first year of the first term. First of all, reinventing government. Secondly, he is involved in a relationship with Russia. He and the prime minister of Russia, Chernomyrdin, actually are running very important discussions, partly leading to the denuclearization of parts of the former Soviet Union. A big deal.
BERMAN: Dick Cheney.
NAFTALI: Ah, Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney is the one who runs the -- George W. Bush's search for a vice president and, guess what, he ends up being on the ticket with Dick Cheney. He -- with George W. Bush.
Dick Cheney is there because he has the chops. He has foreign policy chops. When he comes into the White House, after W wins, the White House wants to give him a bunch of assignments. He doesn't take anything be what he wants. What he wants, homeland security, weapons of mass destruction, and he wants to be able to attend any meeting that George W. Bush is having with anyone. He get as what he wants.
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BERMAN: Tim Naftali, very interesting look at history here. Thanks so much for being with us.
NAFTALI: A pleasure, John.
BERMAN: All right, former Vice President Mike Pence -- on the vice president train here -- distancing himself from Trump over the Capitol insurrection. How will Donald Trump respond?
KEILAR: Plus, a Capitol Police officer injured in the riot speaking out for the first time.
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AQUILINO GONELL, UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE: I went to my son's bed and gave him a hug. He was asleep still. Gave him a big kiss. And I just started crying.
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KEILAR: This morning we are hearing the never-before-told accounts of two Capitol Police officers who experienced the harrowing events of January 6th. They tell CNN they didn't think that they would make it out alive. Whitney Wild is with us now on these stories.
They actually -- they recount hearing the rioters, Whitney, say, Trump sent us. I mean they have no doubt what precipitated this nightmare that they went through.
[06:50:02] WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And if they're -- after spending, you know, hours talking to these men, there was one thing that became clear, and it's that they will have a very difficult time. They might never be able to shake the anger they feel from that day.
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WILD: What was the worst thing they called you?
SGT. AQUILINO GONELL, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE: Traitor.
WILD: Why was that the worst thing?
GONELL: Because I serve my country. I want to see -- to protect our homeland from foreign threats, but yet here I am battling them in our own Capitol.
WILD (voice over): United States Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell immigrated from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. at 12 years old in 1991, deployed to Iraq in 2003 and then joined Capitol Police in 2008. He's speaking publicly for the first time about January 6th, when he fought rioters trying to stop the certification of Joe Biden's presidency.
GONELL: I got hurt. I got hurt. I would do it again if I have to. It's my job.
WILD: Sergeant Gonell led members of the department's Civil Disturbance Unit. For hours they battled insurrectionists attacking the Capitol. This video shows his fight on the west front.
GONELL: They kept saying, Trump -- Trump sent me. We won't listen to you. We are here to take over the Capitol. We are here to hang Mike Pence. They thought we were there for them. And we weren't. So they turned against us. It was very scary because I thought I was going to lose my life right there.
WILD: Some of the most horrific video shows Sergeant Gonell steps from Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, caught in a doorway.
GONELL: I could hear my fellow officers screaming. The agony in some of them. All I could think was, we can't let these people in. There's going to be a slaughter inside.
WILD: Rioters beat Sergeant Gonell so badly they cut his hand and he needed foot surgery. While he fended off the attack outside, Officer Byron Evans locked down areas inside the Capitol and evacuated senators.
WILD (on camera): Did you ever think this might be a life-or-death situation for you?
OFFICER BYRON EVANS, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE: I remember specifically thinking that when I was on the floor, I remember thinking all that stuff like, Byron, this is the day. All those times you've given thought on what you would do, you're doing it.
WILD (voice over): Four hours Evans and the senators watched the riot on TV from a secure location.
EVANS: I just remember the anger I felt when I saw those images. They busted windows, climbing the walls and stuff like that. It was -- it was an audible gasp in the room.
WILD: Around 6:00 the riot had calmed enough that Sergeant Gonell could finally tell his wife he'd survived.
GONELL: I started texting my wife. And what I said to her, I'm OK, see you whenever.
WILD: Congress resumed certifying the Electoral College votes that night. Sergeant Gonell arrived back home around 3:00 a.m. January 7th, but found little relief.
GONELL: When I came in, she wanted to hug me. And I told her, no, because I was covered in -- I was covered in pepper spray, my hands were bleeding still. And I even -- I couldn't even sleep, because I went and took a shower, and instead of helping, that reinflamed the chemicals.
WILD (on camera): It had soaked through your clothes?
GONELL: Yes. I took a bath with milk. That didn't (ph) help.
WILD (voice over): Just hours later, both he, Officer Evans, and hundreds more officers, still reeling from the worst attack in two centuries, headed back to work.
GONELL: I did give my wife a hug and I started crying.
WILD (on camera): Why?
GONELL: It didn't happen. And I think I wouldn't be able to see them. I went to my son's bed and gave him a hug. He was asleep still. Gave him a big kiss. And I just started crying.
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It was like five, ten minutes, a hug, which I just cried. And she kept telling me it's going to be OK. And I'm like, no, I've got to go back to work. I've got to go back to work.
WILD (voice over): For him, the riot is hardly in the rear view.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The motion is not agreed to.
WILD: The failure of a bill to establish a commission to investigate the causes of the insurrection left him devastating but gave him a reason to speak out.
GONELL: It hurts me that the country that I love, that I came in, that I have sacrificed so much don't care about us. They don't. (END VIDEOTAPE)
WILD: It was on the very day that the bill to establish a January 6th commission failed that Sergeant Gonell came forward. He said he simply couldn't stay silent any longer.
KEILAR: Yes, look, we have to hear these stories. And thank you so much. Thank you so much for helping us really listen to the words of the officers who were there. These are incredible stories. It's so clear how traumatized they have been.
WILD: Absolutely. And there was one moment when I was speaking with Sergeant Gonell that was one of the more gut-wrenching moments when he said that after everything he went through, after all the pain he endured, he stills feel guilty that he didn't do more, Brianna.
KEILAR: Amazing.
Whitney, again, thank you so much.
Whitney Wild.
We'll be right back.
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BERMAN: For the first time in his career, LeBron James is heading home after the first round of the playoffs.
Andy Scholes has more in the "Bleacher Report."
Andy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, John.
So LeBron was a perfect 14-0 in the first round all time, but not anymore thanks to the Suns.
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And for the first time since 2010 we're going to have an NBA finals without LeBron or Steph Curry. So it's an end of an era.
