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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. I want to read you something that NPR extremism correspondent Hannah Allam posted. It was a note from the principal of her son's school in DC. It said in part, "This afternoon, white mobs moved through police barricades unimpeded as they climb, defaced, and denigrated the Capitol building to bring our democratic process to a halt. These images stand in stark contrast to other recent events in our city and our country. They remind us with incisive clarity that white men and women can move freely even in unlawful and violent ways, while Black men, women, and children cannot sleep, drive, run, or breathe with a guarantee of safety."

Hannah, as a correspondent and as a mom, was happy to see that clarity from her son's school principal. As investigations are beginning into how pro-Trump insurrectionists breached the Capitol building yesterday, one thing from the coverage was made abundantly clear. The mob was majority white, as that principle noticed, even as it was going on. Many people are wondering whether that was a major factor as to why the breach was allowed to happen in the first place.

Joining me now to talk about white supremacist extremism in yesterday's attack on Congress and what comes next around the country is Malcolm Nance, national security and counterterrorism analyst for MSNBC, and author of The Plot to Betray America: How Team Trump Enabled Our Enemies, Compromised Our Security, and How We Can Fix It. Malcolm, welcome back to WNYC, so nice to have you again.

Malcolm Nance: It's glad to be back.

Brian: How do you start to put yesterday's insurrection in the context of white supremacist extremism?

Malcolm: Well, what you saw was the ultimate white privilege, and I say that as an intelligence analyst, and I would say that no matter what country that I saw this in. You have a body of people estimated to be between 40,000 and 50,000 protesters who came to the capital to see Donald Trump speak, to stand for Donald Trump. The march was called The March to Save America. Then the president literally directed them saying they were going to go to the Capitol, directed them to go to the Capitol and make their voice heard to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president-elect.

That right there should have been our first warning sign, and it was for me. I monitor right-wing extremists, and in fact, we were watching their own internal live feeds. When President Trump said that they were going to start marching, a leading edge of young, very young, I would say people 30 years old and younger, started moving towards the Capitol. Within 30 minutes, fights were breaking out all around the western perimeter of the Capitol.

What we saw here was the very fact that they could march up there with flags, unmasked, and feel that they could move and essentially attempt to take the Capitol of the United States with impunity, without any real violence, and without any real resistance shows that there is a double standard in law enforcement in this country, because as Joe Scarborough said this morning on MSNBC, "If they were Black, they would have been shot in the face. If they were Muslim, they would have been sniped a block away."

Brian: I don't know if you've seen this yet, it's just breaking in the last few minutes. Mark Zuckerberg has apparently banned President Trump from Facebook and Instagram, Facebook owns Instagram, at least until he's out of office. Zuckerberg wrote this, "We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great, therefore we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely, and for at least the next two weeks, until the peaceful transition of power is complete." Your reaction?

Malcolm: I've written three books about the Trump-Russia scandal, and I swore I would never write another book about Donald Trump, but Donald Trump has managed to single-handedly radicalize an entire segment of the American public. As much as 40% to 45% of the United States believes his word over anything that they can see with their own eyes, hear with their own ears, and could be rationed out with logic and reason. The reason that he is able to get away with that, and why the Russian influence campaign was so successful in 2016 to amplify his message, was because of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

If there's anything that's coming out of this, and this is why Zuckerberg is sending this message out today, Facebook's future is very dim with an all-Democratic government. Facebook's break up is probably going to be one of the top priorities of this year because of their pervasive influence on propaganda, disinformation, and lies. Zuckerberg was very friendly with Donald Trump up to this point, but now, it has not only led to violence, there's been plenty of violence before this. It led to essentially a physical takeover of one branch of the American government.

Facebook will have to be held to account for their influence on this also. I look forward to Twitter doing the same thing beyond 12 hours for Donald Trump, because he is a liar. He is a conspiracy theorist. He is a propagandist, and he is now responsible for the deaths of at least four people, and we know indirectly for 350,000 going on 400,000 Americans.

Brian: Rick in Queens, you're on WNYC with Malcolm Nance. Hi, Rick.

Rick: Hey, how are you? Thank you for taking my call. Thank you, first off, for your format. I really appreciate that we get a chance to reach out to you. My comment, as everyone has observed, had these people then of color, they'd have been shot on the steps. It is a shift that has to happen in this country about perception, and the perception, you see it. When they look at someone like the Black Lives Matter, these were looked at like people "I was fearful for my life". We have seen how many dozens of Black Americans shot down and killed because an officer said, "I feared for my life."

I've had dealt with the Secret Service. My family has dealt with the Secret Service. You're told once to back up and then that's it. You saw they were standing there barricaded in, guns pulled, and there's a face coming through, and not even one shot was fired. Not saying that everyone should be shot because that would have led to everyone be thinking white supremacy movement just as a martyr, and some might even look up it. We have facial recognition. We have videotapes. We have the Twitter feed. Why there are only 52 arrests, 47 of them made after 6:00 PM?

This went on all day and you see in some of the videotapes, the Capitol police actually walk and turn their back on the protesters and let them in. There need to be accountability but there also needs to be a shift in perception. When you see, you think to yourself, "Maybe the reason these officers didn't shoot and didn't apply rubber bullets, didn't do tear gas, didn't call for backup, is because they looked at these people and said, 'Well, that's my brother. That's my sister. That's my child. That's my uncle.'" When they look at us, and I am a person of color, we're not seen as that. We're not seen as a mother, or a father, or a child of someone. They just shoot and ask questions later and we've seen that from the protest.

I think there needs to be full accountability. I think they need to go back. The FBI has had these people on the domestic terrorist list. They know that. They're registered voters. They should be going after them, picking them up, and charging them. If I should charge the White House lawn, I know I'm going to get shot. Ignorance of the law, as we've been all told, is no excuse. They knew they were breaking the law, and they knew the consequences, and the consequences need to be applied.

Brian: Rick, thank you so much. Malcolm, go ahead.

Malcolm: As a person of color, I understand precisely where you come from, but as an intelligence professional, I went through SWAT officer school many years ago with the first Capitol Hill police SWAT team, which turned into their CERT unit, their C-E-R-T organization, which is responsible for the protection of that building in an extremist situation. Apparently, the other 2,100 officers of the Capitol Hill police, as you said, did not see this protest as more than a high school tour group coming up to the east side of the Capitol.

The west side was in flames. They were fighting at the barricades on the west side of the Capitol, but on the east side, they were treating them like they were getting in line to come in for the tour of the rotunda. I was absolutely flabbergasted by this, and then when they started breaching on all sides, they watched and didn't take active measures. The key part about this is, three months ago, there was an indictment passed in Michigan where a plot to kidnap and kill the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, was revealed. What wasn't generally revealed to the public was there was a plan B if they couldn't get to her. Armed right-wing extremists were going to storm the Capitol with weapons, they were going to take everyone inside hostage, they were going to release the Republicans and they were going to have trials and executions of the Democrats. That is what the plan B was.

When I saw them moving around to the east gate and starting to penetrate, it was pretty clear to me that what we had was a potential hostage barricade and that these people may be going in to kill our elected representatives. Let me give a shout out to the Secret Service here. The Secret Service, the detail assigned to the Vice President, Mike Pence, the one for the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, and the Capitol Hill police private protective detail for Nancy Pelosi. They're the ones who secured the house chambers, not the Capitol Hill police, which is complete and utter failure in their job.

Also, the only reason that the National Guard from Virginia came is because the Secret Service made an emergency call out for support to evacuate the Vice President. The FBI strike teams, which should have been around that building anyway, were brought out only because the Secret Service made an emergency call. This is an utter failure of everything. ISIS must be jealous that they didn't think of this first.

Brian: Mark Fuller who covers Congress for the Huffington Post tweeted yesterday, "A cop as we're evacuating," that is he's quoting a cop who said to him, "bet they like us now." The indication there is the cop is saying, "Oh, the media likes us now because now we're protecting them or protecting people the media care about." Similar to that, I want to play a clip for you of conservative Republican congressman Matt Gaetz on the House floor last night. This is just nine seconds.

Matt Gaetz: I am sure glad that at least, for one day, I didn't hear my Democratic colleagues calling to defund the police. [applause].

Brian: What's your reaction to that? If there's a single standard that should apply or does apply or doesn't apply with respect to law enforcement when there are events like yesterday?

Malcolm: I spent 20 years in the military and the rest of my time as an intelligence contractor. I have seen a lot of extremist events overseas; hostage barricades, suicide hostage barricades, where the terrorists went in with no intent to survive and kill everyone. That is the minimum standard for the United States Capitol. What we have here is a congressman, he needs to be expelled from Congress. He cannot uphold the dignity of the office. The policeman who said that about, "Bet you they like us now," your job is to protect and serve. In fact, I have a proposal, when DC gets its statehood, the Capitol Hill police should be disbanded.

What should happen is the DC state police should take over all security of the United States Capitol. The Park Police shouldn't be out guarding the Washington Monument, they should be leading tours of the Washington Monument. The Capitol Hill police needs to be folded into the DC police and it needs to be a special organization that is much more professional, much more highly trained, and they need to have an enormous amount of fencing put around that building. This can never be allowed to happen again. It happened in 1812, now what happened in 2021.

Brian: Ian in Germantown, Maryland, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ian.

Ian: Hey, Brian, thanks for taking my call. Long time, first time, et cetera. I've been listening your show the past couple of days and people keep asking, "Where are the police? Where were the police?" I think I know where they were, man. I think they were on the other side of that line. I think they must have been some part of that protest. Where did they get a battering ram to break through the bulletproof glass, right? I've heard some officials say that there were surprised that it was even possible to break those doors, but they had the equipment to do it. Of course, they're taking selfies with each other, they all know each other. I know I sounds like a nut right now, but geez, I'm a little upset and disturbed by what I saw yesterday.

Brian: No, it's a serious question. There were so many photos of the pro-Trump insurrectionists who were posing for photos, presumably for their social media. There was the photo, maybe some of you have seen this, of the shirtless man wearing the fur hat and horns seated where Vice President Pence was presiding over the vote moments earlier, and he's posing for a photo taken by another member of the mob with their iPhone. There are others too, mob members taking selfies.

Malcolm, you cited one thing that Joe Scarborough said on his show today. One of his guests, John Heilemann, this morning said he was at least suspicious that there might be a fifth column, as he called it, of Capitol police that is on the side of the insurrectionists. Do you have evidence to support that?

Malcolm: I don't have evidence to support that, but there is video where they just opened the barricades, and then didn't even fall back. They let the crowds flow through them, which means that they didn't feel that there was a threat there, that they were just going to go up on the eastern portico and stand up on the gates. What happened there was a breach. Breach means that the security of the facility has been compromised. In Iraq, we gunned people down for this, because if I was on scene commander, these guys were pulling out ASP batons, which are little batons instead of drawing weapons, because I don't know what their intent is.

Granted, there may be a big crowd but I have to assume that, within that crowd, there is a professional capture and kill team whose job it is to go forward, find people, and execute them; or a murder cell, which is a group of people whose sole function is to start executing people. I have to assume that. It should be the minimum standard for this. This is an utter failure. Capitol Hill police needs to become a completely different organization. If it has to be folded under Department of Homeland Security, so be it, but what needs to happen now is that it needs to be restructured from top to bottom.

Everybody in that organization needs to have the capacity to go straight to long arms and riot gear, and anyone who is friendly or found to have been friendly to this, not only needs to be fired but needs to be criminally charged with conspiracy.

Brian: We have two minutes left in the segment. For you as a counterterrorism expert, what's the longer-term, big-picture, threat here? We've been talking about the last 24 hours. We see Chuck Schumer just in the last few minutes releasing a statement saying Trump should be removed under the 25th amendment, inability to perform his duties. If the cabinet doesn't do that, then he thinks impeachment should go forward, but that's all about Trump in his last 13 days. What about the bigger picture of this white supremacist and other far-right extremist threat post-Trump, post-January 20th, as you see it, Malcolm, in our last minute?

Malcolm: It's funny because I was forced over the last four months to write a new book about this. You know what the title is, it's called They Want to Kill Americans. There is an insurgency led by Donald Trump, who is viewing himself as a president in exile and he's harnessed all three branches of this. The mainstream Republicans who are now QAnon ideology believers, the malicious and the right-wing extremist terrorists; the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, and they are forming a paramilitary insurgency in this country. You know what, they just launched and had their debutante ball yesterday. They may start trying this on other state houses-- [crosstalk].

Brian: Malcolm, 15 seconds. Could this die on the vine post-Trump, or you think it's irrelevant?

Malcolm: This is the start. As he said, this is the beginning of his version of the American Revolution.

Brian: Malcolm Nance is a national security and counterterrorism analyst for MSNBC and the author of The Plot to Betray America: How Team Trump Embraced Our Enemies, Compromised our Security, and How We Can Fix It. When that next book comes out, please come back on the show. Thank you, Malcolm.

Malcolm: My pleasure, Brian.

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