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Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) On Upcoming A.G. Barr Testimony; Boeing Whistleblowers Report 737 MAX Problems To FAA; Beyond The Call Of Duty: Baltimore Officer Turns To Rap To Combat Crime. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 29, 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] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: -- in that campaign launch video, and maybe they were going to do something biographical -- Scranton Joe. And now, the idea that they focused on the violence of Charlottesville and white supremacy -- you know, it seems sort of prophetic now.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, it does. And, I mean, it's interesting that he zeroed in on that as I think the best way in his mind to make a contrast between what his vision is of this country and what this president's vision has been.

I think, for sure, we'll hear him talking about the economy, and the middle-class, and working people, but overarching all of it, I think in Biden's mind -- and obviously, this was the decision they made to focus on this as his centerpiece of his announcement is -- you know, it's a broader message about who we are as a country.

And I think he believes that that will resonate -- and that it's important to have that resonate with the electorate in a way that maybe some of these economic arguments can't be as universal as that. And that's how he's positioning him in this field as the anti-Trump and we'll see if that's successful.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Arlette, Julie, Jeffrey, thank you very much.

Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to testify twice this week on Capitol Hill -- scheduled to testify, but one of these hearings in jeopardy right now. Why? We're going to talk about that.

We're also going to ask one of the senators who was scheduled to question him, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:35:30] BERMAN: Attorney General William Barr is warning Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee that he may not show up for his scheduled hearing on Thursday. The attorney general has criticized the format set up by Democrats heading that committee.

But before he goes or doesn't go to the House, the attorney general will testify before the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee. That happens on Wednesday.

Joining me now is someone who will be part of that, Democrat Dick Durbin from Illinois. He serves on the Judiciary Committee.

You will get to question William Barr. Your hearing very much not in jeopardy. What do you want to ask the attorney general?

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Well, clearly, we're going to ask about the Mueller report and we're going to try to get more and more of the redactions removed so the American people can see the result of this investigation.

Personally, I have to disagree with Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, who dismissed the Russian involvement in the last election -- or the election before last as just two Facebook ads -- a couple of Facebook ads. That isn't what the Mueller report said. It was a systematic effort by the Russians to undermine our democracy.

What are we doing about it? What's the attorney general of the United States and the president going to do to make sure the 2020 election isn't also a victim of Russian intrigue?

BERMAN: You know, the Republican chair of your committee, Lindsey Graham, actually agrees with you. He said that Jared Kushner has it all wrong when he says it was just a couple of Facebook ads that the Russians did. He's noted the Russians stole e-mails from the DNC and from John Podesta.

What questions do you have or will you pose to the attorney general on how he has handled the Mueller report?

DURBIN: Well, I can tell you I wasn't too surprised. I voted against his nomination. He said that he was seeking this position basically to protect the integrity of the Department of Justice.

We know what the president thought about the previous attorney general, Jeff Sessions. He said it loudly and often that Jeff Sessions just wasn't doing his bidding when it came to eliminating this investigation and the like.

Well then came Attorney General Barr and his early rollout of the Mueller report -- his 4-page rollout really had some suggestions in there of things were not included in the report. And then, the press conference before the actual release.

All of these things tell me that Bill Barr is doing his best to serve this president as the president's personal attorney. That goes way beyond his responsibility. His responsibility under our Constitution as attorney general is for the people of this country and to protect the Constitution.

BERMAN: His job is now done though, in theory, with the Mueller investigation. You'd agree on that, yes?

DURBIN: For the most part it is. And I don't know that we're going to rehash every aspect of it and some of the things he said, which were misleading about the contents. The American people can see those things for themselves.

But going forward we want to make sure there is a level of cooperation between the Department of Justice and the Congress, and also to make certain that we have some effort underway to stop any Russian intrigue.

BERMAN: One more question because you are on the Judiciary Committee and a lawyer yourself. So, as a question of law, do you think that Don McGahn's testimony to the House, if it were to happen, would be covered by executive privilege?

DURBIN: You know, so far, they have not asserted executive privilege -- the White House has not -- and very often -- and that's a good thing and I hope they don't hide behind it.

I hope Don McGahn testifies. I think he turned out to be one of the bright lights in the early days of the Trump administration when he stood up to the president.

BERMAN: What do you make of the fact that Barr may not show up to the Judiciary -- the House Judiciary Committee hearing because he doesn't want to be questioned by staff?

DURBIN: Historically, there's always been tension but it's behind the scenes --

BERMAN: Yes.

DURBIN: -- behind the curtains. So now, it's out in front of the world.

Jerry Nadler wants the attorney general to go through a 30-minute interrogation by staff. He doesn't want to do it. Those are the types of things that usually negotiated beforehand.

This one is very public. I don't know how it lived (ph).

BERMAN: Do you think he should go if staff gets to question him?

DURBIN: Well, I'm not sure. I'm not going to prejudge it. But, Jerry Nadler can call his own committee hearing -- his own procedure as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

BERMAN: I'm interested that you're not saying that he should just go. I'm interested that you're not giving a full backing to the House Judiciary chair.

DURBIN: I'm not trying to undercut Jerry Nadler --

BERMAN: OK.

DURBIN: -- but I'm saying in the past, these things have usually been negotiated beforehand as to how long --

BERMAN: Yes. DURBIN: -- and whether or not it's going to be public. This is a very open display of tension between the White House and the Congress and I don't want to downplay it. It's a very important thing.

This president has said oh, I'm not responsible for providing information by subpoena or witnesses for the administration. That is a dramatic departure from previous presidents.

BERMAN: What appears to be a hate crime at a synagogue in California over the weekend where a man went into a synagogue and killed one person and injured others.

[07:40:04] Why is this happening? What do you see as the root cause here and why can't we stop it?

DURBIN: This is domestic terrorism. Let's call it for what it is.

Had there been someone from the Middle East involved in this -- someone with a green card involved in this, can you imagine the alerts that would come out from the White House about the threats of terrorism to the United States? And yet, this president does just the opposite.

With a wink and a nod he says to these nationalists and supremacists -- you know, I know they're just trying to protect the statues of Robert E. Lee.

BERMAN: He did -- he did condemn -- he did condemn the shooting in Poway very strongly at this rally Saturday night.

DURBIN: Of course, he did, and he should have.

But the point I'm getting to is why do these people feel they have license now to attack synagogues, to attack Sikh temples, to attack churches across the United States? This has really been fomented because of the rhetoric that we're hearing from the White House.

BERMAN: Do you think the president is giving them license?

DURBIN: I think the president and his rhetoric is very loose and as a consequence people feel a permission slip to move forward in areas they never have before.

BERMAN: You just got back from the border. You went down to El Paso to a border facility there. You wrote about it.

What you say you saw was alarming. Is it a crisis?

DURBIN: Well, it is a humanitarian crisis, there's no doubt about it.

When I looked into this cell where we're holding detained immigrants, capacity 35, and saw 150 men shoulder-to-shoulder, I don't know how they survive there for days and weeks at a time. Next to them in another cell, capacity 16, was 75 women, including nursing mothers. They're pleading for help.

This is not what America should be about. This is not our image, it's not our values.

I told Mr. McAleenan, the acting secretary, we've got to do better and we've got to do it very quickly.

BERMAN: What? How?

DURBIN: Well, treat people humanely, first, particularly mothers and children. That is a must. I think we don't have the capacity now to deal with those and we need to make sure that we can.

But the president needs to sit down and get real about this situation. You can't cut off foreign aid to these three countries and then marvel at the fact that all these people are flowing into the United States because of the disintegration of their economy and the disintegration of their society. This president's approach to this of getting tough isn't working.

BERMAN: I want to let you go. Before you go, do you want to endorse someone running for president?

DURBIN: Listen, there are so many of these people running for president who are my voters as a leader in the Senate, so I'm just going to stand back for the time being. We seem to have plenty of candidates and more to come.

BERMAN: Shrewd political move.

Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois. Thanks for being with us. I appreciate it.

DURBIN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Alisyn --

CAMEROTA: Smart, makes sense. Thank you, gentlemen.

All right. So after these two deadly crashes, Boeing will meet with its shareholders today as CNN learns about new fears from whistleblowers on the troubled 737 MAX fleet. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:04] CAMEROTA: For the first time since those two deadly crashes involving Boeing 737 MAX jets, the company's CEO will face shareholders. This, as CNN learns that whistleblowers warned the company of a wiring issue.

CNN's Drew Griffin is live in Chicago with more. What have you found out, Drew?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it could be a tough crowd for Dennis Muilenburg this morning. He's going to tell these shareholders that following these two crashes the fix for Boeing's brand new plane, the 737 MAX, is coming along. It's a computer fix. The final technical flight, he says before certification, has been

flown. One hundred forty-six test flights looking at this computer fix -- this software fix that they're trying to prove not only to American flyers and Boeing shareholders but to the world that this 737 MAX plane is safe and can be back up in the air.

But as you said Alisyn, this is coming at the same time that we've learned that federal investigations, both in Congress and the FAA, may be expanding into looking at how this plane was built.

Four Boeing whistleblowers called the FAA hotline the day after that Ethiopian Air crash to report problems with things we didn't learn before. That there were problems in manufacturing -- or reported problems in manufacturing of this AOA sensor -- this single angle of attack sensor that are very similar to the problems Boeing has had with other development of its plane, particularly in its Charleston plant, where you have foreign objects or messy or sloppy manufacturing that could have led to some sort of damage.

So, just as they're trying to continue to put these two crashes behind them and get this plane back up in the air, new angles of investigation have been opening up.

CAMEROTA: Well, good for those whistleblowers. I mean, that's obviously who the public needs to hear from, as well as the investigators.

So it's not just Boeing, Drew, that we understand is under fire. There's also a lawsuit that's going to be filed today against the FAA and Boeing? So explain what that's about.

GRIFFIN: Yes, Boeing and the FAA. Right, so -- and this is the first lawsuit based on this Ethiopian Air flight.

The basic premise is this, that the FAA allowed Boeing to rush this new plane through certification and this system that is involved in both crashes -- the Ethiopian Air and Lion Air -- is called MCAS. It relies on a single sensor -- the angle of attack sensor.

What you need to know is on planes, most things are duplicated and triplicated and lots of backup. This system, which was an automated system that pitched the plane down, was automated based on one single sensor that is known to fail.

That seems to be the subject of this lawsuit. How could this plane have gotten up in the air? Boeing has fired back on this behind the scenes.

But the FAA is also putting out a statement saying hold on here -- this might not be the best avenue to attack legally.

The FAA releasing a statement saying that "Safety is the FAA's top priority. "We have a longstanding well-established aircraft certification process that has consistently produced safe aircraft," Alisyn. "The single angle of attack sensor" -- what I was talking about -- "was considered in relation to a variety of other factors, specifically well-known pilot procedures that would mitigate the effects of a failure."

Read between the lines here. This is the FAA looking towards pilots' action or inaction in these flights, which I think is significant.

CAMEROTA: It sounds like it. Drew, thank you very much for sharing part of your investigation with us.

All right, John.

BERMAN: All right, it's time for "CNN Business Now." President Donald Trump calls this the greatest economy in many years, maybe in history with stocks at record highs and the economy growing.

Our chief business correspondent and star of "EARLY START," Christine Romans joins us now with more -- Romans.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, CNN ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Hi, guys. Happy Monday.

You know, it was James Carville during another booming economy who famously said, "It's the economy, stupid." With that in mind, the four numbers most important for President Trump heading into 2020.

[07:50:04] Number one, the jobless rate. It's near the lowest in half a century. And for some categories -- certain categories -- women and African-Americans -- the jobless rate has never been this low. This is a good number for the president.

Number two, economic growth, AKA GDP. Candidate Trump promised three percent sustained growth, officially. On the trail, of course, he boasted it could be even four, five, even six percent.

These are the past few years. Look at this. For Friday's GDP number a 3.2 percent for the first quarter it surprised many economists who thought economic growth really slowed in the first quarter. This is another tailwind for the president heading into the election.

Stock markets, stock prices. Just over half of American households own stocks, guys and the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average has really become the popular barometer for how well investors are doing. The Dow is up big-time, 14 percent this year. It's up 45 percent since Election Day in 2016.

The president says the Dow would be 5,000 to 10,000 points higher if not for the Fed's rate hikes last year. That's a claim impossible to prove. But if the stock markets remain resilient, this is another positive for the president.

Finally here, gas prices. A potential Achilles heel is the indicator Americans feel every time they fill up, and gas prices are rising. The national average now $2.88 a gallon and it's touching $4.00 in California.

Two factors here -- the annual shift to more expensive summer blends and trimmed production from OPEC members to prop up oil prices. This is the one that could be a question mark Alisyn for the president. There's a lot of time to go, of course, but many of these indicators

-- the economic indicators are looking favorable for this president heading into 2020, guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, Christine. Thank you very much for looking at all of those for us.

So, he joined the police force but he kept his side job. How it helps him go beyond the call of duty, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:56:53] CAMEROTA: One police officer in Baltimore finding a new way to help combat crime in his community. CNN's Victor Blackwell explains how this officer is going behind the call of duty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Destruction and violence in Baltimore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The state said he planted evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Marches for justice.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "NEW DAY WEEKEND" (voice- over): In recent years, crime has dominated the news in Baltimore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Detectives put down more than 50 bullet markers.

BLACKWELL (voice-over): Each of the last four years has ended with more than 300 victims of homicide and local rapper Saint knows the names of more than a few.

OFFICER JOSHUA JACKSON, BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT, "SAINT THE RAPPING COP": I've seen a lot of people die and I'm tired of it.

BLACKWELL (voice-over): So, Saint is writing positive rap, hoping to change minds and save lives.

JACKSON: (Rapping).

BLACKWELL (voice-over): Saint's lyrics are borne out of tragedies that he's seen up close as Officer Joshua Jackson with the Baltimore Police Department.

JACKSON: I want to be able to affect the youth so they know that you don't necessarily have to turn to a gun.

BLACKWELL (voice-over): Rapping came first as a teenager. He joined the BPD in 2017.

JACKSON: After I became a police officer I said well, I can combine the two.

Saint the rapping cop. BLACKWELL (voice-over): When the higher-ups in the department heard his track about being a BPD officer, Baltimore's finest, they teamed up to make a music video.

MICHAEL HARRISON, COMMISSIONER, BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT: Many of the issues --

BLACKWELL (voice-over): Michael Harrison is Baltimore's police commissioner.

HARRISON: It talks about us but it really is talking about people you see, kids you see, officers you see, community, and the officer telling his story in a very different way than police generally in our culture tells stories about the work we do.

BLACKWELL (voice-over): Officer Jackson knows that Baltimore's challenges will require more than music to overcome, but he says it's helping to open dialogue and that's a start.

JACKSON: It means my message is reaching people. It is powerful.

BLACKWELL (voice-over): Victor Blackwell, CNN, Baltimore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: He's got skills.

CAMEROTA: Totally. That's very -- it gets people's attention, which is what he wants. That's great.

All right. So we're learning more about the synagogue attack and the incredible heroism that prevented more death, so let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard six or seven shots and then it went quiet. I ran in and called 911.

RABBI YISROEL GOLDSTEIN, CHABAD OF POWAY: There is a young man with a rifle pointing right at me. I couldn't see his eyes, I couldn't see his soul.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We see an increase in hate crimes of all kinds. International crisis that requires a national response.

CAMEROTA: Joe Biden kicks off his 2020 presidential campaign in Pittsburgh today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Biden has a chance to run a campaign of things people are actually for.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The biggest thing that we're watching for is what kind of a performer is he on the trail.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's never been in this position before. He's about to prove if he is a frontrunner or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

BERMAN: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, April 29th. It's 8:00 in the East.

And we're getting new information and some deeply moving reaction to the attack on a synagogue in Poway, California that appears to be just the latest attack inspired by hate on a house of worship.

A teenager stormed into a synagogue and opened fire on innocent people celebrating the last day of Passover.

A funeral is planned today for Lori Gilbert.

END