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Kurdish Civilians in Northern Syria Pelt a U.S. Convoy with Rotten Vegetables as They Accuse U.S. Troops of Abandoning Them; Tornado Renders Tens of Thousands Without Power as it Rips Through Dallas; Senator Michael Bennet Slams Elizabeth Warren's Medicare-For- All Plan. Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired October 21, 2019 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:22]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Monday morning to you. What could happen this week?
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: What -- it's -- you know, it's only Monday at 9:00 a.m.
SCIUTTO: We'll see.
HARLOW: Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.
The Trump administration puts it in reverse as Democrats shove their impeachment inquiry into overdrive. Tomorrow begins a critical week of testimony on Capitol Hill by current and former U.S. officials and likely none bigger than the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor. Of course, you'll remember him because he's the one that sent text messages describing the holding back of military aid to Ukraine for political purposes as, quote, "crazy."
It comes as the administration continues to have to clean up its messaging or try to clean up its messaging on everything from Ukraine to Syria to the site of the G7.
SCIUTTO: CNN has learned that President Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. The president not happy after Mulvaney now famously admitted to a quid pro quo with regards to Ukraine then later claimed he didn't say what the tape showed that he said.
All this as the president announces he will retreat from his goal of hosting the G7 summit at his own personal resort in Florida next year.
Joining us now, CNN's Joe Johns. He's live at the White House.
So the president -- it's a familiar pattern here, blame the staff in effect here for muddling the message here. I mean he's clearly frustrated with Mulvaney but does the president have a clearer message as to what happened with Ukraine?
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good question. Look, the president spent the weekend fielding calls, if you will, from allies who were criticizing Mick Mulvaney, according to sources. Also important to report, according to my colleagues who reported this over the weekend, that there was a previous effort to try to oust Mick Mulvaney from the White House job. That was before Democrats launched their impeachment inquiry.
One of the things that is really going on here is that this man has a lot of proximity to the scandal, that means he knows a lot, and there's also a real question as to whether the president would want to get rid of Mick Mulvaney in the midst of this impeachment investigation. The White House has put out a statement saying that the president supports Mick Mulvaney and Mulvaney remains the acting chief of staff. Of course, that's a job he's held for 10 months.
Back to you.
HARLOW: What about this meeting with his cabinet members today? Do you think he's going to address pulling the G7 from Doral?
JOHNS: Always ill-advised to predict what the president is going to say or do as you know. Nonetheless, it's pretty clear from the president's tweet over the weekend he was frustrated with the reaction to his decision to name Doral and that's part of the reason why he pulled it back. So anything could happen.
Also, I have to say there are several positions in that cabinet that have to be filled now with a nomination including the DNI, the director of National Intelligence, also the Homeland Security secretary, and some others. So the president has got a lot to talk to these people about and he has to come up with some other names to send up to Capitol Hill.
SCIUTTO: And there's a reason for confirmation because it gives the Senate a voice in confirming these appointees, part of the way the system works.
JOHNS: That's right.
SCIUTTO: Joe Johns, thanks very much.
Let's speak more now about the week ahead from four lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Manu Raju joins us now.
Manu, Bill Taylor's testimony key today because he was right in the middle of this question asked by the president's own people working for the president, was there a quid pro quo? Was there pressure being applied? It seems that Bill Taylor had that very impression.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He was very concerned about it as we've seen from text messages that had been released by the House committee's investigating this matter showing that Bill Taylor was concerned about the Ukrainian aid that had been approved by the U.S. Congress that had now been turned over to the Ukrainians and raising concerns that it could be tied to political investigations. At one point even suggesting, according to one of the text messages, that he could step aside from doing so. Now Bill Taylor highlights what is going to be a very busy week on
Capitol Hill with both state officials as well as National Security Council officials, even Pentagon officials, as investigators try to hone in on exactly why that military aid was withheld. The impact that it had, the message that was being communicated to the Ukrainians, the messages coming from the White House and from the president himself.
What they have learned so far is the role that Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, played in carrying out U.S.-Ukraine policy, how he was pursuing investigations, and how the president had told his U.S. officials to deal with Rudy Giuliani. This next phase perhaps getting more clarity about what exactly happened to that military aid, why it was withheld and the explicit directions that came from the White House -- guys.
[09:05:05]
HARLOW: Thank you, Manu. Appreciate the reporting.
Let's talk about all the headlines this morning. Errol Louis is here, host of the podcast, "You Decide," and Susan Page, "USA Today" Washington bureau chief.
Good morning to you both.
Errol, let me begin with just a reminder of what Mulvaney said on Thursday followed by his cleanup attempt yesterday on "FOX News Sunday."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Did he also mention to me in the past that -- that the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely, no question about that. But that's it. And that's why we held up the money.
That's what people are saying that I said but I didn't say that. Can I see how people took that the wrong way? Absolutely. But I never said there was a quid pro quo because there isn't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: The issue is, I mean, it's a muddled cleanup attempt, but you now have people like Lindsey Graham with more questions than they had, you know, less than a week ago. And I just wonder what you think the significance of that is?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, listen, he didn't use the words quid pro quo, that's Latin. He's basically used the English, this for that. It was this for that and I think everybody now understands what was going on.
It's -- what's really important here and I think we're going to see this play out this week is that some of Mulvaney's aides on the Management and Budget side of his portfolio, he's the acting White House chief of staff, but he also is the director of Management and Budget, and it was that key portion of this whole question of the "this for that, "involving the holdup of the aid that his aides are expected to testify about.
HARLOW: Right.
LOUIS: Whether they're going to go along with what he just attempted to do, that backflip he attempted on the Sunday show remains to be seen. But not many people have the nerve to try that when they're under oath.
SCIUTTO: Yes. Thank you, by the way, for translating the Latin there, Errol. I think a lot of us --
HARLOW: Always good at that.
SCIUTTO: A lot of us need to be reminded of that. And also, let's be clear, he was asked a question in that press conference by ABC's Jonathan Karl, said that sounds like a quid pro quo, and he certainly didn't deny it and basically said get over it.
Susan Page, Poppy mentioned Lindsey Graham, close ally to the president, golfs with the president, has defended the president very fervently on a lot of issues. So it's interesting in this HBO interview to hear him open the door. Have a listen and I want to get your reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN SWAN, AXIOS: Are you open minded if more comes out that you could support impeachment?
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Sure. I mean -- I mean, show me something that is a crime. If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo outside the phone call that would be very disturbing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Now we should note that later in the interview he said that to this point he has not seen evidence of a crime. That of course is important. But to hear a Republican senator say sure, I could be open to impeachment, particularly Graham, what does that tell you?
SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, USA TODAY: Well, not just a Republican senator but one of the president's closest friends in the Senate, someone who has defended him particularly on his issue of impeachment in a really fervent way. So this is -- this is notable, Lindsey Graham leaving himself just a little bit an out if things get much worse to support the impeachment of the president.
We don't think that will happen. He's not at that point yet. But he didn't deny it. This isn't Mitt Romney who's made it clear he has his problems with Donald Trump.
HARLOW: Right. PAGE: This is Lindsey Graham, pal of the president, saying these
things. I think that's significant.
HARLOW: Who also, by the way, Romney had a lot to say this weekend. We'll get to that in a little bit. A fascinating interview with Axios as well.
SCIUTTO: And a new Twitter handle as well. We'll talk about that.
HARLOW: Right. Yes, there's that. But, guys, listen to another very conservative member of the House, Francis Rooney, who was on with us on Friday and then explained more of his thinking with Jake yesterday on "STATE OF THE UNION." Here's a little bit of that when he was asked about Mulvaney's attempts to walk back that quid pro quo statement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: You didn't buy it? The walk-back?
REP. FRANCIS ROONEY (R-FL): No. I don't see how you walk back something that's clear. I would say game, set, match on that.
TAPPER: And is that impeachable? I mean --
ROONEY: I don't know. That's the question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: So, Errol, game, set, match. Is he just thinking that and actually saying it because we know now he's not going to run next term or is he alone in thinking that?
LOUIS: I think he --
HARLOW: In the party. In the party.
LOUIS: I think he joins a number of Republican officials who once they decide that their political career is over or that they're not going to run for re-election at this point, a remarkable clarity sort of settles on them and they're able to acknowledge publicly what we all saw on live television, which is that, you know, it is game, set, match. He said what he said, he clearly meant it, he even sort of added a little twist to it, Mulvaney did, by saying hey, look, get over it. This is what it is. And to now ask people to deny that they saw that, only a politician running for re-election I think could pull that trick off.
SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, and we don't know what his public comments, how that factored into his decision, but we should note that he first made these comments with Poppy on Thursday? Or was that Friday?
[09:10:05]
HARLOW: Friday.
SCIUTTO: On Friday.
HARLOW: The days blend together.
SCIUTTO: The days blend. On Friday before he announced that decision, so it started on this broadcast.
I do want to get to this issue, Susan Page, of the Doral golf course, the G7, et cetera. And I know the president has backed off on this and as he frequently does he blames the media and crazy Democrats, but the fact is, Republicans had concerns.
HARLOW: Yes.
SCIUTTO: That said, his chief of staff said something that struck me as interesting about him being in the hospitality business. Have a listen and I want to ask you a question about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MULVANEY: At the end of the day, you know, he still considers himself to be in the hospitality business and he saw an opportunity to take the biggest leaders from around the world that he wanted to put on the absolute best show, the best visit that he possibly could and he was very comfortable doing that at Doral.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: I thought the president was out of his business since he's been president. Didn't he establish -- didn't he show us, you know, reams of paper, the supposed legal agreements separating himself from his business? But his chief of staff just said he's still in the hospitality business. How should Americans take that?
PAGE: Well, I think once Americans elect a new president they think he or she is going to be in the presidential business and not -- and leaving behind whatever their previous occupation might have been. So I thought that was -- I actually thought the fact that the president reversed himself on this also really significant. When was the last time President Trump reversed himself on a really big decision?
SCIUTTO: Syria?
HARLOW: Syria. Yes.
PAGE: Like this one. Well, Syria, but this was a real flip-flop on the president's part in the wake of criticism because he was hearing not just from Democrats and the media, he was hearing from Republicans. And he wants to keep Republicans on his side on impeachment. I think he no longer felt he had the bandwidth to make them also defend him on this issue of where the G7 summit would be.
SCIUTTO: Yes. Good point. Also, it would be happening in, what, June next year in the midst of the presidential campaign.
HARLOW: Yes.
SCIUTTO: So there would be a lot of --
HARLOW: That's a good point.
SCIUTTO: A lot of talk as that was going on.
HARLOW: All right. Thank you, guys. We appreciate it.
LOUIS: Thank you.
SCIUTTO: As U.S. forces withdraw from Syria, the secretary of Defense now says that some American troops will stay behind, but we're going to show you these pictures later, the farewell they got from Syrian forces there. It was really demeaning. It's worth watching.
HARLOW: Also ahead this hour, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bennet of Colorado will be on the program. He has a plan for coverage of health care for Americans and he says the big difference, his is paid for. We will examine it.
And with everything going on in Washington right now, new concerns from inside the Republican Party that Democrats could have a path to victory in the Senate in 2020.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [09:15:00]
HARLOW: Stunning video this morning showing Kurdish civilians in Northern Syria pelting a U.S. convoy with rotten vegetables as they accuse U.S. troops of abandoning them. Most of the troops are, as we've just learned this weekend, being re-deployed to Iraq.
SCIUTTO: Yes, the troops you could see inside these armored vehicles, they were looking away as it happened. We know from our own reporting at CNN that the troops stationed there were not happy about this.
They felt as well that they were abandoning their allies on the ground. Keep in mind, those Syrian Kurds were tip of the spear along with U.S. forces against ISIS. Many hundreds of them lost their lives in that fight. They see this departure as abandoning them to the Turks, Russians, the Syrians and it's truly a --
HARLOW: Yes --
SCIUTTO: Devastating moment for the U.S. in the region. This morning, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced that several hundred U.S. forces will now stay behind in Syria, but not to protect those Syrian fighters or the ISIS fighters who had been held in prisons there, but to protect the oil. Barbara Starr joins us now from the Pentagon.
Barbara, what is Esper saying about this re-deployment? That they're concerned about ISIS gaining access to these oil fields, is that right?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Defense Secretary Mark Esper held a press conference earlier this morning while in Afghanistan, and he talked about the fact that some of these troops will temporarily stay in eastern Syria, near the Kurdish oil fields. They hadn't actually been scheduled to come out for some days or weeks, so they're going to stay put.
No decision on whether to keep them there more permanently. But the real issue is, what additional missions they might take on now. Have a listen to what Secretary Esper had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK ESPER, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, UNITED STATES: A purpose of those forces working with the SDF is to deny access to those oil fields by ISIS and others who may benefit from their revenues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: And others. That may be key wording to watch because that's new language. We know that Russian-Syrian regime, even militia groups in the area certainly would like access to those Kurdish oil fields, and the question is now, will the U.S. expand its mission?
Right now, it has authority to conduct missions against ISIS and terrorist groups, but not against the Russians or the Syrians if they make a move on the oil field, are they part of the others that Esper now says U.S. troops will defend the oil fields against? It would be a significant expansion, Jim, Poppy?
HARLOW: Yes. Barbara, thank you very much for that important reporting, we appreciate it, we'll get more on that a little later. But now, this developing story in Texas.
SCIUTTO: We've been following this. This morning, residents across northern Dallas, they're cleaning up from a major tornado that tore through the area last night. The video just alarming.
[09:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SCREAMING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, we're in a tornado! Hey, we're in a tornado!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: That is no fun to see when it's coming your way. The twister knocked out power to more than a 100,000 people in the Dallas- Fort Worth area.
HARLOW: It also left behind miles of damage destroying businesses -- look at that, destroying homes, at least, three people were hurt, they are expected to be OK. Our meteorologist Chad Myers is tracking it all from the CNN Weather Center. Is there still more of a threat for storms? I mean, did they have a warning about this one?
CHAD MYERS, METEOROLOGIST: There was certainly a warning, the storm was spinning on radar, there was a debris signature with it, which means that the radar was able to tell that it wasn't just raindrops in the air, but there were pieces of debris in the air as well. And the radar was able to detect that different size of a shingle compared to a rain-drop.
Let me go to some video right now, we're just getting this in. "KTVT", it's the aerial from Dallas, Texas. Most of the time for most of this video, I was seeing maybe EF-2 damage, 105 miles per hour, but now they are into the heart of what would be north Dallas, University Park, the area there to the north of Love Field.
And this with what they have found out just in the past couple of minutes, this is more significant, this could be EF-3, possibly 120, 125-mile-per-hour storm. Obviously, the weather service will be out there in the helicopters as well searching this.
It's hard to tell how much damage was done because this looks like a -- maybe a greenhouse which wouldn't hold up to any wind whatsoever because of the plastic. But when you get over to some of the other parts of the damage in the town into the city itself, that's where we actually are seeing the damage with the roofs gone, and some of the houses certainly, shingles are all gone.
It was about 9:00 yesterday late last night, football game was actually in town as well, but north of University Park, we'll keep watching it for you. So far, no fatalities, that's the good news. Our Ed Lavandera is on the ground, gathering more information, he'll be with us all day.
SCIUTTO: My sister lives in that neighborhood, she said it was scary stuff.
MYERS: Yes --
SCIUTTO: Chad Myers, thanks very much.
HARLOW: All right, Senator Michael Bennet is in Iowa right now and hoping to make the cut for the next debate after missing out on the last one. He is with us next, you'll hear his plan for healthcare reform and find out why he's calling Elizabeth Warren's plan, quote, "a bit of a joke".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:25:00]
SCIUTTO: Senator Elizabeth Warren has been touting her Medicare for all plan on the campaign trail, but still has not said crucially how she would pay for it. Now, her Democratic rivals are starting to call her out for that as they did during the debate. Colorado Senator Michael Bennet says it is a joke to claim that the middle class will not pay higher taxes as a result of Warren's plan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO): I don't need a plan for plan for plan because my plan is Medicare X and it's paid for without raising taxes on the middle class. And when she studies it, she's going to find that it's impossible to fund what she's talking about without taxing the middle class and even lower. I mean, Bernie brings the taxes down to $29,000, and that only pays for half of it by the way, that's $16 trillion. So, this is a little bit of a joke I have to say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Senator Bennet joins me now. Senator, to your point, Senator Warren was given multiple opportunities to answer that very question, who will pay for it? She refused those opportunities. I wonder, is she misleading voters by refusing to say what the real costs are and who will cover those costs?
BENNET: I've been saying that for months that everybody, except Bernie is lying about Bernie's plan. Bernie wrote Medicare for all. Bernie has said that it will cost $31 trillion, he's come up with 16 of that $31 trillion, and that's half. And he does that by taxing people that are making less than $30,000 a year. But at least, he's being honest about his plan.
Others that have signed on have said sort of magically this will all take care of itself. Just to give you a sense of a frame of reference here --
SCIUTTO: So, to be clear though, can I -- are you saying Senator Warren is not being honest about her plan?
BENNET: I think she's not being honest about her plan there. I think her plan which costs $33 trillion is the equivalent of 70 percent of all the taxes that the federal government will collect over the next ten years. I mean, it is a massive increase in taxes to this country, and it hasn't been explained to the American people. It's a sound bite. And more than that --
SCIUTTO: Yes --
BENNET: It doesn't -- it's not based on common sense. You know, my plan just finishes the job we started on the Affordable Care Act by creating a public option. It actually -- it benefits the federal treasury rather than draining anything from it, and it doesn't raise taxes on anybody. And we can get to Universal Health Care coverage in three years.
I think it may not be as good as sound bite as Medicare for all, but I think it's much better policy.
SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, there was a profile of you in "Politico" as you know, and there was a line that stuck out to me, I just want to quote it here. Said, "whether over immigration or gun control or climate change, Bennet can be found in the deal-making trenches, laboring to build a bipartisan coalition and pursuit of a workable outcome rather than lobbing bombs from the safety of an ideological bunker."
I wonder when you look at something like Warren's plan, it makes a lot of headlines, it gets lots of folks on the left-end of the progressive movement excited, but doesn't necessarily as you say, get to all the details.
[09:30:00]
