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Interview with El Chapo Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman; National Debt Tops $22 Trillion; Measles Outbreak in Washington State; No Details on President's Physical; Trump versus Trump. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 13, 2019 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: There were 56 witnesses against him.

JEFFREY LICHTMAN, ATTORNEY FOR "EL CHAPO": It's a big case.

CAMEROTA: That sounds --

LICHTMAN: I mean I'm not -- I'm not saying that this was an easy case. The case was literally an avalanche of evidence. And I have not -- if you can believe, I haven't lost a case in 11 years before this one. So this one, we never had a chance.

CAMEROTA: So what did he say to you after the verdict was --

LICHTMAN: He tried to keep our spirits up, if you can believe -- I was sad because it's -- it's hard to see anyone in a cage knowing that he's going to face the rest of his life there. You know, no matter what he's accused of, no matter what he's convicted of, but he was very strong. He was supportive. He was looking forward to the appeal. He thanked us. He was appreciative. And as a defense lawyer, that's what you want. You don't want somebody who's saying, you screwed up. I could have won if you hadn't done this. It was nothing like that.

CAMEROTA: What did he say to keep your spirits up?

LICHTMAN: He said, just keep fighting. He said, I'm not giving up. You don't give up.

CAMEROTA: You know, he -- prison has not contained him in the past.

LICHTMAN: In Mexico.

CAMEROTA: OK. He has --

LICHTMAN: Mexico's a different -- I'm not sure if you're aware. Mexico, the prisons, the government, the judicial process, it's a little crooked.

CAMEROTA: But you're saying this time he will be. Where do you think he's going to go to prison?

LICHTMAN: He's going to go to the super max I'm sure in Colorado. No one's ever escaped there. It's absolutely impossible. It's not even an issue.

CAMEROTA: So what grounds are you appealing on?

LICHTMAN: Well, one, we think the extradition process was unfair. We don't think he should have been brought over here. That's A. And, secondly, in the trial, we were vastly restricted on cross-examining many of the witnesses. I'll give you an example. One witness came in and he believed that the earth was going to be destroyed in an apocalypse. He believed in 15-foot aliens that were roaming the earth looking for gold. And these are the things that I felt that we should have been able to cross examine on because to suggest that perhaps he was insane. Wasn't allowed to.

CAMEROTA: Some of the things that the jurors heard, some of the evidence, were about private jets filled with cash, bodies burned in bonfires, evidence of Mr. Guzman drugging and raping young girls, never mind --

LICHTMAN: They did not. The jury -- the jury did not hear that. The jury did not hear that. That's false. Fake news.

CAMEROTA: This -- these -- this is what was -- came out in trial.

LICHTMAN: False. Fake news.

CAMEROTA: They never heard about all of this stuff.

LICHTMAN: They heard about some of it. They did not hear about him raping any girls. That's absolutely fake news.

CAMEROTA: Did they hear about the heroin production of the Sinaloa Cartel that kills so many Americans?

LICHTMAN: Of course. That's what the charge was. They did. Many Americans?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LICHTMAN: I -- I don't think the jury heard -- perhaps maybe one American was killed. This is what -- this -- this case --

CAMEROTA: I'm talking about heroin.

LICHTMAN: Oh, in terms of the impact of heroin?

CAMEROTA: Yes, of course.

LICHTMAN: Of course. Look, it's horrible. This is -- look, the problem with America is getting rid of Chapo has not changed anything. The drug flow hasn't changed. The violence in Mexico hasn't changed.

What we need to figure out is why are Americans so hell bent on doing illegal drugs. That's it.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LICHTMAN: The need for the drugs is what causes the cartels to work (ph).

CAMEROTA: I think the production of the drugs doesn't help either, but I guess my point is, is this a man who deserves to be free?

LICHTMAN: Does he deserve to be free? I'll tell you what he deserves. He deserves -- because this is America, he deserves a fair trial. That's it.

You know, does he deserve to be free? I'm not God. I'm not the judge. I'm here to simply provide this guy with his constitutional rights. And that's what I do. No matter who it is, no matter how much everybody hates him, no matter how much the media hates him, the prosecutors hate him, the judge, I'm here to fight for his life. That's what I do.

CAMEROTA: Agreed. Everyone -- everyone is entitled to a defense attorney. Absolutely. Should you have put him on the stand?

LICHTMAN: I don't think so. I mean that was a tough decision. We went back and forth on it. But I -- I felt if there was any chance we had to win the case or get a hung jury it would have been destroyed had he testified. Keep in mind, that this was a guy that was in isolation for two years. He was bleary-eyed the entire trial. He was not in the right frame of mind, I believe, to possibly be able to help himself with testifying.

CAMEROTA: What was up with these mistresses testifying -- his mistress testifying and his wife and he wearing similar outfits?

LICHTMAN: You know, trials sometimes come with some unusual things that pop up. This was one of them. I've had stranger things happen during trial. But, you know, this is El Chapo, so it's sort of par for the course I would say.

CAMEROTA: All right, we'll be watching to see what happens.

Jeffrey Lichtman, thank you very much.

LICHTMAN: Thanks so much for having me.

CAMEROTA: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, a disease once eliminated in the U.S. now causing a state of emergency. The outbreaks that have parents rushing their children to be vaccinated, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:38:03] CAMEROTA: The U.S. national debt now tops $22 trillion for the first time. It has gone up by $2 trillion since President Trump took office.

Chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us with more. Remember when Republicans, Christine, really cared about the national debt? CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And now this new grim financial milestone for America here. You know, as a candidate, Donald Trump told "The Washington Post" he could -- he could get rid of the national debt in eight years. Instead, it is swelling. The Treasury Department showing the national debt topping $22 trillion for the first time ever. It rose sharply, of course, after the 2008 financial crisis when Congress and the Obama administration approved that big stimulus funding to rescue a collapsing economy. The debt began to level off at the beginning of President Trump's term and then surged again after his 2017 tax cuts took effect. The lower corporate tax rut cut into Treasury revenues.

It shows that America's finances are on an unsustainable path. Without higher taxes, massive spending cuts or an explosion in economic growth, or all three, the Congressional Budget Office projects public debt will rise to 93 percent of GDP by the year 2029. That's enormous. This matters to American families. A debt that size has to be paid for. The interest on that debt crowds out other spending, education, infrastructure, social safety nets. Each family's share of the debt works out to just over $172,000 or $67,000 per person. With deficits rising, expect to add a trillion in debt a year. This is something that budget experts say is reckless.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, it's not supposed to happen when the economy's booming.

ROMANS: It's not supposed to happen.

BERMAN: If the debt is swelling, you're in big trouble.

All right, Romans, thank you very much.

Demand for the measles vaccine is surging in a Washington state county where an outbreak began nearly two months ago. Dozens of confirmed cases of the highly contagious disease have triggered a medical emergency.

CNN's Nick Watt has more from Clark County, Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Baby Steel (ph) has cabin fever. Hasn't been allowed out of the house for 14 days now and counting because he might be infected with measles.

[08:40:08] KRISTEN CHEATLEY, MOTHER OF MEASLES EXPOSED CHILD: We go out to the front porch and watch the dog go to the bathroom and go run around out in front --

WATT (on camera): And that's the highlight of his day.

CHEATLEY: And that's the highlight of his day.

WATT (voice over): But measles is no laughing matter. Measles can kill and -- DR. ALAN MELNICK, CLARK COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH DIRECTOR: It is exquisitely contagious. So you can be in a room where somebody with measles had left two hours earlier and still get the disease.

WATT: This outbreak in Washington, just north of Portland, now officially a state of emergency.

Clark County publishes a list every day of places infected people have been. The Trailblazers game January 11th, the Portland Airport January 15th, the Costco January 16th. Did you shop there?

Measles was eliminated from this country in 2000, but the CDC says measles can spread when it reaches a community in the U.S. where groups of people are unvaccinated. An infected traveler from Ukraine in the midst of a massive outbreak reportedly came here over the holidays and --

MELNICK: We have large, unvaccinated populations in Clark County.

WATT: Eleven-month-old Steel, still too young for the shot, was in the doctor's waiting room the same time as an unvaccinated, infected kid.

CHEATLEY: For the longest time we said, well, if they don't want to vaccinate, that's not my problem. It's become my problem.

DR. AMRITA STARK, PEDIATRICIAN: A lot of people are still afraid despite all of the evidence to debunk the association with autism.

WATT: Washington state law allows parents to opt out, even for personal or philosophical reasons. Lawmakers right now debating a change.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Literally hundreds of thousands of people in my community have been involved in the issue.

WATT: Anti-vaxxers (ph) protested outside.

STARK: But that is the majority of the patients who decline. Many of the patients who decline are from different religious groups and then many of them are in the Russian population that's here, too.

WATT: A large community from the former Soviet Union.

Eduard Rusu, who runs a Russian pop station, hasn't vaccinated his kids.

EDUARD RUSU, KXRU: If you read the fine print it -- I'm sure somewhere it says, you know, there is a possible fatal outcome there. Some possible fatal consequences. And that gets you a little worried.

WATT: Officials are eager not to blame one ethnic group. They hope information and fear fueled by this outbreak might now change some minds around here.

RUSU: With this outbreak I will definitely think that I need to put it on my schedule soon and get it done. WATT: Vaccination rates in Clark County last month, three times the

norm.

Nick Watt, CNN, Clark County, Washington state.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: All right, well, speaking of health, you know, President Trump's annual medical physical was last Friday.

BERMAN: I remember that.

CAMEROTA: OK, so why don't we know any details?

BERMAN: That's a great question.

CAMEROTA: About his physical or his health. So, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to join us with that next.

BERMAN: Plus, he did not win best in show, but this Australian shepherd may have the most attention-grabbing name at Westminster.

CAMEROTA: Your favorite story coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:47:14] BERMAN: President Trump had his annual medical physical last Friday. The president's physician says he is in, quote, very good health and I anticipate he will remain so for the duration of his presidency and beyond. That's what he said, but we don't have any details beyond that. No information.

Now, you may remember, last year's press conference in the White House Briefing Room, where the then White House doctor, Dr. Ronny Jackson, revealed a lot about the president's health.

CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now.

And, Sanjay, what do you make out of the fact that we have no details from the president's physical?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, I think it's worth -- last year, you know, the physical exam was done on a Friday. And then there was this sort of remarkable press conference on Tuesday. So we know that, you know, a lot of these results can come back by then. We also know that it is possible that the president even had some of his testing done at the White House residence before he goes to Walter Reed. You know, they have lots of capabilities within the White House to do some of this testing. So the results are probably out there somewhere. They're probably maybe being analyzed.

When President Obama was president, it -- sometimes you didn't even know that he was going to have the physical exam and it could take up to two weeks to get some of the results back. So it's all over the map. And what exactly drives that, why they choose to release, when they choose to release, it's not entirely clear. Last year was a totally different story, John. Releasing the results,

putting the White House doctor out there to talk about it, it was a remarkable thing. I'd never seen anything like it. Here's just a little bit of how that exchange went down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Just to be clear, though, Dr. Jackson, he is taking cholesterol lowering medication. He has evidence of heart disease and he's borderline obese. Can you characterize that as excellent health?

DR. RONNY JACKSON, EXAMINED PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think based on his current cardiac, you know, study, I mean his heart is very healthy.

I think that we're doing a -- doing a decent job with his cholesterol. I would say that his -- the dose of his cholesterol medicine is very low. He takes a very low dose of his cholesterol medicine right now. So we have a lot of room to increase that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: There were a lot of recommendations then Dr. Jackson also made to the president in terms of his health. What we don't know is, were those recommendations followed and what's been the impact of the last year on the president?

BERMAN: Typically speaking, Sanjay, how much information is revealed? What do you think would be the bare minimum of what we might learn?

GUPTA: The bare -- first of all, there's no requirement to even have a physical exam. There's no requirement to release anything. So just in terms of what's required, there's nothing.

The bare minimum typically is something like what we've already received, which you read, the president is in excellent health. We expect him to remain in excellent health. That is certainly what you got with President Obama as well, and even with President Bush, George W. Bush. So giving that the -- President Trump is older than those presidents, there's more concern about his health. It seems like they're going to release more, we just don't know when.

[08:50:07] BERMAN: And, specifically, you would have questions about his weight and also heart health given the statistics and findings from last year?

GUPTA: Absolutely. I think that's the big thing. And what was striking to me was they did not release, as part of the official report or within that press conference, the details of a sophisticated heart test known as the coronary calcium test. It was only after they were pushing on that, that he actually revealed the results and that fact that the president has a common form of heart disease.

BERMAN: So, Sanjay, in our last segment Nick Watt went to Washington state to take a look at where the measles outbreak has been going on there. And there was character -- there was someone we met inside that piece and I think it's worth addressing what he said. It was a radio host saying, you know what, I'm sure there's some side effect we don't know about from the measles vaccine. And that may be why we don't go get it.

Is there any reason to fear that?

GUPTA: Well, you know, and I think of that radio show host talked about fatal outcomes, you know, as a result of the measles vaccine.

Look, this is a vaccine that has been used a lot all over the world. So when you have something like that, you have a lot of data. And there can be adverse reaction. But let me give you a little bit of context, at least when it comes to severe allergic reactions. The idea, for example, you could be struck by lightning. You can see the number, one in, 14,000. Die in a plane crash, one out of 188,000. To have a severe allergic reaction to a measles vaccine is literally one in a million. I'm not just putting those numbers up there, but that's data.

Can you have -- you know, can you develop a rash, could you develop a temperature, soreness, some symptoms after a vaccine? Absolutely. What the vaccine does, it stimulates your immune system to work. That can make you feel cruddy for a few days. But it's not the severe allergic reaction I think that radio show host was talking about.

BERMAN: And it can keep you from getting measles --

GUPTA: That's right.

BERMAN: And, more importantly, spreading measles. So how important is it not just to vaccinate your kids, Sanjay, but to do it on schedule?

GUPTA: Here's the thing about that, because a lot of people say, hey, I'm vaccinating, but I'm going to spread it out. You know, and that -- and that's a little bit of a copout in part because what are you saying really. Are you saying I still think there's a problem with a vaccine? You should get vaccinated on schedule. You can see the schedule up there, 12 to 15 months for the first dose, second dose, four to six years. Why? You're not fully protected, first of all, in between those two doses. Certainly a lot more protection after that first dose. The second thing is, you are protecting other people around you by getting vaccinated on schedule. So important.

BERMAN: Herd immunity.

GUPTA: That's right.

BERMAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much. We learn so much by talking to you about this and I hope people are listening.

GUPTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: Appreciate it.

GUPTA: You got it.

CAMEROTA: All right, John, finally to your favorite story of the day, the Westminster Dog Show. You love it so much. Almost as much as "Bohemian Rhapsody."

BERMAN: It's -- I like the song. It was a bad movie.

CAMEROTA: OK. Well, The Westminster Dog Show is a lot of entertainment. A wire fox terrier named King was the top dog at the Westminster Dog Show, John Berman. There he is. King defeated 2,800 competitors, you'll be interested to know from 203 breeds, John, OK. Now are you impressed?

BERMAN: Do you know -- wire fox terriers are the winningest breed at the Westminster Dog Show, which speaks to the problem with it.

CAMEROTA: You know a lot about this.

BERMAN: Because a lab or retriever has never won. So, again, call me when a dog wins the dog show.

CAMEROTA: Well, an Australian shepherd named Trump made a lot of headlines, and that has Jeanne Moos wondering, which Trump is more deserving of best in show.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Two different Trumps took center stage at almost the same time -- President Trump you know, but Trump the show dog was competing in Westminster doing some things the president does, like shaking hands, and some he doesn't, like having his mouth examined publicly.

Actually, Trump the Australian shepherd is named after the Trump card in the game of Bridge, not the president, who that very same night was musing about whether he should get a dog.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn? Would that be -- feels a little phony -- phony to me.

MOOS: Trump the show dog did not win the herding group competition.

TRUMP: I understand losers.

MOOS (on camera): This is a president who barks out insults using the phrase "like a dog."

MOOS (voice over): Bill Maher got fired like a dog, sloppy Steve Bannon got dumped like a dog, Kristen Stewart cheated like a dog.

TRUMP: And the guy choked like a dog.

MOOS: Trump himself has been depicted as a dog led around by Putin. Critics have called the president a canine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you lie in bed with dogs you get fleas.

MOOS (on camera): But you can't say Donald Trump never had a dog. I'm happy to introduce Chappy (ph). MOOS (voice over): Actually, it was first wife Ivana's poodle. In her

book Ivana writes, Donald was not a dog fan. She wouldn't move to New York without the dog. It's me and Chappy or no one, I insisted. Chappy had an equal dislike of Donald.

[08:55:01] Yet for at least five years, Trump posed with every Westminster Dog Show winner and those present said he seemed to enjoy it. Ivana writes, despite their issues with each other, Donald never objected to Chappy sleeping on my side of the bed. That's more than you can say for President Obama and Bo.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you going to be in a bed?

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Not in my bed.

MOOS: Still, with President Trump, there can only be one top dog. He's not going to let some pooch yank his chain.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: I saw some real dogs in there.

BERMAN: They were, but they don't win.

CAMEROTA: Oh.

BERMAN: It's the issue. It's fox wire terriers and Scottish terriers and lap dogs.

CAMEROTA: My favorite didn't win either, which was the Ewok from "Star Wars." Look at this.

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: That is an Ewok, isn't it?

BERMAN: Yes, the Ewok can topple the emperor, but not win the dog show.

CAMEROTA: And also can't walk very well.

BERMAN: Or see. How do you see through the hair?

CAMEROTA: Well --

BERMAN: Look, the dogs are cute. I just think it's weird that retrievers or labs have never won.

CAMEROTA: Look at that.

BERMAN: And also what about mutts? Who's going to speaks up for the mutts, Alisyn Camerota? Apparently not you. Not you.

CAMEROTA: You're making it -- I know you're making a political statement about the Westminster Dog Show and all I'm saying is why not an outer space alien?

BERMAN: That says it all.

CAMEROTA: OK. All right.

CNN has learned the president is expected to agree to that deal to prevent a government shutdown. What we now know next on "NEWSROOM."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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