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Evidence Uncovered So Far Suggests U.S. Capitol Attack Was Planned; CDC Forecasts Another 92,000 U.S. Deaths In Next Three Weeks; Security Ramped Up At State Capitols Across The U.S. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired January 14, 2021 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:30:08]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Developing this morning, a new intelligence bulletin warning that the Capitol attack is likely to motivate extremists to commit more violence and that online chatter is off the charts. It comes as a federal law enforcement official tells CNN that investigators are pursuing signs that the U.S. Capitol attack was planned.

CNN's Jessica Schneider live in Washington with the implications of that, Jessica.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. Prosecutors now treating this really like a counterterrorism investigation. They're focused on the command and control aspect of the attack -- really, how it was planned and organized. And they're also following the money for clues.

This comes as we learn that FBI Dir. Chris Wray gave a briefing to law enforcement officials across the country Wednesday warning that violent domestic extremists still pose the most significant threat to the inauguration.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): A federal law enforcement source tells CNN that surveillance footage indicates the domestic terror attack on the Capitol last week was not just a protest that spiraled out of control.

JAMES COMEY, FORMER DIRECTOR, FBI: Look, there's no doubt there were at least some conspiracies. People wandering around exercising their First Amendment rights don't bring ropes and ladders and sledgehammers to a spontaneous event. This was a planned assault as if going after a castle.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): The tactics and weapons seen on surveillance video suggests a high level of planning went into the attack, the law enforcement source says. Some attendees of President Donald Trump's speech left the event early, possibly to retrieve items to be used in the assault on the Capitol.

Law enforcement officials are following the money to try to piece together the events of January sixth.

MICHAEL SHERWIN, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: We're looking at everything -- money, travel records. Looking at disposition, movement, communication records.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Officials are also investigating reports that groups of people received tours from members of Congress the day before the attack. Investigators stressed that does not mean any members of Congress are under investigation.

More than 30 House members have called on the sergeants at arms and Capitol Police to investigate what one House Democrat is calling a reconnaissance mission.

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): No one is above the law. Not the president, not his attorney, and certainly not any member of Congress. If any member of Congress incited the insurrection or gave inside information, the FBI should investigate them. And if prosecutors look at the facts and think they should be charged, then they should be charged.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): New video shows the chilling communication efforts near the end of the insurrection showing how determined rioters were to penetrate the Capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, guys, I've been in the other room. Listen to me. In the other room on the other side of this door -- right here where these feet are standing, there is a glass that is somebody -- and it's broken. You can drop down into a room underneath it. So, people should probably coordinate together if you're going to take this building.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): More have been arrested on charges related to the attack, including two off-duty Virginia police officers. They posted a photo from inside the Capitol and had their first court appearance Wednesday.

This man, who wore a sweatshirt that read "Camp Auschwitz," has been arrested and charged with entering the Capitol without permission and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

An Olympic gold medalist, Klete Keller, has been charged for his alleged involvement in the insurrection after investigators say he was photographed in the Capitol wearing a Team USA jacket.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: And looking ahead to January 20th, the National Guard has upped its troop count to more than 20,000. And multiple defense officials tell CNN the Guard expects explosive devices to really be a threat.

And because of these concerns, President-elect Joe Biden has decided not to take the Amtrak train from Delaware to Washington on Inauguration Day as originally planned. John, of course, that is upending what has been a decade's long tradition for Joe Biden. BERMAN: Yes, and that's a shame. That's a shame. It would have been significant, I think -- symbolic for the country -- and I know really important personally for him as well.

SCHNEIDER: For sure.

BERMAN: Jessica Schneider, thanks so much for all of this reporting.

Joining us now, CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem. She's a former assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.

And, Juliette, this notion of planning, what matters here?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (via Cisco Webex): What matters is the extent to which groups of people -- and it may just be a subset of those who showed up for the rally -- organized and coordinated a direct attack on the Capitol.

So there's the question of motivation, which was clearly coming from the president -- ignited and incited by the president and his -- and his friends' speeches. And then they move up to the Capitol.

It's relevant because one, it goes to conspiracy. It goes to the charges that you can file against these people. And it also goes to an infrastructure that is supporting them. Money, planning, reconnaissance -- all the things that we're talking about now.

There is no way an attack on the Capitol -- given the pictures that we've seen, the words that we've hard, planning -- wasn't at least discussed amongst some group of the people that were at the rally. And that's -- and that's why it's relevant.

[05:35:05]

I think -- you know, we've been talking about this for a week. If we could just get our head around the notion that a subset of Donald Trump's supporters have been radicalized to use violence to -- for domestic terrorism, then using counterterrorism tactics, including isolating Donald Trump and what he's able to incite, becomes that much more pressing, especially since we only have a week left.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I'm not having a hard time getting my head around that.

KAYYEM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I mean, there's something about an armed insurrection that really crystalizes, I find --

KAYYEM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- the thinking.

And so, when you just saw that video that Jessica Schneider played in her piece with the woman with the bullhorn --

KAYYEM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I don't know if people could hear it. They were talking about a floorplan. They were like let's look at the floorplan. We have to figure out where the -- like, you can hear them saying that they have a floorplan of some kind.

KAYYEM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And she's sort of, it seems, winging it, saying I see there's a glass window here. If somebody wants to drop me down this window I think we could get to another door.

KAYYEM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Is that -- OK, and then what James -- what Jim Comey just said in the piece, which is you don't bring ropes and plastic handcuffs --

KAYYEM: Right.

CAMEROTA: -- to a peaceful rally.

KAYYEM: Right.

CAMEROTA: So is that enough evidence for you that this was planned?

KAYYEM: Yes, I'm pretty convinced of it now. And it explains, to be honest, why the Capitol police may have been caught so off-guard was because there had been some planning. This wasn't some random group. This is not a question of the lone wolves just happening to all congregate.

One of the things that's really interesting about these indictments and some of the information coming out through the legal means is that all of them say they were operationally motivated by the President of the United States. So it's not enough to say he's inciting them; they were urged tactically. Operationally urged to come to D.C. to fight.

Now, we can parse words as much as you want. That means something to a lot of people, including me.

And so that gets to what's next, which is the house of Trump must fall. It is -- this idea that Republicans have that it will just calm down and they'll be protected, and people won't be angry at them if they just let Trump go out into the sunset, it's not true if you view him as this symbolic and motivational leader of an organized terror group. He has to be isolated.

BERMAN: I'm so glad you brought this up because I was thinking about you last night as the president released that video --

KAYYEM: Yes.

BERMAN: -- not brave enough to speak live. You say he has operationally motivated this group of terrorists.

KAYYEM: Yes.

BERMAN: I've (ph) said he's the inspirational leader of a terrorist group.

I want to know what you think these terrorists heard from that speech --

KAYYEM: Yes.

BERMAN: -- because he said don't be violent. You can't support me and be violent. But what he did not say was that I'm responsible for this.

KAYYEM: Right.

BERMAN: And what he certainly did not say is I lost the election.

KAYYEM: That's exactly right. So I've been saying for years don't parse his words. Try to understand how they're hearing them. And they heard those omissions, just as you said, that this is -- in some ways, this is not done.

And I -- and I know people want to talk about moving on but max -- this is basically a maximum pressure effort -- the same language we use against enemies -- against state enemies -- which is Donald Trump has to be a loser. He has to be powerless. He has to not be able to get more oxygen on his way out.

Because -- and I'll be very clear here. A very small group of his supporters are now emboldened to use violence, not just in D.C. but now we know in 50 states. And if we don't see him as the leader of a terrorist organization or a motivate -- motivator, then he won't stop.

And that's the frustrating thing about even Jim Comey saying maybe Biden should pardon him or we should move on. None of that has worked in the past in terms of counterterrorism efforts. We need to go after the violent people, but we need to essentially isolate the leadership.

And I -- and you're seeing that. So that makes me pleased for the future because if you think January 20th this ends -- I mean, we all thought that this would end in 2021 and look where we are now.

BERMAN: Juliette Kayyem, thank you very much --

KAYYEM: Yes.

BERMAN: -- for helping us understand what we did here and did not.

KAYYEM: Yes.

BERMAN: So, this morning, the CDC has a new forecast from the -- for the number of Americans who will die from coronavirus in the next three weeks. You need to hear this, next.

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CAMEROTA: Overnight, the United States reported 3,848 new coronavirus deaths. The CDC now forecasts another 92,000 Americans will die in just the next three weeks. That is more than 4,000 people a day.

Joining us now is CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a professor of medicine at George Washington University.

Dr. Reiner, I don't understand where the peak is and how anybody can ever predict when we're going to plateau and why we're still peaking. I know that these deaths -- I mean, you've taught us that these are from two to three weeks ago. So from possibly the holiday surge or possibly the new variant.

What are you seeing?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY (via Cisco Webex): Well, that's right, Alisyn.

So let's think about this. It takes about a week for someone to become really sick after being infected with the virus, and then another week or so to be sick enough to be hospitalized. And then, people get into trouble and die at a variable time after that. So you're right.

[05:45:01]

So what we're seeing now in terms of deaths are people who became ill at least three weeks ago. And until we start to see both the number of hospitalizations drop -- and right now, we're at 130,000 hospitalizations in the United States. Until we see hospitalizations drop and until we start to see a sustained drop in daily cases, we're going to see this terrible toll.

But that's what we're looking for. We're looking for a sustained drop in daily cases. And when you start to see the hospitalizations drop, that's going to tell you even before maybe the death toll drops -- that's going to start to tell you that maybe we're at peak and on our way down.

BERMAN: And it's not going to be the vaccinations that change this in the short-term -- it's just not. That's not how it's going to work. Vaccinations long-term will be a salvation for all of us, but not now -- not in January, not in February.

But I do want to focus, Dr. Reiner, on some news about vaccines. And that's the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is interesting because it's a single dose. And there are some signs -- some positive signs that we are hearing from J&J.

What are you hearing?

REINER: Right. So, J&J published yesterday in "The New England Journal of Medicine" data concerning the antibody response to this vaccine. So this is really the phase-one and phase-two clinical trials. Really, the pre-clinical trial data that suggests that this vaccine, in the doses that are being used in the big clinical trial, which should be available in the next weeks, produce a very robust amount of neutralizing antibodies. And the neutralizing antibodies are what produces the immunity.

So now, this vaccine is interesting because J&J is betting really big that they can get this kind of response from a single dose of the vaccine.

And it's also important to note that this is a more robust vaccine that doesn't require the ultra-cold supply chain. This vaccine is stable in a refrigerator for three months. It actually may be longer because similar vaccines that J&J has produced have been stable for a year. But they're going to certify that this vaccine can simply be refrigerated for three months, which makes distribution around parts of the United States -- in fact, around parts of the world -- much easier.

It also makes this vaccine more ideal for the kind of mass vaccination events where you basically have, pun intended, one shot at administering a vaccine to somebody. It's much more attractive. You can bring in 1,000-2,000 people to an event, vaccinate them once, and they are done. You don't have to relationship -- have a relationship with them where they come back in three or four weeks for the second dose, as they have to do with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

We should have clinical trial data on this by the end of the month. Johnson & Johnson will then -- assuming the data looks great, will immediately apply for EUA for this vaccine. And I believe J&J thinks they could have this vaccine going into arms in the United States by the beginning of March.

The U.S. has purchased 100 million doses of this with an option to purchase another 200 million doses. This vaccine would really, I think, open up any bottlenecks that we have in vaccine distribution.

CAMEROTA: That would be wonderful, Dr. Reiner. Thank you very much for giving us all that information.

REINER: My pleasure.

CAMEROTA: The FBI is warning that armed protests are being planned in all 50 states at the Capitols in the coming days. How is law enforcement preparing for this? We have reports from around the country, next.

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[05:52:46]

BERMAN: This morning, Washington, D.C. is a fortress with the inauguration next week. Huge increases in security at state capitols across the country amid warnings of more attacks after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

We have CNN reporters stationed across the nation covering it all. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Ryan Young in Atlanta, Georgia.

You can see the State Capitol behind me. You can see the armored vehicle that's also been brought in by the Georgia State Patrol. That's to fortify the area here. We see troopers all around this area.

National Guardsmen will also be brought in to supplement the security here just in case the protests get any larger than expected. Also, the state of Georgia is sending 300 National Guardsmen to Washington, D.C. to help in the operation there.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Miguel Marquez in Lansing, Michigan where authorities are preparing for a so- called 'Stand Up for Liberty' march. Organizers say it is armed but peaceful. Authorities here also preparing for the possibility of protests and/or violence through Inauguration Day.

Michigan very sensitive to this as right-wing militias have taken over the Capitol before with long guns -- and at one point, even plotting to kidnap the governor here.

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Matt Rivers outside the State Capitol in Austin, Texas where the state's Department of Public Safety is on high alert after last week's events in Washington, D.C. DPS says it has deployed additional resources here to the Capitol, like those officers behind me, to ensure security.

Now, we know there were small protests here on Tuesday, and we also know state lawmakers have been told about at least two potential events that could take place on Sunday, although questions remain about the potential size and scope of those events. But the Department of Public Safety says it can quickly scale up its response here even further should any potential threat merit that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right, our thanks to our reporters.

We have major new questions this morning. What does the Senate do next? What does Donald Trump do next? What does Joe Biden do next? All of this ahead.

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[05:59:12]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): In a bipartisan way, the House demonstrated that no one is above the law.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He feels betrayed by the fact that he has been impeached a second time. REP. PETER MEIJER (R-MI): Unless we make sure to send a resounding message that this is not acceptable, then we risk just papering over some of these divisions, and the wounds will never truly heal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He should have immediately denounced the mob.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president is in self-pity mode. He is upset that no one is defending him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thousands of armed troops keep guard both outside and inside the Capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a major security threat and we are working to mitigate those threats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

CAMEROTA: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Thursday, January 14th, 6:00 here in New York.

And this morning, preparations are underway for the Senate trial of Donald Trump, the twice-impeached soon-to-be former President of the United States.