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President Biden to Visit Wisconsin Tonight; Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) Files Lawsuit Against Trump; Dave Chappelle Draws American Flag Parallel. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 16, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:58]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar. It is the top of the hour, and we are counting down to an important first for President Biden. Tonight at 9:00 Eastern, he's going to answer questions at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee, which is going to be his first official trip as president.

The White House says the president's objective will be to directly engage with people who are impacted by the pandemic, and it also gives him an opportunity to promote his ambitious COVID relief plan, and also -- and very importantly -- to clear up some confusion around what exactly his administration's goals are in handling the crisis.

CNN political director David Chalian is with us now to talk about this.

I think it's such an important time for this event right now, David. What are you going to be watching for?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, it is an important time. I mean, the impeachment trial of Donald Trump came to a close, and that really sort of ended the Trump era, right? There was this little hangover of this left-over business, dealing with President Trump.

And now President Biden can recapture everyone's focus and attention on, as you noted, Brianna, an important update to the American people on everything his administration is doing to battle coronavirus, battle the spread, getting the vaccination rollout going more smoothly and more aggressively, getting kids back to school, all of those issues.

Because we're now a year into this, and the public is of course growing tired of this form of life and wants to know when life will return to some sense of normalcy. And that is going to be Joe Biden's mission tonight, to sort of set the guides for everyone of when we're going to get there.

KEILAR: And the vaccine is so key, and the White House announced today that it's increasing distribution to states to 13.5 million doses per week. But there's a bipartisan group of governors that wrote a letter to President Biden yesterday, saying the rollout has caused confusion, they say it's caused inefficiency. The window where he can blame this on the Trump administration, you know, it's closing.

CHALIAN: Yes. I mean, and I think the administration realizes that too. Jen Psaki was actually asked about this at the briefing today, Brianna, and she said, flat-out, he's the president of the United States, he owns the response to this COVID crisis right now. Now, she did take a moment to yet again mention all the things wrong that they inherited from the previous administration, but fully acknowledged this is now on Joe Biden's watch.

And that's why you're going to see him, tonight, engage directly with the American people, not only on an update on what he's doing to solve the crisis, but also, as you noted, that huge $1.9 trillion COVID relief package. He has to get the American people engaged so that they can urge Congress to get that bill through the legislative process and onto his desk for signature so that that money can get out into people's hands.

KEILAR: Indeed. David, thank you so much. It's a big night, we'll be watching.

And of course these are the details. President Biden, joining Anderson Cooper live from Milwaukee in an exclusive CNN town hall. That will start tonight at 9:00 Eastern.

There is some breaking news, a new kind of legal fight for former President Trump over last month's siege on the Capitol. Just three days after the Senate acquitted him in his second impeachment trial, Trump is now being sued for inciting the insurrection in what is a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that also names his former attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson, who is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, is filing this suit with the backing of the NAACP. His suit says that Trump and Giuliani conspired with far- right groups the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys to incite the attack and to disrupt Thompson's work to certify the election results.

Thompson's suit says that it is a violation of a rarely cited federal statute that's very old. It's the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. It was passed after the Civil War, and it was created to combat violence by the white supremacist group. A short time ago, one of the attorneys who helped file the suit told me that Trump and Giuliani should expect to be deposed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY ASHTON, NAACP ATTORNEY INVOLVED IN LAWSUIT: The fact that someone used to be the president of the United States does not make them immune from deposition. It does not mean that they are not subject to the same laws, the same rules as everyone else. So in this matter, it would be the same as if it was any other defendant that, when you are being sued, you are subject to deposition.

(END VIDEO CLIP) [14:05:18]

KEILAR: Thompson's lawsuit also accuses Trump of delaying his speech on The Ellipse on January 6th; also that members of the Proud Boys could advance to the Capitol and better plot their attack. But the suit does not back up that claim with any evidence. Attorney Ashton told me that the legal team would not have put anything in the lawsuit unless they had a factual basis for it.

Joining me now is Harry Litman, he served as deputy assistant attorney general. And also here with us is CNN national correspondent Sara Sidner.

Harry, I just wonder, you know, when you look at this suit, what comes to mind for you? What is your reaction?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's a really interesting lawsuit, Brianna. it's under this law, as you say, passed 150 years ago in 1871, when the Ku Klux Klan, Congress heard all these harrowing tales. They were killing and raping and whipping the newly freed slaves to keep them from exercising their constitutional rights.

Usually these lawsuits are under a different provision, which says you can't violate civil rights, and they're often expansive in different ideas of civil rights, which courts don't like very much.

This one is under a different section you see very rarely, that says if the Ku Klux Klan -- or here, the Proud Boys, this really is like flash-forward 150 years, it's the closest we've come. The Proud Boys are impeding Thompson in the performance of his official duties, which is exactly what they did then, that is a lawsuit.

Because he is the actual plaintiff here, he was the one who was impeded. He may need to show injury to get to this important deposition, but there are also a lot of paragraphs there about how he had to cower under the desk and be not within social distance and he's 72 and two people got COVID. That might be where the fight is.

But it really does seem to fit the facts to a T. It's like 150 years ago, but in 2021, the same version with the Proud Boys playing the Ku Klux Klan.

KEILAR: And, Sara, you've done so much important investigative reporting this past year on the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Have you gotten a sense of how involved they were in the insurrection at the Capitol?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, if you look at some of the indictments that have been put out there, one of the first indictments that had the conspiracy charge, which is a really heavy charge against several people involved in the insurrection, those were all members, according to the federal government, of the Oath Keepers, for example.

And then you look further, and you see that there are several people known to be Proud Boys who we have talked to in the past, who have proclaimed themselves as Proud Boys and in leadership, they too are facing some very serious charges.

And so what we're seeing is the government looking at some of these groups and being -- looking very closely at these groups, because you see that they have done some things, just looking on video ourselves, that are coordinated.

You see that picture there, they came up the Capitol steps, they are all wearing basically gear for war. They've got on those ballistic helmets and the goggles and the sort of army fatigues, and they're walking up very coordinated, hand on shoulder, up the steps, moving together in a group, all throughout the day of the insurrection. And then you see them going into the Capitol, and then bragging brazenly about being inside the Capitol and taking over the Capitol.

So they are a very big focus of the FBI, and you can see that right now, just this past week. We saw more pictures of more people wearing Oath Keeper gear, put out by the FBI because the FBI is looking for a lot more people that were involved in these extremist groups - - Brianna.

KEILAR: And Harry, I should mention CNN has reached out to Rudy Giuliani for a response.

Donald Trump's spokesman, Jason Miller, said this, quote, "President Trump has been acquitted in the Democrats' latest impeachment witch hunt, and the facts are irrefutable. President Trump did not plan, produce or organize the Jan. 6th rally on the Ellipse. President Trump did not incite or conspire to incite any violence at the Capitol on January 6th. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser must answer questions as to why they rejected additional security and National Guard assistance in the run-up to January 6th."

So the question is, how is impeachment, how is what happened in the impeachment trial going to play in this civil lawsuit, if at all?

LITMAN: Legally, not at all. It's a different charge, it was not unanimous. It -- really, the Constitution itself is clear, you have impeachment charges and other charges.

[14:10:03]

And, Sara, I agree with everything she said. But it's just an important point to underscore: This is a civil lawsuit, this is Bennie Thompson as Bennie Thompson, saying these guys hurt me and it wasn't just the Proud Boys, they were conspiring with Trump and Giuliani. Might be hard to prove, but the big fight will be can they get past the preliminary stages so they can get a deposition, get discovery. That will rank as a win.

KEILAR: If they do get to deposition, Harry, what about executive privilege? How does that factor in?

LITMAN: Very good question. And I think the lawyer you spoke to was a little bit too quick in saying it can't apply, because he was in fact president at the time. But everything is open here, Brianna, and executive privilege is about really keeping confidential people who are advising you so you can make the right decisions.

I think he's basically waived almost everything. And of course, anything from the Proud Boys themselves along the lines of we did it for Trump, Trump said this? That's of course fair game.

KEILAR: And that, Sara, is one of my questions, because the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers would certainly welcome an association with the president. That's not good for the president, in this case, for sure. How are these far-right groups going to react to this legal threat?

SIDNER: You know, it'll be interesting to see how they react because some of them have already been charged in the insurrection criminally, and now you have this civil suit that has come forward. They will have to answer at some point.

But both the leaders of some of these groups have already been charged, whether it be in the insurrection or for example the leader of the Proud Boys was charged just a couple of days before the insurrection for having allegedly illegal cartridges of bullets that he wasn't supposed to have, and being in D.C.

So it'll be interesting to see how they respond. So far, they are still on social media, still talking about what's happening with their groups, some of which are breaking apart at this point -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Interesting. We are, I think, at the beginning of this particular story. Sara Sidner, thank you so much. Harry Litman, thank you as well.

LITMAN: Thanks, Brianna, thanks, Sara.

KEILAR: Next, there is some new footage from inside the Capitol riots. And it makes it clear how coordinated some of the attacks were. This as one Republican lawmaker tries to claim that this wasn't an armed insurrection at all.

And Dr. Fauci pushes back the vaccine timeline, saying that it could now be more like May or even June before everyone has access.

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[14:17:01]

KEILAR: CNN has obtained new security footage that reveals clear levels of coordination unfolding during the Capitol riot. The new videos paint an alarming picture of how some insurrectionists showed little fear of police, and how groups of rioters worked together to launch a large attack.

CNN's Tom Foreman takes a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have bear spray in the crowd! Bear spray in the crowd! TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Look closely. There they are on the newly released security video, nine men in matching tactical gear, moving as a unit inside the Capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Capitol has been breached on the east side.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Through CNN's review of more than 800 urgent radio calls, astonishing security system videos and terrifying bodycam images assembled by the impeachment team, details are emerging that were not all shown in the trial, painting a sharper picture of just how big and coordinated the attack was.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to need to get us more help up here. We don't have enough people to hold the line.

FOREMAN (voice-over): In this silent security video, when one entryway is breached, more than 150 rioters charged through in just a minute and a half, many wearing helmets, paramilitary gear, and carrying weapons and flag poles, some used to strike officers.

In other videos, you can see police trying to stop the mob with hand- to-hand combat, only to be driven back by the sheer number of intruders, who rapidly seized the corridor.

And behind the first wave, other videos show rioters waving up reinforcements, who come charging into the fray even as radios crackled through the afternoon with overwhelmed officers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're getting fire extinguishers thrown at us from the top... in the upper level of the inaugural deck.

FOREMAN (voice-over): When Vice President Mike Pence and his family were hustled out, the Secret Service appeared solidly in charge. But as Capitol Police stalked a stairway elsewhere in the building, guns drawn, another camera shows rioters only feet away, taunting them, making obscene gestures and not backing down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've lost the line! We've lost the line. All MPD pull back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Leave it to Dave Chappelle to spotlight the hypocrisy of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. In a new standup routine, Chappelle points out that many of the Trump supporters who took part in the insurrection on January 6th are the very same people who criticized former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee during the National Anthem, as he silently and nonviolently protested the treatment of black Americans by police officers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE CHAPPELLE, COMEDIAN: Watch the tapes, watch that crowd that told Colin Kaepernick he can't kneel during a football game, try to beat a police officer to death with an American flag. Look at that.

(APPLAUSE)

That's what white people did. They felt what black people have been feeling for 400 years, for 30 minutes? Stormed the Capitol and rubbed their shit on the walls. Then carried a (INAUDIBLE) Confederate flag through the Rotunda. The Confederate Army didn't even do that, (INAUDIBLE). They (ph) went very far.

[14:20:10]

It was a simple question. Do you have a country or not? And you said no. My god, man, we're in quite the pickle, aren't we?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: My colleague Don Lemon joins me now to talk about this.

I just wonder, obviously we see a double standard that has played out here. I just wonder how you have been struck by what Dave Chappelle said, Don.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR, CNN TONIGHT: Hi, Brianna. I -- oh. I agree with Dave Chappelle, and then I actually don't agree with him in a sense. But mostly I do.

Here's why. Because he said in -- you know, in the standup routine, that they got the N-word treatment, right? I don't think that they did, because they weren't lynched, they were able to leave Washington, D.C. and go back to their prospective places where they lived, and got to turn themselves in if they even decided to, whenever they wanted.

And they got to live where they wanted, they didn't get redlined, they got to get loans if they want. So I understand what he is saying. So yes, overall I do agree with him. But for 30 minutes, they, you know, tried to storm the Capitol and police beat them back. What they got was the consequences of trying to -- breaking and entering.

But his whole point about the flag and Colin Kaepernick is spot-on because they used, as we have been pointing out, the American flag, and Blue Lives Matter flags and flagpoles, and Confederate battle flags, to beat police officers, to try to kill police officers. So, you know, that's where we are right now.

So in a sense, his overall point, I get it. But they didn't really get the treatment that African-Americans have had in this country.

KEILAR: And that's a point a lot of people have made, right? What would have happened if you were to have a role reversal here, what would have happened -- what would the ramifications have been? Would the carnage have been so much greater? I think that's a very reasonable question that a lot of people have asked.

I'm also curious what you think about something that Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has said. Because he has this very bizarre new take on the Capitol riots. He doesn't think that it was an armed insurrection, so let's listen to that.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI) (via telephone): This didn't seem like an armed insurrection to me. I mean, armed, when you hear of armed, don't you think of firearms? Here's the questions I would've liked to ask. How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired? I'm only aware of one.

And I'll defend that law enforcement officer for taking that shot, it was a tragedy, OK? But I think there was only one. You know, if that was a planned armed insurrection, man you'd really have a bunch of idiots.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: We did this whole analysis of that, Don, last hour, where we looked at all the weapons that were seized, we looked at -- you know, obviously, you mentioned that people just walked out of the Capitol, they weren't even searched for weapons. There were many weapons. Clearly, this was a deadly insurrection.

You know, what do you make of someone defending this as not a big deal?

LEMON: The hoops that people will jump through for, first of all, their political ideology; second of all, their way of life and to continue white supremacy. That's what that is. Because if you look at the definition of armed, right? If you look at the definition of armed, it says furnished with weapons. We know they had weapons, we know they had tear gas.

We're not sure of all the weapons they had because they were allowed to go, and you bring up a very good point that I neglected to bring up. If this was a -- you know, black people storming the Capitol, mostly men, they would have been shot. I think everyone agrees with that, it would have been much worse.

Furnished with something that provides security, strength or efficacy? That doesn't necessarily mean guns. It can mean guns, but it doesn't necessarily mean that. Those flag poles means being armed as well.

I think he got the one part of it right, that it was -- I think he said that they were idiots or something, they were a bunch of idiots or they -- you know, if they didn't -- because they didn't carry it off very well? That part he got right. But I think it shows, as does that attack on the Capitol, the lengths that people will go to to protect white supremacy, and that's exactly what Ron Johnson is doing.

KEILAR: If you -- I'm sure -- look, if you ask Senator Ron Johnson, I am sure he would not see what he's doing as, you know, maintaining the power structure of white supremacy.

[14:25:00]

LEMON: Well, just because you're ignorant of it doesn't mean that you -- you're not doing it. Just because you have done it for so long, doesn't mean that you're not doing it. Just because you have been in a position where many Republicans who

sat in -- on those impeachment hearings and said, I'd never seen that much video. What does that mean? Video of the insurrection. What does that mean? That you have been in a position of privilege where you didn't have to. And so just because you're ignorant of something doesn't mean that it does not exist, and it doesn't mean that you aren't doing it.

So that is exactly what Ron Johnson is doing it, and perhaps Ron Johnson and others who are like him -- this isn't just about him -- perhaps they should take a moment to reflect on their actions, and to reflect on -- and to think about it before they say things like that. Because they can't continue to say things like that and to live in the world that they're living in.

Because there will be more insurrections, there will be more violence to come if they continue to do that. Because again, it's just ignorance. Ignorance does not mean that something does not exist and that you're not doing it.

KEILAR: And I'm sure that you've seen Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who voted to impeach -- he voted to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial for inciting the riot. He's now being shunned by his own family. And it's not just a matter of sort of a private division, it is a letter.

I mean, it is something that they wanted to do very publicly. It has been signed by 11 of his family members. And granted, this is a big family in Illinois. So these are, you know, family members he might see at, you know, events here or there, right? But they're family members.

And they wrote this, "Adam, oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and God. We were once so proud of your accomplishments. Instead, you go against your Christian principles and joined the devil's army, Democrats and fake news media."

And I think, you know, one of the reasons, Don, that this stands out so much to people is because there are families all across the country that have been divided like this. I mean, they have just been torn apart by what is true and what isn't true, and having different opinions of that.

LEMON: There's so much there when it comes to that letter, Adam Kinzinger and Republicans and Trump supporters as a whole. Trump supporters have taken over the Republican Party. The Republican Party can no longer say that they don't agree with the insurrectionists, with the bigots, with the racists, with the white supremacists, with the anti-Semites because that's what they have clearly shown through their actions, especially over the last five years.

With that -- with him showing that letter, it's -- you know, first of all, they should probably figure out what Christianity really means. And I think that for -- I would love to ask Adam Kinzinger that, but he has so far refused to come on the show and take questions. But I would like to ask him where were he -- and I'm glad that he's

doing it, don't get me wrong, and I think we should take people where they are and then move forward. But I want to know where Republicans like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney and all of the others, where they were when this stuff was festering in the Republican Party for years.

Where people -- even before them, when they were -- it was the welfare queens and the Willie Hortons and the Tea Party and the effigies of Barack Obama and the bones in his nose and the -- wasn't born in this country, the birtherism and all of that, and all the little things that led up to this moment. Where were they?

And I think that people need to really answer for those things because we have to start at the beginning. We can't just start with what happened on January 6th because that was what? A symptom, a culmination of something. We can't just start with what happened over the summer because that was a symptom, a culmination of something.

You know, it's interesting, Brianna, not to just go too far off on a tangent, but I'm sure you've seen the scene (ph) that would happen with "The Bachelor" and with the host of "The Bachelor," saying you know, what the young lady did, it was 2018 and we weren't looking at the world through that lens? Yes, we were.

Racism has been around this country forever. It is the inception, it started at the inception of this country. And until we go back to the beginning and we start to deal with those things, then we will never address this problem properly, we will never correct this problem.

And the one thing that I completely agree with Dave Chappelle on is that if you solve the black man's problem, you solve the problem of the black men -- just (ph) black people in general in this country, you will solve the bulk of the problems in this country.

You will solve the racism problem, you will solve the poverty problem, you will solve the discrimination problem, you'll solve the health care problem, you'll solve all of those things because it will lift the veil on all the indignities that have been done to people throughout the history of this country, starting with the original sin of this country, and that's racism.

[14:30:03]

KEILAR: Yes, racism and slavery, and. Don, I love having you on.