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Republicans Call for Adam Schiff's Resignation; Analysis of Options for Democrats' Accessing Mueller Report; Facebook to Ban All Support for White Nationalism on its Platforms; Joe Biden Ahead in New 2020 Poll Out This Morning, Republican Support for Trump Holding Steady; Measles Outbreak in New York. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired March 28, 2019 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: This morning, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee angrily refusing to step down. I want you to hear Adam Schiff defending his probe of the president's Russian ties, even after the Mueller report -- or at least the summary, again (ph) -- apparently found or did not establish collusion. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Even as he was seeking the Russians' help, the Kremlin's help, to make money, I don't think it's OK that his attorney lied to our committee. There's a different word for that than collusion, and it's called "compromise." And that is the subject of our hearing today.
Mr. Ambassador,
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will the gentleman yield?
SCHIFF: Mr. Ambassador...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will the gentleman yield?
SCHIFF: ... be recognized for your opening statement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will the gentleman yield?
SCHIFF: I will not yield.
Mr. Ambassador, you are...
REP. MICHAEL TURNER (R), OHIO: Will the gentleman yield? Because you just made (ph) some things (ph) about all of us...
SCHIFF: I will -- I will -- I will...
TURNER: ... that I think we all should get the opportunity to respond to...
SCHIFF: ... I will not -- I will not yield.
TURNER: ... if you're going to say, we think you ought to allow us to speak of what we think.
SCHIFF: You can use your five minutes to speak. You attacked me in your opening statement, and I...
(CROSSTALK)
TURNER: I have not had an opportunity to respond at all, especially to your statements of what we think. Because no one over here thinks that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TEXT: Donald J. Trump: Congressman Adam Schiff, who spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking, should be forced to resign from Congress!
SCIUTTO: Quite a moment in those hearings, usually staid affairs. These flames were fanned early this morning by the president himself, who wants Schiff gone not only from his chairmanship, but from Congress entirely.
CNN's Sunlen Serfaty on Capitol Hill this hour.
I mean, listen, obviously, Republicans and the president, seeking to score some political points here. But Adam Schiff's not going to step down from Congress or his chairmanship, I imagine.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. There is no expectation that will happen. But certainly, this moment underscores, Jim, the pressure that Republicans and President Trump are trying to exert upon him. He has -- he's someone that has been, certainly, at the forefront of a lot of these investigations, so certainly he becomes, in essence, something of an easy target for Republicans.
But that was such a dramatic moment that played out, up here on Capitol Hill just a few minutes ago, and it really speaks to how contentious this moment up here on the Hill is in the post-Mueller world at that committee hearing. You saw this play out.
But behind the scenes just moments before, all nine Republicans on that Intelligence Committee, they released a letter calling for him to resign. Again, these are his colleagues, not necessarily of course someone from the same party, but that certainly intensifies the pressure on Adam Schiff even though, as you correctly note, there's no expectation that he would shut down. And certainly, Republicans ramping up the intensity of the pressure this morning.
Now, we will hear from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in just a few minutes, later this hour. We're (ph) most certainly, she will be facing questions on this. SCIUTTO: You spoke with Speaker Pelosi about the Mueller report
specifically, Democrats' response. What did she tell you? Because I know she was telling members, earlier in the week, "Hey, you know, we'll keep our oversight but let's focus on our agenda."
SERFATY: That's right. Democrats are certainly trying to remain focused on their legislative priorities while also dealing with the fallout from the Mueller report, and the push specifically to get the entire Mueller report. That is what I asked her about specifically this morning. Here's how she responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CALIFORNIA: The will of the Congress on the four of the House, 420 members voted to release this -- if the administration wants to ignore overwhelming 100 percent vote of Democrats and Republicans alike on the floor of the House, I think it's a really important message that the American people need to receive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY: And, Jim, after that exchange, I asked her specifically the follow-up questions. "So you will get your hands on the full Mueller report one way or the other?" And she answered, "It will happen. It is just a question of time."
Of course, the big question is, where does this go. How far are they willing to go, the next steps, up here on the Hill, to get that information at this point is very unclear.
Pelosi, as well as Jerry Nadler who, of course, is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, have not said whether they intend to issue subpoenas.
SCIUTTO: Sunlen Serfaty, always good to have you on the Hill. Thanks very much.
Let's speak now with former NSA attorney Susan Hennessey. A lot of expertise in this.
Susan, we just got some news. This is a -- this is from "The New York Times" -- saying that the Mueller report in full was some 300 pages, which is longer than a special counsel is required. He could very easily, under the regulations, submit a bare-bones report. But submitted 300 pages, which speaks to the evidence, the underlying information for his decisions.
What does that tell you now, based on that four-page summary we saw from Bill Barr? And does that mean that these questions we say are closed may not actually be closed?
SUSAN HENNESSEY, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think we always understood that there was going to be a pretty substantial delta between that bare-bones summary information that letter that Barr wrote, and the actual underlying Mueller report. Reports out of the Justice Department have said that the Mueller report is comprehensive. That certainly means that there's going to be a lot of information.
Now, the line that Bill Barr included in his letter, that it did not establish collusion, is not the same as saying there is no evidence. Now, it's possible that a great deal of that material is going to -- is going to be actually laying out all the areas in which they investigated issues and found nothing there, right? Really showing their work to the American people.
[10:35:09] So we don't know if the length is good news or bad news for Donald Trump. What it does speak to is the really overwhelming need for as much of that underlying report as possible to be given to Congress and made public for the American people.
SCIUTTO: OK. So the House has voted overwhelmingly to make it public. Senator Mitch McConnell's blocking action in the Senate, we don't really know what the White House is going to do here. If they're stymied, can Democrats in the House simply subpoena the report?
HENNESSEY: So I think it's -- it's possible and we will certainly see some degree of litigation. Right now there are essentially three categories the Department of Justice is likely looking at in terms of what they want to redact.
The first is 6(e) material, that's grand jury material. There's a law that actually prevents that from producing that information. They aren't able to do so without going to the court for permission.
The other area is classified information. They will -- they will share classified information with members of Congress who are entitled to see it. That said, a report that's widely distributed through non- secure channels would have to have that redacted. So there shouldn't be a ton of controversy over the need to review that and exclude some of that information.
The other big category, though, is this sort of prudential category. The information that Bill Barr can provide to Congress but might choose not to. For example, if he exerts executive privilege. And so if he attempts to withhold a substantial amount of information under that type of justification, that is when I think we're going to end up seeing subpoenas to see that material.
SCIUTTO: OK. So that's subpoena for the documents. What about subpoenaing Robert Mueller to testify before committees?
HENNESSEY: So that's one thing we've already heard -- we've already heard multiple members say that they're interested in having Bill Barr come and testify, interested in having Robert Mueller come and testify. So this will be one interesting thing to see, you know, to the extent that the Justice Department is asserting executive privilege or making particular characterizations of Mueller's conclusions. Is Mueller inclined to take a different view? Executive privilege is something that -- that the government can
assert when it wasn't -- it doesn't want to disclose information. However when a witness wants to talk about something, it's very difficult to -- for the government to block them on executive privilege grounds.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
HENNESSEY: We saw that play out with Sally Yates and Jim Comey. So it really will be an interesting question. I think it's almost a certainty that Mueller will be called to testify. But whether or not he's inclined to produce a lot of information.
SCIUTTO: Yes. Of course, the president didn't testify either. Susan Hennessey, thanks very much.
Facebook is taking a stand against white nationalism and white separatism. Why just now? New details next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:42:17] SCIUTTO: This morning, Facebook is taking more action to stop hate from spreading, announcing it will soon ban all praise, support and representation of white nationalism. The move coming two weeks after a terror attack at mosques in New Zealand that killed 50 people. Alison Kosik joins me now with more.
I mean, one of the questions is, why only now? But what are they doing?
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Because a lot of pressure on them. You know, and this is something that social media companies have really struggled with for years. How to police speech on their platforms.
So for Facebook, this is really a major policy shift. The company announced it's banning all content that in any way glorifies white nationalism.
TEXT: "Today we're announcing a ban on praise, support and representation of white nationalism and white separatism on Facebook and Instagram... It's clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place on our services."
KOSIK: In a blog post, Facebook said this. Beginning next week, it will enforce a ban on praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism on their site. The new policy will also apply to Instagram. Facebook's saying this. "It is clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place in our services."
Now, to make a clarification here, the social network says it already had a ban in place prohibiting the hateful treatment of people based on race, but it had not applied this same standard to white nationalism. Facebook's saying originally it believed the concepts of nationalism and separatism could be linked to patriotism, and can be important to people's identify. But no more.
Over the past few months, what Facebook has been doing is, it's been having these conversations with academics and experts in race relations, and they've all concluded that there is an overlap between white nationalism and separatism, and white supremacy. Now civil rights groups applauded this move, saying it's a step forward. But much more work remains to be done.
Now if you go ahead and try to search on the Facebook platform for terms associated with white supremacy, you're going to be directed to organizations that help people leave behind hate groups. The policy shift, though, comes less than two weeks after the suspect in the New Zealand mosque attacks streamed the massacre live on Facebook.
Facebook is saying, listen, we need to get better and faster at finding and removing hate from our platforms, saying, yes, we are making progress but we know we have a lot more work to do. If you remember, Jim, the video was viewed by thousands and then there were lots of copies made of that horrific video.
SCIUTTO: Yes, we were covering that story live as it was unfolding --
KOSIK: Yes.
SCIUTTO: -- it just amazed me that there aren't filters that can identify the sounds of gun shots, for instance --
KOSIK: Right.
SCIUTTO: -- or the sight of blood, you know, in light of all the technology they have.
KOSIK: Yes.
SCIUTTO: I mean, that was going on for -- for almost an hour.
KOSIK: For too long.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
KOSIK: Way too long for something like that.
SCIUTTO: Alison Kosik, thanks very much.
[10:44:44] What is the most important factor for the Democratic nominee to have in 2020? The results of a new poll -- pretty interesting -- coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: A new poll out just this morning has former Vice President Joe Biden out in front, and he's not even in the race yet.
TEXT: Democrats' choice for 2020 nominee: Joe Biden, 29 percent; Bernie Sanders, 19 percent; Beto O'Rourke, 12 percent SCIUTTO: The poll by Quinnipiac University, shows 29 percent of Democrats saying they will vote for Biden in the 2020 primary -- if he runs. He is followed by Bernie Sanders and Beto O'Rourke. CNN's Jeff Zeleny, he joins me now. He's covering these races.
So other big takeaway from the field was that the top three vote- getters there so far are white men.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, good morning, Jim. Perhaps not surprisingly, because they are the most well-known. They certainly have gotten the most attention.
Joe Biden, as we pointed out again and again, is not even in this race yet. We do expect him, we're told, to get in the race near the end of April. That timeline has been pushed back somewhat, but we've seen his sort of slow rollout.
[10:50:05] So I don't think any of the topline numbers are that surprising. Largely at this early stage of a campaign, it's all based on name recognition. Beto O'Rourke, of course, has been, you know, pretty prominent as he rolls out. He's announcing officially on Saturday.
But I was struck by the increase for Mayor Pete Buttigieg from South Bend, Indiana. He is rising, at least a bit, above some of those other more well-known senators. You can see the field there. And he was about at four percent in this national poll.
But when you look inside the poll, Jim, I think that's the value of these polls at this early stage. What voters are thinking about. And the age breakdown of the potential candidates, I think, is really interesting. Let's take a look at some of those numbers, if we have.
TEXT: Prefer a candidate who is... Dem and Dem-leaning voters; younger, 39 percent; older, 21 percent; doesn't matter, 35 percent; don't know, five percent
ZELENY: And it says that Democrats, 39 percent of Democrats are looking for a younger candidate. Twenty-one percent, an older candidate. Thirty-five percent, doesn't matter. So I think that this reflective of why you are seeing some of those younger candidates get a look from some of these voters. Pete Buttigieg, of course, Beto O'Rourke.
We have a big wide age span in this large field of candidates. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are twice as old as Pete Buttigieg, as Tulsi Gabbard, as some others potentially in the race. But I think overall, when you look at what Democrats are looking for most specifically, that is who can beat the president. That, of course, is the overall goal of the party in this long exercise.
Let's take a look at those numbers as well. When they look at the quality of the candidates, that's what they are looking for.
TEXT: Extremely important in 2020 nominee? Dem-leaning voters: good chance to beat Trump, 49 percent; has right experience, 39 percent; willing to work with the GOP, 28 percent; progressive views, 25 percent
ZELENY: A good chance to beat Trump, 49 percent. The right experience, of course, 39 percent. Working with the GOP, that's actually a decent number, given this polarized view here. But I think that is the central anthem, if you will, for this party. Of course, the question is, Jim, who is that? That's what this campaign is all about.
SCIUTTO: No, it is interesting, that point. That, you know, number one is who can win more than all the other issues people are talking about, including demographic.
Just quickly, there were also Trump numbers in this poll. Where do voters stand on him?
ZELENY: There were as well. And I think one of the things that stood out to me was, the fact that the majority of Republicans are still behind the president and do not want to see a primary campaign.
TEXT: Would you vote for Trump in 2020? Definitely vote: Republicans, 77 percent; Democrats, one percent; Independents, 21 percent. Consider voting: Republicans, 16 percent; Democrats, three percent; Independents, 21 percent. Definitely not vote: Republicans, five percent; Democrats, 95 percent; Independents, 54 percent
ZELENY: But if you look at this, would you consider voting for the president? Seventy-seven percent definitely voting for the president. That means he has consolidated his base. Only five percent definitely not voting for him. Independents, of course, the most central question there.
And that 54 percent of Independents not voting for him, that is something the president's team knows they have to work on. Jim, that's one of the reasons he's going to Michigan tonight. Of course, the state he won in 2016 and would hope to try and do it again -- Jim.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, that's a -- that's a big figure there, 54 versus 21 saying they definitely would. Jeff Zeleny, thanks very much.
There are dozens of new measles cases. Now confirmed in New York, this as one county in the state goes to great lengths to curb the outbreak. Surprising lengths, you might say.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:57:28] SCIUTTO: The measles outbreak that has been plaguing New York is not letting up. A New York City official reporting an increase of 33 cases just since last week, with now 214 cases in Brooklyn and Queens since October. This is a big city, it's a populated city. That stuff spreads easily.
This, prompting Rockland County, New York, just north of New York City, to take extreme measures, banning unvaccinated kids from public areas. CNN's Polo Sandoval joins me now from Pomona, New York.
Polo, this is obviously a hard ban to enforce. What are people there saying about it?
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So let's break down the numbers here for you, Jim. You're looking at close to 400 confirmed cases of measles statewide here. Out of those, about 156 confirmed here in Rockland County, only about a 30-mile drive from New York City.
Out of those 156, health officials here telling me that about 85 percent of those have to do with children. So as you can imagine, that is something that was certainly considered by officials when they took that extraordinary step to ban unvaccinated children from public areas.
TEXT: Measles symptoms: high fever, may spike to more than 105 degrees Fahrenheit; cough; runny nose; red, watery eyes; rash breaks out every three to five days after symptoms begin
SANDOVAL: So what does that include? Look at the list. I mean, dining areas, schools, malls, places of worship.
TEXT: Measles transmission: virus lives in nose and throat mucus; spreads via coughing and sneezing; virus can live for two-plus hours outside the body; 90 percent who are exposed and not immune will become infected
SANDOVAL: Officials here know that, yes, this is a move that is being met with some criticism by some. But as you're about to hear from one health expert here, in this county, they simply want to, in their words, really, educate and also gain compliance, to protect children from this virus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIE KRAUCHUK, SUPERVISING NURSE PRACTITIONER, ROCKLAND COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: It is time to definitely consider vaccination. It is real. The outbreak is here. There are people that are sick within the community, and the way to protect yourself is to be vaccinated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: There are many who are getting that message. Yesterday, about 35 people came to this clinic, a mix of children and adults. I just spoke to one who gentleman who says he can't send his little girl back to school unless she's vaccinated. So he's inside, taking care of that right now -- Jim.
SCIUTTO: Well, it's not a lot to ask. Polo Sandoval, thanks very much.
This is just in to CNN. The House, passing a resolution expressing opposition to the president's ban on transgender servicemembers in the military. The vote, 238 to 185, five Republicans voting with Democrats there. It's a measure that there was not a lot of support in the Pentagon for, when the president announced this. We'll see if the Senate acts as well. Thanks so much to you for joining me today. I'm Jim Sciutto. "AT
THIS HOUR" with my colleague Kate Bolduan, starts right now.
