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Prosecution Abruptly Drops All Charges against Jussie Smollett; President Trump Tweets FBI and Justice Department Will Investigate Jussie Smollett Case; Analysts Examine President Trump's Latest Tweets and Comments on Health Care Reform; Rep. Roger Marshall (R), Kansas is Interviewed About GOP's Plan to Replace Obamacare. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 28, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: -- abruptly decided to drop all charges against the actor who was accused of staging a hate crime attack on himself. CNN's Ryan Young warned us that there could be breaking news at any moment, and here it is. Ryan, give us the breaking details.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. We keep seeing the developments in the story seem to come almost every hour. Of course, the president tweeting just about an hour ago. He said the "FBI and the DOJ to review the outrageous Jussie Smollett case in Chicago. It is an embarrassment to our nation."

And we know that's after a letter came from the Republican leader, Jim Durkin here in the city, where he basically said, "I am concerned about the integrity of this investigation and the office. For someone to falsify a hate crime and to be let off the hook is not only unfair but sets a dangerous precedent for high profile cases." And that was from the "Sun-Times."

So many people have been talking about this case over the last few days. Let's not forget that at the end of January, Jussie Smollett said he went to get a sandwich as Subway. On the way back he said two men attacked him. They wearing masks. They had a red hat on. They screamed racial epithets at him. They said this is MAGA country. That's what the actor told police.

From that point 12 detectives started working this case around the clock. They started gathering all sorts of evidence. It is not until they met the Osundairo brothers a little later on as the police were able to develop this case where this case started to break. It was 47 hours of investigation in terms of trying to get those brothers to turn evidence. Eventually they started talking to police, saying that Jussie Smollett paid them for the hoax. Then that 16-count indictment came out after going to a grand jury.

So much of this twisting and turning, we thought this was going to trial. Then all of the sudden, abruptly all charges were dropped. In fact, listen to the district attorney's office, or here the state's attorney office, talk about that decision to drop the charges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KIM FOXX, COOK COUNTY STATE ATTORNEY: The court has not found him guilty. Based on the facts and the evidence that was presented in the charging decision made by this office, this office believed that they could prove him guilty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Look, guys, we obviously were talking to people who were outside this court to try to figure out exactly what could happen to Jussie Smollett. From the beginning we were told they never thought the actor would go to jail, even if he was proven guilty. They thought maybe there would be a plea.

But then you remember those first few moments in court. Jussie Smollett and his team basically said they wanted cameras in the courtroom to prove his innocence. And then all of a sudden we heard about a diversionary process where Jussie Smollett went to the Rainbow Push Coalition for two days, he forfeited the $10,000, and this case would just sort of go away. The charges were dropped.

Then Jussie Smollett himself walked to the mic and basically said he was innocent. That set off the mayor and the superintendent of police, who basically said that left the city in a lurch because he never apologized for anything that happened during this case.

And just think about this. We still haven't heard from the Osundairo brothers, the two men who told police and a grand jury all this information about how we got here. So there's so many confusing questions about this at this point. How did we get here? How did the charges get dropped?

I will just throw this in for one last bit. Let's not forget people were even fired at the hospital where Jussie Smollett went to because so many people were looking into his health care files, but they started firing employees there, too. It seems like every single day another detail of this story drops, it gets more confusing. Hopefully we'll get more information.

And I'll leave you with this. Today at 9:00 here in Chicago we may find out whether or not they unseal the files so we can see the investigation and what detectives were able to pull together.

CAMEROTA: That would be fascinating.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Indeed, right. Ryan Young with some bonus reporting there on this subject. Ryan, thank you very much.

Joining us now, Anna Palmer, Senior Washington Correspondent of "Politico," Jackie Kucinich, Washington Bureau Chief for "The Daily Beast" and a CNN political analyst, and Toluse Olorunnipa, White House Reporter at "The Washington Post."

Anna, I want to start with you here, because, look, there are federal issues here to investigate. There is the issue of did Jussie Smollett send a letter to himself over the mail, that would be a federal case. And there are other hate crimes investigations that I can imagine could be taking place. What's unusual is to have the president of the United States make a statement, an announcement like this on Twitter this morning, in the midst of many other things he decided to comment on, that there is a federal investigation. What does he get out of this?

ANNA PALMER, SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO.COM: He was tweeting about "Morning Joe's" television ratings as well this morning. So the president deciding to tweet about this I think really is a base play. Clearly after Mueller he's trying to throw a lot of things at the wall. Health care, they had a bad day when it comes to the Special Olympics. And so this is something where his base is going to get riled up. It's unusual, to say the least. That's such an understatement. I can't imagine any other president making any statement, whether it's on Twitter or publicly, about a case like this.

CAMEROTA: Toluse, clearly, he's fascinated by the Jussie Smollett case, as am I. I can understand why President Trump is.

[08:05:04] But what is interesting about, to see President Trump's style here is that, as so many people have pointed out, on a week that should be obviously good news for the president after the Barr report that he has tackled "Morning Joe's" ratings, health care, Jussie Smollett. I think the president likes to spin a lot of plates at once, and he is good at that, but it's hard to know exactly what the agenda of the White House is this week.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "THE WASHINGTON POST": That's exactly right. If you look at just two weekends ago the president sent out about 50 tweets and retweets about a number of different topics. He was unleashed, and that explains where we are with the White House. General John Kelly, the former chief of staff, is out, and Mick Mulvaney has said that he does not want to manage the president. He does not want to be a chief of staff that ties to control the president's impulses, and the president has a lot of executive time on his schedule where he can tweet about anything he wants to. He can watch a lot TV, and decide what he's going to do based on what's on the morning news shows.

And I think that's where we are in this presidency where the president is really unleashed. He's not going to stay on one topic. He's not going to relish in what could have been a good week for him after the summary of the Mueller report came out, in his view exonerated him at least on the crime of conspiracy to collude with the Russians. He's focused on a number of issues. As Anna said, he's talking about health care, he's talking about "Morning Joe." And I think that's a preview of what we're going to see for the next two years, a president who really bounces from topic to topic without really focusing on one specific legislative agenda or one specific topic to drive his agenda from the White House.

BERMAN: I don't want to give the president too much credit to having any degree of logic or linear thinking here, but to me, Jackie, you can make an easy case that the president knows that the health care rollout was not what he wanted it to be, that there are questions about what his health care plan is. The White House says it doesn't have a current health care plan. So this could be the president trying to pry back the focus to an issue where he feels more comfortable.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: The fact that you used the word "rollout" is fun.

BERMAN: Honestly.

CAMEROTA: Without a plan.

KUCINICH: No, no, no I'm kidding. Of course. Part of me just thinks the president was watching TV and is tweeting about celebrities, only with power now, because remember, when he was out of office, you can probably search any major celebrity within the last 10 years, and the president has tweeted about whatever was going on in their lives. So there's that.

The thing about this is, though, this does inject politics into a case that really didn't have it before. When the president puts himself into this, it does rile up the base. It does get them engaged. And it adds another layer to a situation that is already, as the last reporter who was talking about this in Chicago said, is a bit of a mystery and is very confusing. So him putting himself into it doesn't necessarily help situations for folks on the ground.

CAMEROTA: I don't have ADD, so I like to focus. And so it's sometimes hard when all this stuff obviously is thrown out, trying to figure out which one to do. But I think that most people are concerned about health care. Anna, I think we should really drill down and we should focus, even if this morning the White House isn't, about health care, because they have raised the topic. It surprised some Republicans to know that there was a new plan and that's what the president wanted to focus on, at least yesterday. And we are having a hard time of it. I hear various Republicans have snippets of plans. But it's hard to know if there will be a plan by the end of the year as they are now promising.

PALMER: There is little agreement. There are definitely a lot of thoughts about health care. Republicans have been debating this issue for 10 plus years, about the future of health care, how they see it instead of Obamacare. But there is no uniformity in terms of the downtown Republicans, the think tanks, and members of Congress on this issue, much less the Trump administration. I think there's a lot of disagreements even internally within this administration about what the future of a Trump plan should look like.

BERMAN: What they will say or all they can say from Marc Short is that they will make a health care proposal. So the rollout that we have seen, Jacki, and this is a credit to you. It wasn't a rollout. It was basically Hulk smash. It was the White House signed on to this lawsuit which wants to strike down Obamacare immediately. Now the White House tells us they don't have a plan right now, but they tell us they will have a plan. And what's going to be in that plan? Listen to how the president tried to explain it using words that I'm not sure he fully can explain to Sean Hannity. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So many things we are going to do -- incredible health care that the Democrats, frankly, wouldn't even know how to do. They're going to have great health care. The Republican party will be the party of great health care. We are going to have pre-existing conditions, absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:00] BERMAN: I tried this once before. We have the best pre- existing conditions.

CAMEROTA: We have some, I know that.

BERMAN: We have pre-existing conditions. Toluse, I do not see evidence that the president understands the issue surrounding pre- existing conditions. He continues to throw out the word, but doesn't get that you have to do more than say we're going to guarantee access to health care. The Republican plans that we have seen do not guarantee affordability for people with pre-existing conditions.

OLORUNNIPA: We have seen this movie before. The Republicans tried to do health care about three times last year, they failed each time. And every time the president supported the plan it was clear that those plans did not provide the same level of protections for pre- existing conditions and affordability that we currently have under the Affordable Care Act. So we have seen the president support plans without necessarily knowing what's in them. At one point he supported the House Republican plan. Then he called it evil after it passed, and I guess he saw what was in it.

And it's clear this is a president that wants to fulfill his promise of repealing and replacing Obamacare but isn't really concerned as much about the details as much. And he's really obsessed with this issue because we saw him tweeting about, Senator John McCain recently saying that that's the reason we weren't able to pass the health care bill that failed last year. So it's very clear that the president wants to fulfill this promise and campaign on it in 2020. But he hasn't really gotten into the details at all.

KUCINICH: And I spoke to a former administration official right after the announcement came out, and what Toluse said is exactly what they said, is that this is about 2020. This isn't about the policy. He doesn't care about who this affects down the line. It's all about fulfilling a promise. And it's very, very simple, and let the chips fall where they may.

Now, Republicans, including Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy know this is a good idea -- or excuse me, minority leader -- because he is minority leader. That is, you could make the argument that that's one of the reasons, one of the big reasons Republicans lost the House in 2018 was because of the health care issue, was because Democrats really made that a signature issue as they went into that election.

CAMEROTA: Anna, what I hear is the president doing what I think he's so good at, which is sloganeering. So he says it with conviction, we're going to have great health care, and he says it over and over, loud and proud, we're going to have great health care. And I think that that does sort of seep into voters' consciousness somewhere. And for many voters that will be enough. Maybe not those with pre- existing conditions. But I think that that's what he's doing, that if you say it enough, you own it. And sometimes it works.

PALMER: He says a lot of things with confidence. And that really rallies the base up. He's going to Michigan today to go and talk to people in Grand Rapids. I'm sure this will be one of the things he will talk about.

I'm putting out later this month, in April, and we reconstructed the health care whole debate. And there was no unanimity in terms of how Republicans were going to go forward, where the president was. He just wanted to pass something. He did not want to get into the details. He had no actual comprehension of what needed to get done.

BERMAN: Health care is complicated and bigger than saying the words "pre-existing conditions." You say you have a book coming out. We are excited to read it. You have a book.

CAMEROTA: Guess what, "Politico," Anna knows about this. She covered this.

BERMAN: "Amanda Wakes Up." Now available in paperback by Alisyn Camerota.

CAMEROTA: I remember, thank you very much.

BERMAN: Can I ask a question? The plug is over.

CAMEROTA: OK.

BERMAN: Toluse, Anna brought up the event tonight in Michigan. What do you think we are going to see from the president tonight on that stage? This is a rally, this is a political event.

OLORUNNIPA: The president is unleashed, I have heard from some sources close to him, that there are going to be fireworks at the rally. We have seen him really take off the chains, if there are any, at previous rallies and really lean into his agenda and really into the type of rhetoric that he believes got him elected. So I expect to see that, especially this being the first rally since the summary of the Mueller report was put out and the president feels like he has been completely exonerated. He wants to enact revenge on the people who he believes spent two years investigating him, not only the Justice Department and not only the Democrats in Congress, but also the media. You can expect the president to really take on all of his perceived enemies and really lean into during this rally and focus on how he believes he has been vindicated and he wants to take revenge on all kinds of different people who have been persecuting him for the last two years.

BERMAN: It's a heck of a political platform.

CAMEROTA: Toluse, Jackie, Anna, thank you all very much. BERMAN: All right, there is more breaking news this morning. Someone

has the cheddar cheese in Wisconsin. One winning ticket was sold in Wisconsin for the huge $768.4 million jackpot. The lump sum would be $477 million.

CAMEROTA: Chump change.

BERMAN: This is the third largest U.S. jackpot in history. I think I know the winner.

CAMEROTA: OK, so have you heard from him since you announced it at 6:00 a.m.?

BERMAN: I announced I believe the winner is Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner. And we have his picture right there. The guy won $250,000 in the lottery once, and then he won two separate prizes of $1,000.

[08:15:01]

He's a well-known lottery winner, a Wisconsin congressman. The winning ticket was bought there.

CAMEROTA: That tells you -- so there's a lottery magnet?

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Once you win, then you just keep winning?

BERMAN: Yes. He has not denied it. There is no denial from his office.

CAMEROTA: He's not awake.

BERMAN: Since I made this proclamation, we are waiting to hear from Congressman Sensenbrenner. In the absence of that denial --

CAMEROTA: We are running with it.

BERMAN: Congratulations.

CAMEROTA: OK, very good.

So what is the Trump administration's plan to replace Obamacare? We speak to a Republican congressman who happens to be a doctor, who happens to have spoken to the president about this, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: A senior White House official tells CNN the Trump administration has no fresh plan to replace the affordable care act if it is killed by the courts but they plan to submit one to Congress this year. The administration backed a district court ruling to strike down Obamacare in its entirety earlier this week.

So, we are joined now by Republican Congressman Roger Marshall who is also a physician.

So, Congressman, it is great to have you expertise on that as well. Good morning.

REP. ROGER MARSHALL (R), KANSAS: Good morning, Alisyn. How are you doing today?

CAMEROTA: I'm doing well.

So, I know you met with the president this month about health care. So, share with us what the plan is.

MARSHALL: Well, I think, first of all, the president emphasized we have to embrace pre-existing conditions, that he wouldn't sign any type of health care that doesn't take care of pre-existing conditions.

[08:20:04] And not only that, he talked about taking care of the 28 million people who still don't have health care coverage. So, very much the president is in tune to this. We talked about the real problem which is the cost of health care. And we talked about ways we can start driving the cost of health care down.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, how do you cover people with pre-existing conditions and the 28 million you say still need insurance? What's the plan for monetarily making it work?

MARSHALL: Well, I think first of all looking at the big picture, America has a clear choice that both Democrats and Republicans want to repeal Obamacare. The question is how do we replace in substitution for it? The Democrats want Medicare-for-All, which will ruin the Medicare as we know it. But our solution will put patients and families in charge of their health care.

So, anything we can do to drive the conditions locally will start driving the cost of health care down and allow more people more access to health care.

CAMEROTA: Well, not all Democrats want Medicare-for-All. And not all Democrats want to repeal Obamacare. What I hear most Democrats say is they want to improve upon it.

Why throw out the entire Affordable Healthcare Act before there is a plan where it will leave people not covered, it will leave people with pre-existing conditions scrambling for insurance?

MARSHALL: I'm sorry, but I think that's a false narrative. This court case will take a year. We have several plans that would take care of that situation.

CAMEROTA: Do those have names? I mean, I'm just curious, because do we know the plans? Is this the Graham-Cassidy plan?

MARSHALL: Hey, absolutely. We have several names to choose from. So, Dr. Cassidy and Senator Graham's plan would be one of them. Bruce Westerman introduced a wonderful piece of legislation the past couple of months as well. The Republican Study Committee is working on legislation. They had

legislation from two years ago. We have been working hard with the president and his staff to improve it. So, absolutely.

But if I can say one thing, you say some Democrats don't want Medicare-for-All. This election in 2020 is going to be all about just that. President Trump will be re-elected because he wants to give patients and families choices, but every major candidate on the Democrat side wants Medicare-for-All. So, I do think American has very much a binary choice over this issue.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and my guess that the reason that it's hard to understand where the Republicans are with us is because you tried when you controlled both houses of Congress and it didn't work. So, whatever the Republican plan was, be it Graham-Cassidy or anything, it didn't work.

And now, you don't control the House. It doesn't sound like Democrats will sign on to things that would just give states bloc grants to do whatever they wanted with the money and not guarantee it for people with pre-existing conditions.

MARSHALL: I think that's the beauty of President Trump's plan is as we go forward he's basically putting a gun at our head saying, look, you have to fix this. We can't keep going in the direction we have been going.

Democrats are going to have to work with Republicans. I do think there is the opportunity. I sat down with almost every Democrat in the House that has health care experience, and talking about solution. So, those solutions were very, very close to solution.

But sometimes it takes an impetus to push us over the ledge and say let's do something together here. Let's fix this problem. But if that doesn't happen in 2020, this presidential election is going to be all about Medicare-for-All versus choices for families and patients.

CAMEROTA: I want to move on for a second to the Mueller report, because you have been tweeting a lot about it. Of course you haven't seen the Mueller report, nor have I nor has anyone yet. But you seem to feel confident that it won't reveal anything.

What if there is something embarrassing in however many pages once it ultimately comes out?

MARSHALL: Well, I think that's kind of a crazy narrative as well. Look, every Democrat, all the major news stations said Mueller is the man and he's going to give a great report. He had unlimited resources. He spent $50,000 a day. I think if there was anything there, he would have shown it. It was the most expensive nothingburger in American history.

CAMEROTA: I mean, it was 25 -- as I understand it, it was something like $25 million. But obviously the Starr report cost more. There are American history examples of things that cost more. But more importantly, you know that there are all sorts of property

seizures and fines where they might recoup much of the money. So, I know you have on Twitter talked about the expense of this. It's possible the government will get back a lot of the expense.

MARSHALL: Well, we can only hope so. People back home want to know how we can spend $50,000 a day. That's incredible we can spend that much money. We know nothing more today than we knew when this whole investigation, this witch hunt started.

So, it's very frustrating that we have frozen America over a false narrative for two years when we could have solved health care, when we could have built a wall, when we could have fixed immigration.

[08:25:07] There are so many things we could have done. But this single issue took all the oxygen out of the room in Washington, D.C.

CAMEROTA: Hold on a second. You think because of the Mueller report, that's why the wall hasn't been built? That's why health care hasn't been solved?

MARSHALL: I think it is a great deal of it. This single issue takes up all the oxygen in D.C. I have never been to a place that couldn't do two or three things at one time. But this issue kept the Democrats on this witch hunt. We have been standing here without any cooperation working back with this. So, absolutely, this took all the air out of the room.

CAMEROTA: What about Infrastructure Week? Could you have accomplished that?

MARSHALL: I think it would have been possible. I think all along President Trump wanted a strong infrastructure plan. It is on his to- do list. It's on my to-do list. And again, I worked very hard across the aisle, but we can't start talking about a major infrastructure plan in committee until we get this Mueller investigation behind us.

Can we please move on? I would love to fix infrastructure as well.

CAMEROTA: As soon as we get to see the Mueller report, I think it will be easier to move on.

But, Congressman Roger Marshall, thank you very much for coming on with your perspective and medical expertise.

MARSHALL: Thanks so much. Let's solve health care.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

John?

BERMAN: Unvaccinated minors now banned from being in public in one New York county. Will it help stem a measles outbreak? We'll debate, next.

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