Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Man Attacks Asian Police Officer in San Francisco's Chinatown; Biden Says Democracy "In Peril" as Trump Crony Calls for Coup; Now: Biden Heading to Tulsa to Mark Somber 100th Anniversary. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired June 01, 2021 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you all so much for joining us at this hour, I'm Kate Bolduan. John King picks up from here.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello everybody and welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm John King in Washington.

President Biden on his way to Tulsa, Oklahoma this hour for solemn duty. His visit marks 100 years since a white mob burned the cities black Wall Street and massacred hundreds in an outburst of racial terror.

Plus a dramatic walk out by Texas Democrats stalls action on new voting restrictions, limiting how people can vote is a national Republican priority. Washington can't stop it, but the filibuster and Senator Joe Manchin are in the way.

And can American democracy survive? President Biden issues a Memorial Day warning, his words, democracy itself is in peril. Listen here, one of former President Trump's cronies gives the green light for a military coup.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOW: I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can't happen here.

MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: You know, no reason. I mean it should happen here. No reason. But that's right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That was the former Trump national security advisor, Michael Flynn. A retired three start general offering words that border on sedition. General Flynn now says he didn't mean it or he sometimes says he didn't even say it.

But you just heard him right there. You heard him say sure to copying the Myanmar model. That's baseless claims fraud followed by the military forcibly seizing power from the democratically elected government. With us to discuss this in more of this day (ph) to share the reporting and insights, Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The New York Times; CNN's Phil Mattingly; Brittany Shepherd of Yahoo News; and Jackie Kucinich of The Daily Beast.

First day with four people at the table in 14 months. It's great to see you all. You hear what General Flynn says. Many people would roll their eyes and say oh so what. But that is precisely why on Memorial Day President Biden said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN: U.S. PRESIDENT: Democracy itself is in peril here at home and around the world. What we do now -- what we do now, how we honor the memory of the fallen will determine whether or not democracy will long endure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Again, it sounds enough some days; the president of the United States has to say democracy is at peril. But when you listen and you're calling -- Maggie Haberman says Donald Trump still says he'll be back in power by August. He still tells people this. Wow.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, wow is right. And if you look at some of the polls you can see what the effect is of all of this that both the former president saying these things and people like Michael Flynn amplifying them.

And it is that there is a substantial portion of this country, many Republicans who think that the last election was fraudulent, was stolen and think that action should be taken. Some of them think violent action should be taken to rectify that.

And that something that, you know, President Biden can't do anything about. He can give speeches about democracy and, you know, the moral authority that we have in the world, but if people -- if there is a substantial amount of people in this country, a substantial amount of voters who think that they cannot trust the political system, that is a really dangerous place for us to be.

JACKIE KUCINCH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, I don't think you need to look at polls. Look what happened January 6, that -- you hear people who are currently going through the legal system say, why they did what they did that day and when you hear things like this, from General Flynn, from the former president via Maggie Haberman, this just fuels that.

And there's no reason to think that there aren't people who take this stuff seriously, and it does create more of a dangerous environment out there.

BRITTANY SHEPHERD, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: Well, I saw this poll back in April. It said 60 percent of Republicans, this is not a fringe; 60 percent is more of the majority like Julie was saying, believe that the election was not necessarily just fraudulent but was stolen from Trump.

And even if the claim is baseless, the base has embraced this claim. And those 60 percent of people are looking to the vote that happened on the January 6 commission and thinking, even if they're not hesitant, maybe it wasn't stolen, what does my senator think? What does my elected leader think?

And they say well, they didn't even show up to vote or they voted no. And that confirms their bias that something is wrong and that's where the danger and the responsibility is in that nuance too, I think.

KING: But -- and that is why -- that is why, you know, these people say, well you know, this is America, I can say whatever I want, or General Flynn saying he didn't say it. You just heard him say it. He just said after on telegram let me be very clear, there's no reason whatsoever for any coup in America. I do not and have not at any time called for action of that sort. That's what he says after.

[12:05:00]

But they go to these groups where they're celebrities, and they say these things, knowing, its one thing to just, oh, I can say anything. Now you know, after January 6. There's no excuse before January 6. But after January 6, when you know some people listen to these words and they think it is their duty to do something about it.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's the scariest part of it. And I think it's the biggest thing, kind of jumping a little bit off your point, that calls into question the decision by Republican leaders to just try and be quiet about things and move on. Right? And look, I get it.

I've spoken to a lot of them; I understand the strategic rationale for right now. I understand why they think that A, if we're going to win the majority; B, if we don't want to -- if want to keep Trump down in Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster, wherever he is at this current moment, you don't need to bring up his name, you don't need to poke the bear, all those types of things.

It's better for the party, it's better for the possibility of talking about our agenda, all of those things. However, at this moment, when people like that exist, groups like that exist, and they're -- to your point, they're not friends, they're not on the periphery, if you look at the polling, it's very much mainstream in the party, there's a -- it would seem to be that there's a necessity that those individuals speak out and speak out on a regular basis.

And they're not doing that. And I think -- I'm not trying to steal all your points.

SHEPHERD: No, please. No, no.

MATTINGLY: But -- but I think that gets to the broader point of the one-sixth commission, right.

KING: Right. MATTINGLY: Yes, I understand that they didn't want -- Republicans didn't want Trump to be mad and they didn't want to get beat over the head with whatever the results were going to be going into a midterm election year but there was a bigger rationale here.

And if your sole purpose is I want to be back in the majority, if you're a rank and file member in the U.S. Senate and you're in the majority where leadership decides everything, what do you get out of that, like a subcommittee markup for some bill that you want for back in your state? And I think the question becomes, is that subcommittee markup really worth it when you look at the broader picture of what's going on?

KING: Right. And so -- so your question is, why aren't they honest, why aren't they candid, why don't they tell the truth, why don't they tell the former president and the people who say what General Flynn just said; go away, get out of our party, you're not welcome?

Gary Tuchman tried to ask that question to -- this is Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ROGER MARHALL, (R-KS): I think that this has been investigated and all these committees will do their job. There's really only one --

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You really think it's been investigated?

MARSHALL: I think that they're in the process --

TUCHMAN: I mean President Trump's role in it.

MARSHALL: You know I do think it's being investigated. I think its being very thoroughly investigated this.

TUCHMAN: Do you think that insurrection would have happened if President Trump didn't say to people go to the Capitol?

MARSHALL: I think that the people that committed that crime should be held in -- on judgment for their own actions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: In polite terms that's a punt, in the sense there are congressional committees looking into this but they're focused -- so far -- they're focused mainly on how did it happen, what security improvements do we need to make and some committees looking at some of this -- these extremist groups. There is no committee on the table right now that's looking into President Trump's role. Gary asked the question, he punted and moved on.

No committee that we know of that's digging deeper into the intelligence, what -- who are these people, how are they connected? It's simply not there. The value of the 9/11 commission was you brought in experts who are independent, who took their time and produced a historically critical document. Senator Marshall doesn't want that.

HIRSCHFELD DAVIS: I mean that is the key thing, too, right. I mean in this polarized time you can imagine that even a non-partisan commission like the 9/11 commission would not necessarily be accepted by a vast majority of the public.

However, the thing about the committees that exist now is that Congress is controlled by the Democrats. People will come away and say this was an investigation that was run by the Democrats. And if you want to have an investigation with the veneer of independence that actually has people on it who are independent, then you have to have an independent commission.

Either this kind of commission or a presidentially appointed commission, maybe, or -- but a select committee that, of the way they're talking about now, that Pelosi has on the table in front of her, is not going to have that same independence, and people are going to be able to say, it's a partisan -- yes, they will.

KING: But -- but -- and -- and people who are loyal still to the former president, are going to get to keep saying things like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FLYNN: Trump won. He won. He won the popular vote. He won -- he won the popular vote. He won the popular vote and he won the Electoral College vote.

SIDNEY POWELL, CONSERVATIVE LAWYER: It should be that he can simply be reinstated, that a new inauguration date is set.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He did not win. He lost the popular vote. He lost the Electoral College vote. He cannot be reinstated but, again, when you have people who keep hearing this from people they view as influential in the wake of an attack on the United States government, it's reckless and it's dangerous and more.

SHEPHERD: Exactly. And they're not listening to the Gaetz follow-up apology, right. They just want to be enabled to believe -- I mean it feels a little bit like a cultish mentality, it's zealous, at least, to be more fair.

And they'll look at what Sidney Powell is saying and this -- you know what, I'm right. We should start a group in our town to certify our own election. And look even what's happening in Texas. It's -- it's affecting states on the local level where they think well there's maybe 10 cases of fraud, maybe 20 cases, 100 cases, 200 cases with no basis.

[12:10:00]

Look what's happening in Texas. They don't really have the numbers to support what they're doing but it still allows, still forces an entire democratic legislature to walk out in order to stop that bill from getting on the floor. So there are real world implications beyond the fringe conversations online that's happening in people's hometowns.

MATTINGLY: One thing we should consider maybe on an election night, or election week is having like an electronic wall of some sort that would show the votes as they came in, and maybe somebody who could, you know, adequately move around that wall and demonstrate as voting was coming in in real-time.

KING: There -- there was an election where certain former president liked the way that those numbers turned out. Then the next one he didn't like it because he lost. Plain and simple. That's not the way we do elections, we count, math -- math should matter.

Everybody standby, up next for us, 100 years ago hundreds were killed in a thriving black business district, burnt to the ground in a racist massacre. Today, President Biden will be there with his plans for trying to right a wrong.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

President Biden right now is on his way to Oklahoma for the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre. The visit shines as presidential spotlight on a horrific moment that is too often ignored in American history lessons.

Back on May 31, 1921, beginning on that day, a white mob destroyed Tulsa's Greenwood District. Hundreds were killed; thousands left homeless across some 35 city blocks. The burning of what was called Black Wall Street is one of America's worst episodes of racial violence.

One of the headlines on this day in the Tulsa World Newspaper 100 years ago, "Race war rages for hours after outbreak at court hours. Troops and armed men patrolling streets." Here's front page headlines today in Tulsa. Mayor apologizes for massacre and the blood is still speaking.

CNN's Abby Philip is in Tulsa. Also joining the conversation here in Washington, Josh Chamberson of the Wall Street Journal. Abby Phillip, 100 days from a horrific event in history, the president of the United States is coming to promise and offer some help from Washington. What is the mood, the spirit, like there on this day?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is a big deal for President Biden to come here to commemorate this massacre. As you'd pointed out it's not something that's been talked about frequently over the last 100 years. It's been -- it's been largely omitted from the history books.

And to have a president come down here to mark it is really important, but there's a second piece to it that black residents of Tulsa have been talking about for a very long time, which is that it's not just the death and destruction of Greenwood and Black Wall Street that is important. It's also the theft of people's futures, their wealth, their

prosperity, and that is one of the elements that Biden will try to address today as he announces some federal policies aimed at shrinking the racial wealth gap. The people here in Tulsa, they really want something more concrete. They want reparations, restitution for the survivors and for their descendants.

KING: And Josh Chamberson, you have a fabulous piece, I recommend everybody go online and find out or pick up a Wall Street Journal about this, a detailed piece about people in the community trying to rebuild. They want -- they want a better life for themselves today but they also want to deal with the historical issues Abby writes about.

Part of your piece is white Tulsans are 17 times more likely than black Tulsans to be business executives. And the median household income for white residents is almost doubled that of black residents, according to data compiled by the city and local nonprofit.

The question is, you know, how much can government do, whether it's the city government trying -- you can do zoning things; you could try to get that highway down. That's one of the big things; they built a highway through town which destroyed the thriving business community.

What is your sense in the piece about what -- people think the government can do this, Washington can do this, or it has to be local?

JOSH CHAMBERSON, POLITICAL REPORTER, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Or some type of nonprofit, the corporate world, other philanthropic efforts. Look, no one really knows what that looks like, right, putting black wealth creation at the center of an economic development policy.

And so that's what people in Tulsa are dealing with. And as Abby just said, I think as President Biden arrives in Tulsa today one thing that's going to be important for him is to not make it look like a photo op so to speak.

KING: Right.

CHAMBERSON: And when I was in Tulsa earlier this year for this piece, just like Abby was hearing from black Tulsans, they're very cognizant of the fact that it's almost for lack of a better word, invoke or whatever you may want to say to come to Tulsa and talk about Black Wall Street.

And so I think he's really going to be judged by the policies unveiled today, not only the top line numbers and all the things like that, but also if he can get them implemented here in Washington.

KING: Right, and so Abby, that is the key point. I'll go through some of the Biden plans that he's going to announce; increasing federal contracting money for small disadvantaged businesses by 50 percent, $10 billion in community revitalization funding, $31 billion to support minority owned small business, interagency efforts to address racial discrimination, the housing market.

They have made equity a big priority in this White House without a doubt. But to Josh's point, can you overcome skepticism in the community that A, that you mean it; and that after you leave and the cameras leave, six months from now, two years from now, 10 years from now, you will see the seeds take root.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean there are two elements of this. On is that some of these proposals are tied to the future of legislation here in Washington, it's the bigger story of legislative gridlock. Can he get an infrastructure plan passed that includes these funds for infrastructure investment in low-income communities and for transportation investment in low-income communities?

But the other part of this, and I think that this is what makes the visit a little bit more tricky, is that Tulsa is one of so many other racist massacres that occurred all across the country, you know, in the 1910s and 1920s that had a direct impact on people's actual ability to live their lives, to open their businesses.

[12:20:00]

And people in those communities, they want those specific things addressed. They recognize that there have been decades of systemic racism. There was urban renewal, that places like Tulsa were affected by. That's the sort of big picture of racism in America. But I think there's a desire here to see Biden address the specifics of what happened here in Tulsa and in other parts of the country where land, money, businesses were actually taken away from black business owners at a specific point in time.

And residents here want to know, what is the government going to do about it? Is it the federal government or the state government? They want some practical solutions to those problems.

KING: Practical solutions. Yes (ph), I just want to listen here, this is Regina Goodwin, she's an Oklahoma state representative right now, but she's a descendant of a massacre survivor as well. She gets to the point Abby makes; we want proof that you mean it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STATE REP. REGINA GOODWIN (D-OK): For now a century now there's been no repair, there's been no one charged for the crimes. So we do sit on sacred land, there's blood in the soil. And I tell you, even today, there are those that don't want to speak of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The -- it's powerful to hear blood in the soil and those who don't want to speak of it. It would be hard, to Abby's point, getting city government, state government, the federal government to work together on something that's actually meaningful.

CHAMBERSON: Yes, no, exactly, and I think that, you know, there's a lot of commemorations going on in Tulsa, for this centennial. A lot of black Tulsans I talk to, just on that point, will look at the biggest development there today, the Greenwood Rising History Center and say it's really great that the corporate world was able to get $300 million -- or $30 million together for that. What can we see done for housing or education or black wealth creation, entrepreneurship and those are big questions.

KING: Right; schools, small business, things that will, again, plant the roots in the communities.

CHAMBERSON: Exactly.

KING: As opposed to a one-day thing. Josh, Abby, grateful for the reporting on this very important subject. When we come back, the Texas Democrats block action on new voting restrictions by walking off the State House floor. Now the Republican governor wants to make them pay.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

Texas Democrats know they are outnumbered and they say their allies here in Washington better step up help if they want to keep new voting restrictions from becoming law.

It took a weekend walkout; you see it here, by Democrats in the Texas State House to derail a Republican plan to curtail voting rights. Without a quorum the bill could not be considered for final passage before the legislative session ended. Now the Republic governor Greg Abbott can call a special election to pass the voting bill.

He's also now threatening to withhold pay from lawmakers. No pay for those who abandon their responsibilities, the governor tweeted Monday. Stay tuned. This Texas fight is part of a big national Republican push to roll back voting options.

Our panel still here in studio with us, to that point, this Jessica Gonzales, a member of the Texas State House, a part of the walkout. Right. They frustrated the Republicans, the Texas bill cannot become law yet, but she says President Biden, Democrats in congress, help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STATE REP. JESSICA GONZALEZ (D-TX): You know, the governor, its well within his power to call a special session, and we know that he will eventually call one, you know, in order to address this. We did our part to stop this horrible voter suppression bill in Texas and now Texas Democrats are calling on President Biden, and Democrats in the Senate to use the filibuster in order to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act immediately and use our Democratic majority to stop the voter suppression bills across the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Democrats in Texas, Democrats in Arizona, Democrats in Georgia, Democrats in a lot of places saying Washington, help. That might require ending the filibuster, tweaking the rules at least one time. Yes, no?

KUCINCH: I mean, you're talking to Joe Manchin, he's saying no and that is right now what is standing in the way and perhaps of Kyrsten Sinema as well. But Chuck Schumer has indicated that he's going to bring this to the Senate floor at the end of the month. It doesn't look good for this bill, to say the least.

But the pressure -- I mean right now, I think Hill reporters have the unfortunate task, to maybe ask Joe Manchin the same question over and over again and get variations of the same answer over and over again and that's not going to stop and the pressure is going to ratchet up on the senators standing in the way, not only of this, but of several agenda items that can't be passed through budget reconciliation, anything that can be filibustered is right now blocked.

MATINGLY: So I think there's an interesting element here, and whether it's intentional or not, the lawmaker who just spoke was talking about the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which is not S1 or HR1

And the objections that Joe Manchin has is to S1, the For the People Act, like is a very broad sweeping voting bill. And it's -- it's something I've been trying to figure out over the course of the last couple of weeks because Manchin put out a statement saying he believes the best path forward is the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

And the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, it goes back to the Shelby versus Holder decision that basically gutted the Voting Rights Act in terms of pre-clearance requirements. And you've seen so many changes since Shelby v. Holder in a lot of these states as it relates to voting.

And while Chuck Schumer and Speaker Pelosi have made clear, S1 and HR1 are -- are what they're pushing for right now. There may be a pathway on the John Lewis bill. And I'm intrigued to see when Democratic leadership, if Democratic leadership, if the White House, the president, at some spins off and says we're not going to end the filibuster, S1 and HR1 are obviously what we would prefer to see but there are real tangible benefits to pushing forward on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and there are Republicans who have traditionally supported these things.

[12:30:00]