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Lucy Flores: Biden Made Me Feel 'Uneasy, Gross & Confuses'; Trump Again Threatens to Close U.S.-Mexico Border; College Student Murdered After Getting Into Wrong Car. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 01, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LUCY FLORES, FORMER NEVADA STATE LEGISLATOR: You don't expect that kind of behavior from someone so powerful. I was just shocked.

[05:59:25] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I absolutely respected her right to speak out. He didn't try and silence her. He didn't do what a lot of men have done.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I believe Lucy Flores. Joe Biden needs to give an answer.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is a good likelihood that I'll be closing the border.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is reckless. It would be an absolute disaster for both sides of the border.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These countries could do more. That is not an unreasonable position.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're back. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, April 1, 6 a.m. here in New York. And it's a special kind of campaign crisis when you haven't even entered the campaign yet.

But that's just where vice president, former Vice President Joe Biden finds himself this morning. And whether "crisis" is the right word here is something that will be debated this morning.

Biden is defending himself against allegations by a former Nevada legislator, Lucy Flores. She says Biden made her feel, quote, "uneasy, gross and confused" in 2014 by smelling her hair and kissing the back of her head. Biden says he doesn't believe he has ever acted inappropriately but adds it was never his intention to make her feel uncomfortable.

CNN has new reporting this morning about whether any of this might affect Biden's decision to jump into the race for president. And we're getting new reaction from potential 2020 Democratic rivals.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Another big story we're following, a South Carolina college student was murdered after getting into a car that she thought was an Uber. But police say the man driving the car never took Samantha Josephson home. She was reported missing by friends hours after leaving a bar. And her body was found by hunters dozens of miles away where she was last seen. We have the latest details on this ongoing investigation.

So let's begin our coverage with CNN's Arlette Saenz. She is live in Washington with our top story -- Arlette.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, former vice president Joe Biden has long cast himself as a champion of women's rights, but a new allegation is bringing his behavior towards women into the spotlight as he gets closer to entering the 2020 race.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAENZ (voice-over): Joe Biden on defense after a former Nevada state lawmaker said he made her feel uneasy during an interaction in 2014.

FLORES: I was just shocked. I felt -- I felt powerless.

SAENZ: Lucy Flores first made the allegation in an essay for "The Cut" on Friday, detailing the encounter with the former vice president at a campaign rally in Nevada as she ran for lieutenant governor.

FLORES: Very unexpectedly and out of nowhere, I feel Joe Biden put his hands on my shoulders, get up very close to me from behind, lean in, smell my hair, and then plant a slow kiss on the top of my head.

You don't expect that kind of intimacy from someone so powerful and someone who you just have no relationship whatsoever, to -- to touch you and to feel you and to be so close to you in that way.

SAENZ: Biden responding to Flores's claim in a new statement, saying, "In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort. And not once -- never -- did I believe I acted inappropriately," adding, "If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention."

FLORES: I'm glad that he's willing to listen. I'm -- I'm glad that he is clarifying his intentions. Frankly, my point was never about his intentions, and they shouldn't be about his intentions. It should be about the women on the receiving end of that behavior.

If he is saying that he never believed that that was inappropriate, then frankly, I think that's a little bit of a disconnect.

SAENZ: On the campaign trail, some of Biden's possible Democratic rivals were quick to say Flores should be believed.

WARREN: I believe Lucy Flores. Joe Biden needs to give an answer. SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have

no reason not to believe, Lucy. And I think what this speaks to is the need to fundamentally change the culture of this country.

SAENZ: Meanwhile, Stephanie Carter, the wife of former defense secretary Ash Carter, addressing this viral photo, showing Biden with his hands on her shoulders at her husband's swearing-in ceremony in 2015.

Carter writing in a blog post that the image was, quote, "misleadingly extracted from the vide of the day," noting, "After the swearing in, as Ash was giving remarks, he leaned in to tell me 'thank you for letting him do this' and kept his hands on my shoulders as a means of offering his support. "The Joe Biden in my picture is a close friend helping someone get through a big day, for which I will always be grateful."

One long-time Biden ally tells us there are no signs he is currently reassessing his 2020 plans in the wake of this allegation. He's expected to announce those plans as soon as this month -- John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Arlette Saenz. Arlette, we'll have you back in just a little bit. Thank you so much for that report.

Joining me now is CNN senior political analyst John Avlon. John, thank you for being with us. Joe Biden calls them "expressions of affection" and says, over the course of his career, he has offered numerous expressions of affection like that.

So where is he this morning with this?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, he put out a statement that. It was fairly well-calibrated which basically honored her truth but said there was no intentionality on his part.

There are plenty of photographs going around, as the package just illustrated, where he is an affectionate, old-school politician. This is someone who's been in public life for more than a generation, literally over 40 years. Standards change.

[06:05:11] I do think, however, there needs to be a degree of proportionality. Stephanie Carter coming forward, saying that infamous photograph circulates, does not -- what it purports to show is not what she felt. That seems significant, as well.

Candidates are -- candidates are going to make a lot of this right now. Because we are in a post #MeToo movement. But I think, compared to Donald Trump and his significant baggage on the issue, 15 women accusing him of sexual assault, that Lucy Flores' discomfort is in a different category entirely.

BERMAN: Absolutely. And we'll talk about President Trump in just a moment here. You mentioned Stephanie Carter. But let's talk about Lucy Flores, because Lucy Flores is the one who came forward, and she does say it's disqualifying. That's her opinion.

Voters will get to decide for themselves, but what about other women? Should they feel comfortable coming forward with this information?

AVLON: All women should -- all people should feel comfortable coming forward. But I think we need to be careful about emotional truth versus literal truth. And we also need to try to view things with a sense of perspective. That's the thing we've got the least of in our politics right now, so I don't want to be too Pollyanna about this.

But there is a world of difference between things that kicked off the #MeToo movement, Harvey Weinstein-type behavior, and what Joe Biden is accused of. To lump them all under #MeToo seems to do an enormous disservice to women who have been sexually assaulted.

BERMAN: Weinstein is accused of rape, basically.

AVLON: Correct.

BERMAN: All right. That is far different.

The president of the United States, I should note, and this article I'm looking at from a month ago, Alva Johnson, there was someone who worked for President Trump who accused him of kissing her unwantedly, basically, open-mouthed at a campaign event in 2016. Barely got any coverage at all. And that is number I don't know what.

AVLON: Over 15 women, by CNN's count, have come forward with some accusation against Donald Trump.

BERMAN: But where -- so Joe Biden has responded. Took a -- took a day and a half for him to come out with a response himself on this. What should he expect going forward in this campaign? And how does he need to address this issue?

AVLON: Look, politics ain't being bad. This is going to be the first of many attacks.

Biden's greatest vulnerability is that he spans the generations. He is 76 years old. He us not going to be attuned to cultural standards in politics today. What he's going to be is a contrite, honor people's stories, but also not get knocked off his game. People are going to try to exploit this, his opponents.

BERMAN: The generational answer may be a double-edged sword for him in this case, because it may be as simple of, well, people of my generation behaved a different way or handled this differently. That may be the case, but it will only remind people of what some see as a possible Achilles heel, which is his age.

AVLON: And yet, one of the weird paradoxes of this race as we're seeing it right now is that young people polled actually liked the two oldest candidates in the race best. You know, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

You know, so I think it's part of the package. You're going to get someone who's been in office since 1970s. You're going to get a whole different cultural perspectives on the time.

I think what's really important is that he's going to play his game. You need to look at the legislative record. You need to look at how actually people feel. And then I think with this #MeToo movement, which is enormously important and positive for the country, I think folks do need to see things with a sense of perspective and not lump everything under that umbrella. Because it is a very serious term that has encompassed a lot of very serious accusations, some of which have been made against the president; and not all things under this umbrella are created equal, it would appear.

BERMAN: John Avlon, thank you very much -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, John.

Thousands of undocumented immigrants are about to be released by federal authorities in Brownsville, Texas. Customs officials say there is no more room is to hold them. This as President Trump again threatens to shut down the U.S./Mexico border this week. And CNN's Martin Savidge is live in Brownsville with more.

What's happening there?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, we are at the bus station here. And this is the main processing center for all those migrants that are being released due to what the federal government says is overcrowding, so they're going to be handled here.

This is essentially where a federal problem becomes a local one. More on that in a moment. The real concern this morning is the president's threat to close down the border with Mexico. He says he's not happy with the lack of cooperation. He thinks Mexico should do more to stem the flow of migrants. Members of his administration are saying you better believe the president on that threat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO DONALD TRUMP: It certainly isn't a bluff. You can take the president seriously.

MICK MULVANEY, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We need the people from the ports of entry to go out and patrol in the desert where we don't have any wall. We hate to say we told you so, but we told you so. We need border security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: The economic impact of a shutdown or even a partial shutdown of the border with Mexico would be staggering. Take a look at some of the numbers: $1.7 billion worth of trade across that border every single day. A lot of it is responsible for heavy manufacturing in this country. It is said that roughly 5 million jobs in the U.S. are dependent upon that trade coming across the border and being unobstructed. All of that could be impacted. It would not just be felt economically here. It would be felt across the entire country. [06:10:05] And then another economic threat that's coming from the

president today, and that is to cut off funding to what's called the Northern Triangle. These are three Central American countries -- El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras -- where migrants have been coming from.

But experts say if you shut off the social programs there, it will only make life more difficult. Which means more migrants will head north, which means they'll eventually end up in bus stations like this along the Texas border, moving into the middle of America -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Martin. We'll see what the president decides to do today. Thank you very much for showing us the situation on the ground.

Now to this horrible story. We're getting chilling new details about the murder of a college student in South Carolina, who police say got into a car she thought was an Uber. It was not.

Investigators say child safety locks trapped 21-year-old Samantha Josephson in the back seat. The driver is now charged with her kidnapping and murder.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher is live in Columbia, South Carolina, with the latest.

Dianne, who among us has not gotten into a car that we think is an Uber, but basically, you're being driven by a stranger. I mean, this one -- this one is so chilling to people, because it's relatable to all of us.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, it is terrifying. I've done that before. So many people who've used these apps have done that before. But police say when Samantha Josephson left this bar here behind me on Friday morning just before 2 a.m., she had been separated from her friends. She called an Uber. She was waiting for a black Chevy Impala. One of those drove up, but they say the man behind the wheel was not her Uber driver and that she got into that vehicle.

The next time she was seen she was found by turkey hunters roughly 12 hours later, 70 miles from here in a deserted area in Clarendon County.

Now her friends were at the same time reporting her missing. They had not heard from her. They couldn't get in touch with her.

Follow me on this timeline here. Just about 25 hours after Samantha disappeared, police not far from the same location spotted this black Chevy Impala. They stopped the vehicle. Inside, they say that the driver got out, started running away. His name was Nathaniel Roland. They arrested him after finding blood inside the trunk, the vehicle and the passenger compartments of the vehicle. They say that blood is Samantha Josephson's.

Now, again, he has been charged with her murder and kidnapping. Police say that there was a child seat in the back seat and that he had used the -- it had the capability of these child safety locks so she would not be able to escape.

Now, he did not attend his first appearance. He has a public defender who says that they're not going to comment right now. But Samantha's mother did, and this is what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCI JOSEPHSON, MOTHER OF SAMANTHA JOSEPHSON: I cannot fathom how someone could randomly select a person, a beautiful girl, and steal her life away. His actions were senseless, vile and unacceptable. It sickens us to think that his face was the last thing that my baby girl saw on this earth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Now Samantha's father posted an equally heartbreaking message about his daughter on Facebook. In fact, that post is what broke the news to so many of the students here at the University of South Carolina that her body had, indeed, been found and that she had been killed.

He said -- he has said that it's going to be his mission, Alisyn, to work on ride share safety, make sure that people are safe before they essentially do get into the cars of strangers.

CAMEROTA: Dianne, do the police have any background on this guy? Do they know if he had a rap sheet, if he had a violent background at all?

GALLAGHER: It doesn't appear he had an excessively violent background here. And look, we need to stress, as well, that we're not sure if he was actively impersonating that Uber or if she, like many people, just thought it was the vehicle, because it matched the description, and just got in.

In South Carolina, they're not required to have tags on the front of the vehicle. And so it doesn't appear in any surveillance video that's shown that she got around and looked at the back to make sure it matched.

So many people here are telling the students, make sure that, instead of saying your name when you get in the car, that you ask the driver before you get in to say your name back to them or you ask them what their name is to match it. That we have got to be a little more skeptical before we just get into these vehicles.

But again, you know, it was just before 2 a.m. in the morning. The description matched the vehicle, matched what it said on the app. And police believe that she just kind of got in thinking that was it.

CAMEROTA: I can tell you, I have never walked around to the back of my Uber to check the license plate. I mean, I just don't go to that level. But obviously, all of us will be much more kind of vigilant about this going forward.

But I guess what I'm getting at is do the police think that he was just trolling parking lots, knowing that bars were letting out at that point? I mean, was this purely just a crime of opportunity?

GALLAGHER: They're not sure right now, to be honest, Alisyn. They use a lot of forensics evidence again to catch him. And so they're not sure what he was doing at the time.

[06:15:06] Obviously, people here in Columbia are nervous because, again, 25 hours later, he was right back in this area, again, outside of Five Points. It's a really popular bar area for students at the university of South Carolina.

And so, look, he was right back in this spot 25 hours later after police say that he had kidnapped and then murdered a woman that he picked up here. Now, he did have a companion with him in the vehicle at the time. Police say that they don't believe she was in the car at the time that Samantha Josephson got into the car the night before and that that woman is cooperating with them right now.

CAMEROTA: Dianne Gallagher, thank you very much for all the breaking news on this horrible story. We'll check back with you.

BERMAN: Look, it is a horrible, horrible story here. We have a disagreement, though, you and I. I mean, you have to take responsibility. When you get in a car, you've got to be so careful.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I mean, I guess my point is that I can't tell you, in the past couple of years, how many cars I've gotten into with strangers because of ride-sharing now.

BERMAN: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: I'm constantly at night being driven around. And it crosses my mind, like, I'm in a car with a stranger right now, and I hope that he's going to take me to where he said he was going to take me.

BERMAN: But that's your decision, right? It's not Uber's decision. They're not forcing you to do ride car -- right.

CAMEROTA: That's our life. This is our new reality.

BERMAN: You've got to be so careful.

All right. The president threatened to shut down the entire border with Mexico. His aides claim this time he is serious, but is he? And how many billions would this move cost the economy? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:21] CAMEROTA: Acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, says President Trump is very serious about his threat to shut down the border with Mexico this week.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MULVANEY: But we're also concerned about the effect the American economy and the nation as a whole from having 100,000 -- more than 100,000 people cross illegally this month. If we close the borders, why would we do that? Because we need the people who are working at the legal ports of entry to go patrol -- and I'm not making this up -- where there's no wall.

We were not lying to people when we said that this was an emergency. Very -- very few people believed us, especially folks in the media and the Democrat Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's bring in Joe Lockhart, former Clinton White House press secretary and CNN political commentator Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter for "The Washington Post"; and Margaret Talev, senior White House correspondent at Bloomberg News and CNN political analyst.

OK. So Joe, not only does the president -- is the president threatening to shut down the border. He's also threatening to cut off the -- I think $500 million worth of aid that is sent to that northern triangle of El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala.

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.

CAMEROTA: And I think that his argument is why should we be supporting these -- sending money and supporting these governments if you can't stop, I guess, your poverty-stricken people from trying to flee your country.

LOCKHART: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Now what?

LOCKHART: Well, it's almost like a trifecta of bad policy. And just take it one step at a time. The aid is the worst part of it. We send aid to help countries stabilize the country, improve their economy, so people don't flee to come to the United States.

CAMEROTA: But he's saying that's not working.

LOCKHART: Well, he doesn't know what he's talking about. I mean, this is a president who doesn't understand foreign aid, always wants to cut it off, has cut it off in other places in the world; and he feels like this is government by spite. "Don't do what I say, or don't do it as well as I want it, I'm going to cut you off."

Cutting the border -- closing the border can devastate parts of the local economy in the United States, business people who depend on the free flow of both people and goods.

And honestly, he is -- it's almost like he declared a national emergency. He declared a crisis that wasn't there. Now he wants to create a real one. And if he goes down this path, we may very well have a real crisis at the border. BERMAN: Economically, the numbers are really staggering here. You know, 5 million American jobs will be threatened. That's according to the Chamber of Commerce.

Put up P-204, if you will. Because this is the economic impact. OK, well, we'll put up this one first: $1.7 billion in goods every day. As I said, 5 million U.S. jobs would be threatened. We're talking about $611 billion in cross-border trade a year, 1,000 trucks, 11 trains full of cargo every day.

You know, Margaret, you work at Bloomberg. Bloomberg knows business. This is not good business. I was talking to Rick Santorum Friday night, and Santorum supports President Trump, as we know, in almost all things. He said economically, this would have a devastating impact.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This would be, you know, John, a huge potential economic risk for the president, and if he actually went forward with it. And I think this week is going to be important, and trying to wait for the administration to put a little bit more specifics to their plan. We may know more by the end of the week. The president's got a trip planned to California.

And it was interesting. I saw a local report that officials who are doing some sort of border related construction in Calexico, put out a preemptive warning or preemptive note that what they're doing is not wall construction in the traditional sense. They said they just wanted to get ahead of the news, in case there was any misinterpretation about what they were doing. It was just a long- scheduled project.

But I think, for the president, it is the messaging that he wants without any of the economic blowback. And we're seeing this at a time when his calculations on trade negotiations with China are very much kind of penned in by the same boundaries. He wants to have an impact, wants to do what he promised to do in the campaign, but he understands that one of the most important aspects of his re-electability is the state of the economy and that if he kind of pokes the bear too much, it could be a real problem for him.

So I think we're going to watch him balance kind of messaging with actual actions that could have repercussions that hurt him.

CAMEROTA: Toluse, one part I really don't understand about what Mick Mulvaney said was "We need to shut down the legal ports of entry to redirect the Border Patrol officials to the parts of the border that are not controlled by wall or fencing."

[06:25:07] But explain the math. That we know the vast majority of undocumented people show up at legal ports of entry, present themselves for asylum. And the vast majority of illegal drugs come through legal ports of entry. So I don't understand their -- how they're going to reassign resources away from those.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, it does not make a lot of sense. We've already seen metering at the ports of entry that has driven people who are trying to go to the ports of entry to other places, and they're trying to cross between the ports of entry, because the ports of entry is -- they're not shut down, but they have only been taking a certain number of people per day. And that's driven more people into the interior, into the space between ports of entry.

And that's led to sort of this chaos where asylum seekers aren't trying to cross over in between the ports of entry. They're presenting themselves willingly to a Border Patrol officer, saying that they want to -- they want to appeal for asylum. So these aren't necessarily people who are just trying to sneak in. These are people who are presenting themselves to the Border Patrol agents and saying, you know, "I want to appeal for asylum in the United States." And they have a legal right to do that.

And the idea of, you know, either building a wall or stringing a bunch of border agents along the 2,000-mile border in between ports of entry is not going to stop that -- that process. Those people can still come across; they can still apply for asylum. And because there's not enough space to hold them, they'll still be allowed into the interior.

And the idea that the president wants to cut off funding for the countries in Central America that are the source of some of this migration is just going to lead to more of that level of migration and more people appealing for asylum and being allowed to come into the country, because there is no space to hold them right now.

BERMAN: So there are plenty of people, Joe, who will tell you the policy here doesn't make sense on many levels, and you're one of them. What about the politics? Is there an element here where the president is trying to draw focus back from health care, which was seen as a bit of a botched rollout for him, to draw the focus away from the Mueller report, the full Mueller report, which we could get in the next couple of weeks?

LOCKHART: Sure. Listen, there's no doubt in my mind that the president thinks this is good politics. We're talking about it. There's one piece of evidence. We're not talking about other subjects.

But I think the president is just misguided on this. The 2018 midterms were about a repudiation of Trump's immigration hard line policy and health care. More health care even than immigration.

And these are the two tracks that they were out pushing yesterday on TV. Trump thinks it's good politics. To me, it's, particularly on cutting off foreign aid, it is a result of not having -- the president not listening to experts. This is a guy who goes on gut. His gut sometimes is right. And more often than not, and the more complicated issue, his gut is wrong. He's pursuing a path that Democrats are dancing in the streets over.

Because if we're going to talk about immigration and health care in 2020, we've seen this movie before. And it's not good for Trump.

CAMEROTA: Well, very quickly, Margaret, it sounds as though the White House is tasking the doctors in Congress --

TALEV: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- so Bill Cassidy, Rand Paul, with coming up with a plan. And they're trying to say, "We'll have one. By the time that Obamacare is, you know, nullified in the courts, we're confident we'll have one."

TALEV: Well, Alisyn, the third piece of the pie is the health insurance executives. He's got Rick Scott on the case, as well.

So I think it -- the challenge for the Republicans in Congress is this. The leadership don't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. The two doctors and the insurance executive in the Senate are tasked with looking at pieces of the pie that they can come up with. But it seems that right now, that's in kind of a break-glass case where, if -- if the courts were to throw this out, and then we're going to need to jump into action, I suppose they need to be ready.

But we're talking about the potential for this to affect upwards of around 20 million Americans. And that's why heading into a real act, so many of the Senate Republicans don't want to touch this. Because of course, it's not just the presidential race that's affected by this. It's all of the midterm campaigns, as well.

BERMAN: I will leave you all with this quote from "The Washington Post," him and Josh Dawsey. "Not only is there no such health care overhaul in the works on Capitol Hill, there are no plans to make such a plan."

CAMEROTA: That got my attention, as well.

BERMAN: No plans to make a plan.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Thank you, all.

All right. So listen to this. A Grammy-nominated rapper has been gunned down in broad daylight in Los Angeles. Police are still searching for a suspect. What we know about this crime next.

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