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Inspector General: Security at Capitol Still Unclear; Liz Cheney: 'Outrageous' Republicans Voted Against Honoring Officers; Hero Officer: GOP Congressman Refused to Shake My Hand; FOX Host's Absurd Conspiracy that FBI Planned Attack; Biden's Worldview Crystallizes as He Pushes Democracy Abroad. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 17, 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, new evidence of the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol while Republicans step up attempts to whitewash the insurrection.

[05:59:00]

Plus, President Biden back in Washington and back to work, trying to push his domestic agenda across the finish line.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And an alarming staffing shortage in a critical U.S. Law enforcement agency.

Also, a surge in shop lifting in some major cities. Why thieves are getting more brazen.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Thursday, June 17. And this morning, the new twilight zone that some Republicans in Congress and some deranged entertainers are trying to create surrounding the Capitol insurrection.

A dangerous, deceitful, depraved twilight zone, one where they try to claim that what we know happened, what we saw happened, didn't actually happen. Moreover, they try to claim that the heroes who saved lives, maybe their lives do not deserve to be recognized as heroes or, in one case, even acknowledged at all. A twilight zone where they simultaneously say it didn't happen, but if it did happen, it was an inside job.

KEILAR: The echoes of what really happened on January 6, they're still coming to light here more than five months later.

Overnight, a judge released new videos of the insurrection in court cases against several defendants, including one accused of crushing a police officer. The FBI director admitting that hundreds more may face accountability, with investigations still ongoing.

A watchdog testifying that it's still unclear who's in charge of security at the Capitol, despite the unprecedented security breach just a few months ago. A FOX propaganda host parroting Russian talk points, now jumping on an

absurd, baseless conspiracy theory that the FBI was responsible for the attack. We'll have more on that in just a moment.

You are about to hear from one of the heroes of that day, an officer who was assaulted. He says a Republican congressman who compared the attack to a normal tourist visit refused to shake his hand last night.

BERMAN: Refused to shake his hand. A police officer's.

All right. We begin with CNN's Laura Jarrett, who's with me here.

Laura, I'm struck by one of the things Brianna just reported there, that during testimony yesterday, an inspector general said it's still not clear to him --

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

BERMAN: -- who is in charge of security at the Capitol?

JARRETT: It's been more than five months. Five months, and we still don't have answers about who's in charge.

And you would think that by now there would be some sort of consensus, at least about the facts. We know about the deficiencies. And you can't help but think that part of the reason why is because the GOP doesn't want to confront the reality of what happened here, right?

And so you have an independent watchdog, the inspector general, saying, Look, I've made 65 different recommendations about what should happen to beef up security. Those haven't been acted on yet.

We'll see what happens there. But he was asked by Senator Jon Ossoff about this situation involving security and who's in charge. So let's watch this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Who today, which individual, is ultimately responsible for the security of the United States Capitol?

MICHAEL BOLTON, CAPITOL POLICE INSPECTOR GENERAL: So that would be a difficult question, but if you try to pin it down, the best, you would say probably the Capitol Police board has probably the ultimate authority.

OSSOFF: I have to say, it's -- it is not reassuring to hear that there remains this basic ambiguity about responsibility, command, and accountability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: So he says it's hard to answer. It shouldn't be hard to answer.

BERMAN: It's not a trick question. JARRETT: It's not a trick question. But again, I think it's because

there's not a shared set of facts. And so there isn't accountability.

And it's almost as if we're in two parallel universes. Right? We have the FBI director and other top members of law enforcement, talking about white supremacy as a threat to domestic security. Christopher Wray is saying hundreds of potential suspects are being pursued.

And yet on the other side, we have a congressman who will not shake a police officer's hand who suffered a heart attack, and completely in denial about what -- what actually happened.

And I can't help but think, to take a step back, can you remember in our lifetime, a time when members of the GOP were so openly, publicly, and apologetically against police officers? Think about how long we heard about defund the police and using a cudgel against the Democrats. And now it's the Republicans saying, We can't talk about police officers. We can't even give them the gold medal.

BERMAN: Twenty-one voted against awarding a medal --

JARRETT: Yes.

BERMAN: -- to the Capitol Police officers who undoubtedly helped save their lives on January 6. And now Liz Cheney, who clearly has split from the main thrust of where her party in Congress is right now, Liz Cheney yesterday took issue with those 21. Listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): The police fought for us that day, they defended us. They, I'm sure, saved lives. They defended the Capitol. The idea that they wouldn't get a Congressional Gold Medal is just -- it's outrageous.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Should Kevin McCarthy do something about these members?

CHENEY: It's outrageous that they voted no on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It's outrageous that they voted no on it. Brianna and I talked a lot about this on air yesterday. But what are the justifications they give for voting against recognizing police officers?

JARRETT: They're pretty weak, and they're pretty free of facts. They're squabbling about the word "insurrection." But it's really a foil for what they really don't want to confront, which is the violence that day, right?

And I think since the November election, we go through this every time somebody says something outrageous, like Congressman Gosar, who doesn't have a lot of great relationship with the facts, shall we say. He's talking about Ashli Babbitt, the woman who climbed -- scaled the, you know, the wall, the broken glass. He's saying she was executed. He's saying the Capitol Police were laying in wait.

Every time this happens, we say, where's the bottom? I think the answer is there is no bottom. Right? I think the November election has -- the election has shown us this was fundamentally about power. It was a grab for power.

And I still am baffled as to why. Donald Trump lost by 7 million votes. What are they so afraid of?

[06:05:04]

BERMAN: You know, maybe if you were going to award people for their behavior during an insurrection, you have to acknowledge that it happened. Maybe that's the gap there. They don't want to admit it happened, so they can't give anyone any acknowledgement over anything that happened that day.

Laura Jarrett, great to have you.

JARRETT: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Thanks so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes. She said he has a bad relationship with the facts? I think he had a bad breakup with the facts, indeed, there, John Berman. Maybe even the facts that it's not me, it's you.

BERMAN: I don't know that they ever dated. I have to be honest.

KEILAR: Well, that's a very good point. Touche, John Berman.

John was talking about this outspoken D.C. police officer who was so badly injured during the January 6th insurrection. And he's speaking out again.

Officer Michael Fanone went to Congress on Wednesday, hoping to set up meetings with these 21 lawmakers who voted against Congressional gold medals for the officers who defended them. And he says he wasn't there to change minds but to educate. That's when Office Fanone says he encountered Congressman Andrew Clyde.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OFFICER MICHAEL FANONE, CAPITOL POLICE: I saw Congressman Clyde standing outside of an elevator. I was there with also Harry Dunn, who accompanied me throughout the Capitol. Went into the elevator. I told -- I, you know, greeted Congressman Clyde. I was very cordial. I extended my hand to shake his hand.

He just stared at me. I asked him if he was going to shake my hand. And he told me that he didn't know who I was. So I introduced myself. I said that I was Officer Michael Fanone, that I was a D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer who fought on January 6th to defend the Capitol, and as a result, I suffered a traumatic brain injury, as well as a heart attack after having been Tased numerous times at the base of my skull, as well as being severely beaten. At that point, the congressman turned away from me, pulled out his

cellphone, looked like he was attempting to pull up, like, an audio recording app on his phone and, again, like, never acknowledged me at any point.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, he ran as quickly as he could like a coward.

Obviously, like, I took that particular interaction, like, very personally, but I also took it as a representation of Andrew Clyde giving the middle finger to myself and every other member of the Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Capitol Police that responded that day.

I felt compelled to confront him, specifically because of the comments that he had made. You know, other congressmen who voted against the bill, you know, they had different reasons, whether it was language that was in the bill, but Congressman Clyde has made some pretty incendiary remarks downplaying the event. And to be honest with you, downplaying it is disingenuous. He just out and out lied.

And the reality is, like, at this point, if you're going to sling bullshit about January 6th, I'm going to call you out on it. And you're going to be held accountable.

Most of our interactions, again, it was just with staff members. The staff members were incredibly cordial. You know, they you know, wanted to assist us in, you know, in setting up meetings with members of Congress or with their representatives.

We did have one interaction with a representative, I believe, from -- from Montana. I can't remember his name. But his -- his chief of staff seemed like very uncomfortable at Harry and I's presence at their office. And I believe that stemmed from the fact that we were there just to discuss January 6th.

I mean, again, we were very cordial. Obviously, I knew that there was the potential for, you know, some degree of hostility just at my mere presence in their office. So I went about it, you know, with the perspective of killing people with kindness and trying to be overly polite, and, you know, I have no regrets about the interactions and my behavior that day.

I think some members, Andrew Clyde specifically and this particular chief of staff from the Montana representative's office, their behavior was pretty damn disgusting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: We will be speaking live with Officer Michael Fanone a little later this morning on NEW DAY.

BERMAN: Also new this morning, what one former congressman, a Republican, described to me as the new 9/11 trutherism, just as dangerous. Just as dishonest. Now, I often have reservations about playing the clearly deceitful propaganda spewed by certain entertainers, but this morning we are because of the warnings we're hearing that this is the beginning of a new effort to rewrite what happened on January 6th, even though it is wrong, and as you will hear from one of our analysts, impossibly wrong. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Look at the documents. The government calls those people unindicted co-conspirators. What does that mean? Well, it means that in potentially every single case, they were FBI operatives. Really?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:10:06]

BERMAN: He's saying that FBI operatives were somehow behind the insurrection.

Joining us now, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, a former state and federal prosecutor. Elie, to you this is simply impossible, right?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, John, and let me explain how.

So Tucker Carlson uses this phrase, "unindicted co-conspirator." And what he's trying to tell his audience is, gee, that must mean these people were working for the FBI. Undercover agents or informants. He's got it wrong. Here's why.

So the phrase "unindicted co-conspirator" is not something you can apply to someone working for the FBI, because a conspiracy is a meeting of the minds. It's an agreement between two people to commit a crime. However, if you're an FBI undercover, if you're an informant, you're not really part of a criminal agreement. You're pretending, for the sake of the investigation. So no prosecutor would ever use this phrase, "unindicted co-conspirator," to refer to somebody working for the FBI.

We do use this phrase all the time to refer to other things, to refer to people who are still being investigated who might be charged, to refer to people who have been arrested and then cooperated later. Different thing from what Carlson's talking about. Or to refer to people who we don't know exactly who they are yet.

So Tucker Carlson, all due respect to him, I've written a few more indictments than he has. He's got that dead wrong.

BERMAN: You have -- you never, in all your experience, referred to someone in the FBI as an unindicted co-conspirator?

HONIG: It is physically impossible. It is legally impossible.

BERMAN: You don't know anyone -- no prosecutor has ever done that, as far as you know?

HONIG: Correct.

BERMAN: All right. Now again, I don't think it is on us when Tucker Carlson says they faked the moon landing. I often think it's not on us to prove that the moon landing was real. However, I think it's important to lay out the facts here. So let's play a little more about what this entertainer said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: But wait. Here's the interesting thing. Person two and person three were organizers of the riot. The government knows who they are, but the government has not charged them. Why is that? You know why. They were almost certainly working for the FBI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Almost certainly working for the FBI, says that guy.

HONIG: They were almost certainly not. Now, there are other ways to use generic labels for people, like Carlson uses there, person one, Individual 1. By and large, those are used interchangeably with "unindicted co-conspirator." They can have broader meanings, as well. I'm going to give you a couple of examples.

First of all, we all remember the Michael Cohen case, when the U.S. Department of Justice said on record, in a filing, that "Cohen, as he has admitted with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of this" -- not-so-mysterious -- "Individual 1."

Who did that turn out to be? Of course, we know that turned out to be Donald Trump. Was Donald Trump working for the FBI? Of course not. This is how prosecutors use these terms.

I'll give you another example. Also in the Michael Cohen case, the Justice Department referred to a generic Client 3. Now, later, it came out in court papers that that Client 3 was Sean Hannity. I think he works with Tucker Carlson.

BERMAN: Was he working for the FBI?

HONIG: Exactly the point, right? Not working for the FBI. This is a common thing prosecutors do. Tucker Carlson is making absurd leaps of faith here, absurd assumptions that are just outlandish.

BERMAN: What are the facts behind what's in these documents?

HONIG: Yes, so let's be reminded. The document, the indictment that Tucker Carlson was talking about is an indictment of Oath Keepers for January 6th attack on the Capitol. Here are some of the actual facts, things that actual criminals said during and leading up to that riot.

"Trump said, it's going to be wild. It's going to be wild. He wants us to make it wild, and that's what he's saying. He called us all to the Capitol, and he wants us to make it wild. Sir, yes, sir."

Here's another actual fact from the indictment. "It begins for real January 5 and 6 in Washington, D.C., when we mobilize in the streets. Let them try to certify some crud on Capitol hill with a million or more patriots in the streets. This kettle is set to boil."

And, finally, John, this memorable piece of actual information, evidenced in the indictment. "They have morphed into pure evil, blatantly rigging an election and paying off the political caste. We must smite them now and drive them down." That's what the actual Oath Keepers charged in this indictment are saying. That's what we need to keep in mind.

BERMAN: Did Tucker bring this up last night?

HONIG: I don't think he did.

BERMAN: He's working hard. Poor Tucker is working so hard to suggest the insurrection didn't happen, or that these people weren't behind it. Makes you wonder why.

HONIG: Yes.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, thank you so much.

HONIG: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Brianna.

KEILAR: President Biden returning to Washington overnight after his first foreign trip. So did he succeed in his pledge to bring America back, as he put it, to the world stage?

Plus, a scary warning from the agency tasked with protecting federal judges and finding fugitives. What a major manpower shortage means for national security.

And a sharp rise in shoplifting in some of America's biggest cities. What is driving this?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:19:15]

BERMAN: President Biden back in the White House this morning, returning from the very busy first international trip, his as president, capped off by the high-stakes meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny live from Geneva.

So Jeff, first of all, how did you rig this so you were the one who got to stay behind in Geneva? Poor Jeff Zeleny gets to spend an extra day before beautiful Lake Geneva. This was a significant trip, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, I can say that Lake Geneva is open today. It was closed yesterday, which caused some consternation here among locals, because it was one of the hottest days so far of the summer.

But I can tell you the summit is still reverberating here in Europe. Of course, this was a capstone of the president's weeklong trip abroad. Judging the success will be largely up to President Putin, Mr. Biden said.

He said he's clear-eyed about the fact that it's not a kumbaya moment, but he also said it's in neither side's interest to have a new Cold War.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[06:20:12]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I did what I came to do.

ZELENY (voice-over): President Biden's debut on the world stage is now in the books after a summit with Vladimir Putin cracked open a door to the possibility of easing tensions with Russia.

BIDEN: The bottom line is I told President Putin that we need to have some basic rules of the road that we can all abide by.

ZELENY: The Biden worldview coming into sharper focus as he worked to repair frayed alliances across Europe and gave Putin an incentive to normalize his behavior.

BIDEN: We'll find out within the next six months to a year whether or not we actually have a strategic dialogue that matters.

ZELENY: From the G-7 in England to NATO and the E.U. summit in Brussels, the new Biden doctrine was on clear display. Confront China's rise and Russia's aggression. He defended his face-to-face meeting with Putin as essential.

BIDEN: It was important to meet in person so there can be no mistake about or misrepresentations about what I wanted to communicate.

ZELENY: After about three hours of closed-door discussions in Geneva, the ultimate outcome of the summit remains an open question, but the two leaders seemed to share at least a small measure of good will.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The talks were quite constructive.

BIDEN: It was just letting him know where I stood, what I thought we could accomplish together.

ZELENY: Some of the most pointed conversations came on cyber security, with Biden sending this warning against any Russian attack on critical infrastructures in the U.S.

BIDEN: I pointed out to him we have significant cyber capability, and he knows it. He doesn't know exactly what it is, but it's significant. And if, in fact, they violate these basic norms, we will respond.

ZELENY: Putin denied the Russian government targeted American assets, including recent cyberattacks on the gas supply, despite U.S. intelligence saying some hackers are based in that country.

PUTIN (through translator): As for American sources, they've said that most of the cyberattacks in the world are carried out from the cyber realm of the United States.

ZELENY: Biden also cautioned against what could happen if Alexei Navalny dies in prison, a name Putin refused to mention when questioned about the Russian opposition leader's fate.

BIDEN: I made it clear to him that I believe the consequences of that would be devastating for Russia.

ZELENY: The Russian leader also dismissed claims of human rights violations, trying to turn the tables by criticizing the United States. But for Biden, ignoring those issues is not a possibility.

BIDEN: Human rights is going to always be on the table, I told him. It's not about just going after Russia when they violate human rights. It's about who they are.

ZELENY: Despite their disagreements, the president said Wednesday's talk was a critical step toward trying to ease deep and dangerous tensions between the two nations.

BIDEN: We'll see what happens. You know, as that old expression goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We're going to know shortly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: Now, there was no drama like there was three years ago at the summit in Helsinki between President Putin and former President Donald Trump. There was no camaraderie either. But there was more signs of respect. Vladimir Putin called President Biden an experienced statesman.

The question now is, as President Biden sees it, for the next three to six months, even a year, will Vladimir Putin change his behavior? He believes it's in the self-interest of Russia to do so.

But the bottom line from all of this, does Vladimir Putin believe it's in his self-interest? He certainly has not done so for the past two decades or so as he's cycled through five American presidents.

BERMAN: President Biden says we'll know in the next six months to a year. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much for your reporting. Terrific work over there -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. So where are we now? Let's talk about the takeaways here from President Biden's first critical overseas trip with Evan Osnos, CNN contributor and author of the autobiography, "Joe Biden Biden: The Life, The Run, and What Matters Now." OK. So as you see it, is the U.S. and the Biden administration better

positioned after this summit?

EVAN OSNOS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It's not worse positioned. And look, let's be honest.

KEILAR: Is that a victor?

OSNOS: It is a victory in these circumstances. It's a modest victory. They would be the first to say it. Look, a lot of these kinds of summits are remembered for when they go haywire, when something goes wrong, when somebody says a comment that they later regret.

And I think what you saw over and over again was him being pretty measured about not wanting to make claims that he thought were going to come back and burn him.

He's been in this business a long time. He knows what it looks like to have a clip come back six months or a year later in which you're crowing about the great diplomatic achievement you had, and in fact, things are then, you know, falling apart.

So that's where he's sensitive. Let's not overstate what he's doing, is what he's trying to do. And that's a tough kind of calibration to get right.

KEILAR: So it's subtle, I think, a subtle victory. Right? That's not exactly "Woo!"

OSNOS: Right.

KEILAR: It's not sort of lighting things on fire, but perhaps that's to be expected.

Do you think that runs counter to sort of personally what Joe Biden would want to achieve or say to Vladimir Putin in a moment like we just had?

OSNOS: Yes. I think you hit on it, actually. There's a sort of tension here, right? Because on one level, he has always believed that, using the power of personal diplomacy, his own experience in foreign affairs, that he can kind of get in the room and bend the curve of history a little bit.

And then there is the reality. As he has said over the years, that he does not trust Vladimir Putin. I mean, I remember him talking about it back in 2014. When other people were thinking about Iraq and Syria, we really weren't talking about Putin that much. A couple years before he interfered in the presidential election.

Putin [SIC] was saying at that point, as vice president, in interviews with me and others, that we need to be worried about Vladimir Putin more than we are.

And so there's this -- you know, here he is now, having to, in a sense having, deal with Putin in this very personal way, trying to arrest the downward spiral of this relationship, but not by any means invest so much in it that you're pretending as if you can solve this overnight.

KEILAR: Do you think this does anything to force Russia to confront the things that I think now, just as regular Americans are seeing can affect their lives, these cyberattacks that are coming, you know, if not from the Russian government, they're coming from within Russia. Does this do anything to force Russia to confront that?

OSNOS: Here's what I think of this. It doesn't change their basic calculation. They do not trust the United States, and they will still continue do it. They're in an asymmetric relationship with us. They are the weaker power. They will use what these are.

These are the weapons of the weak. This is how you -- you attack a power that is larger and stronger and so on. That's not going to change.

What's different is that we have laid out in clear terms, sometimes with a smile, but in clear terms there will be consequences.

When -- when President Biden laid out those 16 areas of critical infrastructure that Russians cannot attack, somebody, a Russian specialist who is involved in prepping him for this, described it to me as the Don Corleone routine. Which is to say to the Russians, that's a nice little oil economy you've got here. It would be terrible if something happened to one of your pipelines.

That's a -- and you heard Putin afterwards say, look, that was not -- he didn't say, I felt threatened. But it was absolutely clear they are on record with one another, saying there will be an equal and opposite reaction if your actions continue.

And that was the goal of this -- of this sit-down. It was not to come out of there as friends. It was to come out of there with a clear understanding of the consequences.

KEILAR: Evan, we know you've been watching the last several days here very carefully. Thank you so much for being with us.

OSNOS: Pleasure.

KEILAR: Ahead, we're going to speak with Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's chief of staff as President Biden warns Vladimir Putin of, quote, "devastating consequences" if Navalny were to die in a Russian prison.

BERMAN: And the candidates hoping to lead America's biggest city face off in one final, crowded debate, with early voting already underway.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)