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Biden Launches Campaign, Takes Direct Aim At Trump; Trump Insults Biden's Intelligence, Says Race Will Be "Nasty"; Biden To Give First Interview To "The View" Tomorrow; North Korea Presented U.S. With $2M Bill For Warmbier's Care; Judge Accused Of Helping Undocumented Immigrant Evade ICE. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 25, 2019 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:01] CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: USC has announced new changes to avoid situations like this from happening in the future. So a letter came out today from UCS's interim president that says that every candidates file is going to be reviewed by a head coach, senior sports administrator, and that they're certify in writing that the student is coming to be there for athletic reasons and that every year athletic rosters will be audited.

BALDWIN: Chloe Melas on it.

MELAS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Let's continue on.

You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. And it is the largest Democratic presidential field in history and today the man who has been a vice president, who has been a senator, who has been a big fan of aviators is joining the race.

Joe Biden making it clear he is focusing on one thing and one thing only, beating Donald Trump. And he went after the President directly for his response to the deadly 2017 attack in Charlottesville, Virginia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He said there were "some very fine people on both sides." Very fine people on both sides? With those words, the President of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.

I wrote at the time that we're in the battle for the soul of this nation. Well, that's even more true today. We are in the battle for the soul of this nation. I believe history will look back on four years of this President and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: And with that, the former vice president officially entered the fray and immediately catapulted to the top of the pack. And now that that announcement is out of the way, Biden is poised to hit the campaign trail hard. We got a preview of that moment ago in Delaware where Biden stopped by this pizzeria in the state that he represented for as U.S. Senate for 36 years.

Looking ahead to tonight, he attends a Philadelphia fundraiser ahead of the first official campaign event on Monday in Pittsburgh. That will be followed up by swings through Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, and California just in the next couple of weeks.

As for the man who Biden would like to replace, President Trump, he had this message for his opponent, now he's referring to as Sleepy Joe. Trump tweeting, "I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign. It will be nasty. You will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick and demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the starting gate."

So with me now, CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gengel and Joel Payne, former senior aide to Hillary for America, welcome, welcome. The day has come.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Finally.

BALDWIN: Finally. So, we've seen the video that he rolled out this morning and unlike a lot of his 2020 rivals, I mean, he's like taking it right to Trump out of the gate. What did you think of that?

GANGEL: He's running in the general already.

BALDWIN: Already.

GANGEL: First two words, Charlottesville, Virginia. This is not about universal health care or college -- you know, paying for college or taxes. He is going after one thing and that is Donald Trump. And he is saying, "I'm the guy who can beat him."

I thought that video was very compelling. He had a good first day. A lot of Democrats are concerned, is he too old? Is he not disciplined? So we have to see about days two, three, four and five.

BALDWIN: Yes, yes.

GANGEL: But I think he had a very good day one.

BALDWIN: To you, sir, you've gotten quite of bit of buzz for this woke litmus test.

JOEL PAYNE, FORMER SENIOR AIDE, HILLARY FOR AMERICA: Woke litmus test, that's right.

BALDWIN: A lot of, you know, white guys running for president, tell me what the woke litmus test is and would Joe Biden pass?

PAYNE: Well, look, and this is the former vice president, just the latest candidate. The non-ethnic minority male candidates are having to deal with, right? There is an expectation now among Democratic primary base voters that you understand how to speak the language of progressives and of minorities.

Particularly of ethnic minorities that have felt disenfranchised over time and I think that there is a litmus test that all of these male non-ethnic minority candidates have to pass. They have to be able to understand what matters in the community and understand how to speak the language.

BALDWIN: How can they prove that fluency? How can they prove their woke to win?

PAYNE: Well, I think we've seen examples already. We've seen Joe Biden talk about understanding how he errored in the Anita Hill hearings back in 1991. We've talked about his comments back in 1975 about school busing, recanting on those. We've heard Pete Buttigieg.

BALDWIN: Have you gotten enough? I mean, because you know that they're going to come after him on all of that.

PAYNE: They're going to come after that.

BALDWIN: They're going to say he has not done enough, not done enough.

PAYNE: But you know, not just him, all of the candidates, right? We've heard actually all of the male candidates pledge to put a woman on the ticket essentially, which is an important point to consider as well.

[15:05:01] BALDWIN: Yes.

GANGEL: So, I never thought I would say the word woke on T.V. and my kids are going to be dying. But I will say I think in addition to that, there is really only one thing that is woke that matters to Democrats and that is who is going to beat Donald Trump at the end of the day.

BALDWIN: Yes, yes.

PAYNE: I agree and I think also Democrats felt like -- and, look, I worked for Hillary Clinton, they felt like four years ago they had a candidate that did not maybe carry the hearts and minds of all Democratic voters. They want to make sure that they have a candidate now that can really, really carry the progressive mantle forward. I think what's interesting about Joe Bide is the frame is Biden versus Trump.

BALDWIN: Right.

PAYNE: Don't forget the Biden versus Bernie Sanders frame, which I think maybe even more important, particularly in the here and now. A lot of anxious Democrats are concerned that Bernie Sanders could walk to the nomination. Biden's arrival in the race is the last great hope for a lot of establishment Democrats who want someone who's going to go up the middle.

GANGEL: So this is the tension between primaries and general.

PAYNE: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: I want to ask you about -- so we know that Biden, his first live interview will be on "The View." It will on "The View" tomorrow where he had that emotional exchange with Meghan McCain last fall as she talked about, you know, at the time that the brain cancer fight that her father was in the thick of battling and about Beau Biden, Biden son who passed away. So, watch this clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: One of the things that gave Beau courage, my word, was John, you're dad, you may remember when you were a little kid, your dad took care of my Beau. Your dad, when he was a mil aide worked with me, became friends with Beau. And Beau talked about your dad's courage, not about illness, but about his courage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I just want to reach through the screen and squeeze Meghan McCain and just everything and hug her (ph). But what do you make of that clip and what moment they could have tomorrow?

GANGEL: That is Joe Biden at his best. That is someone who is authentic. It's the reason he connects with people. It's the reason that he can do what some of these other Democrats may not be able to do, which is where is he living the next couple of days. He's going to be in Pennsylvania. This is about Donald Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin by less than 1 percent of the vote.

BALDWIN: Yes, yes.

GANGEL: When you see him there, what his supporters think is that's the Joe Biden that can get some of those Trump voters back.

PAYNE: I agree. That is the best of Biden. I would also say strategically going on "The View," appealing to female voters --

GANGEL: Right.

PAYNE: -- appearing to kind of voters in the middle of the country, also let's pay attention to his rollout this week. He pushed it back one day to avoid conflicting with the She the People conference, which was a big women's political gathering on Wednesday. He pushed it back a day. He also made news here at CNN by stealing one of your big --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

PAYNE: Which, by the way, I think might have been the biggest news in the day, bigger than Koons, Casey, and Carol Moseley-Braun endorsing him or the firefighters union because that's where he's weak at. He's not weak with people in the middle of the country, he's weak with progressives and with the ethnic minorities, that's why he made such a high profile investment in someone like Symone Sanders as well.

GANGEL: Right.

BALDWIN: Quickly, you loved what moment from the pizzeria?

GANGEL: Well, I think we have the footage here, the aviators are back. And if you watch Joe Biden campaigning today, you will see -- there they are. There are the aviators. And he loves this. He is having fun. This is not heavy lifting for Joe Biden. This comes naturally to him.

PAYNE: One really, really quick thing.

BALDWIN: Yes.

PAYNE: He is running an incumbency campaign. I'm not sure if that's going to work. I don't know if Democratic primary voters one over the top inevitability campaign. That's what he is running and we'll see if that pays off.

BALDWIN: Joel and Jamie, thank you so much.

GANGEL: Thank you.

BALDWIN: You mentioned She the People, we're talking about the -- it wasn't full -- full on boo against Senator Sanders, but there was a moment and we're going to play that for you, but thank you guys.

Coming up next, a Massachusetts judge is now facing her own criminal charges after prosecutors say she helped an undocumented immigrant escape ICE agents by letting him walk out of the back door of her courtroom.

Plus breaking news, CNN has confirmed the U.S. signed a pledge to pay $2 million to North Korea for the release of American Otto Warmbier. Hear what the Trump administration is now saying about that exchange.

And later, this is what I mentioned, Senator Bernie Sanders booed for his response to a question on what he would do to stop white supremacist violence. The woman who asked that very question will join me live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:14:01] BALDWIN: Breaking news, new details about the American college student who was detained in North Korea and returned to his parents comatose and on life support. CNN now knows that before Otto Warmbier was released, the U.S. was presented with a bill for $2 million for his medical care while in a North Korean hospital.

And one of the negotiators, Joseph Yun, was told he must sign a letter on behalf of the U.S. government agreeing that the bill would be paid. Yun tells CNN that he called the then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and told him about the bill and that Tillerson did inform the President. But, two sources tell CNN that the $2 million was never paid.

It's just important to remember here, Warmbier, again, was comatose for more than a year in that facility before the North Korean government even notified American officials of his condition.

Bill Richardson is with me now. He's a former ambassador to the United Nations, former governor of New Mexico, nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize with all of your efforts with North Korea, so a pleasure, Mr. Ambassador, to have you today.

BILL RICHARDSON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Thank you. Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: But first and foremost, because of your involvement and you know things and some of which you can share with us here on this Otto Warmbier case.

[15:15:04] But, you know, I had Otto Warmbier's parents sitting on this set just after their son was brought home and they definitively told me that their son was tortured by the regime in Pyongyang. And when you hear the number $2 million for a hospital bill, what say you?

RICHARDSON: Yes. Well, I think this is another spinning North Korea story, which is very dubious. First of all, I think he probably was medically mistreated. He didn't get the right treatment. Torture, you know, who knows.

BALDWIN: Yes.

RICHARDSON: But I was involved with my foundation trying to get Otto back. One, the North Koreans never told us he was in a comatose state, but it's possible the intelligence people didn't tell the foreign ministry people that we were negotiating that was the case.

And secondly, this sounds like a story that North Koreans spin. When I got two American pilots out years ago, they were downed by missiles in North Korea. They said, "OK, we'll turn over the pilots, one had passed away, but you have to pay for the ammunition that shot him down."

BALDWIN: And you said?

RICHARDSON: I said no, that's ridiculous. So I think -- I'm sure the President and Tillerson, if that was the case and then I heard about it, they denied it, they're not going to pay. This is a North Korean negotiating tactic. Brooke, they don't think like we do. They negotiate differently. They're in a delusional state about what is achievable and this doesn't sound right and it's wrong.

BALDWIN: So, you mentioned the example with the pilots, but are there other examples where -- I guess is this not surprising that North Korea would be demanding this $2 million because there has been demand in the past and how often would the U.S. actually pay them?

RICHARDSON: Well, you know, they always -- when there were prisoner cases like they'd say, "OK, we're going to allow you to get news two American prisoners but you have to pay." And then we'd say no and then said, "OK, then send a celebrity," like President Clinton, President Carter. Often me when it was like low level. So this is how they think.

They think that they could get some P.R. benefits. They think that they're finding ways to scare us. This is, you know, this is how they P.R. negotiate and it doesn't work and nobody believes them. But you've got to realize that Kim Jong-un is talking to his own people. I mean, partly it's to show that he's tough with the United States --

BALDWIN: The spin you reference.

RICHARDSON: -- that he doesn't take any grief.

BALDWIN: Yes.

RICHARDSON: And so they come up with this ridiculous -- like pay us for the medical treatment. It was bad medical treatment, because it looks like Otto after he had his sentencing went into a comatose state. And I love his parents. I hope his parents get some compensation for Otto's death, you know, from U.S. government sources.

BALDWIN: Yes.

RICHARDSON: The North Koreans won't pay. So they're spinning saying, "OK, well, you know, if you pay us $2 million, maybe we'll tell you what actually happened with Otto." And they're not going to.

BALDWIN: Got you. I hear you on the absurdity of it. Ambassador Bill Richardson, thank you so much.

RICHARDSON: Thank you. Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Coming up next, a Massachusetts judge accused of letting an undocumented immigrant walk out of the back door of her courtroom to avoid ICE agents waiting to arrest him, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:23:08] BALDWIN: A Massachusetts judge is finding herself on the wrong side of the law. She has just been indicted for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant avoid an ICE officer who was waiting outside of her courtroom.

Federal prosecutors stressed today that the arrest of the judge in a trial court officer who allegedly assisted her has nothing to do with politics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW LELLING, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS: This case is not intended as a policy statement, at least not beyond making the point that the laws have to apply equally even if you are a state court judge. So, no, we did not bring this case in response to the public debate over immigration enforcement. There are reasonable arguments on both side of that debate, but this isn't a policy seminar, it's a law enforcement action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's Jean Casarez is following the story for us. And so this happened last April, involves this immigrant from the Dominican Republic wanted on drug charges. So, how is he around -- how are they able to get around the ICE officer?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is an amazing story. According to prosecutors, now the judge is District Court Judge Shelley Richmond Joseph and she has been federally charged, herself, with obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and perjury to name a few of the charges.

And the story goes back to the beginning, which is important. There was a man by the named of Jose Medina Perez and he had entered the country two times illegally, 2003 and 2007, deported both times. After that, an order by an immigration judge in the United States said that he could not enter the country again for 20 years. He did enter the country again a third time.

He was arrested in Massachusetts last March for a narcotics charge and also as a fugitive out of Pennsylvania. Once arrested, his fingerprints were put into the system and that allowed ICE to realize just through the electronic system that this is the person we have an order for that is not to come back into this country.

[15:25:06] So, one month later was his arraignment on the narcotics charge and the federal warrant as a fugitive out of Pennsylvania. The ICE agent walked into the public courthouse, told everyone that he was there from the clerk to the defense attorney. He sat in the public area and that is when the arraignment proceeding began, and I want you to listen to prosecutors today out of Massachusetts after they describe what happened next between the judge and the defense attorney.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LELLING: Told Judge Joseph that if A.S. was released, ICE would pick him up. Judge Joseph replied, "ICE is going to get him." And seconds later ordered the recording equipment turned off.

The judge and defense attorney then conspired to have A.S. released out of the back door of the courthouse to avoid the ICE officer. When the recorder was turned back on, defense counsel asked for permission to accompany A.S. downstairs to lock up on a pretext, to which Judge Joseph agreed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: So what happened next? The audio is turned back on, the defense attorney said, "Your honor, I do need to take him downstairs to continue to talk with him through an interpreter." Prosecutors say that was a ruse to get him to the back door. They open up the back door. He left. The ICE officer remained there for a long time believing with that warrant in hand, immigration warrant, that he was going to be exiting the courtroom, he did not.

Now, the ACLU has responded to all of this day in the judge's behalf saying the Department of Justice's decision to bring this case is preposterous, ironic and deeply damaging to the rule of law.

She was arrested today along with the court clerk that allowed -- the gentleman that allowed them through the back door. But they were not put in handcuffs, they turned themselves in.

BALDWIN: What a story. Jean, thank you very much, Jean Casarez.

Coming up next, I'll be joined live by a woman who asked a provocative question to Senator Bernie Sanders about what he could do to stop white supremacy. Hear what she thought of his answer. It was an answer met with boos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know I date myself a little bit here, but I actually was at the march on Washington with Dr. King back in 1963. And as somebody who --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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