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The Situation Room
Interview with Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX); Georgia Restricts Voter Access; Trump Again Defends Capitol Rioters, Falsely Claims They were Zero Threat and were Hugging and Kissing Police; Without Evidence, Former CDC Chief Says He Thinks COVID-119 Began in a Chinese Lab as U.S. Intel Says Origins Still Not Determined; Police: Still Not Motive in Boulder, Colorado Shooting Massacre. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired March 26, 2021 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:38]
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Wolf Blitzer is off today. I'm Pamela Brown in THE SITUATION ROOM.
And, tonight, President Biden says the Justice Department is examining Georgia's sweeping new assault on democracy. He launched a scathing attack on the state law that limits voter access. He's calling it an atrocity, as well as a blatant attack on the Constitution and Jim Crow in the 21st century. He says Republican efforts to suppress the vote must end.
The White House also is raising serious concerns about the forcible arrest of a Georgia lawmaker. She was hauled away by police while protesting outside the governor's office as he was signing the voting bill. You saw the video right there.
And the war on voting rights fueled by former President Trump and his bogus claims of election fraud. He is attacking the truth once again by falsely claiming the Capitol insurrectionists posed zero threat and that they were -- quote -- "hugging and kissing police."
First, let's go to CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He is covering the White House for us.
And, Jeff, it appears President Biden is fired up over this.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, he absolutely is.
I mean, he blistered -- he said this is an attack on the Constitution and on good conscience. And it's likely that this is going to end up as a legal challenge. But for now, it's a political challenge for this White House, as Mr. Biden decides what agenda items are a priority for him.
He said, look, even if he wanted to, he does not have the votes to change the filibuster rules in the Senate. But there's no question all of this big lie over the last three months has now come full circle, and these new voting laws are being enacted. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's an atrocity.
ZELENY (voice-over): President Biden saying tonight the Justice Department is looking into a new Georgia law restricting voting rights, part of the still-simmering Republican backlash from his defeat of Donald Trump.
BIDEN: If you want any indication that it has nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with decency, they passed a law saying, you can't provide water for people standing in line while they're waiting to vote?
ZELENY: Tonight, it's the latest real-world fallout from the so-called big lie, the unsubstantiated claims about widespread voter fraud the former president and many in his party are still peddling.
The nation's most sweeping overhaul of election laws so far is in Georgia, where a measure signed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp includes a provision making it a crime to bring food or water to people standing in line to vote.
It comes only months after Biden and two Democratic senators delivered historic victories in the state, which cost Republicans their Senate majority.
BIDEN: You don't need anything else to know that this is nothing but punitive, designed to keep people from voting.
ZELENY: In a statement, Biden going further, calling it "a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience. It must end," he added. "We have a moral and constitutional obligation to act."
But the question is how and when. Across the country, Republican lawmakers in 43 states are considering legislation that would restrict voting access and make it more difficult to cast ballots. It's become one of the biggest pet projects for the GOP base.
SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): Our democracy is in a 911 emergency. And I'm not about to be stopped or stymied by debates about Senate rules.
ZELENY: Senator Raphael Warnock, one of the newly elected Democrats from Georgia, is talking about doing away with the Senate filibuster, which requires 60 votes on major legislation. He's among those urging Biden to intensify his push for a federal law to protect voting rights.
WARNOCK: This is democracy in reverse. It's un-American. It's anti- democratic.
ZELENY: The president has vowed to do everything in his power to enact voting reforms in states, stripped away in 2013, when the Supreme Court invalidated key provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
Arriving in Delaware tonight, where he's spending the weekend at home, Biden noted that, right now, there are not enough votes in the Senate even among Democrats to change the filibuster rules.
BIDEN: Right now, that doesn't exist. That doesn't exist. So, look, I -- the only thing I have been relatively good at in my long career in the Senate is figuring out when to move and when not to move. You got to have the votes.
ZELENY: On voting laws, all roads lead back to Trump, who is not only still lying about the election outcome, but also making false claims about the January 6 attack on the Capitol, trying to rewrite history.
[18:05:09]
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some of them went in, and they're hugging and kissing the police and the guards. You know, they had great relationships.
ZELENY: But that's not true.
Just ask police officer Michael Fanone, who fought ardent Trump supporters for hours that day, trying to protect the Capitol.
MICHAEL FANONE, D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT: And then some guy started getting a hold of my gun. And they were screaming out: "Kill him with his own gun."
ZELENY: Biden making clear that he too is still thinking often about Trump, blaming him for problems at the border and for laying the groundwork to make it far more difficult for those who didn't vote for him to cast ballots.
BIDEN: My predecessor, oh, God, I miss him.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZELENY: Now, back to that voting rights law in Georgia that President Biden described as a modern-day version of Jim Crow, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp objected to all of that, and just a few moments ago released a statement saying in part this.
He said: "There is nothing Jim Crow about requiring a photo or state- issued I.D. to vote by absentee ballot. Every Georgia voter must already do so when voting in person. President Biden, the left and the national media are determined to destroy the sanctity and security of the ballot box."
But, Pamela, we should point out there are many more provisions in that law, including the one where you cannot take food and water to voters standing in line and, perhaps more importantly, changing the makeup of state voting -- or local voting officials and councils that really is the heart of all this.
But, Pamela, when you take a step back, as we head really into the spring here now, it is still this big lie rearing its head. What President Trump talked about for months, now it's coming to pass in some of these state legislatures -- Pamela.
BROWN: It certainly is.
Jeff Zeleny, thank you.
Civil rights groups already are challenging the Georgia voting law, calling its provisions burdensome and discriminatory, including a ban on giving food and water to people in line to vote.
And Jeff Zeleny laid out the other provisions as well.
CNN political correspondent Sara Murray has more on the law and the reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signing a dramatic overhaul of the state's election laws, the first GOP victory in restricting voter access in a major battleground state.
GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): After the November election last year, I knew, like so many of you, that significant reforms to our state elections were needed.
MURRAY: The law puts new voter identification requirements on absentee ballots, limits drop boxes to indoor locations during business hours, allows state officials to take over local elections boards, and makes it a crime to approach voters in line to provide food and water.
KEMP: Well, it wasn't a voting rights bill. It was an election security bill that actually increases early voting opportunities on the weekend here in Georgia.
MURRAY: The legislation doesn't include earlier efforts to get rid of no-excuse absentee voting, and it allows expanded weekend early voting, but advocates say it is still riddled with restrictions that make it harder, particularly for minorities, to vote.
STATE REP. DONNA MCLEOD (D-GA): This is despicable and disgusting. And it creates more barriers to our voters, so that they're not having access to the ballot box like they should. And to actually say to people, you can't give somebody food or water, that's just cruel and inhumane.
MURRAY: It was a striking scene Thursday, as Kemp huddled behind closed doors with a handful of white men designed to sign the bill.
MCLEOD: This Jim Crow 2.0 is represented in that picture. You see those man. There's no color in them. There's just pure white males trying to basically hold onto power with their life.
MURRAY: Just outside Kemp's office, Park Cannon, a black state representative, was arrested and marched out of the Capitol by several police officers after she knocked on Kemp's door, trying to gain access to the signing ceremony.
Cannon now out of jail and facing two felony charges, which her allies say she intends to fight.
STATE REP. ERICA THOMAS (D-GA): We are now -- is praying for her strength to get through this and we are definitely lawyered up to defend her in every way we know how.
MURRAY: Georgia's law just one of hundreds of bills Republicans are pushing nationwide, as they hold tight to baseless claims of fraud amid their 2020 electoral defeats.
Even Kemp, who defended Georgia's election integrity last year, now appears to be buying into the big lie, as he braces for a reelection fight in 2022.
KEMP: There's no doubt there were many alarming issues with how the election was handled. And those problems, understandably, led to the crisis of confidence in the ballot box here in Georgia.
MURRAY: Former President Trump, meantime, still parroting his fact- free claim.
TRUMP: If you look at the last election, it was disgraceful. It was a Third World election. It was a disgrace.
[18:10:03]
MURRAY: As the fallout of the big lie spreads, FOX News facing a $1.6 billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems for spreading lies that the machines were linked to election fraud.
STEPHEN SHACKELFORD, ATTORNEY FOR DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS: FOX gave life to these lies. FOX took this small flame and they turned it into a raging fire.
MURRAY: This as former Trump legal team member Sidney Powell defends herself in her own defamation suit from Dominion, claiming in a court filing that, even though she spread voter fraud claims, "No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MURRAY: Now, tonight, Donald Trump is weighing in with a statement on the new Georgia law. It says: "Congratulations to Georgia and the Georgia state legislature on changing their voter rules and regulations. They learned from the travesty of the 2020 presidential election, which can never be allowed to happen again. Too bad these changes could not have been done sooner" -- Pam.
BROWN: And, once again, the election was free and fair and legitimate, and Donald Trump lost.
Sara Murray, thank you very much.
Let's get more on all of this with the president of the Georgia NAACP, the Reverend James Woodall, and CNN's Don Lemon, author of the new book "This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism." Don, Reverend Woodall, thank you so much for coming on.
Don, congratulations on all the success of your book coming out.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Thank you.
BROWN: It's been amazing to see that.
And I want to first get your reaction at this video of Georgia state Representative Park Cannon being arrested for knocking on the door, as you see here, her way of protesting this law, simply knocking on the door where Governor Kemp was holding the signing ceremony.
You're interviewing Representative Cannon later tonight on CNN. What is your reaction to seeing a state lawmaker, a black woman, hauled out of the state capitol like this?
LEMON: Well, the former president said that the election of 2020 was a travesty. The only travesty that came out of the election of 2020 -- well, two of them -- one is this arrest. The other one was the insurrection on Capitol Hill.
This is appalling, arrested under a slave plantation, a picture of a slave plantation. And all one has to do is look at this picture and look at the picture from inside the governor's office, with all of those white men standing around signing that bill. She's knocking on the door to get in. Doesn't she have the right to see her government in action in a building which are tax dollars paid for, in a building in which she works, that she is an elected representative of the -- those -- of the people of Georgia?
That is a travesty in all of this. And all of this nonsense about, well, she was doing this and she was doing this and this is criminal and she should be cited for that, I look at the video. I don't know what happened beyond this. But I don't see her obstructing. I don't see her doing anything worse than what the Sidney Powells and the Rudy Giulianis of the world, the lie that they perpetrated that sent people to the Capitol on January 6, and where five people ended up dying.
And yet you're going to charge her with felonies for standing up, for doing something that is right?
My question is, Pamela, is this what the Republican Party wants to be, this new picture of a Rosa Parks sitting on the back of a bus and getting arrested? That's what this is right now. Whether you think she did was wrong or not, what she did was right for standing up for the right thing to do, for standing up for democracy, for standing up for access to the voting booth for everyone.
And all of these other lies about election integrity, what have you and Governor Kemp, the reason that Governor Kemp and others couldn't do it is because it was illegal in 2020, that they couldn't change the results of the election because they had to follow the law.
Now what they have done is just codified what the former president wanted to happen in 2020 of November. BROWN: And, I mean, prior to that, Brian Kemp had said that there are
laws on the books in Georgia to make sure that elections are not stolen. I believe that was in 2018.
Fast-forward to now. We see this playing out.
Reverend Woodall, what is your reaction to that video?
JAMES WOODALL, PRESIDENT, GEORGIA NAACP: Well, my reaction, and not just the video, but the entire process, is, we have spent the last three months fighting against this.
And this is a culmination of really the work that we have seen done on the ground. The end result, we were able to mitigate the harm, a lot of the harm that was going to be put, like ending no-excuse absentee voting or vote by mail, or not having drop boxes at all, or other provisions that would have been even much more dramatic and troubling and harmful.
But we still have so much more work to do. That's what in this moment I think about. I think about the litigation that's being filed right now. I think about the county level organizing that we're going to see, because we know this.
[18:15:00]
This fight is not over. And other states needs to be put on notice that this is going to continue to happen. We see it already in Arizona. We have seen Michigan. We have seen in Texas.
And so we have to collectively organize and do things that oftentimes deny human understanding. But we're going to do so because Georgia has done it before. And we're going to do it again.
BROWN: And, Don, look, I don't think anyone would say that they would support fraud or that they don't want the election to be secure, right?
LEMON: Right.
BROWN: But when you see restrictions that are now -- things to do in Georgia are now illegal, like to give food or water to voters who have been waiting in line for hours, what does that say to you about what's going on here and the modern Republican Party?
LEMON: Well, I say that they don't have the courage to deal with the gun violence, and dealing with sensible gun legislation across the country, except they're saying that something like this is a weapon of some sort, or is illegal.
Perhaps they wanted to hand someone an AR-15 in line. Maybe that would be OK. But it's ridiculous for someone -- listen, if I was -- if I were a Democrat, if I were a strategist, what I would do is, you know what I would do?
I would line up every single grandmother that I could find, old lady, in these long lines that they have, put her in line, and then have people defy the law and go hand them water bottles and get those pictures, because then it would be much like the Edmund Pettus Bridge and all of those pictures that came out from the civil rights activists in the 1960s, that changed the rights for black people in this country for equality.
When those pictures came out, Americans were outraged. People will be outraged. If you are going to hand a bottle of water to someone who has been in line for hours, especially a senior, an older person, and you're going to be arrested for it, and you're also trying to put a black woman in jail for standing up the rights -- standing for the rights for the people who supported her, I just think it's outrageous and ridiculous.
There's no if ands or buts about it, Pamela. I'm sorry to be so passionate about it. This is just plain, plain and simple. This is racism. And this is voter suppression. That's all it is. And we should stop pretending that it's anything other than that.
And I wish the folks of Georgia, the lawmakers there, the white ones, would stop pretending as well.
BROWN: You have every right to be passionate, Don. And it's really important for everyone to hear your perspective on this. And you just kind of put it in perspective, the historical perspective too.
And you have to wonder, Reverend Woodall, you look back at history at, the Jim Crow era, and it's just such a black eye for this country. And here we are living through this that President Biden compared to the Jim Crow era.
Decades from now, how do you think history will look back on this time that we are all living through?
WOODALL: Well, one, I would, I would say, history is going to ask the businesses that stood by silent as they paraded claims of, I believe in racial equality and equity and I'm committed to that work, and they stood silent.
As far right conspiracy theorists organized and continued to send death threats to elected officials and organizers, they stood silent while the -- tackling the most fundamental part of our democracy, the right to vote was under attack.
And when you talk about the racism of the Jim Crow 2.0, it's deeper than skin color. We're talking about going from nine weeks to 28 days on early voting or not having any weekend voting during a run-off election, or the fact that the registration deadline for a run-off election would be one day before the general election, very specific provisions that are targeted to decrease the amount of access that Georgians, eligible voters, have.
And let's be very clear. This does not just impact Democratic voters. This impacts Republican voters too. And so we cannot stay silent in this moment. If it's an attack on one of us, it's an attack on all of us. And if businesses are going to stand in the name of John Lewis, and say that they stand against voter suppression and they stand for the right to vote, then now is the time to speak out, and not speak out in just any vague terms.
But you cannot have it both ways. Stand with the people and declare that this is wrong. And if they do not stand against them, you know what we're going to do? We're going to organize against them. We have already seen the MLB Players Association say they wanted to take the All-Star Game away from Atlanta. We're going to stand with the players.
We talk about Coke. The AME Church has initiated a boycott against them. We're going to stand with them. We're going to continue to organize, because this is democracy. Our lives are at stake. And we're going to do everything in our power to stand against it.
BROWN: And, Don, I'm curious what your reaction is. You heard Governor Kemp downplay it and say this is the media and the Democrats, so forth, like, making this a big deal. And he pointed to expanded early voting on the weekends in Georgia.
[18:20:01]
What is your response to that?
LEMON: My response is that we're not stupid.
And it's similar, pretty much the same thing that I said before. We should stop pretending and he should stop pretending and he should stop lying. They know exactly what this is, because you know what? If this had worked out for Republicans, if this had worked out for the former president, if they had not elected two senators in a special election there, do you think these laws would be enacted?
Do you think they would put these laws on the books? They wouldn't. They'd be trying to expand what they had before. So this is all shiny object to look the other way or try to pretend that something is happening that is that is not.
What's happening now is voter suppression. And it is built on the racist lie that people around the country in large urban areas, like Detroit, like Atlanta and other areas, that they did something fraudulent, that they stole the election from the president.
People don't like the results of the election, even though it was a fair and legitimate election. And now they're trying to change and twist the laws to favor them. They have said as much, Pamela, as you know, in court proceedings and in court filings. They don't believe that they can win the way that things were then, because it was open for as many people as possible to be able to vote.
And now they want to limit that, so that they have a chance to win in the next upcoming elections. That's all it is.
BROWN: And it's just -- it's worth reiterating, in Georgia, there were multiple recounts, only verifying that the results...
LEMON: All over the country, Pamela.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: And all over the country, too.
LEMON: Court cases even to the Supreme Court.
BROWN: Oh, we can go on about this, Don.
But I fear that my producer will have a heart attack if we go on much further. You know how it is.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: But, yes, more than 60 cases, well over 60 cases after the election, and the outcome, the conclusion is that there was no evidence of fraud, that it was a legitimate election, that these claims were baseless.
And I mention Georgia because that is just where they passed the law. But, in Georgia, they did multiple recounts, which only reaffirmed the results.
And I'm actually going to be interviewing this weekend Gabriel Sterling, who's in the secretary of state's office, to talk about this, because, as you know, this law also takes power away from the secretary of state's office and puts more power in the hands of the state legislature.
So, it's not only going on in Georgia. It's going on across the country.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: But, Pamela, Let me say this. I know you do have to go.
Just -- what you just said, that allows what Donald Trump wanted to happen in 2020 to happen. If the Republicans don't like the results of the election, they can take it out of the hands of the legislators or out of the hands of the election officials, as it wasn't done last time.
And then they can have the power to be able to overturn the election in the way that Trump wanted in 2020. It is outrageous. People should look at this law. Read it. You bring up a very good point. I'm glad you pointed that out.
BROWN: Thanks.
And I think our country needs to really think about this. Is the standard?
WOODALL: And, Pamela, if I could...
BROWN: Go ahead, quickly. My poor producer.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: I know. Sorry, producers.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Go ahead.
WOODALL: I just want to -- the point -- yes, to Don's point, the most troubling provision of this legislation says that, if the state election board, who is now going to be chaired by somebody the legislature chooses, not the secretary of state, who is the only constitutional officer...
LEMON: Right.
WOODALL: ... told to do this, now they can literally take a local board of election over and put their own political appointee, who does not have to be a member or a sitting resident in that community, a political appointee, to oversee their election for that seat that cycle.
That's troubling. That's undemocratic. It's not locally controlled. It's inconsistent with our values. And we're going to fight against it.
LEMON: I don't envy you now, Pam. See you.
BROWN: All right.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Hey, Don, we will see you tonight. And I'm looking forward to it. All right.
LEMON: All right. Thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Don Lemon, James Woodall.
Be sure to join Don on "CNN TONIGHT" at 10:00 Eastern. What a conversation.
Just ahead in THE SITUATION ROOM, Congressman Joaquin Castro joins us live to talk about the crisis along the Southern border and what he saw firsthand when he visited.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:28:00]
BROWN: We're following President Biden's scathing response to the new Georgia law restricting voter access.
In addition to his harsh words, he says the Justice Department is now examining the legislation. We're joined by Congressman Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas.
Congressman, thanks for coming on.
Let's talk about this. The voting rights package already passed by House Democrats faces a very tough climb in the Senate. But President Biden says he still wants to try to address this through new legislation. Realistically, what can Congress pass and put on his desk with at least some Republican support?
REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): I mean, look, you make a great point. It's tough if Republicans -- if some Republicans at least don't buy into the idea that we need to fully restore the Voting Rights Act, and if they don't look at things like what's going on in Georgia, and acknowledge that that's a point-shaving process, that Republicans are doing everything that they can to try to cut down on the number of people who can go to vote that usually go vote against them.
And so you're right. I have said that I support reforming the filibuster most especially for things like restoring the Voting Rights Act. I hope that, whether it's a -- whether that reform is doing away with the filibuster or changing it somehow to a talking filibuster, that, practically, we can change it, so that we can get important legislation like this across the Senate and onto the president's desk.
And this Georgia -- what's going on in Georgia is a prime example of exactly why we should do that.
BROWN: I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about immigration.
You led a delegation of congressional Democrats on a trip to a migrant detention facility near the Southern border today. What did you see? What did you find, if you would just kind of bring us there?
CASTRO: Yes, well, we -- so, there were about seven of us House Democrats who went to Carrizo Springs to what is known as an emergency -- quote, unquote -- "influx shelter" for migrant children.
[18:30:00]
And this shelter is receiving children. They are coming straight from the Custom and Border Protection processing center.
So, all of those pictures that American saw in the last week of people crammed into, you know, unsafe spaces with what looked like aluminum blankets, those are at the CBP processing centers. So those kids are unaccompanied minors who present themselves at the border asking for asylum. They are then sent to this shelter where they are kept for up to 20 days.
Now, there are some kids, and it is problematic because some kids are staying longer than that, and so we were there to make sure that people are being treated humanely and safely and that their dignity is being respected.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN THE SITUATION ROOM: We just learn actually that the number of migrant children in federal custody jumped by nearly a thousand a day in one day. On Thursday, there were more than 18,000 children in U.S. government custody up for more than 17,000 on Wednesday. How does this get solved?
CASTRO: A few things, there's short-term and long-term strategies. The Biden administration inherited a system that had been dismantled. The system for processing and settling asylees in the United States had been dismantled by Donald Trump. And so the Biden administration is in the process of rebuilding that. And that does take some time. So they're building out the capacity to essentially hold people for short periods of time before you place these kids with their family sponsors in the United States while they wait for their court dates. So that's the short-term challenge, is building up that capacity.
But the long-term challenge, I think, is just as important, which is we have to have a kind of marshal plan for Central America so that we get the root causes of why people are deciding to make a thousand mile dangerous journey trek to United States. I don't believe that people just want to voluntarily leave their home.
And somebody's kids, you know, we saw interviews last week of kids who were ten years old that are making the trek to the border by themselves. I don't think that people treat this like a summer camp where they're just doing it for fun. It reflects how dangerous and how violent their living conditions are in their home countries and we got to make a serious effort to help change that in Central America.
BROWN: And we are seeing a rise in the number of those unaccompanied children crossing the border. Congressman Joaquin Castro, thank you.
CASTRO: Good to be with you.
BROWN: And just ahead in The Situation Room, prosecutors present evidence that some Capitol riot suspects were trained to attack and kill people ahead of the insurrection.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:35:00]
BROWN: Tonight, new evidence that members of the pro-Trump Oath Keepers had weapons training ahead of the Capitol riot, this as former President Trump is once again spewing false claims about what happened on January 6th.
Brian Todd is putting that all together for us. Brian, multiple defendant were in court today. What are you learning?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Pamela, we have new information tonight on dramatic moves in court regarding a married couple who are members of the Oath Keepers. Tonight, that group and many of its senior leaders are under immense pressure.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TODD (voice over): Prosecutors say the proof is in these pictures, proof that Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs and his wife Connie did receive paramilitary training, counter to what they told the FBI. Prosecutor say, these pictures show the Meggs' charged with conspiracy and other counts in the Capitol riot received tactical firearms instruction and so-called gunfight oriented training at a shooting range in Florida last year. Prosecutor say, the Meggs has took a course on how to attack and kill people.
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: They have them in a bald-faced lie. It shows, by the way, they have dug pretty deep. They've gone up and up now to the main organizers and really looked at their social media, their pictures et cetera. That --
TODD: The husband and wife have pleaded not guilty. Their attorney says the photos were from a firearm's safety course.
A judge has just ordered that Connie Meggs be released from jail pending her trial but has ordered that her husband Kelly should remain behind bars. While there's no evidence yet that this weapon session in Florida had anything to do with the Capitol attack, monitors of militia groups say it's part of an established pattern with the Oath Keepers.
OREN SEGAL, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: The Oath Keepers are well known for some of their tactical trainings, some of the weapons training that they do. But part of training and being part of Oath Keepers or other extremist groups is rhetorical training. It's training on the narratives and conspiracies that ultimately motivate them to action.
TODD: This comes as former President Trump not only glossed over but lied about the violent nature of the mob on January 6th in an interview with Fox News.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT (voice over): It was zero threat. Right from the start, it was zero threat.
TODD: Zero threat despite reams of video that the FBI, CNN and other news outlets have released showing rioters swinging clubs and tree branches at police officers, hitting them with flag poles, punching them, pulling at their gas masks. But Trump's interpretation --
TRUMP: Some of them went in and they're hugging and kissing the police and the guards, you know, that they had great relationships.
TODD: The reality is that three law enforcement officers died and more than 100 others were injured.
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It's such a brutal and heartless level of disrespect for the men and women who put themselves in great, great danger to protect our country. It's just absolutely horrendous.
TODD: Prosecutors have also said that the Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, issued a warning in the hour just after the Capitol assault, saying in a group chat that the riot was, quote, nothing compared to what's coming if Trump doesn't take decisive action right now. [18:40:10]
Rhodes, who was photograph outside the Capitol on January 6th and who prosecutors say communicated with Oath Keepers members about where to go has, so far, not been charged with anything related to the attack.
PROF. SAM JACKSON, AUTHOR, OATH KEEPERS: He's long been a guy who is careful to avoid breaking the law in most cases. He does a really good job quite often of walking right up to the line of breaking the law or engaging in violence and not crossing that line.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TODD (voice over): Stewart Rhodes has previously told CNN he had no role in planning anything regarding that day, has said he never entered the capitol on January 6th and has criticized those who did. Pamela?
BROWN: All right, Brian Todd, thanks so much for the latest there.
And let's bring in CNN's Senior Legal Analyst and former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Nice to see you, as always.
PREET BHARARA, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It's good to see you.
BROWN: So let's talk about this, former President Trump saying that the rioters were hugging and kissing the police. Why can he not stop lying about this?
BHARARA: Well, I've tried since January 20th to give up the past time of analyzing President Trump's hypocrisy and mendacity and arguable sociopathy. I don't know, he'll maybe take a page from his lawyers, Sidney Powell, his lawyer's defamation defense, which is no reasonable person can I say is fact. And, obviously, what he says is at complete odds with what the video shows, with what people have witnessed, with what investigators and prosecutors have learned, I don't know. I think he may find people who are prepared to suspend disbelief and disagree with anything he says because it makes no sense.
BROWN: It's particularly brazen because of the video. I mean, it's one thing to lie and the people that you're speaking to don't have the evidence right in front of them, like you do in this case, right? All you have to do is look at this video to know that's not true.
BHARARA: I agree. I have nothing to add to that excellent analysis. Who thinks with your own lie, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? That seems to be the continuation of the Donald Trump approach to things that happened here on planet Earth.
BROWN: And it's also, I mean you have to think about Officer Sicknick and his family and others that died that day. You just heard Brian Todd report on some Oath Keepers who received paramilitary training. Legally speaking, why is that tactical training relevant here?
BHARARA: Well, for one thing, as was implied in the report that you ran, it appears that these individuals were asked about whether or not they had tactical training, military-style training, paramilitary training, and it appears that you lied about it. And when you lie about something, that, A, it can be a potential crime and, B, you know, pieces together a picture of folks who might be, depending on the circumstances, conscious of their guilt, knowing that's sort of a bad thing.
I think the more important question, which is still unknown is to what extent that paramilitary training was done in connection with or anticipation of what was going to unfold on January 6th. But I will say that you can draw at least you know some conclusions that the fact that these individuals were being asked about January 6th and in connection with that questioning looked like they lied about the training, that that I think begins to connect the two things together, but I think they need to gather more evidence.
BROWN: All right, Preet Bharara, thank you so much. Have a good weekend.
BHARARA: Thank you, you too.
BROWN: And up next, the doctor who led the CDC under President Trump says he is now free to give his opinion about the origins of the coronavirus. Dr. Sanjay Gupta shares his exclusive interview.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:48:22]
BROWN: The former CDC director under President Trump is now speaking out in an exclusive interview with CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
Dr. Robert Redfield says he believes the coronavirus began in a Chinese lab, even though the U.S. Intelligence Community hasn't determined the origin of the virus.
Here's a portion of that interview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: If I had to guess, this virus started transmitted in September and October in Wuhan.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: September and October?
REDFIELD: That's my own -- it's only opinion. I'm allowed to have opinions now.
You know, I'm of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped. Other people don't believe that. That's fine. Science will eventually figure it out. It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect a laboratory worker.
GUPTA: It's also not unusual for that type of research to be occurring in Wuhan. The city is a widely known center for viral studies in China, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has experimented extensively with bat coronaviruses.
It is a remarkable conversation I feel like we're having here because you are the former CDC director, and you were the director at the time this was all happening.
For the first time, the former CDC director is stating publicly that he believes this pandemic started months earlier than we knew and that it originated not at a wet market but inside a lab in China.
These are two significant things to say, Dr. Redfield.
REDFIELD: That's not implying any intentionality, you know?
[18:50:03]
It's my opinion, right?
But I am a virologist. I have spent my life in virology. I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human and at that moment in time the virus came to the human became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human-to-human transmission.
Usually when it goes from a zoonotic to a human, it takes a while for it to figure how to become more and more efficient in human-to-human transmission. I just don't think this makes biological sense.
GUPTA: So in the lab, do you think that that process of becoming more efficient was happening, is that what you are suggesting?
REDFIELD: Yeah, let's just say I have coronavirus that I'm working on. Most of us in the lab were trying to grow virus. We try to help make it grow better and better and better and better and better so we can do experiments and figure out about it. That's the way I put it together.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joins us now.
Wow, Sanjay, it is incredible to hear the former CDC's director share that opinion with you. What did you make of that revelation and what question does this raise?
GUPTA: Yeah. You know, it's interesting, I was not surprised by much of what he said, because this theory of this lab leak theory had been out there for some time. I guess that I was more surprised that he said it, because, you know, you're the CDC director at that time, probably has access, I know he has access to raw intelligence and raw data that I don't have access to.
So, you know, it's an informed opinion. It is still an opinion. He did not present any evidence around this. And at the same time, as you well know, Pamela, the World Health
Organization, they're going to have this 400-page report, it is finalized and they're going to release it within the next few days. We'll see what it shows. But so far, they have said lab leak theory is unlikely.
Chinese officials have put forth this idea that maybe it's a multiple origin theory, you know, multiple origin release. So many places around the world could have been sources for this pandemic. That's unsubstantiated.
But here we are, March 2021, we're not entirely sure where this thing began.
BROWN: And just to drill in on that, why is it so important where this thing began?
GUPTA: You know, I think that's a critical question. The reason it is important is because is this something that if it was a lab leak, and lab leaks do happen. There's lab accidents, as Dr. Redfield said, it happens all the time. But does it require more regulation, more oversight? What does the World Health Organization's role in this whole thing?
And I think it gives us a better sense, if there is a future pandemic, and all these doctors believe there will be another pandemic and how can be best prepare for it. If we have an idea of how this one began and how it sort of grew, that'll give us some insights. So, a lot of people want to know the answer to this question, and again, maybe this 400-page report will give us an answer or maybe it will sort of still be inconclusive in the end.
BROWN: We hope it has answers.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much. And be sure to watch Sanjay's special report, "COVID War: The Doctors Speak Out", Sunday night at 9:00 Eastern, only on CNN.
And up next, new details from police in Boulder, Colorado, as they track the suspect's weapon and search for a motive for that deadly shooting.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:57:51]
BROWN: We are learning of new information of the search for motive and the weapon used in the deadly Boulder, Colorado massacre.
Our Kyung Lah reports on the latest in the investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With flowers and emblems of grief covering fallen Officer Eric Talley's police vehicle, the boulder police chief says what is haunting investigators, the killer's motive still unknown.
CHIEF MARIS HEROLD, BOULDER POLICE DEPARTMENT: Like the rest of the community we, too, want to know why, why that King Soopers, why Boulder, why Monday? And, unfortunately, at this time, we still don't have those answers.
LAH: What they do know -- Ahmad Alissa purchased the semiautomatic Ruger AR556 pistol here at the Eagles Nest Armory, six days before the shooting.
The owner says the sale was legal, adding: Regarding the firearm in question, a background check of the purchaser was conduct as required by Colorado law and approval was provide by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
The gunman also carried a .9 millimeter handgun, but police say he did not use it in the rampage.
DISPATCH: 136, we have multiple shots being fired.
LAH: The first responding officers did exchange gunfire.
MICHAEL DOUGHERTY, BOULDER COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: They charged into the store and immediately faced a very significant amount of gunfire from the shooter who at first they were unable to locate and they put their lives at risk. That will be reflected in additional attempted murder charges that will be filed by the district attorney's office the next couple of weeks.
LAH: Funerals will begin next week for the 10 victims, people who were just in their neighborhood grocery store where officers are now counting the bullets one by one.
DOUGHERTY: You picture a supermarket. Picture all the shelves, all the products, everything. They are going through every single shelf pulling everything off the shelves, looking in the walls, and that is going to continue throughout the weekend.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAH (on camera): Now, just a short time ago, the Boulder Police Department released details about those first arriving officer as you heard from the district attorney. Those officers, Officer Talley led that contact into the store within 30 seconds of arriving. The suspect fired on those officers, killing Officer Talley and he kept firing and engaging with these officers until he was arrested.
As far as the other people in the store, Pam, no one else was shot and killed as the officers took on all that fire.
BROWN: OK, Kyung Lah, thank you.
I'm Pamela Brown. I'll be back tomorrow and Sunday on my show. "CNN NEWSROOM" beginning at 6:00 p.m. Eastern.
"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.
