Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Interview with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Rioters and Security Breaches at the Capitol; Pelosi: Congress May Impeach If 25th Amendment Not Invoked; Biden Announces Top Justice Department Nominees; GOP Lawmakers Blame Antifa for Capitol Riot; At Least 50 Cases of COVID Variant Now in The U.S. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 07, 2021 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY), DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS CHAIRMAN: It was just a disgraceful display of insurrection which is why this such a serious issue for us to address and address decisively.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The Capitol Police, a lot of them worked really hard to try to get the mob under control. Many of them are injured. But as an institution, it's inescapable the conclusion that the Capitol Police failed to protect the Capitol yesterday.

Speaker Pelosi said that the chief, Steven Sund, has not even called her to talk about what happened. She's calling on him to resign. Who do you think should be held accountable for the failings yesterday? Obviously, the mob is responsible for the terrorism they wreaked, but law enforcement failed.

JEFFRIES: There was definitely a failure of leadership at the law enforcement level. I know for a fact that Speaker Pelosi made clear to the sergeant at arms and the Capitol Police Chief in advance, be prepared for the worst. And that is something that they were clearly not prepared for.

And it's deeply troubling that you had the violent mob individuals who were in some cases ushered into the United States Capitol. And then ushered out or allowed to leave almost with red carpet-like treatment, with no arrests being made with the exception of a handful as of the evening yesterday.

And so I think we need a complete and total review. I've got great confidence in the committees of jurisdiction, including the House Administration Committee and also Congressman Tim Ryan, who sits on the relevant committee, with respect to the appropriations of resources to the Capitol Police. We're going to get to the bottom of this and we're going to make sure that it is fixed, so this never happens again.

TAPPER: Yes, we all knew this day was coming. And President Trump was inciting his supporters. Last question for you, Congressman. If that had been hundreds, if not thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters storming the Capitol violently, committing acts of domestic terrorism, do you think the response from the Capitol Police would have been the same?

JEFFRIES: No. And I think that's just clear. We understand, listen, this is a country that's an exceptional country. We've come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. One of the challenges that we continue to grapple with is the systemic racism that has been in the soil of America for approximately 401 years.

And sometimes it manifests itself in different ways, whether that's explicit or implicit. And it's clear to many of us, both African- American members of Congress as well as colleagues who I've spoken to on both sides of the aisle, that there appear to have been differential treatment and that is one of the reasons why the insurrection escalated and was so successful.

But let me also say in closing, Jake, we came back to Congress. We completed our work. We certified the election of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States of America, because we understood that their effort as domestic terrorists was to try to stop us from being who we are as a democratic republic and we did not allow that to happen.

TAPPER: Democratic Congressman and Democratic Caucus Chair, Hakeem Jeffries, thank you so much and so glad you're OK and safe, Congressman. Thanks for being with us today.

JEFFRIES: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: We're learning exactly who some of the rioters who stormed the capitol, the insurrectionists, the terrorists, who they are. One of them is a state lawmaker. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:35:00]

TAPPER: We have some breaking news for you now. President-elect Joe Biden today slammed the pro-Trump terrorist mob that stormed the Capitol building. He called them domestic terrorists during his announcement of his Justice Department nominees. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT: Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. It's that basic, it's that simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Fact check, true. Let's bring in CNN's Arlette Saenz. Arlette, President-elect Biden did not hold back on his criticism and he said something that Hakeem Jeffries just said to us, the Caucus Chairman of the Democrats, he said, black protesters would have been treated differently had they done the same thing. ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, President-elect Biden was very blunt in his assessment of the response to that riotous mob up on Capitol Hill compared to Black Lives Matter protesters.

He pointed out that his own granddaughter sent him a picture of the National Guard guarding the Lincoln Memorial over the summer amid a peaceful demonstration among Black Lives Matter protesters. And both Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris talked about these different systems of justice that are being played out.

And you also heard this disdain in the president-elect's voice as he condemned that mob. Saying that they were not protesters, but domestic terrorists that were incited by the President. And he very forcefully laid the blame on inciting that violence on President Trump.

He talked about how the president has pursued these attacks on the democratic institutions of this country, and yesterday was simply the culmination of those attacks.

[15:40:03]

This is also very personal for Biden. He served in those halls of Congress for 36 years. And this is an unimaginable scene that he has seen play out. But you have heard him repeatedly, from the start of the campaign, warning about this division that the president has stoked, that you really saw amplified in yesterday's attack.

TAPPER: Arlette, Biden also named his attorney general pick during that speech, Merrick Garland. What do we know about how Biden wants Garland to run the Justice Department?

SAENZ: Well, the president-elect was very clear that he is going to take a departure from the way that the president has approached the Justice Department. He said that the job of this Justice Department will not be to serve as the president or the vice president's lawyer, but the people's lawyer.

That is something, a sentiment that he has echoed throughout his campaign. And he insists that the Justice Department will be run independently. Now, you saw him roll out some of those top positions, including his announcement for attorney general, Merrick Garland, who also spoke of his own views of justice and the rule of law and how people need to be treated equally.

But the president-elect making it very clear that the Justice Department will not be operating under his orders, but rather, independently -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Arlette Saenz in Wilmington, Delaware, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

The FBI is now asking for help identifying rioters and terrorists who breached the Capitol building yesterday. And while we may not know the names of every person who stormed through every door yesterday, we do know that some of the folks there were conspiracy theorists and QAnon followers. One is even an elected official. This man, Derrick Evans, he's a

Republican West Virginia state lawmaker and obviously a Trump supporter. Let's bring in CNN's Drew Griffin, who's looking into all of this for us. Drew, you're learning more about who some of these people are. Tell us.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, very identifiable on the internet, which is where we're getting most of our information, like you said, members of QAnon, members of hate group like Proud Boys, white nationalists from Alaska, gun right advocates from Arkansas.

We identified four instigators, many of these people are people that the FBI, that the police want to talk to. And while they're trying to scrub their social media accounts today, Jake, they can't erase the video that is racing across the internet.

This man, dressed in buffalo horns shirtless, that is Jake Angeli. He is from Arizona, he's known as the QAnon shaman. He not only broke into the Senate, he just posed and stood on the Senate dais.

QAnon, of course, that bizarre group of conspiracy theorist who think that Satan worshippers are running D.C. He recently posed with a selfie with Rudy Giuliani out in Arizona during one of those sham vote fraud hearings that Giuliani was involved with.

This man here, Richard Barnett, he's a gun rights activist from Arkansas. He is the man who broke into Speaker Pelosi's office, put his foot up on the desk, stole an envelope from her office and said he left a quarter, that he didn't steal it.

He is now one of the people that police are wanting to look for. Prior to him posting this video of himself, there was a video that apparently posted by him outside the Capitol, waving a flag saying, it is time.

Which brings us to the final kind of point on all of this, Jake, what so much of this conversation about what took place yesterday was pre- planned and talked about on the internet amongst these groups in advance, explicitly spelling out what they were going to do to storm the Capitol.

Several groups who monitor the internet for us, including ADI, Bellingcat, and other groups were monitoring the situation, looking at, for instance, 480 QAnon posts talking about January 6th that contained terms of violence. On TikTok, 279,000 views of videos promoting violence, one advocating bringing guns to D.C. and on Parlor, threats, specifically threats to Nancy Pelosi, John Roberts, and Mike Pence, telling them that it was time for them to quote/unquote be dispatched.

All of which raises questions by us of, if we could see all of this, if these groups that monitor this could see all of this, where were the security officials of the United States? Were they not aware that all of this was being planned on the internet prior to yesterday's march? TAPPER: Not to mention, Drew, that President Trump was tweeting, I'll

see you in Washington January 6th, and during his speech when he incited this mob, he said, we're going to go down to Capitol Hill, and they made it very clear, him and Don Jr. and Giuliani were going to pressure the lawmakers.

Drew, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Let's discuss with my political panel now. Scott Jennings and Karen Finney.

Karen, let me start with you. I think it's pretty clear at this point, this isn't just one MAGA rally that got out of control.

[15:45:02]

This is the result of years and years of lies, of stochastic terrorism, of just blatant, unfounded conspiracy theories from President Trump, culminating in these unfounded conspiracy theories about the election.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. I mean, Jake, look, I think there's two parts that if we fail to acknowledge and accept we will fail this moment in history. And we are all on trial as to whether or not we will step up to this moment.

One is -- I mean, you can draw a straight line from Donald Trump placing an ad in "The New York Times" against the exonerated -- the exonerated five, right, to who he is. We have known all along who he is. I hate to do that we told you so, but, you know, Hillary Clinton tried to -- she did speeches and tried to talk about the rise of this radical white supremacist right wing, and instead we talked about her e-mails. Right.

And so there's a piece of this that is about Trump and what he has done and trying to coddle and cajole and contain him, that clearly failed. But there is also the truth of yesterday holding up the mirror for all of us to say, you know, I disagree with those who say this isn't who we are. This is who we are, but this isn't who we have to be. We have to embrace that moment as well and we have to embrace that duality.

TAPPER: Scott, you wrote a very brave and well written op-ed, yesterday and CNN.com. I'll tweet it during the commercial break, talking about how this needs to be decried and how every Republican needs to do so. And also that Trump was responsible. Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who has been a longtime Trump ally, but didn't go in with all of these conspiracy theories, he's faulting some of his colleagues. I want you to take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): You have some Senators who, for a political advantage, were giving false hope to their supporters. Misleading them into thinking that somehow yesterday's actions in Congress could reverse the results of the election, or even get some kind of emergency audit of the election results. That was never going to happen. Yet these Senators, as insurrectionists literally stormed the Capitol, were sending out fundraising e-mails.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: He's presumably referring to Senator Ted Cruz, who was sending out some automated texts asking for money and also Senator Hawley. I guess, here's the divide of the Republican Party, is it the McConnell Republican Party or is it the Cruz/Hawley Republican Party?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, yesterday in the Senate Republican Conference, it was the McConnell Party. Just a handful of people joined the disgraceful Cruz/Hawley effort.

What I was most ashamed of, frankly, was that the people who were objecting before the insurrection had every opportunity to go down to the Senate floor when the Capitol was finally cleared and apologize to their colleagues, apologize to the American people, and put an end to it at that moment. And they continued to plow down this disgraceful path.

They are going to pay for it in the future. I think they've stained their careers. They certainly stained their party. And we ought not never forget that, OK, fine, you wanted to object before, you thought it was all fun and games. It was not fun and games when people launch an insurrection against the U.S. government. And to have gone to the floor and stuck with it was terrible, terrible, terrible.

TAPPER: I know when you say, "pay for it," I know you mean politically, and your party is paying for this craziness already, because you're going to be the minority. Because you lost those two Senate races in Georgia, in no small part because Trump was spewing all of this crap.

Karen, far-right media and Republican lawmakers, and obviously Scott is an exception, and that's why he appears on this show, even though he's a very conservative Republican, far-right Republicans and media people continue to lie.

First, they were praising the patriots storming the Capitol, saying, oh, they didn't know, and it was only just a handful, and, you know, and now Republicans are actually attempting to say that it was Antifa that did this, even though as you saw from Drew's report, these are well-known Trump supporters who were there. Congressman Mo Brooks, a Republican of Alabama, mainstream in his

party in the House, he tweeted, quote, don't rush to judgment, an assault on Capitol, wait for an investigation, all may not be and likely is not what appears, evidence growing that fascist Antifa orchestrated Capitol attack with clever mob control tactics.

Just to make it clear, that is absolute crap. That is not true. We know who these people were. There's evidence of them. But this is a reminder, this isn't going away when Trump goes away.

FINNEY: That's right. And it is a reminder that these people are playing with fire in a country where people, as we saw, are willing to mobilize. I mean they were better armed and prepared than the Capitol Hill police, my god, as we saw yesterday. [15:50:00]

So, I mean, it is treasonous to continue these lies and to try to peddle this. And as I say, you know, Jake, I have to say, I mean I applaud Scott for what he said, but, you know, I want us all as a country, I want to implore, you know, white people who joined peaceful protests, by the way, this summer to continue to join in saying this is a reckoning, we have to stop.

And as voters, we have to hold, you know, all of these Republican members of Congress accountable, because they are literally trying to -- they are traitors to our democracy. I mean as we saw yesterday, if we don't get this right, if we don't stop it can break us.

Thank god, Congress was able to reconvene and continue with their business, but, you know, with people who are dead and injured, I mean and the reckoning that has to happen both between holding people accountable, you know, both the perpetrators of the violence and frankly the Republicans like Hawley and Cruz and those who continue to peddle these lies and the dangers that that causes.

TAPPER: And Scott, I know that Donald Trump's Facebook posts and tweets have been the bane of your existence for the last five years. Today Facebook announced that they're restricted Trump's account, they've banned him from posting for the next two weeks.

How much of a difference could taking away part of the president's platform actually make do you think?

JENNINGS: Well, I think it's good he that he's not going to be able to say stupid and inciteful things. I mean one of the tweets that was taken down yesterday, this is what you get. That's how it started. No, no, this is not what you get in America.

So I think that's helpful that they did it. But I assume he's going to continue to become rageful over the next couple of weeks and will have no outlet for that. I worry about how that's going to manifest itself. But I think it's good for the country if he's not able to say extraordinarily violent things that would incite violence through his normal channels.

TAPPER: I look forward to having you guys back on to talk about policies and proposals and legislation. That would be a nice change.

Scott and Karen, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

In our HEALTH LEAD today in the midst of all of this there is another immense crisis in this country, of course, one that maybe we're getting used to. We marked the deadliest day of the entire pandemic and a record number of hospitalizations yesterday, 3,865 deaths and more than 132,000 hospitalizations. That broke records that were set the day before.

And as CNN's Nick Watt reports, vaccine distribution is still far behind what was promised by the Trump administration.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Bottom line, this vaccine rollout is nowhere near as fast or efficient as promised or projected.

DR. CLYDE GRANT, RETIRED SURGEON, VACCINE VOLUNTEER: This and other sites are going to have to really ramp up to get this done.

WATT (voice over): It's now more than three weeks since the first shots. But as of Wednesday morning, the CDC reports just 5.3 million first doses have actually been administered. At that rate, it could take nearly three years for this country to reach herd immunity. Early hiccups were expected. The holidays didn't help.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES (via phone): I think it would be fair to just observe what happens in the next couple of weeks. If we don't catch up on what the original goal was, then we really need to make some changes.

WATT (voice over): The pace will pick up, but by how much?

DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, EPIDEMIOLOGIST AND PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERT: All of this speaks to a failed leadership from the very top of American government. And here we are, in January, breaking records.

WATT (voice over): Yesterday, 3,865 lives reported lost. The deadliest day so far. This past week more than 1.5 million new cases confirmed. The worst week so far. And more than 50 cases of that more contagious variant first found in the U.K. now confirmed in at least eight states. There will be many more.

FAUCI: We have to pay attention to it. We can't just blow it off.

WATT (voice over): The CDC just released a study, detailing how college parties fueled that fall surge, 54 gatherings at the University of Arkansas connected to COVID cases. And today, Dr. Fauci gave Axios some factors that hindered our early response, the lack of transparency from China and political divisiveness at home.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It doesn't make any difference what happens.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The governor of Washington --

TRUMP: No. You know what I say? If they don't treat you right, I don't call.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT (on camera): And Jake, while all eyes are on him and what's happening in Washington, D.C., this virus, obviously, is still rampant. Here in Los Angeles County, someone is dying from COVID-19 every eight minutes -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Nick, thank you so much. Stick around. We're going to ask President Trump's former chief of

staff, retired Marine General John Kelly if he thinks the time has come for the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:55:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. And we begin this hour with breaking news.

The violent insurrection incited by President Trump and his team, a deadly domestic terror attack on the U.S. Capitol that has left dead bodies in its wake. It's now prompting bipartisan calls for the removal of President Trump from office.

The attack committed by a violent mob of President Trump's supporters after he encouraged them to, quote, walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and, quote, take back our country.