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Interview with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA); Interview with Carla Provost; Brooks Koepka Wins PGA Championship. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired May 20, 2019 - 10:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:31:18] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: All right. Welcome back. So this morning, 2020 presidential hopeful Kamala Harris unveils her plan to fight for equal pay for women across the country.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: So what she wants to do that's different here is put the pressure squarely on employers, making them prove that they're paying women the same as men. That's an important distinction because currently, it tends to be up to women. They have to go through the hurdles of proving --

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTT0: -- that they are being paid the same as men. She would put it on the companies, the employers.

Joining us now, CNN's Kyung Lah. She caught up with Senator Harris to talk about her fight for justice, for working women anywhere. Certainly a key issue for a lot of women voters as we head into 2020.

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And very popular. She was announcing and teeing this up at her rally in Los Angeles yesterday. It was unveiled this morning. And she sat down to talk with CNN about the importance of this policy, shifting the burden, as you say, away from the employees who usually have to file the lawsuits, and moving that target squarely on corporate America.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There will be penalties if they don't.

(APPLAUSE)

LAH (voice-over): "Enough is enough," says Senator Kamala Harris, unveiling a policy to close the gender pay gap.

HARRIS: Show us what you got. That's it.

LAH (voice-over): "That's the starting point," Harris explained to CNN. She'd require companies to get an equal pay certification.

HARRIS: What I am proposing is we shift the burden. It should not be on that working woman to prove it. It should instead be on that large corporation, to prove they're paying people for equal work, equally. It's that simple. It's literally that simple.

LAH (voice-over): Companies would have to open their books, disclosing what they pay to employees, prove women and men are paid equally for equal work. And if disparities exist, show the gap is based on merit performance or seniority, not gender.

TEXT: Equal Pay Certification: Disclose what is paid to employees; Prove women and men are paid equally; Show gap is based on merit, performance, or seniority

LAH (voice-over): For every 1 percent pay gap, the Harris administration would fine companies 1 percent of their daily profits.

(APPLAUSE)

Harris cites the latest census data.

HARRIS: Women for the same work, for the equal work, on average make 80 cents on the dollar. And this has got to end.

(APPLAUSE)

LAH (voice-over): Harris would boost funding and enforcement power to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And like her previous gun violence proposal, if Congress doesn't act on equal pay, Harris says she'll enact her plan by executive action.

LAH: Were this to come through in a Harris administration, you would hear from banks, from tech companies --

HARRIS: Across the board.

LAH: -- JPMorgan.

HARRIS: Across the board.

LAH: Would you be prepared to take off your earrings and engage in this sort of fight?

HARRIS: Yes.

LAH: You're looking --

HARRIS: I've been in those fights before. I come at it with a spirit of believing that when large corporations are required to do this, that they will understand that it is something they actually should concern themselves with.

LAH: Harris who has targeted boosting teacher pay and a middle-class tax cut, was raised by a working single mother and wants to flip the script for working Americans.

HARRIS: We were often there before she, you know -- came home from school before she came home from work. She would cook dinner and she would stay up at the kitchen table, doing work, figuring out how to pay the bills. So it is my intention to correct what has been wrong about the way we have designed the system.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: Now, what the Harris administration will say to critics who say this can't be done in the United States, "Take a look around the globe." There are similar policies already in place and enacted in the U.K. as well as Iceland. They are borrowing some of the elements of that, Poppy and Jim. they believe it can happen here because that data is already held --

[10:35:06] HARLOW: Yes.

LAH: -- by companies who hire employees.

HARLOW: It can happen. Will it happen? That's the question. It's an important one. And Kyung, a question of the week to you. Will you take off the earrings and engage in the fight? That was a good one.

(LAUGHTER)

LAH: Thank you --

HARLOW: Thank you.

LAH: -- referring to her conversation with JPMorgan during the foreclosure crisis --

HARLOW: Right.

LAH: -- yes.

HARLOW: Totally. All right. Kyung Lah, great interview. Great reporting. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: No question. Good to have her on the senator this election cycle.

Well, the White House is changing course. Why it is reversing plans to send migrants arrested at the border, specifically to sanctuary cities.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:16] SCIUTTO: Well, another day -- what appears to be another reversal from the White House. The acting homeland security secretary, Kevin McAleenan, now says migrants captured along the southern U.S. border will not be sent to sanctuary cities.

There's been some public discussion of that after the president, some members of his administration had expressed their support for that idea.

With me to discuss is Carla Provost. She is the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol.

Chief, it's great to have you back on.

CARLA PROVOST, CHIEF, U.S. BORDER PATROL: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: So, first, let's start with that. Do you welcome this announcement clarifying U.S. policy as to where these migrants will go?

PROVOST: I think it's great for us to clarify. This is not something that we've had any intent that I have been aware of. The fact that the secretary got out and put that information out.

We are trying to deal with this crisis as close to the southwest border as we possibly can. That being said, the numbers are very large. We've apprehended over 540,000 people already this year.

SCIUTTO: And I want to get to that because the numbers have --

PROVOST: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- been going up. Why the disconnect, then, there? Because if the DHS secretary says, "We ain't going to do this," and you're saying you never had direction to it, why the disconnect between the president's public comments, then, on this plan?

PROVOST: I can't really speak to that, not being -- being a career employee, all I know is that we have been focusing on movement of individuals along the southwest border.

SCIUTTO: OK. So where will they go now?

PROVOST: So we are trying to spread the wealth. I guess I shouldn't say it in that fashion, but I have certain locations that are getting hit really hard, like South Texas. I don't have the capacity to hold all of the individuals throughout processing, so we are moving some laterally within Texas, and a few to California.

SCIUTTO: So you mean like share the burden. So a small handful of communities aren't taking the lion's share?

PROVOST: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: OK.

Let's talk about another issue because family separation, of course, has been an issue. A new court-ordered effort to identify potentially thousands of additional immigrant families has found more than 1,700 cases of possible separation. And that's just so far. So that's 1,700 families affected by this.

You're on the front lines of this. I know you're being inundated. Can you tell us how this happened and in your view, has this successfully been stopped now?

PROVOST: Well, there are always cases where we will separate for the welfare of a child.

SCIUTTO: How so? Tell us the circumstances.

PROVOST: For instance, if the parent has a serious criminal background or a criminal convictions. So that still happens today. That has always happened. And the -- I've worked under four administrations, and we have always had some cases of family separation. So you are going to see some as we go back and look through those numbers.

Other circumstances could be for serious medical conditions for instance.

SCIUTTO: So you're saying -- because early on, the question had been, "This is an explicit policy intended to deter." There were even, you know, the former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said publicly it was meant to be a deterrent.

You're saying that -- what -- you're on the front lines here. You're not doing any of the separation as a deterrent now, you're doing it under only very specific circumstances.

PROVOST: That's correct.

SCIUTTO: OK. The president announced, as you know, a new immigration plan -- or proposal, I should say -- last week. And one of the key changes here was instituting a points-based system that would favor highly skilled workers over many of the folks -- and you and I talked about this last time you came on our program -- that most of these migrants or asylum-seekers are coming for economic reasons. They're coming because where they're coming from --

PROVOST: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- there just aren't good jobs. There's not a good way forward.

Looking at that -- and, again, I know you're a career employee. I'm just curious about effects on the ground. Would a point system like that help solve, to some degree, the problem you're facing at the southern border?

PROVOST: Well, in that portion, that's talking about legal immigration. So --

SCIUTTO: Right.

PROVOST: -- what I deal with between the ports of entry is strictly illegal immigration. The impact there, I'm not exactly sure what that will have. But the system in and of itself, I believe, makes sense.

SCIUTTO: You raised a good point, though, there. Because this is the legal system and you would incentivize this. But it's another issue as to why people pick up and leave their country in Central America or Mexico and say, "Listen, nothing's happening here for the sake of my kids, my family, myself. I'm just going to go north and try my luck," right?

I mean, that's another problem that, I assume, requires another solution.

PROVOST: It certainly does. I think we have to address both the push factors from the sending countries -- what's going on in those countries that's leading these families to want to leave and make that dangerous journey here -- as well as some of the pull factors. And one of those pull factors is if you come as a family, if you come with a child, you're going to be released.

SCIUTTO: Right. You get into the judicial system, as it were, and then while you're waiting for your court date, you're released. That's the --

PROVOST: Exactly. That's right.

SCIUTTO: How about the push factor? Because as you know, the president raised ending or significantly reducing aid to these countries, designed to stabilize so that you don't have -- what would you like to see?

And again, I'm not asking you as a policymaker or as a presidential candidate. I'm asking you as someone on the front lines. Would you like to see America helping those countries more so that there aren't those push factors that you talk about?

[10:40:01] PROVOST: Well, I know we do have individuals over in those countries that are working with the governments to try to help. Department of State, of course, that's their focus more than it is mine. But certainly an area where they are working diligently to try to address those factors.

SCIUTTO: Is there something in the proposals out there right now, whether from the president or from lawmakers, that you haven't seen proposed that you're saying, "Listen, this is what we need today"?

PROVOST: Well, I wouldn't say that we haven't seen proposed. It's certainly been proposed. We need to be able to detain families together through an expeditious immigration process.

SCIUTTO: I see.

PROVOST: We absolutely have to be able to do that.

SCIUTTO: Got you. Keep them together, get them through the process, give them a decision, decide if they're a genuine asylum-seeker or not.

PROVOST: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: Chief Provost, thanks so much for having -- coming on --

PROVOST: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: -- and we hope we can keep up the conversation. PROVOST: I appreciate it. Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Well, HBO's hit show, "Game of Thrones" --

HARLOW: Oh --

SCIUTTO: Oh, sorry, Poppy. You know I like talking about "Game of Thrones" --

HARLOW: But I just --

SCIUTTO: -- so I can't -- I can't stop, you know?

HARLOW: Well, I was on a plane so I didn't even see the thing. So you go for (ph) it, my friend.

SCIUTTO: You've got to watch it. That's homework. That's homework --

HARLOW: I know.

SCIUTTO: -- for this broadcast.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: You go ahead, my friend.

SCIUTTO: All right. It's finally over, in case you weren't watching last night. Fans are split over the ending. I'm sort of in the positive camp, I think. We'll have a recap of last night's series finale.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Well, Brooks Koepka, holding on Sunday to win his second straight PGA championship. That is no small thing.

HARLOW: Yes. It is no small thing. Andy Scholes, live at Bethpage Black with the "Bleacher Report."

Good morning.

ANDY SCHOLES, SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Good morning, Poppy and Jim. You know, it certainly looks like we've entered into the Brooks Koepka era of golf. You know, the majority of fans came here to Bethpage Black last Thursday and Friday to see Tiger Woods, but they may have accidentally seen the passing of the torch in terms of the golf world.

Yes, Koepka absolutely dominated this tournament. He led wire-to- wire. But things did get really close yesterday afternoon. Koepka started the day up seven strokes. The lead got all the way down to just one stroke with four holes to go. But Koepka was able to hold off Dustin Johnson and win by two.

Now, this is Koepka's fourth major win his last eight tries. He's now the first golfer ever to hold back-to-back titles in two different majors. Koepka also is the reigning two-time U.S. Open champ.

Now, the 29-year-old from Florida doesn't show much emotion out there on the course. But he did after putting on 18. And our own Don Riddell sat down with Koepka and asked him about that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS KOEPKA, PGA CHAMPION: I felt great, to say -- to say it mildly. It was special. the emotion I had there on 18 was something I've never experienced as a golfer, something you don't see very often, even with me. Emotionless, I can be stoic at times. But that one -- that one meant more to me than I think people will ever know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right. The Raptors in a must-win situation last night against the Bucks in game three of the Eastern Conference finals in Jurassic Park, the area where all the fans gather outside the arena, boy, it was just rocking.

And this was a nail-biter, late (ph). Closing seconds, Bucks down two. Khris Middleton drives, gets blocked but recovers. Going to put it in to tie the game.

The game would go to two overtimes and in double OT, Kawhi Leonard just taking this game over. Raptors win 118-112, to get back into this series.

The Western Conference finals, meanwhile, it continues tonight, the Warriors going for the sweep of the Blazers. Portland down 0-3 (INAUDIBLE), no one's ever come back from that kind of deficit. So not looking good for the Portland Trailblazers.

SCIUTTO: Andy Scholes, thanks very much.

HARLOW: All right. I know what you were doing, my friend, last night --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: -- at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, along with almost everyone else except for me. Eight seasons of epic battles, political intrigue and shocking deaths came to an end last night with the series finale of the "Game of Thrones."

SCIUTTO: Well, millions of fans, they stayed up last night. I was one of them. That was one of the great scenes right there, I'll tell you.

The question this morning, are they satisfied with the answers to who would finally sit on the Iron Throne?

Joining us now, CNN Business media writer Frank Pallotta.

And, Frank, no spoilers because there might be some people out there -- including that woman on the left of the screen there -- who didn't watch it last night. What did you think of the final? And tell us what the kind of Twittersphere "Game of Thrones"-isphere thought of it in general.

FRANK PALLOTTA, CNN BUSINESS MEDIA WRITER: Well, I thought it was fine. Just fine. But in terms of social media, they were not really happy with it whatsoever. The reviews are decidedly mixed. Most people kind of felt like it wasn't the greatest thing in the world, while other people thought it was the worst thing in the world.

To give you an example, on Rotten Tomatoes, the critic score is around 57 percent. That's not great. And then IMDB, the user rating is like four and a half out of 10. So people aren't very happy with the ending. A lot of people felt like it wasn't very satisfying.

[10:55:03] But with the lofty expectations, I don't think it was ever going to match what people really wanted.

HARLOW: No joke here, Frank. Someone has started a Change.org petition against this thing. They want it remade. And it has a million signatures?

PALLOTTA: Yes. It has a million signatures. And to those people I say, "Kind of let this go." You know? It's -- you don't have autonomy over this story. The writers do.

And I think we need to look past the last couple seasons that felt kind of rushed and messy, and think about what this show has really done. It's changed television irreparably. It's changed the way we tell stories on television. And for multiple years, it gave us great characters and great story lines and a great communal experience at a time when media's really fragmented.

I think last night was a letdown. I don't think it was very satisfying. I thought it was personally just fine. But overall, you can't hate on "Game of Thrones" for what it did. It changed television.

HARLOW: Yes. For sure.

SCIUTTO: Respect.

HARLOW: All right. There you go. Maybe I'll start watching. Is it too late, guys?

SCIUTTO: Get around to it, Poppy. Come on.

HARLOW: I will. I'm busy reading your book.

SCIUTTO: Oh, yes?

HARLOW: Frank Pallotta, thank you.

Lawmakers back on the Hill today, following a major first. A Republican member of Congress says the president has engaged in impeachable conduct. More on that ahead.