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Cheney Ousted from Leadership Position; Gas Stations Up and Down East Coast Run Out of Fuel; Security Concerns Raised after Marjorie Taylor-Greene Verbally Accosts Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 13, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar. On this NEW DAY, harrowing new video showing the body camera footage of a Capitol police officer being brutally assaulted during the insurrection. One rioter saying, quote, "I got one."

[05:59:20]

And it comes as Republican lawmakers try to whitewash what happened. Shocking denials of what we see with our own eyes, firing those who refuse to lie so they can lie with abandon.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And gas stations up and down the East Coast running on empty as Americans panic-buy fuel after a cyberattack shuts down a pipeline.

And new this morning, we are learning of an aggressive confrontation between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Capitol, an incident that has led to security concerns.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Thursday, May 13. And on the very same day the Republicans fired Liz Cheney for refusing to lie, they unleashed a new round of spectacular lies, some of the biggest yet. Maybe that's why they canceled her, so they could whitewash history, tell us that what we see with our own eyes didn't happen.

CNN has exclusive new video of the vicious attack on D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone during the Capitol insurrection. It shows Fanone and his fellow officers trying to hold back pro-Trump rioters as they stormed the Capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL FANONE, CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: Break it up. Break it up. We just need to close the door. Come on, buddy. Back it up. Back it up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm trying. You guys just sprayed me in the face.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. It stings. That guy. Let me out of here.

FANONE: Come on, MPD, dig in! Push them back! Dig in! Come on, MPD! Push! Push!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: My God. You can hear the terror in his voice. It goes on to show Officer Fanone being assaulted on the Capitol steps. Fanone can be heard in this clip pleading with rioters. There is some explicit language.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got one!

FANONE: (SCREAMING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back away!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't hurt him. Don't hurt him. Don't hurt him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're better than this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold it. I've got you. I've got you. I got him. I got him.

FANONE: I've got kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: How can some people see that and pretend that is not what they are seeing? Because despite what you just saw, some Republicans in Congress have a very different version, a complete lie about what happened on January 6.

Here is what they said just yesterday alongside pictures of what actually took place on the grounds of the Capitol on January 6.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ANDREW CLYDE (R-GA): There was no insurrection, and to call it an insurrection, in my opinion, is a bold-faced lie. Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall, showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes, taking videos and pictures. You know, if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.

REP. RALPH NORMAN (R-SC); At 2:07, a mob of Trump supporters breached the steps. I don't know who did a poll that it's Trump supporters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I mean, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say about that. They say it wasn't an insurrection. They say it was just tourists, simple tourists walking around the Capitol; tourists, who beat up police officers, tourists with pepper spray; tourists calling for public hangings; tourists, you know, spreading feces on the walls of the Capitol because that's what tourists do. They take dumps on the floor and then spread it on the walls of the sites that they go see.

The unmitigated gall of elected members of Congress to tell us it didn't happen when we saw it happen, I want to say it's shocking, but I don't know if I'm shocked anymore, Brianna.

KEILAR: And just putting so many people at risk. I mean, that was -- the video we saw Officer Fanone. I just think about how lucky members of Congress were that they didn't encounter anyone.

[06:05:09]

I think that if these are Trump supporters who purport to support law enforcement, and that is what they did to a police officer, you know, it was a narrow miss for some of these members of Congress.

And I don't know, John. This isn't the kind of thing that happens in America, where -- I mean, bad things happen. But the fact that you have elected officials who are just completely lying about what we can see with our eyes, you know, I just --

BERMAN: It's Orwellian. I mean, it's Orwellian.

KEILAR: It is.

BERMAN: If there was a word beyond "lie," that's where we have gone to right now. Because it is simply Orwellian what they're trying to do in rewriting what we just saw.

KEILAR: Yes.

BERMAN: I mean, that body camera footage of him that was released just yesterday, that everyone knew what happened. We see it.

KEILAR: Yes, we see it. We see it with our eyes. We know what happened.

And this morning fresh off being ousted from Republican leadership in the House, Liz Cheney is not holding back against Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): I think that he is not leading with principle right now. And I think that it is -- it's sad, and I think it's dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining me now is Charlotte Alter, who is senior correspondent for "TIME" magazine. She has a new book out next week, and it is called "The Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders will Transform America."

Charlotte, thank you so much for being with us. This -- you've seen this new video. You've seen members of Congress, Republican members of Congress who are lying about what we see with our eyes, and we just saw Liz Cheney ousted from House Republican leadership. What does this say to you as you are very deep in this topic, the future of not just the GOP, but American leadership?

CHARLOTTE ALTER, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Thanks for having me.

Yes, I mean, so over the course of covering the election last year, the way that I began to think about this was that this is, like you said earlier, deeper than a lie. I began to think of this as something called unlogic, which really means an entire world view that is rooted in ideas that are false.

And this unlogic has swept across the country, you know, and -- and really become a mass delusion.

And the problem with that is that, you know, the -- is that Republican elected officials are very responsive to the concerns of their base. So, you know, for example, Elise Stefanik, who is one of the -- one of the characters in my book and is now potentially being elevated to replace Liz Cheney, she is somebody who -- she's somebody who has embraced this big lie, partly because her constituents believe it.

So the big problem that the Republican Party has now is that when you have -- you know, as Ted Cruz said recently, when you have millions of people who are living in this reality, it's very hard for their elected officials to completely disavow something that their voters so thoroughly believe in. And that's the real danger of how much conspiracy theories have spread throughout the Republican Party.

KEILAR: You have a brilliant piece about her out right now in "TIME," about what it has cost her to move from being a moderate to being a full Trump backer. It has cost her friendships, lifelong friendships.

And she has backed the big lie. She has challenged the Electoral College outcome.

But you said, quote -- and this was perhaps the most telling thing in your piece -- "No one I spoke to inside or outside her office believes she actually thinks the election was stolen." I mean, that to me is the biggest transgression of all of this, that she knows this is untrue.

ALTER: Right. Well, Representative Elise Stefanik is highly intelligent. She is one of the most intelligent people, perhaps, to ever serve in Congress. That's something that both her allies and her detractors agree on.

And every single person I spoke to said they think it's highly unlikely she actually believes that the election was fully stolen.

And if you notice, in the way she talks about it, she doesn't really go as far as to embrace the rhetoric of the rioters who stormed the Capitol. And she was, you know, very smart to issue a strong condemnation of the violence at the Capitol. So she's not going quite so far as those who say that, for example, the insurrection didn't happen. But if you notice, she's a really good example of how these conspiracy theories get sort of laundered upwards through the Republican Party. So her -- if her constituents are saying stop the steal, and they believe the election was rigged, she -- that manifests her having concerns about irregularities, and that justifies her vote to overturn the -- the results of the Electoral College.

[06:10:04]

KEILAR: I encourage everyone to read your piece. It is -- for everyone who has questions, it answers a lot of them. Charlotte Alter, great reporting, thank you.

BERMAN: So this morning, a critical gas pipeline is back up and running again after a ransomware shut it down for days. The Colonial Pipeline shutdown triggered panic buying, and that panic buying exacerbated any gas shortages.

Company officials say it will be several days before service returns to normal. That can't come soon enough for drivers facing these long lines at the pump because of the sudden fuel shortage.

By the way, the long lines helping exacerbate the fuel shortage. Right now, three-quarters of the gas stations in North Carolina totally dry. Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., also have major shortages.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher live at a gas station in Charlotte. You know, what's the situation there?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So John, the news that that pipeline has restarted may have some kind of effect, at least, on human behavior, which is what authorities are blaming the shortage on up and down the East Coast, specifically here in North Carolina.

To give you an example, you can kind of see behind me here. This station, it just opened up. Twenty-four hours ago, the lines for this particular gas station stretched out to the highway, which is why authorities say if people will just not panic, they can handle this for the next couple of days.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GALLAGHER: Gas --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As far as gas, yes, we ain't got no more.

GALLAGHER: -- and patience --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know how this is going to work for all of us.

GALLAGHER: -- running out all along the East Coast.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've gone to, like, six different stations, and nobody's got any gas. GALLAGHER: Demand spiked by 40 percent on Monday in five states from

Florida to Virginia.

TIEISHA BROWN, PENSACOLA, FLORIDA, DRIVER: I was on my way to my dad's House, and my gas tank's basically empty. And all the gas pumps has "out of service."

GALLAGHER: Officials blaming public panic for what seems like a sudden short supply.

GOV. ROY COOPER (D-NC): The shortages that we're seeing are pretty much solely related to panic buying from -- from people, and I want to encourage people not to do that. Don't fill up your car unless you have to.

GALLAGHER: The nervous fill-ups sparked by last week's Colonial Pipeline cyberattack.

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, ENERGY SECRETARY: There should be no cause for hoarding gasoline, especially in light of the fact that the pipeline should be substantially operational by the end of this week.

GALLAGHER: The 5,500-mile pipeline moves roughly 45 percent of the East Coast fuel supply. GasBuddy reporting more than 1,800 stations are offline, saying here in North Carolina, an eye-popping 65 percent are running dry.

With long lines stretching for miles, if drivers are lucky enough to find fuel, it's costing them.

LEATHER KERNEY, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, DRIVER: Six gallons of gas for $35. That's absolutely ridiculous.

GALLAGHER: The average price of a gallon of gas jumping to $3.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's more expensive than we've seen in quite some time. Actually, the last time we were at that price point was the end of October in 2014.

GALLAGHER: Experts warn that panic purchases could create a domino effect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don't want to miss out. You don't want to be the one that doesn't get gas.

GALLAGHER: Meaning fear of a shortage could actually create one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GALLAGHER: Now, both the federal and state governments across that pipeline have relaxed some regulations to help get fuel to these gas stations faster. I can tell you, driving here there are still some along the road that are completely out.

And John, Brianna, another concern, of course, is price gouging. More than 1,200 complaints just in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina alone so far this week.

BERMAN: Hopefully, the situation gets better quickly now that the pipeline is back up and working again, we think. Dianne, thanks so much.

KEILAR: So that ransomware group that carried out this crippling cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline has demanded millions in bitcoin payments.

But sources tell CNN that at this point, the company has not paid the ransom, and it's looking like Colonial Pipeline will not have to pay up.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is with us now on this. OK, so how were they able to get the pipeline back online without paying the ransom?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So they acted really quickly, and that really helped them, in the short term, to eject the hackers from their systems and also to retrieve the stolen data. And therefore, there's no incentive anymore to pay this nearly $5 million that this ransomware group was demanding.

So essentially, they were able to retrieve a lot of their stolen data, with the help from private entities and the federal government, from this group and create backups so that they would not have to then ask the ransomware group for the stolen data.

They also took a key server offline on Saturday very soon after they discovered this breach, and, therefore, that data was not allowed to be exfiltrated back to the home land, back to Russia where this ransomware group is based.

So basically, acting quickly her and working with federal and private entities really allowed the ransom -- or the -- Colonial Pipeline to get its systems secured. And what's happened now is that it's just taking a while to get things back up and running.

[06:15:10]

KEILAR: OK. So, look, luckily, they were able to kind of shut this down before it got even worse. Obviously, the goal would be to not have to shut down in the first place, but what more are you learning what went into this decision to shut things down?

BERTRAND: Yes, so what we're told from three sources briefed on this is that the -- the ransomware group actually compromised the billing system of the pipeline company. So it didn't actually affect the operational networks. They affected this technical aspect of the company, which allows the company to figure out how much it's going to bill customers for the fuel that they received.

So the company was worried that they wouldn't be able to figure that out, that it would cause chaos with regard to its financial system. And also we're told that the billing system is actually pretty key to the functioning of the pipeline itself. So that's why it's taken so long, about a week now, for this to be

back up and running, because it is so central to the operation of this pipeline.

So the billing system was compromised. It seems like now everything has been put under control, and the pipeline will be able to restore to its full functioning.

KEILAR: What a cautionary tale, though. Natasha, great reporting. Thank you.

BERTRAND: Thank you.

KEILAR: New this morning, Marjorie Taylor Greene verbally accosting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the hallways of the Capitol. We will speak with a reporter who saw this go down.

BERMAN: Plus, new CNN reporting just in on what's happening behind the scenes at the CDC as the agency is criticized for its guidance on the pandemic.

And on the very day President Biden and Republicans meet on infrastructure, a catastrophe is avoided on a critical bridge.

This is NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:21:09]

BERMAN: Brand-new reporting from "The Washington Post" that Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene aggressively confronted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez outside the House chamber yesterday. And this comes weeks after Greene posted this video about challenging Ocasio- Cortez to a debate. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): She'd better show up. If she chickens out, then she shows exactly who really she is, a scared little girl that is pretty stupid and doesn't know anything about the economy or economics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining me now is the "Washington Post" reporter who witnessed yesterday's incident, Marianna Sotomayor. Tell us what you saw. What happened?

MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": Hey, John. Thanks for having me.

Well, you know, the one thing about covering Capitol Hill is you never know what you're gong the see, based on where you are. And I was with my colleague, Jackie Alemany (ph). And we were just waiting for leadership to emerge from the House floor. This was when the House was wrapping up votes for the day.

And we saw Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez walk off the floor, and just seconds after, heard Marjorie Taylor Greene start to call out her name. Ocasio-Cortez did not stop, which prompted Greene to pick up her pace and just start peppering her with questions, really shouting across the hall, asking her to defend some of these policies that she supports like the Green New Deal. Like you mentioned, Greene really wants to debate Ocasio-Cortez specifically on that policy.

But she took it a step further, as well, really questioning Ocasio- Cortez about why she supports "terrorist groups" like Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Of course, those are not designated terrorist groups.

But she continued to pepper her with these questions until Ocasio- Cortez turned around and threw her hands up in the air in this kind of exasperated, confused face. And we, unfortunately, could not hear her, given how far away she was.

But Greene then turned around and did speak to my colleague and I, as well as one other reporter who caught the tail end of that confrontation and essentially said that she's here to hold members of Congress accountable, whether they're Democrats. And in the past, she's also said she's trying to hold her own Republican colleagues accountable.

And she called Ocasio-Cortez, as well as other Democrats cowards for not being able to stand up to their legislation and their policy proposals.

This is not the first time that Greene has confronted Democratic members of Congress. You all remember earlier this year, Congresswoman Cori Bush, she asked Greene to put on her mask at a time when vaccinations were still pretty low in this country. And she accused Greene of confronting her, getting very close to her face for even making such a suggestion.

So it really shows the decorum and the lack thereof that now exists on Capitol Hill, especially over on the House side.

BERMAN: You say you never know what you're going to see. I've spent plenty of time up on Capitol Hill. I've never seen this, you know, one member of Congress seeming to stalk, frankly, another member of Congress. Have you seen something like that before?

SOTOMAYOR: No. And honestly, just seeing the moment play out was pretty shocking.

There was also some onlookers, aides, who saw it happening. And it's not something you see every day or every week or every month. It really does speak to the polarization that exists and the tensions that exist between the extremes of both parties, Republicans and Democrats.

This did prompt Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez to ask leadership and also the sergeant of arms at the House side to be more vigilant about these kinds of behaviors, because it could possibly continue.

BERMAN: Yes. Let me be clear. This is a one-way street. This wasn't something that happened between people. This is something that happened from one person at another.

Let me read that statement from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

[06:25:05]

She said, "We hope leadership and the sergeant-at-arms will take real steps to make Congress safe, a safe, civil place for all members and staff, especially as many offices are discussing reopening."

Marianna Sotomayor, you know, it's great to have you on. This is why, you know, reporters need to be there, so they can witness this kind of thing. Appreciate you joining us.

SOTOMAYOR: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: A catastrophic event narrowly avoided in Memphis after this crack was found in a major bridge over the Mississippi River. So are the president and Republican leaders any closer to an infrastructure compromise?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning a critical bridge in Memphis, Tennessee, shut down indefinitely after transportation officials discovered this crack during a routine inspection. They called 911 and immediately shut down the bridge, and this is part of that call.