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New Day

Sanders' Student Debt Proposal; Buttigieg Faces Leadership Test; Trump Accused of Assault in 1990s; Tornadoes and Floods Hammer Midwest; New Sanctions on Iran. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 24, 2019 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm sure it will be very popular. You know, we did a little mini sample in the green room and it's, you know, thumbs up from anybody who's got student debt.

On the other hand, just as John says, what problem is it that we're trying to solve here, you know? I mean there are -- there's --

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The student debt problem.

LOUIS: Well, you know, one way to deal with that is to allow it to be discharged into bankruptcy, which was, you know, since 2005 has not been something that's been available. That is a huge problem. People are already at the end of their rope financially and the one debt you can't get rid of, you know. Credit cards, maybe. Mortgage, for sure. But you can't get rid of your -- your -- you know, so, look, this is clearly -- I think the telling point here is when he says, it's available to everybody regardless of income. Meaning, the children of billionaires will be able to get this debt relief also. Bernie Sanders sees himself, I think, falling in the polls a little bit. He sees others kind of rising up in his same area and he wants to reclaim leadership. And so he's got the biggest, richest, in some ways least defensible plan that's out there. And so if you like dealing with student debt, nobody's going to go further than this one. This is just basically saying --

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You can't go --

LOUIS: Everyone pays --

BERMAN: Unless you're going to pay the student debt that I already paid off. Which does get to another issue. And I don't mean to make light of this, because I could see a generational problem here, which is there are -- this is the first time I've felt old, ever.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

BERMAN: Except sitting next to you, because you make me feel old every day.

CAMEROTA: Awful.

BERMAN: But, you know, I -- I was paying student debt into my 30s.

CAMEROTA: Right.

BERMAN: I couldn't buy a house until I was after 40 because of this.

Why is it that I had to pay all of that but the kids now won't have to?

JESS MCINTOSH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I will make my last student loan payment sometime in the next couple of months. I was told when I graduated that I would be paying these bills until I was 37. That seemed like an unimaginable number at the time. And here we are.

I think it's amazing if we can turn around and not saddle the next kids coming up with that because I -- I'm not a homeowner. It's -- it's meant that -- that, you know, there's real life implications for carrying around that kind of massive amount of debt. I didn't even go to law school.

So we -- that's a national crisis. And it fits for Bernie to talk about it in his -- if we are willing to have bailed out the banks, we need to be willing to bail out the student who are now settled with is debt and incapable of contributing to the economy in the way that they want to and the way that we need them to.

So I think strong, bold proposals are great. I'm glad that he did something detailed. I'm glad that we can finally sit down and compare this plan to Elizabeth Warren's plan because we have them both. That's what the primary is for. I think -- I think this is going to be a really excellent conversation.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about something else that's happening not on the campaign trail, and that's Mayor Pete Buttigieg. He's gone home to South Bend, Indiana, taken himself off the campaign trail because of the anger there about a police shooting. And Pete Buttigieg had this town hall and everybody in the audience were fired up, angry, confronting him. And what is interesting, John, I think is his affect. When he gets upset, he gets more subdued in an interesting way. So you didn't hear him sort of getting exercised, you heard him like lowering his voice. We have a moment of him talking to the crowd, so listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-IN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is my city. And I have a relationship with everybody in this city who looks to the city to keep them safe. And when somebody loses their life because of a civilian, or because of an officer, and it's happening all over the country, but it's happening here, then I feel like it's my job to face it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: He was emotional. I mean he seemed emotional there. So this is a leadership challenge, obviously, for him.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, and it's coming right in advance of the first Democratic debate. He took himself off the campaign trail.

And while he is he anti-Trump in terms of getting quieter when the situation gets louder, folks in the town hall were fired up. And there are real problems here. First of all, a cop accused of killing a civilian. The body cam not turned on. Second of all, the police force in South Bend has gotten less diverse under his eight years as mayor. So these are real problems for him as mayor and also facing a Democratic primary in the first debate.

BERMAN: You know, Errol, people don't emerge from a ten-day controversy over a police-involved shooting feeling good, right? However, I think Buttigieg needed to go back there and look as if he was addressing it --

LOUIS: Sure.

BERMAN: And make people feel as if the work was happening. I can't tell, based on the town meeting last night and the reaction to it, if the result was what he wanted.

LOUIS: You know, it's interesting, I was driving while the town hall was going on, so I actually heard it on the radio. It didn't see what was going on. And it sounded like a disaster, honestly. That he -- you know, there's a lot of work that wasn't done. One of the themes that kept coming up was, we've been through this before. You made promises to us about things that were going to change, about recruitment, about police body cameras, about more input from more parts of the community. And in point after point after point he had to acknowledge it didn't work out the way I -- I had hoped. It wasn't working out the way that I had promised.

And that has real world effects, you know? I mean like for the police department to go from -- in a town that's about a quarter black -- from 10 percent of the force to 5 percent of the force, that's not acceptable.

BERMAN: Right.

[06:35:06] LOUIS: I mean, look, the -- I looked it up on the website. You can apply on the web. Starting salary is $53,000. You need a college degree and you pass a physical test. It's a great job. There are people in South Bend, I hear, who know how to go nationwide and recruit great young talent. That's the way you're supposed to do it. It didn't happen. So I don't know if it helps him very much.

It was gutsy, I think, to allow it to be televised. He easily could have ordered the cameras out of the room. But to let everybody sort of have an open window into a crisis that he has not handled very well up until now is a pretty bold move.

CAMEROTA: OK, Jess, we need to move on to what happened with the president over the weekend.

MCINTOSH: Yes.

CAMEROTA: He was accused of rape. So in the past, during the campaign, 15, by our count at least 15 women, came forward to lodge some complaint about sexual assault --

MCINTOSH: Right.

CAMEROTA: Or sexual misconduct. Now it is rape. And E. Jean Carroll, who is a well-known, famous advice columnist, has been around forever, has a plausible sounding story.

MCINTOSH: Yes.

CAMEROTA: She's going to be on our program in the next hour. And this is rape.

MCINTOSH: Yes. I mean E. Jean Carroll is somebody who is a known quantity, a highly respected woman, somebody with a lot on the line right now to go forward with something like this. She bravely told the story of what happened 23 years ago. It sounds exactly like the 15 other credible accusations of sexual misconduct and the misconduct that the president himself admitted to on tape. So I think there's literally nothing out here to say that this is anything but a credible accusation against the president of the United States of a violent rape that happened 23 years ago.

CAMEROTA: I mean there's his denial. There's his denial and he says I've never met this woman, though there's a picture of them meeting at a party. But he says this didn't happen. She's accusing other men as well. I mean she basically has this new book in which she tells her story over decades of the sexual harassment and sexual misconduct that she's been on the receiving end of, of different powerful men.

MCINTOSH: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: But the Trump one is a rape.

MCINTOSH: Yes, the part -- the Trump one is actually a rape. And his denial was to lie about it. And we all know that he lied about it. He said, I never met that woman, when the article that he saw with her accusation contains a photo of them together.

So the fact that that was covered in "The New York Times" in the book section is pretty problematic. And the fact that that's not leading -- I'm so glad that she's on this morning. I couldn't wait to see whether we were going to see her on Monday. That's incredibly -- that's -- that's very helpful.

CAMEROTA: Right. How have we become so immune that the president of the United States can be accused of rape and we -- we are so -- I mean, I feel it myself, it's just -- it feels like the 16th claim instead of the headline.

MCINTOSH: The rage of women is really incandescent right now. And what happened on Friday was that the Christine Blasey Ford wounds, the wounds of the 16 women who came forward in the campaign and nothing was done all got reopened. So if we don't see this story move real fast up -- up the story ladder -- and I realize a lot was happening on Friday, but a woman accused the president of rape. That is a front page story. And that is how we all have to treat it or this is never going to stop.

BERMAN: That interview coming up 7:30-ish?

CAMEROTA: Yes, 7:30-ish. We'll have E. Jean Carroll her here with her own story.

Thank you all very much. Great to talk to you.

So, a tornadoes and major floods sweeping through the Midwest and more severe weather is on the way. All of that is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:42:13] CAMEROTA: A powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake jolting Indonesia's Banda Sea. Tremors could be felt as far away as northern Australia, about 450 miles away. Listen to this.

So you can hear the rattling, you can see some of the shaking there. That's CNN's affiliate 9 News. That's their studios in Darwin. They report that buildings throughout the city were evacuated because of this quake. Thankfully, there is no tsunami threat to Australia at the moment.

BERMAN: All right, that's good news.

New this morning, severe weather hammering the Midwest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get in the basement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get in the basement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Look at that. People in and near South Bend, Indiana, they are assessing the damage after at least one tornado touched down there. A daycare center suffered major damage.

And intense flooding in Oklahoma, it took a deadly turn. A 64-year-old woman's vehicle was swept into a flooded creek.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers now has the forecast.

Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: One tornado yesterday, John. You showed the picture there. But look at the severe wind damage, 185 reports.

Now, over the past week, 1,600 wind damage reports from these storms that we've seen all week long.

This weather is brought to you by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, packed with goodness.

So another round today. Another severe round across the deep south. All the way up, even into Chicago with the potential of severe weather today. There is what the rainfall is going to look like around 9:00 this morning and then all the way through the afternoon. The rain does roll through Chicago. Chance of rain through Atlanta. Many flights through Atlanta were canceled yesterday or delayed or diverted as the weather rolled right over the city around 4:00, the worst possible time.

Here's where the showers and storms will be today where the yellow is. That's where the most severe weather will be. And also a little bit of heavy rainfall, too, possible along the Gulf Coast. That's where the flooding would be if there were any flooding issues this afternoon.

Otherwise, temperatures a few degrees above where we should be. But, really, we'll take the heat because when you get the showers and the thundershowers to actually cool it down a little bit in the afternoon doesn't feel too bad as long as those showers aren't severe.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chad, thank you very much for that.

MYERS: You bet.

CAMEROTA: All right, so winning the lottery is a one in a million shot, right? Well, not exactly. For the 2,000 winners of one North Carolina jackpot, the winning numbers they all had, next.

BERMAN: This is crazy.

CAMEROTA: I would never pick these numbers. I would never have picked these numbers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:48:40] CAMEROTA: President Trump is pushing Congress to take action after he announced then delayed those ICE raids in ten major U.S. cities. It's being delayed for two weeks. The president insists that mass deportations will proceed (INAUDIBLE) crisis at the border. President Trump announced the delay after receiving criticism from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as the mayors of those cities where the raids were set to occur. Acting ICE Director Mark Morgan blamed leaks for the delay. He did not specify what information was leaked or who leaked it. The president himself tweeted about this plan, you'll remember, last Monday.

BERMAN: Big developments this morning in horse racing. A Hall of Fame trainer has been banned from Santa Anita Park after a 30th horse died at the track. The trainer, Jerry Hollendorfer, has lost four of his horses since the racing season began in December. Track officials say he is no longer welcome to stable, race or train his horses at any of their facilities. Hollendorfer says the decision to ban him was premature and extreme.

CAMEROTA: OK, so there was a big lottery in North Carolina. And here are the numbers that won. 0-0-0-0.

BERMAN: Who plays that?

CAMEROTA: Who thinks of that?

BERMAN: Who plays that?

CAMEROTA: I don't know, but apparently a lot of people because this was for $7.8 million. This was a pick four lottery. And so many people -- 2,000 people, John, picked it. There were 2,000 winners for the 0- 0-0-0. About half of the winners bought a $1 ticket. They will get $5,000 each. The rest purchased a 50 cent ticket worth $2,500 apiece. Lottery officials are warning the winners to expect extended wait times when picking up their prizes.

[06:50:19] You have I have been playing this all wrong.

BERMAN: I don't get it. No one picks that number. I still don't believe this story because no one would pick that number.

CAMEROTA: I agree with you.

BERMAN: Who are these 2,000 people?

CAMEROTA: Two thousand people.

BERMAN: It's the worst number to pick.

CAMEROTA: Or the best. I think we've learned our lesson.

BERMAN: All right.

Any minute this morning we should learn the scope of the new U.S. sanctions on Iran, and there is new fallout from the president's decision to call back a military attack. This is all next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Here it is. Look, you can't have nuclear weapons. If you want to talk about it? Good. Otherwise, you can live in a shattered economy for a long time to come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, breaking this morning, President Trump is promising new sanctions on Iran. How far will they go? And what's the latest fallout from this decision to call back a military strike?

Joining me now is David Sanger, national security correspondent for "The New York Times" and a CNN political and national security analyst.

[06:55:01] And, David, the dust is really still settling from that dramatic decision by the president to call back this military strike. We're expecting new sanctions very shortly. But the larger question here is, what options does the U.S. really have if the goal is to contain or force action by Iran? And you wrote a great article in "The Times" over the weekend and the headline was Trump has few appealing options. Why?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, the main reason, John, that he has few appealing options is that under the Iran deal that he walked away from about a year ago, the problem wasn't getting worse. The Iranians were complying with the deal and so they weren't moving toward a nuclear capability very quickly. In fact, they were pretty well frozen from any serious nuclear production until 2030.

Having taken the deal off, the administration said now the U.S. would re-impose sanctions, which it couldn't do under the deal, but the Iranians had to stay inside the deal. And that worked for a year because the Iranians thought that they could peel the Europeans away from the U.S.

Now what's happening is, they're beginning to break out. And that's what's giving us the sense of crisis here, that as the administration puts on more sanctions, you're seeing this activity in the gulf and you're also see the Iranians begin to ramp up their nuclear production. It's not quite what the president says. He said we -- they can't get nuclear weapons. They're still pretty far from nuclear weapons. A country that's gotten nuclear weapons, there's North Korea, we'll deal with that later. But they need to be able to stay about a year away from a capability to build a single weapon.

BERMAN: It's interesting because Iran, this morning, the president said that sanctions and war are on the same side of the coin, basically. That the U.S. sanctions, if we do impose more sanctions today, or when we do, that that is tantamount to a war footing.

What will the Iranian response be?

SANGER: Well, it's interesting because that's basically taking on the Iranians' language. The Iranians, for the past couple of weeks, including the moderates, like Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, have referred to the sanctions as economic warfare. And they feel, I think, a lot like the Japanese felt in 1941 as the U.S. oil sanctions that kept oil from going to Japan set in. And the Japanese response was to feel, oh, my God, if we don't act now, our economy will be so weak in a year that we won't be able to deal with the Americans. And I think the Iranians have very much the same sense, which is probably why they're lashing out.

So you talked about options before. One option would be raise the level of this crisis and then do something President Trump's done before in the North Korea context, which is suddenly flip and say we're willing to negotiate and will suspend a portion of these sanctions. And the question is, would the Iranians take that deal?

The other option is combine the sanctions with more cyberattacks. And, of course, we saw over the weekend that the United States has begun some so far fairly modest cyberattacks against Iranian intelligence units believed to be responsible for those attacks on the ships.

BERMAN: So, very quickly, it was interesting to hear the president say in terms of Iran, here's -- you know, you can have -- you can't have nuclear weapons. In terms of talks, you can't have nuclear weapons. And if you want to talk about it, good. Otherwise, you can live in a shattered economy for a long time to come.

The dichotomy between Iran and North Korea could not be bigger because Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons. And, in fact, the nuclear deal was working. So he's sort of saying, you know, we'll take what you were already giving us and we'll have talks, but on North Korea they do have nuclear weapons and the president's willing to talk.

SANGER: That's -- it's somewhat remarkable. And the president really never talks about the two of these together because I think it would be so hard to do. So over the -- over the weekend we learned that the president has sent another letter back to Kim Jong-un. The North Koreans refer to it as an excellent letter. But you could see, as Mr. Kim was holding it, you couldn't quite read the words but you could sort of see in reverse the type. It's a pretty short letter.

So what that tells you is they're still at the point of discussing platitudes with each other. But as you say, they have nuclear weapons already, 20 to 60, and the Iranians have none.

BERMAN: Yes, it is -- it is a diametrically different posture toward the Iranians and North Korea, both having to do with nuclear weapons. Hard to get the same understanding on them.

David Sanger, thank you very much for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

SANGER: Great to be with you.

BERMAN: All right, thank you to our international viewers for watching. For you CNN "TALK" is next. For our American viewers, Bernie Sanders set to unveil a big proposal that would erase college debt for every American. NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Bernie Sanders unveiling a plan to eliminate all student debt in the United States.

[07:00:01] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sanders says he's going to pay for it with new taxes on Wall Street.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hillary Clinton was a great candidate. She was ruthless and vicious.

I would actually rather than run against Biden.

END