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New Day

China Retaliates Against U.S. Tariff Hikes; Valerie Plame Announces Congressional Run; Mom Sues Over Racial Animus. Aired 8:30- 9a ET

Aired May 13, 2019 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:31:22] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We do have some breaking news right now because China has followed through on its threat to retaliate against President Trump's tariff increase. Dow futures are plummeting dramatically ahead of the market open, close to 500 points right now.

So CNN's Matt Rivers is live in Beijing for us with more.

What are they doing, Matt?

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn, this information just coming down to CNN within the last five or ten minutes or so. And what we're seeing now, and we're still going through the specific information here, but the broad stroke number here is that the Chinese will be increasing tariff rates on $60 billion worth of American imports here to China.

And this is a move that despite what President Trump tweeted this morning has been expected. The president, of course, tweeting this morning that China should not retaliate, but clearly they did not listen. And this is what we have been telling our audience since last Friday, when the president announced that they would be going forward with increasing tariffs on Chinese imports.

We have told everyone that this is going to happen and the Chinese have been very clear that they did plan on responding. We just didn't know exactly when or how they were going to do so. But it is clear now that $60 billion worth of American imports here to China will be facing higher tariffs.

I don't know that we would call this an escalation on the part of China. I think this is more of an in-kind retaliation. This is China basically saying, you did this, we're matching it. In Chinese -- in the Chinese government's eyes, this is just following up to what the United States did. I don't think this is China saying we want to escalate past what the United States did. But this is also China saying, we are not going to take these kinds of moves by the Trump administration lying down.

And the end here is that both economies are going to be hurt because that's what happens in a trade were. The stock markets were down here today. Chances are they're going to be down in the U.S. today. This is a trade war, John, and is China responding.

BERMAN: Well, they're certainly going to be down at the open, 475 points, Dow futures. The markets open in one hour. We will be watching that very closely. It could be a rocky day to say the least.

Matt Rivers, thank you very much.

So, former CIA operative Valerie Plame announced last week that she is running as a Democrat to represent New Mexico's third congressional district in 2020, writing in a statement, my career in the CIA was cut short by partisan politics, but I'm not done serving our country. We need more people in Congress with the courage to stand up for what's right.

Joining me now is Valerie Plame.

Thank you so much for being with us. Welcome to the political fray, at least the candidate fray.

Why are you running?

VALERIE PLAME, FORMER CIA OFFICER: Thank you. Good morning.

I -- maybe this sounds corny, but I couldn't help but be attracted to the opportunity of perhaps serving my country again. The last time I did it, as a covert CIA operations officer, it got cut short. And this opportunity presented itself. And my twins have gone off to college and I'm ready for a new chapter. And I thought I would like to at least try.

My home is northern New Mexico. And I love that maybe I can give back.

BERMAN: I was interested that one of the issues you're running on isn't necessarily foreign policy, it's health care. What are you promoting in terms of health care?

PLAME: Well, look, when I moved here from Washington, D.C., over ten years ago, I immediately threw myself into my community. I've lived all over the world. No place has felt like home except where I am now, Santa Fe, northern New Mexico.

[08:35:02] And by doing a variety of things in the community, from arts and education, you really get to see what the real issues are, what people care about. Washington is far, far away from northern New Mexico. And right now I think one of the top priorities, what people in my community are concerned about, is access to health care, quality health care, and the unbelievable price of prescription drugs. So that's something I'm going to be looking into, but, more importantly, listening to the people in my community.

BERMAN: I do want to ask you, since you know a lot about foreign intelligence and intelligence collecting, one of the things that the attorney general of the United States, William Barr, has said in the last few weeks is that the FBI spied on the Trump campaign. Based on your personal experience, do you believe that's what happened?

PLAME: I absolutely do not. These are professionals in our intelligence community, both in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and in the CIA. I have to believe that what happened was that there was real cause. And the bar is extremely high to collect information, particularly on a U.S. citizen. So I don't know all the details of what led to that, but I think Attorney General Barr's rather casual assessment that the FBI spied on candidate Trump is a little too loose with the facts.

BERMAN: Very quickly, the president did pardon Scooter Libby, who, of course, was so intimately involved in outing you as a foreign operative.

What do you make of that pardon?

PLAME: That was about a year ago. Look, that pardon has nothing to do with me, nothing to do with Scooter Libby, and I think it had everything to do with Trump sending a signal to his cronies that, look, you take care of me, I'll take care of you. I think that's -- that's all it comes down to.

BERMAN: So I'm going to ask you a question right now, and this is something that you address on your own campaign website. And it's about an article that you retweeted in 2017. And the headline of the article is that America's Jews are driving America's wars. And inside this article there are lines like Jewish groups and deep pocket individual donors not only control the politician, they own and run the media and entertainment industries. So you retweeted this. Ultimately, you regretted it, you apologized and you've written about it a lot now.

But let me start at the beginning. Why did you at first like this article?

PLAME: I didn't like it. All I was looking at -- the only thing that I focused on in that article was, I thought it was a very bad idea to get out of the Iran nuclear deal. That's very much what I was focused on. I stupidly did not read the rest of the article. And, when I did, I was really horrified. It's anti-Semitic. That has no place at any time anywhere. It's not who I am. It's not what I believe. And I apologized as sincerely and with heartfelt conviction as I possibly could.

And there will be people that understand, you know, she's human, she messed up, she didn't read the whole article. And I look forward to moving forward and contributing in other ways. But there are, of course, going to be people that are going to use that and hit it over my head.

BERMAN: And you have. And you have. You have -- you have now apologized. You have now apologized. I just want to -- I just wanted to -- because, initially, again, when people did raise objections to the article, you said, read the entire article and try, just for a moment, to put aside your biases and think clearly. So even when you were saying read the entire article, you're now saying you had just skimmed it?

PLAME: I did. Really foolish. And I'm embarrassed by that whole episode. I shouldn't -- it was a -- I should not have been anywhere near social media or a computer at that time in my life.

BERMAN: Listen, as I said, people should check out your website. You talk about this in much of the same open terms you just did. You also talk about what you're running on.

Valerie Plame, the new candidate for Congress in the third congressional district in New Mexico. Thanks for coming on this morning. We look forward to hearing from you throughout the next several months. Thank you.

PLAME: Thank you so much.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, a pilot is being hailed as a hero after successfully landing this plane with no front wheels. We will bring you the incredible pictures and story, next.

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[08:43:27] BERMAN: Time now for the "5 Things to Know for Your New Day."

China strikes back, retaliating against President Trump's latest tariff hike. Beijing has now raised tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods to 25 percent. Dow futures down more than 500 points ahead of the market open.

CAMEROTA: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Brussels after canceling today's trip to Moscow. He is meeting with European leaders to discuss the tensions with Iran before heading tomorrow to meet with Vladimir Putin.

BERMAN: All right, President Trump and his allies are blocking more than 20 separate investigations in an all-out war with Congress. Will House Democrats consider imposing fines to get former and present administration officials to obey subpoenas?

CAMEROTA: Actress Felicity Huffman is expected to plead guilty in the college admissions scandal today. Prosecutors are asking for a sentence of four to ten months in jail for the former "Desperate Housewives" star.

BERMAN: A pilot in Myanmar is being lauded as a hero after landing a plane on only its rear wheels when the jet's landing gear failed. Passengers evacuated the plane and miraculously no injuries were reported.

CAMEROTA: All right, for more on the "5 Things to Know," you can go to cnn.com/newday for the latest.

And here's what else to watch today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ON SCREEN TEXT: 2:00 p.m. ET, Trump meeting with Hungarian PM.

6:00 p.m. ET, Biden New Hampshire town hall.

7:00 p.m. ET, Green new day rally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:45:14] CAMEROTA: OK, now to this story.

Surveillance video shows a teenage boy being dragged by his school bus. His mother believes this was intentional and it was race-based. We will talk with her, next.

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CAMEROTA: OK, you're looking at video captured on a school bus in Utah. The driver shut the door on a student, trapping his backpack, and then dragged the 14-year-old boy for about 150 feet. The boy's mother says this was no accident. Her son is biracial and she believes the driver had, quote, racial animus towards students of mixed race. The mom has filed a lawsuit against the driver, the school district and the transportation director.

[08:50:10] Joining us now is Brenda Mayes. It was her son who was dragged by the bus. And she is joined by her attorney Bob Sykes.

It's good to have both of you here.

So, Ms. Mayes, I want to start with you. What makes you think that this dragging incident was intentional, was the result, as you said, of racial animus, rather than just an unfortunate accident?

BRENDA MAYES, SUING SCHOOL BUS DRIVER FOR DRAGGING BIRACIAL SON: Well, we had had a prior incident back in October where the bus driver had shut the neighbor in the door, who's also biracial, and tried to shut my younger son in the door, who's also biracial. And complaints were filed. Police report filed. School district was contacted. Transportation director was contacted. And the district didn't do anything. The transportation director didn't do anything.

My younger son and the neighbor that it had happened to, they were both afraid to ride the bus. They haven't been riding the bus from October until February because they were afraid of the bus driver. And so --

CAMEROTA: And so you think this is only happening to students of mixed race?

MAYES: Yes, it is.

CAMEROTA: Biracial students.

BOB SYKES, ATTORNEY FOR BRENDA MAYES: And that's not the only incident. There are two or three others.

CAMEROTA: Yes, tell me -- so -- but -- so there were -- there were more than what Ms. Mayes just said about her son and a neighbor getting the door slammed on them also?

SYKES: Oh, yes.

In September of 2017, Child Doe, the one who is the plaintiff here, was trying to protect a third grader -- a third grade mixed race student from being bullied by a sixth grader and got up in the bus and was disciplined by the bus driver for doing that. And since this story has become public, there have been -- and Brenda can tell you about it -- but other instances that have come forward that we're aware of, of mixed race or black students having problems on the bus with this bus driver. He's closed the door on other people.

OK. That's really important to know.

Here's what the school --

SYKES: Other mixed race.

CAMEROTA: OK.

Here's what the school district has said about the complaints. When issues of discrimination are raised at any time, they are investigated thoroughly. The Davis School District takes any claims of racial discrimination seriously and does not tolerate any form of racial discrimination in our schools.

You're saying that's just simply not true?

SYKES: It's bologna. And she can tell you about her --

MAYES: The complaints --

SYKES: Attempts to try to remedy this.

MAYES: The complaints made back in October, there was school video that the transportation director took over that investigation. There was school video facing the buses. It had happened at the elementary school. The video has since been over written. There's no longer a video. The transportation director said that he had interviewed three adults. It was no one that was at the school that day, the adults that he had interviewed. Because of the transportation director's investigation, then the sheriff's department closed down their criminal charges from the October incident.

CAMEROTA: OK. The bus driver -- I want to get your reaction to what his response has been. He says he is not a racist and he has an interesting way of proving that. So here is this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you say that you're racist?

JOHN NAISBITT, BUS DRIVER: Not at all. No. Look at my dog. He's as black as can be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Brenda, your reaction?

MAYES: I don't even know what to say to that. And his later comments, he implied --

SYKES: (INAUDIBLE).

MAYES: Yes, yes, I don't -- I think he says everything that could be said about it.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Sykes, does that bus driver still work at the school? Has he lost his job?

SYKES: No. According to that interview you played a segment of, within a few days he claims he quit to avoid being fired. But the thing that we find so inexcusable is that for at least a year and a half prior to this incident of February 5th -- 4th or 5th, 2019, there were other instances. And the district did nothing about it. This was -- put Child Doe's life at risk. If those straps had broken --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

SYKES: If he had fallen to the pavement or if he had been sucked into the tires, he could have been killed, or seriously injured.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Yes, we are so happy to report that he is OK. That something worse didn't happen. But please keep us posted on your lawsuit of the driver and the district and the transportation director.

[08:55:02] Bob Sykes, Brenda Mayes, thank you very much for sharing your personal story with us.

SYKES: Thank you.

MAYES: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: John.

BERMAN: All right, "The Good Stuff" is next.

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BERMAN: Time now for "The Good Stuff."

A Texas nurse races to save a baby's life. Joanna Lopez was at a gas station when she heard a frantic cry for help. One-year-old Brandon Ross had been shot in a road rage incident. Joanna immediately jumped into action.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOANNA LOPEZ, NURSE: Just trying to calm dad down and telling dad that everything was going to be OK, keep him still, to not, you know, move his -- to keep his spine straight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Baby being shot. Joanna monitored little Brandon's pulse until paramedics arrived. And thanks to her help, the little boy did survive.

[09:00:05] CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, what a beautiful little boy and story.

All right, so Dow futures.

END