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Gov. Andrew Cuomo: 35 Questions About Our Political Climate; Search For Missing Boy Focuses On Family Home; ISIS Claims Responsibility For Sri Lankan Bombings. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 23, 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] REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- reduction in manufacturing. We're taking overtime hours just to keep up with the cost of goods.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, now to one of our favorite questions.

SWALWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: It's a little feature we like to call "Candidate Mixtape."

SWALWELL: Uh-oh.

CAMEROTA: OK. I mean, how rocking was that?

SWALWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And we like to --

SWALWELL: I could make some suggestions for that.

BERMAN: Exactly. He didn't think very rocking. The answer is not very.

CAMEROTA: We just trotted it out.

SWALWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: There's room for improvement.

But in any event, we like to talk about music --

SWALWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- here on the show.

SWALWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Who plays a lot of music for us. John's a deadhead. I'm trapped in the 80s.

Your favorite musical genre?

SWALWELL: Country music. CAMEROTA: OK, favorite band?

SWALWELL: Yes. Boy, I would say Darius Rucker is -- I love Darius Rucker. I love Hootie --

CAMEROTA: I know Hootie.

SWALWELL: -- and I loved him going into country music.

I love Eric Church as well.

I love Taylor Swift. I'm going to apologize for that.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

SWALWELL: There's a lot I should apologize --

BERMAN: You don't have to apologize.

SWALWELL: Not for that.

BERMAN: You don't have to apologize for that.

CAMEROTA: That is a bold position --

SWALWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- you've just taken.

SWALWELL: I'm on her team and I don't care who her enemies are. I'm with her all the way.

BERMAN: Alisyn loves Chicago.

SWALWELL: Yes.

BERMAN: She doesn't apologize for that at all.

CAMEROTA: No, I don't love Chicago.

BERMAN: I thought you loved Chicago.

CAMEROTA: But this is a whole nother debate that we're having.

OK, your favorite Taylor Swift song?

SWALWELL: Oh, boy, "Out of the Woods." It's a -- it's a modern one. It's good.

CAMEROTA: It's a really good one.

SWALWELL: It's good, it's good.

BERMAN: But you were born -- you were born in Iowa, yes?

SWALWELL: I was born in Iowa, yes -- western Iowa. BERMAN: I think he has an Iowa thing going for him.

All right. Congressman Eric Swalwell, great to have you with us.

SWALWELL: Same here.

BERMAN: Appreciate it. Come back.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much.

BERMAN: We will have another 2020 candidate joining us in the next hour -- Marianne Williamson. She will be with us here on the set.

CAMEROTA: All right. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is not running for president --

BERMAN: Yet.

CAMEROTA: -- but he has some questions that he thinks every American should be asking the candidates. He's going to spell those out, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:35:29] CAMEROTA: When did we lose our confidence? When did we stop believing what we read in the press? And when did we get so angry?

Those are just some of the 35 questions that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says Americans should be asking themselves as they head into the 2020 election. His full list appears in an op-ed in this morning's "Washington Post."

And, Gov. Andrew Cuomo joins us now. Good morning, Governor.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: Good morning, Alisyn. How are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm well. Great to see you.

So these 35 questions -- you go on to say when did the political debate become reduced to 280 characters on Twitter? When did the number of Twitter followers become the measure of political viability?

To whom are you posing these questions?

CUOMO: All of us. To myself, to you, Alisyn, to voters all across the country.

We're about 18 months away from choosing the next president, but possibly the most important decision we're going to make in modern political history given all that's going on.

And before we start to talk about individual candidates, my point is let's look at the system that is now -- that we're now using to pick these candidates and look at how the system has degraded. So much of it now is about social media and Twitter. That's forcing candidates to come up with these oversimplified answers

that sensationalize, that break through because they generate emotion which then furthers the polarization that the people in this country are feeling.

And it didn't work in the last election and it's not going to work in this election. So before we get into the horse race, let's take a step back and realize that really, our system -- our process is not doing this nation a service.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And then, what do you do about that -- when you figure out that maybe social media isn't the best place for a policy discussion, then what do you do?

CUOMO: Well, you first say -- start with the premise that you'll never solve a problem you're unwilling to admit, right? So admit the problem first. And that's the first step towards a solution.

You cannot answer these complicated issues on Twitter. It doesn't work that way.

You can't answer the question of how do we get away from fossil fuels in 280 characters. These are complex issues and it can't be thoroughly, intelligently, honestly answered in that format.

How do we improve higher education? How do we -- how do we address health care?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: We're doing it. We're doing it in this state but you can't do it in 280 characters.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: And when you do you force candidates, frankly, to deceive the public.

We went through this in the last campaign, right? President Trump broke through. He had the celebrity, he understood the system. Frankly, I think he exploited that system.

He had the hot issue, which was immigration, and what was his answer? A wall -- we build a wall.

It worked great on Twitter, it communicated easily. It was only two words. It happened to be totally untrue.

And look where we are now. We're three years later. There's no wall, there's no answer. The problem is worse because it was never the answer, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Well, I do want to ask you about a couple of issues that came up last night at some CNN town halls.

But first, having seen the Mueller report, now that it has been released -- or at least the redacted version -- do you believe the House should impeach President Trump?

CUOMO: I think the attorney general did his preface of the report, which was unusual as a matter of process, and I think he was deceptive with the American people. I think he put the president's best spin on the report, but I don't think that's the job of the attorney general.

I was the attorney general in this state of New York and your job is to give the facts, not to become a political spinmeister.

Now, when you actually see the Mueller report, it is much different than I think --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: -- the attorney general presented it and it does raise very real questions. And it does raise a legitimate case that should be considered for impeachment.

[07:40:00] Now, whether or not the Democrats go down that road is a totally different question.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, obviously --

CUOMO: I'm a very big believer in -- yes, people want to know what government is going to do for them and that's what the Democratic Party should be focusing on -- their health care, their education, their jobs.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: But it's a legitimate question.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask you about one of the issues that came up last night where Sen. Bernie Sanders talked about how felons in prison -- currently in prison may be serving a life sentence -- maybe in prison for a death sentence should still be able to vote.

What do you think about that?

CUOMO: Yes, I disagree with Bernie Sanders. You are in prison for a felony. You are paying your debt to society. I don't think you should have the right to vote and participate as a full citizen.

Once you pay your debt to society and you're out, you're on parole, in this state you're being assimilated back into society, fine -- then you have a right to vote. But I totally disagree with Bernie Sanders.

CAMEROTA: There are 19 Democratic candidates in the race. We hear there may be another one entering this week -- possibly former vice president Joe Biden.

Is he still your candidate of choice?

CUOMO: Well, if I had a crystal ball I would say and I would hope that Joe Biden would get into the race. I think he has the best chance of defeating President Trump, which I think is the main goal here, right? He has the experience, he has the background.

I worked with him for years. He has the talent. I think he has the personality for the moment.

And I think he can unify the Democratic Party and I think, again, focus on the goal. The goal is defeating President Trump, which is going to be easier said than done. But I think Joe Biden is in the best position to do that.

I hope he gets into the race. For myself, I think I could do my best service by helping him win if he does, in fact, get into the race.

CAMEROTA: And very quickly, do you regret not being one of these 19 candidates?

CUOMO: I do not regret. I have a great job. I love what I'm doing.

And I think I can help and I want to help elect the next Democratic president, and I think that Joe Biden has the best shot at doing that.

CAMEROTA: Governor Andrew Cuomo, always great to see you and talk to you. Thanks for being here.

CUOMO: Good to see you. A pleasure, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: You, too -- John.

BERMAN: All right.

Herman Cain has withdrawn his alleged nomination for the Federal Reserve Board. He says it's all about the money.

Another of the president's potential nominees could be in trouble. We'll tell you about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:55] BERMAN: It's time for "CNN Business Now."

One of President Trump's picks to serve on the Federal Reserve Board -- he is out. One other is drawing criticism for comments about women and sports.

Cristine Alesci joins us now with much more. Herman Cain, we hardly knew you.

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN POLITICS AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right, exactly.

Trump's controversial pick for the Federal Reserve Board -- he withdrew his nomination or his consideration just yesterday, and that was days after he said he wouldn't back down. His reason for withdrawing, he doesn't want a pay cut.

In a blog post, Cain wrote, "Let's just say I'm pretty confident that if your boss told you to take a similar pay cut, you'd tell him where to go."

Now, missing from his post, renewed allegations of sexual harassment -- the same ones that dogged his presidential campaign in 2012. Now, he denies those allegations.

But, Cain also didn't mention opposition from his own party. Four Republican senators said they would vote against him, making his nomination dead on arrival.

Meanwhile, Trump's other pick, Stephen Moore, still taking heat from Democrats over his cozy relationship with Trump and accusations that his policies are driven by his politics.

And, CNN's KFile, one of our investigative units, reported that Moore called it a travesty that women feel free to play sports with men. That was during his time as a columnist in the early 2000s.

Moore also wrote that women should be banned from refereeing, announcing, or beer vending at men's college basketball games, asking if there was an area in life where men can take a vacation from women.

Moore told KFile in an e-mail, "This was a spoof. I have a sense of humor."

John, Alisyn.

BERMAN: A spoof of what? A spoof of what?

CAMEROTA: I don't know. We know Stephen Moore. I didn't -- I didn't know before this that he didn't want women to be around beer --

BERMAN: Or sports.

CAMEROTA: -- or sports or announcing things.

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: We're going to have to ask him about that.

Now that the Mueller report is out and a partisan spin machine is in full swing, it would be easy to just read the headlines and move on. But, as John Avlon tells us, there's a lot more in those 448 pages than you might have heard.

He joins us now with our reality check. You read the fine print so we don't have to.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: All 448 pages of it, that was the weekend homework and it's fascinating stuff.

Look, the Mueller report is repeat with buried leads and significant open questions -- stories that would normally dominate headlines. So let's sort through them all through the lens of what former Defense Sec. Don Rumsfeld called "known unknowns and unknown unknowns."

First, WikiLeaks, Russia, and Trump. Now, despite President Trump's denials, the Mueller report makes clear that, quote, "Trump publicly expressed skepticism that Russia was responsible for the hacks at the same time that he and other campaign officials privately sought information about any further planned WikiLeaks releases."

The Mueller report also makes clear that Julian Assange fanned the flames of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory to obscure the real source, namely Russian GRU intelligence service. Now with Assange in custody, you could expect more information on this front going forward.

Second, Russia hacked into a Florida election database. This is a big deal. And we know from the FBI director that Russia is still trying to interfere with our election.

[07:50:00] What we didn't know until the Mueller report, the FBI believes the Russians were successful in hacking into at least one unnamed Florida county election database and extracted information before the '16 election. This had been denied before, even after Sen. Bill Nelson put it out during the campaign.

We also know now that an election software developer was the victim of Russian malware.

Now, this does not mean that votes were changed but it raises a lot more questions about why the federal government wasn't more forthcoming and how prepared we are to face future hack attacks.

Now let's turn to the unknown unknowns, starting with Cambridge Analytica. This, of course, was the data company co-founded by Steve Bannon. And up to 87 million people could have had their data taken from Facebook by C.A.

And last summer, remember, British Parliament said C.A.'s database had been accessed from Russia.

And we also know that team Mueller interviewed a Cambridge Analytica director who had met with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy.

And, C.A., which shut down a year ago, has been under investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department.

So the absence of a single mention of Cambridge Analytica in the redacted report -- surprising, to say the least.

Then there's the Trump-Russia money trail. With the exception of Trump Tower Moscow, the Mueller report sidesteps the so-called red line of Donald Trump's financial world.

Now, the House Intelligence Committee is digging into this territory while the Ways and Means Committee -- Ways and Means Committee is in an epic legal fight over Trump's taxes.

These are just a few of the buried leads in the Mueller report.

Other questions include the role of Blackwater founder Erik Prince and funding the find the Hillary e-mails effort. There's the FBI's look into an alleged link between a Trump Organization computer server and a server connected to the Russian Alfa Bank. The ongoing legal battle between Mueller and a mysterious foreign-owned company that's fighting disclosure.

We know now that Russia's disinformation campaign was laser-focused on helping Donald Trump -- far more extensive than previously known and including sending operatives here to the United States to take part in rallies and pose as activists.

Now, it may be that the answers to some of these questions are hiding beneath the 36 pages of redacted text in the report or they may be key to the 12 unknown cases Robert Mueller referred to other prosecutors. But it's all a reminder not to simply accept the topline conventional wisdom, especially when it's delivered with partisan spin.

After all, citizenship in a democracy is not a spectator sport. Roll up your sleeves and get in.

And that's your reality check.

BERMAN: There's only so much you can fit in 448 pages. We should -- we should note that as well.

AVLON: That's an important point. But you've got to dig in. There's so much spin around this stuff. The substance is fascinating and there's more to dig in.

BERMAN: And I think that it's carefully and specifically written as well. That's why people need to --

AVLON: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: And we so appreciate you doing all of that and reading all the footnotes for us, John.

AVLON: Love it.

CAMEROTA: All right.

A 5-year-old boy disappears but police say there is no sign of an abduction. A mystery pitting the boy's parents against police.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:56:30] CAMEROTA: The mystery surrounding a missing 5-year-old boy deepens. Police and the FBI are focusing their search on the family home just outside of Chicago and they say his mother is not cooperating. But her attorney disputes that.

CNN's Ryan Young is live in Chicago with more. What's this about, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a tough situation because the community and police all want to know the same thing -- where is A.J.? Right now, there is still no sign of the missing 5- year-old boy and it seems there are few answers. A.J.'s parents actually reported him missing from his home last Thursday. And, in fact, Monday, it appeared that a large group of investigators gathered in a park near the boy's home, but we have not received information on what they were doing or what tips may have led them there.

So far, the search has included 15 police agencies, including the FBI. Teams have been using drones, rescue canine units, and even a sonar team to search a nearby lake. They've all found nothing.

One detail that sticks out though is the canine unit actually picked up a scent within his home, police say, that indicates A.J. had not walked away on foot.

Now, A.J.'s parents have told police they haven't seen him since around 9:00 Wednesday night. That's around his bedtime.

Neighbors and parents in the community obviously are on edge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANELLE BUTLER, NEIGHBOR: Everybody has been concerned and has let the authorities know that over the last year. We let the DCFS know that. We've seen the kids being taken away and are always shocked that they have been returned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: And there's just a lot of questions in this case.

Now, according to police, A.J.'s mom is no longer talking with investigators. And her lawyer actually told the "Chicago Tribune" that she is seven months pregnant.

Now, this afternoon, there will be a hearing where A.J.'s mom will attempt to get custody back for another child that was removed from the home and placed into protective custody after this investigation started.

John, so many questions. So many things just swirling around right now, but the focus has to be on that missing 5-year-old -- that face that we see on the screen there. Of course, police would love any tips if anyone has seen anything -- John.

BERMAN: Let's hope -- let's hope he's OK. All right, Ryan Young for us. Thank you very much.

We have breaking news in the Sri Lanka bombing investigation, so let's get right to it.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: Good morning, and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, April 23rd. It's 8:00 in the East.

And we do begin with breaking news. CNN has just learned that ISIS is now claiming responsibility for the coordinated Easter Sunday bombings at Catholic churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. These bombings killed more than 300 people.

A top Sri Lankan defense official said the attacks were in retaliation for the New Zealand mosque attacks, which you will remember -- that is where a white supremacist killed 50 Muslims inside two mosques in Christ Church last month.

CAMEROTA: This morning, there are many questions about intelligence failures. Authorities reportedly had prior information that a possible attack was coming but did nothing to stop it. And right now, police in the country's capital are on high alert as they search for two vehicles that they say may be carrying explosives.

CNN's Ivan Watson is live in Negombo, Sri Lanka with all of the breaking details. What's happening at this hour, Ivan?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Alisyn.

That's true. ISIS is now claiming responsibility for these just horrific attacks that took place across three different cities in Sri Lanka on Sunday. The attacks, more than 48 hours ago. U.S. officials were already telling CNN that it looked like it had been inspired by an organization like ISIS.

Meanwhile, a senior Sri Lankan defense official has spoken in Parliament and he has blamed the coordinated terror attacks on a little-known local Islamist extremist organization named --

[08:00:00]