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Franken Speaks To Media; Franken Not Resigning; Franken Cooperate with Ethics Investigation; Franken Acknowledges Letdown. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 27, 2017 - 13:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

We begin with breaking news. Democratic Senator Al Franken, he's set to address the Washington news media now for the first time since returning to Capitol Hill, as women come forward accusing him of sexual harassment and groping.

We're going to bring you Senator Franken's news conference live. We expect him to make a statement that answer reporters' questions.

He clearly says he's embarrassed. He's ashamed by all the allegations. But he also says he has not considered resigning from the U.S. Senate.

Our Congressional Correspondent Sunlen Serfaty is joining us from just outside the senator's office up on Capitol Hill.

Sunlen, what more do we expect to hear from Senator Franken, because he did a series of interviews with Minnesota media yesterday?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf, he did. He spoke out to the affiliates in his home state. But this is his first time returning to Capitol Hill since these allegations have plagued him for the last 10 days.

We know that Senator Franken will briefly soon address press, gather it out here -- outside his office here and address all of these allegations.

Now, he said that he intends to remain in his seat in the Senate. That's as he faces pressure up here on Capitol Hill to resign. Mostly notably this morning from his colleague, Senator Marco Rubio. He says he believes that he should think about resigning, calling the allegations horrific.

Senator Franken has denied the allegations, but he has said that he apologizes for them. He says that he is sorry for what his conduct -- how his conduct made these women feel. But he has not outright specifically addressed each and every one of the allegations.

We expect to push him on those allegations as he addresses press outside of his office in just a few minutes. And certainly get more answers as he's facing many questions on his political future -- Wolf.

BLITZER: They just announced this a little -- a few moments ago. Is that right, Sunlen? And we do expect he'll make a statement and then he will stick around and answer reporters' questions, right?

SERFATY: That's right. We expect him to come out of these doors at any moment, his office over here in the Hart Senate Office Building. He has not been seen on Capitol Hill yet today. And certainly has been largely behind closed doors for the last 10 days since these allegations first broke.

The Senate, of course, was off for the Thanksgiving holiday. He's been holed up in his daughter's house here in Washington. And outside of those few local interviews that he did yesterday, we have not heard much from the senator.

So, certainly important comments coming up here at any moment that we will carry to you live -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Sunlen, stand by. We're going to get back to you.

Of course, we'll have the senator's opening statement, the Q and A, all of that coming up live.

And Gloria Borger is our Chief Political Analyst. We've got an excellent panel here. But, Gloria, set the scene for our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world. This is an important moment. The senator now breaking his silence, at least here in Washington.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It is. He did it over the weekend to his local press. And he made it very clear over the weekend, Wolf, that he's not going anywhere. That he was sorry for what he had done. He said that he did not remember some of the encounters in the same way that the women remembered the encounters.

But, nonetheless, if they remembered it that way, he was going to apologize. And intended to keep his seat and intended to make it up to the people of his own state.

I don't know whether now he's decided to carry a different message about what he intends to do in the future to -- on a national level to the American people or whether he's deciding to make the same kind of a statement from Washington that he made at home in Minnesota.

BLITZER: Originally, he was just putting out paper statements. Yesterday, for the first time, he went before the news media in his home state of Minnesota, Dana, but now it's going to be in Washington.

I assume the questions will be specific about what he intends to do.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

And let me just first talk tactics. Those of us who've covered Capitol Hill for a long time understand that what they're trying to do is answer questions in a controlled environment. Because this all came out, for the most part, when the Senate wasn't in session because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

And so, he hasn't been, kind of, walking the halls of the capitol or his office building as he normally would be. But today, he's going to be.

So -- and I'm sure you've all seen the scrums and what happens when there's just, kind of, a regular day. Never mind there's somebody who -- that the capitol press corps has not been able to ask important questions of.

So, I think it's very smart for his press -- for his office and his press office, in particular, to do -- try to do this in a controlled environment.

Having said all of that, you know, it's -- he's on his mea culpa tour. And this is to the latest stop in it.

[13:05:01] It took a while, you're right. He did a lot of print statements.

The fact that he didn't come out for, you know, nine days, you know, kind of allowed its own oxygen and now he's trying to fill that with his own statements.

BLITZER: And Susan Page is with us, the Washington Bureau Chief of "USA Today."

We've all covered Capitol Hill for a long time. He's under enormous pressure right now, Senator Franken.

SUSAN PAGE, WASHINTON BUREAU CHIEF, "USA TODAY": He is. And if he wants to keep his seat, if he doesn't want to be forced out, he needs to be doing this. He needs to come out and actually answer questions among the reporters who cover him all the time.

And the fact is, he is in a situation where Democrats generally feel a lot of pressure to show they're not hypocrites on the issue of sexual harassment. That if they're going to take a very hard stand against Roy Moore in Alabama for the allegations of -- the very serious allegations against him, they need to show that if you're a Democrat and you're accused of sexual harassment, you -- that is also taken very seriously.

BLITZER: And he, himself, has said -- Laura Coates is with us, our Legal Analyst. He, himself, Senator Franken, has said he welcomes an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANLYST: Well, of course he does. I mean, he should because it would be hypocritical if he asked to be exonerated from having one of those investigation committees.

But the real reason he is coming forward is because, look, I'm a proud Minnesotan.

And I've got to tell you, speaking to your constituents in Minnesota is one thing, this is a national issue. This issue of sexual misconduct allegations, specifically in Capitol Hill and to Hollywood and beyond, this one has to be addressed on a national scale. And, of course, the Ethics Investigation Committee is part of that.

He says it happened to Conyers. He knows it's looming ahead if he doesn't act right now. He must act and have this kind of press corps.

BORGER: You know, I think the context is really so important. I mean, you mentioned Conyers --

COATES: Yes.

BORGER: -- who, after some prodding, it seems to me, said that he would give up his ranking title.

BLITZER: We're talking about Congressman John Conyers of Michigan. He is the ranking Democrat on the --

COATES: On the Judiciary.

BLITZER: -- Judiciary Committee until this weekend when he withdrew his name --

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: -- from that certain position.

BORGER: But that was after Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats, went out there and, sort of, said he's an icon and I'm sure he'll do the right thing. It was clear that she was kind of pushing him to get out and to -- and to advocate that job.

Now, so, the Democrats have Conyers, they have Franken, and have all called for Roy Moore to leave the race, et cetera. And they've left that up to a lot of Republicans as well.

But you have all of -- you have Donald Trump and you have all of this brew -- and Donald Trump's, you know, "Access Hollywood" moment was used in the campaign repeatedly. So, they can't look like a bunch of hypocrites.

And there might be somebody saying to Franken, and I don't know if there is, you know, maybe you want to take one for the team.

BASH: Yes. Well, he seems to be doing that.

BORGER: Well, leaving would be taking one for the team.

BASH: Well, that's true. That's true. But he -- OK, he's not leaving but he could not fall on his sword any more.

BORGER: Any more, exactly.

BASH: I mean, he is jumping on his sword and he's getting up and he's jumping on it again. It doesn't make what he did -- what he admitted to doing right at all. I mean, just the opposite. But at the end of the day, he clearly understands the things that he has advocated for, in terms of policy, in terms of behavior, from other people.

I mean, even the statements he made about Harvey Weinstein. And it's so clear that is flies in the face, that is hypocritical to his actions.

COATES: You know, in the court of public opinion, that moral high ground is going to be everything.

But what actually makes him more similar to the Roy Moores of world than he'd like to believe is that he is arguing that what he did prior to his tenure as a senator is going to really rule the day. I wasn't yet a senator. This did not take place when I had that oath of office.

Roy Moore is making a similar, although albeit a much more stretched and perverse, argument about the same topic about what he is doing prior to running for the Senate.

But they do have a similarity that has to be addressed. And I think that's one of the reasons he's coming forward today, to address what happened before opposed to now.

PAGE: Look how careful other members of Congress are being about how to respond to Al Franken. And that may be because they're not sure how this is going to unfold.

And it also may be because they are braced for more disclosures involving more members of Congress. Al Franken, John Conyers, others, are providing a template for what you can do if you're facing these allegations. How do you survive if you want to survive?

BORGER: And Congress is also protecting them, to a certain degree, I would say, because now they can all say, oh, this is before the Ethics Committee. We can't talk about that because it --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

BORGER: Exactly, it's a cop out. And the Ethics Committee provides this, kind of, political cover for all of them when people, and I will say this, should be saying, we should know names. You know, these people who got the payoffs of tax-payer money, why aren't they -- why aren't they being named and why should the Ethics Committee --

BASH: It's the members of Congress not the Senate.

BORGER: The members of -- yes, right. No, the member -- sorry. The members of Congress should be named.

BASH: I knew what you meant.

BORGER: The members of Congress should be named. And why does the Ethics Committee then serve as a cover now for everybody who's being investigated? [13:10:05] I think the process needs to be opened up, to a great

degree, to protect the victims. But not the members of Congress who are out there being hypocrites.

COATES: And mind you, neither Speier nor Comstock has confirmed that either Conyers or Al Franken is either the people they were alluding to two weeks ago.

BLITZER: Oh, there's a lot of suspicion. There are plenty of others' activity in this particular line going on.

Manu Raju is our Senior Congressional Correspondent. Manu, what are you hearing from other members of the U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this controversy first broke, remember, Wolf, Thursday before senators, really, left town for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Afterwards, when it first emerged, most Democrats did not want to address this at all. They were saying, you know, they didn't want to comment. Many were on their phones when we approached them to answer questions.

It wasn't until Al Franken said that he would agree to be interviewed by the Senate Ethics Committee, allow that investigation to go forward, that others said, yes, I do support an Ethics Committee investigation.

Today's remarks, Wolf, in a lot of ways, had to do with swaging members' concerns. Member that were coming back after this recess today. They're going to face even more questions about Franken's conduct, whether or not they can support him.

And at the end of the day, if the Ethics Committee does go through with an investigation and does go to the most extreme and very rare move to recommend his expulsion, it would require senators to vote for him. Two-thirds of the Senate would have to vote to remove him from his seat.

So, ultimately, he does need to alleviate those concerns from members which is why he's going to try to answer as many questions today, even though he was quiet for more than a week, and let this controversy really intensify.

In a lot of ways, these comments today are designed to alleviate the concerns from members of his confer -- of the Senate who will, ultimately, decide his fate -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Once again, we're waiting for Senator Franken to walk out. He'll, presumably, make a statement, then answer Congressional reporters' questions.

You know, Gloria, let me play an exchange he had with our CNN affiliate, WCCO, yesterday, the Minnesota affiliate. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ESME MURPHY, ANCHOR, WCCO-T.V.: Have you ever placed a hand on some woman's butt?

SEN. AL FRANKEN (D), MINNESOTA: You know, I can't say that that hasn't happened. I take thousands and thousands of pictures. We -- sometimes in crowded and chaotic situations. I can't say I haven't done that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Very apologetic but acknowledging he may have done that.

GLORIA: Yes and I think that's the right thing to do. If that is the truth, then tell the truth. If you think that, yes, you did it, then say you did it. And you behaved badly. Even if you don't remember behaving badly, admit that you may have behaved badly.

I think Franken is -- as Dana was saying earlier, he's falling on every sword he can possibly find. But he's stopping short of saying, I ought to leave the Congress as a -- as a result of this.

BASH: And I -- as we were talking, I just got a text from a Democrat who said, give me a break. If this were a Republican, we would all be screaming from the rooftops about how the Republican needs to go.

So, as a Democrat, this person who's been a strategist, said, you know, we need to have moral high ground and that means being consistent.

GLORIA: And what's being consistent? Having him take one for the team and leave?

BASH: Yes, that's what --

GLORIA: That's what -- that's what a lot of Democrats are saying privately.

BASH: Yes, but here's the issue. And -- I mean, is that every crime is not the same. What Franken did with the pictures and the allegations and everything else that he's admitted to is really, really bad.

But the question is -- let's just say Franken gets up and says, OK, I'm resigning, then what kind of precedent does that set?

Maybe it's good. Maybe it's a good precedent. Maybe every person who has engaged in any conduct anywhere near this should say, I'm out of here. But it's not that black and white.

BLITZER: Let's take a quick break. We're waiting for Senator Al Franken of Minnesota to walk out, make a statement, referring to all of these allegations. We'll have special live coverage. Our coverage will continue right after this.

[13:14:37] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:40] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEEANN TWEEDEN, AL FRANKEN ACCUSER: I've been angry about it, Jake, for over 10 years. And it's -- it's -- it's a -- you know, I don't know. I've held it inside. My -- my circle of friends and my husband have -- have known how I felt about it for so long and, you know, I wanted to come out with it 10 years --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Senator Franken's going to make a statement now.

SEN. AL FRANKEN (D), MINNESOTA: I get back to work. I know that I've let a lot of people down, people of Minnesota, my colleagues, my staff, my supporters, and everyone who has counted on me to be a champion for women.

To all of you, I just want to again say I am sorry. I know there are no magic words that I can say to regain your trust and I know that's going to take time. I'm ready to start that process. And it starts with going back to work today.

So now I'm going to take a few questions.

(CROSS TALK)

FRANKEN: Sam.

QUESTION: Yes. You've said in response to some of these allegations that you remember these encounters differently. I wanted to ask, how specifically does your recollection (INAUDIBLE) that's different from the women who came forward and to what extent are you denying their accounts of what (INAUDIBLE)?

[13:20:03] FRANKEN: Well, there are -- there are different, you know, different allegations. The Leeann Tweeden. Leeann and I were on the USO tour together. And on the kiss at the rehearsal, we were rehearsing for a sketch. I said that I recall that differently from Leeann. But I feel that you have to respect, you know, women's experience.

And so I apologized to her and I meant it. And I was, you know, very grateful that she accepted it.

As far as -- you know, I take a lot of pictures in Minnesota. Thousands of pictures. I meet tens of thousands of people. So those are instances that I do not remember. It has, from these stories, it's been clear that there are some women, and one is too many, who feel that I have done something disrespectful and that's hurt them. And, for that, I am -- I am tremendously sorry.

And I know that I am going to have to be much more conscious when, in these circumstances, much more careful, much more sensitive, and that this -- that this will not happen again going forward.

Again, it's going to take a long time for me to regain people's trust, but I hope that starting work today that I can start to do that.

Casey. Casey.

QUESTION: You made it clear you're not going to resign your Senate seat. There have been a lot of accusations against a lot of people that have been in the conversation lately. In your view, what's the bar for someone like you to have to resign? What kind of behavior demands a resignation?

FRANKEN: I am not -- I'm not going to get into that or speculate on that. I'm not -- certainly not going to talk to anybody else. This is what I've been trying to do. I've been trying to take responsibility by apologizing. And by apologizing to the people I've let down. And I'm going to work to regain their trust. I am going to be accountable. I am -- we are going to cooperate completely with the ethics investigation. And that --

QUESTION: Will you make the -- will you make the findings of the ethics investigation public?

FRANKEN: I will be open to that. The -- I've -- you know, that's going to be, of course, the ethic -- I've not worked with the Ethics Committee before and I don't quite know how that works, but I'm certainly open to that.

And I also -- I'm going to try to learn from my mistakes. And in -- in doing so, I've been doing a lot of reflecting. And I -- I want to be someone who adds something to this conversation. And I hope I can do that.

(CROSS TALK)

FRANKEN: Yes, MJ. OK.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) you were unable to answer the question of whether more women would be coming out with allegations. (INAUDIBLE) seem that that's a question that only you can answer. What is the reason, can you tell us, that you can't definitively say that more women would not come out with more allegations? That's (INAUDIBLE).

FRANKEN: Sure. If you had said -- you know, asked me two weeks ago, would any woman come forward with an allegation like this, I would have said "no." And so I cannot speculate.

This has been a shock and it's been extremely humbling. I am embarrassed. I feel ashamed. What I'm going to do is I'm -- I'm going to start my job and I'm going to go back to work. I'm going to work as hard as I can for the people of Minnesota and I'm going to start that right now.

Thank you all. Thank you.

(CROSS TALK) BLITZER: All right, so there he goes, Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, saying he knows he's let a lot of people down. He's embarrassed. He's ashamed. I am tremendously sorry. Now he wants to get back to work, making it clear he wants to fully cooperate with the Senate Ethics Committee, will have that be transparent depending on what the committee wants. But he is clearly not resigning at all.

[13:25:16] Let's get some analysis.

Gloria Borger.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: What stunned me was he also said he was shocked by all of this, which shows you the level to which he was unaware, perhaps, of his own behavior. And that, you know, he said he's clearly going to learn from this and talk to people about this, cooperate with the Ethics Committee. Said he doesn't know whether it should become public or not or whatever.

But, you know, you have somebody here who it's clear to me thinks that what he did was absolutely wrong and it was more -- it was an indiscretion perhaps more than a crime. And so we're all grappling with these differences and these different levels, as Dana was, you know, talking about. And I think the question that everyone has is, should, as a member of Congress, you be held to a higher standard because you are an elected official? And, if you were to be fired at work for this, should you be fired from Congress for this?

These are questions we asked of Donald Trump when he was running for president. And I think we're all asking the questions again. And he clearly is saying, I'm going to fight to keep my job.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, forget about a higher standard. At least based on what we know now about the settlements that have -- that have been going on, like you were talking about, that they're not held to even close to the standard that people are held in business.

BORGER: Right.

BASH: And that's terrible. And, obviously, that hopefully will change.

The one is too many. That -- what he said -- and, you know, he said it over the weekend as well, that that is kind of a line that he clearly is hoping will penetrate and get through on the idea that he -- this -- he's embarrassed. He said it's a mistake. But also that he sort of indicated that he wants to kind of be the poster boy for this. I mean he said, I want to work --

SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "USA TODAY": Wants (ph) to be may be a little strong. He may recognize that he is the poster boy whether he likes it or not.

BASH: OK. Exactly. And he's going to use it. OK, great point. Great point, Susan, that he -- that he already is the poster boy, so he's going to turn it -- he's going to make as much lemonade as he can out of these lemons. PAGE: You know what I heard was the script for crisis management

that's worked in the past.

BASH: Yes.

PAGE: You admit you did something wrong. You apologize with real feeling. You promise it won't happen again. And then you say you're going back to work.

And he has one other thing going in his advantage, and that is that the women who has -- have worked for him in the Senate office have gotten together and come forward and testified on his behalf for his treatment of them. Some of the women who worked with him at "Saturday Night Live" saying they thought he was a respectful colleague. And I think that combination of things gives him a pretty strong platform to survive in all of this.

BASH: But his apology before wasn't good enough for you?

PAGE: I thought --

BASH: It was a little different.

PAGE: I thought saying I don't remember or suggesting that these were inadvertent brushings of a hand in a chaotic situation when he's talking about being at the state fair, I thought that was less than persuasive. The charge -- the allegations made by women are not that your hand inadvertently brushed my rear in a chaotic situation. It's that more intentional groping took place. So I thought that was not persuasive. But I thought his -- his -- the statements he made in following, I'm so sorry, I promise it won't happen again --

BASH: Yes.

PAGE: Are the kinds of things people want to hear.

BLITZER: You know, Laura, he did say he's going to learn from my mistakes, he said, and I know it's going to take a long time to regain trust.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, which, again, I think dos follows a certain playbook. You had a very lawyer vetted statement of contrition just now. And you had significant hedging. And the reason for that is because you've seen over the past several weeks, let alone month and a half, of the slow trickle of additional allegations for additional people.

I think that he was shell-shocked that it came out two weeks ago. I think that the epiphany that he had that perhaps this actually was, you know, was accused of is one that all of us kind of raised our eyebrows to and say, really, it was an epiphany that you had done something wrong like this? That's odd that you would have an epiphany now. But more likely the lawyers said, listen, do not put yourself in a position where you have -- you have -- you have one -- you have said without any sort of hedging or without any sort of leeway confirmed this has never happened before, it's never happened again. These are the only two isolated incidents. He is hedging to protect himself in the future. And there will probably be more allegations either from himself or other colleagues, et cetera. So they had to.

BORGER: And you know what he can't do and he's probably really wants to do it is he can't say, are you kidding me? You're putting me in the same box as Roy Moore here? You guys -- I'm in the same stories. I'm written just, you know, a paragraph down from Roy Moore. And what I did is not what Roy Moore is accused of having done.

[13:30:00] And yet they're all together. Even not what Conyers is accused of having done because women -- or a woman was -- received a settlement as a result of that, although he did not -- he did not admit any guilt.