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Biden And McConnell To Tout Infrastructure Law In Kentucky; U.S. Government Paralyzed As McCarthy Faces Far-Right Revolt; Ex- Capitol Police Chief Blames Intel, Military Officials In Attack. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 04, 2023 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And it is one of the busiest freight routes in the country and that officials say carries double the traffic that it is meant to support. And it has become this symbol, as you mentioned, and so politically significant of the nation's crumbling infrastructure. Past presidents and congressional leaders had promised to fix it and haven't been able to get it done.

And what President Biden, today, is able to announce is that $2 billion from the infrastructure law that he signed back in 2021 will go towards upgrading this bridge and other significant bridges, including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

And you're right that a part of this event that is going to be so significant is someone like Mitch McConnell appearing beside the president. There is sort of the literal bridge and then obviously, the metaphorical bridge of the president sort of wanting to send this message that even in the new Congress and even with Republicans taking over the House, that he's sort of willing to reach across the aisle and bridge the divide, and continue working with Republicans.

So it's going to be a fascinating scene.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it absolutely will.

MJ Lee, thank you.

LEMON: Well, back now to McCarthy's moment that was supposed to happen, but it didn't. It hasn't happened so far. The Republican leader failed to win enough votes to become House speaker.

What's going to happen today when Congress reconvenes, and how long will the power struggle last? Those are the questions. Is he going to be speaker? What's happening?

CNN political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as communications director for the House Freedom Caucus -- she's with us, as well as CNN senior political analyst and anchor, John Avlon. Good morning to both of you.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST AND ANCHOR, AUTHOR, "LINCOLN AND THE FIGHT FOR PEACE": Good morning, guys.

LEMON: Thank you so much.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, HOUSE FREEDOM CAUCUS: Good morning.

LEMON: "Grow up!" I mean, this is The Washington Post telling Republicans --

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: That is not The Washington Post.

GRIFFIN: The New York Post.

HARLOW: That is not The Washington Post.

LEMON: The New York Post -- the New York Post telling them "Grow Up! Grow Up!" I mean, and it -- it's the cover, obviously, of every paper -- The New York Times, of course. And then, Kevin McCarthy in The Washington Post, as I'm reading here. It's embarrassing. This is embarrassing.

GRIFFIN: It is, and I'm shocked Kevin McCarthy allowed it to go to the floor and lose by this number. Usually, you do this behind the scenes in a House Conference meeting. I was expecting him to go down, but not by the margin he did, of 19 votes.

But counterpoint to this New York Post cover, there's -- it takes two to tango. The right is being intractable, but so is the only-Kevin caucus. I would be asking myself right now how long can they sustain that position.

The hostage-takers, as they were -- they're not coming around unless he makes more concessions, and he has given them a lot. I mean, things that will damage the institution, like lowering the threshold for the motion to vacate.

I will be curious to see.

So, on another network, a cable news host is very close with the Freedom Caucus laid out what demands could look like. And two things he mentioned is standing up a select committee to investigate the Department of Justice for whatever reason you would investigate the Department of Justice.

And then, the other was to release the full, unredacted January 6 transcripts, which would expose witnesses -- you know, private citizens who helped that investigation.

So if I'm an only-Kevin moderate Republican, I'd ask what damage to the institution and the country am I willing to do to get Kevin McCarthy over a Scalise or an Elise Stefanik, or whoever it could be.

LEMON: That's -- I'm glad you're asking that question because some would say why had -- that question should have been asked a long time ago, right? AVLON: Well, they should have been doing a better job counting the votes. And you could see that he already had more than four folks who were going to vote against him going into this.

But look, first of all, there's nothing normal about what we're seeing. This has happened once since the Civil War. So this isn't a normal negotiation for the speakership. This is a demonstration, once again, that Golen always turns on its creator. That these extremists on the far right are going to attack anything resembling responsible governance for majority rule.

In this case, for all the appeasing that Kevin McCarthy tried to do, and good-faith negotiation, it hasn't resulted in goodwill.

Friday is the anniversary of January 6 and not for nothing, but a lot of these folks are the people who were working with the Trump White House to try to overturn the last election. Scott Perry, right? You know, Ralph Northam.

HARLOW: All but two.

AVLON: Yes, over and over.

HARLOW: Well, all but two are election deniers.

AVLON: No, that's right. This is an election-denier fight. And it's really an indication of the fact that the parties are deeply split -- and you probably have four parties in this country, not two. This is going to do nothing to help Republicans win back the Independent voters who voted against them in the last election and why it's such a narrow margin.

And even though Washington is where good ideas go to die, you'd like to see this be a place where there could be bipartisan option. Fred Upton floating some ideas where he could get Democratic support. This has happened in Alaska in recent weeks. Yesterday, a version of this happened in the Pennsylvania State Legislature.

So, maybe we can finally break this fever. But, of course, I'm not going to hold out too much hope for that because the culture in Washington is too opposite anything resembling reasonable.

GRIFFIN: Well, and the problem that McCarthy faces -- I worked for many of these guys, although that conference --

HARLOW: Yes.

GRIFFIN: -- has only gotten more extreme over the years. They're not serious legislators so you can't go and say I'll take this bill up of yours on the floor or I'll put you on the Ways and Means Committee if you're with me. They just want to burn the place down and they want to extract a scalp. I don't see them bending at any point on McCarthy.

[07:35:10]

But McCarthy has also set up whoever the future speaker may be for failure because --

AVLON: Yes.

GRIFFIN: -- they are going to have to adopt that rules package that allows a vote of no confidence with only five members anytime they want the speaker's head.

LEMON: I feel like -- do you remember -- do you remember the "SNL" skit after Trump got elected where Chappelle and Chris Rock are at the party and everybody's running around going oh my gosh? They're like wait, didn't you see this coming?

AVLON: Right.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

LEMON: Did you guys not see -- I was sitting at home watching this going OK, I'm not shocked. This is what you get.

GRIFFIN: We all said it a couple of months ago --

LEMON: Yes.

AVLON: Yes.

GRIFFIN: -- and no one seemed to listen.

AVLON: Yes. I mean, you know, you could see this train coming down the tracks. And not only that, this is what took out John Boehner a decade ago. This is what caused Paul Ryan to resign. Is it -- is it, you know --

LEMON: Speaking of -- as you say this, can we put up this picture of the "Young Guns"? Remember this book?

AVLON: Oh, yes. Oh, you're going to go old school.

LEMON: Oh, look at the young guns.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Kevin McCarthy. Kevin was so young then. So much hope.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Go on -- sorry, John.

AVLON: I can't read --

LEMON: That was 20 -- that was 2010. What a difference a decade makes.

AVLON: Or not, right? The problems were relatively small then but still enough to topple a speaker and stop Boehner from being able to (INAUDIBLE).

LEMON: And he did the same thing.

GRIFFIN: Well --

AVLON: That's the point.

GRIFFIN: But that is -- he did not learn the lesson. John Boehner ruled a bit with fear. Sometimes it's better to be feared than loved. He would retaliate against members when they voted against him on the floor. They'd remove him from committee assignments. And they ultimately came for him.

Paul Ryan tried to bring the right flank into the fold. It didn't work very well for him.

Kevin McCarthy has made every concession under the sun.

I think today, he should be thinking about the time he went down to Mar-a-Lago after January 6, saying --

AVLON: Right.

GRIFFIN: -- he was done with President Trump to get these guys on board and to get Trump's endorsement. He made his bed. This is a disaster of Kevin McCarthy's own making.

LEMON: So, where is Eric Cantor now? Where is -- where is --

GRIFFIN: I'm sure he's lobbying somewhere.

AVLON: Lobbying somewhere.

LEMON: Where is Paul Ryan now?

AVLON: Paul Ryan is retired and -- but he would always complain about the conservative media industrial complex.

You know, these are all vestiges of that problem they were dealing with as well.

And here's the other thing. You know, Alyssa said it's better to be feared than loved. I think they're both dynamics of leadership.

HARLOW: Just a little Machiavelli for you --

AVLON: Yes. It's a little --

HARLOW: -- at 7:36 in the morning.

(LAUGHTER)

AVLON: And chill enough from a Frank Capra kind of cat with that (PH).

But here's the real deal. Kevin McCarthy isn't loved, right?

GRIFFIN: Right. LEMON: Yes.

AVLON: You know, I was talking --

LEMON: He's not.

AVLON: -- to folks up on the Hill yesterday and they were saying look at all the members who were coming up to Kevin McCarthy in between the votes. Oh, wait -- there weren't any --

LEMON: Yes.

GRIFFIN: Right.

AVLON: -- right?

So this is also an issue of the fact that Kevin McCarthy has tried to dole out all the money.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

AVLON: He's tried to appease every person he can say. And you've heard me say this before but Winston Churchill said appeasement is like feeding a crocodile, hoping it eats you last. And that's what's happening right now.

GRIFFIN: Well, by the way, if I could just mention --

LEMON: Grow up.

GRIFFIN: -- this position that we could just let this go to 10 ballots or 100 ballots and go on for months is untenable. We can't just not swear in a House of Representatives.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Soleimani strike. I was at the Department of Defense when that took place.

AVLON: Hmm.

GRIFFIN: DOD was on the phone with House leadership in real time as that was happening.

HARLOW: Yes.

GRIFFIN: The world goes on if there's a national security crisis, a natural disaster. We don't have a Speaker of the House. We don't have a leader.

LEMON: We don't have a leader.

GRIFFIN: It's obviously Hakeem Jeffries. But this is untenable. We've got to swear in a new Congress.

LEMON: Yes. You can't -- there are a lot of things that you cannot get done without a speaker.

HARLOW: Well, they don't get paid.

LEMON: A lot doesn't get -- yes.

GRIFFIN: That's what's going to motivate them.

AVLON: That's what'll finally break the deadlock?

LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: OK.

AVLON: Great job, everybody.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: Thanks, guys.

LEMON: Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.

AVLON: All right.

LEMON: So, U.S. Men's Soccer investigating a domestic violence allegation against the team's head coach. How he's responding? That's next.

HARLOW: We are also getting an update this morning -- a positive update on Jeremy Renner's condition from Jeremy, himself. What, also, the sheriff's office is saying this morning.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:42:52]

LEMON: So, this morning, U.S. Men's Soccer hiring a legal team to investigate a domestic violence allegation against head coach Gregg Berhalter. It surrounds a 1991 altercation where Berhalter kicked his then-girlfriend who is now his wife.

CNN's Brynn Gingras joins us now with the details on this. Good morning to you.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

LEMON: What are they saying happened?

GINGRAS: Yes, you know, that's the big question. Why now? What happened?

So, Berhalter says that this is all coming to light because someone is trying to take him down. He's in contract negotiations with U.S. Soccer at the moment, right now.

It goes back to an incident back in 1991. And Berhalter and his now- wife -- they came out in front of this. They released a statement -- a very lengthy statement, co-signed -- and it basically explained what happened, saying a third party contacted U.S. Soccer during the World Cup -- this most recent World Cup, of course. And he goes into detail about that night when he was 18 years old.

He said he and his then-girlfriend were drunk and they got into a fight. Then it got physical and he kicked her. And he goes on and says "There are zero excuses for my actions that night. It was a shameful moment and one that I regret to this day. At that time, I immediately apologized to Rosalind, but understandably, she wanted nothing to do with me."

Now, he said they had counseling and he's grown from this. The two have been married now for 25 years. They went on to have a family and so on and so forth.

Now, U.S. -- the interesting part is U.S. Soccer is saying that they have hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation. But this isn't the only allegation that's been to light. They actually said that there's other potential inappropriate behavior toward multiple members of the staff and organization that they're looking into.

So there's a lot going on here --

LEMON: Yes.

GINGRAS: -- that they're trying to uncover. Once they uncover it, they said they're going to release it to us. Of course, we'll get more answers then.

LEMON: It is interesting they go back to 1991.

GINGRAS: Yes.

LEMON: But we'll see what happens, yes.

GINGRAS: All right.

LEMON: Thank you, Brynn Gingras.

GINGRAS: Yes.

LEMON: Appreciate it.

Kaitlan in Washington.

COLLINS: Yes, a lot going on here, Don -- especially here, right on Capitol Hill.

Also on Friday, we've got the two-year anniversary of the insurrection. And so, this morning, we had the former Capitol Police chief, who is revealing who he blames for the attack in his new book. He'll join us live to talk about it, next.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:49:16]

COLLINS: This Friday, here in Washington, lawmakers, staffers, law enforcement, the White House will remember the day two years ago when the insurrectionists grew violent, breached the Capitol, attacked law enforcement, threatened lawmakers, and changed the country's history forever.

Now, in a new book, we are getting a comprehensive view of what happened behind the scenes and in the days leading up to from the man who was leading the Capitol Police that day, former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, joining us now to discuss his new book "Courage Under Fire," which is now out. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

I know it was -- it was personal for you to write this book, you said.

STEVEN A. SUND, FORMER U.S. CAPITOL POLICE CHIEF, AUTHOR, "COURAGE UNDE FIRE: UNDER SIEGE AND OUTNUMBERED 58 TO 1 ON JANUARY 6": It was -- it was personal for me to write the book after I'd taken steps to get the truth out before and I wasn't planning on writing a book.

[07:50:01]

But then once I started talking to other officers and other people that were out there that day, it just started growing and more information started coming in. And I was talking to military leaders and it just started getting bigger and bigger.

So when you talk about it being personal, it's personal for me, but it's personal for every person that was out there.

COLLINS: One of the takeaways from it is you say that essentially, there were these alerts about what could happen, but you say that they were not properly assessed or informed to the -- to those who needed to know about them.

SUND: That is correct. When you look at what intelligence is out there now, there was specific intelligence about groups planning attacks on the Capitol, forming groups to come down, preparing secure communications.

And the information that we were getting was a much watered-down version of that. That they may come armed. May pose a violent -- instances of violence for law enforcement. But nothing indicating that you have a planned and coordinated attack coming with significant planning going into it by groups.

COLLINS: Well, I guess one question about that would be about this intelligence bulletin that came on January third warning the Congress being a target for violence by angry Trump protesters.

Did you see that bulletin? And why was that not enough to give a warning about what was to come?

SUND: So, you need to look at it with -- the bulletin that came out -- it was a -- the fourth of final bulletins from IICD, which is my intelligence division. It came out and it didn't indicate Congress would be the target of violence.

It said Congress is their target -- it is the target. Anybody that comes up to protest on Capitol Hill, Congress is their target. That's why they're coming up here to protest -- to sway Congress. So the information that was there didn't specially say we're looking -- or indicate that we're looking at a coordinated attack.

There could be instances of violence. We expect that. And there could be people coming armed. We had that in the first two MAGA rallies. And you could have white supremacists there. They had shown up before so we were prepared for that.

But you've also got to consider the very next day, on the fourth, IICD put out another document that said low probability of arrests or civil disobedience. The same came out on the fifth. The same came out on the sixth.

And I received recommendations that I sign off on all the permits for the people the following day as well. It was on the fourth. They recommended I sign most of the permits.

COLLINS: You mention January fourth. That was the day you felt that you needed to call for the National Guard. But two days later, on January sixth, you had about 1,200 members present. That seems like less than what it typically would be. Is that correct? And why were there not more people there?

SUND: So, to correct the timeline, it was January third. It was the morning of January third that I asked for --

COLLINS: That you felt compelled to ask.

SUND: -- that I asked for the National Guard.

COLLINS: OK.

SUND: It was before the intelligence came out. And it was specifically because I felt our perimeter was going to be sparsely populated. I had a joint session of Congress. Most people -- most of my officers would be working inside filling posts so I had a limited number of officers to put on the perimeter. So that's why I went and asked for the National Guard on Sunday.

When you talk about the number of people working, we had -- I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but we had a number of people that were out on COVID. So if you got -- you know, we were at the height of COVID, so if you were even associated with it they were put out. So we had a number of people that were out for that, so that's why we had lower numbers.

COLLINS: So that was the disparity between what you saw on January third and what actually -- the numbers looked like on January the sixth.

SUND: Yes. And when you say what I saw on January third, it's just what the --

COLLINS: When you felt compelled to ask for the National Guard. SUND: Yes. Well, regardless of the number, I felt compelled to ask for the National Guard because we have a large perimeter around the Capitol and I just wanted more people. I wanted unarmed National Guard to be -- help standing that perimeter so we could keep some of the rioters or protesters from trying to come over the fence.

COLLINS: One of your biggest frustrations in the book is with senior military leaders where you said you felt like you were essentially begging for help. That you weren't getting it. And you write that you say that they, instead, reinforced security at the homes of these senior military leaders.

SUND: That is -- that is correct, and we found that out while I was doing the research.

So, on -- as we were -- as I was fighting for -- on January third -- I'm sorry. January sixth, when we got attacked at 12:53. I made my first call at 12:58 to the Sergeant at Arms requesting the approval of the National Guard. When I got the approval, finally -- 71 minutes later -- I then found I had to go to the Pentagon and start fighting for the National Guard there. It took 3 1/2 hours for them to finally show up.

But what I found out is that on January fourth, the Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller -- the acting Secretary of Defense -- had put out a memo restricting the National Guard from having any of the equipment -- riot gear, batons, helmets -- any of the equipment, and deploying to the Capitol that would -- my men would have needed on the sixth when it now appears that they knew there was an attack coming.

Because Gen. Milley and Gen. -- and Miller were talking about fourth -- the third and fourth about violence coming to Washington, D.C. in internal conference calls. Yet, they put a restriction on the use of the National Guard for my men and women when we needed it on January sixth.

COLLINS: Pelosi called for your removal. Was that warranted?

SUND: No, I don't believe it was. I think on January sixth I did absolutely everything I possibly could to protect the members of Congress. I brought in 1,700 law enforcement officers from 17 different agencies to protect them, and not a single member of Congress was injured or hurt.

[07:55:00]

COLLINS: And before you go, can you quickly weigh in on Republican plans for security at the Capitol? There were questions yesterday. They took away some of the magnetometers. They're adding more of the public access points.

Do you think that's -- what is your reaction to that?

SUND: Yes. As far as the magnetometers, I'm just starting to hear about that. The public access points -- this has always been known as the people's

house. When we -- when we began to shut down because of COVID, we shut down the congressional visitor center and things like that. So reopening some of those -- I can see them wanting to do that.

The big concern I have is the officers are already way overworked, they're understaffed, and it's just going to be more work for them to have to staff that. So that's my big concern with that.

COLLINS: OK, that's a warranted concern, Steven Sund.

The book is "Courage Under Fire." Thank you so much for joining us --

SUND: Thank you very much.

COLLINS: -- to talk about it this morning.

Up next, we are now hearing from former President Trump who is weighing in on the chaos that happened here on Capitol Hill yesterday. What he thinks should happen and whether or not he's still backing Kevin McCarthy.

Ahead, we're also going to hear from Damar Hamlin's teammate who was there when the Buffalo Bills safety collapsed and was rushed off the field, as he's still in the hospital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DION DAWKINS, BUFFALO BILLS OFFENSIVE TACKLE: So, to see a brother laying down and everyone else just kind of just -- you know, just come on, come on, come on -- get up, get up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The members are talking.

[08:00:00]