Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Colorado Massacre Suspect to Make First Court Appearance Tomorrow; White House: Biden is Considering Executive Actions on Guns While Congress Debates New Restrictions; Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) is Interviewed About Background Checks Legislation; New Video Shows Attack on Slain Officer During January 6 Riot. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired March 24, 2021 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:06]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: And thank you so much for watching.

THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

And we begin with the national lead. We're digging deeper into the who and the why about the latest gun massacre in America. We're expecting more details any moment from Boulder, Colorado Police on the investigation into the shooting rampage that killed ten people at the King Soopers market in Boulder, including the first officer to respond to the scene.

New this afternoon a law enforcement official is now telling CNN that investigators are trying to determine the suspect's connection to this particular King Soopers location. Police say that the suspect bought one of his weapons just six days before the attack. The suspect is scheduled to make his first court appearance tomorrow.

Also today, we heard from family and loved ones of one of the ten shooting victims, this one Rikki Olds, a store manager. She was only 25, universally described by those who knew her as one of the sweetest people to be around.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB OLDS, UNCLE OF COLORADO RAMPAGE VICTIM RIKKI OLDS: She was vibrant. She was bubbly. Rikki was kind of the light of our family.

CARLEE LOUGH, WORKED WITH RIKKI OLDS: Rikki would do anything to make anybody happy or smile. She just was her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The uncle and the co-worker of the slain Rikki Olds.

President Biden is now urging the Senate to pass key pieces of gun control legislation, including a bill that would expand background checks and closing the so-called Charleston loophole. That requires gun sellers to wait up to ten days for a background check to come back.

Polling indicates that the vast majority of the American people support expanding background checks but so far even that has proven elusive even after 20 young children and 6 adults were slaughtered in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, in 2012.

I'm going to talk about this with Republican Senator Pat Toomey who has worked on this for a long time to try to find common ground in moments but first, let's go to CNN's Kyung Lah who has the latest on the victims and the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Investigators including the FBI continue the painstaking collection of evidence at King Soopers grocery store, piecing together what led to the murders of ten innocent people.

At the suspect's family home in the suburbs of Denver, police are digging into the background of Ahmad Alissa, the only other thing on his record, an assault in 2013. He admitted he cold-cocked a classmate.

BRIAN KRUESI, WITNESSED SHOOTING: I saw a man with a beard in what was sort of tactical clothing and an AR-15 style rifle.

LAH: The gunman carried a Ruger AR-556 pistol. The arrest warrant says he purchased it six days before the shooting.

STEVE FENBERG (D), COLORADO STATE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: My understanding is that it was purchased at a gun dealer outside of Boulder, potentially in Arvada where he lives.

LAH: Across Boulder, the enormity of the loss settling in from the friends of newly engaged and local business owner Tralona Bartkowiak.

ROBERT OLDS, NIECE RIKKI KILLED IN COLORADO SHOOTING: There's a hole. There's a hole in our family that won't be filled.

LAH: To the families themselves.

Rikki Olds worked at the grocery store.

OLDS: Saddened that she didn't get to experience motherhood. She didn't get to experience marriage. She didn't to -- she was 25 years old.

LAH: Boulder grapples with the sense of helplessness, that they are likely not the last American city to experience this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm angry because this could be anyone's town. I think it's easy to remove ourselves from these situations when we're not -- when it's not the store we buy birthday cakes at and it's not our colleagues and our mentors and our friends and our teachers and our neighbors and our -- the person that comes into your restaurant every day and orders the same drink. I would just beg anyone that has the power to make change to imagine if this was their community.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH (on camera): A law enforcement official speaking to CNN says as they look into the motive, one of the big questions for investigators is what is the gunman's connection to this store? His home is 30 minutes away, so why did he pick this particular store? They also believe that this attack was planned given the timing of the purchase of the weapon. They are also noting that there were no wounded survivors, which is really quite unusual for a mass shooting, and, Jake, the suspect makes his first court appearance tomorrow -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Kyung Lah, live in Boulder, thank you so much.

The White House says President Biden is considering taking executive action on guns while he continues to push Congress to pass permanent changes on issues such as expanding background checks.

[16:05:07]

The president is facing pushback not only from Republican legislators but from at least one Democrat whose vote is crucial to getting anything passed on Capitol Hill as CNN's Kaitlan Collins now reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A new push for tougher gun laws plunging the White House into a massive debate.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Slaughters have to stop.

COLLINS: Vice President Harris says President Biden is considering executive action but wants permanent legislation instead.

HARRIS: I don't think the president is excluding that, but, again, I want to be clear, that if we really want something that is going to lasting, we need to pass legislation.

COLLINS: On the campaign trail, Harris argued with Biden that if Congress wouldn't act on gun control, the president could and should.

HARRIS: Well, I mean, I would just say, hey, Joe, instead of saying, no, we can't, let's say, yes, we can.

JOE BIDEN (D), THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's the Constitution. We've got a Constitution.

HARRIS: And, yes, we can.

COLLINS: But White House pleas for fast action like banning semiautomatic assault-style weapons have met with little interest from Republican lawmakers.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I think you'd get a majority of senators saying that banning the weapon is not going to solve the problem. I own an AR-15 and I own it responsibly.

COLLINS: Press Secretary Jen Psaki pushing back on comments like that want

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The majority of the American public does not believe that anyone needs to have an assault weapon.

COLLINS: Meanwhile, Biden is now facing the same reality that other governments have, governing with multiple crises on his plate.

HARRIS: It's a huge problem. I'm not going to pretend it's not. It's a huge problem.

BIDEN: She's the most qualified person to do it.

COLLINS: Biden tapping Vice President Harris to work with Central American countries to stem the flow of migrants on the U.S. border.

BIDEN: When she speaks, she speaks for me and doesn't have to check with me. She knows what she'd doing, and I hope we can move this along.

COLLINS: The new role places Harris at the center of a major challenge as a record number of unaccompanied migrant children are in federal custody, numbers that Biden blamed on his predecessor.

BIDEN: So, there's no surge we're dealing with now, it started in the last administration, but it's our responsibility to deal with it humanely.

HARRIS: Needless to say, the work will not be easy, but it is important work.

COLLINS: For the first time, the Biden administration will allow a single camera into a Health and Human Services facility today, while still denying access to Border Patrol facilities where kids are sleeping on floors.

REPORTER: Why not show those to the Americans?

PSAKI: We will, and we are working with the Border Patrol and with DHS to determine how we can do that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS (on camera): And, Jake, we should announce or we should note that the new role that Harris is getting is pretty similar to one that Biden himself got as Vice President in 2014 and '15 when then President Obama tapped him to be in charge of dealing with the diplomatic efforts with these countries amid a surge back then, efforts that critics said were not ultimately successful.

But this is really the first addition, the first high-profile addition to Harris' portfolio as vice president. Of course, aides know it's going to be a challenging one. She herself this morning said it is a frustrating situation what's happening at the border right now and so the next question when is she actually going to make a visit given that we've seen other senior officials and delegations go down to the border. She was just with reporters a few moments ago, Jake, she did not answer that question. But we'll let you know when that does happen.

TAPPER: All right. Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.

Joining us to discuss, Pennsylvania's Republican senator, Pat Toomey.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

So, here we are more than 20 years after Columbine and other awful mass shootings and we're sitting here again talking about two more mass shootings in the U.S. If we define the problem as we need to keep guns out of the wrong hands, what do we need to do? What will work?

SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA): Well, Jake, thanks for having me.

Let's be honest. There's no simple, single measure that's going to permanently prevent criminals from finding a way to get guns and deranged people. My view is we can at least make it more difficult.

And so, I like to be very candid. The legislation that I've supported is not a panacea, but on the margins, if we do a background check on all commercial sales, we would make it more difficult for even criminals and deranged individuals, make it more difficult for them to get a gun.

You know, in Pennsylvania, we have universal background checks on all handgun sales. If I want to sell a handgun to my wife, we have to go and get a background check done, there are no exceptions.

The legislation that Senator Manchin and I have been working on for years wouldn't be that broad, but it would say a commercial venue, whether it's online or whether it's at a gun show, would require a background check. An individual private transaction would not.

I think that is a measure that's very -- it's modest, it's sensible and it has very broad support.

[16:10:07]

TAPPER: So, let's talk about that, that compromise bill with Senator Manchin, the so-called closing the gun show loophole which would not affect private sales like you said to your family --

TOOMEY: Right.

TAPPER: -- or friends, but would if you go to a gun show. You first proposed it in 2013 after Sandy Hook.

TOOMEY: Right.

TAPPER: It requires background checks on sales of gun shows and online. I remember you being on the show talking about this. The bill failed because of a filibuster led by your own party and I remember you being very frustrated because the NRA was misrepresenting the legislation.

Have you spoken to your Republican colleagues about whether they might support equivalent legislation today?

TOOMEY: I've been speaking with a number of colleagues about this idea of whether or not we should apply background checks to all commercial sales. There are a lot of different ways you can go about it, mechanically, for instance.

But the answer is yes. I've had a number of conversations, and there is some level of interest.

TAPPER: Do you think there would be 60 votes because last time enough Republicans basically filibustered the bill so that -- because you didn't have 60 votes, you had like 55, 56.

TOOMEY: Yeah. So, you know, it would depend on what's in the bill, right? So we know the House bill doesn't even have unanimous Democratic support, so filibuster is not even relevant. It doesn't have majority support.

The question is, could we make some changes, some modifications so that we could get to 60? And ultimately, I'll tell you, a big part of this is going to be -- to get started is up to Senator Schumer. Does he want to have a change at getting an outcome, getting the 60 votes, or does he just want to see something fail so that he can use it for political purposes?

If he decides the former, then we really need to take a very hard run at this. I do think there is some support that wasn't there in the past. If he decides that it's -- he just wants to have a failed vote, well, then, there's no prospect.

TAPPER: As you noted, even this wouldn't necessarily be a panacea.

TOOMEY: Right.

TAPPER: It's unclear that expanding background checks would have stopped either of these shooters in Boulder or --

TOOMEY: That's correct.

TAPPER: -- Atlanta, neither had felony criminal records.

TOOMEY: Right.

TAPPER: But let me ask you this. Both according to friends and family were behaving in unstable, irrational ways.

Now, Colorado has a red flag law which, quote, creates the ability for family or household member or law enforcement officer to petition the court for a temporary extreme risk protection order to keep a firearm out of that person's hands.

Is this the kind of thing more Americans need to be talking about, if people in their family are behaving in ways that they think, boy, I'm worried about my brother Sam and I'm so worried about him I -- I want to make sure that he's not able to get a gun? Should this be more part of the conversation?

TOOMEY: Yes, and I can tell you in conversations with my colleagues that it comes up because we do see repeatedly that there's usually some kind of evidence that something is not right before a person goes off and commits these atrocities. And so, having some way to intervene before it's too late, I think that does resonate with a lot of folks.

The details are important. You have to do due process. Obviously, if you didn't do it right, it would become an easy thing for someone to just retaliate against an enemy or after a break-up of somebody who they wanted to sort of get back at, and you had to make sure you had a process that prevented that kind of abuse.

But to your point, yes, we do see this repeatedly in this kind of cases.

TAPPER: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said yesterday he does not support your plan. Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville said, quote, I think we've got enough background checks.

What do you say to them?

TOOMEY: Look, we just disagree. That's not uncommon, as you know, in this business to disagree with colleagues. I never represented this as a panacea, but I do think it's okay and reasonable for us to make it more difficult for the people that we all agree shouldn't have firearms, right, violent criminals and dangerously mentally ill people. Since we agree they shouldn't have them, why not make it a little more difficult for them to get them?

So, you know, I have multiple firearms. The background check is not a cumbersome or onerous thing. I don't consider it at all an in infringement on my Second Amendment rights, which I think are important to me and all of the people I represent.

But a quick background check to make it more difficult for a dangerous person to get a firearm, to me, that's just common sense.

TAPPER: Republican Senator Pat Toomey from the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, thank you so much. Good to see you again.

TOOMEY: Thanks for having me, Jake.

TAPPER: To another violent attack, the one at the U.S. Capitol. Next, new video just in showing rioters attacking Officer Brian Sicknick who died after the insurrection. We'll show that to you.

Plus, making her case. Wait until you hear what a woman leading the charge for equal pay told Congress yesterday.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: Just into CNN, video obtained by "The New York Times" showing Officer Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer, as he was attacked by insurrectionists. Here you see Officer Sicknick behind the Capitol barrier, then one suspect Julian Khater, you'll see him on the side, and he moves through the crowd and he approaches Officer Sicknick.

Let's watch to see where is Khater. There is Khater right there, and then he starts -- you'll see him a different angle. Officer Khater then makes his way through the crowd, he raises his arms and sprays a can of what appears to be bear repellent. There's raising that spray can right there.

Officer Sicknick turns away. There's the stream spraying. Officer Sicknick we see him turning away after being hit, and he continued to defend the Capitol. He collapsed later in the day. He died the following day.

We still do not have an official cause for Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick's death.

[16:20:02]

Let's bring in CNN's Evan Perez.

Evan, tell us about what we -- what we just saw. This is the first video of this incident.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake.

In court, the Justice Department has shown some of this video, and this is some of the video that they've quoted, the comments that you hear from the exchange between Julian Khater and George Tanios in which they talk about reaching for this repellant, this spray. And then one of them saying, no, not yet. Then you see the action that you just pointed to, which is Officer Sicknick's reacting to being hit in the face by what appears to be this spray.

So, one of the things that we don't know yet because prosecutors still haven't established, is whether this bear spray is the cause of death for Officer Sicknick. Again, he goes back to his office later that evening. He collapses, is taken to the hospital, he dies the following day.

There is still no public evidence from the medical examiner of what the cause of death was. And that's one reason why, Jake, right now, these two men are only charged or are charged with assaulting the officer. They're not charged with murder at this point.

But this is key evidence here. It's the part of what the prosecutors are still working on to try to build perhaps a bigger case.

TAPPER: And, Evan, prosecutors are also alleging that the far right extremist groups, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys coordinated with each other before the attack on the Capitol, and they have apparently messages to prove it. PEREZ: Right. For the first time, Jake, we've seen in court documents

this allegation from prosecutors. And it came in the case of Kelly Meggs. He is under arrest. He's been -- prosecutors are arguing to keep him in jail pending trial.

And these are messages from late December in which he talks about being in touch with a leader of the Proud Boys. Meggs is alleged to be one of the leaders of the Oath Keepers that was here in Washington on January 6th. According to these messages, they are talking about ahead of time, they're talking about marching with these Proud Boys. And what they say is that they believe they're going to run into Antifa activists and they are going to beat the hell out of them. Again, that's quoting from court documents that prosecutors have filed.

Now what is not in these documents so far, Jake, is any evidence or any indication from prosecutors that these groups had an overarching conspiracy of what to do once they got to the Capitol whether they were going to take it over. Again, that's something that would be a much bigger deal than what is alleged right now.

TAPPER: All right. Evan Perez at the Justice Department, thanks so much.

Let's discuss with our panel.

Asha, let's start with you. What do you make of this new video?

ASHA RANGAPPA, CNN LEGAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's awful to watch. I think that what we'll need to see is whether prosecutors are going to elevate the charges against these individuals which are right now for conspiracy to injure and assault a law enforcement officer to murder.

I think the intent piece seems to be clear from the video. This person actively gets the weapon, in this case bear spray, which is not intended for humans, and it's much more powerful than regular pepper spray. He waits for an opportunity to use it. And then directly -- he is intending to hit this target.

I think Evan -- as Evan noted, you know, whether that was the cause of death remains to be seen. But I think the intent part definitely seems to be there if they are able to prove that causality for a murder charge.

TAPPER: Phil, can you shed any light on why you think at this point two and a half months after Officer Sicknick's death, we still don't have a statement on cause of death?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Yeah, I can take a guess as a non-physician, and that is whether there are preexisting conditions, whether he had something in his system that was reacting with the bear spray, whether he had something that physicians were aware of including his personal doctor in the weeks and months in advance of the attacks, I mean, it's clear as Asha was saying that ingestion of the bear spray was related. I'm guessing that the question is whether it was the sole cause. TAPPER: Okay. That makes sense. I realize it's speculative, but

that's at least something because we haven't really gotten much of an answer.

Ash, let's talk about the fact that the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers were apparently working together to coordinate their attack as the government document lays out. Couldn't the Justice Department make a case for a massive conspiracy between these two groups because of this?

RANGAPPA: I think they will. What we have -- so the Oath Keepers, several members of the oath keepers have already been charged with a conspiracy. Several members of the proud boys have already been charged with conspiracy.

What this particular filing, the opposition to the release, pretrial release of this particular defendant says that they actually had coordination.

[16:25:02]

And so, I think that they're able -- they're going to be able to show that there was, you know, an agreement to engage in acts. I think the question is what are the crimes that they were agreeing to do? Was it to assault people, just Antifa? Was it to assault law enforcement? Was it to go into the Capitol? Was it to, a seditious conspiracy, to actually overthrow the government?

So, you know, the underlying crime I think is what we'll need to see. And, also, how high up does this go? This has now expanded. The FBI clearly has receipts.

And I think they want to also know who wasn't there that was involved in this conspiracy, who was funding it?

TAPPER: Yeah.

RANGAPPA: Who were they in communication with that didn't show up that day?

TAPPER: And, Phil, not only did these messages show the communication between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. They reconfirmed that the rioters were responding to the calls of the president.

Take a look: He wants us to make it wild. That's what he's saying. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild. We are headed to D.C., Pack your S-H-I-T.

There it is. He wants us to make it wild. That's from a Trump tweet.

Right here in writing, an Oath Keeper leader is saying they went to D.C. to invoke a violent insurrection at the direction of President Trump.

MUDD: Well, I think that's really interesting for one point. And that is to understand what somebody did as you saw from the video today, we can see faces in videos. We can see people smashing windows with chairs.

The second question is, why did they do this? What was their intent? Assuming that a lot of these 300-plus people who have been charged are not speaking, the information that we saw in the filing today shows us that the feds know what the intent was because these individuals said it between themselves. Understanding the why can be very difficult if somebody wanted to speak. They cannot now go to the court and say, well, on that day, we just got agitated and angry and by accident we walk in the Capitol. That's not going to fly now, Jake.

TAPPER: Phil, Asha, thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.

Every day, more people in more states becoming eligible for a vaccine. Why that is actually cause for concern for some people. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:30:00]