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Pete Buttigieg Live On New Day; Redacted Mueller Report To Be Released On Thursday; Measles Cases At Second-Highest Level In 25 Years. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 16, 2019 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00] JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: -- conservative constituents or voters out.

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think there are some who subscribed to a very different account of what faith means in politics. In my view, it's one that might tug us back toward some social conventions that were enforced 2000 years ago, got encoded in scripture, and that we have a responsibility to sort through.

There are some things about wearing mixed cloth and, for many of us, eating shellfish that we believe, while in the Bible, are more reflective of the times in which they were written than the command of the Almighty. Not everybody views it that ways and that's OK. That's the thing about dealing with scripture.

I just want people to know that my encounter with scripture propels me to try -- not always succeed, but try to be as compassionate, to be as humble, and to be as loving as possible. And that does, in fact, have implications for my beliefs about policy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Let's address what the vice president has said about you. Of course, the history here for people who might not know it, you two worked together side-by-side and toured factories together when he was governor of Indiana.

Here is what he told our Dana Bash on Friday about this issue. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, I've known Mayor Pete for many years. We worked very closely together when I was governor and I considered him a friend. And he knows I don't have a problem with him.

I don't believe in discrimination against anybody. I treat everybody the way that I want to be treated.

I think Pete's quarrel is with the First Amendment.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: How so?

PENCE: All of us in this country have the right to our religious beliefs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Is your quarrel with the First Amendment, Mr. Mayor?

BUTTIGIEG: The vice president is entitled to his religious beliefs.

My problem is when those religious beliefs are used as an excuse to harm other people. That was a huge issue for us in Indiana when he advanced a discriminatory bill in 2015 under the guise of religious freedom that said it was lawful to discriminate, provided you invoked religion as your excuse, and I just believe that's wrong.

This isn't about him as a human being. This is about policies that hurt people, policies that hurt children. And to this day -- if you listen closely to what he said, you'll notice that to this day, he has not brought himself to say that it shouldn't be legal to discriminate against people in this country because they're LGBT.

In most parts of this country you can still be fired, denied housing, denied services because of who you are. He seems to be OK with that. I would love to see him evolve on that issue just as he evolved or I think sort of evolved on "Don't ask, don't tell."

Remember, this is somebody who was against "Don't ask, don't tell" because he felt it was too pro-gay. He wanted to make sure that even closeted members couldn't serve, OK? That's where he started out.

Then he finally brought himself to say that people like me, while serving, maybe you could be allowed to still wear the uniform unless we revealed that we were gay and then we should be fired. That is a terrible policy and my quarrel with the vice president is over that.

AVLON: And so, you would be calling on the vice president to address those. Does he still support them?

BUTTIGIEG: And he can clear that up.

Look, everybody -- I think, you know, part of faith, right, is that all of us can evolve and can grow better. Maybe he will evolve to eventually believing that it shouldn't be lawful to discriminate against people for being gay. And if he makes that development, I would -- I would welcome that and I would praise that.

HARLOW: You have spoken a little bit about wanting children.

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

HARLOW: And recently, this week, you said you're interested in starting a family soon. And I think this is a relevant question because I see how much having children has changed me not only as a person but in my career, in my vision and hope for this country.

And for you, running for the highest office in the land, undoubtedly, having children will change you. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you plan to start a family, the discussions with your husband, adopting, surrogacy, and what people should expect?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, we've been thinking about it for a while.

HARLOW: Yes.

BUTTIGIEG: Obviously, my recent professional choices have made it a little more complicated, so we're figuring through all of that.

We're also not wealthy and it turns out this is a -- I mean, parenting is an expensive proposition for anyone but especially for a same-sex couple. There's a lot you've got to figure out.

HARLOW: Yes, fostering, adopting, surrogacy.

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

HARLOW: But surrogacy is also very expensive.

BUTTIGIEG: Sure.

HARLOW: It's also not legal everywhere.

AVLON: Right.

HARLOW: The same laws don't apply for same-sex couples everywhere.

BUTTIGIEG: Right. I mean, what I know is that first of all, my husband, Chasten, will be an amazing father. He's great professionally as well, but I can't wait to see him as a parent and I will be trying to live up to his example on that.

I also know that it's another one of those experiences that I think -- you know, the things that happen to you when you care for somebody more than for yourself, I can just -- knowing what that's like in our marriage, I can scarcely imagine what it's like --

HARLOW: Yes.

BUTTIGIEG: -- as a parent.

But I know that it would make me a better person and I imagine it would make me a better president.

[07:35:01] HARLOW: Yes. Your mind will be blown, so -- right?

AVLON: All the cliches are true and it is like having your heart walk around outside your body --

HARLOW: Yes, yes.

AVLON: -- as President Obama once said.

HARLOW: Yes. AVLON: I want to talk about the diversity of your crowds and obviously, the diversity of the Democratic Party. That's something you addressed, I think quite recently, and something there's room for improvement on.

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

AVLON: Your supporters come from wealthy voters within the Democratic primary. What is your strategy to address that?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think we need to do better.

As I've been on the trail we've found, to some extent, it depends on geography. We had a very diverse crowd at my first stop in Nevada, but less so in South Carolina. One of the most important things you can achieve in South Carolina is engage with African-American voters, in particular --

AVLON: Sure.

BUTTIGIEG: -- which represent such an important part of our party's coalition.

HARLOW: Are you disappointed that the crowds have not been more diverse?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I just think it means we've got our work cut out for us.

HARLOW: OK.

BUTTIGIEG: We need to invite more and more people into the process. We do it through our team and the team that we're building.

And this is my approach in South Bend, too, which is a very diverse community. We're about 40-45 percent non-white.

HARLOW: Yes. Can you just tell how, specifically, you're going to reach out to African-American voters in a way that they really feel included --

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

HARLOW: -- and as though you're fighting for specifically what those individual voters need?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes. So, part of its substantive -- making sure that we're addressing issues that disproportionately affect families of color. That's present in the conversations around housing, around income.

Entrepreneurship, especially in the African-American community, is one of the best tools we have to grow economically -- opportunity for people of color. And also, criminal justice reform that touches so many families of color.

And part of it's substantive, but part of it's organizational. That's why we're working to build a diverse team within our organization.

And some of it's quantity time, right? Where do you go on these -- on these campaign visits? And they are very traditional and important places where you can engage voters --

HARLOW: Yes.

BUTTIGIEG: -- of color from church networks to some of the associations that have built up around the search for justice.

But also, there's a bit of generational divide here. Younger people of color are less likely to organize in some of the traditional structures. That would have been true for my parents' generation. And that's where digital organizing and reaching into different media venues is going to be so important to make those connections.

AVLON: There's the generational change argument again.

Before you go, you're in the surreal position of having, as Poppy said, come from being someone who was not on the national radar to being in the top tier of candidates. And that brings with it its own surreal spectacle, including late-night shows.

We wanted to get your reaction to Jimmy Fallon's skit about you just the other night.

BUTTIGIEG: Uh-oh.

AVLON: Take a look and respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, NBC "THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON": By age 14, I knew I wanted to be President of the United States and, boy, the two years since have just flown by.

I'm a Rhoades Scholar, a lieutenant in the United States Navy, and the two smartest kids in the world stacked on top of each other. I was so qualified to go to college, Harvard bribed me to go. That's how I got the nickname "The Reverse Aunt Becky."

Nowadays, most of you recognize me from the rallying cries of hope and unity that I have stirred across the nation. But the rest of you know me from my hit series, "The Boy Who Became Mayor," only on Disney Channel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BUTTIGIEG: I had not seen that.

HARLOW: You hadn't? Oh, even better.

BUTTIGIEG: That was great. I mean, it's fun, especially when it's playful like that.

Of course, the other thing that starts happening when you -- when your profile grows is people start trying to figure out if you're really what folks say you are and then they start looking for vulnerabilities and weaknesses and you have to answer for those as well.

HARLOW: Yes. So that brings me to my last question. What is your greatest weakness?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, up until now I thought it was that nobody knew who I was or could say my name. I think that started to --

HARLOW: We've got that down.

BUTTIGIEG: So now, I think I have the heart -- look, I'm still very different from what most people picture when they picture a president. That's part of the idea is that we need something different, but that also creates a lot of extra work to do that I just wouldn't have to do if I were somebody went to work in Washington every day for years or if I had a little more -- had a little more gray up here.

You know, we're talking about the American presidency. We're talking about the commander in chief. As somebody who was sent to war on the orders of a president, I know just how much trust we put in that office and there are very good reasons why we really hold all of our candidates to a high bar.

I need to give people a kind of permission to vote in a way that's not traditional, and that's going to be a burden that we rightfully need to be --

HARLOW: You need to give them permission.

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

HARLOW: That's an interesting word.

BUTTIGIEG: Yes. I think people need to -- people might say look, I like you. You seem nice. And I think I've gone from being viewed as adorable six weeks ago to now plausible.

HARLOW: All right.

BUTTIGIEG: But the idea that you are the person I can picture commanding the Armed Forces, you are the person I can picture guiding this nation through whatever challenges come her way -- at a certain point you need to say OK, I feel confident, I feel comfortable, I feel ready to trust you with that.

[07:40:05] That was -- even back home as mayor -- when I was in my 20s running for mayor --

HARLOW: Yes.

BUTTIGIEG: -- sure, it was a credibility threshold I had to be -- obviously, when we're talking about something like the American presidency, I've got that work to do, too. But I've got many months in which to do that work.

HARLOW: From adorable to plausible -- there's your headline.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, we appreciate your time this morning. Come back, OK?

AVLON: Thank you very much.

BUTTIGIEG: All right, thank you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:44:24] HARLOW: All right. So, we know in two days, that is when the Justice Department says it will release the attorney general's version of the Mueller report. That is set to come Thursday morning.

What's the White House doing to prepare -- the president's legal team there and his personal legal team?

No one knows better than our political analyst, Maggie Haberman. Good morning, Maggie.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Good morning.

HARLOW: We know Giuliani is going to play a big role in this. We know that they've already started drafting a counter-report.

What else do you know?

HABERMAN: Look, I think that they're going to treat this as as much of a non-event as possible, but they're flying blind to some extent. They have not been briefed in full on what's in there.

Some folks in the White House, in the counsel's office, do have a sense of basic toplines beyond what the Bill Barr summary to Congress said, as I understand it. But they still don't know the extent of the details.

[07:45:08] So basically, their plan is to not quite ignore everything related to Russian conspiracy with the campaign or the lack thereof, but they're not treating that as the main priority.

The obstruction piece of the report is really where their eyes are going to go to because Bill Barr made clear in his letter to Congress that there are other things in that report that have not been reported in real time by the news media. And so they are going to be looking for that and for a way to spin that.

I don't think you're going to see a huge press conference. I think you're going to see discreet interviews by Rudy Giuliani and perhaps, Jay Sekulow. And I think they're going to try to treat this as look, you know, Bill Barr dealt with this in his summary. There's not much new here.

The devil will be in the details, obviously.

AVLON: Maggie, do you have a sense of what are the specific vulnerabilities they're concerned about -- open questions and maybe testimony from former White House counsel and others?

HABERMAN: They're definitely concerned about testimony from the former White House counsel, Don McGahn. Most people I've spoken to expect that that's going to represent a big chunk of what they see. But what that looks like, we don't know.

McGahn has been at the center of a number of issues that have come up related to obstruction, including as Mike Schmidt and I reported a while ago, that there were efforts by the president to fire Bob Mueller and that he wanted Don McGahn to do that. I think that's going to be key in there.

But I think there are also going to be other instances, potentially, of conversations the president had of either trying to get Jeff Sessions to un-recuse from the Russia investigation.

HARLOW: Right.

HABERMAN: Trying to push Don McGahn in one direction or another. Trying to push other White House officials in one direction or another. That's what they're concerned about.

And, John, it's important to remember the areas of vulnerability that they're concerned about are really the known unknowns because they know they have a client who is not always going to tell them exactly what he's up to. So they have to prepare for all kinds of things.

AVLON: I love a good Rumsfeld (ph) reference, too.

HARLOW: There you go, right?

HABERMAN: Good morning.

HARLOW: There you go. Good morning, Maggie Haberman.

So I think it's going to also be intriguing to see what happens after these redactions are made public --

HABERMAN: Yes.

HARLOW: -- in terms of what Congress can negotiate access to.

HABERMAN: Yes.

HARLOW: Remember in the testimony -- the second day, I think it was -- the Senate testimony last week --

HABERMAN: Yes.

HARLOW: -- that Barr said he's open to working with members of Congress who want to see more that is redacted in the public version. So --

HABERMAN: Right.

HARLOW: -- how's that all going to play out? HABERMAN: I think we're going to have to wait and see. I'm a little skeptical and only just because I think that Barr's position has been to start from less is more and work his way backwards a bit. I'm not quite sure what that's going to look like.

I think that you have members of Congress who are prepared to take this to court if need be to try to get access to the underlying materials.

AVLON: Maggie, one of your reportings also said that the core White House strategy is to try to treat the full report or even the redacted public version as an addendum.

HABERMAN: Yes.

AVLON: That seems like not just spin -- a magic trick, given the new information that's going to be coming out.

HARLOW: You mean like an addendum to Barr's 4-page summary?

AVLON: Yes. So the real -- the main event --

HARLOW: Yes.

AVLON: -- is the 4-page letter. And the 400 pages, well, that's just, you know --

HARLOW: Yes, interesting.

HABERMAN: Yes.

AVLON: -- academic.

HABERMAN: I'm not sure that it's a magic trick, John. I mean, I think that the president has proven pretty adept at trying to set the terms of his media coverage for the last four years. And he has been very aggressive in seizing on that line from Bill Barr in that letter that he does not believe that obstruction of justice was committed because there was no underlying crime.

They are going to treat the Bill Barr findings in that summary as the real legitimate part here and everything else is just part of the work that took place.

I think that they're not going to get into the details of the report extensively. They're going to focus on the toplines. And he might be successful because I do think there is some Mueller fatigue by the public.

HARLOW: You think? Well, we'll be watching.

HABERMAN: We'll see.

HARLOW: We'll see, right?

HABERMAN: We'll see. HARLOW: Maggie, thank you very, very much.

HABERMAN: Thanks, guys.

AVLON: Thanks, Maggie.

HARLOW: Ninety new cases of the measles reported in just a week. This is a really big deal. Parents, listen up.

Experts are saying misinformation is likely fueling this. What you need to know for your kids, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:52:47] HARLOW: All right, listen up all parents. This is a really big deal.

In just the last week, 90 new cases of measles in the United States have been diagnosed. This is all coming nearly two decades after doctors had believed that the measles virus had been eradicated.

Joining us now, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, our chief medical correspondent. And, Dr. Anthony Fauci. He's the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Just having you two both here with us shows the importance of this.

And, Sanjay, let me begin with you. Why has this happened?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you have a very contagious disease -- one of the most contagious, infectious diseases known to man that has a vaccine and that vaccine has been successful. We've shown it to be successful for years.

HARLOW: Yes.

GUPTA: And now you have clusters of populations around the United States and I think it's important to characterize it that way. It's not like the entire half of the country is not getting vaccinated or something.

It is still a small percentage of people in these clusters that are -- that have chosen not to get vaccines for their children. And a result of that, you're seeing the impact of a very contagious disease. When you have a population -- a cluster that is not vaccinated, this disease spreads quickly.

Why exactly these clusters of people are not choosing to get the vaccine, I think varies to some extent. But we know out of the numbers of cases now -- over 500 patients who have measles around the country -- they're primarily clustered in four locations -- New York, New Jersey, Washington, and California, and the vast majority in New York. I think over 400 in New York.

HARLOW: Yes.

GUPTA: So that's what's happening right now.

HARLOW: So, this is the MMR vaccine. I remember my daughter getting it and now, my son getting it -- Measles, Mumps, Rubella -- and I was just so glad when they had it, Dr. Fauci, because I felt like my child was protected and so much safer.

How concerned are you about the misinformation that is being spread out there about the safety and the efficacy of these vaccines, and what is your message to every parent?

I have one of best friends who just had a baby that lives right near one of these communities in Brooklyn, New York and she's terrified.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Well, I'm actually quite concerned about it because as Sanjay said, it's really frustrating and ironic.

You have one of the most contagious viruses known to man and you have one of the best vaccines with regard to its efficacy, more than 97 percent effective, and yet, because of the reluctance of some parents to vaccinate their children.

[07:55:15] There are a couple of valid reasons not to vaccinate. For example, if a child has immunosuppression due to an underlying disease or is on chemotherapy.

But the philosophical reasons to not get vaccinated can generally be divided into a couple of -- one of which is misinformation. The misinformation that has been propagated that the vaccine is not safe or that it causes autism, which is completely untrue.

And when you get a certain percentage of a community -- in this case, it's the Hasidic Jewish community in New York City -- who get below a certain percentage of the community that's vaccinated, then you have great vulnerability for the kinds of outbreaks that we're seeing in New York City.

And it's completely avoidable. That's the frustrating aspect about it. It's completely avoidable.

HARLOW: So, I mean -- Sanjay, I know there are more and more schools that allow outs, basically, for parents. A lot of private schools do not get this because of different beliefs, et cetera. Is part of that contributing to it?

I'm just wondering what the -- what the solution is for folks that just can't be convinced.

GUPTA: Yes. Well, I think that's certainly part of it, that there's all these exemptions, including sometimes just personal exemptions --

HARLOW: Right -- moral opposition, right?

GUPTA: -- which are pretty vague. I mean -- right, exactly. I mean, how do you -- anybody can obviously exempt for a reason like that. But I think also, as Dr. Fauci is saying, I think it's interesting because I think there are people who are suspicious of the vaccine. I think in some ways, people are also under this belief that look, it's not going to happen to me --

HARLOW: Right, right.

GUPTA: -- even if I don't get the vaccine, right, because they haven't really seen measles in this country or they think it's not likely. Even if they look at the numbers they think well, that's somebody else, someplace else -- not here.

And then they're reminded in this -- in the world, right now, you have over 100,000 people with measles. In Madagascar, you've had over 1,000 people who have died from measles. In this country, before the measles vaccine, you had hundreds of people who would die here as well, and thousands who would be hospitalized.

I think most people, especially younger parents -- they have not seen this.

HARLOW: Right.

GUPTA: They're not aware of it. So there's a little bit of a feeling that we've been the victims of our own success with regard to the vaccinations.

HARLOW: So, Dr. Fauci, speak to those parents watching this morning who don't really understand exactly what it means. What would happen to their child if their child contracts measles? What does it mean?

FAUCI: Yes. One of the problems -- yes, one of the problems is that measles sometimes is being spun as a trivial, inconsequential disease. But as Sanjay just said, if you look at the history of measles prior to the availability of vaccines in the mid-1960s, there were about two to three million deaths globally per year.

Right here in the United States, before we had vaccines, you had a situation where there would be about two million kids would get infected.

HARLOW: Yes.

FAUCI: There would be about 500 deaths and about 1,000 cases of encephalitis, which is swelling of the brain which can lead to death. It is not a trivial disease.

And even when you look at what is essentially the large number of kids who ultimately recover and do well -- yet, one out of 10 kids will get an ear infection that could lead to deafness, one out of 20 will get pneumonia, and one out of 1,000 would wind up getting encephalitis. And about one to two out of 1,000 would die.

So a parent who thinks because, as Sanjay said, we haven't seen the disease so we think it might be inconsequential, it's not.

HARLOW: Yes.

FAUCI: You have an obligation not only to protect your own child but to also protect the community by getting vaccinated.

HARLOW: Sanjay, finally, "The Washington Post" has a really important piece on quote-unquote "Patient Zero" -- this man who traveled from New York to Michigan and along the way infected 39 other people. He was not very symptomatic.

What should people look out for to know if they have contracted it?

GUPTA: It's challenging as well because the time between someone being exposed to this versus the time that they start to develop symptoms, and even longer before they develop classic symptoms, can be a while. It can be several days or even --

HARLOW: Yes.

GUPTA: -- more than a week.

So look, it's hard to put this at the -- at the footstep of just people out there who say now that they've got to vigilant out there. Does that person have measles? Does this person have measles? It's a really challenging proposition for people.

I think we -- we have an obligation, I think, as a country and as a public health community to make sure people get vaccinated in some way --

HARLOW: Yes.

GUPTA: -- because I don't think people can just start now being on the lookout for patients out there who they suspect. That's a -- that's a dangerous and awful situation.

HARLOW: Yes. To parents, vaccinate. And your choice affects so many other children as well, so don't make the decision for them, right?

END