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New York GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Attacked; January 6 Committee Hearing Fallout; Trump vs. Pence in Arizona. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 22, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:17]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you.

Today, former President Trump and former Vice President Pence will hold dueling events in Arizona. They're backing rival candidates for governor and turning that state's Republican primary into a potential preview of a 2024 election showdown.

CAMEROTA: The hostility between these two former allies is coming into sharper focus, thanks in part to the January 6 hearings.

Last night in prime time, the January 6 Committee presented new testimony about Trump's deep grievances towards Pence for performing his lawful constitutional duty and certifying the 2020 election.

We learned last night that Trump's last words on January 6 before heading into the White House residents were: "Mike Pence let me down."

BLACKWELL: The panel also cited witnesses who described how Trump watched TV for hours as the violent assault unfolded.

Now, the committee's Republican vice chair said the dam has begun to break, as more pieces of the puzzle fall into place and new witnesses step forward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: CNN's Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill for us.

So, Manu, what do we know about the focus of this committee for future hearings?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they haven't decided exactly yet how they will split up those future hearings in September.

Committee members told me last night those are still issues that they're still trying to sort out.

But they plan to use the next month in August, when Congress is on recess, to have more testimony from witnesses behind closed doors, Liz Cheney indicating that subpoenas have been issued and committee members indicating that depositions will occur, as well as they plan to put together that report, all-important report, language detailing all of the committee's findings beyond what we have seen in the hearings, but all the other interviews and records they produce, the ultimate conclusions that they reach that will be detailed in that report that they are now in the process of putting together.

Now, in talking to some of the committee members last night, they also said a criminal case has been made for the Justice Department potentially to take it up if they were to pursue it going forward, including Congressman Adam Kinzinger. When I asked last night whether or not he believes Donald Trump has criminal exposure, he said he does.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): No, look, I think the president certainly has criminal exposure. I'm not a prosecutor. I'm not DOJ. But I certainly think, if you look at what we presented tonight and in all these hearings, that cannot be acceptable from a president of the United States.

Like, the worst thing we can do is put out something that says, the president is above the law and do this again, because I guarantee you it will happen again if we say that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, the committee members are also indicating they have not reached a conclusion yet about whether to actually make a criminal referral to the Justice Department to potentially prosecute Donald Trump.

That's an issue of debate. Of course, the Justice Department does not need that referral, but, nevertheless, that is one of the many issues they are going to sort out over the next several weeks as they head into the summer and into the fall this, since this investigation not yet done.

BLACKWELL: Manu, former President Trump's former deputy White House chief of staff, his former Secret Service lead agent, they both now have lawyers.

What do you know about that?

RAJU: Yes, that is Tony Ornato and Robert Engel, the White House former deputy chief of staff under Donald Trump, as well as Donald Trump's lead Secret Service agent, Robert Engel. Both have retained private counsel. This is according to Zoe Lofgren, one of the committee members.

Now, this comes as the committee itself is investigating everything that happened with the Secret Service, including those missing text messages that were gone from January 5 and January 6, figuring out exactly why that happened, but also what we have learned through these committee hearings, that Donald Trump wanted to go to the Capitol on January 6, and was irate, in the words of some witnesses, about the fact that he was not allowed to go to the Capitol, despite his pleas to do so.

Cassidy Hutchinson, recall, a few weeks ago had testified that there was a confrontation in the motorcade as Donald Trump demanded going forward. Now, yesterday, we heard testimony from a Metro police officer, Washington, D.C., Metro Police Officer Mark Robinson, who was in the presidential motorcade and corroborated parts of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. MARK ROBINSON (RET.), D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT: The only description I received was that the president was upset and was adamant about going to the Capitol, and there was a heated discussion about that.

QUESTION: And when you say heated, is that your word or is that the word that was described by the T.S. agent?

[14:05:00]

ROBINSON: No, word described by the T.S. agent, meaning that the president was upset. And he was saying there was a heated argument or discussion about going to the Capitol.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So this is one of the issues that the committee plans to sort out over the next several weeks.

One of the holes in their investigation, exactly what the Secret Service knew, what it was doing, and what those communications were. The question is, can the committee get to the bottom of it, guys?

BLACKWELL: Manu Raju for us there on Capitol Hill.

Manu, thank you.

Let's bring in Elie Honig, CNN, senior legal analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Olivia Troye is a former adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

Welcome to you both.

Elie, there was a lot of really compelling elements, evidence that was revealed last night. But in the conversation of a potential criminal case, is this about an outtake, a tweet, an exchange, or about the arc that they're building? ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think it's about the arc.

I think last night was the final chapter in at least the first part of the ark. The key phrase that we kept hearing last night was dereliction of duty, meaning essentially did nothing or really, more precisely, refused to do anything.

But you have to look at that in a broader context. Remember all the hearings that we heard before, the pressure on DOJ, the pressure on the vice president, the pressure on state and local election officials. And I think the case that the committee is making and perhaps they're hoping DOJ will make is that it's not just that Donald Trump did nothing while the Capitol was attacked.

It's that he did nothing while these events that he deliberately set in motion played out. And I think that's going to catch the eye of prosecutors.

CAMEROTA: Olivia, one of the, I think, really compelling revelations last night were the outtakes, the outtakes from January 6 of President Trump struggling mightily through having to make this statement.

And it's a moment for Americans to kind of see behind the curtain of what was happening, when they were just trying to get -- this was on January 7.

So let me just play that for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack yesterday.

Yesterday is a hard word for me.

IVANKA TRUMP, FORMER ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Just take out -- the heinous attack -- say heinous attack on our nation...

TRUMP: Good. Take the word "yesterday" out, because it doesn't work with the -- heinous attack on our country, say on our country. You want to say that?

I. TRUMP: No, repeat this.

TRUMP: My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote. My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I mean, not only his behavior there, but the contortions that the people around him are going through. What did you see there, Olivia?

OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: Well, I think -- I think the reality is everyone in the circle had just lived through what was a very tragic, awful 24 hours that they saw play out at the U.S. Capitol, and knowing that Mike Pence's life was in grave danger and the leadership of the country.

And here you have the current president struggling, struggling to really address this, because he doesn't want to, is a reality is what I see there. He has -- he knows that those people were there in support of him. And that's what mattered. It didn't matter that lives were lost and officers were hurt, even though he claimed at his tenure that he was pro-law enforcement.

All of that being in full focus, that he himself watched himself on TV didn't matter. It was -- for him, it was bigger than that, because he was trying to figure out how he was going to continue to support that movement and continue to support the lies of the stolen election.

He was not going to walk it back.

BLACKWELL: Elie, I saw you nodding during that.

HONIG: Yes, you know what I think was most interesting about the outtakes?

Obviously, there's some silly stuff in there. And we have all -- we have all struggled to say words from time to time, in fairness. The phrase that Donald Trump refused to say was that the actions of the people who stormed the Capitol were illegal. That was, I think, the first outtake we saw.

And, originally, the script called for him to say, the illegal acts of people who committed violence. And he stops and says something like, well, I'm not going to say illegal.

I mean, that, to me, is really important when it goes to his frame of mind. He's not even willing to say assaulting police officers, smashing windows at the Capitol is illegal? That tells me that they were doing exactly what he hoped and wanted.

CAMEROTA: Not only that, Elie. One more thing.

HONIG: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I know that you think that one of the most damning revelations is this tweet at 2:24 on January 6.

HONIG: Yes.

CAMEROTA: This is a tweet from President Trump.

He says: "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones." Blah, blah, blah.

HONIG: Yes.

CAMEROTA: The point is what?

HONIG: So we have obviously known about that tweet since 2:24 on January 6, but now we have it in full context.

So, here we are. We are an hour and change into that 187 minutes at this point. It's 2:24. The Capitol has been stormed. There is violence. And we learned yesterday that Donald Trump knows the Capitol has been stormed, knows that crowd is committing acts of violence.

[14:10:05]

And Sarah Matthews said, we were all begging Mark Meadows and others to tell him, you have to calm this down.

And what does he do? The exact opposite. And Sarah Matthews called it gasoline on the fire. I think that's a really apt description.

BLACKWELL: Olivia, one of the more compelling elements that resonated with me was the walkie-talkie exchanges between those who were watching what was happening at the Capitol and those who were there.

This is right after former President Trump's 2:38 tweet telling people to support law enforcement. They're on our side. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump just tweeted: "Please support our Capitol Police. They are on our side. Do not harm them."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's saying a lot by what he didn't say. He didn't say not to do anything to the congressmen.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, he did not ask them to stand down. He just said, stand by the Capitol Police.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So we have known for some time they were taking direction from the president's tweets. But here they are parsing and taking some endorsement from what the president is not saying.

TROYE: Yes, that's sickening to hear.

I attended that hearing in person. And I have got to tell you that that was probably the hardest one for me to get through yet to hear that, the kind of exchanges that were going on at the time, all, guys, while people are fighting for their lives.

I was sitting with the families of the fallen officers. I can't tell you the emotion in the room, how it was at the time to hear that, and knowing that this was going on in the background, and the tremendous national security failure as well, by the way, by the president of the United States, that the government institution is being attacked here, the leadership of our country is being attacked.

And this is what's going on in the background. And I will tell you, those -- hearing the knowledge of the Secret Service family members -- were saying goodbye to their family and trying to figure out how they were going to keep Mike Pence and his family alive in that moment, I don't know how any American can give Donald Trump a pass for that, when it's his own vice president.

Again, that is still so striking to me. And I think it's very dangerous, because, again, this is someone who is looking at running for that Oval Office again, and he has clearly shown that he has no respect for any of the leadership in the country. It is about him.

And I think that's something that we as Americans really need to kind of reckon with and decide if that's the kind of country that we want to be to the rest of the world.

CAMEROTA: I mean, not only that, no respect for law enforcement, obviously.

And, Olivia, I really appreciate you saying all of that, because I was thinking about that, the retraumatization of having to sit through all of this. And here -- it's valuable, obviously, for it to come to light. But, I mean, I think that you're speaking so eloquently about how traumatic it is to have to hear all of that again.

Olivia, we -- I really appreciate you being here. Elie Honig, we're out of time. Thank you both very much for your insights.

A new exclusive update about those potentially deleted Secret Service text messages. CNN has learned the Secret Service investigators had focused on a group of personnel whose phones indicated missing messages.

BLACKWELL: CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild joins us now.

So what have you learned?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor and Alisyn, sources tell us that, of 24 Secret Service agents whose text messages were requested by the inspector general last year, 10 had metadata to show that there were text messages exchanged around January 5 and 6, 2021, but the content of those text messages was lost due to a data migration.

Investigators at the Secret Service were scrutinizing these 24 devices and determined 10 had no text messages at all, three had only personal text messages. One person, as we have reported, did save a text message exchange. And, again, 10 devices showed there was some activity.

Secret Service investigators learned all of this because the House Select Committee had issued a subpoena last week, last Friday to the Secret Service demanding records after the inspector general complained Thursday that he couldn't get text messages -- last Thursday, rather -- that he couldn't get text messages from key agents due to a data migration that launched before his probe began, Victor and Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: So what are they doing now to determine if these 10 phones have relevant messages?

WILD: Well, they were doing a rigorous probe.

According to a letter sent from the Secret Service to the House Select Committee on July 19, investigators had planned to conduct forensic exams of any available devices that were used to identify individuals, as well as conducted additional follow-up interviews with identified users to determine if messages were stored in locations that were not already searched by the Secret Service, Victor and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, so what happens now?

WILD: Well, now these efforts by the Secret Service have ground to a halt. As CNN first Reported yesterday, the I.G. sent them a letter basically saying, you need to stop in your tracks.

[14:15:06]

And this came after the I.G. complained to the Hill about stonewalling from the Secret Service. The Secret Service tried to abide by the House Select Committee subpoena that was prompted by the I.G.'s complaints. Then it was Wednesday that the I.G. again told them, stop what you're doing, because they were concerned that any efforts by the Secret Service to investigate itself could interfere with an I.G. investigation, which, as CNN first reported yesterday, the I.G.'s office is now describing as criminal.

BLACKWELL: Whitney Wild with the latest for us from Washington, thank you very much.

Let's go to Arizona now and these dueling rallies. Former Vice President Mike Pence is set to stump for Republican gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson.

CAMEROTA: But former President Trump will hold a rally to support a different candidate, Kari Lake, in what Trump describes as -- quote -- "the entire Arizona Trump ticket."

CNN national correspondent Kristen Holmes is in Peoria.

So, Kristen, these rival events, tell us. Give us the latest there.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Alisyn and Victor, this is really not just about a split between Trump and Pence, but it's really about another one of these Republican primaries in which there are sects of the Republican Party.

On one side, you have the group that really wants to continue talking about the 2020 election. They promote Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election's conspiracy theories. And on the other side, you have people who just want to move forward, get away from the 2020 election.

That latter camp, that's where you find former Vice President Mike Pence, as well as outgoing governor -- he is term limited -- Doug Ducey, also a Republican. And, of course, you will remember that Ducey faced Trump's ire for not overturning the results of the election here in Arizona back in 2020.

So, both Pence and Ducey will be behind me just in a few minutes. And they are squarely behind Robson. She is the establishment favorite. She was appointed to the Board of Regents in Arizona. Again, they are falling in line behind her.

On the other side, you have Kari Lake. She was a former TV news anchor who has made campaigning on Trump's election lies the centerpiece of her campaign, as she refuses to say that Joe Biden is the legitimate president.

What we're looking at here, I want to talk about these two sects, because they are apparent even in this room that I'm in right now. I have talked to two voters right before I got on the air with you. One of them said they were tired of talking about the 2020 election, that they were here because they don't like Kari Lake, they want to hear from Robson.

The other one said that they were here to hear from Robson because they don't think she cares enough about the 2020 election. So this is clearly a split here, now, all of this, again, as you said, setting up what might be a preview for 2024. We have been hearing these rumblings, hints out of Pence world that he is planning a potential run for president in 2024.

On the other side of that, we know from Donald Trump himself that he has said it's not a matter of if, but when he makes that announcement to run, so a showdown between these two, essentially people who are thick as thieves, colleagues in the White House.

One thing to note: The two men have not spoken to each other in more than a year.

CAMEROTA: Really interesting context.

Kristen Holmes, thank you.

So there was a scary moment on the campaign trail, a New York gubernatorial candidate attacked during a speech. We're going to speak to the man there who helped take down the attacker.

BLACKWELL: And President Biden's COVID symptoms have apparently improved. We will have the latest on his condition with details from his doctor ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:22:51]

CAMEROTA: A scary moment at a rally for New York Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, who's running for governor. He was attacked during a campaign speech yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LEE ZELDIN (R-NY): This is our last stand for New York. And there's only -- there's only one option.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Police say the suspect showed signs of intoxication and approached Zeldin while wearing self-defense knuckles saying, you're done.

He was charged with attempted assault and released on his own recognizance.

Joe Chenelly is one of the people who helped to restrain that attacker. Chenelly is also running for office in the New York state Assembly.

Joe, thanks so much for being here.

Just describe what you saw and heard and what happened on that stage last night.

JOE CHENELLY, TACKLED MAN WHO ATTACKED LEE ZELDIN: Yes, thank you for having me.

So we were about an hour into the rally itself, about 15 minutes into Congressman Zeldin's speech, when a guy who had just walked in a few minutes earlier, kind of stumbled in, jumped up onto the stage. I could see that he was going on to the stage. I ran behind the stage because I couldn't get to where he was.

Didn't know exactly what he was up to. Didn't know if he was coming up to argue with the congressman or maybe give him a hug, which I have seen. And then he pulled this weapon out of his pocket or off his right side of his body and swung at the congressman towards his face or throat and said, "You're done."

And, at that time, the congressman blocked his first strike. As he pulled back to -- and tried to strike again the second time, I was able to wrap him up in a bear hug and get them down to the ground, as I think your viewers just saw on TV.

And we were able to restrain him and get the weapon away. The lieutenant governor candidate, Alison Esposito, who is a retired NYPD officer, was able to get the weapon away from him. She cut her fingers on it.

[14:25:00]

It was a good team effort to be able to get this done. And, fortunately, no one was seriously injured.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, Joe, fortunately, you were there.

You're the person -- when we watch this slowed-down video, you're the person in the red T-shirt that we -- right there, you're already getting up on stage. I know that you're a former Marine combat vet.

I mean, was your antenna up for danger? How were you able to so quickly be in the right position?

CHENELLY: Yes, so when he walked in, like I said, we were already an hour into the rally. And he walked in kind of out of nowhere.

And it was a very positive, energetic feeling in the air. When he walked by, just something felt different. And I actually watched him walk up to the edge of the stage. There were several other people there. I saw him stop, seemed fine.

And then I was still kind of watching a bit a few minutes later when he jumped up on the stage. And something just seemed off about him. He was stumbling a bit. I'm not sure if he was actually intoxicated or possibly experiencing a mental health crisis of some sort.

So, my day job, if you will, is a veterans advocate. I'm the executive director AMVETS at the national level. And mental health has been our number one priority for a long time. There's a crisis, unfortunately, in the veterans community.

Turned out that he is a veteran. And he was incoherent when he was speaking. But the two things I could understand that he said was the beginning when he said "You're done" to Congressman Zeldin. And, at the end, after I'd been holding him on the ground for five minutes, and he's being handcuffed, he turned to me and said he had served in the Iraq War.

And that -- my mind-set instantly changed from making sure this guy doesn't hurt anyone or myself to back to veterans advocate, and I let him know at that time there are services and care out there. And if he's experiencing mental health issues, I want to help him get the services he needs.

And I told him he can contact me. I said, you have done something very serious here tonight. And when you're done dealing with that, I want you to reach out to me, and we will make sure you get what you need.

CAMEROTA: Joe, that's so generous. I mean, it's so good that you were there on so many levels, that not only were you able to take him down, but then you were able to have that generous exchange with him and offer him help.

Do you think that this -- is this just an isolated incident? I mean, we are seeing more political violence in this country against judges, against politicians. I mean, do you think that police need to be at all of these campaign rallies now?

CHENELLY: I know Congressman Zeldin has said that they will be in the future.

Going into the rally last night, it wasn't my decision, but I didn't feel that it was necessary. Up until that moment, really, I didn't imagine anything like this happening. But you are, unfortunately, correct. We're seeing more of this, and I think more violence in society in general at this point.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Joe Chenelly, thank you for your service. Thanks for telling us the

story. Really good thing you were there.

CHENELLY: Thank you very much.

BLACKWELL: Not much relief in sight for much of the country. Look at these temperatures, scorching all week, and it's going into the weekend. What you need to know, that's ahead.

CAMEROTA: Plus, there have been at least six shark biting incidents -- I call them attacks -- along the New York coast.

BLACKWELL: They don't mean it, really.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Yes, they're just tasting.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: This is just in the last three weeks. So, we're going to speak to a survivor from one of the latest attacks.

Oh, gosh. That's his foot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)