National Security Expert: If Trump Loses Election, Expect Violence

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, when practiced correctly, law and order is vital in upholding American and all other democracies, as we saw on January 6th, when a violent mob incited by then President Donald Trump sought to prevent a peaceful transition of power. So, looking ahead to the 2024 election, some fear another upheaval should Trump lose again. Our next guest is one of those sounding the alarm. Homeland Security expert Juliette Kayyem argues the government isn’t ready for the violence Trump might unleash. And she’s joining Hari Sreenivasan now to discuss what President Biden should do to plan for the worst.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks, Juliette Kayyem, thanks so much for joining us. You wrote an article recently, the title was “The Government Isn’t Ready for the Violence Trump Might Unleash.” What is most concerning you right now heading into this election?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, DHS AND PROFESSOR, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL: So, what’s concerning me is both the nature and the consistency of threats of violence that are coming out of the Trump campaign, in particular with Donald Trump. I sort of take as a given that he’s telling us what his intentions are, as he did before January 6th. There’s an elevated threat environment, which the FBI has already warned us about. He threatens or utilizes the potential for violence, whether it’s on his social media sites or in his speeches, the language is the language of incitement. And so, the scenario that I worry about isn’t just sort of our election, but if Trump were to lose, we need to be ready that he needs to create a narrative about what that loss means. It was stolen, the election was rigged. And President Biden, not as the candidate, but as the president of the United States who needs to guarantee a peaceful election, needs to be more transparent on what the preparations are and take some of the advice of the January 6th Committee report to get ready for potentially the next insurrection.

SREENIVASAN: So, what was some of that advice from that report that bears repeating and bears keeping in mind?

KAYYEM: So, there’s two different pieces of the report, 700 pages are a documentation of what happened on January 6th and a telling of how that was essentially a state-sponsored insurrection. There are about 45 pages of recommendations, but they are worth following. Some are sort of increased sentencing, enhancements for the kinds of crimes that we saw around January 6th, those would require congressional approval. But others sort of direct the federal government to be more organized, more centralized, to share information with state and locals and be prepared in particular for the time period between November and January. If Donald Trump wins, then there will likely be an orderly transition of power, simply because we have no reason to suspect President Biden wouldn’t do that. But if he loses, we certainly know from what Trump has said, and we also know from what the FBI is telling us that there are large groups and organizations that are preparing to continue the fight. And that’s — and those are the kinds of law enforcement and preparedness measures that President Biden needs to address now and specifically needs to be transparent about. He needs to guide this very divided population through the next couple of months.

SREENIVASAN: When you mentioned that Former President Trump is telling us exactly what he’s going to do, what he’s interested in, you know, there’s always this concern with him about how much of this rhetoric is bluster.

KAYYEM: That’s exactly right. I’ve long taken Trump literally, because he’s — he does signal what his intentions are, whether it was before January 6th and the warnings that people like me who were following him saying, you know, this is no longer a hint, right? It is a place, it is a time, and it’s a mission, at least for January 6th. Now, what we’re seeing in terms of the election strategy, the campaign strategy and what he’s doing on social media, let alone what he’s saying in rallies that we tend to ignore in the mainstream press is very much the same kind of language. I want to be clear, most of Donald Trump supporters are not going to go to violence, but what Donald Trump certainly knows is that there are people who follow him who will be guided by that kind of language. And what he certainly ought to know at this stage is that there is lots of activity in social media taking his words, taking his language, and then essentially continuing to weaponize it. These are things that Donald Trump is aware of and does nothing to curb and in fact, further enhances. It’s not — look, this is really disconcerting. I get it. I get people’s desire to think, no, this time it will be OK. I see no purpose in that at this stage. We should be guaranteed as citizens, whatever our ideological background, to a peaceful election period and transition to the next term, whether it is President Biden or Former President Donald Trump, and listen to what Donald Trump is telling us will happen if he loses. Juliette, how do we have conversations leading up to the election and after with this group of Americans who might believe in, you know, what Kelly Conway famously made the phrase, alternative facts, who, at this point today, think that Joe Biden is not the legitimately elected president?

KAYYEM: Yes. So, there’s a lot of lessons learned now. I think that maybe if there’s a silver lining to this, we certainly know different strategies. And I think it depends on who the we is. So, I want to sort of divide up this group of people. So — and we see polling that suggests a large percentage of Americans think that Biden didn’t legitimately win. Some of that may just be posturing for polls. So, that poll may not be as big as 30 or 40 percent or whatever the polls are telling us. We know that there’s a group of people who do believe the misinformation and the disinformation. And what gets them to sort of look at reality are three things. One is it’s actually their social group, their family and friends. There’s almost nothing the government can pounce on your head. It is people being alerted or understanding what’s happening to their peer group. You have a mother who, you know, goes into this hole or whatever. And look, peer groups tend to find like-minded souls. This is not easy. But if the solution is not going to come from some, you know, talking points from the White House, it is going to come from communities engaging people in one-on-one conversations. People have trusted family members, trusted advisers, trusted professionals. And we know — first of all, we know that piece works. The second is if we’re the media is to essentially not repeat the untruth. Even to say that’s outrageous, right? So, part of it is this understanding of what’s called the truth sandwich, which is two plus two equals four. Donald Trump said two plus two equals five, that is not true. Two plus two equals four. That is a way to think about how we package truth. And then the third piece is, sometimes it’s not words. I have long believed and have written and believe it now that law enforcement and prosecutions have a role in this. One of the reasons why the insurgency groups are essentially on their knees, it’s hard for them to raise money, it’s hard for them to recruit is because of these prosecutions. So, part of it is also letting people know there is a price to pay for unlawful conduct, that this isn’t just words.

SREENIVASAN: So, you know, some of the prescriptions that the January 6th report laid out was in what we do physically to prepare the D.C. area. If President Biden was to win the election, and we kind of have another rebuilding of forces that want to do something on January 6th or another day, and the Biden administration says, hey, you know what, we’re going to declare this kind of a national security event and we’re going to have that kind of security around it. Does that just make people on the other side go, look, see, look, the fix is in, there’s no way that we could actually express our voice, the state is exerting so much authority there, they want to make sure that there’s no transition of power because — you know, to Donald Trump that was legitimately elected in their minds?

KAYYEM: Look, there’s going to be people that will perceive this through a political lens no matter what. And we have to accept that. The more preparation and planning that President Biden can do in terms of who’s the lead federal agency, what kind of physical protections do you want, say, at Congress or the Supreme Court or even at the White House, who’s in charge in D.C.? D.C. is a complicated governance system, as we saw in January 6th between the National Guard and Capitol Police and Secret Service and local police. Let’s get that organized now. And the reason why I urge that is, one, that no one’s guessing at the moment something happened, as we saw in the January 6th Committee report, it was that inability to respond in many ways. Who could do what? What were their authorities that made it difficult? And I think, secondly, you know, that this organization will actually ensure that peaceful protest, even against, you know, the President Biden, is allowable. What we don’t want is a situation when, you know, everyone goes to — you know, to their separate sides and then you have a conflict. And I think President Biden needs to be transparent about it now. I think it’s the only way it would work in order to minimize the kind of politics that you’re talking about.

SREENIVASAN: Should President Biden now say, look, if I lose this election, here you go. We are going to make sure that we will have a transition of power. I mean, I don’t know if there is a, you know, fear of missing out for Donald Trump, whether he would say the same thing, but making clear to the electorate that these are his ground rules?

KAYYEM: Yes, it’s a great point. He absolutely should. In fact, I now think that the question that we often ask Donald Trump or some of his elected supporters, you know, will you accept the results of the election as sort of a silly question? They can wiggle themselves out of that. The question we need to start asking is, do you condone violence if your candidate does not win? We need to start shaming this violence and the threat of violence that has become, you know, part of our democratic process. Our norms are completely stretched right now and we’re kind of not seeing it. And so, I think, you know, not only should President Biden say, here’s how it’s going to work peacefully if I don’t win, but we need to get others to also embrace that word peaceful. We’ll still disagree with each other, but the fact that we’re having this conversation, right, that the risk of a not peaceful period leading up to the election and then certainly after shows how far, you know, we’ve stretched sort of our understanding of what democracy is as well as stretch the threat environment, which is increased by everybody’s account.

SREENIVASAN: You know, when you mentioned the threat of violence or the possibility of violence, I mean, there’s polling data. There was one in October, the PRRI poll, and it said 23 percent of Americans believed that they might have to “resort to violence in order to save our country.” That is up. It was 2021 when they asked that question last time and it was 15 percent then. So, it’s — I mean, this is definitely like one of those wrong track indicators. How many — why is it that people feel like they are so removed that that violence, that last resort is already there in their minds?

KAYYEM: Yes, I think part of it is because we need to be more transparent about what the consequences are. In other words, I think has festered because we’ve kind of accepted it as a norm of how Donald Trump campaigns and what I’m — you know, as someone who studies terrorism and incitement, we need to begin the counter narrative now that this is unacceptable, that the norms cannot be stretched this way, that we are ready if people are willing to take up arms against the democratic system, right? It’s not democratic. It’s against the democratic system. And begin — as I’ve been saying for a long time, begin to shame this kind of policy or belief. And I don’t mean Trumpism. I don’t even mean MAGAism. I mean, violence, violence. That is what we have to be collectively against at this stage. It cannot be winked away, or he jokes, or he was just kidding, or he didn’t really mean it, or, you know, you’re just parsing words from him. I think I can say with confidence, he means it. And my proof is January 6th. I mean, I don’t need another example. It’s four years later. And I think we should feel confident saying that. It’s not political. It’s just – – I’m reading the data.

SREENIVASAN: You know, are we in a better position when it comes to Homeland Security from domestic terror groups, domestic terror? You know, when the FBI or other agencies look out at this landscape, are we in a — are the preconditions the same, better, or worse than what happened to January 6th?

KAYYEM: I say that they’re different. And that difference doesn’t necessarily make it better. OK. So, one is that the organizing groups, the ones that we know the names of, say, Proud Boys, those are now essentially — they’re not over, but they’re on their knees. And the reason why is they have charismatic leaders who are now in jail for serious sedition crimes. They can’t raise money. They can’t recruit. So, that’s good in the sense that you don’t want organized paramilitary organizations going after democracy. That doesn’t mean that their appeal is completely over. Look, ideologies don’t end. They only get isolated or decrease. And so, what you are seeing, as you said, is sort of the to the ground, right, that there are people who are still, as we see, buying into this, who are still believing that violence is a natural extension of our democratic differences. And those are harder to find, because they’re not online, they’re not organizing, they’re not meeting. And I think that, as FBI director Chris Wray said recently in testimony, that’s sort of his — you know, that’s a fear that you know is out there, but they’re really hard to find in every instance. But then there’s another part of this post sort of January 6, 2021 narrative, which is the criminal prosecutions. So, criminal prosecutions have gone very, very far in showing that there are consequences for this kind of behavior. People know that they could go to jail, lose their jobs, be isolated from their families for even something that they thought was kind of a joke. And I think that’s an important message to keep, you know, playing out. That’s what the January 6th Committee tried to do. Their memorialization of January 6th was also a message to those who think that this is acceptable behavior. There are consequences.

SREENIVASAN: Juliette, you and I have been speaking for years, and one of the conversations we had was after you wrote a book, “The Devil Never Sleeps,” and that was really almost a way of saying, look, we’re going to have, whether you call it a crisis, a disaster, a catastrophe, we know what happened four years ago. We know what’s — you know, there’s a moment that we can plan better for if there is a failure that we can — what is it that concerns you? What are the lessons that people need to be thinking about when they look forward to say, how do we just get a peaceful transition of power?

KAYYEM: Yes. So, I mean, there’s two lessons from that book. The first is just embrace the devil. I mean, part of what I’m trying to do now is we don’t have to pretend anymore that this is all a joke. I think it’s very important that we understand that violence and the threat of violence are part of our election process for 2024. If we can then admit that, then what would you do knowing that that threat environment is higher? You would, you know, prepare local and states. You would make sure you have lead federal agencies, all of the things that I talk about in terms of, don’t be afraid that this could happen, get ready for it. I think the second piece, for me, the thing that worries me, I think the most is what we call situational awareness. It’s a big country. Lots of things are going to be going on those days. And do we have transparency on what the threat is doing, what they might try to do, and then are we able to stop them? That worries me just because there’s going to be a lot of activity. We can prepare for that as well. And in particular in D.C., well, there should be no reason that we are going to be surprised in the District of Columbia. We know people will plan on rallying and we should allow them to express their First Amendment rights, but also be prepared that should they threaten violence or perform violence, that they will be prosecuted.

SREENIVASAN: Juliette Kayyem, Homeland Security expert and a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, thanks so much for joining us.

KAYYEM: Thank you for having me.