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Terror A Likely Topic At Obama News Conference; Obama Admits Slow Response To Public Fears; Sanders Holds News Conference After DNC Data Breach; Sanders' Campaign Threatens Legal Action Against DNC; Sanders Campaign Suspended from DNC Database. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 18, 2015 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 7:00 p.m. in Paris, 8:00 p.m. in Damascus. Wherever you're watching around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

Terror attacks, fighting ISIS and define what's being billed as a lame duck label. Those are just some of the issues President Obama will confront in his end-of-the-year news conference. It's scheduled to start within the hour. And around 1:15 p.m. Eastern, 15 minutes or so from now, we're going to bring it to you live. Stand by for that.

We're also standing by for a news conference from the Bernie Sanders' campaign. The Democratic National Committee suspending that campaign from a key database after one of Sanders' staffers accessed confidential voter information from his rival, Hillary Clinton. We'll monitor that. We'll get reaction from the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She's standing by live this hour as well.

Back at the White House, the president is dealing with public anxiety following the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino as well as criticism of his plan to destroy ISIS. In a new NBC News-"Wall Street Journal" poll, only 34 percent of Americans approve of how the president is handling ISIS, 60 percent disapprove.

Let's go to our Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta and our Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger. Jim, what's the main message the president hopes to get across in his news conference this hour?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, I think it'll be another message of assuring the American people that this government is on top of it when it comes to protecting the homeland and taking the fight to ISIS. You heard the president deliver that message over the last couple of weeks in several high-profile settings, the Oval Office, the Pentagon and at the National Counterterrorism Center yesterday.

But this will be a unique opportunity for the president to also talk about, you know, what he feels like his accomplishments were over the last year. They want to talk about that climate change deal that was inked in Paris. They want to talk about the Iran nuclear deal. They want to talk about diplomatic relations opened up with Cuba and the improving economy. But it's against that backdrop, Wolf, that the president is going to

have to deal with, in terms of reassuring the public. There is a climate of fear and concern out in the American public about what is happening with this fight against ISIS. There is not a lot of confidence in the president's strategy for taking out the terror army.

There -- and there is growing concern as to whether or not the government can protect the homeland against these lone wolf terrorist attacks. You mentioned that NBC News-"Wall Street Journal" poll. There are other polls showing that a very small minority of Americans are confident that the U.S. government can prevent a lone wolf terrorist attack. And so, he's going to have to answer those questions.

And I suspect, Wolf, he'll also be asked about this new executive order that's being planned for tightening gun ownership in this country, gun purchases in this country. That is something that I think will be coming up very short -- shortly after the new year. The president's aides are forecasting that he will likely deliver those executive orders on guns after the new year. And I think we'll hear about that as well.

And, of course, the campaign. You were just talking about Bernie Sanders. There's also what's happening on the Republican side, Donald Trump and his comments about Vladimir Putin. I suspect that might be too tempting for a reporter to let that one pass during this news conference that's coming up within the hour.

BLITZER: Yes, and that news conference is probably going to last at least an hour, maybe longer.

ACOSTA: That's right.

BLITZER: It's that end-of-the-year news conference for the president before he heads to California. Later tonight, he'll meet with some of the families from the San Bernardino terror attack, then he's going to go off to Hawaii for the family vacation.

Gloria Borger, we're learning, also, new details about this off-the- record conversation the president had that he some columnists this week. According to reports, the president acknowledges he was slow to react to the concern of the American public that terrorism could strike the U.S. homeland.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: When you -- when you speak with people at the White House, as I've done, the issue, I think, to them is that it's very hard for the president to calm the public when you have a Republican campaign that's going on that is actually, they believe, stirring up the public's fears.

They also will admit, as the president apparently admitted through the reports we've read this morning in this off-the-record meeting with journalists, that he -- that he underestimated the public fear in the wake of Paris and San Bernardino. That he did not take to the bully pulpit quickly enough or publicly enough. And so, what they're trying to do now is make up for that, quite frankly. I mean, we saw the president visiting the counterterrorism center. They're going to keep doing updates about how we are dealing with terror in this country, just to let the public know that the president is on top of it.

It also didn't help, obviously, Wolf, when the president said that ISIS was contained, when it clearly wasn't, before San Bernardino. So, they have a lot of ground to make up.

[13:05:03] And I think the president -- over the years, we've seen that he's erred on the -- on the side of being more sort of low key than heading right out and talking directly to the American public when there have been problems. We saw that with the oil spill, for example. And I think it's his nature.

And even at this late stage in his term, they haven't kind of realized that you really do need to speak to the American public directly when there are big events like this.

BLITZER: He's still underwater in his job approval numbers, according to this new NBC News-"Wall Street Journal" poll. The president's approval rating is at 43 percent --

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: -- compared to 51 percent who disapprove of the president's job performance right now. I assume that's, in part, because the public doesn't have confidence that he's doing the right thing, as far as ISIS.

BORGER: That's right. I mean, he's down since -- in approval since September. And if you -- if you look further into that poll, Wolf, on his handling of foreign policy, he gets only 37 percent approval. On his handling of ISIS, only 34 percent approval. So, that clearly is reflected in his polling numbers.

BLITZER: All right, Gloria, standby. We're awaiting the president of the United States. We'll have live coverage, of course, --

BORGER: Yes.

BLITZER: -- of that news conference from the White House once it begins.

But right now, I want to bring in Wisconsin's senator, Ron Johnson. He's the Republican chairman of the Senator Homeland Security Committee. Senator, thanks very much for joining us. Let me get your reaction first to these comments the president apparently made in this off-the-record conversation he had with columnists about what it would mean, a ground war against ISIS.

According to reports, he said a hundred dead American soldiers a month, 500 American troops would come wounded. And it would cost the U.S. about $10 billion a month for this kind of ground war to develop in Iraq and Syria. Is that an acceptable risk to you? SEN. RON JOHNSON (R), WISCONSIN, CHAIRMAN, HOMELAND SECURITY

COMMITTEE: First of all, hello, Wolf. And let me first start to say it's not that President Obama hasn't done enough photo-ops or hasn't said enough things. What the American people are looking for is action. They actually want to accomplish the goal that President Obama, himself, laid out 15 months ago which is to degrade and ultimately defeat, with the emphasis on the word defeat, ISIS. This is 15 months later. We haven't contained ISIS. We found out they're not the J.V. team.

And so, the bottom line is that is what we have to do. We have to defeat ISIS. And, of course, that's what these -- the finest among us. That's what they've signed up to do, to be involved in our military and go defeat our enemies. And President Obama simply hasn't, you know, really agreed to take the action that's going to be required to take. I don't know what the sacrifice would be but that's exactly what the finest among us have really signed up to do, to keep this nation safe and to defend our freedoms.

BLITZER: Because, I mean, he says, right now -- apparently this is what he said. We might hear this directly from the president in his news conference. The threat from ISIS, yes, it's significant. But it's not enough to justify what would be the cost in human lives and the cost in money if the U.S. were to go forward with this kind of deployment. Does he make a good case, from your perspective?

JOHNSON: Is he backing away from his stated goal of defeating ISIS? Because if he really wants to defeat ISIS, it's going to take ground troops. Now, from my standpoint, what we need is American leadership to assemble that committed coalition of the willing.

Like George H. W. Bush did in the first Gulf War. Back then, our coalition partners provided a third of the troop strength, and it paid for 85 percent of the effort. That's a true committed coalition. But because President Obama hasn't led sufficiently, people are holding back. They're not committing. They're not committing ground troops. And you cannot defeat ISIS. You cannot deny them that territory, take it away without troops on the ground. You just simply can't do it.

So, President Obama has to be level with the American people. Is he really committed to the goal of defeating ISIS or is he going to just sit here in a holding pattern for the next 11-12 months --

BLITZER: All right.

JOHNSON: -- until the end of his administration. And that's why I think so many Americans are frustrated and disappointed in his leadership.

BLITZER: Mr. Chairman, if you can hold on for a moment, Senator Bernie Sanders is about to make a statement -- I guess the campaign is about to make a statement on these DNC allegations that they inappropriately accessed Hillary Clinton's database at the DNC. I want to quickly listen in.

JEFF WEAVER, CAMPAIGN MANAGER, BERNIE SANDERS (live): -- assured at that time that the firewall between the campaign's data would be restored. We are -- we are, actually, very confident that, at that time, some of our data was lost to one of the other campaigns.

Instead, we found out two days ago that once again, the sensitive and important data was compromised because the DNC and its vendor failed to protect it. We have invested enormous campaign resources in acquiring the rights to use this proprietary data.

But the DNC in an inappropriate overreaction has denied us access to our very own data. This is data collected by hundreds of thousands of volunteers across America. This database for our campaign is funded by the over 2 million contributions that this campaign has received from people all across the country.

[13:10:03] Let me briefly discuss three issues involved in this matter. First, as they pointed out earlier, this is not the first time that the vendor hired by the DNC and the DNC to run the voter profile program, NGP VAN, has allowed serious failures to occur. On more than one occasion, they have dropped the firewall between the data of competing Democratic campaigns. This is dangerous incompetence.

It was our campaign, months ago, that alerted the DNC to the fact that the campaign data was being made available to other campaigns. At that time, our campaign did not run to the media, relying instead on assurances from the vendor that the problem would be resolved. Unfortunately, the other day, the vendor, once again, dropped the firewall between the campaigns for some data.

Secondly, after discussion with the DNC, it became clear that some of our staffers irresponsibly accessed some of the data from another campaign. That behavior is unacceptable to the Sanders' campaign, and we fired the staffer immediately and made certain that any information obtained was not utilized.

We are now speaking to other staffers who might have been involved and further disciplinary action may follow. Clearly, while the information was made available to our campaign because of the incompetence of the vendor, it should not been looked at, period.

Third, rather incredibly, the leadership of the DNC has used this incident to shut down our ability to access our own information. Information which is the lifeblood of this campaign. This is the information about our supporters, our volunteers, the lists of people we intend to contact in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere. This is information we have worked hard to obtain.

As I mentioned before, this is information gathered by our volunteers across the country, funded by the over $2 million contributions we received online. It is our information, and the information of all of these volunteers and the people who support our campaign, not the DNC's.

In other words, by their action, the leadership of the Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign. This is unacceptable. Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign. One of the strongest grass root campaigns in modern history.

We are announcing today that if the DNC continues to hold our data hostage and continues to try to attack the heart and soul of our grass roots campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking immediate relief.

What is required here is a full and independent audit of the DNC's mishandling of this data, and its security from the beginning of this campaign to the present, including the incident in October that we alerted them to when we are fairly confident that large amounts of our data were sent to another campaign.

Thank you very much. This is Brad Deutsche who represents the campaign on our legal team. And I'm happy to answer any questions that people may have.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you assure the DNC and the Clinton campaign that you no longer possess any of the Clinton campaign data?

WEAVER: Well, I can tell you that this campaign, in an official capacity, does not possess any data, does not retain any data, doesn't want any of their data. In fact, when their data, due to this October breach, was dumped into a vendor of ours' computer system, we had it isolated, locked up and we alerted the DNC immediately. We are running a clean campaign. We are going to beat Secretary Clinton and everybody else in this campaign on the issues. We don't need dirty tricks. That's not how we run it here.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which campaign (INAUDIBLE) data (INAUDIBLE)?

WEAVER: Well, I think after this independent audit, we will find that out.

(CROSSTALK)

WEAVER: Look, we are investigating that. One of the ironies of this situation is because the DNC has inappropriately cut us off from access to the VAN, the Voter Network, it makes it impossible for us to do any kind of independent review of who looked at what during that time period.

So, what we did is we immediately froze the e-mail accounts of all employees we suspected were involved. We reviewed all of their e- mails and Google documents. We restored any documents or e-mails that they had deleted during the relevant time periods and have reviewed them all. And the investigation internally is ongoing. You know, in the heat of these campaigns, sometimes young people make misjudgments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you know what (INAUDIBLE)?

WEAVER: Because I manage this campaign. I know what data is being used. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was anything downloaded (INAUDIBLE)?

WEAVER: What -- nothing was -- nothing was -- no data, that I am aware of, was exported in a way that could be used by anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was there -- do you have documents to show that up to 10 early voting states may have been accessed and that efforts were made to restore the data and that as many as four campaign staffers --

WEAVER: NGP issued an after-action report that said that no -- none of these reports were printed and none of them were exported. So, I'm relying on NGP and I have to rely on them, unfortunately.

[13:15:11]

The DNC's monopoly vendor has sole access to this information, because we've been cut off from it. so whatever you're hearing from them, you're getting their side of the story and has not been verified by us, and that's why we look forward to a full, independent audit of the DNC's handling of data going forward.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) in Iowa and New Hampshire (INAUDIBLE).

WEAVER: Look, this is taking our campaign hostage. We have a grassroots campaign, right? So when we have people come to our campaign headquarters to call volunteers or to call voters to talk to them about Bernie Sanders' campaign to transform America, we can't generate phone numbers to do that. It's impossible to mobilize the kind of grass roots campaign we have without access to that data. And we are, because of the nature of our campaign, particularly affected by this type of taking of data hostage by the DNC.

QUESTION: Does it make it impossible for you to win?

WEAVER: It does not make it impossible to win because I think people across this country, and I think we're beginning to see it now already online, are outraged by this conduct by the DNC, which is clearly a heavy-handed attempt to undermine this campaign.

QUESTION: Has the DNC taken sides in (INAUDIBLE) campaign?

QUESTION: Has the DNC given you an indication how long they plan to freeze your access to your (ph) data?

WEAVER: To own data? How long they're going to freeze - freeze our access to our own data? They have not. And that's why we're going to have to go to federal court if this is not resolved very, very shortly to vindicate the rights, not only of this campaign, but of the millions of people across this country who want change.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) said all -

WEAVER: Go ahead, I'm sorry.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE). WEAVER: Well, as I mentioned, you know, we are doing an internal investigation. Further disciplinary action may come depending on what we find. But the truth is, is that our ability to investigate this has been inhibited by our inability to look at the V.A.N. (ph) that we've - that's been withheld from us. So the DNC is - the DNC is, by their own action, is hindering our ability to do the kind of investigation that they say that they want.

QUESTION: Your former staffer has said she wasn't trying to collect data on the Clinton campaign, he was just trying to (INAUDIBLE) the extent of its vulnerabilities. Is it possible that you overreacted and fired him?

WEAVER: We have very, very high ethical standards in this campaign, all right. Bernie Sanders is a different kind of candidate. We're running a campaign to transform America. So people who work on this campaign have to understand that even the appearance of something that's not right is too much. And so we did let that staffer go. I think that was a clear signal that we take this very, very seriously, both with respect to our data and other people's data. We will certainly not use anybody else's data or retain anybody else's data. The DNC is clearly acting in a heavy handed way, in an unprecedented way. I would like to see another instance where a presidential campaign had their data withheld - their own data withheld under similar circumstances. So -

QUESTION: Is the DNC taking sides (ph) (INAUDIBLE).

WEAVER: Excuse me.

QUESTION: You said two months ago (INAUDIBLE).

WEAVER: Two months ago we found out when we were downloading some of our data that it was dumping a bunch of other campaign's data along with ours, which clearly indicated that the firewall between the campaigns was ineffective, right? We immediately segregated that information at our vendor, put it in a - put it in a password protected file so that we could document that, in fact, there had been a breech, because we were very concerned that large amounts of our own data was being download. And we contacted the DNC to remedy the situation. They assured us, we didn't run out here to all of you all, we talked to them and we - we were assured that this was going to be taken care of. But apparently they are not competent in terms of maintain the security of data between the campaigns.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) DNC taking sides with the Clinton campaign?

WEAVER: What's that?

QUESTION: Is the Clinton - is the DNC taking sides with the Clinton campaign?

WEAVER: Sure - all I - look, all I can tell you - I don't know the motivation of every single person over at the DNC, but I think if you look at a pattern of conduct, we've obviously had concern about the - you know, the Saturday night debate schedule and its impact on the ability of campaigns to get their message out. Clearly there's - in this case, it looks like they are trying to help the Clinton campaign. You know, we are taking on the establishment and I'm sure there are people within the Democratic establishment who are not happy about the overwhelming success that Senator Sanders is having all across this country. But we are determined to win this campaign, and we're going to win this campaign by talking about the issues that are important to the American people. To do that, we need our data, which has been stolen by the DNC. That's what we want back.

Thank you all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, everybody. Thank you.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Very strong words from Jeff Weaver, the campaign manager for the Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, making some severe accusations against the Democratic National Committee for stopping their access to what he describes as Bernie Sanders' campaign information. A powerful indictment of the DNC. The chair of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, she's standing by live and we're going to get her reaction. There she is. We're going to get her reactions to these accusations from Jeff Weaver when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:27] BLITZER: Take a look at these live pictures coming in from the White House right now. President Obama getting ready to hold a year-end news conference. We expect he'll be asked questions for about an hour on the war against ISIS, terrorism, the presidential race, and whole lot more. Our special coverage will come up. That will come up shortly. I'll anchor that coverage. Stand by for that.

But you just heard only moments ago the Bernie Sanders' campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, responding to the campaign's suspension to a key DNC, Democratic National Committee, database. He called it irresponsible, an irresponsible reaction, after the DNC's vendor failed to keep information between the rival camps confidence. The Sanders' campaign has fired one staffer. Listen to what else he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WEAVER: We are announcing today that if the DNC continues to hold our data hostage and continues to try to attack the heart and soul of our grassroots campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking immediate relief. What is required here is a full and independent audit of the DNC's mishandling of this data and its security from the beginning of this campaign to the present, including the incident in October that we alerted them to when we are fairly confident that large amounts of our data were sent to another campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And joining us now, from Florida congresswoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She's the chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Congresswoman, thanks very much for joining us.

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, CHAIR, DNC: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: You heard the blistering indictment. Are you ready to go to federal court to defend your decision to suspend the Bernie Sanders' campaign from allowing - from getting access to what he describes, Jeff Weaver, as their own information?

[13:25:10] SCHULTZ: Well, Wolf, let's - let's take a look at the facts that are not in dispute. The Sanders' campaign has acknowledged that they inappropriately accessed data to which they were not entitled. Proprietary information that was the property of the Clinton campaign. That's not in dispute.

They - we have been trying, over the last two days, to get, you know, an analysis and information from the Sanders' campaign that at this point they have refused to provide. We have also agreed, and we are initiating an independent audit, because that is the only way that we can make sure that we can protect our significant asset that is the voter file in its integrity.

And let me give you the analogy here, Wolf. I mean, I guess the Sanders' campaign, unfortunately, doesn't have anything other than bluster at the moment that they can put out there, because what they're doing, what they've done, is it's like if you had - if you found the front door of your house unlocked and someone decided to go into the house and take things that didn't belong to them. And then when they were caught, they still insisted on having access to the house. I mean the only way for us at the moment to make sure that we analyze what amount of information was taken, and that we can prevent and make sure that the Sanders' campaign no longer has access to it, is to suspend their ability to manipulate it.

And the only way we know how to do that, which, by the way, is part of our agreement that they signed and that we signed when they purchased access to the voter file. So we are following the agreement that both parties entered into. This is certainly not unreasonable. It is actually the only way that we can insure that we protect the integrity of our voter file. And I can feel - I can be quite certain that if the shoe were on the other foot, and the Clinton campaign had inappropriately accessed Sanders' campaign proprietary information, I'm confident that this is the decision that they would expect from us and it is the same decision that we would make if the shoe were on the other foot.

BLITZER: The argument that Jeff Weaver, the campaign manager from the Bernie Sanders' campaign, says is it's the DNC's fault and the vendor's fault. That the DNC hired a vendor to protect all of this sensitive campaign information that apparently was incompetent and as a result some young staffers working with Bernie Sanders' campaign, they may have gotten carried away, one of those staffers has now been filed, but it's your fault, the DNC, for having inappropriate or a not adequate vendor. What's your reaction to that?

SCHULTZ: First of all, there's no question - I mean since we - I want to make sure we're dealing with facts that are not in dispute. There's no question that the vendor, NGP VAN (ph), that manages our voter file, when they were applying a software patch, there was, temporarily, a window opened up that allow each campaign to see one another's proprietary information. The difference here is, is that just like when you leave that front door unlocked, you know, if you're going to be ethical and responsible, you don't - you don't go into the house, even though the door is unlocked, and take things that don't belong to you.

The Sanders' campaign, and their staff specifically, chose not to make that decision, and they went into the house. They accessed the information to which they were not entitled. And our reports that we have from our vendor, and the analysis that they have done initially, is that they not only viewed it, but they exported it, and they downloaded it.

And so in order to make sure that we can preserve the integrity of our voter file and prevent a campaign - to date, which we do not know the depth of what they actually viewed and have downloaded, we have to make sure that they can't manipulate that information until we know exactly what happened, what they have, and that we can verify to each campaign that we have handled this in a way that is compliant with the agreement that they each signed. And that's the - that's the process that we're going to follow.

BLITZER: Will you let them at least have access to their own information that they put into that database, not Hillary Clinton's information or DNC information, but Bernie Sanders' campaign information?

SCHULTZ: What we've suspended is their access to the voter file software. So that is what they do not have access to. And, you know, I'm not familiar enough technologically to, you know, to, you know, describe what it is they do and don't have access to.

[13:29:52] One thing I do want to address, Wolf, though, you know, Jeff, I guess, in, you know, trying to make sure you throw enough stuff up on the wall here, said something about a previous time in which they made us aware that there was an opening of that same window. When the analysis was done at that time, and that is also not in dispute, there was --