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Officer Michael Fanon Slammed Lawmakers Yesterday For Brushing Over The Reality Of The Capitol Riots; More Than 100 Republicans Threatening To Form A Third Party; President Joe Biden Expected To Make Remarks On The Cyber Attack Against Colonial Pipelines; A Florida School Makes Masks Optional For All Students. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 13, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Lawmakers who are completely lying about what happened that day.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well yesterday in a hearing there was debate about whether or not there even was an insurrection. That is the only way to define what happened. And here is even more proof of just how violent it was.

We want to warn you there is explicit language in this body camera video and it may be difficult to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I swear to God (ph) I got one.

WILD: This body camera footage shows the horrifying moment rioters attacked D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone during the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Easy (ph).

(YELLING)

MICHAEL FANONE, METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICER: (Screaming).

WILD: Fanone, part of a group of officers seen here defending the west side of the Capitol.

FANONE: Push them back.

WILD: His body camera video obtained exclusively by CNN shows his perspective of the mob forcing its way into the building, a terror he described to CNN last month.

FANONE: You know what I saw in the tunnel, it was the most brutal combat imaginable. It was like I mean nothing I had ever seen outside of the movies.

WILD: The rioters then pushed Fanone into the crowd where he says he was hit by pipes and batons and even tased multiple times.

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

(SCREAMING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold it (ph). I got you. I got you.

(SCREAMING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't do this (ph) --

FANONE: I got kids.

(SCREAMING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let him through, let him through, let him through.

WILD: Fanone says he was knocked unconscious during the assault and also suffered a heart attack and concussion. And even with those calls and moves to protect him from some of the mob, Fanone sending this message to them just one week after the riot in January.

FANONE: A lot of people have asked me, you know, my thoughts on the individuals in the crowd that, you know, that helped me or tried to offer some assistance and I think kind of the conclusion I've come to is like, you know, thank you. But (explicit language) for being there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: Fanone slammed lawmakers for brushing over the reality of that day. He says he still leaves with the emotional trauma of January 6. Brianna, he is not alone in that.

KEILAR: It is traumatic to watch that video. I cannot imagine experiencing that. And he's clearly thinking, I'm not going to make it home to my children tonight. That's terrible.

WILD: I can't imagine the -- and you know I've talked about this a lot, but I think what you really need to remember is he's in law enforcement. He's going to go back to law enforcement. These cops live this every day. This is their reality. It's a memory that is not going to go away and unlike, you know, other, you know, some lawmakers who can leave the district, he's here.

These U.S. Capitol police officers, they're here. They don't get a break. They don't get to escape. And I think that that is the thing that I want viewers to remember when they're watching this video, is that this is a memory that will be with them forever.

KEILAR: It will define them. Whitney thank you so much, as always.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now former Republican Congressman Reid Ribble. He's one of more than 100 Republicans who are threatening to form a third party unless the GOP breaks away from the grasp of the former president. Congressman, I want to actually start though with what we just saw.

That just horrifying video of a D.C. police officer being beaten by the rioters and we saw it on the same day that some of your former colleagues went out and said this insurrection it didn't happen. There was no insurrection. They were like tourists strolling through the Capitol.

How can they say such a thing in the face of evidence like we just saw?

REID RIBBLE (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: It defies explanation John. I'm not sure how they can say it. The -- you have to deny what you actually see and what we just saw. And you must deny the truth. And this is part of the problem is that we've kind of entered this post truth era that we no longer want to accept truth.

Now in reality and if we want to be truthful about what happened on January 6 with -- was such a shocking and disappointing day in American history, there were -- there was a group of 400 or 500 really violent protesters that entered the Capitol. They did $30 million worth of damage. There were numerous injuries.

But there were also several thousand people that were there who really bought into a lie that President Trump had won the election when he hadn't. But they didn't -- they didn't break the law, they didn't enter the building, they -- they didn't do anything violent.

[07:05:00]

And so we had to keep it all in perspective. But what happened on January 6, was a -- was a turning point. And what you just saw in the video should never happen again.

BERMAN: And to see that video and hear those lies on the very same day that Liz Cheney is pushed out of her job. Really and pushed out of her job for refusing to lie. What does that tell you about the state of the party that you are now publicly considering leaving?

RIBBLE: Well, you know, the -- I think you have to separate a couple things here John. I mean on the Liz Cheney thing, the role of a conference chair is to provide the communication of what the House of Representatives -- the Republicans in the House want to put out there for a message.

And the members were saying, Liz, we don't want to just talk about President Trump. We want to talk about tomorrow. We want to talk about the future. We want to talk about our vision. And she didn't feel that they could go forward and talk about that yet until the dealt with what happened on January 6.

And so she wasn't the messenger that they wanted to have. But, what Liz was saying and I though her floor speech was powerful, was that we must build a future that's built on telling the American people the truth and understanding it.

And this coalition that we're beginning to form here is to try to push the party back to truthfulness and back to common sense. Call us a common sense coalition if you will. But if we make just about anti Donald Trump I don't think that will be very effective. And my premise would be we don't even talk about Donald Trump. We talk about tomorrow not about yesterday.

BERMAN: How do you know that there is an appetite for what you're trying to sell here? I mean, we talk about a split within the Republican Party. It's actually not much of a split.

It really does seem as if the base of the party has decided, they chose Donald Trump and what he's selling. Republicans in Congress have made crystal clear what they chose. They chose Donald Trump and what he's selling. So how can you succeed in what you're trying to do?

RIBBLE: Well, success you have to define it through the long lens. You can't define it based on what happens maybe in the midterms or even two years from now. This is a -- we have to take a long view on this, John, and say what could the country look like 10 years from now if we can collect all these voices of disaffected Americans who neither want the country to veer hard to the left or to veer toward populism and what President Trump did.

And there's a big group of Americans that are persuadable because the just want government to work again and they don't feel that it does work right. And so, everywhere I go people tell me that they would just -- they want the party to come back to a position of telling the truth. They wanted limited government. They'd like to have a -- the debt and deficit under control. They want the economy to work. They want safety and security in their homes. All those things which have been part of Republicanism for the better part of 150 years, they'd like a return to that.

And we'd like to see the party actually sit back and evaluate what happened last November. How in 48 months could they have been given the keys to all of government, White House, Senate and House of Representatives and then 48 months later lose all of them. And that means you've got to be willing to look in a mirror and see what happened and be honest with yourself about it.

BERMAN: Reid Ribble I appreciate you joining us. I also appreciate you making the case that sometimes truth is success no matter what else happens. I appreciate it and I look forward to continuing this discussion going forward.

RIBBLE: Thank you John.

BERMAN: Joining us now Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts. He serves on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and just yesterday was part of this hearing on Capitol Hill, Congressman, where we heard from these Republicans who despite the video we saw and I don't if you had a chance to see it, just horrifying stuff of a --

REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Yes.

BERMAN: -- Washington, D.C. police officer running for his life. I mean fearing for his life as he was beaten by the mob there. And your colleagues in this hearing that you were part of said, no, that didn't happen. There was no insurrection. These were tourists walking through the halls. What was it like to hear that?

LYNCH: Shameful. You know, there were the very same members of Congress who fled the Capitol. You know, the Vice President they were chanting, you know, hang Mike Pence. And the president sat back after he had instigated this and spoken to the crowd and told them to get up to the Capitol and fight for their country or they wouldn't have it anymore. They come out with a completely different narrative, complete lies. Beginning with the lie that Trump won the election and it is disgraceful.

[07:10:00]

It is disgraceful that the leaders on the Republican side, not my colleague Mr. Ribble, but others are painting this false narrative of what Trump did. They tried to disassociate the president from the attacks on the Capitol yesterday.

And then they tried to recharacterize those attacks themselves by pointing out that, you know, people didn't have firearms or something (ph). But they did have pipe bombs and they did, you know, as Mr. Ribble pointed out, caused $30 million worth of damage in the Capitol. So --

BERMAN: Just like tourists do.

LYNCH: -- it's just --

BERMAN: Yes (ph) --

LYNCH: -- it's disheartening to see Republican members spouting, you know, that lie.

BERMAN: Congressman, you had a heated exchange with the former Pentagon Chief Acting Defense Secretary Miller who in interviews before over the last several months has said that it was Donald Trump's language that provoked the crowd and was responsible for some of the violence that we saw.

In his prepared written testimony to your committee he said, I stand by the comments that I previously made. But he didn't say that out loud in his verbal testimony and that led to this exchange I want to play for people here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER MILLER, FORMER PENTAGON CHIEF ACTING DEFENSE SECRETARY: I have reassessed it's not the unitary factor at all. There was no -- it seems clear there was an organized conspiracy with assault elements.

LYNCH: And (ph) this morning you state the following about the president, quote, "I personally believe his comments encouraged the protesters that day." That was this morning.

MILLER: That's a fair statement.

LYNCH: So this is a -- this is a --

MILLER: There's a --

LYNCH: This is (ph) a very recent reversal of your testimony.

MILLER: Absolutely not. That's ridiculous.

LYNCH: You're ridiculous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What's ridiculous Congressman?

LYNCH: Well the new portrayal here of -- in his earlier statement before, his written statement was that without Trump's speech that day, on January 6, the marchers wouldn't have marched on the Capitol or overrun the Capitol.

So that was his earlier statement. And then as I pointed out in his written testimony yesterday morning he reiterated that. But when he got on the stand I think he felt the pressure from my Republican colleagues --

BERMAN: Yes.

LYNCH: -- to just reverse his testimony and repeat the lie and try to -- try to say that the president didn't have anything to do with the attack on the Capitol, which is just so far from the truth. It is ridiculous.

You know, the president -- when we interviewed the people who actually attacked the Capitol, go inside and, you know, attacked the police officers and destroyed a lot of the Capitol furnishings and all that --

BERMAN: Yes.

LYNCH: -- they said that they were called to the Capitol by the president. They were -- they were told to go up to the Capitol by the president. That's what they heard. And it, you know, given the statements of the president over the preceding weeks it's easy to see why they got that message.

BERMAN: Congressman Stephen Lynch we appreciate you being with us this morning. Thank you for your time sir.

LYNCH: Thank you John.

BERMAN: Brianna.

KEILAR: The truth is Republicans swerving hard to the right and then taking out anyone who doesn't swerve along with them is nothing really new. John Avalon has a reality check, including a now (ph) freshened (ph) bit of what Liz Cheney's father once did to Colin Powell. John?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right. With purge of Liz Cheney for telling the truth and the Republican rationalizations for demonizing her decent are part of a long pattern of caving to extremists for short-term political gain.

And at first this fight seemed to be between conservatives and centrists. But given that Liz Cheney is about conservative as you get we see this is about something more sinister and cynical.

Since at least the 1950s there been a strain called the paranoid style in American politics. Joe McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunts was early evidence. So was the unhinged right wing opposition to Republican President Eisenhower who was accused of the John Birch Society founder of being a secret Soviet agent. The conservative calls to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren for presiding over desegregation.

But the GOP had the ballast to withstand these attacks from within. Get this. Under Ike in 1956 Republicans won 39 percent of the Black vote. But in 1964 it fell to 6 percent. Here's why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARRY GOLDWATER (R), FORMER ARIZONA SENATOR: Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Yes, that's Mr. Conservative, Barry Goldwater. The 1964 nominee. The defender of Joe McCarthy, darling of the Birchers. Now he opposed the Civil Rights Act on allegedly libertarian grounds. His GOP opponent that year was New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller derided (ph) as a moderate and even an international socialist by some Goldwater supporters.

[07:15:00]

But Rockefeller said, look, I'm a hawk on foreign policy, a hawk on national defense, I'm a dove on domestic issues. You got two-thirds of me, what more do you want? Well, conservatives wanted all or nothing.

Rockefeller spoke at the convention in '64 condemning extremism. Said there was no room of hawkers of hate in the KKK. Like the KKK and GOP he was shouted down. Goldwater went on to lose in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson.

Now Reagan rode to victory a big tent, warning that 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy. But leaders like George H.W. Bush were attacked from the right by culture warriors like Newt Gingrich who wanted to purge moderates from the party.

The influence of right wing media amplified these divides.

Listen to this now ironic 2009 interview with former V.P. Dick Cheney choosing Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well if I had to choose in terms of a Republican I'd go with Rush Limbaugh. My take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still Republican.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: And the Tea Party was obsessed with what they called RINO Hunting, purging people they called Republicans in Name Only. Republican leaders like Eric Canter tried to harness their fury to pursue more power in Congress, but even he fell to a Tea Party primary challenger for the sin of seeming to back immigration reform.

So the lesson was clear, play to the base and you'll win your primary and tons of cash. Speak up and you'll be attacked from the right and lose your otherwise safe seat. Political cowardice proliferated as the party purge moderates.

Check this out, back in 1994 the GOP was basically 60/40 split between conservatives and moderates, as of 2020 only 24 percent of the GOP was moderate.

Now Trump wasn't a conservative but he did play the slash and burn, divide and conquer game and he proved popular with the base. And congressman fell in line, even former critics like Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Elise Stefanik.

Dissenters got purged, usually retreating from Trump-backed primary challenges, but you can't reason with a mob, as V.P. Mike Pence learned the hard way when he had to flee pro-Trump rioters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CHANTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Now the mask is off. This isn't about ideology. It's about fear-fueled conformity in the face of bigoted bullies and the rationalizations that leave Republicans to stay quite and have a short-term political self interest will end badly for anyone who ever dares step out of line.

Remember what Winston Churchill once said about appeasement, it's like feeding a crocodile hoping it eats you last.

And that's your Reality Check.

KEILAR: John thank you. This morning President Biden will deliver remarks on the cyber attack that has crippled the country's larges fuel pipeline. The Colonial Pipeline has resumed some of its operations after being shut down for nearly six days.

But operations warn it's still going to take several days for service to return to normal. And in the meantime that means the panic in the southeast is leading to massive lines and gas shortages. So let's talk about this now with Jeanette McGee who is AAA.

Jeanette thank you so much for being with us. I know we're talking about the southeast, but look, I hear friends here in Washington, D.C. who wondering if they need to go fill their cars up with gas as well. How long do you think its going to take for things to get back to normal with fuel supply?

JEANETTE MCGEE, AAA EXTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well the good news is the pipeline started, as you said, and we have relief that's coming. So if you're in the south or southeast and your gas tank is full or you have ample gas for the next few days do not go to the gas station and fill up.

The stations that are out of gas will be refueled in 48 to 72 hours. We just need a little bit of patients as the pipeline starts and fuel starts to flow and we get those -- we can get that fuel to stations throughout the southeast.

KEILAR: OK, so --

MCGEE: But we have experienced many stations, as you said, throughout the past few days that have been out of gas, which has caused panic buying a lot. We've seen stations run out gas a lot sooner than we had expected this week.

KEILAR: I mean, we're seeing -- we just saw a map, 74 percent of stations without gas in North Carolina. People are definitely making a run here and you're seeing prices increase too.

We've seen images of people hoarding containers of gas. Some have even been putting fuel in plastic bags in desperation. What contingency plan does AAA have in place here? I mean these are some bad ideas that we see people on our screen moving forward with.

MCGEE: Yes, things we wouldn't recommend doing. I think what's important to understand in this situation is we're not looking at gasoline shortage. What we're looking at is a transportation issue.

There's plenty of gasoline supply in the U.S. It's just a matter of getting from right now Texas or other refineries and the pipeline is to the south and southeast where its need the most. And that's what's happening with the restart of the pipeline.

So, you know, if -- again, if you've got gas in your vehicle and it can get you through the next few days there's no need to panic and you don't need to go the station. And for those that may be low fuel, just have a little bit of patience, that fuel is coming.

[07:20:00]

KEILAR: All right, we hope people are listening, Jeanette McGee with AAA. Appreciate it.

MCGEE: Yes. Have a good day. Thank you for having me. KEILAR: We have some brand new CNN reporting on a debate happening

inside the CDC over masks.

BERMAN: Plus nearly 100 people now dead, including children, as the violence intensifies between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants. Where does this conflict from here? We will take you there live.

And no sign yet of this Bengal tiger, a tiger missing after being seen in a Texas neighborhood. A tiger on the lam. The latest on the search ahead.

[07:20:40]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:24:45]

KEILAR: A Florida school board voting unanimously to make masks optional for all students immediately. Dozens of school districts are dropping the requirement as mask debates have become emotional and highly divisive nationwide. And CNN's Leyla Santiago has more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHAEL COLON, MOTHER SUPPORTING MASK MANDATE: It's a very easy way to prevent disease spread.

[07:25:00]

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This woman believes students should wear masks in school.

CYNTHIA LICHAROWICZ, MOM AGAINST MASK MANDATE: The flag is a symbol of freedom.

SANTIAGO: This woman doesn't. Both are parents of students at Santa Rosa County schools in the Florida panhandle. Cynthia Licharowicz tells us she believes she had COVID-19. Her father died after contracting the virus. But wearing masks, she says, should not be mandatory, even in school.

LICHAROWICZ: My rights don't end where your feelings begin. You can wear a mask if you want, we're not going to force you. You have a choice. It's not a law.

COLON: It's not about choice. Choice would be something like you chose to do something with your body that doesn't affect anybody else. But in this instance this decision to not wear a mask affects everybody around you.

SANTIAGO: Rachael Colon is a former healthcare worker whose daughter is at high risk. She's frustrated by the school board's decision last week to immediately end its mask mandate, a decision that came after impassioned demands from some parents but not the science to back it up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not going to be told how to breathe, what to wear, how to wear it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is doing psychological damage to our children and you all don't care.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're teaching our kids to keep their mouth shut, keep their feelings to themselves.

SANTIAGO: A school survey showed 40 percent of Santa Rosa County parents wanted the mask mandate removed, but a majority of employees, 53 percent, wanted to keep the masks at least until the end of this school year. Now schools across the country are reevaluating masks mandates.

In Alabama Lee County schools said no more masks last month. In Texas the Carol Independent school district will lift its mask mandate next month. Same thing for Blanchester school district in Ohio.

DR. LISA GWYNN, PRESIDENT FLORIDA CHAPTER OF AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS: We're not out of the woods yet. We're in -- on -- in the home stretch, but if we don't protect our most vulnerable it's going to continue to drag on. The right thing to do is to keep your masks on until everybody is vaccinated.

SANTIAGO: Dr. Lisa Gwynn is the President of the Florida chapter of American Academy of Pediatrics. Any mask, she says, will provide some protection.

GWYNN: There's 20 percent more of the overall cases are kids, that's higher than we've ever seen before. So the infection rates in kids are going to go up and we are going to see more complications. So do we want to take that risk with our kids.

SANTIAGO: CDC guidance indicates all schools should prioritize universal and correct use of masks and physical distancing. But two weeks ago in a public health advisory the Florida general surgeon said, continuing COVID-19 restrictions on individuals with no end in site, including long-term use of face coverings and withdrawal from social and recreational gatherings pose a risk of adverse and unintended consequences.

Colon says her daughter is now one of few students wearing a mask in her crowded school.

COLON: Politics have made mask wearing a Republican-Democrat thing instead of it being just a medical thing.

SANTIAGO: And on this both parents agree.

LICHAROWICZ: The mask is political. I don't care what anybody says. I feel it, I hear it, I see it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANTIAGO: And Brianna, we've heard from the CDC director just in the last 24 hours. She's saying she is hoping for a full return to in- person classrooms by the fall. KEILAR: It's such an important debate. Thank you so much for bringing it to us. Leyla Santiago in Miami, we appreciate it.

BERMAN: All right, CNN is reporting this morning that there's an internal debate inside the CDC over whether to loosen guidance on masks.

Joining us now is Dr. Jessica Shepherd the Chief Medical Officer of Verywell Health. Dr. Shepherd, I actually doubt there's a debate about whether to loosen restrictions inside school among unvaccinated students. That seems to be exactly where the CDC would say continue to wear masks.

The debate, I imagine is on other things, like outdoor mask wearing, indoor mask wearing among fully vaccinated people. It's a Goldilocks thing, you know, they don't want to be too hot, too cold, just right. What's just right?

DR. JESSICA SHEPHERD, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER VERYWELL HEALTH: That's a great question when we think of conservatism in mask wearing recommendations and how those change, we know that it's better to be conservative (inaudible) and then cast a broad net of who should be and who should not be wearing masks.

Just like you said, this is really a question of more of an indoor space, how many people are in this space, and again, the close contact. So when we think of schools that is exactly the setting that you would see these students in.

And again, you know, just as we've heard that the vaccination is now for 12 through 15 we still haven't even reached a population of even younger children who are going to be that school population that we're going to see in the fall.

BERMAN: Yes. Once you vaccinate 12 to 15-year-olds then talk about whether or not 12 to 15-year-olds need masks. One would think probably not. But younger than 12 for now when they're not vaccinated that's another matter.

I want to ask you about something that I think surprised a lot of people. I know when I heard it last night I went, really? So in Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is launching this?