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New Day Sunday

GOP Congressman: "Trump Has Engaged in Impeachable Conduct"; Trump Clarifies Abortion Stance as States Pass Restrictive Laws; Suspect in Custody After Girl Abducted While Walking With Mother; Fifty Million Under Threat of Severe Weather As Storms Move East; Prince William: "Pain Like No Other" After Death of Princess Diana; Koepka Keeps Up Historic Pace at the PGA. Aired 7-8a ET

Aired May 19, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

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[07:00:18] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A GOP lawmaker said President Trump has, in fact, engaged in impeachable conduct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think this gives Democrats more ammunition to go after Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The beginning of the withdrawing of one Republican coming up publicly and saying this man, this president, has committed these offenses, that is a big start.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think any of this stuff is going to shake the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Joe Biden held his official kickoff rally here in Philadelphia.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The single most important thing we have to accomplish is defeat Donald Trump. Beat Trump. Beat Trump. Beat Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw him left and go and grabbed on to the oven door.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've actually seen a funnel cloud halfway to the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of a sudden, the roof is gone and you're looking up at the sky.

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ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. 7:01 is the time this Sunday morning. And it's been said by Democrats and former officials and some

conservatives but now a sitting GOP congressman has said President Donald Trump is, quote, engaged in impeachable conduct.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Congressman Justin Amash from Michigan said after reading the Mueller report, it's clear to him the president's actions and behavior, quote, meet the threshold for impeachment but he does not say whether Congress should walk through that door, laid out his reasoning very carefully in a series of tweets. We are going to read every tweet of his for you.

He starts with his principle conclusions. One: Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller's report. Two, President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct. Here, Partisanships has eroded our system of checks and balances. And four, few members of Congress have read the report.

Now, I offer these conclusions only after having read Mueller's redacted report carefully and completely, having read or watched pertinent statements and testimony, and having discussed this matter with my staff, who thoroughly reviewed materials and provided me with further analysis.

In comparing Barr's principal conclusions, congressional testimony and other statements to Mueller's report, it is clear that Barr intended to mislead the public about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's analysis and findings.

Barr's misrepresentations are significant but often subtle, frequently taking the form of sleight-of-hand qualifications or logical fallacies, which he hopes people will not notice.

Under our Constitution, the president shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. While high crimes and misdemeanors is not defined, the context implies conduct that violates the public trust.

Contrary to Barr's portrayal, Mueller's report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment. In fact, Mueller's report identifies multiple examples of conducts satisfying all the elements of obstruction of justice and undoubtedly, any person who is not the president of the United States would be indicted based on such evidence.

Impeachment, which is a special form of indictment, does not even require probable cause that a crime, example, obstruction of justice, has been committed. It simply requires a finding that an official has engaged in careless, abusive, corrupt, or otherwise dishonorable conduct. While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy to often but rather than Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct.

Our system of checks and balances relies on each branch's jealously guarding its powers and upholding its duties under our Constitution. When loyalty to a political party or to an individual trumps loyalty to the Constitution, the rule of law, the foundation of liberty, crumbles.

We've witnessed members of Congress from both parties shift their views 180 degrees, on the importance of character, on the principles of obstruction of justice, depending on whether they're discussing Bill Clinton or Donald Trump. Few members of Congress even read Mueller's report, their minds were made up based on partisan affiliation, and it showed, with representatives and senators from both parties issuing definitive statements on the 448-page report conclusions within hours of it release.

America's institutions depend on officials to uphold both the rules and spirit of our constitutional system even when to do so is personally inconvenient or yields a politically unfavorable outcome.

[07:05:03] Our Constitution is brilliant, and awesome, it deserves a government to match it.

Those are the tweets from Congressman Justin Amash.

Joining me to discuss, CNN political commentator, Errol Louis, host of the "You Decide" podcast, and CNN political commentator, Tara Setmayer, former Republican congressional communications director.

Welcome to both of you back to NEW DAY SUNDAY.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

BLACKWELL: Errol, I just read everything the congressman tweeted in this statement but let me tell you what he did not tweet. He did not tweet that the president should be impeached. He laid out the role and responsibility of Congress and said that impeachment is a special form of indictment. He did not say that Congress should exercise that role.

It's important to find out now if he believes the president should. If he believes Congress should. Talk about that significance.

LOUIS: Well, I mean, look, it's significant that any Republican would come as far as Representative Amash has gone in saying that it should even be considered. The reality is since they are not in the majority, it's relatively easy for him to sort of opine on this particular topic because he doesn't have the power to convene a hearing, he doesn't have the power to put this on the docket for the rest of the Congress to talk about or even to act on.

So, he is just kind of doing what he normally does. If he normally does it on Facebook, I give you points for reading all the way through that. He gives these lengthy explanations about all of his votes and in this case, he is being typically quite thoughtful.

You're more liberal viewers should recognize, though, that Justin Amash is nobody's progressive. I mean, he is fiercely anti-abortion. He is a conservative in every sense of the word, but including a constitutional conservative.

And I think what he is saying here is that he read the report. He thinks people should read the documents. He thinks members of Congress should read what is put in front of them and his conclusion, which I think is something anybody who read the report would also conclude, is that there is a lot of damming information here and it does take you up to questions of if obstruction of justice is the question, we know that there is abundant evidence of it and the question is what do we do about it?

BLACKWELL: Tara, to you. You know, I don't know the answer to this question. Maybe you've answered this since the release of the Mueller report, but do you believe that the president's actions as illustrated in the report indicate or as he writes meet that threshold of impeachment and what are your thoughts on the congressman's writings there?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, without question. And, you know, most people who are intellectually honest what is going on and who actually read the Mueller report would say the same thing. I mean, Republicans impeached Bill Clinton over way less and, you know, what Donald Trump has done and what was laid out meticulously in the Mueller report clearly lays out a case for impeachment.

People don't realize that Bob Mueller was unable to criminally indict president of the United States from the very beginning. We were never going to see a criminal indictment. That's a fallacy that we were going to get something like that out of this and Mueller made that clear very early on come is why he laid out the obstruction of justice instances where the threshold was met many times in the Mueller report and then, obviously, quote, collusion part in volume one, it may not have risen to criminal conspiracy, but as Adam Schiff said, a lot of what happened with Russia, the willingness by the Trump campaign and his associates to play footsy with the Russians and accept stolen information from them to benefit their election is not OK.

So, as a Republican who has been very frustrated by the way the party has behaved and the way they acquiesced to Trump's abuse of power and executive overreach, it's refreshing to finally to see someone come out and say something. But Justin Amash is a always been an outlier. He's very independent, he's libertarian, he's never been popular among the rank and file necessarily of the Republican leadership because he is very independent minded.

BLACKWELL: Tara, let me ask you about that. Who then is -- any indication of how close the next Republican on the spectrum is in getting to where potentially we see the congressman now? Is he going to remain that anomaly in the party or potentially people watching to see the reaction to him and if they will step out too?

SETMAYER: Well, I think it's been clear that the Republicans have been political cowards to this point, to the point where they have based themselves in unprincipled ways that I don't think a lot of us ever thought was possible in order to just pledge fealty to Trump because they are afraid of losing an election. Justin Amash is in a state like Michigan where Donald Trump is not

very popular. Recent polls said only 31 percent said they would definitely vote for Trump again and only 67 percent of Republicans. That's way below the 88 to 90 percent of support that Trump has in other areas of Republicans.

[07:10:03] Michigan, he only won by 11,000 votes.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

SETMAYER: So, Justin Amash is pretty safe in his seat there. I don't think he is worrying about losing. But you're going to see a lot of Republican come out and attack him, just like you saw RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel do that, which is really craven. It really is.

BLACKWELL: She based on -- she said that anyone who is still talking about Russia collusion wants to see the president lose in 2020. The congressman didn't say anything, Errol, about Russia collusion and talked about obstruction of justice.

But I want to go a different direction about the attorney general. He said based on his examination, he says in comparing Barr's principal conclusions, congressional testimony and other statements to Mueller's report it is clear that Barr intended to mislead the public. He doesn't call for a consequence.

The significance here -- what -- is there any influence on what we will see the Democrats do with that type of endorsement of the investigation?

LOUIS: Well, they will certainly take it and quote it on the floor of the House and they will quote it in political rallies and they will put it into political commercials and so forth. They are going to -- they have been looking for, I think, any kind of a respectable Republican that they can sort of grab on to and say, look, this is not just partisanship. This is a real serious kind of issue that both parties need to sort of recognize.

But this is an outlier. I mean, he really is. I mean, just as Tara said, Michigan will or won't go into the Republican column in next year's presidential race. It's not looking so great right now. Individual representatives like Amash, he actually did get a local challenger. The minute this came out, a state representative in Michigan popped up and said I'm going to challenge him.

So he is going to have the same kind of political problems that everybody has. Keep in mind, the president is at the top of the ticket. They are all for re-election in the House of Representatives. This is their running mate.

So, you know, he is taking great pains to say, I don't know if I want to be associated with what is coming down the pike for my running mate, the president of the United States, because what Barr has done, what is listed in the Mueller report, what is likely to come out on the campaign trail is all going to be very difficult for Republicans. SETMAYER: And there's a history there, just really quickly, there's a

history there with Amash. He consistently has been critical of Trump from the very beginning and there was a personal back and forth between Amash and Dan Scavino who works in the White House. He is Trump's former golf caddie and working in the White House doing his social media.

Dan Scavino pretty much violated the Hatch Act when he has gone after Amash in the past saying some should primary him, which you're really not allowed to do if you're a government employee. So, there's been a history of hostility toward one another from the beginning and Justin Amash was the only Republican who was honest enough during the Michael Cohen hearing to ask Michael Cohen a legitimate question, which is what truth does Donald Trump fear most? Which is a poignant question that even took Michael Cohen aback because we never have gotten the answer as to why Trump has lied so much and done this -- cover things up, to these questions and it was Justin Amash for asking that question and good enough for him doing that and for doing this.

BLACKWELL: Tara Setmayer, Errol Louis, thank you both.

LOUIS: Thank you.

SETMAYER: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Christi?

PAUL: States all over the country moved to restrict access to abortion, President Trump seems to be distancing himself from at least some of these laws. For more on how he is clarifying his stance and how it's evolved it seems.

So, we want to bring in White House reporter Sarah Westwood.

Sarah, what are you hearing from there today?

SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, good morning, Christi.

Yes, President Trump's views on abortion certainly have evolved from his time as a businessman to the start of his political career. And last night, he came out in support of at least some circumstances surrounding abortions that are banned in some of the restrictive new state laws on abortion like in Alabama.

Here is what the president wrote. As most people know and for those who would like to know, I'm strongly pro-life with the three exceptions, rape, incest and protecting the life of the mother, the same position taken by Ronald Reagan. We have come very far in the last two years with 105 wonderful new federal judges and many more to come, two great new Supreme Court justices, the Mexico City policy and a whole new and positive attitude about the right to life.

He goes on to say, the radical left with late determine abortion and worse is floating on this issue and we must stick together and win for life in 2020. If we are foolish and do not stay united as one, all of our hard-fought gains for life can and will rapidly disappear.

Now, the president has in the past likened his evolution on abortion to that of Ronald Reagan. In 1999, keep in mind, the president did tell "Meet the Press" that he supported abortion rights, that he was actually pro-choice in every respect, his words.

Here is what he said about his evolution in 2016 during the campaign. Take a listen.

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[07:15:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm pro-life and I was originally pro-choice. I will say this that as a developer and a businessman, I'm not sure I was ever asked the question, are you pro-life or choice? And it was not something that as one of the magazines recently said Donald Trump is a world class businessman, he was never asked those questions before.

But, you know, if I was asked those questions years ago, it's something I never really gave much thought to, but I've made certain changes. I have evolved. I talk about evolving all the time.

By the way, you know who else evolved? Ronald Reagan evolved because Ronald Reagan signed one of the toughest abortion laws -- in favor of abortion in California that have been signed in many, many years. Yet he was a great president and a pretty conservative. He wasn't very conservative, but he was a pretty conservative president.

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WESTWOOD: As the governor of California, Ronald Reagan did sign a law in 1967 liberalizing abortion. He went on to call that one of his worst mistakes that he made and obviously then went on to become a very conservative president.

President Trump passed pro-choice comments in favor of abortion rights. That's something that have given conservative pose initially about his candidacy. But the Trump administration has been pretty consistently pro-life since Trump took office -- Victor and Christi.

PAUL: All right. Sarah Westwood, we appreciate it so much. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: This Tuesday, former Congressman Beto O'Rourke will join Dana Bash for a live CNN town hall from Des Moines to talk with Iowa voters about his run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Be sure to watch Tuesday night at 10:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.

Also, put that back up, because we do have to talk about his show. We do have Jake Tapper's show coming up because this is who is on his show. Steve Bullock, Governor Steve Bullock and Senator Mitt Romney will be on Jake Tapper's show "STATE OF THE UNION" today at 9:00 Eastern, and noon.

PAUL: All right. A major rally in Philadelphia. Former Vice President Joe Biden walking the line between calling for unity and calling out the president.

Here is CNN political reporter Arlette Saenz.

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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Joe Biden held it's official kickoff rally here in Philadelphia a message of unity and also emphasizing the need to defeat President Trump in 2020. Biden argued that the policies that are important to voters and to Democrats -- civil liberties and a woman's right to choose, bold climate change plan none of that will happen in President Trump is still in office.

Biden really portrayed the president as a divisive figure. Take a listen to what he had to say.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Folks, let me tell you something. The single most important thing we have to accomplish to get this done, the single most important thing we have to accomplish is defeat Donald Trump. As long as Donald Trump is in the White House, as long as Donald Trump is in the White House, none of these things, these critical things are going to get done.

SAENZ: Biden also pushed back on the idea that he might be naive for thinking that Democrats and Republicans could work together to achieve consensus. Biden pointing back to his own time in government saying that this is a time for people to stop fighting and to start fixing things.

Now, this event was held in Pennsylvania, which is a state that Donald Trump won in 2016, but it's a state where Biden sees a possible opening going forward in 2020. It's clear that Biden is trying to frame this election as a showdown between himself and the president. President Trump will be here in the states on Monday holding a campaign rally of his own.

But, of course, before Biden gets to a general election matchup, if he gets to a general election matchup between himself and the president, he still has to make it through that crowded and diverse Democratic primary field. Arlette Saenz, CNN, Philadelphia.

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BLACKWELL: An 8-year-old girl has been found safe after walking with her mother last night. We will speak with a police officer in this case, next.

PAUL: Also, severe weather today, it's going to be pretty bad.

Allison, what are you learning?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we had that system the last few days but a brand-new system is developing for tomorrow and it's going to be even more significant of a threat than we have seen the last few days. .

BLACKWELL: Also, emotional records from Prince William. He says he felt a pain like no other when his mother died. We will talk more about this in a moment. Here is a clip from that interview.

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PRINCE WILLIAM, GREAT BRITAIN: I think when you are bereaved at a young age but particularly a young age, I can resonate closely to that, you feel pain like no other pain and you know that in your life it's going to be very difficult to come across someone that is going to be worse pain than that.

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[07:23:14] PAUL: Breaking overnight. An 8-year-old girl has been found safe after she was kidnapped while she was just walking with her mother. Police in Texas say a suspect is in custody. They think Salem Sabatka was taken last night. They say she was taken when a man drove by, grabbed her.

CNN affiliate KTVT said her mother tried to jump in the car to get her but she was thrown out as the car sped away. And this morning, Fort Worth Police Department tweeted Salem has been found safe, the suspect is in custody.

Officer Buddy Calzada is a spokesman for the Fort Worth Police Department is with us.

Officer Calzada, first of all, thank you so much to you and your team there for getting this girl back safely.

How is Salem doing this morning?

OFFICER BUDDY CALZADA, FORT WORTH POLICE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): Salem is doing good. You know, we are not medical professionals, we are police officers. Once we located her safely, we had her transported to a local children's hospital here immediately. Officers escorted her there and got there with lights and sirens to make sure her welfare was good to check on the young lady.

PAUL: So, how did you find her?

CALZADA: Well, I tell you what, you know, we have social media here in Fort Worth. The Fort Worth police department, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, we used these with humor. We post great pictures all the time.

We have actually got a great following here in Fort Worth. I believe we have close to a quarter million people that watch us and we don't use that social media to be funny all the time. We use them when incidents like this come up, and this particular incident, we have so many followers. We do not only for the media here local by but a Facebook live so that everybody knows exactly what is going on verbatim from the police department.

We have shared the video, and we did a live update on exactly when this thing took place. [07:25:02] And from there, we just asked citizens, you know, to be on

lookout for this vehicle.

The thing that caught us off-guard is that as I'm there at the perimeter live while this thing is going on, we just had citizens after citizens showing up saying I'm here to volunteer. What can I do to help?

And we basically told them take the pictures we have put on social media and go help us find this car.

PAUL: So where was she?

CALZADA: She was located just south of Fort Worth, in a surrounding town here called Forest Hill. She was located at the Wood Spring Suites 4100 block of California Parkway East.

PAUL: What do you know about the suspect?

CALZADA: What can I tell you now -- we don't release that name until they are arraigned and booked in our city jail here. The descriptions we were given from early on from the witnesses and mother were close on. I can tell you the suspect is a black male. He is bald. He is 51 years of age.

PAUL: Was he known to you?

CALZADA: He was not known -- to us? We haven't -- the detectives that are working on this are actually checking his criminal history and seeing all that. This is an in-depth story.

PAUL: OK.

CALZADA: An investigation. We have located the girl. But we don't just stop there. We try to figure out the motive. Not just to solve this case but to prevent other cases like this from happening.

PAUL: Well, kudos for all of you for getting her back, because I'm telling you what. When you think about a mom walking with her kid on a street in daylight and a car brazen enough to come up and just take her and push the mom out of the way that is frightening to every parent.

So, Officer Buddy Calzada, thank you to your team. Thank you to the community there who chipped in. And we are certainly hoping that mom and daughter are okay now. Thank you, Officer Buddy Calzada. Appreciate it.

CALZADA: Absolutely.

BLACKWELL: Millions of people are under a threat of severe weather today. A new number -- at least 49 tornadoes have been reported since Friday. We will have the latest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:30:08] VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: The Storm Prediction Center says that more than 50 million people under a threat of severe weather today. You know, there's been hail, heavy rain, strong winds for a couple of days now since Friday. And isolated tornadoes are pushing through.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: And here is the thing. At least 49 tornadoes have been reported just since Friday. They slammed Kansas, Nebraska, Texas. They are expected to get worse today, I'm sorry to tell you.

CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar is following the very latest.

How much power -- how potent is this storm?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right. It is a series of storm, and the worst part is that the storm that's coming tomorrow is even more potent than this first storm we have been dealing it, and that's the one that's still ongoing right now. We are dealing with a tornado watch for portions of Louisiana and Mississippi until about 10:00 a.m. Central Time this morning.

Just for some perspective, this is where New Orleans is here and you can see that line continuing to push off to the east. Now the threat for today extends from Louisiana, all the way up to Michigan, kind of cuts over in to Canada and the back down to portions of Virginia. So, an odd shape, but the threats are still the same that we've seen in the last few days -- isolated tornadoes, damaging winds and the potential for some hail.

Here is a look at the time line: while the storms in the Southeast are already ongoing, the Midwest and Northeast it's a little different. The majority of those strong to severe storms will fire up afternoon and into the evening hours as they progress to the north and east. Then we transition to Monday. This is a brand-new storm that will be coming out of the west and as it pushes in to the plains, it's going to intensify, allowing for some very, very strong storms to develop across Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Then that storm continues to push off to the east again on Tuesday, taking the threat for severe weather with it.

But Monday, unfortunately, Monday just looks like a very volatile day for Texas, Oklahoma and Texas. The main threat damaging winds, very large hail and excess of tennis ball sized and very significant hail in the strength and even the long term tracks that they could end up taking. We could be looking at tornadoes that are the strength of EF- 3 or even larger.

That number may not mean a lot to you other than you know it's high so some perspective here. With an EF-3 what it's going to do is will take your car, a large vehicle and toss it several feet. An EF-4 which is even stronger than that is strong enough it could actually take a well-built home, Victor and Christi, and level it down to the foundation.

BLACKWELL: Wow. All right. Allison Chinchar, we will be staying close to you today as these storms pass through. Thanks so much.

CHINCHAR: Thanks.

PAUL: Prince William is opening up about the effect that his mother's death had on him. This is in a new documentary where he is talking about really the importance of discussing mental health issues. We have those details ahead.

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[07:36:29] PAUL: In a new BBC documentary, Prince William is opening up about the loss of his mother, Princess Diana, and he said he felt, quote, pain like no other after her death in that car accident in 1997, and emphasized the importance of talking about mental health.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE WILLIAM: I think when you are bereaved at a very young age, but particularly in young age, I can resonate closely to that, you feel pain like no other pain and you know in your life, it's going to be difficult to come across someone who has worse pain than that, but it also brings you so close to those other people like that who have bereaved. So, you, instantly, when you talk to someone else, you can almost see it in their eyes sometimes, as a way to say, I can, you know, somebody is -- particularly me someone who's desperate to talk about bereavement, you can kind of pick --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can see it.

PRINCE WILLIAM: They want to talk about it but they want you to go first. They want you to say it's OK, they want to have your permission that in that particular situation, one-on-one, it's OK to start bereavement.

I think particularly in Britain as well, we are nervous about our emotions, we are a bit embarrassed sometimes. The British stiff upper lip thing, that's great and we need to have that occasionally when times are really hard. But there has to be a moment for that, but otherwise, we've got to relax a little bit and be able to talk about our emotions because we're not robots.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: CNN royal commentator Victoria Arbiter is with me now.

You know, Victoria, I'm struck by this because this doesn't happen very often, first of all, that he even talks about his mother in this context. They don't publicly open up. As he said, it's not something that they normally do.

What does it tell you about how serious he is about combating mental health he is going to open up about this now?

VICTORIA ARBITER, CNN ROYAL COMMENTATOR: Christi, I think this is incredibly powerful. The young royal's mental health initiative is not new. This has been something that they have been driving, that they are all very passionate about. But seeing William speak this openly, this honestly, I think this is going to have a dramatic impact on other people because it's easy to assume those in rich and powerful positions, those that are famous, well, they don't have any problems as well, could they possibly be upset about their lives.

But actually when you see a famous footballer, when you see someone like Lady Gaga who has worked with Prince William before, when you see Prince William speak about their own mental health struggles, suddenly, that opens it up and people embarrassed to talk about it before. Even in the clip that you showed, they were highlighting the fact that people are embarrassed to say that there is something going on.

If you see one bleeding on the side of the road you run over and help them and get them to the hospital. If someone is bleeding mentally inside, there is a stigma still attached to that, and so, William, I think he's just knocking down all kinds of walls with this and such an important topic.

PAUL: Well, it's not just him. I know he has soccer players have come to his aid to talk about this as well. How did that happen?

ARBITER: This is great. So, William is the president of the football association in the U.K. and he loves football. So this is a great mix for him.

But this has been incredibly smart because football, soccer in the U.K. is a national obsession, and so what a brilliant way to talk at young men in the country that have been too scared to talk about their mental health issues when they see their favorite footballer sitting with a member of the royal family and they are talking about this.

Interestingly, one of the footballers in this program, he says how he was diagnosed with depression but another football club wants to meet him and say we want to meet with you to make sure you're not crazy. This is the kind of stigma we are talking about.

[07:40:01] So, having these famous faces really accesses people that wouldn't necessarily be following members of the royal family but following their football heroes so this is a win/win.

PAUL: It broadens it out. What is the end game for him here? How does he want to move this and expand it from just having a conversation to some sort of actionable plan to combat mental health?

ARBITER: I think it's a rolling project, Christi, and I think perhaps this immediate generation will not benefit from right away because we are changing a whole pattern here. What Diana did with reducing the stigma and HIV, she shook hands with an AIDs patient and then there was a knock-on effect to that affected generation after generation after generation, suddenly, that stigma has been blown out of the water. And I think that's what William is doing here.

So, he and the royal foundation, they launched a texting system last month which is a huge 3 million-pound project that affords people the ability to text when they are having a mental health problem and then someone can get back to them. So, I think we're going to keep seeing initiatives like this, but just opening this conversation in such a public fashion, talking about his own private grief about the loss of his mother so candidly, this is something that is going to keep driving the initiative forward.

PAUL: Yes, and he is right when he says you can have conversations with people, you can see when they want to talk more about it and they do because that is so healing.

Thank you so much, Victoria Arbiter. We appreciate you.

ARBITER: Thanks, Christi.

PAUL: Sure.

BLACKWELL: West Point is looking to make history this week. Thirty- four African-American women are expected to graduate from the military academy, the largest class of black women to graduate together in the school's history. This year's class will also include the highest number of female Hispanic graduates, and the institution's 5,000 female graduates, 10 percent of undergraduate students at the school are black and women make up about 20 percent of cadets.

PAUL: See how this horse ended up running the Preakness Stakes, look at that, without his jockey.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:45:55] PAUL: Well, history is being made at the PGA championship.

BLACKWELL: Andy Scholes is at the course on Long Island for us.

Andy, one golfer has really, really run away with this one.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: That is a true statement, Victor. You know, Brooks Koepka dominating the competition here and barring an epic meltdown, he is going to make history later today. He is the reigning PGA champ and two-time U.S. Open champion. No golfer has ever held back-to-back titles in two different majors at the same time.

You know, the scores here (INAUDIBLE) he's playing very tough yesterday. Koepka shooting just even part but still is able to maintain a huge seven shot lead heading into today. That's the biggest lead ever in this tournament after three rounds. Koepka has become the new dominant force in golf. This would be his fourth major victory in his last eight tries.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS KOEPKA, 3-TIME MAJOR CHAMPION: Every time I set up for a golf shot I feel I know what the ball is going to do. If I don't, then I guess I'd be nervous but no point in being nervous. I'm pretty flat lined most of the time as you can tell. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: For the first time in more than 20 years, a Triple Crown run was not on the line at the Preakness Stakes. Kentucky Derby winner Country House opting out of the race due to illness and Maximum Security not running the race on short rest and could not win the Triple Crown.

And we have some drama at the beginning of the race. Bodexpress bucking off his jockey at the start and he went to run the race by himself. Luckily, jockey John Velasquez was OK. War of Will would go on to win the race.

But, guys, as soon as Bodexpress kind of started running the race by itself, I don't know about you, I was kind of cheering for him and I thought that would be cool for the horse to run without a jockey. It wouldn't have counted because the horse got a do not finish. No one got a refund and no one got paid for Bodexpress yesterday.

BLACKWELL: Bodexpress, the answer to the most difficult trivia question for the next ten years, no question. Remember Bodexpress.

PAUL: Andy Scholes, thank you so much.

SCHOLES: Bye, guys.

PAUL: So, a high school student who may have a promising future in journalism.

BLACKWELL: Yes, playing close attention sometimes is all you need. Coming up, how a teenager stole the spotlight from Mayor Bill de Blasio's presidential announcement.

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[07:52:10] PAUL: In this week's "Staying Well", how cooking can help fight anxiety.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIE OHANA, CULINARY ARTS THERAPIES: If I'm preparing dinner and chopping my vegetables, cutting things in a certain way, that's an exercise in mindfulness.

What makes culinary therapy so helpful and beneficial because you're really able to focus on what you're doing, be in the moment. In a traditional therapy session, there's really nothing else to focus on other than the person you're talking to. When you're in the kitchen, doing something else with a therapist, people are really able to just kind of relax and be more themselves. I try to incorporate the things people already have positive connections and positive feelings to and it just helps set the right stage.

MIKKI FRANK, WORKING MOTHER: Whenever grandma would cook, we all came running.

OHANA: I think about what the client wants to focus on.

FRANK: I'm definitely feeling a lot of the push and pull between, you know, my priority, which is my children and also a job which I love.

Look how fluffy it is. I love it.

OHANA: A lot is just conversation. The difference is I always have my social worker/therapist hat on and I pick up on certain cues you wouldn't notice. Make a point of reaching out to one another. We all have to eat, so you're learning something that's coping well for you, hopefully, but also a life skill we all need.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: I love this one. Love this story.

PAUL: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Seventeen-year-old Gabe Fleisher, who writes a political newsletter, beat Bill de Blasio to his own 2020 campaign announcement.

PAUL: Gabe said he saw an announcement in a politics blog that tipped him off. This was an invitation to see de Blasio at his, quote, first stop on his presidential announcement tour.

Gabe Fleisher is with us now. Bless him. He got up early on a Sunday morning to talk to us.

Gabe, good to meet you. Walk us through how you found this announcement.

GABE FLEISHER, AUTHOR, "WAKE UP TO POLITICS" NEWSLETTER: Sure, each morning in my newsletter, I include the schedules for all the 2020 presidential candidates. Like you said, there's a website I go to often that compiles the press releases for candidates and state parties. So, I noticed the one about de Blasio and he was coming to Iowa as part of his presidential tour, and that kind rang a few bells since he hadn't announced yet, so I was able to tweet that out and preempt his announcement.

PAUL: Smart man, smart man.

BLACKWELL: Presidential announcement, I don't remember him making a presidential announcement.

So, Gabe, have you heard anything from de Blasio? Has there been any response?

FLEISHER: A little bit. The night I tweeted it out, I did reach out the de Blasio campaign for comment, trying to get them to confirm he would be announcing his bid. They did confirm he would be going to Iowa but they declined to confirm his bid and that was all I heard from them.

[07:55:00] PAUL: So, was it a mess-up that someone said, hey, there's this invitation to come to this presidential announcement and maybe the presidential announcement part wasn't supposed to be in the invitation.

FLEISHER: Yes, I think it was the Woodbury Democratic Party in Iowa and I think they put out the announcement too early or included the part about his bid so they scooped the de Blasio campaign and then I was --

PAUL: And then you scooped --

FLEISHER: I saw that and I was able to scoop a lot of media outlets.

BLACKWELL: So, I'm looking at your archives. You start each blast: I'm Gabe Fleisher reporting live from WUTP world headquarters in my bedroom. So, tell me how you put this together and why you launched "Wake UP to Politics".

FLEISHER: Yes, so, I started the newsletter in 2011 when I was 9 years old. I sent it as an email to my mom. She was my first subscriber. I I've always loved politics. I've got 50,000 subscribers now. I wake up each morning at 6:00 and start putting it together and get it out by 7:30 and then I go out to high school.

PAUL: Wow. OK. So, here's my question. Do you want to report on politics in the future or do you want to be in politics in the future?

FLEISHER: I really love journalism. I love to inform people and I see myself continuing political journalism for as long as possible.

BLACKWELL: Gabe Fleisher, 50,000 subscribers.

PAUL: That's impressive.

BLACKWELL: Well, congratulations on "Wake UP to Politics" and the scoop on the de Blasio campaign. It's good to talk to you this morning.

FLEISHER: Good talking to you. Thanks so much.

PAUL: Wishing you the very best. We may see you here some day. Gabe, take care.

FLEISHER: You, too.

PAUL: Thank you.

I love stories like that.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it's good.

PAUL: Good kid.

All righty. We want to thank you for waking up with us on Saturday and Sunday morning.

BLACKWELL: Waking up to politics in our own way.

PAUL: In our own way, absolutely. We hope you make good memories today.

BLACKWELL: All right. "INSIDE POLITICS" with John King is up next.

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