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Former Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus, Discusses Trump Saying He'll "Get Involved" With Ousted Navy Captain's Case; Interview With House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); British P.M. Boris Johnson In Intensive Care. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired April 07, 2020 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00]
RAY MABUS, FORMER SECRETARY OF THE NAVY: He's saying, I am going to get involved. He's gotten involved, as I have said, over and over again and politicizes the military. It destroys the chain of command. It destroys military discipline when things like this happens, when you think that somebody will be punished or praised on a whim of the commander-in-chief.
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: In fact, the former -- the former Navy secretary ran afoul on the president because he had issues with the president getting involved in the case of the Navy SEAL.
MABUS: Absolutely. And I think that Secretary Spencer was trying to do what he thought the president wanted in that case, too. The president listened to evidently people in the media that said this person was a hero.
So he gets involved with these things that he should not, that just destroys the notion of accountability, and just destroys of command and control, and just destroy the notion that our military ought to be apolitical and outside any sort of political considerations.
COOPER: Secretary Mabus. I appreciate your time today. Be careful in the days ahead. Thank you.
MABUS: Thank you.
COOPER: Coming up, the stimulus $2 trillion coronavirus relief package may not be enough to help Americans during these troubled financial times. Coming up next, I'll speak to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about a possible face-forward stimulus plan of what she wants to have in it.
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[13:36:30]
COOPER: Coronavirus is driving a bipartisan call to get more help to the American people. The president, Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Pelosi are pushing for more legislation beyond the 42 trillion CARE Act. Speaker Pelosi calls it Care Two, to provide more money to individuals
and families and small businesses suffering this crisis. Clearly, more money is needed.
A source at the Treasure Department say the plan asks for another $200 billion to help the small business loan program, which is having extremely rough roll out with problems.
Joining me now is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker Pelosi, thank you for being with us.
So $2.2 trillion was not enough to handle the fallout. You reportedly told House Democrats another trillion dollars will be needed in the next round. Is that what you are anticipating of this next round?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: Well, we'll evaluate as we go along.
First of all, thank you for your attention to all of this. It is such an assault on the lives of the American people.
We were proud to be able to pass bipartisan legislation in the month of March. It was clear that it would not be enough for our state and municipalities and hospitals and other institutions, that would not be enough for education and the rest.
It was a giant first step of the program and it is an important part of how we help small businesses thrive.
We have no data though. We don't know so much about who's being served or who's being under served. We need additional funds that's administered in a way and how people have access to -- we want to have certain considerations that we want to go forward with that.
COOPER: You reported that the $1,200 to Americans is not enough. The #2,000 payments to all Americans, is that something that sounds feasible?
PELOSI: Well, let's just say we are working in a bipartisan way. We have a good template of the three bills that's passed, in large, in a bipartisan way. So we know we have a precedent for helping states and local governments and other institutions.
As I mention that there's a couple of thresholds doing more than they expected. Again, a template built on a bipartisan bill signed by the president. And this important small business initiative that has three aspects, paycheck protection to small businesses and grants that would go out to businesses and the disaster assistance, which is in its own category and not in the category of possible forgiveness, at least at this time.
[13:40:10]
Again, we have a plan that what can and we know have been successful in terms of passing and implemented. We do have to have an oversight to make sure everyone who qualifies have the access.
And there are experiences that people have that we have sometimes required with the banks. These people would not think that we are in this kind of situation. I want to make sure we are connected with our financial institutions that are going to minority and smaller businesses in the rural community that have always had bipartisan support in Congress.
And we want to make sure that all the banks that can participate are able to do so and not just those with big reputations but community on banks and minority on banks and the rest. Access to capital and the ability of capitol for banks.
COOPER: I think it was a week or two ago, the focus seemed to be, there was a lot of talk of focusing on infrastructure. That's not what you see this next package being?
PELOSI: Yes. And thank you for mentioning that because we do believe there's some infrastructure needs, whether we are talking about clean water or community health centers or transportation to take our essential workers to work, or whether we are talking about broadband so that we can have children learning from home and tele-medicine and so many aspects of life where people communicating with each other after they are shelter at home.
That seems to be along the path to that, even though it is not immediately related to coronavirus. That's not off the table. But what is on the table is more funding for the immediate needs that people have.
I think we lost our visual. I hope you can still hear me.
COOPER: We can still see you.
PELOSI: OK.
Needs -- the three things American people sort of are really concerned about. One is our workers have personal protective equipment they need to help save lives and not risk their lives to save a life. Also ventilators and the rest to help meet the need of those who are ill.
Secondly, they want their checks. They want their direct payment and unemployment checks, they want their loans from the banks, which hopefully will be forgiven with performance.
Third, they do not want taxpayers money being used by big industries getting big sums of money to be used for buy-backs, dividends and bonuses. That angers them. That has angered them for a while. So --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Let me ask you about that.
PELOSI: -- all of the above. We want to make sure that's enforced. Right now, the president is taking action to undermine the oversight of the legislations that's most important. COOPER: Let me ask you about that. The president removed the chairman
of the panel created by Congress to overseas and create the $2 trillion package? Do you know why Glenn Fine was removed from his post? Was this a wise move? Should somebody we watching over this?
PELOSI: Yes. And the president should be the one, and that's exactly upside down. Fine was appointed by the president just around a week ago. Now he was chosen by his colleagues to lead this pandemic committee, Oversight committee. He's now being removed by the president, and the president is sending in some of his loyalists.
This is really a problem. When we do all of this, we should try to follow the Truman model, which I have established. In World War I, there was a concern of how money was spent. In 1941, Senator Truman said, following World War I -- there were one 115 investigative committee investigating the spending of World War I.
[13:45:02]
He said it is better to have at least one right now while we are making sure we do not have price gouging. That's what we want to have in the community. It is not geared to the president. It is geared to how the program is implemented and where there's money,.
We make sure we spend to benefit the livelihood of the American people.
COOPER: The president is talking about that being a witch hunt, in his words. In this new relief package, are you go, I think, going to push for home for the upcoming election?
PELOSI: That was the package that Mnuchin suggested. Yes, we want the resources to be there and no obstacles to that voting to take place.
It is about our democracy. It is about our democracy in a time even a physical challenge to vote. So we want to have more sources to vote by mail, more same-day registration, more states sending ballots to those who are qualified to vote. That'll be part of our initiative.
We got $400 million in this package. That's about 20 percent of what we actually need but it is a start. They put in some restrictions that we would like to remove.
And the removal of those restrictions is bipartisan from the National Association of Secretaries of State, Democrats and Republicans, writing together to say remove this restriction.
So again we have (INAUDIBLE). Again, I thank you for what you all are doing, calling attention to, first and foremost, the serious health challenge that our country faces and the assault on our economy as well and how they are related.
COOPER: Speaker Pelosi, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
PELOSI: Thank you. Give my best to Chris Cuomo. And I'll pray for everyone who's afflicted by this. And thank you for your generosity in sharing his experience.
COOPER: Thank you.
PELOSI: Thank you so much.
COOPER: Still ahead. British prime minister is spending another day in the ICU battling the virus. We are live in London with the latest on Boris Johnson's condition.
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[13:52:08]
COOPER: Right now, Prime Minister Boris Johnsen remains in intensive care in a London hospital, where he's receiving oxygen, but is not on a ventilator, we're told. He was moved there after his coronavirus symptoms suddenly worsened Monday night.
Our Clarissa Ward joins now form London.
Clarissa, what do we know about the prime minister's condition?
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We've been told basically, Anderson, there's no real change. He's stable. He remains in the intensive care united. He's not been intubated. He's not on a ventilator.
But there's a reason they're keeping him there. Part of what they're doing is to keep him with oxygen to help with low-oxygen saturation levels. And I think everyone's happy to see that his situation or condition has not deteriorated.
There's a bit of concern also that we haven't heard that his situation has improved significantly either. A lot of people here in the U.K. on every side of the political spectrum very much want to see him make a speedy recovery -- Anderson?
COOPER: Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary has been put in charge of the country in the last couple of hours. He's been asked to that for as long as necessary. What do we know about him?
WARD: So Dominic Rabb is the foreign secretary and is the first state secretary, which means he's been deputized. But they put in a caveat. They say he's been deputized where necessary. He's a polarizing figure in the U.K. He's one of the faces of the Brexit movement. He was also the Brexit secretary under Theresa May. That only lasted about four months.
But the real sort of question is: Who is in charge? When Raab and other members of the cabinet have been pressed on this issue, they say, well, it's a collective decision, all the decision-making is done by the cabinet as a whole.
But the prime minister's job in that situation usually, Anderson is one to pick the course of action, which direction to go in. It's not really clear at this moment in time who, if anyone, is actually doing that.
COOPER: Members of Johnson's cabinet said they were taken by surprise how quickly his condition has deteriorated. Does it seem as though they weren't being kept in the loop? Certainly, the public statements seemed also somewhat slow in coming.
WARD: Absolutely. I think there's been a lot of confusion and, frankly, anxiety from people about the way in which news bulletins, information and updates about the prime minister's health have been delivered, in such a way whereby most people thought the picture was pretty rosy, even after he was admitted to the hospital.
We were told it was precautionary. There were just some tests. Nothing to really were about, except he had persistent symptoms for 10 days. Within a matter of hours, he was admitted to the ICU.
[13:55:00]
His own cabinet, as you mentioned, saying they only found about it. They gave a press conference yesterday at 5:00 p.m. yesterday saying he was in good spirits. He was still running the country from his hospital room. Two hours later, he was in the ICU. And only at 8:00 p.m. did they even find out about that.
So there's not a clear sense of how the messaging is being done here, Anderson.
COOPER: Clarissa Ward, appreciate it. Clarissa, thanks very much.
The owner and head chef at a restaurant once named the world's best has turned into a food commissary. The staff at New York's Madison Park now makes 2,000 meals a day for first responders and New Yorkers who normally rely on food banks. They teamed up with Rethink Food NYC. American Express is helping to fund the effort.
To find ways you can help your community during the pandemic, go to CNN.com/impact.
We'll be right back.
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