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Wolf

NY A.G. Investigating Tillerson Use of Private E-mail Address, Alias for Climate Change Discussions; Powerful Winter Storm Crippling Northeast; Significant Fallout on Republican Health Care Bill; Awaiting White House Press Conference. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 14, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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


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[13:32:34] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Live pictures from inside the White House briefing room. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, will be taking questions fairly soon. We'll have live coverage of daily briefing coming up.

The name Wayne Tracker making headlines today. Here's why. According to New York's attorney general, Wayne Tracker is actually Rex Tillerson, the United States secretary of state. The attorney general is accusing Tillerson of using a pseudonym while discussing climate change in e-mails during his time as CEO of ExxonMobil.

Michelle Kosinski is our senior diplomatic correspondent and joins us live from the State Department.

Michelle, why is the attorney general looking into Tillerson in the first place?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN SENIOR DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT: Well, the attorney general and in fact the state of Massachusetts also, they're looking into whether Exxon misled consumers about the risk of climate change, as well as possibly misled investors over the effect that climate change could have on its business. So when they were trying to get documents from Exxon, and they did get many of them, I mean millions of documents including e-mails were subpoenaed. But the attorney general's office in New York says that Exxon has repeatedly delayed and obstructed that effort. That they haven't turned everything over, that the A.G.'s office has been trying to get everything. The attorney general said when they got some of these documents, they realized, lo and behold, that Rex Tillerson, among other executives, were using e-mails with aliases to communicate not just about climate change but other topics as well, and nobody from Exxon ever told the investigators that there were these e-mail accounts that were existing that they belonged to these executives. They didn't put them on their list of e-mail addresses, documents from which they were turning over to the investigation. So the attorney general is disturbed by this. And just sent a letter to the judge saying, look, this is our last resort, please help us make Exxon comply with this. Exxon, though, is saying it did comply. It turned over millions of documents. It will continue to do so, but so far, Rex Tillerson himself hasn't answered any questions about this -- Wolf? [13:34:51] BLITZER: All right. I know you'll stay on top of this

story as well. Michelle, thanks very much. Michelle Kosinski at the State Department.

Meanwhile, a powerful winter storm that's crippling a lot of the northeast today. A live picture now from Boston. Take a look at that. Just ahead, we're going to find out who's getting the worst of the huge storm.

Plus, also have live pictures from the White House briefing room. The press secretary, Sean Spicer, will head to the lectern fairly soon. Expected to discuss the president's reaction to the Congressional Budget Office report on the Republican health care plan, among other important issues. We'll have live coverage.

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BLITZER: Live pictures from inside the White House briefing room. The press secretary, Sean Spicer, will be taking questions from reporters fairly soon, we're told. We'll have live coverage of that coming up.

In the meantime, a brutal winter storm moving across the northeast. The numbers are adding up here in the United States. 60 million people are in the storm's path right now. More than 8,000 flights have been canceled. Five states have declared a state of emergency. Take a look at live pictures from Boston where the winter storm has dumped several inches of snow in the city and brought wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour.

Let's bring in our Meteorologist Jennifer Gray in the CNN Weather Center.

Jennifer, they're actually easing up on the prediction of how bad this will be, at least in some areas.

[13:40:26] JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLGIST: You're right, Wolf. In some of these coastal cities, unfortunately, the major cities, it looks like we are going to back off a little bit. That does include Boston, New York, Philly, and D.C. because this low tracked about 25 miles farther to the west than forecasted. So it is bringing a little bit of warmer air right along the coast. So the numbers aren't going to be quite as impressive in some of these cities along the coast. However, if you're west, if you're in upstate New York or Pennsylvania, any of those areas where you're seeing snow right now, even Massachusetts, you're going to get a lot of snow. It's already happening as we speak. Let's zoom in. You can see D.C. getting one last little brush of snow. It is going to be clearing out in the next few minutes. Then wrapping up, already wrapping up in New York City. However, Boston, still getting quite a bit of snow. We had low visibility, wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour. So it is still going strong in Boston. However, the changeover will occur a little later this afternoon. And that will be wrapping up as well. Let's go to the floor and I'll show you what we're expecting to see with updated numbers as far as snowfall totals go. When this is all said and done, we think New York City will have from 5 to 7 inches of snow. Boston, 6 to 8 inches of snow. And then in Portland, 12 to 18 inches of snow. And then back to the wall, we'll show you where we're looking at maybe the highest amounts. You can see the dark pink shades right there in Burlington, Syracuse, Albany has even gotten quite a bit of snow. That's where we could see 24 additional inches of snow in some of these isolated, of course, a lot of these areas of higher elevations. Boston looking at anywhere from say 4 to 6 additional inches of snow. New York City, maybe another inch of two. Portions of New Jersey, 17 inches of snow. Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, 17 inches as well. You had to get west of the major cities to pick up some of the huge snowfall totals. One other thing you were mentioning, the flight cancellations, 6,000 cancellations just today. And if you look at some of these areas like Boston, you can see no flights going in to Boston. No flights going into New York City right now. Flights are resuming, of course, in D.C., Philadelphia, a handful of flights. We think New York will be back online picking up a couple more flights as we go through the evening hours. But as far as Logan is concerned, Wolf, it could be a while before flights start going into there. It's affecting not only domestic travel but international travel as well. It creates that domino effect across the country and the world.

BLITZER: Certainly does.

All right, Jennifer, thanks very much. Jennifer Gray helping us out with the weather.

We're waiting once again for the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, to go to the lectern. He'll take questions shortly on health care, other issues as well. Live coverage of that coming up.

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[13:47:27] BLITZER: We're standing by for the start of today's White House press briefing. Live pictures from inside the briefing room. Press Secretary Sean Spicer will be stepping up to the lectern fairly soon. CNN will bring live coverage.

Let's bring in our panel. We have our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger with us; our senior political analyst, Mark Preston; and political analyst David Gregory, author of "How's Your Faith?"

Thanks very much.

Gloria, how significant is the political fallout so far we have seen over the Republican health care plan as a result of the Congressional Budget Office report?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It's very significant, Wolf. I don't know how many ways you can divide up the factions. But not only do you have the Democrats having new talking points about 24 million uninsured over the next 10 years. But you have Republican moderates who are upset about the loss of Medicaid coverage. You have conservatives who are upset, saying why are we committing political suicide for something that's Obamacare-Lite? You have the Ryan wing of the party trying to keep it together. You have a House bill and a Senate that is saying we're not going to accept this House bill. And you have Donald Trump against Paul Ryan, is this Trumpism or is this Ryanism? So there isn't any way to say this other than the fact that this bill now cannot survive in its current form, even if it were to get out of the House, it would not be able to survive in the Senate.

BLITZER: Yeah.

And David, our congressional correspondent, Phil Mattingly, as you heard, he's reporting that the House Speaker Paul Ryan still hopes to move this health care bill forward with little or no change despite the CBO report. How likely is that?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I don't think he's going to put it on the floor unless he's got the votes and until he's got the votes. What strikes me is the lack of party discipline on this for the party that controls Washington. And part of that is this imperative to make good on the promise to at least repeal Obamacare and debate about how much unanimity there's been around replacement. And the fact that conservatives are not in sync with where the White House is, which wants a lot of different things. Doesn't want to get too involved in the details. Wants to keep some of the popular aspects of Obamacare and wants to back up Paul Ryan. It's an incredibly messy process. It was incredibly messy for the Obama team as well. At the root of all this, we can talk about CBO numbers. We can talk about all the fighting within the what is the right and the responsibility of government and for citizens when it comes to health care? So lots of talk about care and access and affordability. Right now, you have an entitlement covered many people than ever before, there's lots of problems with Obamacare and takes really about five years to understand all these things so in that murky water you have a president that's going to say how much capital am I going to expend here and who are my real allies on the Hill.

[13:50:41] BLITZER: Mark, who is going to blame if it collapses. It sort of reminds me, back in 1993, 1994, during the first year of the Bill Clinton administration, they tried to get health care reform passed. It was called Hillarycare. It failed then. Who gets blamed this time? The speaker? The Republican establishment? Or the president?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right now, we're seeing Speaker Ryan being blamed for it, Wolf. We saw "Breitbart," the conservative website that has ties through Steve Bannon, released the audio shows there was a schism at least back in October between Paul Ryan and Donald Trump. Donald Trump has to be careful because he has invested this very publicly. He said he will do rallies. We have already seen Vice President Pence on the road. Donald Trump will be on the road as well. The big for me is when does Donald Trump separate himself from Paul Ryan in trying to move forward with this bill, instead of trying to cut a deal. As we all know, Donald Trump likes to say over and over again, I know how to negotiate, this is one of the biggest deals he's ever had to make.

BORGER: But, Wolf, at the base of this, there's a big difference between Trumpism and Ryanism, because Ryan says people who are coerced into buying health insurance won't have to buy it now, and Donald Trump promised health insurance for everyone. There's a big difference there. BLITZER: Certainly is.

We're going to leave it right there.

I want to remind our viewers, we are standing by from the White House briefing room, Press Secretary Sean Spicer. There you see live pictures coming in from the briefing room. That should be starting right at the top of the hour.

Our special coverage picks up right after a quick break.

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[13:57:09] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go on this Tuesday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with us.

Breaking news. Any minute, we should see White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer step behind the podium in a snowy Washington, D.C., and brief the press. This is the first briefing since the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, dealt a major blow to the Republican plan to replace Obamacare. In essence, the numbers matter here, 24 million. It found that 24 million more people would have no insurance by the year 2026 under this new Republican proposal.

This just in. Despite the CBO score, House Speaker Paul Ryan plans to forge ahead with his original strategy with no intent of making changes. We'll get details on Speaker Ryan in just a second.

We have a mega panel standing by.

But let's begin with senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta. He's in the briefing room.

I know we're moments away, Jim, but tell me what do you anticipate Sean Spicer will say, because if Speaker Ryan isn't budging and Sean Spicer has said we're open to ideas, what does he say post-CBO score today.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think you are going to hear much of what we heard yesterday from the HHS Secretary Tom Price, the OMB Director Mick Mulvaney. They were slamming this score from the Congressional Office, saying they disagree with it strenuously, I believe was the word Tom Price used yesterday. It's an indication this White House and the House Republican leadership are not on the same page because you had House Speaker Paul Ryan on another network saying he found the CBO very encouraging. So you have to wonder are they reading the same DBO score of the Republican health care plan. Obviously, you have the House speaker saying we don't want a lot of changes to this. And from talking to Republican sources close to speaker's office, they say if you start to monkey around with certain portions of this bill that you're going to invite chaos, and that's the last thing they want at this point. But at the same time, you have a White House looking down Pennsylvania Avenue realizing there are a lot of conservative Republicans saying at this point they flat-out won't vote for this bill and don't even know if they can get it out of the House. The conventional wisdom a week ago was that they could, but now there are serious concerns whether getting it out of the House is even possible.

They'll also have questions for Sean Spicer about what the House Intelligence Committee, Brooke, said to the Trump administration yesterday that, hey, OK, you did not make this deadline to provide evidence to back up the president's claims he was wiretapped by former President Obama, we'll give you another week on this, put another quarter in the meter, if you will. The question is whether or not will you have the evidence? They have not had a shred yet. And now they have a week to do that. And the House Intelligence Committee, remember, led by Republicans, warning the Trump administration, we may have to resort to what they're calling, quote, "compulsory measures" or a "compulsory processes" -- that sounds like a subpoena -- if they can't provide this evidence. So --