White supremacist praise of the Taliban takeover concerns U.S. officials

Anderson Cooper 360

CNN

News

3.7 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

White supremacist and anti-government extremists expressed admiration when the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, which has worried U.S. officials who have been grappling with the threat of domestic violent extremism. Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe tells Anderson Cooper we’ve seen over time that the domestic extremist community “cherry pick facts,” “take them out of context” and “weave them into their grievances and conspiracy theories to make a point.” Plus, Roe v. Wade is in jeopardy as the Supreme Court and a federal appeals court failed to rule on a controversial Texas law that bans abortions at six weeks. Cecile Richards is the former president of Planned Parenthood. She joins AC360 to discuss the Texas law and says “it’s a tragic day for women not only in Texas but across the country.” Airdate: September 1, 2021 Guests: Andrew McCabe Cecile Richards 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. We begin tonight with breaking news about a new concern from law enforcement.
0:05.2	The white supremacists and violent anti-government extremists are now openly, and this is
0:09.6	pretty stunning, identifying with the Taliban, and even citing them as a model for how to
0:14.5	launch a new civil war here in the United States.
0:18.1	We know this from a conference call. CNN has just obtained involving a top federal intelligence
0:21.9	and Homeland Security official. CNN's Evan Perez joins us now with what was on that call
0:26.4	and what to make of this remarkable notion of the Taliban and somehow figures for some
0:31.5	Americans to admire. So Evan, what is the Department of Homeland Security saying about
0:35.8	this?
0:36.8	Well Anderson, this was a call that was done with law enforcement from the state and
0:40.6	local governments. And John Cohen, who is the top intelligence official at the Homeland
0:44.6	Security Department, raised the concern that there were these domestic groups, white
0:49.8	extremists, white supremacists and domestic extremist groups that are anti-government obviously,
0:56.2	who take some inspiration from what they believe the Taliban was able to accomplish.
1:02.1	Small group or much smaller group, less armed, is able to defeat essentially a much better
1:08.1	armed military in this case, the United States. And so they believe that this is something
1:13.4	that perhaps U.S. extremists could do here in this country, that they could use the same
1:20.4	model that the Taliban was able to do there here in this country to defeat the U.S.
1:25.7	government.
1:27.1	So what level of danger law enforcement agencies actually expect him? How serious are
1:34.1	they about this?
1:35.1	Well, you know, it's serious enough that Cohen mentioned this on a call that Arjun
	...

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