Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Democrats Call for Alex Acosta to Resign; Joe Biden to Give Foreign Policy Speech Today; Reporters Uncover Evidence PG&E Responsible for California Camp Fire. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired July 11, 2019 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:30:00]
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- and sanctions against Syria, and that was held by Royal Marines commanders off the coast of Gibraltar, Poppy.
But nonetheless, very much adding to this highly explosive situation. One false move in a situation like this and everybody agrees the whole -- the situation could get very catastrophic -- Poppy.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Yes. That's the one thing that all the sides agree on here, is that if there's one miscalculation or misread or misinterpretation, that things could become drastic.
Sam Kiley, live in Abu Dhabi this morning. Thank you very much.
Ahead for us, Secretary Alex Acosta defends his involvement in that controversial plea deal given to billionaire Jeffrey Epstein for sex crimes against minors. What's going to happen to him, going forward? We'll talk about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:35:22] HARLOW: All right, welcome back. A pair of 2020 candidates are joining the list of Democrats that are calling for Alexander Acosta to step down from his role as labor secretary. Jay Inslee and Pete Buttigieg say that Acosta should resign after he defended his role in Jeffrey Epstein's sweetheart plea deal for sex crimes against minors more than 10 years ago.
TEXT: Dems Calling for Acosta to Resign: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Tim Ryan, Rep. Seth Moulton, Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke, John Delaney, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Tim Kaine, Gov. Jay Inslee, Mayor Pete Buttigieg
HARLOW: Acosta defended his involvement with this press conference yesterday. He was pushing the blame largely onto state prosecutors. And the White House, officials from there say the labor secretary, at least at this point, still maintains the president's support.
Our national correspondent Brynn Gingras is here to fact-check Acosta's claim.
So what did we hear yesterday that stands out to you the most, and how accurate was it?
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's a lot there, Poppy. Acosta really spent a long time explaining himself to the press corps yesterday, backing up those decisions, as you said, that he and his -- others in his office made a decade ago. And CNN did go through some of these points and some really just didn't totally add up.
Well, first, let's talk about the witnesses. When the discussing the evidence his office reviewed at the time, Acosta said there wasn't enough witnesses willing to testify, that they were too scared.
Well, the fact is, they had 36 witnesses. And according to a court filing, there were witnesses scared to have their identifies known, but it's not necessary, remember, to have all the witnesses comply to move forward.
Acosta also placed blame, as you said, Poppy, on the Palm Beach County attorney, taking credit for himself, saying if the U.S. Attorney's Office didn't step in, Epstein would have walked free.
Well, the fact is, federal prosecutors have much more resources available to them than any local office. And U.S. attorneys knew the number of victims. They had Epstein's -- evidence of his operation, that it was going widespread. And that's according to paper -- courtroom filings.
The Palm Beach County prosecutor who worked the case fired back on Acosta's claims in a statement, saying this, "If Mr. Acosta was truly concerned with the State's case and felt he had to rescue the matter, he would have moved forward with the 53-page indictment that his own office drafted.... Mr. Acosta should not be allowed to rewrite history."
And then there was the secrecy, right? The plea deal Epstein made, being kept secret from the victims. Acosta said his office tried to contact victims about the fact that Epstein would plead guilty to a state prostitution charge, and spend just 13 months in jail.
But it's been widely reported that victims were kept in the dark and made significant effort to learn the status of the case, and a federal judge later ruled that the agreement was in violation of victims' rights.
Also, the secret meeting between Acosta and Epstein's attorney, a meeting that many federal prosecutors would say is unusual, Acosta said it happened after that sweetheart plea deal was made with Epstein?
Well, the meeting was first disclosed by the "Miami Herald"'s Julie Brown, who says that the meeting happened out of Acosta's office and at the time, discussed not telling the victims about the deal. And Brown really gave a very encompassing thought about Acosta, and she was on "NEW DAY" this morning, talking about it. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ALYSIN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So, I mean, did you conclude it's cronyism? I mean, that you just thought that he had a friendly -- a friendly past relationship with those lawyers?
JULIE K. BROWN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, MIAMI HERALD: Well, not only cronyism, but also it was ambition, I think. And to some degree, it worked. I mean, look, he's a cabinet member now, you know? And you know, the sad part about this is that all his prosecutors that worked in that office, from what we can see, also fell in line behind him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GINGRAS: Yes, Poppy, there is a lot there. My colleague, Erica Orden, breaking it down as well on CNN.com. People should definitely take a look at that -- Poppy.
HARLOW: Yes. It's a great piece. Brynn, thank you so much for laying that all out.
Let's talk about legally where this goes. Former federal prosecutor Kan Nawaday is here with me.
What's interesting is you're a defense attorney now, so you can kind of see both sides of this --
KAN NAWADAY, FORMER CORRUPTION AND FRAUD PROSECUTOR, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: That's right.
HARLOW: -- if this -- where this goes. But let's just take a moment to listen to something that struck me from Acosta's press conference yesterday. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX ACOSTA, SECRETARY OF LABOR: A state grand jury brought that single completely unacceptable charge. A state official allowed Epstein to self-surrender.
I wanted to help them. That is why we intervened. We did what we did because we wanted to see Epstein go to jail.
(CROSSTALK)
ACOSTA: He needed to go to jail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Does that pass the smell test?
NAWADAY: Absolutely not. It makes no sense. As a federal prosecutor, you do have so much discretion and so much power. And there were FBI agents on the ground, still interviewing witnesses, when the Southern District of Florida negotiated this deal. It makes no sense.
[10:40:10] HARLOW: You worked for -- as a prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, that has now taken up the mantle here. And this -- these are the folks that are likely going to actually hold Epstein to account here.
Can you help me understand why this multimillionaire, well-known guy, high-flying, super politically connected to former President Bill Clinton, Trump called him an excellent guy in 2002. Who had a big hours, big fancy apartment here in New York City. When this stuff was happening in the Southern District of Florida, why didn't the SDNY take this up?
NAWADAY: It's hard to say. No one knows. It could have been simply because the Southern District of Florida had equity. They're the ones who opened the case first. And perhaps the Southern District of New York didn't even know about it.
HARLOW: But we know now that there were these victims in New York, at his home here in New York. These alleged victims. So, I mean, I know hindsight's 20/20, but do you think, "Yes, this is probably something the Southern District should have at least looked into back then"? And maybe they did, we don't know. But nothing ever came of it.
NAWADAY: If they knew about it, then I'm sure --
HARLOW: Yes.
NAWADAY: -- calls would have been made. If victims had called them, calls would have been made to the Southern District of Florida.
HARLOW: We heard Acosta yesterday, in this hour-long press conference, place a lot of blame on career prosecutors in his office. This guy was the boss. Is there any world in which it was not up to him?
NAWADAY: Absolutely not. On the NPA -- on every plea agreement, on every indictment, the U.S. attorney's name is in all caps. Every call that is made in that office is the U.S. attorney's call.
HARLOW: And now, as labor secretary -- people may not know this, but -- he is charged with preventing and overseeing human trafficking. Ironic, right?
NAWADAY: It's troubling.
HARLOW: OK. Thank you, Kan, I appreciate it very much.
NAWADAY: Thank you.
HARLOW: Former Vice President Joe Biden, today, will lay out his plan for foreign relations. What's he going to say? Because this is his first major foreign policy speech of his campaign. Jeff Zeleny has that and he is with me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:47:05] HARLOW: All right. Former Vice President Joe Biden, set to deliver his first major speech on foreign policy a little bit later today. He says this is a plan that will repair the damage he says has been done by President Trump.
Our senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny has a preview of what we will hear.
This is a big deal for him because he's going to play this as a strength of experience. "I've been through it. I know this stuff. You can trust me on the world stage." What will he say?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: He is, Poppy. He's also trying to sort of refocus the Democratic debate on --
HARLOW: Right.
ZELENY: -- the larger goal at hand here, is to take on President Trump. So he of course believes he's the strongest Democrat to do that. He hasn't necessarily shown that always, on the campaign trail, certainly on that debate.
But in this speech, we are told, he is going to focus directly on how he would change the policies, how he would change the vision of the Trump administration. Of course, that America First policy, the vice president, I'm told, will argue it has not worked.
We also talked to a senior campaign official who outlined the broad context of his speech in a quote like this. Let's take a look. He said, "At the very moment democracies around the world are looking to the United States to be truly the leader of the free world, President Trump, by embracing autocrats... seems to be playing to the other team.
"The president's assaults on our own democracy, its institutions, its underlying values, has deeply tarnished our ability to lead by the power of our example and to bring others along."
So in that vein, the former vice president is going to be giving a proposal in the first year of his administration. He says he would have a summit for all major world democracies, to come here to the U.S. and talk about democracy. He says the U.S. should be a leader in that direction.
This is going to be very much an anti-Trump administration worldview speech.
HARLOW: Yes.
ZELENY: He won't necessarily be talking about the other Democratic rivals. But that, of course, is still hanging over here. He has a big primary ahead.
TEXT: Joe Biden's Foreign Policy Speech: Calls for a summit for world democracies and corporations within his first year of office; Outlines his foreign policy approach: Repair the United States' democracy, World with international allies to confront China and other bad actors in the global economic system, Restore a hollowed-out diplomatic effort at the State Department HARLOW: And he's going to play his experience, it sounds like, as an advantage for him. But he also has issues that he's going to have to contend with, such as his vote on the Iraq War.
ZELENY: There's no doubt. I mean, that is something that still hangs over, really, every foreign policy conversation. And we saw Bernie Sanders do exactly that at the first debate in Miami late last month. He said, "Joe and I have a big difference." He said --
HARLOW: Right.
ZELENY: -- "He voted for the war, I voted against it." So I am told that Vice President Biden is not going to talk about the war today, to relitigate that. But he has in previous times -- over the weekend in South Carolina, he did -- he said, "Look, I was with the Obama administration. We rolled back the troops." Of course, they surged them as well.
So it is going to be an issue in this, but he is trying to get people to focus on the matter at hand here with President Trump, and also try and reset his campaign a bit.
HARLOW: Totally. He needs to after the debate.
ZELENY: Right. Going into the -- the next debate, here on CNN at the end of the month, he's trying to show that he, again, is the strongest person who could do the job on day one.
HARLOW: His interview, the interview -- Cuomo, Chris Cuomo did with him was fascinating.
ZELENY: It was.
HARLOW: And it was important, I think, for voters to hear from him and hear him be pressed where -- you know, where he can have longer answers, et cetera. Should we expect more of that from his campaign?
[10:50:00] ZELENY: I think that will happen. He's been campaigning more this month. He's going to be in New Hampshire tomorrow and over the weekend. And I'm told he also will be doing, likely, another interview before that debate in July. They want to get him talking more, not, you know, just simply being seen on the debate stage. Because --
HARLOW: Right.
ZELENY: -- he knows he has to do better in that second debate.
HARLOW: OK. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much.
ZELENY: Thanks, Poppy.
HARLOW: Good to have you.
All right. A new report says for years, the biggest utility in California, PG&E, just ignored repairs that were necessary on their aging power lines. Of course, that is what caused the huge wildfire. By the way, it killed 85 people. It is a stunning and important report. The reporter who broke the story in "The Wall Street Journal" will join me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:55:10] HARLOW: All right. Well, welcome back. If you missed this story, listen up. Scathing accusations against the biggest utility company in the state of California. "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting that PG&E knew for years that its power lines could fail and spark fires, but did not take the necessary steps to repair them.
One of PG&E's failed lines is blamed for starting that huge fire in Northern California last November that killed 85 people and completely destroyed the entire town of Paradise. The utility company says it disagrees with the report's conclusions. One of the reporters -- the dogged reporters who broke this story for the "Journal" -- joins me live.
Good morning to you. Katherine Blunt is with me. Good on you for digging, getting these documents through a Freedom of Information Act request. What do they tell us about over 18,000 miles of power lines that PG&E operated?
KATHERINE BLUNT, REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Sure. Well, first of all, the transmission line that failed in November and sparked the Camp Fire is incredibly old. And it shines light on just how old a lot of this infrastructure is. This is a line that was built in 1921 to carry power from the Sierra Nevada range to San Francisco.
And like I -- I mean, these towers are a century old. That's one thing. And it also showed the extent of the age of the overall system that it was a part of. I mean, the entire system is that old.
And we also received other documents as well, through a few other means, that show that the company had been trying for a number of years to get a handle on the extent to which its system was aging. And --
HARLOW: Right.
BLUNT: -- it's not just this system. It's -- this particular system that I referred to -- it is a number of -- it is --
HARLOW: Right.
BLUNT: -- a substantial amount of the company's infrastructure.
HARLOW: I mean, you write about some of these towers, right? That are 108 years old. When at 60 or 65 --
BLUNT: Right.
HARLOW: -- they have to be replaced. So four decades of going on in dangerous conditions. One of the things that struck me is you write, PG&E, quote, "knew that
49 of the steel towers that carry the electric lines that failed, needed to be replaced entirely. But then (ph) they ranked improvements to their transmission lines as low-risk and spent billions of dollars instead on other projects like substation upgrades."
I mean --
BLUNT: Right.
HARLOW: -- I guess the fundamental question is, why? Did they truly think --
BLUNT: Right.
HARLOW: -- nothing like this would ever happen?
BLUNT: Right. And, I mean, that's a question that we're still trying to get at, as to why exactly a lot of these projects had been delayed. Let's just go back to the line that started the Camp Fire.
TEXT: "Camp Fire" By the Numbers: Deadliest, most destructive fire in California; 85 people killed; Nearly 14,000 homes destroyed; Entire town of Paradise destroyed; Overall losses estimated at $16.5 billion
BLUNT: We actually first reported in February that the company had delayed necessary upgrades to this project. We ended up getting these documents by asking federal forest managers to share with us the correspondence they'd had with the company, as the company was saying that it needed to upgrade these lines.
And, you know, in these -- in this correspondence, they state very clearly, "We need to replace 49 towers because of age. We need to replace conductor and hardware because of age and integrity." And --
HARLOW: Right.
BLUNT: -- you know, it is difficult at times to permit in these forests. And so that could be a cause for this particular delay --
HARLOW: Right.
BLUNT: -- but I mean, they first proposed this work in 2013.
HARLOW: Wow.
BLUNT: And this isn't the only project of this nature that they're continuing to delay.
HARLOW: Yes. Six years ago. Before you go, Katherine, obviously, you report out here how it appears regulators totally dropped the ball in holding PG&E accountable and making them do these repairs as well.
A federal judge yesterday ruled that PG&E has to, paragraph by paragraph -- that is the judge's wording -- reply to your reporting. What does -- what does that feel like?
BLUNT: Oh, Judge Alsup is a really fascinating person. He's extremely frank and colloquial. He's been overseeing the company's federal probation after a 2010 pipeline explosion south of San Francisco. And what he's tasked with is essentially trying to ensure that the company is a good corporate actor going forward, and doesn't commit any more crimes.
And so to probe this in this way is going to be very interesting. I am certainly curious to how the company responds. We have, of course, given them the chance to respond to our reporting before we published, and they didn't dispute our conclusions. So we'll see what they file.
HARLOW: So you have not heard yet, but you do expect to get more answers from PG&E because of what this judge has called for?
BLUNT: They have to. They have to file a public statement in court. And --
HARLOW: OK.
BLUNT: -- and we'll see how they answer these -- we'll see how they answer.
HARLOW: All right. Well, again, this is a fire that cost 85 American lives. Thank you very much, Katherine Blunt, for your important reporting. We appreciate it.
BLUNT: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
HARLOW: Of course, of course.
[10:59:52] Thanks so much for being with me today. I'll see you back here tomorrow morning. I'm Poppy Harlow. "AT THIS HOUR WITH KATE BOLDUAN" starts right now.
