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Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) Unveils New Tax Plan In CNN Op-Ed; Beto O'Rourke Launches 2020 Presidential Campaign; CNN Reality Check: Judge Picks -- No Experience Necessary; Boeing Loses Billions In Market Value After Crashes; Weeklong Power Outage Triggers Water Crisis In Venezuela. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 14, 2019 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00] SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH), MEMBER, FINANCE COMMITTEE: -- and then betrays workers. And the White House looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives.

Like, a lot of my Republican colleagues are bothered by that. They just don't vote that way.

I'm hoping the approach of the elections in 2020 will lift off some of the fear that my Republican colleagues have and maybe they'll actually grow some backbone when they cast that vote on the Senate floor.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Very quickly, you've already talked about this issue but I do want to put out to everybody you have a CNN op-ed that is coming out today, and here is what you say about your message.

"There's something fundamentally wrong with an economy that is supposedly inching close to full employment, yet in which families are so financially unstable that four in 10 Americans say they could not afford an emergency expense of $400 without borrowing money."

Wow, that really does sort of illuminate what you're talking about -- the dire straits that so many people feel they're in.

BROWN: Yes. It says that if your car breaks down and you can't get to work, you go to a payday lender and then you go to the payday lender again and again, and your life can turn upside down. Eviction can pass -- can follow that.

My wife and I live in zip code 44105 in Cleveland. And that zip code, in 2007, had more foreclosures the first half of that year than any zip code in the country. So I see every day what Wall Street has done to this country.

That's why we throw out the Trump tax bill. We pass the Patriot Corporation Act, meaning if you go -- if you play by the rules -- if you're a company, you hire workers at decent wages and benefits and do your production in the United States, you get a lower tax rate.

But if you're one of those big companies where the executors are making millions but lots of your workers are getting food stamps, and Medicaid, and Section 8 Housing, and earned income tax credit, you pay back to the government a corporate malfeasance -- a corporate -- a corporate freeloader fee back to taxpayers to help reimburse taxpayers for subsidizing your employees.

At the same time, you expand earned income tax credit, as Ro Khanna and I have proposed in that op-ed --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BROWN: -- and the child tax credit.

So the wealthy should pay more, to be sure. Corporations should behave better.

But I want to put the money in working-class families' pockets. So that's -- you grow the economy from the middle out, Alisyn. Obviously, not from the top down.

CAMEROTA: I recommend everybody go to cnn.com to read more about your position.

Senator Sherrod Brown, thank you very much --

BROWN: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: -- for being on NEW DAY -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. That was a fascinating interview and I think informs our discussion about the top story today.

Beto O'Rourke just jumped into the Democratic race. He made it official.

A Democratic senator you just heard, wasn't exactly jumping up and down over that. We'll discuss much more, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:36:27] BERMAN: All right.

Our breaking news this morning, former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke announced he is running for president. He released a campaign video about 90 minutes ago.

So what will the reaction be among grassroots Democrats -- perhaps, establishment Democrats? We just got, I think, a sign -- at least of something. We'll talk about what it all means.

Back with us now, Jonathan Martin, Alex Burns, and Nia-Malika Henderson.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is considering -- or was considering, I should say --

CAMEROTA: Was. BERMAN: -- running for president and just decided not to -- was just a guest of Alisyn Camerota. And under I think withering questioning from Alisyn had a response, which made my eyes pop, to the news of the Beto O'Rourke announcement.

Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I have no reaction. I just -- one more, one more, one more gets in the race.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Nia-Malika Henderson, that wasn't jumping up and down.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes. I mean, it was essentially like a yawn. I mean, it was just sort of like, meh. I think, in some ways, you might see that from other folks on the Hill.

You know, Beto O'Rourke kind of left a light footprint when he was in Congress. He didn't really do much.

He talked about that, I think, in the "Vanity Fair" article and essentially said well, they weren't in the majority so it was difficult to get things done. He was just, you know, sort of a backbencher congressman so he doesn't have much of a legislative record there.

But that was, I think, fascinating to see Sherrod Brown's reaction there.

You have had much more of a reaction to the prospect of Biden, for instance, getting in because he has had such a long relationship with folks on the Hill there.

And I think it also does get at sort of like what is Beto O'Rourke's argument for why he should be president? One of the things he says is that he can bring people together, he's a good listener.

If you look at that "Vanity Fair" article it's a lot about him. It's a lot about how he is so kind of energized by the crowd there and the masses of people he's able to gather there.

So I think you have a feel that these -- a lot of experienced folks -- people in the Senate, people with a lot of accomplishment, people who know policy really well. And so that is going to have to be something that I think Beto O'Rourke works on as he works his way through this race and through this primary.

CAMEROTA: J. Martin, your reaction to Sherrod Brown's lukewarm yawn?

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Politics is a human business and that was a human reaction and one of a member of Congress for over a quarter of a century. A 3-term senator who has been spent much of the early part of this year exploring his own campaign for the presidency. Somebody who has won a swing state that actually leans red three times.

And then ruled last week -- you know, ruled out that he was going to run. But someone who wanted to run and considered himself -- went to all the early states.

And then to come on your guy's great show at 7:30 this morning and be asked about a 3-term House member who lost his statewide election, and his candidacy for president, I don't think he was thrilled about it. You know, talking about it that much.

I mean, that just -- politics is the kind of thing where vanity and egos matter, and this is someone who takes great pride in his capacity to win in Ohio, in pride in his legislative record. One that as Nia points out, Mr. O'Rourke does not share in the Halls of Congress.

And it does speak to, I think, this broader unease with Beto among kind of old Democratic pros who see a lot of -- a lot of, you know, charisma there certainly, but question what's underneath the hood.

[07:40:08] BERMAN: OK. But, Alex Burns, there is something that has made all the other campaigns so nervous. And there was something that brought in $80 million in the Texas Senate race and did generate a national buzz there.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Oh, there's no question about that. I mean, he would not be running for president right now had he not captured the imagination of Democratic voters nationally and in Texas as well.

But the question now is did he capture that imagination, did he create that moment in Texas last year because of a specific set of circumstances related to Democrats and plenty of Republicans being passionately hostile to Ted Cruz. The sort of dream of taking the Senate in the midterm elections. The sense that this was a guy who was challenging Trump on the border in the first real checkpoint moment of the Trump presidency.

Was it a unique moment or is it -- was it based on skills that he has or a persona that he has that can be projected on a much larger scale under much, much different circumstances?

And I think the exchange that we just saw with Sen. Brown is illustrative of the different and I think higher degree of skepticism that he's going to face in a presidential race. That this is a guy who does not have --

You know, he gets compared to Barack Obama a lot, but when Barack Obama was running for president he had a couple of signature issues from his days in the Senate. A government ethics nuclear proliferation -- obviously, the Iraq War -- that defined him not just as a candidate, but as a legislator.

We don't know what those are going to be for Beto O'Rourke yet. So on a stage with other Democrats who talk about unity in similar terms, who have their own sense of authenticity and own sense of vision and what it means to bring the country together, it's just going to be an entirely different kind of competition for him.

CAMEROTA: Stuff's about to get real. I think that's what you're saying.

BURNS: That's what I'm saying. You said it better. That was a short answer.

BERMAN: He'll have to prove it. He'll have to prove it. And he's going to be in Iowa for three days and we'll see. He will be watched more closely than he was ever watched in Texas, starting now.

Thanks, guys.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

All right. The power in Venezuela is back on after almost a week in the dark, but the crisis there is far from over. The disturbing surprise some found in their homes, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:02] CAMEROTA: Someone got a job yesterday that she'll get to keep for life, get paid very well, and what she does in that job could impact the lives of each and every one of us. This is a good tease. Her previous experience doing that job, practically none.

John Avlon is here to explain all of this in our reality check. Hi, John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey.

So, how would you like a guaranteed lifetime job at $220,000 a year? It's prestigious and influential and there's apparently no experience necessary. It sounds pretty good, right?

Well, that's what happened to Neomi Rao yesterday, who was confirmed by the Senate to take Brett Kavanaugh's seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Now, there was a lot of controversy around the 45-year-old's nomination. Democrats raised concerns about some of her college writings about drinking and date rape. Republicans grossed that she might be insufficiently anti-abortion for their tastes.

But she came out of The Federalist Society and distinguished herself in conservative circles for her work on deregulation. Now, for what it's worth, I don't think fixation and isolating college writings is relevant. And it's a bit refreshing to see a conservative nominee who isn't apparently driven by determination to overturn Roe v. Wade.

But it's Rao's complete lack of judicial experience that caught my eye. In what other world can you get a powerful lifetime job without any direct experience? It just doesn't make any sense.

Pilots who've never flown, tenured professors who've never taught, coaches who've never played ball -- it would never happen. But judges who basically serve as the backstop to our democracy, no big deal.

Partisan ideology and the ability to influence the court for decades appears to be the driving force behind Donald Trump's nominations, which have come at a rapid clip.

Check this out. To date, there have been 36 Appeal Court judgeships filled by President Trump. Compare that to 17 filled by Obama in the first 26 months of his term. And that's not even counting the two Supreme Court justices, which equals the number Obama had in eight years after the obstruction of centrist Merrick Garland.

The full-court press to pack the bench with young conservatives has come with the smashing of presidents and often common sense. Twenty- three of Donald Trump's Circuit Court nominees have had no prior experience on the bench.

Take Allison Jones Rushing. The 37-year-old was confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month. She'd never previously been a judge, but she was a member of The Federalist Society and drew fire from LGBT groups for her work as an intern with the Alliance for Defending Freedom, which opposes marriage equality.

And then there's this sign of declining standards. The American Bar Association has rated six of Donald Trump's nominees as unqualified, and three of those unqualified nominees have been confirmed by the Senate to date.

Now, there are other departures as well. Paul Matey, a 47-year-old deputy chief counsel to Chris Christie without judicial experience, was confirmed to the bench over the objection of his state's two Democratic senators. An extraordinary breach of bipartisan tradition.

And look, it's not that every circuit court judge nominated by past presidents has been a judge before. According to a 2014 study, only 55 percent of circuit court judges had previously served on the bench. But the trend is moving even further away from experience and toward ideology.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts went out of his way to say that the judicial branch does not serve one part or one interest. We serve one nation. And for that, he was attacked by President Trump.

Elevating judicial nominees who have more in the way of partisan credentials than experience -- well, it runs the risk of further eroding faith in our democracy.

And that's your reality check.

BERMAN: You know, in terms of things that will have an impact for generations, the judiciary absolutely is it.

John, thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: Thank you, John.

AVLON: Thanks, guys.

BERMAN: All right. Up next, air travelers concerned about which plane they are flying on now have options. The new choice on a popular travel site, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:54:00] BERMAN: It's time now for "CNN Business Now".

Boeing feeling the effects of the safety crisis involving its best- selling jet, and fliers concerned about the plane they're flying on -- they now have options.

CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik joins us now with more -- Alison.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

I have been keeping my eye on shares of Boeing and the Boeing 737 MAX 8 issue having an effect on Wall Street. The crisis has slashed more than $25 billion off Boeing's market value. The company's stock immediately fell after President Trump announced the U.S. was grounding the MAX 8 and MAX 9 planes.

Shares ended Wednesday a bit higher, just under half a percent. Despite Wednesday's recovery, Boeing's stock has fallen 10 percent since Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines crash. Boeing is down about half a percent in the premarket.

Wall Street estimates -- is estimating that grounding the planes for three months could cost Boeing between $1 billion and $5 billion.

Shares of airlines that use the planes, like American, Southwest, and United, they briefly dipped on the news, then quickly rebounding. It is possible Boeing will compensate the three carriers for lost revenue.

[07:55:02] The company has a history of paying airlines if planes they own are grounded because of safety orders. It did so after grounding the 787 Dreamliner jet in 2013.

And a popular travel site is easing travelers' concerns about the plane they're flying on. Kayak will allow fliers to filter by plane model, including the 737 jet. The Website already allows travelers to sort by plane type but it hasn't been able to search and filter by a specific model before now.

So it looks like Kayak, you know, trying to sooth some nerves in the wake of this tragedy.

CAMEROTA: That's an interesting development.

KOSIK: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much, Alison.

All right. The lights are back on in Venezuela this morning after a weeklong power outage, but a new crisis is gripping the country. Thousands of Venezuelans are desperately searching for clean drinking water.

CNN's Paula Newton joins us live from Caracas. It's just one hardship after another. We're going to go right to Paula's piece and we'll get back to her. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At its worst, the blackout triggered a water crisis so severe there was a degrading scramble for water -- any water -- even dirty water. Whatever the drainage pipes in the stream could offer up.

The water shortage has eased up a bit, but not the indignity of finding water wherever and however you can, even coming from inside a highway tunnel in an open pipe.

NEWTON (on camera): I mean, look at this water. It is not clean. There is debris in the water, there is garbage, there are insects. And yet, people are very desperate.

And they're happy to have this water right now, telling me that they are using it for bathing and for anything else that they need to be doing. They know they can't drink it but right now, this is all they have.

NEWTON (voice-over): "It's tough. It's very tough," he tells me. "We need water for everything. If we don't have water, we can't do anything."

Black goop, instead of water, ran through these faucets when the power did come back on. Residents posted on social media of a water system rarely maintained or repaired.

Anna Ramirez (ph) says she's afraid that now the water system will never recover. She's done without in her tiny apartment in the (INAUDIBLE) since the blackout started last week, trying to take care of her disabled and pregnant daughter, Kayla (ph).

NEWTON (on camera): So you blame the government? (Foreign language spoken).

NEWTON (voice-over): "Who else are you going to blame," she says. "It's because they're running out of things to say."

And, Venezuela is still running out of water. Unthinkable in a country once blessed with vast water resources. Years of neglect and now drought have left many struggling and scavenging to get water as it, too, has now become a luxury.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: You know, the struggle for life in that country right now is so very real.

CAMEROTA: Yes. This is not a political struggle, this is a life and death struggle in addition, as you point out.

BERMAN: All right. Thanks to Paula Newton for that.

We do have breaking news in the race for president. Two hours ago, Beto O'Rourke announced he is running. We're going to start with that right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, March 14th, 8:00 in the East.

This morning, we have big, breaking 2020 news for you. Former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke just joined the 2020 race for president. The announcement came in a video that he released this morning. Watch a piece of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE (D), 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Amy and I are happy to share with you that I'm running to serve you as the next President of the United States of America. This is a defining moment of truth for this country and for every single one of us.

The challenges that we face right now -- the interconnected crises in our economy, our democracy, and our climate have never been greater, and they will either consume us or they will afford us the greatest opportunity to unleash the genius of the United States of America.

In other words, this moment of peril produces perhaps the greatest moment of promise for this country and for everyone inside of it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Beto O'Rourke drew an enormous amount of grassroots support and he broke fundraising records in his bid for Senate in Texas -- a failed bid, which is worth noting.

O'Rourke arrived in Iowa overnight for a 3-day campaign kickoff.

He is also on the cover of "Vanity Fair". This photo taken by famed celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. Inside, there is this quote. "Man, I'm just born to be in it."

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Joe Hagan, the "Vanity Fair" special correspondent who interviewed O'Rourke for that cover story. Joe, great to have you here in studio.

JOE HAGAN, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, VANITY FAIR: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Set the scene for us. You spent a few days riding around with he and his family before the El Paso rally?

HAGAN: That's right. Well, I was with him when he was -- you know, had just learned about it and he was trying to figure out what he was going to do.

I had been reporting on this since last December and he was having sort of a media blackout. He wasn't talking to anybody. He was on his road trip, as you'll recall.

And I was in El Paso doing some reporting and figured he wasn't going to be around. Suddenly, he shows up for the women's rally.

I went up to his house and he was out on the front porch.

END