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Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) Interviewed on Report Detailing Security Failures During Capitol Insurrection on January 6th; Obama Sounds Alarm on State of Democracy in America; Obama: "I Tried" to Tell Story of Race in U.S. as President. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 08, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

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JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Then there was Republicans shameful vote to oppose a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6th Capitol Hill attack, even from those Senators who had been talking about supporting it only days before.

So even if today's China bill passes, there's unfortunately little rational reason to hope for an infrastructure bill with $1 trillion in new spending, let alone resembling anything resembling federal voting rights while red states push through voter restrictions. And Mitch McConnell is already saying that Democrats' agenda is transparently designed to fail. That's a tell.

Now, the truth is most Republicans are more comfortable opposing than proposing new policies. They can't kick the big lie because Trump's grievances are the GOP agenda. Today's vote offers the rare example that bipartisan isn't totally dead yet. But the fact that a bill countering China took such a heavy lift is a reminder that the impulse to obstruct is, unfortunately, the closest thing Republicans seem to have to a governing philosophy.

And that's your Reality Check.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar alongside John Berman. On this NEW DAY a just-released bipartisan report on the January 6th attack doesn't even address Donald Trump's role in the insurrection. So why not? One of the senators behind it is standing by to talk to us right now.

Plus, former President Barack Obama gets candid about race, the insurrection, and Republicans who embrace the big lie about the 2020 election.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden taking off on his first foreign trip this week. What will happen when he meets Vladimir Putin in person? NATO's secretary general joins us live.

And Jane Fonda's new fight. The legendary actress and activist tells us why she grabbed a bullhorn and joined protesters with a message for President Biden. KEILAR: Good morning to viewers here in the United States and around

the world. It is Tuesday, June 8th. And multiple security lapses and stunning intelligence failures led to the Capitol insurrection. This is according to a bipartisan Senate report on the deadly January 6th riot. This report paints a troubling portrait of critical miscommunications and unheeded warnings in the days, weeks, and even the months leading up to the attack on the Capitol. It also details why the law enforcement response on January 6th was so chaotic.

BERMAN: So the report is also notable for what it does not address. There's no examination of Donald Trump's role in the riot. In fact, Senate Democrats even avoided using the word "insurrection" to describe the insurrection.

KEILAR: Let's talk now with Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan. He is the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He and his staff co-authored this report.

Good morning to you, Senator Peters. We're certainly grateful to have you on this morning to talk about this new report. What is the main takeaway to you in this report that shows Capitol police, they actually had a lot of intelligence about planning ahead of the insurrection?

SEN. GARY PETERS, (D-MI): Well, it does show there were a lot of failures that led to the breach of the Capitol, which is what this report was really focused on. It was limited in scope so that we could have concrete recommendations that could then be provided to the Capitol police as well as other federal agencies to make sure that we never see an attack on the Capitol like we saw on January 6th.

We looked at the fact that we had intelligence agencies that, despite the fact this was happening real time on social media, it was widely known that it would be a very likely violent crowd coming to Washington, D.C., they did not put out intelligence warnings that would have informed local officials as to how to adequately prepare. Those failings need to continue to be examined. We will do that in the Homeland Security committee that I chair.

It's also clear that there wasn't the kind of attention necessary to domestic terrorism and the rise of domestic terrorism and how that can lead to the kind of event that we saw January 6th. But then there was not adequate preparation by the Capitol police, clearly a failure of leadership.

I want to be clear, the men and women of the Capitol police that were out there defending the Capitol, and the men and women in the Capitol, and, quite frankly, our democracy, did heroic actions and paid a very large physical price as a result of this violent attack. But leadership failed. There wasn't adequate equipment. There wasn't adequate training. There wasn't adequate protocols when it came to getting the National Guard to respond to help the police on the Capitol grounds. So it was a host of issues. We have over 20 recommendations. The idea of the report is that these are things that can be taken up quickly and corrections can be made quickly.

KEILAR: As you mentioned, it was limited in scope. And you did interview many, many police officers. You interviewed officials.

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But this was very limited in scope. It was also limited in its description of what happened on January 6th. Why not describe what happened accurately as an insurrection? If you don't call it what it is, do you risk fueling the downplaying of what was an insurrection?

PETERS: Well, it was an insurrection, and I've said that repeatedly and will continue to say that. It was very clear. The facts show that. The report is just focused on the security, but that's why we need a commission. That's why I strongly support having a commission to really delve into why we got to the point where you had this crowd show up to engage in an insurrection, an attempt to stop the constitutional counting of the electoral votes. That's what a commission does. It would look into all those factors. Our focus here was just to get some recommendations that could be immediately implemented. The quicker those are implemented, the better.

KEILAR: But you're going to not get a commission. It has failed in Congress, right? So you're not going to get that. And I get it, you're trying to use these immediate recommendations and put them to purpose, trying to protect the Capitol, trying to protect lawmakers and police as well. But do you -- I guess, do you, without this examination of the big lie, without the root causes, do you worry that more needs to be done, and that this, without the commission, is actually incredibly important but doesn't accurately describe what happened? Did you have Republicans who said, look, we're not going to go along with this if you call it an insurrection?

PETERS: That wasn't discussed. I call it an insurrection. We wanted to focus just on --

KEILAR: I want to be clear on this. It wasn't written up in the report. So aside from quote, we're saying if someone referred to it as an insurrection, it's in a quote. But in terms of the staff that authored this report, why did they decide to pull that punch, to not call it an insurrection?

PETERS: I think we just wanted to focus on what the actual facts were related to what happened on the Capitol grounds and the violence, and what were security breaches. And why wasn't there adequate planning for security.

But I think you're absolutely right. We have to go beyond this. This is not the end all. And folks who say now that we have this report, move on. As one of the folks putting this report together, I will say, no, that has never been the intent of this report. It is focused just on individual security recommendations that we hope will be implemented, but there's no question we have to look broadly at what led to this. And part of that is the rise of violent extremist groups.

I think what was telling to me with the intelligence community, they said they weren't able to put out a warning because they weren't sure whether or not this was related to violence or if it was free speech. Why were they questioning the credibility of what we were all seeing on the Internet? This was a moment for us, a singular event. And I say it's similar to what we saw 9/11 where we had this attack on our soil, foreign terrorists that attacked our soil. It really was a wake-up call for the intelligence community and the silos that existed, that they weren't talking together like they should. And we realized that foreign terrorism just doesn't occur in foreign countries. It can actually happen in our homeland. And that's what happened on January 6th. Now we have domestic terrorism.

KEILAR: I do want to ask you about this, Senator, but it's hard to imagine a 9/11 report of any kind, limited in scope or not, that didn't refer to terrorism, right, that didn't call this a terrorist attack. Are you saying there were absolutely no ground rules from Republicans about what you could or could not say to get them to participate? Are you saying this was entirely -- you say it's an insurrection, but you don't in the report. Are you saying that was entirely your decision then?

PETERS: No, the ground rules that we would focus on just the facts of what happened on the Capitol grounds that day, and look at security breaches.

KEILAR: But that's a fact, that it's an insurrection.

PETERS: It is. It is a fact, and you can stipulate that. And I think that's widely known. What we were looking at is what were specific incidents that we could then come up with recommendations in terms of training, in terms of equipment, in terms of intelligence sharing, in terms of how you can get a National Guard to respond more quickly, because this could happen again. And we want to make sure that we have those preparations in place now.

But that in no way should preclude a broader discussion of what is happening in this country and what we saw from the former president. It was clear in all of that intelligence that was coming through on social media, it was clear what was motivating folks, and that was the fact that the president was falsely saying that the election was stolen, and he was putting out the big lie. And it wasn't just the president. It was a lot of elected officials, many who work in the Capitol that continue to spread that which contributed to bringing those folks there. That was clear.

We wanted to deal with how do we make sure the Capitol itself will be stronger in the future regardless of what may happen in putting in the right security protocols.

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KEILAR: Yes, and we thank you so much for joining us to talk about this. Your report is revelatory. There are important details in there for making sure that this doesn't happen again. Senator Peters, appreciate it.

PETERS: Thank you.

KEILAR: And just ahead, reaction from a former top Obama adviser. Plus, the former president talks about race in America. He talks about the right-wing media stoking fear.

BERMAN: Also, exclusive new audio of Rudy Giuliani pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. And just in this morning, new plans to reunite migrant families separated at the southern U.S. border.

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BERMAN: Former President Obama sounding the alarm about the state of democracy in the United States, pointing out that after the January 6th insurrection, members of Congress were still perpetuating the big lie about election fraud.

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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: My hope is, is that the tides will turn, but that does require each of us to understand that this experiment in democracy is not self-executing. It doesn't happen just automatically. It happens because each successive generation says these values, these truths we hold self-evident. This is important.

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We're going to invest in it and sacrifice for it and we'll stand up for it, even when it's not politically convenient.

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BERMAN: Joining me now is Ben Rhodes. He serves as deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration. He's also the author of "After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made."

And, Ben, it's really interesting because those comments from your former boss, from the former president about democracy and the United States where he says the guardrails have come off, really mirror what you write about extensively in your book which is a little bit of a dark look at what the world has become and the prospects for democracy going forward.

So once the guardrails are off here and around the world, what are the prospects really for getting them back on?

BEN RHODES, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, I think the first step is understanding what's happening. And there's a playbook that's been pursued around the world, and that's what I talk about in my book. And the starting point for me as I was talking to a democracy activist in Hungary which has transitioned from a democracy to autocracy in about a decade.

And I said, well, how did that happen in your country? And he said, well, it's simple. Viktor Orban, our prime minister, was elected on a right wing populist backlash to the financial crisis. He redrew parliamentary districts to entrench his party in power, changed the voting laws to make it easier for his supporters to vote, packed the courts with kind of far right judges who will back him, enriched some people on the outside who then bought the media and turned into a propaganda machinery, put people in an alternative reality and wrapped it up in an us versus them national bow, us being the real Hungarians, them being immigrants, George Soros, liberal elites.

And you listen to that, and you think, well, what's happened here in the United States is not so dissimilar from what's happening all around the world right now. We have to understand the starting point to pushing back is understanding that this is the playbook that's being run by people who want to take the machinery of democracy and use it for their own purposes which is to entrench themselves in power.

BERMAN: And people who were doing things that perhaps they haven't done before or at least they haven't done claiming that they are, in fact, democrats, small "D".

And I mention that because and CNN obtained this audio exclusively of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the president's lawyer, making that phone call to Ukrainian officials asking for an investigation into Joe Biden.

I just want to play some of that here.

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RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP PERSONAL LAWYER: If he could say something like that, on his own, in conversation, it would go a long way -- it would go a long way with the president to solve the problems.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BERMAN: And again, as you hear that, Rudy Giuliani's own voice, I wonder if you can overlay what your write about which are your concerns about the guardrails on democracy.

RHODES: Well, I think what's so chilling about this, John, when you hear something like that is, that's not normal. That's not something that would have happened ten years ago. What's essentially happened is any basic boundary or norm for how we conduct ourselves in this democracy has fallen by the wayside when you have -- let's face it, you know, there a lot of listeners who may not agree with my views on the size of government or national security policies, and that's fine, but we all accept that there's certain principles, certain things you don't do.

And weaponizing American foreign policy to dig up dirt on your political opponents is a whole new ball game, just as we see voter suppression laws kicking into a different gear in this country in an effort to entrench kind of minority rule of the majority.

So, again, I think the starting point, as my former boss, President Obama, said, is for people to be aware of that and to recognize that these issues aren't settled. We can't assume that democracy is going to be there for us in the next generation. Each generation faces a particular kind of competition where people have to mobilize, they have to step up, they have to unify, and they have to show that they will put democratic values ahead of other interests. And that's the moment that we're in in this country and around the world. BERMAN: So West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin seems to be

willing to bet that the future of the world is safe because he thinks he can convince ten Republican senators to vote with him on key issues.

What do you think of the fate that Joe Manchin is putting in that?

RHODES: Well, look, I wish -- I wish he was right, John. But we have over a decade of lived experience. That's not going to happen.

You know, I came into the White House in 2009 with President Obama. That's what we wanted to do. You know, we weren't talking about being partisan. We were talking about red states and blue states coming together.

And what we got is an increasingly intransigent Republican Party moving more and more to the extremities on these issues. And I think what has to happen in response is, look, if Joe Manchin is not going to back HR-1, S-1, this comprehensive bill to get at voting rights in democracy, then the administration has to find ways to break that into pieces and get as much as it can through Congress.

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And failing that, people have to mobilize at the local level and put pressure on local and state officials. This is going to be a long, drawn out and definitional struggle for Americans, for democracy in the next two years and four years and beyond.

BERMAN: Very last question. On China, if you were deputy national security adviser and it turned out that coronavirus leaked from a lab in China and the Chinese, if not covered it up, certainly didn't reveal that information to the world, how would you punish China?

RHODES: Well, I think, first of all, we have to get to the bottom of this to prevent future coronaviruses. You know, there's an imperative -- a public, global public health imperative to deal with this.

I think more broadly when you look at this, you know, China has been country that wanted to have all the benefits of the international system, of organizations like the WHO, without playing by the rules and increasingly undermining those rules. And so I think you have to look at not just sanctions but what are the terms under which China is participating in an international architecture that it benefits from?

But what I'd also like to see because this is something I look at in my book is, we have to elevate their human rights abuses. The kind of mentality that might lead them to not be transparent about the origins of COVID is the same mentality that says they can do whatever they want to a million Uyghurs who are in concentration camps or the Hong Kong protesters who I spent time with my book.

And I think it's time that the United States elevates those types of issues in our relationship and shows that they're -- we're going to go to the mat on those things in the same way we've gone to the mat on trade disputes in the past. This stuff is life or death in the case of COVID, and it's life or death for democracy in terms of what we're seeing emanating from China on a host of other issues.

BERMAN: Ben Rhodes, the book is "After the Fall" -- thank you so much for joining us this morning.

RHODES: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: All right. More from President Obama up next. A story about what happened when he talked about race as president.

KEILAR: And Jane Fonda joins protesters in a showdown over a pipeline. She'll tell us why when she joins us live.

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BERMAN: Former President Barack Obama in an exclusive new CNN interview says talking about race as the country's first black president was something he and his advisers had to think about carefully.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Look, I tried. I think I told a lot of stories. You take a look at the speeches I gave in Selma and the speech I gave during the campaign about Reverend Wright and that whole episode.

And, you know, each and every time I tried to describe why it is that we are still not fully reconciled with our history. But the fact is that it is a hard thing to hear. It's hard for the majority in this country of white Americans to recognize that, look, you can be proud of this country and its traditions and its history and our forefathers and yet it is also true that this terrible stuff happened and that, you know, the vestiges of that linger and continue.

And the truth is that when I tried to tell that story, oftentimes, my political opponents would deliberately not only block out that story but try to exploit it for their own political gain. I tell the story in the book about the situation where Skip Gates, a Harvard professor, trying to get into his own house, gets arrested and I'm asked about it.

I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts what role race played in that. But I think it's fair to say number one, any of us would be pretty angry. Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.

Subsequent polling showed that my support among white voters dropped more precipitously after that -- that should have been a minor trivial incident than anything else during my presidency.

ANDRESON COOPER, CNN HOST: That's extraordinary.

COOPER: It gives a sense to the degree of which these things are still, you know, they're deep in us. And, you know, sometimes unconscious. But I also think that there are certain right wing media venues, for example, that monetize and capitalize on stoking the fear and resentment of a white population that is witnessing a changing America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Let's bring in Abby Phillip, anchor of "INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY" and CNN senior political correspondent.

So interesting to hear the former president basically say, look what happened when I tried. Look what happened in that moment with the lowest of low bars. You know, when Skip Gates was arrested for trying to get into his own house, look what happened when I spoke out about that and how can you ask how I feel my discussions of race were during my presidency.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, you get a sense that he recognizes that the standards have changed since he was in office. There was a tip toeing around race when Obama was president, in part because he was the first black president. He was trying to make sure that he made white America as comfortable as possible, and they learned the hard way.

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