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TSA Reports Record Number of Americans Traveling over Memorial Day Weekend During Coronavirus Pandemic; Texas Democratic Lawmakers Asking President Biden For Federal Voting Law to Stop Restrictive Texas Voting Bill; Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn Denies Calling for Myanmar Style Military Coup in America; Biden Warns Democracy "In Peril" Amid GOP's Assault on Voting. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 01, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:07]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Tuesday, June 1st. And just in to CNN, another sign of life in the U.S. returning to normal for COVID-weary Americans.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Blockbuster NEW numbers from the TSA show just how huge a holiday weekend travel experience it was as the lockdowns were lifted. So let's get right to CNN's Pete Muntean live at Reagan National Airport. What do the numbers say, Pete?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This airport was a ghost town a year ago, John. And now the TSA says it screened 1.9 million people at airports across the country on Monday. Just compare that to where we were a year ago when the TSA screened only 350,000 people nationwide. The pandemic record set back on Friday when 1.96 million people flew. And all of this means that air travel just recorded the busiest five- day stretch of the pandemic, a total of 8.7 million people.

It's the kickoff for a rebound summer travel season for the airlines, one that they cannot wait for. Delta Airlines says flights will be operating at 90 percent capacity this summer, a thought unimaginable only a year ago. You know this story not just about air travel, though. AAA anticipated 37 million people would travel 50 miles or more over the holiday weekend, 34 million of them by car. Those numbers really not all that far off from where we were back in 2019, pre-pandemic.

People tell us they're excited for a bit of a return to normal. The one thing, though, still not normal, even if you're fully vaccinated, you still have to wear a mask on all public forms of transportation as mandated by the federal government -- planes, trains, buses, boats, also here in terminals.

BERMAN: Pete Muntean, thank you so much for this reporting, a sign of rebirth going on.

So this morning, quote, "Democracy itself is in peril," stark words from President Biden as he was marking a Memorial Day weekend, a weekend where many people were able to sit side by side with friends and family. For Texas Republicans they spent the weekend trying to pass one of the most restrictive voting laws in the country. Texas Democrats derailed that effort for now, but hours later, President Biden delivered this message to Americans to honor the fallen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: 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)

KEILAR: Texas is just the latest frontier in the voting rights fight that has been going on since the 2020 election, driven by Republicans. Fourteen states now have enacted 22 new laws that make it harder to vote according to the Brennan Center. In addition to those new laws, an additional 61 bills are advancing through 18 state legislatures around the country.

So what do these laws do? Most of them make it harder to vote absentee and by mail after a record number of Americans voted by mail in November. Some grant partisan poll-watchers greater powers. Some limit access to drop boxes where people drop off their votes. And the list just goes on. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has promised to bring back the voting legislation there during a special session. Texas Democrats are asking President Biden for backup.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TREY MARTINEZ FISCHER, (D) TEXAS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: We knew today that the eyes of the nation watching actions in Austin that we needed to send a message. And that message is very, very clear. Mr. President, we need a national response, federal voting rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now is David Chalian. He's our CNN political director, and he's also the host of a wonderful podcast called the "CNN Political Briefing." OK, so it's interesting, you talk to some Democrats and they say, yes, Joe Biden is doing what he needs to do when it comes to voting rights. But there you have it, you're hearing it from Texas Democrats who say this needs to be more elevated, more national. Is he doing enough?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: What you're seeing is sort of a patchwork state by state, which is why you see Democrats crying out for federal help. Now the president has endorsed and supported this bill that passed the House called HR-1 For the People Act, and it's Senate companion bill. Here's the problem -- the votes aren't there for it. Joe Biden has acknowledged that. This is not something that can be done through the budget rule reconciliation where you can do it with just Democrats only.

So there's only two approaches here. Get 10 Republicans on board, and it's like the top bill Republicans are opposing this cycle. So that's not going to happen. Or this is going to create the fight over the filibuster, and the call for many Democrats, especially in the progressive wing, for Democrats to band together in the Senate and bring an end to the legislative filibuster even if jus for this piece of legislation on voting rights because of how an important an issue they see it.

[08:05:11]

KEILAR: Let's talk about the filibuster, because we just spoke an hour or so ago with a couple of Democratic operatives, and one of them made the point that when Democrats are on the flipside of there not being a filibuster, yes, that will hurt, but she said they're definitely going to lose if they don't get rid of the filibuster. What do you think?

CHALIAN: Right, so you want to lose trying at least, right, if you are going to lose. But here's the thing, Joe Manchin has said plainly he's not going to do it. His vote is not there to end the filibuster. Without that, they don't have the votes to even do that. This is why it's going to be such an intraparty Democratic battle over the issue of voting rights. Chuck Schumer announced right before the Memorial Day recess that he's bringing up that voting rights bill, that federal voting rights bill that the Texas Democrats are looking for, the last week in June, the last week of this month's session.

That is going -- this is going to come to the fore in a pretty big way, and it may be the first time in the Biden presidency that we see a real battle among Democrats. I think one of the biggest surprises of the Biden presidency so far is how much infighting has been kept at bay, either because of the pandemic and the need to get that under control or getting the economic activity back in this country. So Joe Biden hasn't had to fight too many of his own party yet. This is now going to come to a head.

KEILAR: The commission vote on the January 6th commission was really interesting if you looked at the fine print to see who was a no-show. And one of the people who was is Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema. She's a moderate. And it seems difficult to get to the bottom of why she was a no-show.

CHALIAN: She also, by the way, with Joe Manchin, is not in favor of getting rid of the filibuster.

KEILAR: That's right.

CHALIAN: But the thing about Senator Sinema, as John Avlon noted in his Reality Check a little earlier, her spokesperson said she would have been a yes vote had she been there to vote. OK, but why wasn't she there to vote? Now, 11 people missed the vote, nine Republicans, two Democrats. Many of whom, CNN asked all of their offices why, and they put out reasons why. I don't think we've heard a reason yet why Senator Sinema missed the vote. Perhaps we have.

But the point is this -- if this is such an important issue, the very foundation of our democracy, and looking into what happened when our democracy was attacked like at no other time in our lifetimes, and how to prevent it from happening again, if that's such an important issue as the Democrats were making the case that it was, if you are not going to be there for the vote, you should probably get out and tell your constituents why you missed that vote, even if you're making your position clear.

KEILAR: That's right, because if that is a historic vote, and you look back on it decades later, and someone asks, where were you, or what was it like to be there on the floor during the vote and you say, I don't know, I wasn't there.

CHALIAN: Yes, that's not a good look.

KEILAR: It's not a good look.

David Chalian, wonderful to see you, as always.

CHALIAN: Great to see you, too, Brianna.

BERMAN: It gets to the question I've been asking, which is that if the president says democracy is in peril, are all Democrats acting like it, right?

KEILAR: Exactly. No, that's exactly right.

CHALIAN: Without a doubt, John. And by the way, I don't think the president is being hyperbolic. I do think so much of what we just take for granted in our democracy is at risk right now in many ways, or at least needs some coddling and attention and work right now. And so if you're going to miss the vote, you have got to explain why.

BERMAN: All right, David Chalian, great to see you.

So Michael Flynn, who was national security adviser at the beginning of the Trump administration, that's an important job, is now backtracking on a statement he made appearing to endorse a Myanmar- style coup in the United States. That would be a military coup in the United States. For months, QAnon and Trump-supporting online forums had been celebrating the deadly coup in which the military there overthrew a democratically elected government and called for the U.S. military to do the same.

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan live in Las Vegas with much more on this. Go ahead, Donie.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Hey, John. Yes, pretty surreal stuff. Flynn made these comments at what was essentially a QAnon conference that took place in Dallas over the holiday weekend. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No reason. I mean, it should happen. No reason. O'SULLIVAN: A former U.S. Army lieutenant general and former national

security adviser appearing to endorse a military coup here in the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump won. He won the popular vote and he won the Electoral College vote.

O'SULLIVAN: Michael Flynn spent Memorial weekend at a conference in Dallas attended by QAnon supporters. So, too, did Sidney Powell, who was part of the former president's election legal team.

[08:10:04]

Powell, who has represented Flynn, said Monday that the media had grossly distorted Flynn's comments. She denied Flynn had encouraged violence or a military insurrection, but she didn't explain what Flynn had meant. Powell herself spoke of removing Biden from office over the weekend.

SIDNEY POWELL, ATTORNEY WHO CHALLENGED 2020 ELECTION RESULTS: We're definitely in unchartered territory. There are cases where elections have been overturned, but there's never been one at the presidential level, which everybody will jump to point out. That doesn't mean that it can't be done, though. It should be that he can simply be reinstated, that a new inauguration date is set.

(APPLAUSE)

POWELL: And Biden is told to move out of the White House. And President Trump should be moved back in.

O'SULLIVAN: The heavily criticized Republican led audit in Arizona has given followers of QAnon and the big lie hope that the election could still be overturned. And some are finding inspiration in the deadly military coup in Myanmar as a way to put Trump back in power. Flynn's comments were seen as an endorsement of a coup by some QAnon followers. They were welcomed overnight by a prominent peddler of QAnon who has more than 70,000 followers on Telegram, writing, "General Flynn says the quiet part out loud." Earlier this year, Trump supporters in California also cheered on the coup.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Biden is just -- he's like a puppet president. The military is in charge. It's going to be like Myanmar, what's happening in Myanmar. The military is doing their own investigation, and at the right time, they're going to be restoring the public with Trump as president.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The government took over. They're redoing the election, correct? That could possibly happen here, possibly.

O'SULLIVAN: Would you like to see it happen?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would like to see it happen.

O'SULLIVAN: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know why? Because the election was stolen from us.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): And Flynn yesterday coming out and saying that his words have been twisted, that he was not, in fact, calling for a coup and that he would never do such a thing. But look, these claims, this talk of a coup is something that has been floating around the QAnon and conspiracy theory world that Flynn and Sidney Powell have lived in for quite some time.

BERMAN: Donie, I think that's the most important thing that you pointed out in the piece and just pointed out again here. Michael Flynn denies that he was endorsing a military coup in the United States the likes of which we've seen in Myanmar. But it's not like this was in a vacuum. It's not like this discussion was in a vacuum. These references to Myanmar have been happening in certain circles for months now. How prevalent is it?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, look, I spent a lot of time reading pro-Trump and QAnon forums online, and speaking to Trump supporters around the country. We hear a lot of conspiracy theories, whether it's about vaccines or about the election. But I will say this talk from Americans who are cheering on and wanting to see a military coup in this country, it's certainly the most chilling, most striking and most surreal thing I think I hear out there on the road.

KEILAR: And I think we need to really be clear about what has happened, what is happening in Myanmar which is -- this is a military that is incredibly politicized. It is siloed from the rest of society. And report -- we know that members of the Myanmar military have been kidnapping members of the population. There are reports that they have been using snipers to kill children. This is -- this is terrible. It's heartbreaking what is happening there. And yet you have -- I don't know how Michael Flynn, Donie, backpedals from that. He said "that's right" when he was responding to this person.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, and as you describe, Brianna, what is part of a coup, for some Americans, for some Trump supporters, this would all be justified in the United States because they believe the election was stolen. And so this is where it really all goes back to that big lie that the former president is peddling, that senior Republicans are peddling. And it also just highlights, I guess, how dangerous all of this.

I should also point out that QAnon followers are absolutely obsessed with the idea of the military stepping in in some way. You'll remember even on Inauguration Day, they were hoping that Biden's inauguration would be thwarted because Trump would declare martial law and the military would step in. So oftentimes we see this sort of crazy rhetoric online, but as we know with January 6th, sometimes this rhetoric translates into action. BERMAN: You know, we hear it out loud. Donie O'Sullivan, important

reporting, terrifying, but so important. Thank you.

O'SULLIVAN: Thanks, guys.

[08:15:01]

BERMAN: On the subject of lies, team Trump's lie about not tear gassing peaceful protesters just fell apart all over again.

KEILAR: Plus, Naomi Osaka's sudden withdrawal from the French Open. How it's raising questions well beyond the world of sports.

And dramatic video just released of the masked gunman behind a mass shooting in Florida. The one big piece of evidence that just turned up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Today marks one year since Donald Trump's infamous photo op at St. John's Church at the height of the nationwide George Floyd protests. Further proof that one of his biggest lies about that day does not pass the smell test. The D.C. police finally admitting that law enforcement used tear gas that day against peaceful protesters. You'll recall that June day last year police cleared demonstrators from Lafayette Square so that Trump could walk over, hold up a Bible in front of the church that had been damaged the night before and say cheese.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIANN BUDDE, BISHOP, THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF WASHINGTON: It didn't seem to be an expression of faith or of solidarity with faith. It seemed to be, as we've said before, an opportunity to clothe himself in the mantel of spiritual symbols and locations to, in some way, bolster or reinforce his own authority and message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:20:03]

KEILAR: Now, after the photo-op, Trump and his allies insisted that no one was tear-gassed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: The White House, the president and his team had to do it all over again, would you have gassed and pummeled protesters to clear the park so the president could have a photo op?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: So, let me first address, no tear gas was used and no rubber bullets. No tear gas was used. No rubber bullets were used.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) were used.

MCENANY: So, again, no tear gas was used. No rubber bullets were used.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The president himself pushed the lie.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: They didn't use tear gas. So much fake news. Most news is fake. They are corrupt and they're fake.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: Those comments on Fox, where he had backup.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was never any tear gas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So they threw some smoke bombs out and pushed them back. Wow. Armageddon, really?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now Trump's campaign doubled down. They said, quote, it said that a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on. This tear gas lie is proof of that.

Tim Murtaugh, the spokesman, would go on saying, quote, for nearly an entire day, the whole of the press corps frantically reported the news of a tear gas attack on peaceful protesters with no evidence to support such claims.

Except there was evidence. There was lots of it. Tear gas is pretty unmistakable. It hurts. It burns. Your eyes and your nose and your lungs won't deceive you on this one, and my colleague who was there in the crowd at the time, CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt said this said, this "no tear gas" angle is ridiculous. I was in the middle of the crowd coughing up a lung. All sorts of projectiles were being fired at a peaceful crowd.

And Alex went on, quote, this was 25 minutes before the curfew. There was no obvious warning to protesters to leave.

And then there were the pictures where you can see the aftermath of a tear gas attack and there were witnesses under oath like a major in the D.C. National Guard who was there who said this before Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJOR ADAM DEMARCO, U.S. ARMY NATIONAL GUARD: I could feel irritation in my eyes and nose. Based off my previous exposure to tear gas in training, I recognized that irritation as effects consistent with CS or tear gas. And later that event, I found spent tear gas canisters on the street nearby.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Major Adam DeMarco served as the liaison between the National Guard and park police. He called the use of force there deeply disturbing. But Trump's campaign tried to stretch the definition of tear gas and downplayed the were measures used, again, against peaceful protesters.

Quote, but the campaign said is completely consistent with what the park police is saying. There was no tear gas used. The media is trying to widen the definition of tear gas to make their own original reporting seem accurate. Except it was tear gas by the federal government's own definition of tear gas.

The CDC defines tear gas as riot control agents and chemical compounds that temperature rarely make people unable to function by causing irritation to the eyes, mouth, throat, lungs and skin.

So fast forward to now, a year after Trump stood in front of St. John's Church and the attorney for the D.C. police is finally admitting the obvious for the first time that officers did use tear gas on protesters while defending their actions, that's how this came out, against lawsuits by protesters and the ACLU.

This is what the attorneys said. The curfew violence of past nights, chaos created by federal defendants, discharge of tear gas in that direction was not unreasonable. And the attorney claimed that officers did not target specific protesters. Apparently, tear gassing a peaceful crowd indiscriminately is actually a defense. Though at the time even the Trump campaign knew it wasn't as a spokesman demanded every news organization which reported the tear gas lie should immediately correct or retract its erroneous reporting.

It has been a year, and finally, an answer that you can't just dismiss. To quote former Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh who is actually quoting a made-up quote when he said it according to "The New York Times", it said a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on.

President Trump and his allies were certainly banking on that. They were dressed and out the door with their lie. Tear gas lighting at its worst.

BERMAN: The only pants here are on fire. I think --

KEILAR: Exactly.

BERMAN: All right. A key piece of evidence just surfaced in the manhunt for three masked suspects in Florida. Will it help solve a mass shooting?

KEILAR: And the Texas Democrats who took a stand in the war on voting. One of them will join us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:41] BERMAN: President Biden warning that the Republican assault on voting puts American democracy in peril. It comes as the Texas governor is threatening to veto funds for the legislative branch after Democrats walked off the House floor Sunday blocking a restrictive voting bill.

Joining us now is Texas State Representative Jessica Gonzalez, one of the Democrats who staged a walkout to block that bill.

Governor Abbott is going to veto funding for your branch. How do you feel about that?

STATE REP. JESSICA GONZALEZ (D), TEXAS: Well, that was -- that kind of came as a shock, you know, that that would be his response. We were hoping that, you know, this -- the outcome, what happened in the Texas House and when Democrats chose to break quorum (AUDIO GAP) for a conversation that was not had in the Texas House with regards to this sweeping bill.

BERMAN: So Governor Abbott says he will schedule a special session to work on this bill and presumably, the Republicans, they have the votes. They have the governor. They can make this law.

What more can you do to stop it?

GONZALEZ: I mean, well, you know, the entire process in the Texas House with this massive voting bill, you know, it is -- it was one of the governor's emergency items, and we knew that. But it was shoved down our throats. These negotiations occurred behind closed doors.

And ultimately, at the 11th hour, on the 139th day of the 148th day of our legislative.

[08:30:00]