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Biden Inauguration Security Questioned After Deadly Capitol Riot; U.S. Reports 4,000 Plus Deaths in Deadliest Day of Pandemic; Federal Prosecutors Investigate Trump's Role in Inciting Capitol Siege. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired January 08, 2021 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining me right now is Former Secret Service Agent under President Obama Jonathan Wackrow and Former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern district of New York Elie Honig. It's good to see both you thank you for coming in.

Jonathan, this was a colossal security failure. I've heard from, you know -- we've heard from the highest levels that there is a real concern about the -- maybe about the security situation ahead of the Inauguration.

But also, that there is a level of confidence that there could be a real attempt if they're trying to -- if what they tried to do on the Capitol Wednesday, they could try to do with the Inauguration? How confident are you about the security situation with the Inauguration?

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Kate. Hi, thank you for having me on.

Listen. Let me give a level of reassurance. The Inauguration will be safe. That is a guarantee. Having participated as an Inauguration coordinator with the Secret Service in the past I will guarantee that.

I will guarantee that the Secret Service with their law enforcement partners will have the appropriate security plan in place predicated upon the current threat environment. So, in terms of what's going to happen in the future for the Inauguration it will be safe.

However, we have to look at what happened two days ago at the Capitol. This was a catastrophic breakdown in security and it really needs to be looked at in two ways. First, the Capitol police, there was an inability to respond to the acute shock of that moment. They were caught off guard, self-admittedly they were overwhelmed.

The second part of the problem was that there were chronic issues with the physical security structure of the Capitol. A lot of people have been trying to compare the White House and Capitol Hill. They are two different separate and distinct entities the way that they are protected.

So, there are chronic issues with physical security that the rioters were able to very leverage. They were able to leverage very easily to overcome officers and you know, essentially, you know, maintaining insurrection on Capitol Hill.

BOLDUAN: Elie, as I was saying there earlier, there's now a federal murder investigation into the officer's death, the Capitol police officer's death, but in terms of where fault lies the acting U.S. attorney in D.C. was asked directly if investigators will be looking at the role President Trump played in inciting this riot? And the U.S. attorney did not rule that out. Let me play for you what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL SHERWIN, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY (via telephone): We're looking at all actors in this here, and anyone that had a role and the evidence fits the elements of the crime; they are going to be charged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Elie, what do you think of that?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, as a former prosecutor Kate, that statement makes me proud. That's exactly how prosecutors and investigators should be approaching this situation. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter how powerful you are. Even -- until a few days from now you can't even hide behind the powers of the Presidency. So, they absolutely should be looking.

Look, first and foremost at the people who directly physically caused the death of this federal officer and the other people who were killed inside the Capitol and other people who caused property damage, violated a number of federal statutes but also the president.

The president needs to be investigated and does have real potential criminal liability for incitement for essentially spurring people on, motivating people to go in there and commit these crimes. It's not an easy case to make, but if you look at his words, if you look at language he used, the way he not only urged people to do it but applauded them after they did it while they doing it, that suggested to me he knew exactly what he was leading them into?

BOLDUAN: Interesting. Jonathan, I'm just thinking looking ahead to the Inauguration, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell was on at the top of the show and she said that she had mixed feelings about the fact that the president of the United States had announced he's not going to be attending Joe Biden's Inauguration. From a security standpoint, does it change an assessment if President Trump would or would not be attending this event?

WACKROW: Well, it changes very slightly. You, having the president there or not will only move the needle a little bit in terms of risk. What it is the threat is really the followers. It's the people the president didn't run up to Capitol Hill the other day.

The people that are following his lead did that. So, it's -- that is what law enforcement needs to focus in on and they need to be keenly focused on the risk intelligence that's coming in on those groups. What are they doing? Who are the organizers and what is their --

BOLDUAN: Let's be honest Jonathan, that might be the thing that failed the most at Capitol Hill.

WACKROW: Well, absolutely. Law enforcement failed in that. They didn't calculate the likelihood of this threat manifesting and miscalculated the inherent vulnerabilities that are caused by the lack of security. They overestimated their own abilities to defend Capitol Hill and under-calculated this risk of this group and the level of violence that they were going to bring towards the Capitol.

[11:35:02]

BOLDUAN: Thank you both very much. I appreciate it.

Coming up for us, it's a devastating milestone. For the first time, the U.S. reports more than 4,000 deaths in a single day to Coronavirus.

Coming up next, we have the exclusive new details on how the Biden Administration is now planning to speed up the vaccine rollout across the country?

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[11:40:00]

BOLDUAN: In what would be a major change to the country's current vaccine roll out? President-elect Joe Biden plans to release every available dose of the coronavirus vaccine when he takes office instead of holding some in reserve. Here's why they are looking to speeding things up.

With 20 million doses promised in the first month, we're now only at around 6 million shots administered at this moment and the need for these shots could not be more critical.

BOLDUAN: Just look at the latest data. More than 4,000 deaths were reported yesterday from Coronavirus. It is a horrific milestone to pass. It's another record and it also comes as daily new cases, new infections they are hitting new peaks and the number of people that are currently in the hospital because of Coronavirus is hitting new peaks as well.

CNN National Correspondent Kristen Holmes she is joining us now with these new details. So, Kristen what is the approach that the Biden Administration is looking at?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Kate, OK this would really change the way the distribution is done? A transition official telling our colleague Sara Murray that the president-elect does not believe that the government should be holding back any of these doses right now, that instead they should be getting these shots into Americans' arms.

Now, this is a big gamble because there is a reason why the Trump Administration has held them back. This is a two-dose vaccine and they want to ensure that every American who gets the first dose has a second dose to get. There's a finite amount of time here and all of the data that we have seen shows that one dose is not effective.

However, the Biden Administration and multiple health officials have said that they believe it's important to get those shots out there now and rely on that production that Pfizer and Moderna. We know that they have been using the Defense Production Act to get that done quickly so that at least when the second doses come, we have more and more people going.

Now despite the potential risks and the gamble, we're already hearing praise of this idea from health officials, the Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb tweeting this. He says this is a prudent move that will help expand COVID vaccine access to more high-risk patients at a time when the epidemic is worsening, and the vaccine can be an important backstop.

So, waiting still, of course, to hear how exactly the Biden Administration plans to ensure that second dose, but this would change things likely.

BOLDUAN: Yes, very much would and Scott Gottlieb has been pushing for this move for quite some time Kristen, thank you very much for the reporting.

Joining me right now is one of the nation's governors in charge of rolling out vaccines in his state, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.

Governor, thank you for coming back in. What's your reaction to hearing this plan that my colleague just laid out that the Biden transition team is looking at?

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): Well, I think your colleague has is exactly right. We've got to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible to defeat this virus, and we're losing people to it every day.

Our hospitals are filling up. Cases are increasing in most parts of the United States and the vaccine is the most effective way that we cannot only help people now but ultimately defeat this virus. But she's also right in that we need some assurances that those second doses are going to be there.

I believe in following the CDC's and the FDA's approach of needing both shots, the original and the booster and I also believe that we've got to make sure that those logistics aren't just turned over to the state but that we know those second doses are coming.

BOLDUAN: So, this is interesting, Governor, because if the Biden team came in and release all of the doses and say, you know, the new guidance you is need to get it in as many arms as possible regardless of reserve, you as a Governor still the person that makes the final call. You would still -- you would still want to reserve a second shot without, you know, extending it the way they are talking about.

BESHEAR: Well, what we would do is we would certainly pick up the speed of our vaccinations and in fact that's happening right now. On Monday, I expressed my displeasure with the speed that it was going all over the country that in Kentucky, too. At that time, we had vaccinated 60,000 Kentuckians. We vaccinated 50,000 Kentuckians and just the last 3 days.

So, we are building the infrastructure building the plane while we are flying it and we are ready to vaccinate a lot more people and this would help us. At the same time, we have to ensure that those second doses come three weeks after for the Pfizer vaccine, four weeks after for the Moderna vaccine.

And so, we would make sure if it's just sending them to the states, that we're getting those second doses right around that time period. We have got to hit that 95 percent effectiveness if we're going to truly defeat this virus this year and hopefully for good.

BOLDAN: What has been the holdup? What has kept you from getting more shots in arms?

BESHEAR: Well, I think the federal government underestimated a lot of how we were going to get this vaccine out. I think they do the shipping piece and the logistics just fine, but you've actually got to get it into people's arms which are more time intensive endeavor that I think anyone anticipated.

[11:45:09]

And no dollars were provided to build up real infrastructure that's needed here. What we need in Kentucky and really around the country is high-volume and I think drive-through vaccination points where you can vaccinate thousands of people every day.

BESHEAR: I mean, our drug stores and our pharmacies do a really god job but they are not set up for thousands upon thousands of vaccines. So, this takes new infrastructure that we have to build and that we got the dollars to build after we got the initial vaccine but we're going to get there. And no excuses we've almost doubled our vaccinations in the last three days and we're going to continue to pick up that pace.

BOLDUAN: Governor, I read with interesting your Health Commissioner said that one issue that you've been having is that people in the priority groups have been turning down the vaccine. If that is happening, do you want to move now to go past that first priority list?

If people are turning it down are you ready to open it up to the general -- more open it up to the general population to get shots? It's better to have someone who is willing than to have shots and people now wanting to get it if they're in the priority group.

BESHEAR: Well, what we have learnt is the smaller the group you're providing the vaccine to the longer it takes because everybody knows there is one there waiting for them. And they know schedule them as quickly as we need to. So, our priority now is to use 90 percent of all the doses that we receive within a week of receiving them.

So, we're telling our providers, if you don't have enough in 1A, in that very first group, you go to the next priority group. You make sure you hit that 90 percent, and that has worked. Even in just the last three days we see the clear instruction on getting it out as quickly as you can, even if you have to move into the next groups for a period of time is certainly the way to go.

And look at who those next groups are, they are individuals for us over 70 which represent a large portion of deaths we've seen in Kentucky. There are school administrators, teachers and bus drivers that will help get our kids back in the classroom and then when we get to our 1C, and they are people who have conditions that we really need to get vaccinated because they are vulnerable.

We have a chance here to stop the death this climbing, catastrophic level of death we see in this country. We have the tools to do it. We've just got to get it out there and in people's arms.

BOLDUAN: Governor, thanks for coming back on. Appreciate the update.

BESHEAR: Thank You.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, a major break with tradition. President Donald Trump announcing that he will not be attending Joe Biden's Inauguration. We're going to go live to Wilmington, Delaware to get the very latest and reaction from the Biden team. Next.

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[11:52:34]

BOLDUAN: This, just in, to CNN. In a new letter to her House colleagues, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says that she spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Millie this morning and in her words to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.

The Speaker of the House calling the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs about that this morning. She called in this letter called the president unhinged and said that he could not be more dangerous at this moment. We'll continue to report on that.

CNN has also learned this morning that the Former Presidents Obama, Clinton and Bush all plan to attend Joe Biden's Inauguration 12 days from now. That's likely not surprising because that is tradition.

President Trump though tweeted last hour he will not be there, refusing to take this step, take part in this step to demonstrate the peaceful transfer of power.

CNN's Jessica Dean, she's in Wilmington, Delaware following the Biden transition. Jessica, any reaction yet from what we've heard from the president from the Biden team?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We have not heard anything officially from the president-elect or the Biden team. No announcements or any sort of official comments on this, Kate. It's really not surprising. Often times Biden and his team kind of let Trump's tweets be what they are. We do expect to see the president-elect later today when he announces

some of his new cabinet nominees. Sometimes he takes questions, you know, at these events so we'll see if he does do that if he's asked about this, but so far, no official comment on this.

And this also comes as our sources are telling us Kate, that he has no appetite really for the 25th Amendment or talk of impeachment, that instead he wants to focus on getting in office and leave that to Vice President Pence, Congress and the cabinet members. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Jessica, talk to me about the cabinet that Joe Biden is going to be introducing today.

DEAN: Right. So, later today, we are going to hear from his nominee for Secretary of Commerce, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh who his nominee for Labor Secretary and Isabel Guzman who his nominee to be the Small Business Administrator.

Of course, these are all very important as the Biden/Harris Administration tries to wrap its arms getting this economy back on track, that's going to go hand in hand with getting coronavirus under control for sure.

[11:55:02]

But Kate, expect to hear more about their plans for that and what they plan to do moving forward to get more people back to work. They know that's critical as they assume office on January 20th. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Yes, and they get another bad sign of the economy that they will be inheriting just this morning.

DEAN: Right.

BOLDUAN: Jessica, thank you very much. Sincerely appreciate it.

BOLDUAN: So still ahead, coming up, some Republican lawmakers, they are now saying that they will consider voting for a second impeachment of President Trump. He would be the first President in U.S. history to be impeached twice if this happened.

Will Congress do this? Will they have time to pull it off? We'll be back.

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