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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Interview With Alice Johnson; Biden Set to Campaign in Battleground States. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired August 28, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:01]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: At the White House last night, President Trump spoke for 70 minutes accepting his nomination, but he remained silent on Jacob Blake and other recent victims of police violence.

The president's also silent on the apparent Trump supporter charged with murdering protesters in Wisconsin. Instead, President Trump touting himself as the law and order president, painting a dark picture of anarchy and violence in Joe Biden's America, blaming the so-called lawlessness happening on his watch, on Trump's watch, on Democrats.

Now both Trump and Biden are set to return to the campaign trail with just a little over two months until the election, as CNN's Ryan Nobles now reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump today taking his campaign show on the road, plowing past accusations of racism, sexism and botching the coronavirus pandemic.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I profoundly accept this nomination for president of the United States.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NOBLES: Using the four days of the Republican National Convention to paint a much different narrative.

TRUMP: We developed from scratch the largest and most advanced testing system anywhere in the world.

NOBLES: President Trump upended the traditions of a national convention, delivering a blistering 70-minute speech in support of his reelection on the taxpayer-owned South Lawn of the White House.

TRUMP: The fact is, we're here and they're not.

NOBLES: Talking up his accomplishments and using the current strife in American cities taking place under his watch to warn voters about a Joe Biden administration.

TRUMP: If the radical left takes power, they will apply their disastrous policies to every city, town and suburb in America.

NOBLES: His speech capped off with a massive fireworks display that was impressively staged, but was rife with falsehoods.

CNN counted more than 20 false and misleading statements, just a portion of which were recapped by CNN's fact-checker, Daniel Dale.

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: He claimed again that he banned travel from China and Europe. No, he imposed partial restrictions with many exemptions. Tens of thousands of people continued traveling over. He boasted about the COVID testing system and about his general response.

Look, experts near universally say the U.S. was fatally slow in its response, especially slow in setting up adequate testing.

NOBLES: The end of the convention season means the start of the final campaign sprint. Both Trump and Biden expected to be on the road much more, but the problems confronting America still linger, with the two sides taking a much different approach.

TRUMP: The Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson, and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities all, like Kenosha.

NOBLES: Today, Trump still not even mentioning Jacob Blake's name, the man shot seven times by a police officer in Wisconsin that set off a new round of protests.

TRUMP: We must always have law and order.

NOBLES: Trump instead referring to the protesters around the country as an angry mob. Some of those protesters just steps outside the White House could be heard from the South Lawn during the president's speech.

Afterward, they confronted the president's supporters as they left the White House grounds, among them, Senator Rand Paul, who accused the protesters of assaulting him and tweeted his thanks to the Washington, D.C., police for -- quote -- "literally saving our lives from a crazed mob."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBLES: And we're expecting the president here in New Hampshire in just a couple of hours.

And as you can see here behind me, this is a full-on campaign rally, very little social distancing. But we should not forget the real impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Of course, there were more than 1,000 people on the South Lawn of the White House last night, very few wearing masks and very little social distancing.

There are real-world impacts of this, Jake. The Republican National Convention, which took place in Charlotte indoors, a little more than 300 people, and already there are four cases of the coronavirus that came out of that event. And health officials in North Carolina said that they are just beginning the process of finding out exactly what the long-term impacts are of that gathering -- Jake.

TAPPER: The president and his campaign setting the exact opposite example that health officials want him to.

Ryan Nobles, thanks so much.

Let's go now to CNN's Sara Sidner for new details on the shooting of Jacob Blake.

The local police union is out today, Sara, with some new claims about the shooting. This is just breaking right now. What are you learning?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's really interesting.

We should know that normally these details would come out from officials, like the police chief. But we now know that they are not the investigating agency. It is the state Department of Justice that is the investigating agency.

But we're now hearing these new details from the police union, the Kenosha police union, and I'm going to read a few things out here. These are things that you have not yet heard before from an initial standpoint.

They are talking about why they came up to encounter Mr. Blake, saying that he was not actually breaking up a fight between two other people, that indeed they were aware that he had a warrant out for his arrest, particularly the warrant that involved a charge of sexual assault.

They said that Mr. Blake was not unarmed, that he had a knife in his possession, that the officers did not initially see the knife, but they weren't aware of the warrant, and then later apparently they told Mr. Blake when they did see the night to drop the knife, drop the knife, and he did not comply.

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That is according to the Kenosha police union. These are new details we hadn't heard before. They are coming out from an interesting spot, very different from any other police department or police investigation that I have ever covered, that we're getting information about the investigation from the union, not from any other official source.

We are also hearing from the union. They say that the silver SUV that everyone has seen on the video that he is trying to get into was not Mr. Blake's vehicle. We know that they were called to the scene initially from the dispatch audio. They were initially called because someone called saying that he had taken their keys.

And now we are learning more from the police union in this case, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Sara Sidner, I believe you also have a piece to run right now?

SIDNER: Yes, we have more information on all of this and some more breaking news inside the story we're about to tell you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (voice-over): Seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, accused of fatally shooting two people in Kenosha, is due to appear in an Illinois court next month after an extradition hearing was pushed back.

Authorities are fighting to have him sent to Wisconsin, where he faces six charges in two fatal shootings and the wounding of another. Police and social media videos revealed the 17-year-old suspects came to Kenosha with a rifle and a plan, later laid out in the charges against him.

He explained it that night to the conservative media outlet The Daily Caller.

KYLE RITTENHOUSE, DEFENDANT: People are getting injured. Our job IS TO protect this business. And part of my job is to also help people, if there's somebody hurt.

SIDNER: Instead, authorities say Rittenhouse ended up killing and injuring people. Several social media videos show it playing out in the streets of Kenosha.

His attorney telling NBC News his client acted in self-defense.

Hannah Gittings' boyfriend, shown here, died to stop the gunman using a skateboard.

HANNAH GITTINGS, GIRLFRIEND OF KILLED PROTESTER: He loved the city because it was his city, and he wanted to make it better. Like, he wanted to stay in this house with me and my daughter and raise her here and make it a better place.

SIDNER: Anthony Kennedy, a Kenosha alderman, is clear on who he believes is to blame for the worst violence.

ANTHONY KENNEDY, KENOSHA ALDERMAN: The last time there was a police shooting in this town was six years ago. This narrative that the police are out of control is something I'm pushing back on. The agitators are the ones who are showing up with guns who want to kill people.

SIDNER: The protests that created this volatile mix sparked by another shooting, the police shooting of Jacob Blake that left him paralyzed after being shot seven times in the back.

Jacob Blake's family telling CNN police have cuffed Blake to his hospital bed.

JACOB BLAKE SR., FATHER OF JACOB BLAKE: When I walked into that room, he's paralyzed from the waist down. Why do they have that cold steel on my son's ankle? He can't get up. He couldn't get up if he wanted to.

So what was -- that's a little overkill to have him shackled to the bed. That just makes no sense to me.

SIDNER: The sheriff says he's cuffed to the bed because Blake has felony warrants for his arrest, including one from July for third- degree sexual assault.

Friday afternoon, Blake's local attorney says the cuffs were finally removed and Blake's warrants vacated.

Dispatch audio from the moments before Blake's shooting is shedding a little more light on why police approached him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Complainant says Jacob Blake isn't supposed to be there, and he took the complainant's key and is refusing to give them back. It looks like he's trying to leave. We're trying to get a vehicle description.

SIDNER: The Blake family attorney explaining these two shootings, in his opinion, are an example of two different justice systems in America.

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR JACOB BLAKE: No police officer that he walked by, no National Guard that he walked by shot him in the back. Nobody killed him. And so it is the tale of two videos that perfectly highlight the frustration of African-Americans and the NBA players and the Major League players and everybody who wants equal justice in this society.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: And we are hearing the same thing from Jacob Blake's family, although they tell me they are relieved to know now that Jacob Blake's cuffs -- the cuffs on his leg that cuffed him to the hospital bed has been removed, and that police are no longer guarding him at the hospital -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Sara Sidner in Kenosha, Wisconsin, thank you so much.

Also in our national lead, late this afternoon, President Trump granted Alice Johnson a full pardon. He had commuted her life sentence in 2018. This was for a first-time offense related to drug trafficking.

Johnson delivered one of the most memorable speeches at the Republican National Convention last night.

And Alice Johnson joins me now, in her first interview since receiving that full pardon.

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First of all, Ms. Johnson, congratulations on your pardon. Did you have any inkling that this was going to happen?

ALICE JOHNSON, RECEIVED FULL PARDON: Jake, I had no idea, none. It's almost like deja vu... TAPPER: Well, tell me...

JOHNSON: ... from two years ago.

When I woke up that morning, I didn't know that would be my last day in prison.

TAPPER: Tell me what it was like for you finding out that President Trump was pardoning you and what it means to you?

JOHNSON: Well, I had no idea.

I went to the White House for a different reason. And when I got there, I was with a family who was there last night who -- the three children of a slain mother. They were there to see the president too. And I was there to see him also after the -- after last night.

And they went in first, and then I was waiting. And they came out and told me that the president -- Jared told me, the president, Alice, is -- wants to give you, is going to give you a full pardon. He's going to give you a pardon.

Jake, my hands were shaking so bad. I'm still -- you just don't know, Jake. I ran to get to this interview, because I had already -- it was already scheduled with you.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: It was. We're honored.

JOHNSON: So, it was -- everything is closed off.

I didn't want to let you down. So I was running, literally, trying to make it here.

TAPPER: Well, we're honored. We were honored before, and we're honored that you ran because of this incredible event that just happened.

Last night, you delivered what I think a lot of people feel was a beautiful and moving speech at the convention. And you praised President Trump for his compassion in commuting your sentence and granting your release.

You did not formally endorse him in your remarks. Was that intentional? Do you endorse him?

JOHNSON: Well, I'm so appreciative of everything the president has done.

And, of course, I support him as a president. And, last night, I didn't have a right to vote, and I still haven't registered to vote. So I thought it would have been a little bit hypocritical of me to not be able to vote, and then say I'm endorsing.

But I do support the work and things that the president is doing. TAPPER: Do you want him to be reelected?

JOHNSON: Well, I'd like to continue to work with him on criminal justice reform. So, I'd like to see that happen to be able to continue to do this work.

But Jake, for me, this is not about politics. This is about people. And I try to really stay focused on what my mission is. As I said in my speech, that was true. I did make a promise to the women and to the men that I would never stop fighting for them.

And this really is not a partisan issue, criminal justice reform. It's something that reaches across the aisle that has affected, that has impacted both Republicans, independents, Democrats. It's American citizens who have been impacted by this.

TAPPER: There are a lot of people in the Democratic Party and increasingly in the Republican Party who think that we just -- we imprison too many people for offenses that don't deserve the sentences they are getting.

Now, President Obama, he granted clemencies to more than 1,900 people while in office. So far, President Trump has granted 36. And many of them were for people that he knew or conservatives.

You spent 21 years behind bars.

JOHNSON: Yes, it was 22.

TAPPER: I assume -- 22.

I assume that you think that President Trump should be commuting more sentences and pardoning more people, because you saw firsthand people that were in prison for so long and didn't deserve to be there.

JOHNSON: Right.

Well, that's what I'm advocating for, Jake. And I'm hoping that that will be coming in the near future. I have been working relentlessly on that.

In fact, my -- I haven't spent as much time with my family as I would have liked to. I can't just come out and forget about the people who were left behind. And that's what I have really dedicated my life to doing, is helping them come home.

TAPPER: I think it's beautiful what you're doing.

I do want to ask you, because President Trump is not particularly popular in the black community, how you explain your work with him, your speaking at the convention. If people criticize you, and they say he's a racist or whatever, what do you say to them?

JOHNSON: I have not seen President Trump on a personal level -- I don't judge anyone's heart. Just like you, Jake, I take you personally. You have been -- I see you

as another human being who has been very kind to me. I'm going to be kind to you also.

So, the president has been very kind to me, and the other people who I have been in contact with who has been around him.

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I know him personally and I don't see that in him.

Whatever anyone else feels there, they have the right to what they feel. But for myself, I really don't see that in him.

TAPPER: Alice Johnson, just two messages for you before I say good- bye. One, please stay in touch with us so that we can continue to focus on the issue of criminal justice reform and your passion for it. And second of all, God bless you and congratulations. Thanks so much for honoring us with your presence today.

JOHNSON: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: Have a great weekend.

Coming up next, a former Trump official who says that we are less safe today because of President Trump's leadership. She's going to join me next with why she's now backing Joe Biden.

Plus, a dire new projection, more than 100,000 new coronavirus deaths projected before December. Thousands of deaths could be avoided if we all do one simple thing.

Stay with us.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists and agitators and criminals, who threaten our citizens. And this election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life or whether we will allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: President Trump accepting his party's renomination in a 90 -- I'm sorry, in a 70-plus minute speech from the White House, that was frankly littered with lies.

Mr. Trump painted a disturbing, even dystopian view of what a Biden presidency would look like, even though he's been running the country for the last three and a half years. And while much of the GOP seems to be in lockstep with the president,

there are a number of former Trump administration officials who are speaking out and even backing Biden. Elizabeth Neumann is one of them. She served as assistant secretary for threat prevention in the Department of Homeland Security and joins us now.

Elizabeth, thanks so much for joining us.

I know you no longer support the president. What did -- was your take on his speech last night? He really talked a lot about law and order, which is in your wheelhouse.

ELIZABETH NEUMANN, FORMER TRUMP DHS OFFICIAL BACKING BIDEN: Yes, thanks for having me, Jake.

More of the same, was my impression. The president loves to entertain. This was a speech that -- there were parts of it, especially at the beginning, that if a normal president had been giving, it would have been totally appropriate, and then it took a very dark turn, which is pretty persistent with the way in which he campaigns.

It's very clear that the campaign's approach is to instill fear, to use divisive language. He is intentionally scaring people that their way of life, whatever that way is, is at risk, if they don't vote for him. And sadly, for certain parts of our country, that rhetoric can lead to taking matters into their own hands. It can lead to radicalization of ideals that are very anti-what this country is about. But white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-government extremist ideas have been growing for quite some time in this country. And his divisive rhetoric is fuel on that fire and it makes us less safe.

TAPPER: Yeah, this was an area that you worked on when you were at the Department of Homeland Security, trying to get the Trump administration to take seriously the threat from right-wing white supremacist domestic terrorists or potential domestic terrorists, which is not a group that president Trump really even acknowledges very often.

Tell us about that experience.

NEUMANN: Sure. We saw that the trend of growing, very in your face, very outspoken white supremacy -- and to be clear, white supremacy and racism has been around for millennia.

TAPPER: Right.

NEUMANN: This is not a new phenomenon, but certainly in the last four or five years, we saw an increase in hate crimes, an increase in attacks on both blacks and Jews, tended to be the target populations of these hate crimes.

And we were watching with concern in 2017 and then Charlottesville happened and I found that moment so jarring because of how emboldened and unashamed the people that were marching with the tiki torches was. If they weren't hiding behind masks and cloaks, they were -- they had

no shame in showing their faces. And I think that kind of emboldenment is directly related to the president's language, it seems to have empowered that effort.

So when we started to see that this is a growing trend, a trend that our allies overseas were also seeing, those allies call it right-wing extremism. We tend to not call it that in this country, because it makes it kind of a delicate or a sore spot to talk about.

But the reality is that the globalized white supremacy movement tends to be seen as a right-wing extremist type of movement.

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It is violent, it is very lethal. And there have been more deaths in our country caused by that type of violence than anything that the president currently likes to label as domestic terrorism, like Antifa.

TAPPER: Yeah.

NEUMANN: During my tenure, during my tenure, it was -- Secretary Nielsen, Secretary Kelly, myself, made any number of asks to the White House to treat this problem seriously, and while we were allowed to at a working level make some progress, there was no interest in taking this up at a higher level. It was never exactly explained why, but reading between the lines, it became clear that this was not something that the president was willing to take on and it was best for all of us if we just kept him out of it and made progress on our own.

TAPPER: So I only have a minute left. If you could keep the answer relatively brief, but you're a Republican. You're a devout Christian. I guess the question is, how can you vote for Joe Biden?

NEUMANN: Yeah, that's a great question. It took me a while to get there, and over the coming weeks, I hope to be able to better explain it. It is complex. It is something I wrestled with.

Honestly, I read the bible and went over verses and verses and verses about what God calls his people to. It's to honor and worship him and not to have other idols, to not live in fear, which is what I think a lot of the Republican Party is, is, we have to vote for Trump because we're fearful of the other guy, and quite frankly, it was recognizing that pro-life -- what pro-life really means is to be able to protect life from conception to grave.

And while the president gave a hat tip to the pro-life movement with conservative judges and I am grateful we have those conservative judges on the court, the reality is that the rest of life was not valued or dignified in the way that he acts and in the policies that he implements.

TAPPER: Elizabeth Neumann, thank you so much, we'll have you back. Have a great weekend. We appreciate your time today.

NEUMANN: Thank you, Jake. TAPPER: Researchers believe they have identified another case of a

person infected with the coronavirus for a second time. What that might mean for the pandemic, as a new model predicts 130,000 additional deaths before the end of 2020.

Stay with us.

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