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Significance of Q-1 Fundraising for Campaigns at this Point; Buttigieg Addresses Lack of Diversity Among His Supporters; ICE Deports Husband of U.S. Soldier Killed in Afghanistan; 1989 Report Raising Questions about Barr's Muller Redactions; Democrats Subpoena Banks, Accountant for Trump's Financial Records; White House Rejects Democrats Document Request on Refusal of AT&T/Time Warner Merger; Congressional Black Caucus: Trump Putting Rep. Ilhan Omar's Life at Risk. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired April 16, 2019 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00] DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: But look at who is right behind him, Andrew Yang, who was part of the CNN town hall here on Sunday, who I venture to say a lot of people say, who.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Right.

BASH: And look at how well he did.

CHALIAN: And what is so important to understand about this, so this is people who contributor less than $200, right. The key about small donors is that you can go back to them again and again and again. So if you look at this graphic, look at this graphic and from Kamala Harris on down, where you have more than half or 60 percent plus of your donors are big-dollar donors, if you get somebody to max out at $2,800, you got to find a new donor to replace that donor next quarter. Not true if 80 percent of your money is $200 or less. And you just keep e-mailing those same folks and say, click and donate, click and donate, $5, $10. It's a really --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: And it also matters because I want to return to the Republicans about what is on the debate stage, or stages, right? This is an important criteria.

CHALIAN: This is a rule. So the DNC didn't want to do a poll. So you need 65,000 donors from 20 states to show grassroots fundraising ability and that is another way on to the debate stage.

BASH: So let's talk about the Republican side, which is one guy, Donald Trump.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: So far, one guy. We'll talk about who raised money.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: That's a fair point. He raised more than $30 million from January to March and he has more than $40 million in the campaign war chest.

And I interviewed his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, last month, about how they are quietly building up while the Democrats fight one another. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD PARSCALE, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: It is much more efficient two years out to find a possible voter or donor. There are so much across the social network and capability to find somebody who is a prospect. I think that is a considerable advantage and getting that -- if we could get to 40 million, 50 million, 60 million prospects and that will generate millions of dollars in donations to spend in advertising and gives you direct contact via phone or text message or email. It is a considerable advantage that the other side won't have because you can't replace time.

The fact is, when you build the army now, it gives you time and you only worry about activation and not trying to find them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: First of all, that was not July of 2017. Apologize. That was last month.

What do you think about what he said in.

CHALIAN: Well, what Brad is saying that I think is so critical and we saw it play out somewhat in 2016 for the Trump campaign, they are expanding it now, not just using the small dollar donors, and that is it, it is your organization. It is your grassroots or groundswell of support out there. So to get them to donate in but to activate them to persuade friends to vote, that kind of a dedicated army of supporters is a huge advantage.

BASH: Because they are building not just donors but building people who could be volunteers, could be activists or all of the above.

CHALIAN: Yes.

BASH: So before we go, let's talk about Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. He admitted when he was in a campaign event in New York last night that he doesn't have a very diverse crowd or any crowds who come to his events.

He talked about that and then asked about it this morning on "NEW DAY." Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG, (D), SOUTH BEND MAYOR & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I could talk until I'm blue in the face about how important that our campaign or base of supporters in the future administration reflect this country.

We are very conscious and intense on building the most diverse possible base of supporters from every level, from the committee to the people who fill a room to help lift us up.

I think we need to do better. As I've been on the trail, we found, to some extent, it depends on geography. And we had a diverse crowd in Nevada but less so in South Carolina. One of the most important things you could achieve in South Carolina is engage with African- American voters, in particular, which represent such an important part of our party's coalition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: This is so interesting. First of all, the fact that he's in the game enough that this is something that matters, who is showing up and not if anybody is showing up. It is a big deal, right.

CHALIAN: Yes.

BASH: But it does matter. As he said, so spot on and in a spot-on way, places like South Carolina that any candidate needs to win, you do need to tap into the African-American --

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: It's not just South Carolina. It is the Democratic Party nomination.

BASH: Yes.

CHALIAN: You can't become the Democratic Party nominee if you do not have a significant support from non-white groups, specifically African-Americans. And by the way, that video from him in Brooklyn last night, that question came from a member of the crowd, who said, look around here, should we be a little concerned that everyone here is white? Pete Buttigieg points out that south bend is 45 percent nonwhite. So he comes from a diverse city. But this is going to be a challenge for him. He's running against some African-American candidates and Latino candidates and there's diversity in the field. He'll have to find a way to diversify his coalition.

BASH: So fascinating.

David Chalian, always good to talk to you.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: I could go for hours and hours and hours.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: We'll do that in your office later.

CHALIAN: OK.

BASH: Up next, she was a U.S. soldier and she was killed in Afghanistan and now her husband is back in the U.S. after being deported by ICE. There's an important back story here. That is next. [14:35:10] Plus, Michelle Obama, she likened America under President

Trump to living with a, quote, "divorced dad." We're going to talk about that later.

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BASH: Army Private Barbara Vieyra died in Afghanistan serving her country and left behind a young daughter, just 12 years old, and her husband. But they were torn apart last week. ICE officers surrounded Jose Gonzalez Carranza and arrested him and deported him to Mexico, leaving his daughter without her dad or mother. It is a move that sparked outrage. And now Carranza is back in the U.S. But there's still a lot of questions about what happened.

And Daniel Gonzalez broke this story. He's an immigration reporter for the "Arizona Republic," and joins me now.

Thank you so much.

Walk us through what happened? How could it be that the husband of a U.S. soldier killed serving this country could be deported?

[14:40:10] DANIEL GONZALEZ, IMMIGRATION REPORTER, ARIZONA REPUBLIC: Well Jose Gonzalez Carranza has been in the country illegally. He's been here since he was a teenager and he's 30 years old now. And he been married to Barbara back in 2007. And then she was killed in 2010. And last week, he was on his way to his job, a welding job in the suburb of Phoenix, and he was pulled over and he was surround by ICE agents. And he described them pointing guns at him and yanking him out of his car and handcuffing him and taking him to the Phoenix immigration offices. And then just three days later, he was deported to Mexico where he hadn't been since he was a teenager. Not sure if he would see his daughter again and worried this could further traumatize her. He described this experience as being very traumatic, being arrested and deported to a country he hadn't been to since he was a teenager. And this trauma that added to the trauma that he experienced when his wife was killed back in 2010.

BASH: Sure. And it was a clerical mistake, is that what happened here? Is that right?

GONZALEZ: Well, my understanding is what happened is that he had an order of removal. And after his wife was killed, an immigration lawyer filed for what is called parole in place, which allows you to remain in the United States to live and work here. You don't have legal status but you could stay here and live and work. And he had that. And as a result of that, a judge terminated his removal proceedings. But then ICE went after him again. And he was supposed to show up in court in December for a deportation hearing. The notice was sent to the wrong address, his lawyer said, and as a result, he didn't show up for his hearing and an order was -- of removal was issued, deportation order was issued in his absence. He said he didn't know about it and that is when ICE showed up at his house last Monday.

BASH: Absolutely heartbreaking, the fact that he obviously lost his wife and then their daughter was left alone. The good news, they are reunited.

Daniel Gonzalez, thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate that.

And members of Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus members specifically, say that Ilhan Omar's life is in danger after the president's tweets. And as the president attacks, what about his own fraught history when it comes to 9/11. That is next.

Plus, new details on the race to save relics from the treasure room in the Notre Dame Cathedral.

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[14:47:27] BASH: With the much-anticipated redacted Mueller report due out on Thursday, a 30-year-old legal memo written by William Barr is raising questions about how the attorney general is going about redacting the special counsel report. Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department special counsel, wrote on a legal Web site about the contentious legal summary that Barr penned in 1989 while at the Justice Department. Barr's 1989 memo concluded the FBI was allowed to take people into custody in foreign countries without the consent of those governments in those countries. Now the questionable ruling opened the way for the eventual arrest of Panamanian leader, Manuel Noriega. But when Congress finally subpoenaed and saw the whole opinion two years later, in 1991, lawmakers discovered that the Barr summary had redacted several important conclusions, most notably, the opinion authorized the president to ignore international law.

Carrie Cordero is here, a former counsel to the assistant attorney general for national security, and a CNN legal analyst.

What do you make of that? What does that tell us, if anything, about what's going on right now with this report that he's working on, the redacting.

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: This piece by Ryan Goodman, I think the reason for putting it out is because it draws a parallel, not on what the substance of the legal memo in 1989 was about, because that legal issue has nothing to do with the special counsel.

BASH: It is what he did.

CORDERO: But it's about the fact that he had written a summary and he testified before Congress on it. And Ryan Goodman argues that what he actually testified about, and what he put in his summary left out some important conclusions that were in the OLC, or Office of Legal Counsel, memo.

It is worth noting that OLC memos are something administrations of both parties always fight over Congress about. And so this is a long- standing Justice Department desire to not provide those memos. And Congress -- whenever party leading in Congress and whatever administration is in the Justice Department, there are always tensions between releasing those memos. But Goodman is drawing a parallel between the fact that Barr did not release all of the conclusions at that time and what that might mean for this week's release.

BASH: It is fascinating.

I want to turn to a different issue that is taking a lot of time and getting a lot of attention. This week, Congress is in recess but still working on the House on the oversight functions, in particular, investigators issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank is one of the few banks that loaned money to Donald Trump during the days, a decade ago or so, when he was in massive debt and couldn't get other people to give him money. What does it tell you that they have gone so far as to issue subpoenas?

[14:50:19] CORDERO: Well I think it is part -- I think it is not surprising given the change in leadership in the House and it goes to the bigger set of investigations that their conducting that relate to whether or not there's foreign influence over the president and his company's financial dealings or whether or not there's potentially criminal activity that has not yet been revealed through any Justice Department or special counsel investigation. So I think it should be viewed in tandem with the other requests from the House committee requesting the president's taxes, and then now, House Intelligence and House Financial Services are looking for this Deutsche Bank information.

BASH: And what is interesting, with regard to the president's taxes and other information the House Democrats want from the president, this is Deutsche Bank and they are saying they are talking to House investigators. So maybe they'll give some over. We'll see.

Carrie, thank you so much.

CORDERO: Thanks.

BASH: Appreciate it.

And a new look inside of what is left of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Amazing photos. You see some there. Video showing how devastating the fire was to the 850-year-old house of worship, and how parts of it may be impossible to be rebuilt. We're live in Paris after this.

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[14:55:55] BASH: This just in from Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. The White House is rejecting a demand from two top House Democrats to detail whether President Trump improperly sought to block the AT&T/Time Warner merger. And this is the latest refusal by the White House to turn over records that Democrats now in control of the House are asking the White House for.

Carrie, what is your reaction to this? And I should also mention for the record that CNN is a part of a subsidiary of AT&T. They are our parent company.

CORDERO: I think this is part of the broader picture of oversight that the House is conducting. They're trying to understand whether there was improper influence over this merger decision. The White House is going to stick to its guns, it looks like, in saying these are communications between the president and his closest advisers, and so they are going to assert a privilege that says that that information is not being provided over to Congress. It is a traditional executive versus congressional debate whether or not communications amongst his closest advisers. Note they are expanding that and it is not just related to communications between the president and his lawyers, but also they're taking a more-broad view into the executive purpose --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Do you have any executive privilege.

CORDERO: Congress could go to the courts and litigate this question over whether or not there's an interest in the public receiving that information. I think they'd had a hard road to go down in terms of a court ruling in their favor. But certainly, this is saying Congress is willing to serve this legal process and to continue to fight for information that they think fulfills their legitimate oversight responsibilities.

BASH: Carrie, thanks for coming back on with breaking news.

CORDERO: Thank you.

BASH: Appreciate it. Don't go too far. You never know what will happen.

President Trump is putting the life of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar at risk, that is what the Congressional Black Caucus, that Omar's death threats against her have increased following a tweet from the president. In it, the president took an excerpt from a speech the Democrat made to the Council on American/Islamic Relations and combined it with footage of the September 11th attacks adding the caption, "We will never forget."

And in an interview with Minnesota TV station, KSTP, the president doubled down on those comments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER (voice-over): Any second thoughts about that tweet and the way it was produced and put together?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice-over): No, not at all. Look, she's been very disrespectful to this country. She's been very disrespectful, frankly, to Israel. She's somebody that doesn't really understand, I think, life, real life, what it is all about. It is unfortunate. She's got a way about her that is very, very bad,

I think, for our country. I think she's extremely unpatriotic and extremely disrespectful to our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she's talked with the sergeant-at-arms about Omar's safety. And in an interview just last hour, with Christiane Amanpour, Pelosi called out the president for using that 9/11 imagery.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I criticize the president for using film of -- a video of 9/11 as a political tool. I think he was wrong to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: You can see that full interview on CNN.com. The whole controversy has brought renewed scrutiny to President Trump's history with 9/11. We're going to get to that in a minute.

But first, we want to re-set at the top of the hour.

I'm Dana Bash. I'm in for Brooke Baldwin.

Just a day after that devastating fire ripped through its walls, Notre Dame has become a unifying symbol, in addition to an iconic one of course. More than $700 million have now been pledged to rebuild the Paris cathedral. The floor inside now filled with the burned-out beams of the church's roof, some of which date back to the 12th century. A heroic nine-hour effort by firefighters ensured that much of Notre Dame interior was lost, many of the priceless artifacts were not. Remarkably and thankfully, no deaths have been reported. At least one expert said efforts to rebuild could take ten to 15 years.

And moments ago, French President Emmanuel Macron offers words of comfort to a nation in shock.