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GOP's Boebert Makes Bigoted, Anti-Muslim Comment Suggesting Colleague Omar Is A Suicide Bomber; Ukrainian President Says Coup Being Planned Against Him; Philadelphia Marks Grim Limestone Of 500 Homicides In 2021; Santa Ana Winds Increase Southern California Fire Threat. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired November 26, 2021 - 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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[13:32:30]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Today. Yet another example of Republican extremism and its place in the party of Trump. GOP Congresswoman Lauren Boebert insinuating one of her Democratic colleagues could be a suicide bomber because Ilhan Omar is Muslim.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): I was getting into an elevator with one of my staffers, and he and I were leaving the capitol.

We're going back to my office and we get in the elevator and I see a capitol police officer running hurriedly to the elevator. I see fret all over his face. And I looked to my left, and there she is, Ilhan Omar.

(LAUGHTER)

BOEBERT: And I said, well, she doesn't have a backpack, we should be fine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa.

(LAUGHTER)

BOEBERT: So I only had one floor to go, and I was like, I look over, and they said oh, look, the jihad squad decided to show up for work today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Congresswoman Omar respond in a tweet, quote, "Fact. This buffoon looks down when she sees me at the capitol. This whole story is made up. Sad that she thinks bigotry gets her clout."

"Anti-Muslim bigotry isn't funny and can't be normalize. Congress can't be a place where hateful dangerous and Muslim tropes get no condemnation," end quote.

Doug Heye is a former Republican strategist and former RNC communications director.

Doug, great to see you. Thanks for making time for us.

DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.

DEAN: House Leader Kevin McCarthy has found zero appetite for punishing this sort of behavior, keeping his eye on 2022 and perhaps becoming speaker if the Republicans should take back the House.

At what point does his silence on these issues become untenable but I don't think it does.

HEYE: He has one goal in mind, to become speaker, and that requires winning the Republican conference vote and then the vote on the floor, and he couldn't afford to lose any vote.

We don't know if there's going to be a Republican Congress next year or not. And we don't have elections for another year. We don't have the elections for another year.

And while Republicans look to be in a good spot, nothing is guaranteed in politics.

But the problem that we have for the Republicans is -- and let me say, the good news is the congresswoman did apologize for her comments as she should have.

And I would like to see more Republican members when they say these awful things step forward and apologize.

But in this era of Trump, we keep talking about feeding the alligator, keeping Trump and the Trumpers happy. And what that ultimately means is not that the alligator just wants to devour you ultimately, which is the -- the threat that Republican leaders are under.

[13:35:08]

But also that when you feed the alligator, the alligator gets big. And that's what we've seen with the escalation rhetoric that has to stop. And I don't know if and when it will.

DEAN: Right, and how it does.

I actually talked with Congresswoman Omar right before the Gosar censure vote, and she said some members of Congress do make her feel unsafe.

You know this, there's such distrust and fear among various members in the House. How does that affect governing? How does that affect the actual business that they are trying to accomplish there?

HEYE: Yes. Looking, it was bad before January 6th, really bad. And I thought it couldn't get worse and obviously it's gotten much, much worse in those days.

And it's not just a lack of trust. You have members of Congress now routinely targeting each other in tweets back and for the and comments on the floor.

And my ultimate fear is that someone is going to get hurt again.

And that's what the escalation of rhetoric really feeds. It feeds kind of the insane who take some words and act on that and try and act on that.

And that's what we saw on January 6th and that's why members are getting death threats over and over again. Republicans are getting them and Democrats are getting them.

And this escalation of rhetoric is really the fuel that feeds that fire.

DEAN: Right. I mean, it is interesting because you make an excellent point. You hear in the clip, Boebert is doing this essentially for laughs and probably for fundraising. But someone can hear and be incited to violence.

And it's almost as if no one really cares about that or isn't thinking about it. But it is remarkable that this continues.

HEYE: Yes. Look, what we see week after week is somebody gets arrested near the capital and they have a stash of guns in their trunk, or they get reported by a friend or a colleague who says they are planning to go to Washington.

Or the voice mails that we saw Republican members of Congress get, like Fred Upton. merely for voting for a transportation infrastructure bill.

This is a real problem. And it could be a Republican. It could be a Democrat.

Obviously. we've seen the shooting that happened at the baseball practice where Steve Scalise was very seriously injured and saw what happened with Gabby Giffords.

And the reality is members of Congress are asking, who is going to be next, and it could be anyone.

DEAN: You mention that had Congresswoman Boebert had apologized. We want to bring up that apology.

I can read it to you. Here's her tweet:

"I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I have offended by my comment to Representative Omar. I've reached out to her office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction."

And it is worth noting, Doug, to your point, we don't always see apologies, so at least there's that.

HEYE: Yes, you know, usually. when we see apologies from a politician. it's they are sorry if you misinterpreted their words or they are sorry if you felt something.

Give the congresswoman credit. She said she was wrong and directly apologized for it and focused on what we should be focusing on, the real policy difference between Republicans and Democrats, between some Republicans and other Republicans, some Democrats and other Democrats.

There are policy differences. Those are what we should focus on. And that's ultimately how we get not just the economy back on track and more hiring and fixing the supply chain, as you were talking about earlier.

But also all the other problems that are facing this country at a time when, as we did yesterday, trying to focus on coming together.

That's how we do it, by stop saying the awful things that members are saying and being full square and apologizing when you need to.

DEAN: Yes. Like maybe focus on all the issues that need solved and not inciting violence.

Doug Heye, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

HEYE: Any time. Thank you.

[13:38:41]

DEAN: Coming up, Ukraine's president says Russia is planning a coup against him. And it comes as the U.S. huddles with allies amid fears of a Russian invasion of the country.

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[13:43:43]

DEAN: The president of Ukraine says the country has uncovered plans for a coup attempt against him. President Volodymyr Zelensky said a group of Russians and Ukrainians is behind the plot.

Russia denying any involvement. And so does Ukraine's richest man who Zelensky claimed had been drawn into the plot.

The coup allegation follows a buildup of Russian troops near the border with Ukraine and a warning from the U.S. that Russia may be planning an invasion.

CNN's senior international correspondent, Matthew Chance, has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It underlines those concerns that have been sort of made very public over the past couple of weeks about the threat that Russia poses to the state of Ukraine.

There are two concerns is that military one with the idea that's been, you know, put out there by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia is massing troops near the borders of Ukraine, something that the Kremlin categorically denies, by the way.

And then there's sort of second internal, more covert threat that Russia poses to the Ukrainian state.

Which has been articulated by Zelensky today in Ukraine, saying that he believes the intelligence services in Ukraine have discovered that there was a coup that's planned, for the 1st and 2nd of December, a couple days from now, involving Russians and Ukrainians.

[13:45:01]

And as you said, involving Ukraine's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov.

There's been a categorical denial from Mr. Akhmetov's press department, basically saying it is a lie and there's no connection that he has with any kind of conspiracy to be involved in anything -- anything like that.

But, you know, there's this real threat that is posed to Ukraine by Russia.

But you also have to look at what's going on inside Ukraine. . President Zelensky is cracking down on rich oligarchs, the rich businessmen who control the political power in the government.

And it's an anti-corruption drive. And his critics say he's not just cracking down on people that are controlled by Russia, but he's cracking down on anyone who is critical of him and his government.

So that's -- that's the criticism of President Zelensky right now inside Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right. Matthew Chance, thanks so much for that report.

Thanksgiving ruined for thousands of Californians who spent the day without power. Fierce winds posing a major fire threat. And now officials are trying to prevent disaster by shutting off power on purpose.

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[13:51:15]

DEAN: The city of Philadelphia marking a grim milestone, 500 homicides since the beginning of the year. That ties a record set in 1990.

Authorities say the latest homicide Wednesday was believed to be domestic violence but behind every number is a person and a life cut short. CNN's Brynn Gingras is following the story for us.

Brynn, what more are we hearing from city officials about the efforts to stop the violence?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jessica, they're throwing millions of dollars into programs in the city of Philadelphia to help with crime reduction and prevention, hoping it will help just a little bit, but this isn't a simple issue.

I want to throw this statistic at you though. For Philadelphia, the milestone, they're averaging one homicide every 16 hours.

City council members are saying stop killing each other.

I want you to hear now from the mayor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JIM KENNEY, (D-PHILADELPHIA): At 299, 261, nobody asks me a question about homicides. I'm a mayor for six years and I don't remember getting all of this attention to less than 300. So one is too many. One homicide is too many.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: And there's a lot of issues here contributing to this. There's no easy one solution. Coming out of the pandemic, the economy is contributing to this.

But officials say the most significant problem they're facing is the amount of guns that are on the street, the availability of the guns.

And honesty, Jessica, if you talk to police departments across this county, at least in major cities, New York like here, Los Angeles, Chicago, they will tell you there are too many guns on the streets.

When you go to Philadelphia, their pleading to the state legislature to help with that. They say it is just too easy for the straw purchases, for people to get their hands on numerous guns, and sell them again on the streets.

And they're hoping, if they do have even more help, they'll be able to help reduce all of these horrific homicides that are happening, again, in Philadelphia, but we're seeing this trend across the country.

DEAN: Just one is too many. The mayor is right.

Brynn, thank you so much.

In southern California, powerful Santa Ana winds are increasing the fire threat across the region. And authorities had to shut off power to tens of thousands of customers as precaution.

Meteorologist Tyler Mauldin is tracking conditions.

Tyler, update us on the windy conditions and the power outages out there.

TYLER MAULDIN, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Jessica, we're only a few months into the Santa Ana wind season.

Right now, we have nearly 15 million people in southern California under a red flag warning. And that is because of low humidity and the wind causing the fire risk to become elevated.

We've already seen the Santa Ana winds spark a fire which is now contained. That fire was sparked in Riverside, California yesterday. And it is now contained.

But we continue to see the low fuel, dry fuel and strong winds and so we see power outages in southern California. We have had about 80,000 power outages yesterday. That number is down to 50,000 now.

These are forced power outages. That's for the power companies to prevent their energized lines from falling due to the winds and sparking a fire.

And we have some video of damage out of southern California. I believe this is out of Burbank. You could see a dome that was under construction in the Los Angeles area. This is Burbank, where we have a wind gust reported of nearly 70 miles per hour.

So that is almost hurricane force conditions. That is just exactly how strong the winds can get during these Santa Ana wind events.

Jessica, good news though, as you could see with the map behind me, we're going to see the winds subside into the weekend.

Unfortunately, though, we'll see the dry humidity, the low humidity continue, which means we continue to see the risk for fires on Saturday and Sunday.

DEAN: And quickly before we let you go, on the other side of the country, the Great Lakes and New England dealing with wintry weather. For people going through with holiday travel, what should they expect?

[13:55:06]

MAULDIN: Yes. So heads up if you're traveling to or from the northeast. We have an area of low pressure that will spark some snowfall.

We already have snowfall in the region. About 3.5 million people up here off the Great Lakes going on into the New England area under winter storm warnings. This is system number one.

And then number two is pushing. And that is going to lead about five to eight inches of snowfall in the area.

You add in a little bit of wind, Jessica, and that means that visibility will be low.

DEAN: We'll keep it in mind. Tyler Mauldin, thank you so much.

And thank you for joining me.

The news continues next with Alisyn Camerota.

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