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What to Expect on Night 3 of the Republican National Convention; Former DHS Assistant Secretary, Elizabeth Neumann, Discusses RNC, Endorsing Biden, Shootings in Kenosha, Domestic Terror & QAnon; Facebook Investigating Online Activity Around Kenosha Shootings; Trump Sending Feds, National Guard to Kenosha Amid Unrest; Hurricane Laura Now an Extremely Dangerous Cat 4 Storm. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 26, 2020 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:36]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tonight marks the third night of the Republican National Convention. Counsellor to the president, Kellyanne Conway, will speak. She announced she's leaving the White House to spend more time with her family.

Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, and second lady, Karen Pence, are also scheduled to address convention.

Vice President Mike Pence will close out the evening. He's expected to attack Biden and will formally accept the party's nomination.

He'll do it from Fort McHenry in Baltimore, the site of the war on 1812. And inspired Scott Francis Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Again, President Trump plans to make an appearance as he bumps tradition and plans to appear every night of the convention.

Throughout this week of the Republican National Convention, the president himself used the White House as a backdrop in an event like no other, a naturalization ceremony.

A tape aired during the convention showed Trump in the White House's great hall, along with acting Homeland Security secretary, Chad Wolf, swearing in five citizens.

The ceremony stands in start contrast with the president and his administration's years-long attack on the nation's immigration system.

Joining me now is Elizabeth Neumann. She's a former Department of Homeland Security official who worked under the Trump administration. She's now endorsing Joe Biden for president.

Elizabeth, thanks for joining me. I wonder, what is your reaction to the naturalization ceremony we saw

last night?

ELIZABETH NEUMANN, FORMER TRUMP DHS OFFICIAL, ENDORSING BIDEN: Thanks for having me, Anderson.

You know, I didn't really watch the convention last night. I experienced three years of the circus that is the cult of Trump.

But I did see some of those clips. And I -- it seemed like another stunt that they tend to do to -- for political gain.

The reality is that policies, the actions, the behavior, the rhetoric of this president continues to be anti-immigrant and borderline racist.

COOPER: I think you said the cult of Trump. What did you see when you were there? How was it different than prior administrations? Democrat or Republican?

NEUMANN: Sure. I served in the Bush administration. I served for a little bit around the Obama administration. I worked with many of those officials.

Most people that come, especially from a national security, Homeland Security angle, view it through the lens of keeping our country safe. It's considered a bipartisan issue. Almost apolitical in nature.

In fact, the rules govern what you can do as a DHS official or Department of Defense or Department of State official, are stricter in terms of Hatch Act and political activities.

They're stricter for those employees than other parts of government, recognizing being able to do security work requires an appearance of being apolitical.

In this administration, there's been kind of an inversion of that. Because the president does have a top priority of building a wall, reducing immigration, which, as the duly elected president, he has a right to those policies.

But it became very politicized in the way he went after those policies.

Just in my experience, I found that you would have people that chose to come in for the right reasons, to serve their country, to try to help the president to secure the country.

And you had those who came in because they were all about only the president's agenda and forgot the public servant aspect of this.

COOPER: I want to ask about the situation in Kenosha. Two people were killed, one person was seriously injured after a shooting near a gas station after last night's protests.

Police described it as a vigilante militia group, someone in some way connected with a vigilante or militia group that descended upon the city. Still a lot to be learned.

You personally tried to get the White House to pay attention to the threat of domestic extremists. How receptive was the Trump White House?

NEUMANN: So tragic, what happened in Kenosha. I was listening to the previous segment. It's gut-wrenching to watch that tape.

The challenge we're see playing out across the country, however, we've been tracking this three or four years now. We recognized that the threat had shifted a bit in 2017. We're keeping tabs on it. How much was it shifting?

Certainly, by the time we got to Charlottesville or the following year, the activities in Pittsburgh, the shooting at the synagogue, and then it exploded with what happened in Christ Church.

[13:35:11]

And you started to see this is not an American problem. It's a globalized effort, a globalized white supremacy movement that is calling for a race war. They're calling for their adherents to commit acts of violence.

And the ideology is perverse. And it's getting mixed and confused. And it's very hard to kind of pinpoint what might cause somebody to mobilize to violence.

And while, when you're a government official, you have to be very careful of anybody, I mean, in the United States, able to hold weird ideologies. And we do have First Amendment protections.

The concern we have, from a counterterrorism perspective, some ideologies has histories of motivating people to violence, particularly violence against people.

What we saw, the white supremacist movement, the anti-government movement, did have that common practice, motivating people to violence for decades.

There have been more people killed in the United States by white supremacist than in recent years the Islamic jihadist threat and the other ideologies combined.

What is particularly challenging is, in the last few months, instead of recognizing that those voices, which we have been watching three years, may take advantage of some of these peaceful protests.

That's a pretty normal tactic to use. People use this as cover to do violent activities. It's harder for us to track them. It's harder for us to know that they're planning an attack.

Instead of calling that out, they've been pointing out at their -- making it more political, focusing on Antifa.

Which, I have to tell you, for three years, I received intelligence briefings, and never once did I see or get told Antifa is the greatest threat because they're going to carry out attacks on people.

They do have a tendency to cause disruption, civil unrest, crimes against property, all of which are serious and need to be treated appropriately by law enforcement.

But -- it's not the same as what happened in El Paso or Poway, or at Christ Church.

We have a growing threat in this country. And it is not Antifa. It is this white supremacist anti-government ideology

And I -- I will let the law enforcement personnel investigate what happened last night. But on the surface, it looks like more of that type of threat.

COOPER: There's been a lot of folks on QAnon lately. And I wonder, the FBI said it has the potential of sparking acts of domestic terrorism.

Is that something that is being taken seriously? Because the head of -- the acting head of Homeland Security didn't seem to -- he said he had no reason to disagree with the FBI's assessment but it wasn't -- I don't want to put words in his mouth. He didn't seem to think it was a top priority.

NEUMANN: Yes. QAnon is really fascinating and scary. Fascinating in that, initially, even if you were to ask me this question maybe six months ago, it would have been the thing we're keeping our eye on. But we're not seeing violent tendencies.

The biggest danger was that it causes a mistrust in authority. Kind of a distraction. Right?

But what we have seen in recent months is that people are taking matters into their own hands. They become radicalized by this QAnon ideology. And it's really hard to put a finger on what that ideology is.

And posts almost daily, and it has more to do with believing that you can't trust anybody.

And the problem with that type of ideology, it's historically, is when an individual that thinks they're the only last hope, they're the only thing that's going to stand between evil winning.

Those types of ideologists do tend to cause individuals, especially if they're -- perhaps, they have stressors in their life or are mentally, unwell, it does cause people towards violence, to violent tendencies.

And we've had instances in the last few months of two individuals acting out based on these threats. I think there's been a total of five criminal cases in the last four years, but two in the last couple of months.

COOPER: Yes.

NEUMANN: I do think it's a growing threat and why the FBI is paying attention to it.

COOPER: And most famous, the guy shows up at a pizza parlor, thinking he's there to rescue children, and it's all a lie so there are no children being tortured in this pizza parlor by Democratic leaders who are drinking their drinking blood and worshipping Satan. He's now in prison.

But, again, as you said, more incidents in the last couple of months.

[13:40:03]

Elizabeth Neumann, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

NEUMANN: Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: Just ahead, we'll speak with someone who has investigated white supremacist groups about how they look to take advantage of the unrest, like we're seeing in Wisconsin.

Plus, more on breaking news. The Trump administration pressuring the CDC to soften its testing guidelines. Changes that are baffling doctors.

And just in, one vaccine maker reveals the impact of its trial on different age groups.

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COOPER: Facebook investigating whether an event with more than 2,600 responses to linked to the violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Two killed one injured.

Following this for us.

What are you learning about this?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Anderson, right. The company is investigating online activity around last night's violence in Kenosha.

They say they shut down a Facebook group called Kenosha Guard, and the group was promoting a Facebook event due to take place last night -- Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property.

Now, the event got some traction on Facebook as you mentioned. About 2,600 people responded to the event. And at least one right-wing conspiracy Web site also wrote about the event yesterday.

Facebook says that it has taken down both the page for Kenosha Guard and the event for breaking its policies on militias. But, of course, we can see that they seemed to catch this page and this event pretty late.

It is unclear. We do not know right now -- and it's important to say -- if the violence was actually linked to this Facebook event. But, again, Anderson, it's another example of Facebook here being

behind the curve on what is happening out on the streets and its potential role that the company could be playing in stoking violence in the U.S.

COOPER: Interesting.

I was just reading a local media report about this group, or groups of residents who decided to arm and go down, and what they were saying, protect property.

Again, unclear if the person who shot the two people, wounded the other, is one of those people, but it remains to be seen.

COOPER: Donie O'Sullivan, appreciate it. Thanks very much.

The president moments ago announcing he is sending in the feds and the National Guard to Kenosha tonight. We're expecting to hear from police very soon.

Plus, we're expecting a new update on Hurricane Laura at any moment. The storm forecasted to be a category 4 and hitting the U.S. tonight.

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[13:51:41]

COOPER: President Trump says he'll send federal law enforcement and the National Guard into Wisconsin to "restore law and order." That's a quote. Racial tension has rocked the city following the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday.

I want to bring in our correspondent, Elle Reeve.

When you look at the video of Kenosha, why are we seeing so many protesters with guns?

ELLE REEVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT; I think you can track this back to Charlottesville, when ex-military bodyguards began protecting white nationalists, like Richard Spencer.

There's been an increase of open carrying of weapons both left and right-wing protesters, which is legal in many states. But it's also very provocative.

So, after Charlottesville, you saw more leftist protesters carrying guns. And those images prompted more right-wing protesters to also carry weapons in public.

For what it's worth, not all of these protesters are by not together by race. Some of them are Libertarian or they're just anti-anarchists.

And then there's QAnon conspiracy theorists who believe they're protecting sex trafficked children.

COOPER: Why are we seeing this escalation at these protests? REEVE: Well, the short answer is the Internet. When you're on social

media, in some corners, you're watched with these extremists messages over and over again.

So, what you once thought was a joke, becomes something you believe sincerely.

Further, a lot of the protesters are very young, some as young as high school students.

And there's a term online called "larking." Basically, it means enacting an online identity in real life.

And this is often applied to people who show up in full military kit at rallies, when really their only experience is playing Call of Duty or other video games.

And that' not just on the right. That's also on the left.

I talked to a protester in Seattle who wondered whether some of his fellow protesters really had the military experience they claim or whether they're just acting out a video game fantasy.

COOPER: A lot of people armed on the streets.

Elle, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Two major stories we're following right now. CNN is learning the CDC was pressured by the White House to abruptly change its guidelines on testing. The question is why?

[13:53:56]

And soon we'll hear from the police chief in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after the police shooting of an unarmed black man and two people were killed last night by somebody in a melee. More on that ahead.

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

COOPER: Just about the top of the hour. I'm Anderson Cooper.

Right now, a monster hurricane is heading for a direct hit on Louisiana and Texas. Hurricane Laura is gaining strength as it tears through the Gulf of Mexico. It's now a category 4 hurricane.

Landfall is expected tonight with winds well over 125 miles per hour and 10 to 20-feet of storm surge. Some of the flooding is already starting on the coast but it is just beginning.

Evacuations have been ordered in both Louisiana and Texas as they brace for more severe flooding and possible tornados.

Jennifer Gray is in the CNN Severe Weather Center.

So, let's talk about where we are now and what is coming with this storm?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: This storm, category four, at 2:00 p.m. This could strengthen even more. In fact, it's expected to strengthen even more.

It has time to strengthen to a strong category 4 or possibly a category 5 before making landfall.

This is a monster storm and one that should be taken seriously.

This is going to make landfall somewhere on the southwest Louisiana/southeast Texas coast tonight. And we're already starting to see those outer bands come ashore. It's moving to the northwest at 16 miles per hour.

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We're waiting on that turn to the north because that's what the National Hurricane Center is banking on to make the landfall right there at the border.