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Carl Bernstein Talks Democratic Race; 3 Charged in Flint Toxic Water Crisis; One-on-One with RNC Chair Reince Priebus. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired April 20, 2016 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:30:36] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming off of the New York primary, Hillary Clinton says victory is now in sight. Bernie Sanders says not so fast. His campaign is vowing to stay in the race until July, until that convention, fighting for every single super delegate.
Clinton's communications director, as we mentioned moments ago, says the Sanders campaign has been destructive to the point that it's not productive to Democrats and not productive for the country. We just talked to a Sanders supporter about that.
Let's flip the switch and talk to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Carl Bernstein, author of "A Woman in Charge, The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton."
Carl Bernstein, always a pleasure.
We said we would chat. Here we are. I just spoke to Ben Jealous, who said those words about tone, being destructive, essentially saying, back to Jen Palmieri, the communications director for Clinton, feels the same way, roles are reversed.
CARL BERNSTEIN, JOURNALIST & AUTHOR: It's an astonishing statement that she made. First of all, Hillary Clinton needs Bernie Sanders's following, the movement, especially if Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. He's going to run a slash-and-burn campaign, and without those young people -- and also Sanders has moved Hillary on the issues where she never wanted to be.
BALDWIN: Yeah.
BERNSTEIN: But her positions on the issues are now really Sanders' positions, by and large. And to call that destructive, if that's destructive, she's self-destructing.
BALDWIN: Wow.
BERNSTEIN: I don't think she has self-destructed.
BALDWIN: Right.
BERNSTEIN: But having her spokespeople say things like that is really not the way to go. BALDWIN: I think you're right that she would need the Sanders
supporters.
BERNSTEIN: There's no question about it.
BALDWIN: And we were just talking to Ben about that. But at the same time, you know, Bernie Sanders, he says he and Jeff Weaver, the campaign manager, saying, you know what, they are going to Philadelphia.
BERNSTEIN: Of course, they are.
BALDWIN: They're going to the convention. And so what -- what's going to make have a little Kumbaya moment with Hillary Clinton and say, OK, I'll help you snout.
BERNSTEIN: If she has the votes at the convention, he will embrace her, I would think, and that's the idea. But in embracing her, she has to bring the party together. He's got a great role to play at this convention. He can love it.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: -- huge influence over all those young people.
BERNSTEIN: Absolutely. Look, she also has this server elephant in the room, to use a cliche, hanging over her. There are a lot of rogue FBI agents out there running around, while we're speaking here, saying terrible things about what the server thing shows, whether or not there's going to be an indictment of Hillary Clinton, and I certainly doubt there will be an indictment, but it's going to play big at the end of this investigation. And when it does, she's going to need Bernie Sanders for that, too, to say we don't give a damn about your server, as he said once before. I'm tired of hearing about the damn server.
But Donald Trump may be her most formidable opponent. We have all underestimated him. He's had the best ear for the electorate I this election campaign, partly because he is saying, look, things are broken in this country. He might be, as I once said, a neo-fascist in his approach, but nonetheless, he has identified things that are broken in this country, and people know that he's right when he says things are broken.
BALDWIN: In this post-Paul Manafort/Trump era, how he stood up there, flanked by the flags, giving his victory speech, I almost had to do a double take when I heard him say "Senator Cruz" instead of "Lying Ted." He was much more subdued, calm, in charge. Talked about wanting to work and earn votes and talked about jobs. It seems like, you know, on message the same but it's a shift.
BERNSTEIN: That's a shift. I think Manafort is a very clever guy and that the Commutariat (ph) should not be so quick to fall for this nonsense.
BALDWIN: How do you mean? BERNSTEIN: It's the same Trump message, still no substantive
programs, and talking about being an authoritarian strongman, the likes of Juan Peron or some other neo-fascist. So we shouldn't be so quick to say, oh, that's presidential because he doesn't come out of the mud slithering. That's all he did last night. He didn't say anything terribly different. He just used better language.
BALDWIN: Wow, Carl Bernstein, your perspective.
Thank you very much.
BERNSTEIN: Good to be here.
[14:35:00] # Coming up, CNN's special correspondent, Jamie Gangel, she sat down with an exclusive with Reince Priebus, who has perhaps one of the toughest jobs in politics right now, and she will take us behind the scenes to see what he is doing navigating Republicans through the year of Trump.
Plus, the first criminal charges handed down today in the Flint water crisis. The attorney general says this is only the beginning. More after a quick commercial break.
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BALDWIN: Let's get to breaking news in this toxic water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The news today that the first criminal charges have now been filed in this investigation. We're talking about three officials. One is a city worker and two state employees, face multiple felony charges. The city worker, by the way, was a former water plant supervisor. And his charges include tampering with water and willful neglect of duty. The two state environmental workers, tampering with evidence, including lead water samples and test results, misconduct in office, and violating the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[14:40:23] BILL SCHUETTE, MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL: These employees of the Department of Environmental Quality had a duty. They had a duty to protect the health of families and citizens of Flint. They failed. They failed to discharge their duties. They failed. They failed in their responsibilities to protect the health and safety of families of Flint. They failed Michigan families. Indeed, they failed us all, and I don't care where you live.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Failed us all, he says. The attorney general saying, quote, "No one is above the law."
Just this past Monday, Governor Snyder drank the water to show that it's safe. Says he'll do that for the next 30 days. But the Flint community remains skeptical and furious.
Governor Snyder, by the way, will be making a statement on the charges filed just moments from now.
And meantime, let me bring in Jean Casarez, more on these charges.
Extremely serious criminal charges. Tell me more.
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very serious. They're five-year felonies, four-year felonies, and two and a half years of e-mails that investigators have and are going through at this point.
Let's look at the two employees of state, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. Their names are Steven Bush and also Michael Presby, and they were charged with a number of felonies, one being misconduct in office. Define that a little bit, saying they misled will federal and state authorities. But here's one that's really the heart and soul of it. It's tampering with evidence, saying that these two men falsified the lead levels in the water that were then publicly disseminated to the members of that community, saying, no, your lead levels are fine, everything is OK. And this is what the prosecutor is asserting at this point with these charges. And also conspiracy, that they had a joint agreement together to say, OK, we're going to change these levels, not going to tell anybody, we'll let everybody believe that the lead levels are OK.
Also the third defendant is actually a local employee, Mike Glasgow, who was the plant operator, the supervisor at the actual water plant, that he misled federal and local authorities, falsifying reports to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA. So it goes on and on.
And you were just talking about how the governor was drinking the water.
BALDWIN: Yeah.
CASAREZ: Let me give you the converse to that.
BALDWIN: OK.
CASAREZ: The Virginia Tech researcher that busted that thing wide open by doing the testing of the lead, he said the lead levels continue to be higher than the federally accepted levels.
BALDWIN: And the governor says he's drinking the water for 30 days.
By the way, we'll hear from Governor Rick Snyder momentarily here. He'll be responding to the news today on the criminal charges in Flint.
Jean Casarez, for now, thanks so much.
CASAREZ: Thanks.
BALDWIN: Meantime, CNN's special correspondent, Jamie Gangel, she sat down for an exclusive interview with the man in the middle of the most contentious political campaign in recent history, RNC chair, Reince Priebus. How he navigates the year of Trump, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:47:34] BALDWIN: OK, this is about to be fascinating. Just to set it up, the RNC's top brass is getting together in Florida to talk about July's Republican National Convention in Cleveland. You've heard us talk a little bit about that just recently. The rules are expected to be a crucial part of the conversation.
And at the center of it all, the guy in charge, RNC chair, Reince Priebus, and before today's meeting he sat down one-on-one with CNN special correspondent, Jamie Gangel.
You, sort of unprecedented access to this man.
JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
BALDWIN: Does he think he has the worst job in the world?
GANGEL: He should. If he doesn't, he should.
(LAUGHTER)
BALDWIN: Yeah.
GANGEL: But here's the thing. His life has been divided into two parts, before Donald Trump --
BALDWIN: Wow.
GANGEL: -- when he was the savior of the GOP. He brought them out of debt. He brought their technology up to date. He had candidates elected across the country. And then Donald Trump came along, and he's been in the middle of this firestorm.
BALDWIN: Yeah.
GANGEL: So he's never done a profile like this before. We went home with him. We asked him about whether there are any shenanigans going on. But we started by asking him something that he did not want to answer. You'll see what does he really think of the three final candidates.
BALDWIN: Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GANGEL: I want to do a quick lightning round are you, OK?
REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: OK.
GANGEL: Word association.
PRIEBUS: Oh, great. .
GANGEL: Here we go.
PRIEBUS: These are -- these are trouble
GANGEL: I say John Kasich. You say?
PRIEBUS: Great governor.
GANGEL: Ted Cruz.
PRIEBUS: Smart.
GANGEL: Donald Trump.
PRIEBUS: Big.
GANGEL: Meaning?
PRIEBUS: Everything he does is big. Lots of attention.
GANGEL: You have no -- you're laughing. Why are you laughing?
PRIEBUS: These are -- these are like the unchartered waters of being chairman of the RNC. Spontaneity is not usually your friend.
GANGEL (voice-over): And that's the least of his problems.
PRIEBUS: Hey, it's Reince.
GANGEL: Reince Priebus, the mild-mannered 44-year-old lawyer from Wisconsin, has the toughest job in politics this year --
PRIEBUS: Hey. Hey.
GANGEL: -- working 20-hour days --
PRIEBUS: You should come.
GANGEL: -- preparing for the possibility of a contested convention --
PRIEBUS: No. I think the system is -- is working.
GANGEL: -- and navigating the GOP through the year of Trump.
DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: The system is rigged. These are dirty tricksters.
It's a crooked system.
The Republican National Committee, they should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this kind of crap to happen.
[14:50:10] GANGEL: Non-stop damage control.
PRIEBUS: I find it to be rhetoric and hyperbole. This is a very normal system that we've been using for many years.
Sometimes you can't fix it. Sometimes you can just take a seven-alarm fire and make it a four-alarm fire. It's still burning, but it's not as bad as it was.
No one should feel sorry for me. I signed up for this.
GANGEL (on camera): You are the man in the middle. You have Donald Trump doing his thing, and then you have the GOP establishment, whatever that is.
PRIEBUS: Yeah, that's a word that apparently no one can quite define. But, yeah, I understand it.
GANGEL: All those people over there who are not on the same side as Donald Trump. They say it's your fault. How did you let Trump -- why didn't you get rid of him?
PRIEBUS: Yeah. Well, look, being in the middle, you have to accept the fact that there's 11,000 opinions. I mean, so -- I'm so used to it, that I don't -- I don't even care. It doesn't bother me.
GANGEL: You're not pulling out your hair?
PRIEBUS: Not -- no, I'm not. People assume, oh, are you -- you must be miserable. You've got a horrible job, but I don't see it that way. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not pouring baileys in my cereal, not sitting here trying to find a Johnny Walker. This is fun.
GANGEL (voice-over): In fact, the day we spent with him, he raised $1.2 million with just a few phone calls.
PRIEBUS: Let's talk about money.
GANGEL: Took a brief break for hoops.
PRIEBUS: All right. I'm going to take you guys down. We have a shot of this wall. There we go. Come on.
GANGEL: And showed off his prized possessions.
(on camera): The gavel.
PRIEBUS: The gavel. This is when I -- when I actually won in 2011 --
GANGEL: Ever tempted to use it?
PRIEBUS: Oh, yeah, well -- I don't have to try that hard. Is this the chair that Clint Eastwood spoke to at the convention?
GANGEL: Really.
PRIEBUS: This is the one that -- Yeah. So when this all happened, you know, I obviously was perplexed when I was watching it.
GANGEL: You and everyone else.
PRIEBUS: And then when I leaned over -- because I was down behind the stage most of the time. I leaned over the balcony to look and see the center teleprompter, and it was blank, and I thought, oh, my gosh, there's nothing on that screen. He's just winging it. And then I remember going back -- I left, went back behind the stage and I told the chief of staff at the time and I told him get me the chair.
GANGEL (voice-over): He also keeps three items nearby he says are critical for getting through the day, the Greek Orthodox liturgy and the Republican party platform --
This is my safe zone, the platform.
GANGEL: -- and this.
PRIEBUS: And I've got the Brewers' schedule on top, because I will put on MLB-TV, and that have in the background if I need to not watch the news.
GANGEL: Other escapes, time with his family --
PRIEBUS: Try to eat with cameras in your face.
GANGEL: -- and he plays the piano really well.
(MUSIC)
PRIEBUS: So I just goof off, that's what I do. That's how I play.
GANGEL: Priebus admits he's always been a proud political nerd. As early as third grade, he was lobbying classmates to support Ronald Reagan. And he even used the GOP to woo his wife.
(on camera): You went to prom together.
PRIEBUS: Yeah.
GANGEL: But, Sally, on your first date, he took you to a political dinner. He took you to the Lincoln Day dinner. Right, swept you off your feet.
(LAUGHTER)
SALLY PRIEBUS, WIFE OF REINCE PRIEBUS: Right.
GANGEL: What kind of first date is that?
SALLY PRIEBUS: It's crazy. I think he tricked me.
(LAUGHTER)
I think he tricked me, and I ended up at the political event, which I didn't know about at first because told me we were going to the movies. But, you know, we made it. It was pretty boring. It was pretty bad. But we did go to the movie afterward and we had a great time.
GANGEL: And he says you can't say you didn't know what you were getting into.
SALLY PRIEBUS: Right, right. I did.
GANGEL (voice-over): That said, neither one ever thought their lives would be consumed by the roller coaster of Donald Trump.
SALLY PRIEBUS: Reince is very strong, has a thick skin and lets it roll off his shoulders. He's tough and doesn't tolerate a lot of dramas.
GANGEL: Including rumors that he might try to convince one of his best friends, Speaker Paul Ryan, to be a so-called white knight candidate in a contested convention.
PRIEBUS: He would kill me, and I wouldn't do it. And I agree with him. I -- are I don't -- you have to want to actually be president of the United States. He doesn't want to be right now. And he's not going to have a floor operation to get it done. It won't happen.
[14:55:14] GANGEL (on camera): He said, if I do that --
REP. PAUL RYAN, (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Yeah, yeah.
GANGEL: -- he'll kill me.
RYAN: Yes, I would. Yes, I would.
GANGEL: An old political pro told me, to be RNC party chairman, you're either the bravest person in town or the craziest person in town. Which is it for him?
RYAN: It probably requires a little bit of both, would be my guess, especially these days. Reince, I'd put him in the bravest category.
GANGEL (voice-over): Brave or crazy, Priebus insists his only concern is being neutral.
(on camera): For the record, are you conspiring against Donald Trump?
PRIEBUS: Of course not. Of course not.
GANGEL: A plan to steal the nomination?
PRIEBUS: No. There's nothing to steal. I mean, either you have the votes or you don't.
GANGEL: And you will be at peace if he is the nominee?
PRIEBUS: I'm going to be at peace with whoever the nominee is because I know that whoever the nominee is going to beat Hillary Clinton.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GANGEL: For the record --
BALDWIN: Yes?
GANGEL: -- most frequently asked question, what kind of name is Reince Priebus?
BALDWIN: What did he say?
GANGEL: Half German, half Greek, but the Greeks win. They control the family. And he points out that he named his two beautiful children, Jack and Grace. It's God.
BALDWIN: That's fascinating.
GANGEL: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Getting an inside look, seeing him pacing around in the office, the wall shot with the basketball, the wife being tricked into a political dinner, the whole thing. I'm wondering, do you think do you think, when all is said and done, and who knows who will be the nominee, do you think he'd have a beer with Trump when it's all over?
GANGEL: I think he would. In fact, he's not pouring Baileys in his cereal. He's not, you know, doesn't go for the Johnny Walker. I took a peek inside the fridge in his office.
BALDWIN: Yes, do tell.
GANGEL: If it gets too rough, let's just say it's well stocked.
(LAUGHTER)
BALDWIN: Getting the scoop, this woman.
Jamie Gangel, thanks so much for sharing that.
GANGEL: Thank you.
BALDWIN: I appreciate that.
Next, we're minutes away from Donald Trump's speech at a rally in Indiana. We can also tell you though that there are some protesters gathering outside. Why this state could hold the key to the nomination. Stand by for that.
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