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FBI Intervenes in Michigan Governor Kidnapping Plot; Biden Campaign Rejects Trump's Rescheduling Proposal; Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D- CA) Questions Trump's Judgment. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 08, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Explain this all to us.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we heard from these law enforcement officials just about an hour ago, really laying out what they say was this multi-month plot that ended in these charges of kidnap and conspiracy.

They say that at least these six men -- if not more -- were conspiring to kidnap the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. The officials who did this briefing and in this criminal complaint, it lays out this plot. It all started when the FBI began monitoring these social media sites months ago, early in 2020. It also involved undercover agents, confidential human sources who infiltrated these groups as these men began to plot and actually take action to further this conspiracy.

This criminal complaint details how these men actually purchased tasers, they detonated improvised explosive devices, they plotted out how exactly they were going to capture and kidnap Gretchen Whitmer including surveillance on Gretchen Whitmer's home, her vacation home in the western part of Michigan. These men also -- they surveilled bridges where they could presumably get away with the governor.

This was a plot that had been ongoing for several months, Brianna. And law enforcement was tracking this every step of the way, they even detailed some communication and meetings just within the past few days, in the past few weeks.

And in addition to this conspiracy plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, these officials say that it didn't stop there. These men also had plotted and talked about perhaps storming the Michigan state capitol in the city of Lansing, taking hostages. In fact at one point, they talked about this.

In the complaint, they said several members talked about murdering, quote, "tyrants" or taking a sitting governor. The group then decided that they needed to increase their numbers to get more people behind their plot.

And, Brianna, it really shows the intricate work that the FBI did in this case. They tracked this group, they tracked these men for months, first on social media and then infiltrating these groups with these confidential human sources as well as undercover agents here. So this had been going on for quite some time. But these men definitely took steps to further their conspiracy, to further their plot.

And again, the officials in this complaint, alleging that it didn't stop there, it didn't stop with this plot to kidnap the Michigan governor. They say that they wanted to take other officials who are unnamed here and also plotting against law enforcement.

And we do expect to hear from the governor. You know, we heard from the U.S. attorneys in Michigan as well as the attorney general, we understand that the governor herself who was the target of this plot, she's expected to speak in just about an hour and address this issue -- Brianna.

KEILAR: YEs, they had found home addresses of law enforcement officers. So, Juliette, there were a number of targets here, both individuals and the capitol building, which they were making plans to attack. They had done coordinated surveillance on the Michigan governor's vacation home.

And in addition to these six men that are facing federal charges, you also have seven more men who are facing state terrorism charges. This is pretty big, put this into context for us about just how alarming this is.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So it's alarming. I mean, we -- like, you know, in the madness known as 2020, take a step back, there was a pretty sophisticated plan to kidnap -- and do whatever, right? I mean in other words, we don't know their violent intent on the other side of that -- the governor of a state. And so that doesn't happen very often in American history, and it doesn't get as far as we've seen it.

So to put it in perspective, in a scale from zero to 10, zero being someone's crazy idea and 10 being the execution of the plan, this conspiracy was at about seven. It was pretty sophisticated, they had planned things, they had surveyed things, they had clearly talked and communicated.

But the governor nor anyone else appears to have been in imminent danger because of the surveillance that was going on because it appears that they had someone in the group or they were talking to people around the group. So that's the good news in terms of law enforcement.

It doesn't come by itself. In other words, you can't just look at a case like this and think, oh, that's just craziness in Michigan. As we know from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, white supremacy, this white radicalization, this sort of, you know, anti- government sentiment is the greatest terror threat in the United States today.

And I just juxtapose that against sort of a lot of talk about ISIS in the last 24 hours? That -- ISIS is not the terror threat in the homeland today, and we know that from the FBI and DHS. So this was probably in what I remember and what I know, probably the most sophisticated plan against a public official in a long while from a group like this.

I'll just say one more thing, we don't know much about this group -- a name was identified -- nor about the individuals. They're a little bit older, I think they're in their later 30s and 40s. We don't know how they were radicalized, if they have political sentiments, so I'm going to be really, really careful about, you know, a lot of things that you see online.

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What I do know about radicalization and can say safely, is that it doesn't really matter what an individual says or what a leader may say. it has to do with what the followers -- people who will conspire to kill a governor -- actually hear. What are they hearing from public discourse today that makes them radicalize or plan an event like this?

Others can put the pieces together and we may get more pieces from the FBI, but from a radicalization homeland security perspective, that's what I'm looking at. What were they hearing? What were they reading? Who were they following? Because it's that that becomes a radicalization source.

KEILAR: And it does appear, Juliette, that there was a goal to carry this out before Election Day, right?

KAYYEM: Right.

KEILAR: So that would be sometime here in the next three weeks or so. They clearly had, you know, tied whatever impact they wanted to have to Election Day or before it.

I wonder what you think -- and we have all these questions, so exactly who were they listening to, who do they support? But when you look at this and you've heard federal officials say that domestic terrorism is a threat right now, what is -- is this an indicator of a bigger concern more broadly across the country?

KAYYEM: Yes, it is. It's a big concern because it's breeding -- three things are happening simultaneously. One is just the ideology itself, a sense from white supremacists today that what we call the replacement theory -- in other words, they feel like they're being replaced by a more diverse America. Most of us love that about America, they do not, obviously.

It's being buttressed by the social media communications, which was the huge part of this investigation a really good part in terms of just looking at these websites, seeing how these guys are connecting and then seeing when they're physically meeting. In other words, don't view social media as merely the internet. I mean, they are actually planning, physically meeting. There's no lone wolves any more, these guys are finding each other.

And then the third is, you know, what we -- you know, just basically the -- what I call the lack of shaming of this sentiment in American discourse today. You can blame various people, I'm going to be super- careful again because we don't know what's going to come out. But we will find out their ideology, we will find out what motivated

them. But to the extent that our politics and our president amplify a supremacy attitude a white supremacy attitude -- I was on last week on your show about this, about the debate. That's not insignificant and we shouldn't be afraid to say it.

That is just part of the atmospherics today, is that white supremacy is not shamed. These men may have been motivated by someone else or something else, but we do know that the president doesn't shame it and it's too late for him to do so. I mean, we don't need to hear him about this case.

What I do think is interesting, finally, is -- and odd, given the subject of female governor (INAUDIBLE) kidnapped -- where is the secretary of Homeland Security and the attorney general? This is the biggest case I can think of, a real case. This is not one of the phony cases that they have press conferences about, this is a real case. And I just thought, you know, sort of -- I don't mind things happening at the local level, but generally you would get a statement about you know, from the senior leadership about something of this magnitude.

KEILAR: Yes, that's a very good point, where is the administration on this. Juliette, Jessica, thank you so much for the reporting, for the analysis. Appreciate it.

Now to the other breaking news that we have, the Biden campaign is now rejecting the Trump campaign's demand to delay the second debate. This was scheduled for one week from today, but then President Trump this morning refused to participate in it after the Debate Commission announced that it would be virtual, right? Not in person.

Of course the whole reason for that is because President Trump is still battling the coronavirus. The Trump campaign now says it wants October 22nd and then the 29th for debates. Biden's camp, responding to that, saying, quote, "Trump's erratic behavior does not allow him to rewrite the calendar."

I want to bring in CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley to be with us. I mean, Doug, when you look at this, the idea of -- first off, we'll talk about virtual debates here in a second, but now we've had this development of this proposal of pushing things later. I mean, a final debate on October 29th? That would be pretty unusual, awfully close to the election.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Yes. And you just can't start unscrambling the schedule just because Donald Trump's going to be impetuous and make demands. There's no reason they can't do a virtual debate. Back in 1960, John F. Kennedy was in New York City while Richard Nixon was in California, and they did one of the four in a virtual fashion. It's perfectly fine, it's not that much difference between last night's V.P. debate with plexiglass between you.

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But Donald Trump's sinking in the polls, he's desperate. Today, he came and tried to belittle Kamala Harris, calling her a communist and a monster. We now have this Wolverine militia story coming, which is pointing to this sort of white supremacy that Donald Trump's been supporting since Charlottesville.

And he's stuck with COVID-19 in the White House and is frustrated and is on cortisone (ph) drugs and the like, so why would the Biden campaign start rearranging the furniture on these debates? Donald Trump needs to show up on the date he said he was going to show up, or else he's going to look like a coward in the annals of U.S. political history.

KEILAR: Well, so to that point, as you said, he needs to show up. There is a political reason -- advantage to be gained or at least some opportunity to be had for showing up. Is it really a good move for him to forego an opportunity to speak to the American people in a potentially serious way when he needs a leg up if he's looking at the polls? It certainly didn't help him in Iowa in 2016 int he primaries there, to skip a debate.

BRINKLEY: It does not help, and we've learned that through history. I mean, the big mistake that we had with Jimmy Carter in 1980 when he was seeking re-election is he blew off a debate and Reagan just said, well, I'll debate John Anderson, a third party candidate. Carter got hammered for doing it, the public didn't like it and suddenly Carter was back in the debates but it was too late.

If I were advising Donald Trump -- which I'm not, but -- I would tell him to say, I'll debate Joe Biden any place, you name it. If it's virtual, it's virtual. I'll clean his clock on any debate any way, shape or style. That would be more of the macho image he's seeming to want to present himself as.

Instead now, he's going, no, I can't do it virtual, somebody will control my mike, it looks really weak. I think he needs to step up and debate Joe Biden and stick to the schedule.

KEILAR: Douglas, thank you so much. It's great to see you.

BRINKLEY: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: We have some more breaking news, some medical professionals at Walter Reed were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements when the president made a last-minute visit there in November. I want to go live now to Kaitlan Collins at the White House on this.

What do we know, Kaitlan?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is that surprise trip that the president made to Walter Reed last November, a trip that is still shrouded in secrecy and we don't genuinely know the real reason the president went to Walter Reed, though they claimed at the time that it was to get a head start on his physical, which he actually completed about six months later, something that baffled medical experts who said you would not break up an annual physical in the way that they claimed that they had.

So -- and we still don't really know why the president was there. But what my colleague Kevin Liptak has confirmed, something that was first reported by NBC News, is that when the president went there, some of the doctors and medical professionals who were on the team, Brianna, were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements about the president's visit.

We're told that this caused some issues among the staff, some consternation. A few of them refused, though it's not clear exactly how many. And they were not involved in the president's care.

Now, it's not clear how many actually signed the NDAs either, and it's not even clear why they would need them because of course there is doctor-patient confidentiality, we've seen that play out this week with the president's physician refusing to reveal some information, citing HIPAA and basically saying that the patient, the president in this case, did not give him permission to release that information.

It's not exactly surprising the president has tried to use and wield NDAs in the past, he did it in his private life before he ran for office, he has done it since he worked in the White House. They actually had White House staffers sign a version of an NDA at the beginning of the administration, though people we talked to that actually signed them who were attorneys said they didn't actually believe they were enforceable.

But it is remarkable that the president and his team would ask doctors at Water Reed Military Hospital to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to treat the president. And of course, it's raised questions about whether there were doctors on this team that now took care of the president since he was diagnosed with coronavirus, to sign these agreements.

We asked the White House for comment, they did not deny it but instead only cited doctor-patient confidentiality.

KEILAR: All right. Kaitlan Collins, thank you for these new developments.

I want to bring in Dr. Megan Ranney, she is an emergency physician and an associate professor at Brown University. I mean, first, just to ask you about this story that the president had doctors sign NDAs at Walter Reed last year when he made an unscheduled trip there, I mean, would that be necessary? Have you ever heard of that? What's your reaction?

MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: It seems completely bizarre and paranoid to me. As physicians, we're of course bound by moral and ethical obligations to our patients as well as by HIPAA, which we get trained in from the very first day of medical school.

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The idea behind HIPAA is that we can't release information about a patient without that patient's consent, unless of course there's an immediate threat to themselves or to others. So if someone's homicidal or suicidal. To sign an NDA? I've heard of maybe a couple of celebrities doing it,

but it really seems paranoid because any good physician is never going to talk about their patient, NDA or no NDA.

KEILAR: You said, doctors are bound by moral and ethical considerations. The president has made it clear he does not -- he is not bound by such considerations, that is long established. We don't know what happened during this visit that he made, the president claimed that it was the first part of his physical and they were breaking up his physical.

Are Americans entitled to know what happened, especially considering the current situation and current questions about his health?

RANNEY: I would argue that we do deserve to know. You know, we have a long history of not knowing what was going on with our presidents, whether it was FDR or JFK. But starting around the time of Ronald Reagan and his Alzheimer's diagnosis, it became accepted by the public that we had a right to know what was going on with our president's health. And from Reagan onwards, presidents have been transparent.

It seems to me that if the current president is not being transparent, either he doesn't trust us or he has some reason to hide something. And either way, that's a problem. The American public deserves to know what they're voting on on November 3rd.

KEILAR: Dr. Ranney, thank you so much for being with us.

Moments ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested the president is in a, quote, "altered state right now," and she's calling for more transparency about his health.

Plus, the president's attacks on Kamala Harris' debate performance steered far away from the substance, called her a monster, he called her a communist and unlikeable. We're going to discuss why that might be, just ahead.

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KEILAR: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is raising serious questions about President Trump's health and his state of mind. A short time ago, Pelosi was asked about Trump's ability to serve as president while sick, and here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The president is, shall we say, in an altered state right now, so I don't know how to answer for his behavior.

What I said about the president was that we don't know if somebody who -- I've not said this, I've quoted others to say there are those who say that when you're on steroids and-or if you have COVID-19 or both, that there may be some impairment of judgment. But again, that's for the doctors and the scientists to determine.

But it was very strange -- really surprising, and I'm rarely surprised -- when the president took to the tweet in saying that he wants the Senate to have full focus on this confirmation of the justice and turned attention away, and so we're stopping the negotiations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I want to bring in CNN political analyst Carl Bernstein to talk about this.

I mean, Carl, she is saying that the country is being run by someone who is under the influence and is in a, quote, "altered state." What do you make of this?

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: We need to know the facts, that we're in the midst of a presidential cover-up of Donald Trump's mental and physical condition. And it's -- his doctors are part of the cover-up, under his orders. That much we know, that much is fact.

But it is essential that Republicans especially -- and I've talked to some Republicans on the Hill -- and indeed, there are Republicans in the Senate who are furious, concerned, worried about the president's mental health, physical health and they too want some disclosure of what the real facts are here.

But it's time for them to step up and demand it, because we've never had a presidential crisis of leadership such as this in the midst of an election campaign in which we have not a real clue, a scientific clue, because the doctors have not been willing to give us what the facts are about the erratic behavior, obvious erratic behavior of the president.

And the question is, is are we seeing just maybe an extension of his usual mania and excessive rhetoric and ugly thoughts? Or is this partly the result of real physiological and mental impairment? We need to know this immediately in the interest of our national security.

KEILAR: isn't that part of the issue, though, here, Carl? Because look, if you had Bill Clinton or George W. Bush or Barack Obama behaving like this, there would be no doubt, you wouldn't need a doctor to tell you that they're under the influence of medication, and that clearly it's having an effect on them.

But in this case, the president is usually erratic. His behavior is usually abnormal, and so it's hard to draw the line between what is erratic and erratic-plus-steroids or something else that's affecting him. Isn't that part of the issue here?

BERNSTEIN: Well, it's part of the issue but really, we need facts. And there are facts available, particularly -- first of all, we don't know the president's physiological health.

We don't know about whether or not he has definitively COVID pneumonia, though every suggestion is that he does have COVID pneumonia and is still suffering from it and its effect. We don't know what damage may have been done, we don't know the tests to his vital signs. We need full disclosure, and immediately.

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And also the real possibility that this is a time that the 25th Amendment needs to be considered, but it can't be considered without more facts. And if facts are not forthcoming -- and I've heard from some Republicans again on the Hill, they're not at all sure that Vice President Pence has been fully informed of the president's real mental and physical condition because this is a cover-up.

It is a cover-up clearly directed by the president of the United States and his closest aides in the White House and his family to keep the American people from knowing when he got this illness, what's the timeline. It's absolutely astonishing that in the 21st century, after the experience with Reagan and others, that we are not being given these facts.

Meanwhile, there are people in the national security bureaucracy who are terribly worried about what is going on in terms of America's adversaries, and particularly the Russians and the Chinese taking advantage of this situation. It's ongoing, I believe Director Wray is very -- at the FBI -- is very concerned about the president's health, mental and physical, and how it is undermining this lack of disclosure, the national security interests of this country.

We are at a dangerous, dangerous moment and we can see that our normal democratic, systemic norms are not coming into play here in a way that are keeping us from the danger that this president is throwing at our country and the security of the world, really, because the United States is dependent on for stable leadership.

Right now we have the most unstable leadership that we have seen, I would say, in my lifetime. And it's demonstrable, and a cover-up has got to be ended by Republicans and Democrats in this instance saying, come on, we need the facts, we need them today.

And this is -- the president cannot tell his doctors, don't tell them what's wrong with me and don't tell them when I got sick and don't tell them what I have and don't tell them perhaps the drugs are causing me mental impairment, because mental impairment is a big question right now.

KEILAR: Very important questions that need to be answered. Carl Bernstein, it's always great to see you. Thank you so much for coming on.

BERNSTEIN: Good to see you.

KEILAR: Next, the president's sexist attacks on the first woman of color to be nominated as vice president. We're going to discuss what's behind President Trump calling Kamala Harris unlikeable and a monster.

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