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The Lead with Jake Tapper
FBI Releases New Videos of Insurrections Assaulting Officers; McCarthy Claims He Never Backed Trump Push to Overturn Election; Putin Invites Biden to Virtual Talks, After Biden Calls Him a Killer; CNN Follows Migrant Children Along U.S.-Mexico Border. Aired 4:30-5p ET
Aired March 18, 2021 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[16:32:50]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: In our national lead today, the FBI released graphic new videos of the Capitol insurrection, hoping members of the public can help them identify rioters who viciously attacked law enforcement. These are just four of the people the FBI says are suspected of carrying out some of the most violent attacks on police officers on January 6th.
More than 300 people so far have been charged in the Capitol attack, but the investigation is far from over, as CNN's Jessica Schneider now reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is up close, violent video. Showcasing ten more suspects the FBI is seeking, all accused of attacking police. The scenes show officers under siege. One suspect seen pushing through the police line. Another, lunging at officers with a stick. Another man unleashing chemical spray on police.
There are 10 videos in all. And freeze frames of the suspects line the side of each screen. Some clips are particularly graphic and disturbing. Like this suspect, grabbing a police officer's helmet and face mask, bashing his head into the door jamb.
This suspect was captured by police body cam, throwing punches at police. Now two months after the January 6th insurrection, the FBI is pleading for the public's help. They have faces for the people that attacked officers, but no names.
STEVEN D'ANTUONO, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR IN CHARGE, FBI WASHINGTON FIELD OFFICE: We are coming to you again because we know someone out there, somewhere, will recognize these individuals. They're captured on video committing appalling crimes against officers who have devoted their lives to protecting the American people.
SCHNEIDER: The FBI has received more than 200,000 tips. Some have led to key arrests, including earlier this week when Julian Khater and George Tanios were arrested and charged with assaulting three officers with chemical spray, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died a day later. The official cause of his death has still not been released.
More than 300 people have been arrested for the Capitol attack and 65 have been charged with assaulting law enforcement officers. But the FBI says some of these most violent still can't be identified.
[16:35:02]
D'ANTUONO: These individuals are responsible for assaults on law enforcement officers who were protecting the Capitol and our Democratic process on January 6th.
SCHNEIDER: It is a chilling scene that's played out many times. But now with the spotlight on some of the perpetrators, the FBI is asking the public to help identify.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCHNEIDER (on camera): So, right now, the identities of these ten suspects are being sought. But the FBI also says there are still 250 unidentified individuals involved in the Capitol attack, that they are looking for.
They're renewing their calls for the public's help and information. Jake, they're directing people to their website, Tips.FBI.gov, hoping to get more answers here -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Jessica Schneider, thank you so much.
And if you have any idea who those treasonous terrorists are, check out the FBI's website.
Also on Capitol Hill today, partisan battle getting even uglier. It started with Iowa Democrat Rita Hart asked the Democratic-led house to investigate her November election loss. Her Republican challenger in the congressional race won by six votes, out of nearly 400,000. House Democrats agree to investigate.
But now, House Republicans are crying foul, arguing that Democrats are trying to overturn the will of the voters, which is an argument that might have more credibility, had the majority of House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, not lied over and over about the election that Trump lost.
CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju is live on Capitol Hill for us.
And, Manu, you had an extremely contentious exchange with McCarthy about this today, who was characteristically dishonest about his various efforts to overturn the election.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I was trying to ask him how the situation involving this Iowa race in which Democrats are trying to overturn it in Congress is different than Donald Trump trying to overturn his election laws that Kevin McCarthy supported.
But in a contentious exchange, he pushed back and engaged in a significant amount of revisionism, suggesting what he was doing would not have overturned the election -- even though he even signed on to a Texas lawsuit with 125 other Republicans that would invalidate millions of votes across several battleground states. And Republicans tried to object to six states and ultimately got votes on two of them in which he supported throwing out those electoral results. He ultimately failed.
But nevertheless, he did engage in revisionist history about everything that occurred in the run-up to January 6th.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: The Iowa race, in your view, what is different between the efforts there to overturn the elections in the House versus Donald Trump's efforts to overturn elections in Congress that you support?
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), MINORITY LEADER: Well, I disagree with the premise of your question. Okay. So, if you challenged Arizona and Pennsylvania, would that have changed and lowered President Biden's numbers below 270?
RAJU: You supported the Texas lawsuit.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCARTHY: You ask me questions every week. I just asked you a question. If you removed Arizona, but you weren't removing it. You were just asking a question about it. If Arizona and Pennsylvania were removed in the Electoral College, would President Biden's number lower below 270?
RAJU: No, but President Trump said that Congress could overturn --
(CROSSTALK)
MCCARTHY: Wait, I'm not Donald Trump. So, you're asking me the question. I'm answering your question. Let me answer your question that you asked me. Let me follow through.
So, you gave a premise that's not true.
RAJU: Donald Trump tried to overturn the results in Congress and you supported that effort.
MCCARTHY: Well, now, you're saying something that's not true. So, let me answer your question and show you how your premise is not true.
RAJU: The losing candidate didn't organize a rally and say stop the steal, we can overturn the certification of the Electoral College on January 6th?
MCCARTHY: Do you want to talk to Trump or ask me the question? I'm here right now and I'm showing -- RAJU: You did not supported that --
(CROSSTALK)
MCCARTHY: --I'm showing you where your question doesn't hold merit. Now, let me show you another answer.
RAJU: You supported the Texas lawsuit, too. Do you regret supporting that lawsuit?
MCCARTHY: No, no, no, I don't. You know why? Because it's going to --
(CROSSTALK)
RAJU: Did you not support Donald Trump's effort to overturn the election in Congress?
(CROSSTALK)
MCCARTHY: No. Didn't we just answer this the first time you asked it? You even asked two -- how many electoral votes does it take to get to 270?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: He's so dishonest. It's really flabbergasting. One thing that's so amazing here, Manu, first he argues that it was okay that he supported that insane Texas lawsuit that the Supreme Court just threw out and threw to the curb that would have completely overturned the election, taken away the votes of voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia, just given those states to Trump.
And he says that's okay that he did that, because that's the right way to do this, in courts, in courts.
And then he justifies doing it not in courts, doing it in congress. And, yes, they only did two states and not six states that they were planning to do, because there was a deadly insurrection.
[16:40:03]
I mean, it's just maddening.
RAJU: It is. And, look, in the run-up to January 6th, I had asked McCarthy a number of times, would you consider Joe Biden the winner? He would not say. I said, do you have any concerns about what Donald Trump is doing here? He would not raise any concerns.
And as part of that exchange, I tried to ask him, why didn't you raise concerns with what Donald Trump was doing? He would not address that, instead, suggesting opposite, that he was not trying to overturn the election when it was pretty clear of what he was intending to do -- Jake.
TAPPER: He's so dishonest, it's just stunning.
Manu Raju, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
The latest volley that would have led "Nightline" for a week back in the day or moved the doomsday clock a tick. Vladimir Putin now sending an invite to President Biden after what appeared to be a veiled threat against him.
Stay with us.
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TAPPER: The world lead, Vladimir Putin has invited President Biden to hold talks in a live, virtual chat. The offer coming after Putin responded to Biden, calling him a killer, by wishing the new American president, quote, good health without irony, as CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports.
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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Long-simmering tensions between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin reaching a boiling point today.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: President Biden has known President Putin for a long time.
COLLINS: Russians officials erupted after Biden referred to Putin as a killer, a statement that the White House says he stands by.
REPORTER: Does President Biden regret calling Vladimir Putin a killer?
PSAKI: Nope. The president gave a direct answer to a direct question.
COLLINS: Biden's answer has morphed into a full-blown transatlantic feud as Putin responded by implying it's Biden who's the killer.
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA: When we evaluate other people and nations, it's always as if we look in a mirror. We always see ourselves. We always pass on to another person what we ourselves are, in essence.
COLLINS: The Russian leader also dryly wishing Biden good health.
PUTIN: What would I answer him? I would tell him, be healthy. I wish him good health. I say this without irony, without jokes.
COLLINS: Russian state television often portrays President Biden as confused and out of touch, which Putin hinted at while inviting Biden to talk on the condition it be broadcast live.
PSAKI: I'll have to get back to you, if that is something we are entertaining. I would say that the president already had a conversation already with President Putin. COLLINS: Russia has also taken the rare step of summoning its
ambassador to the U.S. home to, quote, analyze what needs to be done about the U.S./Russia relationship, a step Russia hasn't taken since 1998. Biden insists Russia will pay a price for meddling in U.S. elections, but hasn't said how.
PSAKI: Some of the responses may be seen, some may be unseen. He did make clear that the Russian government will pay a price.
COLLINS: Russia isn't the only global challenge on Biden's plate.
PSAKI: It was important to our administration that the first meeting with Chinese officials be held on American soil.
COLLINS: The secretary of state and national security adviser sitting down with their Chinese counterparts in Alaska today, in what could be a tense first encounter.
PSAKI: We expect it to be frank. They plan to cover areas where we have concerns, including human rights, Hong Kong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS (on camera): And, Jake, that meeting with the Chinese officials is set to get under way any minute now in Anchorage. One other tiny note, the Russian ambassador is set to leave Washington on Saturday.
TAPPER: All right. Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.
Up next a trail of diapers, children's clothing, discarded documents -- this is what it looks like for children crossing the border alone.
Stay with us.
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TAPPER: The national lead, the growing crisis for the Biden administration, along the U.S./Mexico border. Thousands of migrants, many of them children without their parents, seeking entry into the United States.
Our Rosa Flores joined them near the border for the last few miles of their dangerous journey.
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ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are the South Texas trails used by thousands of migrants, like these unaccompanied teenagers from Guatemala, to make their way into the U.S. And sometimes they encounter Deputy Constable Dan Broyles as he patrols the border with Mexico.
Sixteen-year-old Kevin gets emotional, as he shares that he has been traveling for a month, sometimes without food or water. His father waits for him in Pennsylvania.
Seventeen-year-old Allan's voice breaks as he explains his grandma, who takes care of him, stayed behind in his gang-ridden neighborhood. Border authorities in the Rio Grande Valley are encountering about 1,000 migrants a day, according to a source, many of them unaccompanied minors.
Evidence mothers and children are on the trail litter the landscape -- diapers, children clothing and masks.
Documents left behind by some of the migrants tell part of their story. In this case it looks like a 34-year-old mom from Honduras and her 2-year-old son, they both tested for COVID before leaving their country, and tested negative.
So what do you look for when you patrol?
RESERVE SGT. DAN BROYLES, DEPUTY CONSTABLE: Well, what I'm looking for is splashes of color that don't belong in the brush.
FLORES: He looks down the paths that lead to the river for signs of life.
BROYLES: This is an indication.
FLORES: He shows us the arrows posted by border authorities.
BROYLES: As you see, that's a Homeland Security bag.
FLORES: And this one that reads asilo or asylum.
Walk to the bridge two kilometers?
BROYLES: Yeah.
FLORES: What bridge? The bridge near the Rio Grande where immigration processing begins.
This is as close as our cameras can get. Border Patrol is not granting media access. But with permission from deputy constables who patrol alongside federal authorities.
BROYLES: Three constable officers are in charge of approximately 22 miles of international border.
FLORES: We've got our eyes and ears on the ground.
Did you come alone?
This teen says he paid a smuggler after a recent hurricane flooded his single mom's home.
How much did you pay?
Or about $2,500.
How did you get the money? Was it a loan?
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Broyles' job ends here, when he sends the teens off to border patrol.
For the teens, it's just another step in an already uncertain journey.
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FLORES (on camera): I'm on the banks of the Rio Grande and the man in charge of this portion of the border is Precinct 3 Constable Larry Gallardo, and he tells me there's a dual, dual challenge here. Down river, the smuggling of people. Upriver, the smuggling of drugs.
And, Jake, the border patrol chief tweeting there is no end in sight -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Rosa Flores, thank you so much.
And we'll be right back.
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TAPPER: That's all the time we have. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @JakeTapper, tweet the show @TheLeadCNN.
Our coverage on CNN continues right now.
