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Self-Described Constitutionalists Target Republican County; Inflation Stays Near Record High; John Avlon is Interviewed about his New Book on Lincoln. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 15, 2022 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:33:08]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: In a conservative northern California community, there have been threats made against politicians. Outrage over Covid vaccines and mask mandates. All of that adds up to the likely removal of a long-time Republican county supervisor who critics say is not Republican enough. This is the same place where nearly 63 percent of voters backed the former president in the 2020 election. A red county in a very blue state. And now the county is poised to be led by ultra conservatives backed by some in the community with ties to militias.

Kyung Lah is joining us now.

Kyung, tell us about this community and what you've seen.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, this is something that we've seen really across the country as we're emerging from the pandemic. Some of this rage from your school board to your city council. Well, in this particular county, they've been able to harness that groundswell of rage and turned it into political power.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAH (voice over): There is a quiet revolution happening in this rural California town.

WOODY CLENDENEN, SHASTA COUNTY RECALL SUPPORTER: There is just a lot of frustration, a lot of people are pretty fired up, so that kind of lit the fuse.

LAH: In Woody Clendenen's Shasta County barbershop, it's not just Republican views, but ultra conservative, guns, a confederate flag rolled up in the corner, Clendenen is an unapologetic member of the California State Militia, who says conservatives like him woke up when Covid first struck.

CLENDENEN: Businesses got closed down and schools and all that. And we've had a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) moment in this country, you know, and people are like, holy crap, we better get a hold of things here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make no mistake, this is now the people's house.

LAH: They took hold of their local county board.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't care about your decorum.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys are going to prevent me from completing my citizen's arrest.

[08:35:02]

VENUS B. "FREEDOM", SHASTA COUNTY RECALL SUPPORTER: I know that change starts local. So that's why all of us are here.

They were trying to put masks on our kids.

LAH: Venus B., or "Freedom" as she prefers to be called, is a mom of two who calls vaccines harmful to her children and says the pandemic directed her rage to the closest politicians available.

LAH (on camera): Why does it have to be so loud? Why do there have to be slogans like "let's go Brandon"?

FREEDOM: Being passive gets you nowhere. And being just complacent gets you what we have. And we want so much more.

They like to call us domestic terrorists because we're passionate. And just because you're passionate doesn't make you a terrorist.

LEONARD MOTY, FORMER DISTRICT 2 SHASTA COUNTY SUPERVISOR: I think they're going to try to make this community over into their image and make it a very extremist alt-right community.

LAH (voice over): Leonard Moty was a Shasta County board member. Was because early election results show he lost a recall election this month. A life-long Republican, and local police chief, Moty was targeted because he stood up to the anger at the board meetings, defying their demands to reject state mask and vaccine rules. Then threats started, online, and in public.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know where you live. We know who your family is. We know your dog's name.

LAH: The anger turned into a recall petition to remove Moty. A pro- Trump millionaire in Connecticut with ties to Shasta County took interest in the local recall effort and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to this small-town race.

MOTY: It's very disheartening to me to have a group be able to spend that much money to personally assault my reputation, that I worked for 44 years to build in my hometown.

LAH (on camera): Did the extremists win?

MOTY: They won first battle. I do think it's -- the Republican Party falling apart. Don't think it's just going to go away. Don't think this can't happen to you.

DONI CHAMBERLAIN, CHIEF EDITOR, "A NEWS CAFE": I call it Shastalaban (ph). It's the anti-vaxx people, the anti-mask people, anti-science people.

LAH (voice over): Doni Chamberlain runs an online website covering Shasta County. An unabashed Democrat, she backed Moty. With his recall, Chamberlain says it's now the far right in majority control.

CHAMBERLAIN: They forced the ouster of a supervisor who had truly done nothing wrong.

And I'm fearful about the kinds of people who will come in and how they will vote and what will happen to Shasta County.

LAH: The most visible, national face of this local recall is California state militia member Carlos Zapata, who has appeared on conspiracy outlet Info Wars.

CARLOS ZAPATA, SHASTA COUNTY RECALL SUPPORTER: You don't vote your way out of socialism. Once it takes root, the only way to eradicate it is to fight with arms, to have a violent, violent confrontation and to have blood in the streets.

LAH: And whose speech at the Shasta County board went viral.

ZAPATA: I've been in combat. And I never want to go back again. But I'm telling you what, I will to save this country. If it has to be against our own citizens, it will happen. And there's a million people like me. And you won't stop us.

LAH (on camera): There were some harsh words that you said.

ZAPATA: Harsh to who? Harsh to the people who need to hear it, maybe. I wish people were more angry. You know, they -- it -- anger gets you to the point of action, right? If I wasn't angry, I never would have acted. People -- you've got to get angry enough to act. So anger's not a bad thing. Now, violence, that's a different deal.

LAH (voice over): Zapata and his coalition call themselves Red, White and Blueprint, offering what they call a template to turn rage and school boards and city councils across the country into political takeover.

ZAPATA: Now, I would never want my kids or myself to have to go through a civil war, but it seems to me the pressure we're heading is in that direction. I don't like it at all. So that's what we're doing things, and using mechanisms, political mechanisms, peaceful mechanisms, so that we don't have to get there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: And we do know of another county that is close to Shasta County here in the state of California, Nevada County, that is now attempting to recall all of its board members.

Now, Carlos Zapata, Brianna, there, was talking about this template. He says that he has been contacted by at least 60 counties across the country. And what he's sharing with them is that template. It is essentially a guide for these counties on how to turn that anger into political takeover.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Such important reporting,

Kyung, thank you for that piece.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, breaking just moments ago, brand- new numbers on inflation.

CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us now with that.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, inflation running hot. These are factory level numbers, John. Wholesale price inflation.

And 9.7 percent, the inflation rate. The 12-month inflation rate. That is a really hot number. It matches the record high. They've only been taking these numbers since about 2010, but it shows you that factories are passing on some big costs to businesses who, of course, are passing them on to you.

Month over month, a 1 percent increase. I've been covering these numbers a long time, John, it is so rare to see a one-month move of 1 percent.

[08:40:01]

These are numbers that are usually measured in tiny little increments, one or two-tenths of a percent. You look at that chart, you can see exactly what we're talking about here.

This is why you are feeling price pressures in just about every place you're looking. Supply chain, huge demand after the Covid reopening. All of this is just really messed up the way we produce and deliver goods. And that's costing everybody more money.

You can see, we've seen the consumer prices. These companies are passing these prices on to you. When you look at the consumer prices that we saw last week, it's very clear, companies are getting higher -- or paying higher prices for the goods they're getting from factories. They're turning right around and they're passing those price increases on to you.

When we listen to companies on their earnings calls, they're making good money, they're raising their profit margins, they're getting hefty profits, they're even, in many cases, buying back stock and giving raises to their CEOs. But they're passing the price increase at the factory level on to American consumers, John.

BERMAN: I think people are looking for some sign that this will turn around in the other direction, but we just don't seem to be getting it.

Christine Romans, thank you very much.

So, just in, the Oscars make history with the announcement of their new hosts.

KEILAR: And he was deported from Melbourne and missed the Australian Open because of his vaccination status. What Novak Djokovic is now saying about his future on the tennis circuit.

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[08:45:44]

KEILAR: Time now for the "5 Things to Know for Your New Day."

Russia says that some of its military units are returning to their bases after exercises near Ukraine, possibly signaling some form of de-escalation, although there's some questions because at the same time major military drills are continuing and there is new evidence of an equipment buildup at the Ukraine border.

BERMAN: The long-time accounting firm for the Trump Organization has cut ties with the former president. In a statement, Mazars says it cannot stand behind ten years' worth of financial statements it prepared for him. The letter was part of a court filing by the New York Attorney General's Office that has been trying to enforce a subpoena for those documents. The hearing is set for Thursday.

KEILAR: For the first time, in 35 years, Hollywood's biggest night is set to have three superstar MCs and, for the first time ever, all of them are women. Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall and Amy Schumer have been chosen to host this year's Academy Awards. The ceremony takes place on March 27th.

BERMAN: All right, this next thing is just bizarre. In China, some fans of the popular sitcom "Friends" are outraged by major cuts they are seeing made to the show. All the scenes involving LGBT references have been deleted. "Friends" was streamed uncensored in China until 2018. It was re-released with edits this week as part of a new crackdown on content.

KEILAR: Yes, weird and alarming.

Now, tennis star Novak Djokovic says he's willing to skip playing the French Open and Wimbledon instead of getting vaccinated. In his first interview since being departed from Australia last month for being unvaccinated, Djokovic says missing the chance to be the greatest player in the game is a price that he is willing to pay. BERMAN: Those are the "5 Things to Know for Your New Day." More on

these stories all day on CNN and cnn.com. And don't forget to download the "5 Things" podcast every morning. Go to cnn.com/5things. You can also find it wherever you get your podcasts.

Just back to China. What does it say if a nation is scared of "Friends"? Think about that.

KEILAR: Yes. Right.

BERMAN: All right, more now on our breaking news.

Russia has announced, or claims, that some forces surrounding Ukraine are returning to their bases. Ukraine, the United States remain skeptical this morning. The U.S. continues to warn of an imminent invasion.

KEILAR: Plus, he had the impossible task of piecing the country back together from the deadliest war in American history. John Avlon joins us to tell us the untold story of Abraham Lincoln.

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[08:52:22]

BERMAN: A new book is exploring an untold side of Abraham Lincoln's role as president. That of peacemaker. Now, Lincoln had to win the Civil War first, but that still left the unenviable task of putting back together a nation ripped at its very seams. As the book details, before he even became president, when he was leaving his home in Springfield for the last time, Lincoln told his neighbors gathered at the train station that he had a task before me greater than rested on Washington. In less than a century, the nation had been born and now was fighting for its life.

Joining us now, John Avlon, CNN's senior political analyst and now the author of the new book "Lincoln and the Fight for Peace." The book is available now. Go get it.

Before you get it, though, I -- first of all, I loved it.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.

BERMAN: What I particularly loved was the choice to look at this period, because no one in -- in some ways we're talking about five days.

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: The time between Appomattox, Lee surrenders and when Lincoln is shot is five days. So how much can there really be on Lincoln's plan for peace? So why don't you explain why this has been unexplored and why it's so important.

AVLON: Well, that's exactly why this book hasn't been written up to this point. You know, there are only five days between Appomattox and Lincoln's assassination. He never gets to implement his vision for winning the peace after winning the war. But it's very clear, if you focus even on his statements in the last six weeks of his life, from the second inaugural, to his final speech, to his conversations with the generals, Lincoln was really thinking deeply about how you win peace a peace after -- how you win a civil war. How you reunite a nation. And he does it by embracing and really inventing a leadership style focused on reconciliation. And that's what I was able to all put together and then look at the afterlife of the idea.

BERMAN: And you identify -- and it's -- what's so great about this book is, this is the consistent through line through the whole book, and you really come away having learned something, learned this, it's based on two things, he's got a two-part plan for peace. What is that?

AVLON: Unconditional surrender, followed by a magnanimous peace. You've got to combine strength with mercy. One without the other ends up being meaningless and compounds the problems, as we've seen so often, even in our own lifetime. If you don't win the peace, you don't really win the war. That's what Lincoln understood.

BERMAN: Unconditional surrender means?

AVLON: Unconditional surrender means, the enemy needs to admit defeat, it needs to accept defeat, it needs to be decisively defeated before you can help build them back up.

And Lincoln was very inflexible about three core points, resumption of the federal reunion, an end to slavery of all time and refuse to accept a cease-fire before surrender.

[08:55:04]

Those were his preconditions. On everything else, though, Lincoln is will be to be flexible. Lincoln's one of these leaders who focuses on the great goals, but the details he's willing to be enormously flexible.

BERMAN: If you're wondering what the opposite of unconditional surrender is, at least in the war sense, and you write about this, you talk a little bit about World War I, where Germany was never -- never basically had to say, we really, really lost.

AVLON: That's exactly right. And the treaty of Versailles is such a disaster because of that. You know, Woodrow Wilson comes in a child of the confederacy, someone who had suffered after losing a war, and he did exactly the wrong thing. He agreed to a cease-fire before surrender. Then there were punishing reparations and that just set the stage for the Second World War.

So then you had the World War II generation come in and try to correct those lessons and apply Lincoln's wisdom. One of the place I -- the book came from was I found this book from General Lucius Clay, who was the U.S. general who led the German occupation, he was the son of a Georgia senator, and someone asked him what guided your decisions, and he said, I tried to think what Abraham Lincoln would have done for the south if he had lived. BERMAN: What did being magnanimous toward the south mean for Lincoln?

AVLON: It meant building them back up in a spirit of brotherhood. I means, you know, with malice toward none, with charity for all. But, still, securing the peace by -- securing military gains, removing the root causes of the war through political reform, including, of course, the end of slavery through the 13th Amendment. Economic expansion to move people's attention towards the future and a sense of shared investment, moving people's attention west, and then cultural reintegration. It's about steering the nation toward what some peacemakers now call a horizon of reconciliation. It's a goal that we never arrive at, but the leadership that he embodied is so essential.

BERMAN: And, of course, it was a goal that was never really achieved after the Civil War because of Andrew Johnson, who you write about as a truly horrible person, right, right?

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: I mean a wretched human being and a truly horrible wretched president. So how did he blow it?

AVLON: Oh, God. Well, he is the anti-Lincoln. I mean it's a reminder that the core quality of a president that matters most is character. And Lincoln picked him because it was politically inspired. He was an anti-war southern Democrat. He could balance the ticket, but he lacked character. "The Atlantic" describes him as egotistic to the point of mental disease. You know, vain and intemperate. And you see that coming and he's deeply bigoted towards the newly freed African Americans. And so he does it perfectly wrong. He empowers the confederate leaders to come back into power. He fights equal right for the newly freed slaves. And the combination is simply a disaster. So we lose the peace.

Grant tries to get us back on the Lincoln path by passing anti-KKK laws and succeeds for a time. But it's that reminder that if you don't win the peace, you don't really win the war, as we keep learning.

BERMAN: So, again, so it was never achieved after the Civil War because Lincoln was killed. You talk about World War I, where it also was not achieved because Woodrow Wilson got it a little bit wrong too.

AVLON: He did.

BERMAN: But you write, I think eloquently, about how after World War II might be the example where Lincoln's ideals were most fully realized.

AVLON: Absolutely. The occupations of Germany and Japan, known as the good occupations today, are virtually exemplary in terms of that specific intentional combination of unconditional surrender and magnanimous peace. Building our enemies back up, making America a redeemer nation.

And then the Marshall Plan is perhaps the perfect example. Again, Truman, who comes from a confederate family, working with George Marshall and Republican Arthur Vandenberg (ph) to create a bipartisan commitment to invest in peace, investing in peace. You know, the real lesson, you know, people might think about the title "The Fight for Peace," isn't that a contradiction. No, we need to wage peace with an intensity that rivals war in order for it to be secure. That's what Lincoln understood. That's what the Marshall plan did.

BERMAN: You've got to do it like you mean it.

AVLON: That's right.

BERMAN: You've got to act like you mean it.

Now, I asked you this yesterday after reading this knowing that we were going to talk about it. This book focuses primarily on military conflicts, the Civil War, then World War I, then World War II, but can you apply these two Lincoln lessons -- and we have about a minute left -- unconditional surrender and being magnanimous to political conflict. And I say this carefully.

AVLON: Sure.

BERMAN: I'm not saying January 6th was a civil war, but it is a conflict there. How can you apply those lessons there?

AVLON: There are lessons that need to be applied. Certainly, to some extent the big lie is a new form of lost cause mythology. The defeated ex-president and his followers have not admitted defeat. And they've convinced themselves of this big lie to ignoble their fundamentally ignoble cause, which is embarrassing a lie and undermining our democracy. It's a reminder that victory matters. You've got to win on the political battlefield, you need to win on the military battlefield and then also that decency can be the most practical form of politics if you negotiate from a position of strength. And what Lincoln did was combine moderation with moral courage. That's the key.

[09:00:00]

BERMAN: Yes, don't ask me to compromise, though, if you're not willing to admit that you lost.

AVLON: That's right.

BERMAN: I think that's something there.

Look, "Lincoln and the Fight for Peace," it is wonderful.

AVLON: Thank you.

BERMAN: Congratulations. You should be really, really proud about this.

AVLON: Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it.

BERMAN: John Avlon, senior political analyst and author of the new book "Lincoln and the Fight for Peace." Go get it.

CNN's coverage continues right now.