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Don Lemon Tonight

Trump In Seclusion For Sixth Straight Day, Meeting With Advisers About Expected Wave Of Pardons; Biden To Roll Back Trump-Era Policies On First Day; Woman Accused Of Stealing Laptop From Pelosi's Office Arrested; QAnon Adherents Discussed Posing As National Guard Members; Republicans Grapple With New Conspiracy Caucus As Trump Leaves The White House; New Video Shows Violent, Profane Mob Inside Capitol. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired January 18, 2021 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

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DON LEMON, CNN HOST (on camera): President Trump down to his final hours in office, about a day and a half left. He is expected the issue about 100 pardons and commutations tomorrow, Trump also recording a farewell message to the country touting the accomplishments of his administration. That video may be released tomorrow.

President-Elect Joe Biden putting the final touches on his Inaugural address. Sources saying, the primary focus will be unifying a country in crisis. And more than 2,700 active duty troops will be deployed for the Inauguration, for ceremonial purposes and support functions. That and in addition to 25,000 members of the National Guard, there is a lot to discuss as we move forward towards the integration and beyond.

CNN's White House correspondent is John Harwood and political analyst at Astead Herndon, they both join me right now. Gentlemen, good evening. John this is it. Trump has won more full-day in office, Biden's Inaugural event kicking off while our nation's capital is on lockdown. Americans are bracing for potential violence. I mean, you've covered a lot of presidential integrations but I'm sure nothing compared to this one.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Nothing at all, this is what Donald Trump has produced. And you know, Donald Trump, Don, did not create the trends in politics that made white working class voters who are disaffected and alienated with dominant force within the Republican Party, but he turbocharge those trends.

And since the election with this lie fantasy that he actually won the election and that it was stolen, especially stolen by Black voters in inner cities in places like Milwaukee, and Detroit and Philadelphia. He's given all of that anger no place to go. And that is what exploded in the Capitol a couple of weeks ago, it started long before the post- election period.

Though Donald Trump's entire political appeal has been from the beginning, to the grievance of whites. Ironically today on Martin Luther King Day, two days before he leaves office the president and the White House had a commission to put out this amateurish report that said the women's movement, the civil rights movement had left us under the thumb of identity politics.

Donald Trump has practice the purest kind of identity politics, which is the appeal to unhappy whites who think they're being shoved aside economically and culturally. That is what's produced what happened a couple of weeks ago, and Washington right now is not taking any chances on this Inauguration.

LEMON: Do they see them, I mean, I keep saying, it's just embarrassing that they have no shame. Just from their actions, but -- anyways. Astead, it's sobering to think, on Martin Luther King Jr. day, President Trump is leaving office having empowered white supremacist and conspiracy mongers. The hatred has always been there, but he gave it oxygen. Will this Trump legacy, will it be exploiting hate and anger. Is it to further his own goals?

ASTEAD HERNDON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, NEW YORK TIMES (on camera): Yes, I think an undeniable part of the legacy this president leaves behind is one that started, it's how he started that campaign.

I mean, think about how long we have been talking about instances of racism and the refusal to disavow the white supremacists who are acting in his name. And that's been a through line from this since he launched this presidential campaign in 2015, all the way until it's now ending. It has started at the same place, it is ending at the same place it began and that has been a through line throughout this presidency.

A clear part of this legacy has been the open embrace of white grievance, of misinformation and of intolerance. That is only a limited political message to a portion of this country, but it does not represent the kind of fullness of it.

[23:05:02]

I think that we're going to see that again, even as he is leaving office. He is not only busting norms in terms of how transition goes from one person to the next. He is recognizing the legitimacy of the people who elected Joe Biden. Not just Biden himself, but the 80 million people who spoke up to sow support and vote for him.

That is again is a kind of court to the Donald Trump identity, that the people who are not backing him and his message are not legitimate and not valid. And of course that includes many, many of Americas multiracial hue and the Black and Brown voters who really power this victory for Democrats.

LEMON: You know, John, we've seen this president in several days now, but we're told that he's, you know, that he's going to release a video soon. Do we know what this video is all about? Do we know what's going to be in it?

HARWOOD: Well, I think the hiding Don, it is because Donald Trump has been humiliated by his election defeat, and close to his ego a very difficult for him to accept. And so he has not been eager to go out and face the press. On the other hand, the president says they've leave office, tend to try to say something about what they did in their four years.

And Donald Trump would like to lay down something to say here's what I got accomplished. Maybe he talks about the economy, maybe talk about tax cuts, maybe talk about conservative judges, but you know, 23 justices on the Supreme Court we don't know. We expect the video to come out tomorrow.

Obviously, he's working on pardons as well. And we expect a large chunk of pardons. I don't know exactly who will get them, but Donald Trump has stayed out of camera range, because he has been embarrassed. And I think, in some ways for him, Wednesday won't come soon enough. Because it's very difficult for him to cope with being president, with being disgrace the way he is.

LEMON: Yes. I hope when it does come out, that the focus -- if it does come out in the same day of the inauguration, the focus is now become about this video, but you know, we keep the focus on what it should be about and that's the Inauguration of the ushering of a new president.

Astead, you know, Biden and Harris are inheriting a pandemic killing thousands of Americans a day, an economic catastrophe. Multiple threats of domestic terrorism, deep division. Is the Biden administration prepared for all of this? I mean, who can be as much as they can be prepared for this?

HERNDON: I mean, this is a kind of multi-level crisis, the one that an incoming president -- I don't think in modern times has faced. And certainly Barack Obama came into the economic crisis but when you add on the virus to that, when you add on the kind of baseline foreign and domestic in terms of any president would have. This is a unique challenge for Biden. We are already seeing some of the political limits in realities of, right. He's going to have to navigate. Now, yes Democrats did take back to the Senate.

But there are still a lot of big -- there's a big 10 of Democrats across the spectrum and what that looks like. And so, there is going to be expectations for him to deliver, but there's also going to be pressure for him to manage his own party and for him to manage Republicans. You know, there's this kind of sense particularly among the more progressive wing of the party that there will not be a honeymoon period.

That this will not be a time where Biden will get, you know, six months to kind if figure it out before the pressure comes on day one. We will be pushed by members of his own party and others because the sense is that those crises are so large that they cannot -- that waiting isn't really an option.

LEMON: I spoke with the incoming White House communications Director, (inaudible) Jen Psaki. Press secretary. Who says, you know, right after Joe Biden is inaugurated, when he becomes president, they're going to hold their first briefing. And I jokingly said, is it going to be about the crowd size? And she goes, yeah it. We very happily have the smallest crowd size that we believe in history because there's a pandemic going on. And we are telling people to stay home and to stay safe, encouraging them to stay safe.

So, this is not about the biggest crowd size. It's about the smallest crowd size and we're very happy about that, but day one they're going to hold a press briefing in the briefing room and every weekday after that, they said so. And they know that they're going to have to build the trust back because of the mistrust that has come out of that podium. Thank you so much gentlemen. I appreciate it.

So, I want to bring in now CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez, and our crime and justice correspondent, Shimon Prokupecz. Shimon, Evan, good evening. Evan, I want to get to this investigation into the insurrection on the Capitol -- at the Capitol. You're just learning about another arrest, right? What do you know? What can you tell us?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Right. There was this woman by the name of Riley Williams who, the FBI was searching for all day today. She has now turned herself in in Pennsylvania. The story here was that someone -- a tipster, someone who was in a relationship with her previously told the FBI that she had stolen a laptop from Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office and had come up with a plan to try to sell it to the Russians.

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Apparently the plan fell through. Again, this is a story that the FBI is still working to try to verify but now she is in custody and so we expect that we're going to hear more about this.

But, really, Don, we're up to about more than 80 arrests already and cases that we've seen public and, you know, just to give you a flavor of a couple more, there was a guy by the name of Timothy Hail Cuccinelli. He's an army reservist and he is seen in some of these videos, according to the court documents, using voice and hand signals.

Clearly using some of his training to help guide some of these protesters inside the Capitol. And according to informant, he's a vowed white supremacist. Another one, Thomas Fee, he's a retired firefighter, just left the Fire Department in New York. And again, he was part of the tip of the spear, so to speak, is what he said. He was in the insurrection at the Capitol.

LEMON: I just -- unbelievable. Shimon, let me bring you in, because The Washington Post is reporting out tonight that the FBI is warning that far right QAnon extremists had discussed posing as National Guard members in D.C. Quite frankly, this is terrifying. What are they doing to deal with this potential threat?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER (on camera): Yes. I think this is a case of we're seeing the FBI and Secret Service and all the intelligence officials and law enforcement officials leaving nothing to chance, throwing everything out on the table. And what they're speaking up on social media chatter is that you have these QAnon conspiracy theorists that think they can somehow infiltrate the National Guard and get in and somehow cause some kind of disruption.

There are layers and layers of security here. So, if you go through one section, let's say you do try to say you're a National Guard member, very difficult to do. But let's say you do. There are multiple and multiple layers of security to get through.

The other thing here is that a lot of the National Guard teams, certainly that I've come across soon. I've talk to, they're all from the same division. They're all from the same state. So, they all know each other.

So that if someone comes in as a stranger, they would be able to pick that up and say, OK, well, this person here doesn't belong. The other thing, one of the most secure areas right now is that Inauguration stage inside the Capitol.

The National Guard is not going to have access to any of that location. Most of them are on the perimeter, on the outside securing the outside areas all across Washington, D.C., Don.

LEMON (on camera): Yes. Evan, Shimon, thank you both. Be safe, please.

The president is spending his last hours in office obsessing about pardons. But Lindsey Graham warns him not to pardon the Capitol rioters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): To seek a pardon of these people would be wrong. It would be -- I think it would destroy President Trump. And I hope we don't go down that road.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:15:00]

LEMON (on camera): The president holding a meeting on pardons today with a list of some 100 people expected to be pardon or get clemency, likely to be release tomorrow. But less likely to include white collar criminals, high profile rappers, and prominent eye doctor from Palm Beach who was convicted on dozens of counts of healthcare fraud.

Well, he's not expected, at this point, to pardon himself or his family. Aids tell CNN that only Trump knows what he will do before he officially leaves office at noon on Wednesday.

So, let's discuss. John Dean and CNN presidential historian, Douglas Brinkley. They are both here for us. Thank you, gentlemen. Good to see you both of you.

So, John, 100 pardons but maybe not for himself and his family? Advisers are saying that -- saying don't do it. Do you think he's afraid to look guilty of something or leave himself open to criminal charges?

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL (on camera): I think that he's heard what Lindsey Graham said about pardoning the people on the Hill. He's just inviting attention to his own behavior and his guilt if he starts pardoning those people. And it would be held against him in a Senate trial. So, I think he'll stay away from that.

Don, 100 pardons is not very many. George Bush 200, almost. Barack Obama almost 200 pardons. Lots more commutations by Obama, but still this is very few. And I think he's -- it looks like he's going to be cautious and a self-pardon, if there is no paperwork done for that, he could theoretically draw it up and put it in his pocket and not tell the world.

LEMON: Oh, really? We'll just keep it in a safe place?

DEAN: Just keep it in a safe place. If he's indicted, pull it out and say, by the way, before I was worried about these witch hunts continuing when I left office so I got myself some protection. So let's go to court and see if you can even (inaudible).

LEMON: Does he have to memorialize it in some way or and can he do the same with (inaudible)?

DEAN: Yes, he would. Yes, he would.

KERNER: OK.

DEAN: But he doesn't have to announce it --only he has with the others, with the children, all he has to do is deliver it.

LEMON: There you go. Well, I think that's your answer to that.

Douglas, The New York Times is reporting that some Trump allies are getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to lobby for people looking for pardons. Is this just another reflection of this corrupt administration?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN (on camera): Absolutely. These pardons are by and large corrupt. You know, on December 23rd, he pardoned Roger Stone and Charles Kushner. You know, Paul Manafort, more of his cronies and capitalists people that he does weird business deals with. People that know the inside story are going to get pardoned.

[23:20:04]

Let's hope, Don, that he doesn't go to some kind of crazy extreme and dare to pardon anybody who participated in the insurrection of January 6th. I worry about it a little bit because he reads history so superficially. And he might, somebody might have told him Andrew Johnson did that with confederates after the civil war. Jimmy Carter gave a blanket pardon to, you know, Draft Dodgers, amnesty seekers during the Vietnam War. I don't think we are out of -- who knows what Donald Trump is going to do in his last 24 hours? But he -- if it's like the rest of his presidency, he's going to want to make some kind of statement.

LEMON: John, I want to talk about polls here, because he's leaving office with the lowest approval ratings of his presidency. This is a new poll. This is polling from CNN Quinnipiac and Gallup that put it at 34 percent. Pew has it at just 29 percent comparison to President Nixon. That's going to be inevitable. What do you think his legacy is going to be?

DEAN: Well, I think his standing at the bottom of the polls doesn't surprise anybody. I think the question is whether his legacy will prevail in the Republican Party. There's some indications that Republicans want to get away from Donald Trump.

Mitch McConnell, obviously, by the way they handled the Senate trial, his impeachment trial can influence that. But his legacy clearly he's a demagogue. He's one of the few authoritarian presidents we've had. He has been corrupt. His astronomical number of lies, Don, is going to (inaudible) people for decades. Particularly those who have not lived through this. So, it's not going to be a pretty legacy. He's going to be one of our worst presidents, if not the worst

LEMON: Well, something -- listen, that may not bother him, Douglas, as much as this. Right. Because we're saying CNN Quinnipiac Gallup 34 percent. Pew has it at 29 percent. Former President Barack Obama's approval rating was at 60 percent when he left office. That has got to drive Trump just insane.

BRINKLEY: Absolutely. Yes, you know it drives him crazy. I mean, Donald Trump spent four years trying to undo anything Barack Obama did. Just to have Joe Biden use executive orders here in 48 hours and get back into dealing with the climate accord or reopening the keystone pipeline and the like.

But your question, Don, what he's going to be remembered for is one- term president synonymous with hate speech, somebody who divided the country in a miserable fashion, who used the new communications of tweeting to try to attack and humiliate people in a very small kind of way.

We as historians ask the question is American economy better off than it was four years ago? The answer is no. Is America a safer, more unified place? The answer is no. So there's not much that he can -- that will be able to recommend his presidency.

He will be seen as insurgent figure, as I keep saying, like a Jefferson Davis in the civil war or like a Benedict Arnold. I don't think he'll be considered seriously in the club of presidents after January 6th.

LEMON: Listen, you just talked about some of this but can you -- let's dig a little bit deeper because Biden is going to take over on Wednesday, Douglas. He's facing a pandemic that has taken almost 400,000 lives. Massive unemployment, racial division. Has any president ever dealt with challenges of this scale and this magnitude?

BRINKLEY: It's large. I think it's like Franklin D. Roosevelt in March of 1933 when there was a long drawn-out period between Hoover and FDR and you started having the 100 days of the new deal where we had to have a civilian conservation corps, giving unemployed jobs or Tennessee Valley authority for all electrification.

On and on, you're going to see Biden having to do quickly a sort of Marshall Plan for COVID-19 and how do you -- how do we logistically get people vaccinated or shots in the arms?

It's going to have to be a major event to get that done. It needs to be in a bipartisan way. And then there will be very likely we'll see a specters of the Senate impeachment trial in the first 100 days or the second 100 days. So, it's going to be a very odd, you know, period of time here.

But I think the speech Biden will give is about uniting the country. Using words and there will be a kind of general sighed of relief that Trump is gone after four years by those 80 million people that voted for Biden.

LEMON: Imagine what Joe Biden is thinking and some of the people who are in the Obama administration when they entered the White House in 2009.

[23:25:02]

There was a calamity happening with the economy and now they're entering again. It's the economy, it's a pandemic, the nation's health. It's racism. It's division, and it's misinformation.

So good luck to them. Really. Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. It's good to see both of eye.

BRINKLEY: Congratulations on your book, Don. Congratulations.

LEMON: Thank you very much. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

D.C. on lock down ahead of the Inauguration. Hundreds of investigations into the Capitol riot are being opened and more arrests made. That's ahead.

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LEMON: The future of a GOP, a huge question mark in these final days of the Trump presidency. Will Republican lawmakers decide to dump Trump and his racism and lies once he leaves office?

[23:30:00]

LEMON: And even if they do, what will it mean for the base that is more loyal to President Trump than the party itself?

Let's discuss now. CNN political commentator Matt Lewis is here. He wrote an excellent column in The Daily Beast. It is called "Trump Remade the GOP into the Doomed Party of White Identity."

Matt, hello. It's been a long time. Well, I haven't heard from you in a while. But I got tell you, your --

MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: (INAUDIBLE) Don.

LEMON: Yeah. In your piece, you talk about how the GOP is dominated by people whose identity is defined largely by their skin color and that they see themselves as victims.

How did that happen to the party of personal responsibility who calls the other party the party of --

LEWIS: (INAUDIBLE).

LEMON: Yeah, the party -- they call the other party the -- you know, the identity politics party. Now they are.

LEWIS: That's exactly right. I was against identity politics before and now it's taken over the Republican Party. I think it is worse, actually, and it's got to the point where -- you know, if you are a non-college-educated white person, it used to be that you were probably -- you know, you might have been a Bill Clinton voter. You might have been a Democrat. You might have been a Republican.

Now it's pretty much predicted. You probably very likely are a Donald Trump voter and, uh, and partly because of this -- you're aggrieved, right? You're angry. You feel like you've lost the -- you know, you're mourning the loss of centrality. And i think that's both un-Christian and un-conservative.

And so I think that, you know, we shouldn't be bitter. We shouldn't be jealous. We shouldn't be concerned about our own -- get it personally power and getting ahead.

But from a conservative standpoint, we should believe, if you're a Republican or a conservative, we used to believe, you know, pull yourself up by your boot straps. Don't complain. Hustle. Get out there, you know. Be successful. And now it's just a lot of complaining. So it's the opposite of everything that I would kind of grow up being taught.

LEMON: Yeah. Matt, listen, now Trump is on the way out the door. But you say getting rid of him won't solve the problem. And here is what you write.

You say, what is clear is that the influx of Trump voters into the GOP, coupled with his capture of formerly normal Republicans, will make it difficult, if not impossible, to restore the party and the conservative movement to its more sane, more decent, pre-Trump standing.

Can the party return to the way it was before Trump? I don't -- I think the -- I think those days are gone, no?

LEWIS: Yeah, look, I don't think there's any chance of going backward, but the question is what does the future look like? Can it be maybe a hybrid? We're not going to get rid of all of the Trumpy populism or nationalism, but can it be a more serious and more thoughtful and more compassionate party than it is now?

And I just don't know the answer to that, Don. It's not as simple as nominating or, you know, installing the right leader. The problem is that the -- is the actual base of the Republican Party. And some of this, I think, is simply the fact that Trump, you know, kind of captured Republican voters, people who had been voting Republican for a long time.

But part of it is that he has led to an influx of new people into the party. And simply put, people like me are outnumbered. So, how do I save something? How do we save something or how do we liberate somebody who doesn't want to be rescued? That's the problem.

(LAUGHTER)

LEWIS: I just am not sure. Even if all these Republican senators did the right thing and that's like a big if because I don't have a lot of hopes for that, even if they did, the average Republican voter today likes Donald Trump and really doesn't think he did anything that bad, actually.

LEMON: Oh, listen, I think my next -- you sort of answered the next question, but I'm just wondering how because we know we've been in the middle of a pandemic, we've been in lockdown, people aren't travelling a lot or getting see a lot of people.

Just sitting back and watching this, and I think in many ways, a lot of Republicans, especially traditional Republicans, sort of feel helpless by it, right, because you can't actively get out there and fight it in the normal ways that you would.

But if the GOP continues to be ruled by Trump's brand of populism, what happens to traditional conservatives? Do you see them becoming Trumpist Republicans when you talk about the future or do you think that we'll see a new party formed by them?

LEWIS: Well, I think part of the story, of course, is we have always been kicking the can down the road and hoping that something will change, right? So like there's the hope -- there is always the hope that maybe Trump is going to mature. Maybe he learned his lesson this time. That never happened. You know, maybe, you know, he'll be impeached and Pence will take over.

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LEWIS: And now I think there's still -- we're at a crossroads again. That's kind of why I wrote my column. Maybe things will work itself out and you'll end up with somebody who is the nominee in 2024 who is better than Trump. I don't think it's going to be the return of Ronald Reagan but better than Trump.

But, Don, if things keep going the way that they're going with the QAnon stuff, you know, really coming to be mainstream and the alt- right basically becoming the right, if that that continues, it's going to be untenable. And those of us who keep kind of hoping against hope that the conservative movement and the Republican Party will right itself, we're just going to have to face facts at some point.

I don't want to give that up because, like, starting a new party would be better if Trump started a new party and left the Republican Party for Reagan conservatives because logistically that's a very, very burden indeed.

LEMON: Right. Good to see you, Matt. Thank you, sir.

LEWIS: My pleasure, Don.

LEMON: So, new video of the Capitol riot shows just how bad things got inside. Don't forget, investigators are using all this video to open investigations and make arrests. Stay with us.

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[23:40:00]

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LEMON: Tonight, more than 80 defendants are facing federal charges related to the Capitol insurrection. As the number of open cases and charges grows, we are getting more video from inside the siege. ProPublica is revealing a trove of videos giving us new insight and angles on what unfolded and what happened.

So the video is providing new pieces of the puzzle as investigators work to bring rioters to justice. And today, the FBI says they have received close to 200,000 digital tips from the public. So, what are we learning about the insurrectionists among us?

Joining me now to discuss is John Scott-Railton. He is a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. He is a cybersecurity researcher, who was studying Stop the Steal before turning his Twitter feed and his focus to figuring out just what unfolded on January 6th at the Capitol. We thank him for joining us. John, good evening to you.

So we're getting this new video. This new video is from The New Yorker and ProPublica who looked through hundreds of Parler videos from inside the Capitol riot. How critical are these videos becoming in helping law enforcement name and locate these insurrectionists?

JOHN SCOTT-RAILTON, SENIOR RESEARCHER, CITIZEN LAB: Well, these videos are critical to everyone, whether it's us or law enforcement, who kind of wants to understand what happened. Partly it is because you can figure out what people are wearing, sort of where they were, right?

At different times, you can pick up the same person again and again in different videos. And you can get a sense of some of the big questions like were people working together? Did people appear to have a plan of action? Were some people just wandering around? These are the questions that we're asking and I'm sure the FBI is asking and getting answered right now using this amazing trove of footage.

LEMON: Yeah. The more footage I see, the worse it looks. I got to be honest with you, John.

So CNN has learned that Riley Williams has been arrested. Excuse me, investigated for possibly stealing Nancy Pelosi's laptop during the Capitol riot. She is only charged with violent interior disorderly conduct and entering a restricted space at the Capitol. What do you know about her?

SCOTT-RAILTON: Well, I have to say the first story is basically the plot line of burn after reading, which is a woman comes across the material and tries to sell it to the Russians. According to what somebody appears to have told the FBI, she came into possession with Nancy Pelosi's laptop and wanted to sell it to the Russians. It is unclear where the story is going to go. It's very much developing story.

I think the other question is who is this person? And kind of unclear who she is, but she may just have been somebody who walked in and picked something up and then thought about maybe I can do something with this.

LEMON: Wow! So, this -- one of the people charged this weekend is Robert Gieswein, who is allegedly part of a far-right group, the Three Percenters. He turned himself into police tonight.

Another man charged is Jon Schaffer. He was seen allegedly wearing an Oath Keepers' hat, also the front man for a heavy metal band, Iced Earth.

What have you learned about these people?

SCOTT-RAILTON: Well, for a heavy metal guy, I think, you know, if you have a big fan base, you probably shouldn't go do something illegal around lots of cameras, right? Your fans are going to nark you out.

This one is an interesting case. Here is somebody who came in wearing military gear and a lot of patches, which a lot of us and some smart journalists can identify him, and was really everywhere carrying a bat. He was pushing a police barricade. He was first in in the window. And he showed up all over the place.

I think he represents kind of a concerning trend, which is people with links to far-right and extreme militia organizations, like the Three Percenters, showing up at this event. And we just have to understand how much coordination there was and who else he may have been with and who he was in touch with.

LEMON: So let's go on and continue to talk about these folks. The FBI is implementing a search warrant against Jessica Watkins this weekend.

SCOTT-RAILTON: Jessica Watkins, somebody from Ohio, she had her own little militia called the Ohio State Regular Militia. She is an army vet and did a tour in Afghanistan.

[23:44:58]

SCOTT-RAILTON: She, along with a gentleman named Donovan Crowl, were both pictured and found inside the Capitol wearing a whole bunch of, you know, military battle rattle. And again, the question is, what on earth were the motivations there?

We have an interesting clue, though. First, that group is connected to the Oath Keepers, another militia organization also tracing its origins to the sort of first Obama years. And yet again, she was found on the radio by some (INAUDIBLE) at NPR talking about executing on a plan and describing training for this. What the plan might have been and what she trained for, I think, we still don't know.

LEMON: John, thank you so much. It has been fascinating, speaking with you. We'll continue to talk. Thank you so much.

SCOTT-RAILTON: Thank you. Always a pleasure.

LEMON: Expert worry -- experts, I should say, worried about the spread of extremism online, and even though companies like Facebook are tamping down, dangerous posts are still getting through. What to watch out for next.

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[23:50:00]

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LEMON: Experts worry the violence seen on Capitol Hill could be just the beginning of a surge of violence from right-wing extremists. But as social media companies finally push to clamp down on far-right groups, has it really stopped the spread of extremist views?

Joining me now to discuss are CNN's Donie O'Sullivan, also Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. I'm so glad to have both of you on. This is just a conversation I've been wanting to have. Let's get to it.

Donie, you have new reporting out tonight about how Facebook posts promoting violence have been able to circulate even after the Capitol insurrection. What are you learning?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Don. Yeah, that's right, some really concerning posts on Facebook's platform. A lot of it is shared in private Facebook groups that are devoted to President Donald Trump.

I want to show you some of them, one in particular, which says, we need to organize our militia, to meet up with local police, and weekend warriors. Wars are won with guns and when they silence your commander-in- chief, you are in a war.

This was posted on January 9th, last weekend, just a few days after the insurrection here in Washington. Obviously, the reference there to the so-called silencing of the commander-in-chief as to do, of course, with social media cracking down on President Trump's misinformation.

So, really concerning that we're seeing these posts, which were brought to our attention by a watchdog group called the Tech Transparency Project that we're seeing this sort of stuff still circulating on Facebook.

But it is, you know, one upside to this is that Facebook does have a team. They do have a team of people who are working to get rid of this sort of stuff, but obviously they are not being given enough resources or do not have enough manpower to catch this stuff.

So, it's highly concerning to see a platform that is supposedly so sophisticated as Facebook not being able to catch the basics like mentions of militia here, Don.

LEMON: So, Facebook gets the spotlight around this, but it's not the only problem in the spread of conspiracies, right?

O'SULLIVAN: Yeah, yeah, and, you know, I think we're entering into now sort of new phase of the challenges that are going to be posed by social media platforms in that because we have seen a bit of a crackdown over the past week, from the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

It is pushing extremists and some Trump supporters into sort of darker corner of the internet, the Chans (ph) and the encrypted messaging apps, platforms like Telegram where there are no rules or very, very few rules. That could become a recipe for radicalization and it is also much more difficult for law enforcement to keep an eye on.

LEMON: Brian, everyone is on alert now, but after the inauguration, the anger and grievance felt by these far-right white supremacists and extremist groups, that's not going to go anywhere. How concerning is this moving forward?

BRIAN LEVIN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF HATE AND EXTREMISM: It's of concern moving forward because we're at an inflection point. We've had several things that occurred before these recent changes. We have a coalesced sociopolitical movement on the hard-right.

Not conservative people of goodwill, but it is a broad one that consists of people who are unstable, it consists of people who seek revenge, but also consists of people who have -- who are part of a spectrum of the now kind of fragmented ideological intertwined set of conspiracy theories, bigotries and glorification of aggression that's going on.

So, here's the thing. Just bear with me. Liberate Movement is, I think, the last weigh station before the Stop the Steal stuff. And what I'm saying to you is we had a variety of different people who cross pollinated on Facebook in these elastic reservoirs, grew really fast. Our friend Devin Burkhart (ph) found three million by the time it stopped.

So, you already have this coalesced insurgency, but how -- how it's going to be organized is going to be different.

[23:54:43]

LEVIN: As folks get moved off the more large platforms, they're going to these affinity-based and encrypted ones where you're going to have these silos and some of the kind of looser folks who are more into conspiracy theories but not action like some of the QAnon folks are going to, I think, lead way to other folks like the insurrectionists of all kinds that are driven together by this grievance over COVID, but populated by many who have a folklore relating to the Second Amendment and their concocted right of armed rebellion.

LEMON: Wow! More to discuss, more to come. Brian, thank you. Donie, thank you. Be safe up there.

So, the inauguration is just a little over a day away. A field of flags lit up tonight as part of the commemoration. And there will be a whole lot more. CNN will have it all covered for you. Make sure that you tune in. It's special, all day, live coverage, starts Wednesday, right here on CNN. And, boy -- we are in the part of history that people write about right now.

Thank you for watching, everyone. Our coverage continues.

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