Pentagon authorizes 25,000 National Guard members for inauguration

Anderson Cooper 360

CNN

News

3.7 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2021

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Pentagon has authorized up to 25,000 National Guard members for President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration as the nation braces for more possible violence after the deadly Capitol Hill riots. After a FBI bulletin warned of armed protests in all 50 state capitols in the days leading up to January 20th, the National Guard Bureau said “every state, territory and the District of Columbia will have National Guard men and women supporting the inauguration.” Jonathan Wackrow was a Secret Service Agent during the Obama Administration and helped with the 2013 inauguration committee planning. He joins AC360 to discuss the current threat to Washington, DC and says the worry should be people acting as lone wolves. Plus, Pres. Trump is planning to leave for his new home in Florida the morning of the inauguration and sources say he’s considering a color guard, military band, 21-gun salute and even a red carpet for his departure ceremony. Tony Schwartz is co-author of Trump’s “Art of the Deal.” He tells Anderson Cooper he isn’t surprised and doesn’t think the President is able to take in the “enormity of the defeat.” Airdate: January 15, 2021 Guests: Jonathan Wackrow Tony Schwartz To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good evening, as the president makes plans for his military send off next week, the capital
0:05.0	he's preparing to flee is witnessing the kind of military presence one seen only in places
0:09.0	like Baghdad and Kabul, which is not something to just take note of and move on from.
0:13.4	It has not been this way since the Civil War, and it's growing.
0:17.3	The Pentagon laid today upping the contingent for next week's inauguration from 21 to 25,000
0:23.2	national guard members.
0:25.1	And just as the threat picture for that took shape, there's breaking news about a police
0:28.6	intelligence report that predicted something like what we saw last week, three days before
0:34.0	the assault took place.
0:35.9	That and other new details about last week's attack, they make it clear, in case a reminder
0:40.3	is needed, that this could easily have been far deadlier than it was.
0:44.5	There's new reporting in the Washington Post about how close the insurrectionists, some
0:48.2	of whom are shouting hang mic pence and lynch pence, may have come to actually crossing paths
0:53.5	with the vice president, his wife and daughter.
1:08.2	According to the post timeline, this mob being lured away bravely from the Senate chamber
1:12.4	door by capital police officer Eugene Goodman, came up the stairs at 2.14 pm.
1:18.5	According to C-SPAN footage and a post reporter on the scene, that is just a minute after
1:22.8	the vice president was moved from the room into a nearby office.
1:26.6	At the attackers arrived just that one brief minute sooner, they might have spotted pence
1:30.6	and who knows what might have happened then.
1:33.2	Just 10 minutes later, by the way, with the vice president and his family in hiding protected
1:36.6	by secret service, the president tweeted, and I quote, Mike Pence didn't have the courage
	...

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