Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

U.K. Bond Rating Downgraded; Supreme Court Overturns Texas Abortion Law; Elizabeth Warren Stumps for Hillary. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 27, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Donald Trump says...

(BOOING)

WARREN: Donald Trump says he will make America great again. It's -- it's right there. No, it's stamped on the front of his goofy hat.

(LAUGHTER)

WARREN: You want to see goofy? Look at him in that hat. When Donald Trump says he will make America great, he means make it even greater for rich guys just like Donald Trump.

What kind of a man does that? What kind of a man roots for people to lose their jobs, to lose their homes, to lose their life savings? I will tell you what kind of a man. A small, insecure money-grubber who fights for no one but himself.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

WARREN: What kind of a man? A nasty man who will never become president of the United States.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

WARREN: Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States because she knows what it takes to beat a thin-skinned bully.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I must say, I do just love to see how she gets under Donald Trump's thin skin.

Donald Trump proves everyday he's not in it for the American people. He's in it only for himself. And Elizabeth reminds us of that every chance she gets...

(LAUGHTER)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: ... because it is really important that voters here in Ohio and across America understand this. She exposes him for what he is, temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be president of the United States.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: So, the big question, should Clinton choose Warren as her running mate?

Here to make the case for and against, Daily Beast columnist Jay Michaelson, and Earl Hutchinson. He's a syndicated columnist and political analyst.

Thank you both for coming on.

Earl, let's start with you.

You make the case that Warren is Clinton's best bet. Why?

EARL HUTCHINSON, AUTHOR, "HOW OBAMA GOVERNED: THE YEAR OF CRISIS AND CHALLENGE": Well, a couple reasons.

Number one, as we well know, there are a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters. And I'm mindful now that Bernie Sanders supporters, at least according to the latest poll, that they will back Clinton, that is, the majority.

However, the problem is when you really look at Elizabeth Warren, she seals the deal with the Bernie supporters. It is going to be a rough- and-tumble election. It is not going to be a walkover, despite what some people think about Trump, so I think at this point in time, like any good general, any good army, you need all of your troops.

One other quick thing about Warren. She is a very, very tough, in- the-gutter, in-the-trenches fighter. She will say things. She will take on Trump. She will go toe to toe with him. I think you need that. You need a hatchet person. Biden was Obama's hatchet person. Warren will be Clinton's hatchet person to go after Trump, toe to toe. She's the right fit.

BROWN: And so you don't think she can be as effective in the role she is in now doing that?

HUTCHINSON: Well, I think she will be effective, and I tell you why.

Many people say, well, wait a minute, she's taken on Wall Street. Her big thing is, of course, wealth and income inequality and Wall Street. At the same time, people have to remember one thing. We're talking about a vice president, not the president. The president makes policy.

I think what we will see, though, with a Warren in the administration, you will see advice and consent, you will see consultation, and you will see a team that works very, very well and effectively together.

BROWN: All right, Jay, you argue against. Why is Earl wrong here? JAY MICHAELSON, THE DAILY BEAST: Well I think Earl is right that

Elizabeth Warren is a fantastic politician, a fantastic campaigner, as we saw today.

The question is whether she would make a fantastic president if something were to happen to Hillary Clinton. And I think we really need to have a little bit of a reality check that while Elizabeth Warren obviously plays well to the base -- and I certainly cheered her on today -- she really does alienate a lot of the sort of middle voters and swing voters that Hillary Clinton could otherwise attract.

This is a candidate who because Trump is on the other side could get the so-called Rockefeller Republicans, moderate Republicans, soccer moms, Panera moms, those swing voters who often make the difference in key swing states.

And I would love to have Secretary of Treasury Warren or something like that. But a vice presidential candidate needs to be someone who really complements the presidential candidate, isn't just a sort of a -- a kind of a similar kind of politician with a similar demographic and an appeal just to the base.

BROWN: Well, and I just want to point out, because you pointed out that the all-female ticket may not be something that would work in her favor. Why so?

MICHAELSON: Well, and I want to say at the outset I don't think it's a good thing that this is the case, but the reality is that two strong female candidates, you know, has a certain demographic ring to it.

This could become a much more partisan feeling ticket than it could otherwise be with someone like Tim Kaine or Tom Perez or Julian Castro, someone who looks different, comes from a different background, brings different skills to the table than what Senator Warren brings.

[15:05:10]

So, again, nothing against Warren, but it's not helpful necessarily to have two candidates who look so similar, speak so similar, act so similar on the ticket.

BROWN: All right, Earl, the Trump campaign just responded to Warren's blistering attack.

It released a statement that reads in part that: "As Clinton tries to salvage support among the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, Senator Elizabeth Warren has become a turncoat for the causes that she supposedly supports. So, while Warren claims that Wall Street businesses have too much influence in D.C. by paying barely disguised bribes through campaign contributions, the Clinton campaign has accepted over $41 million this cycle from Wall Street entrants -- interests," rather.

Earl, does Trump have a point here?

HUTCHINSON: Well, no, he doesn't, and I will tell you why.

Number one, it's Trump being Trump. Obviously, that is going to be an attack point, because that's what he does. But the second thing, I think when you look at Warren, one of the big things I keep hearing, well, if she joins the ticket, will she compromise her principles, mainly her big fight against Wall Street, mainly checks and more regulation?

I think that's been Warren's obvious strong point. I don't think so. I think on the ticket, just the opposite. Let's flip the card for a second. I think she will actually bring that to the ticket, and I don't think it's going to alienate, as some people think, the base, mainly the centrist base, because, let's face it, Hillary has already got them.

She has already got mainstream Democrats in the Democratic Party establishment. They're ray locked in place. As far as Warren complementing her, she does, because she brings that other perspective in terms of we're going after Wall Street, we're going to be the firm check on them. I think that's needed.

Trump basically is just blowing smoke and hot air. That is not going to have any resonance whatsoever, that attack and that charge.

BROWN: And it's no secret, Jay, that Donald Trump has often called Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas, but former Senator Scott Brown, who is a Trump supporter, took the attack to a whole new level today.

He says Warren should take a DNA test to prove her Native American heritage. Did this go too far, Jay?

MICHAELSON: Absolutely. It's just absolutely ridiculous. It's obviously a distractor issue.

It's like, you can't come up with anything to say about a supremely ethical and powerful politician, so you attack something about her background. There are a lot of people in this country with mixed heritage in their background. And I think it's a real insult to those millions and millions of Americans to say that, you know, just because somebody doesn't look like what we think someone with a Native American background is supposed to look like, that she doesn't.

I think it's a despicable comment. Everyday, the Trump campaign and their surrogates like Scott Brown try to outdo themselves with something ridiculous and offensive, and this day was no exception.

BROWN: All right, Jay Michaelson, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, thank you very much.

HUTCHINSON: Thank you.

BROWN: Well, Hillary Clinton has not been able to escape questions about that deadly attack in Benghazi when she was secretary of state, and now Democrats have just released their own version of a probe into what happened nearly four years ago when four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. The Dems' report preempted one that a Republican-led House panel is

preparing to release.

CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash joins me now.

So, why are the Dems releasing their report now, Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's -- as you said, it's preemptive. They say explicitly in releasing this 300- plus-page minority report, the Democratic report from this committee, that they believe, anticipate that the Republicans' full committee report is going to focus on Hillary Clinton and focus on, from their perspective, the political witch-hunt that has been the Benghazi investigation.

And so that is the sort of prism through which the Democrats decided to put out their own report. Now, in it, they talk about some of the things that are kind of universally acknowledged. For example, security and the security situation leading up to and of course on the day of the September 11, 2012, attack that ended with four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador losing their lives, it was woefully inadequate, but then goes on to say the Pentagon couldn't have gotten resources there in time to do anything about the attack and also talking about the fact that Secretary Clinton never personally denied requests for additional security.

So, again, kind of a defensive posture, as you can imagine, especially since we are just a few months away from election now. I will also tell you that, in response to this, the Republicans on the committee released a statement saying basically that it's the Democrats who are obsessed with Hillary Clinton and that when we finally see the full committee report, they believe it will be clear that they are not on a political witch-hunt, that they are simply trying to give the narrative of what happened leading up to the Benghazi attack, what happened during.

[15:10:15]

And that's basically it, to show recommendations and have recommendations to make sure that these kinds of things don't happen in the future. So we are going to be interested to see when that Republican report comes out to see if, in fact, that does do whey they insist it does.

BROWN: Yes, we sure will. Dana Bash, thank you so much for that.

And, by the way, we have some breaking news in the fallout over Brexit. The U.K.'s rating has just been slashed, this as leaders of the movement back off their promises.

Plus, a historic decision by the Supreme Court, reversing a Texas abortion law. Hear who was the surprise swing vote in this place.

Plus, chilling 911 calls just in from the lead actress in "Top Gun.: Actor Kelly McGillis says she walked into her home to find an intruder. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And now to what is being hailed as the most significant Supreme Court decision on abortion in the last two decades.

[15:15:00]

And it went in favor of abortion rights advocates. They cheered and hugged outside of the Supreme Court at word of this decision. In a 5- 3 ruling, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law known as HB-2 that put restrictions on abortion clinics. One required Texas clinics to upgrade facilities to hospital-like standards and the other required abortion doctors to have hospital-admitting privileges.

The majority of justices found that the requirements put a -- quote -- "substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions and constitute an undue burden on their constitutional right to do so."

Joining me now, the author of "The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court," CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Also here with us, Rachel Stockman, managing editor of LawNewz.com and a senior editor at Mediaite.

Thank you both for coming on.

Jeffrey, I want to start with you, because, once again, it came down to Justice Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote here. What is the significance of that?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Justice Kennedy has been running this court for a long time. He is the swing vote here. He was the swing vote last week in the affirmative action case, and in both cases, he sided with the liberals.

He allowed affirmative action to continue at the University of Texas, and here he ruled that these restrictions on doctors and on clinics in Texas violated women's right to choose abortion, represented an undue burden on that right, and not only will the Texas rules fall, but almost certainly very similar laws in Mississippi and Louisiana and perhaps other states will now be struck down as well.

BROWN: And that is the big question, what will happen to those laws.

But, Rachel, in your view, what does this mean, the fact that Justice Kennedy has joined the liberal justices on this, on affirmative action, as Jeffrey said, on gay marriage? Is this a sign he's moving more toward the left?

RACHEL STOCKMAN, LAWNEWZ.COM: Well, I think it's interesting what Jeffrey Toobin pointed out, but I think there's something that is a little different about this particular opinion that came out today on abortion rights.

And I don't know if Jeffrey would agree with me. But the way it was written, even though it was written by Justice Breyer, was very much in the fashion of how a Justice Kennedy swing-like opinion would have been written.

He signed on to it, he didn't write it. It was very technical. It talked about medical evidence. It laid out the argument against Texas. So I do think that while this is interesting that Kennedy did come out on the side of the -- quote -- "liberal justices," I don't necessarily think it that sets any kind of precedent, so to speak, and that he's now going to the liberal side.

Jeffrey, I don't know if you would agreed with me on that.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Well, what was also interesting, though -- and I will let you jump in -- but that he didn't write the opinion, when he hasn't on the major abortion cases. He was -- since he's been on the bench, he was the senior justice, but he handed it to Breyer, Jeff.

TOOBIN: That is somewhat surprising, although he was writing the affirmative action opinion at the same time.

BROWN: That's true.

TOOBIN: And they do try to spread the work around a little bit.

Justice Kennedy is a mercurial figure. You cannot pigeonhole him entirely. Yes, it's true that he is the father of gay rights on the Supreme Court. He is also the author of Citizens United, the case that deregulated American politics and is the decision perhaps more than any other liberals love to hate.

So Justice Kennedy is not a permanent member of one wing or the other. This year, he's certainly helped the liberals to two very important victories.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: I want to have enough time to get to this other big court ruling today, Rachel, and get you to weigh in on it, the Supreme Court throwing out the federal corruption conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell.

What does this ruling say about how politicians can act around private companies moving forward and private individuals?

STOCKMAN: Well, I think to me it was very surprising. It was 8-0, everyone in favor of this. And I think it was a rejection of this broad interpretation of what an official act means.

OK, so what does this all mean? I think that it will make it harder for federal prosecutors to charge and convict these types of cases, because while the Supreme Court wasn't very exact in what exactly constitutes an official act, clearly, they have said something like making phone calls for a donor or setting up and making calls about a fund-raiser doesn't count. So the question now is, what does count?

BROWN: And it was so interesting that at the very end of the opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, he says: "There is no doubt that this case is distasteful. It may be worse than that, but was the behavior criminal? "

This could be retried, and we will have to see what happens. Rachel Stockman, Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much to both of you.

And my next guest, Candice Russell, was personally impacted by Texas House Bill 2. She says it forced her to fly to California to end her pregnancy.

[15:20:04]

Candice joins me now from Austin.

So, first off, Candice, tell us your story.

CANDICE RUSSELL, TRAVELED OUT OF TEXAS TO GET ABORTION: So, I found out that I was pregnant the spring after Wendy Davis' filibuster.

And because I had an IUD which was stopping my period, I didn't find out until I was about 12 weeks along. I at the time had a job that didn't have PTO, and I called the clinics. Clinic closures had already started to happen in this state. So even though I lived in Dallas, we where we still had our clinics open, the influx of people coming from other cities meant that when I called to make appointment, it was going to be a two-and-a-half or three-week wait.

With the Texas laws the way that they are, appointments have to have two days. And I was really concerned that if I made it to one appointment that I wouldn't get the next day off for work, and then I was going to have to wait another three weeks, and I was going to push up against that 20-week ban.

So, I was dating somebody who lived in California at the time, and we called and made an appointment, and I was back within the week. I had to take out a payday loan. It was really, really high interest. I think I paid about $2,500 for a $600 loan to get on a plane, but I also know how lucky I am to do that. Not everybody can have the privilege of even borrowing money to do that.

And I think it really kind of illustrates how much burden those laws were putting on the women of Texas.

BROWN: In the last hour, Candice, I spoke to an anti-abortion advocate who says this bill was not about stopping abortions, but it was about keeping up the standards of women's health. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENEVIEVE WOOD, THE DAILY SIGNAL: This was not a case that says we're going to outlaw abortion. It simply said if you're an abortion clinic, you have to meet certain cleanliness standards and sanitation standards so that the women walking through your doors again to get the best health care possible.

BROWN: So to you this was just about women's health? It didn't have anything to do with stopping abortion in this state?

WOOD: There was nothing about the law that would stop an abortion. If a clinic didn't meet the right standards, there was nothing that said they couldn't come up to standards. We ought to be very concerned about what people are walking into.

We ought to be as concerned about women's health as we are their right to abortion. And at the end of the day, the special interests won here, the abortion lobby, not women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right, so, Candice, what is your response to that based on what you experienced?

RUSSELL: You know, for me, it's -- I have had more invasive surgeries done at my dentist's office than my abortion.

My abortion was very simple. It was very easy. The most traumatic part of my experience was the stress of having to come up with the money to go out of state, the stress of travel, of having to get on a plane after having a very basic surgical procedure.

And all of those things, all of the stressors that I went through with my abortion, came from HB-2. It wasn't the abortion itself. It was from the law.

BROWN: All right, Candice Russell, we will leave it there. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with us.

RUSSELL: Thank you.

BROWN: And up next on this Monday, breaking news out of the U.K., where the vote to leave the European Union has now triggered a downgrade in the country's credit rating. Richard Quest joins me live to explain the impact on the global economy, as we approach the closing bell on Wall Street. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:27:48]

BROWN: Well, actress Kelly McGillis says she was attacked by a stranger in her North Carolina home.

McGillis is well known for playing Tom Cruise's love interest in the 1980s blockbuster "Top Gun." But she says after returning home a few days ago, she found a light turned on, her front door unlocked and a strange woman inside. That's when she called 911.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

KELLY MCGILLIS, ACTRESS: Hello?

911 OPERATOR: Yes, this is 911. What's going on there, ma'am?

MCGILLIS: I have somebody in my house.

911 OPERATOR: OK. What's your address?

MCGILLIS: She's beating me up. She's beating me up.

911 OPERATOR: What's your address?

MCGILLIS: Please help me!

911 OPERATOR: What's your address?

MCGILLIS: Please help me!

911 OPERATOR: Ma'am, what -- ma'am, what is your address? Hello?

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BROWN: So disturbing.

McGillis managed to escape her home and flag down someone for help. Other than a few scratches and bruises, she's doing OK. On her Facebook page, McGillis says she now has a concealed-carry gun permit to protect herself. And this woman has now been charged with second- degree burglary, among other charges, for this break-in.

For those who spend their time and money on self-help seminars expect to leave feeling better about themselves. Unfortunately, some who took part in a Tony Robbins event left in pain, and not the emotional kind.

At least 30 of them were treated for minor burns to their feet after walking across a bed of hot coals. Robbins' Web site says the fire walk is meant to help them conquer their fears. Instead, dozens are now nursing their injuries.

And Paul Gold is one of those people. He joins me now from Boynton Beach, Florida.

Paul, just incredible that you went through this yourself. What happened? Walk us through this.

PAUL GOLD, BURNED BY HOT COALS: Well, good morning, Pam.

I had experienced a fire walking about four months earlier, went through it with no injuries. This time was a little bit different. I got ready. I was one of, I guess, the first maybe 100 people to go through, maybe a little more.

I started to get out there. I got in state, got ready to do it. I took my second step and I realized something had gone terribly wrong. I felt this immense fire. And I just darted to the other side of the -- of the fire walk.