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Armed Militia Group Shuts Down Highway in Roadside Standoff; Biden Pleads with Americans to Get Vaccinated as Variant Surges; Search and Rescue Operations Continue in Rubble of Collapsed Building in Surfside, Florida; Former President Trump Speaks about Charges against Trump Organization at Political Rally. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 05, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Brianna Keilar alongside John Avlon on this NEW DAY. And the search has just resumed for victims of the Surfside condo collapse after the still-standing tower was demolished overnight.

Plus, a tense standoff on Interstate 95 between police and a heavily armed militia group.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: And former President Trump essentially admitting to tax crimes, but claims it's not illegal. New York Prosecutors might feel differently.

And just in, a new reporting on a 911 call from Britney Spears just hours before her emotional testimony in court.

KEILAR: A very good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Monday, July 5th. And the search and rescue operation at the collapsed condo site in Surfside, Florida, has resumed just hours after the rest of the Champlain Towers South building was demolished.

Demolition specialists began laying explosives in the remaining structure on Sunday afternoon. And it was really this threat of tropical storm Elsa looming that had engineers and rescue crews worried about the safety of the search operation.

AVLON: And ahead of the demolition at the south tower, the condominium board for Champlain Towers East suggested residents evacuate. The mayor of Surfside is insisting there's still a search and rescue operation even though nobody has been found alive for well over a week. So far, 24 people have been found dead, 121 others remain unaccounted for.

Joining me now is Colonel Golan Vach, an Israeli Defense Force commander who is leading the Israeli rescue team in Surfside, Florida. Colonel, thank you much for joining us on NEW DAY. On Sunday, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said this remains a rescue effort. Do you agree?

COL. GOLAN VACH, LEADING THE IDF NATIONAL RESCUE DELEGATION: I think that as long as the determination of this phase is search and rescue it will remain like that. And when it remains -- and when the declaration is moving to phase of recovery, it will move to recovery. Right now, we are working onsite in light equipment. But we use heavy machinery, too, as I said, two days ago, to expose the perimeter, to enable the rescuers to find out some new voids. So, this is the way we are looking for right now.

AVLON: And how does this demolition affect the search and rescue efforts? How does it open then up?

VACH: This demolition affects in a way that we are -- we have to work several directions. We have to search from above, from beyond, from the sides, because we're fighting against the clock. Each day that passes reduces the chances to find somebody alive. And of course, it affects the people that remain onsite. So, because of this kind of demolition, we have to go to work very fast.

AVLON: And your team has been tireless working around the clock with other first responders. But the search efforts had to pause since Saturday in preparation for the demolition. So what have the last few days of delay been like for you and your rescue team?

VACH: I can assure you that we didn't rest. We updated our plans. Here our team and with our fellows in Israel, and we our colleagues here, the firefighters, commanders, and we have updated all the last location of people that we found. We erased them from the list. And we accurate all the last positions of the people that we have questioned. And right now we have a precise and accurate plan to continue in these searching efforts.

AVLON: And what have you found in the rubble over the past few days?

VACH: We found life of people, not by life by living people. Life we saw all what makes life. We saw furniture, we saw people, we saw furniture, we saw toys. And we are looking for the people, of course.

BERMAN: It's just these horrifying reminders of what we're facing.

[08:05:00]

I understand, colonel, we all want to keep hope alive. But in your experience in these search and rescue efforts that involve this kind of compression, how long, in your experience, have people able to survive under debris? Because it's been 11 days, of course, since the collapse.

VACH: You're right. I said to the families two days ago that chances to find somebody alive is close to zero. We're realistic, but we're still full of hope. This hope keeps us very active, and we scale-up each day. We wake up in the morning, if we have slept at all, with a lot of energy to find -- to find the loved ones alive or not alive.

AVLON: Colonel Golan Vach, thank you very much.

VACH: Thank you.

KEILAR: It's very heartbreaking, certainly, for family members to hear that.

Former President Trump at a rally in Florida this weekend appeared to acknowledge the existence of tax schemes that the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer are charged with while denying that they are crimes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: They go after good, hardworking people for not paying taxes on a company car. Company car. You didn't pay tax on the car. Or a company apartment. You used an apartment because you need an apartment, because you have to travel too far where your house is. You didn't pay tax. Or education for your grandchildren. I don't even know -- do you have to -- does anybody know the answer to that stuff?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Trump telling the crowd that every crowd does, quote, fringe benefits, and mocking New York prosecutors for pursuing the charges. And of course, this is not the first time that Trump and his associates have seemingly admitted wrongdoing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We're supporting a country. We want to make sure that country is honest. It's very important to talk about corruption. If you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you that think is corrupt?

MICK MULVANEY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ACTING CHIEF OF STAFF: This is a corrupt place. I don't want to send a bunch of money and have them waste it, have them spend it, have them use it to line their own pockets. Did he also mention in the past the corruption that related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that. But that's it, that's why we held up the money.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you just described is a quid pro quo. It is funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server happened as well.

MULVANEY: We do that all the time with foreign policy.

I have news for everybody -- get over it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: Of course, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You just said you didn't.

GIULIANI: And you want to cover some ridiculous charge that I urged the Ukrainian government to investigate corruption. Well, I did, and I'm proud of it.

Having something to do with pay something Stormy Daniels woman $130,000, which is going to turn out to be perfectly legal. That money was not campaign money. Sorry, I'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. It's not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. So --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They funneled it through a law firm?

GIULIANI: Funneled through a law firm, and the president repaid it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Let's talk now with political analyst Maggie Haberman, she's a Washington correspondent for "The New York Times." Maggie, we see this pattern of the president self-owning things, admitting in this case, essentially, the merits of the case, even as he downplays them. Why does he do this?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So Brianna, I think former President Trump has a very long history of conflating legal issues with public relations issues, right. And basically that tape you just showed, some of which related to the Stormy Daniels payment which was made by Michael Cohen, the president's former fixer and lawyer, some of which was related to the impeachment investigation, the first one into the former president, and some of it obviously is from this weekend. All of those, if you take them together, it's yes, I'm just going to repeat the charges out loud and say there's nothing wrong with it, say that everybody does it.

The difference here, A, an indictment has been filed. In the case of the campaign finance charges, former President Trump was not facing charges of his own. That was Michael Cohen. In the case of impeachment, that was impeachment. That was not an legal proceeding. This is a legal proceed. It's not just Allen Weisselberg, the CFO of the Trump Organization has been charged with crimes, but so has the Trump Organization. And so now you have the former president sticking to this traditional playbook of his, which is I'm going to talk about it out in the open. Hhe's still under investigation, and he no longer has a shield of prosecution.

Now, he may never get charged, but what he's doing, which is saying these are things that everyone does and these are fringe benefits, prosecutors are saying these are not fringe benefits. These were compensation, and these were not taxed. So what he has just done is basically acknowledge that, yes, he was making these payments. He's trying to argue they were for something else.

[08:10:03]

But most lawyers would tell somebody connected to a case like this, the less you say, the better. That's just never his style. He's always believes he's going to convince someone. He's taking a risky gamble right now.

AVLON: As you pointed out, he's no longer a sitting president, so he's not shielded from prosecution. His lawyers might be going crazy as he replays this P.R. book. But does he understand that his comments have real legal consequences potentially in a way they didn't before? HABERMAN: Look, he has been told all of this. And it's not that he

doesn't understand, it's just that he continues to believe that he is the person who is going to be able to explain it better. The problem is that he is dealing with a New York case in Manhattan. There is going to be, if this goes to trial, there will be a jury. There will be a jury that will likely be less predisposed so see things his way then, say, Republican Senators in an impeach trial.

So it's not, I don't think, John, that he doesn't have cognition of it. It's just that in his mind, he is his own best fighter. And again, when you spend however many years now that he's been doing some version of this, 50 almost, where you are basically conflating a legal issue with a public relations issue and a press issue, he is convinced this will be no different. And we'll see where it goes.

KEILAR: And these charges, they have to do with the Trump Organization and his top money man, which obviously hits close to home. But it's not him. There is part of the indictment, Maggie, that mentions other people who are not indicted, at least not yet, who received these, quote/unquote, fringe benefits, which are actually income that should have been taxed. I wonder how concerned do you think Donald Trump is for himself, and also for his family members, who possibly could be those other folks who received benefit?

HABERMAN: Oh, I think, very, Brianna. There was enormous concern that a month ago, three weeks ago, among people around the former president, among his lawyers, among some of his advisers that possibly his children were going to be targets. Now, there's no reporting to support that, but they're basically looking down the line who the D.A. might try to put pressure on to testify against the former president. And that's where it went.

Again, there's nothing in the reporting to suggest that's the case, but that is how they are viewing it. And I think it says a lot about the mindset. Look, what prosecutors are clearly looking to do is apply pressure to Allen Weisselberg. Allen Weisselberg has given no signal that he's going to cooperate. But it does appear -- and again, I'm saying appear, because they don't know what else they have yet, right, and they obviously did a lot of court work to try to get hold of thousands of pages, millions of pages of documents related to Donald Trump's finances. But what they're trying to do is get a witness who can testify to some of this, to talk about intent, to talk about motive, to talk about why certain things were the way they were.

As far as we know, they don't have that yet. And if they don't have that, it is better for Donald Trump it seems. But again, we don't know what they're aware of in terms of the cache of their information, and we'll just have to see. The former president is obviously very worried. If he weren't worried, he wouldn't be talking about it at a political rally.

KEILAR: That is a very good point, Maggie Haberman, great to see you, thanks.

HABERMAN: Thanks, guys. KEILAR: Coming up, President Biden narrowly missing his goal of vaccinating 70 percent of adults by July 4th. Hear his message as cases are actually spiking in some parts of the country.

AVLON: Also ahead, an armed milt group arrested after an hours long standoff with police. Will we be seeing more of these types of dangerous encounters?

KEILAR: And what Britney Spears did just hours before her emotional testimony in her conservatorship case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:28]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: An armed militia group shut down a Massachusetts highway in a roadside standoff over the weekend, authorities charging 11 men involved in what began as a traffic stop and then escalated into a nine-hour encounter, really a standoff with police.

The men were heavily armed, they were wearing military style uniforms, and apparently live streaming the entire situation, and these men appear to belong to what is called Rise of the Moors. It seems to be connected to the Moorish Sovereignty Movement that believes among other things, an 18th Century Treaty between the U.S. and Morocco grants them special rights.

They indicated that they were traveling from Rhode Island for training -- this is according to police. But fortunately here, nobody was hurt.

Let's talk about this with former F.B.I. Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok.

Okay, Peter, I mean this -- I think, this group, at least this particular one, comes as a surprise to a lot of people who watch extremist groups. Was this on the radar at all?

PETER STRZOK, FORMER F.B.I. DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: I don't think this particular group was.

Clearly, there are a group of more sovereign citizens that have come up into law enforcement and Federal law enforcement's attention in the past. In 2017, there was an ambush outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana that killed three police officers. And then in 2016, a year earlier, you had a different Moore sovereign citizen group that killed a law enforcement officer in Orlando.

KEILAR: Okay, so there's little data points here, but this is obviously in a different area. One of the things that they said, or they say is that they're not subject to U.S. law. They just are alleging that they are not subject to U.S. law, which is incredibly concerning, if that is something that a lot more people believe to be true, say to be true, act as if it is true.

STRZOK: Well, that is absolutely right. I think, in a lot of these cases, what that translates to is a lot of people who don't want to pay taxes. And so they take on this -- the sovereign identity to say I'm not subject to U.S. taxation or needing to be licensed. But at the end of the day, there is that grain of the sense that I am not subject to any sort of U.S. authority. That is, we are seeing more and more resonance not only in these splinter groups, but increasingly in some of the mainstream protestors that we're watching around the nation.

KEILAR: So, put that in the bigger context for us, not just in this group, which obviously is capturing a lot of attention because of this bizarre standoff. How big of a threat is this ideology rejection of government among extremist groups broadly?

[08:20:00]

STRZOK: I think it's increasingly important and increasingly concerning. You see in elements of QAnon, you see in a lot of elements on the right, all the big lie, right, protesting that the 2020 election was not legitimate and you see this creeping sense that people are questioning not only whether or not the 2020 vote was legitimate, but whether in fact, the government now as it exists is.

And when you see people who are on the fringes, who are armed heavily like this particular group, and others, where when you mix those two things together, the prospect of violence is very real, and I think it's increasing.

KEILAR: It is incredibly alarming when you describe it that way. There's also something else that we have been tracking that is incredibly alarming, and that is that you had about 200 members of the organization, the Patriot Front that was marching on the streets of downtown Philadelphia. These are the images that were captured here on Saturday night as they chanted that the election was stolen, and they were chanting reclaim America.

What do we know about this group? And how concerned should we be that something like this is now rolling through the streets of Philly?

STRZOK: Well, the concerning thing about this group, it was created in the aftermath of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in Virginia. And let's remember, this is the group and the protest where President Trump said there were good people on both sides.

So, when you see a group like this, which is clearly a white supremacist, fascist, etiology-inspired organization that's being endorsed at least tacitly by the former President of the United States, that's giving it a legitimacy in the eyes of a lot of Americans that one, it doesn't deserve, and two, it allows it to go out, gain members, have sympathy within the broader U.S. public and it's a real issue.

KEILAR: Yes, and encourages them to very much be out about what they are doing. Peter, thank you so much.

STRZOK: Great. Thank you.

KEILAR: New coronavirus cases are surging as the delta variant spreads. Unvaccinated pockets of the country are extremely vulnerable to this. We'll be looking at the latest.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Plus three siblings are among the youngest to participate in a global vaccine trial. We talk to the parents, both doctors, about why they decided to have all their kids participate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:58]

AVLON: President Biden celebrating Independence Day and the country's emergence from its pandemic nightmare. He hosted a big party at the White House, Sunday, about a thousand people, putting military families and workers involved in the COVID-19 response gathered on the South Lawn of the White House to watch the fireworks display the National Mall.

Earlier, the President touted the progress fighting coronavirus and said getting vaccinated is the most patriotic thing Americans can do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Two hundred and forty five years ago, we declared our independence from a distant King. Today, we're closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus. That's not to say the battle against COVID-19 is over, we've got a lot more work to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Now, the U.S. did fall short of President Biden's goal to vaccinate 70 percent of adults by July 4th. As of now 67.1 percent of the adult population in the U.S. has received at least one vaccine dose, 58 percent of American adults are fully vaccinated.

Still, coronavirus cases are rising in 19 states as the delta variant spreads across the U.S. south, southwest and Midwest, which are places starting to see surges.

So, let's bring in CNN senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen for more. Elizabeth, what are you seeing?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: John, we just saw that map way more red than we want to be seeing. And really in the past couple of weeks, we haven't seen that much red, and that is because of two things. One, the delta variant and two, we just don't have as many vaccinated people as we should have.

You see those states there in red, that is where you're seeing rises in cases. So, let's take a look at that vaccination rate. Actually, let's take a look at the deaths in June. The deaths -- the vaccination rate first.

All right, so 90 -- I'm sorry, the deaths -- sorry, I keep going back and forth. Let's take a look at these deaths. So 99.2 percent of the people who died of COVID-19 in June, they are not vaccinated, 0.8 percent of the people who died of COVID in June were vaccinated.

You do not need to be a mathematical genius to figure out that if you get vaccinated, you are protecting yourself. Choose life. Why would you want to choose death? I completely don't understand this. That number tells you everything you need to know.

Now, let's take a look at the numbers of vaccinated and unvaccinated people in the U.S. You just talked about it, but it bears repeating. So, 67 percent of Americans have had at least one shot. That means that a third of Americans have chosen not to be vaccinated, I say chosen because it's free and it is widely available even in some of the most remote areas of the United States. Fifty eight percent of Americans are fully vaccinated.

But again, the bottom line here is that a third of Americans have chosen not to get vaccinated. They are choosing to put themselves at risk of dying, and really in some ways you could say well, that's their choice. They're also choosing to hurt other people. It's a deliberate choice -- John.

AVLON: That's right. I mean, this is the freedom to infect others coalition, but we're heading into apparently the self-inflicted stage of the pandemic.

COHEN: Exactly.

AVLON: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much, as always.

KEILAR: Three Louisiana siblings are among the youngest participants in the global clinical trials for the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. This is six-year-old Ellie Bui receiving her second shot last week, three- year-old, Christian and 14-month-old Sloan got their first shots a few weeks ago.

And joining us now to discuss this are their parents, Dr. CJ Bui and Dr. Erin Biro who decided that they were going to enroll their children in these clinical trials.

Thank you so much to both of you and look, the truth is that for what your kids are doing, this is what kids all across the country are relying on when they go eventually to be vaccinated here in the coming months.

You know, dad, can you to speak to your decision, both of you about why this was something you wanted to do?

[08:30:08]