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Struggling Workers Call on Congress for Relief; Early Voting Kicks Off in North Carolina. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired October 15, 2020 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The Labor Department will release its weekly jobless claims about an hour from now, but we already know, the hospitality and food industry have been very hard hit by the pandemic.

With millions of workers across the country laid off. So what's going to happen to the hotel and restaurant business? Joining us now is Johanna Ortiz; she's a worker at New York's Roosevelt Hotel, which is set to close this year. And Colorado restaurant owner, Bobby Stuckey is with us as well. Guys, we're so happy to have you both here. We know this is a really hard time for both of you.

Joanna, let me just start with you, you worked at the Roosevelt, I mean, this looks -- all the pictures that you've sent us, this looks like more than just a job. I mean, this looks like your family. We see you with all of your colleagues here, you know, celebrating different people's birthdays and parties and events. And so, the Roosevelt is closing, and so tell us about what this is doing to your life.

JOHANNA ORTIZ, WORKS AT ROOSEVELT HOTEL: Yes, hi. Well, at the Roosevelt, we started off as co-workers, we became friends and we ended up as a family. The Roosevelt has notified us now that they will close. And it's very heartbreaking. We've been there for -- well, I personally have been there for 20 years. The hotel notified us that they would be closing and because of the union, we were able to get a 90-day extension, so we now will be working until December 31st.

CAMEROTA: And I mean, I know that you're a single mom of two, and so what does your future look like?

ORTIZ: Well, right now, it's pretty uncertain. A lot of us in the hospitality industry are going to have to reinvent ourselves. It's going to be really hard. A lot of hotels are closing, jobs are not available right now. The rooms are empty. It's just really sad to see. In the 20 years, I have never seen the hospitality industry this heartbreaking.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Bobby, how about your life? I mean, we all know what's happening to restaurants all around the country.

BOBBY STUCKEY, RESTAURANT OWNER: Well, thanks for having me, Alisyn. And my heart goes out to every hospitality person in the country, Johanna, who just spoke. You know, I'm in Boulder, Colorado, we have four restaurants between here and Denver, 200 and some employees pre- COVID.

And the restaurant industry, not just my restaurants, but every restaurant in the country is holding on by their fingernails, trying to get to the other side of this. And we're in a situation where since March, our industry was first closed and then across the country, reopened in very tough times and tough restrictions. And we're just fighting for our lives.

[07:35:00]

CAMEROTA: Yes, I mean, I don't really understand the math, to tell you the truth, Bobby. I don't understand how it is sustainable that restaurants can only be open at 25 percent capacity. It just doesn't -- obviously, it's not a long-term plan. And so, what do you think the landscape is going to look like when this is all over? How many of our favorite restaurants will be gone for good?

STUCKEY: Well, Alisyn, you brought up a great point. And quite frankly, we can do some simple math right here, and it explains it. And that's why we need -- there actually is a plan. It's the Restaurants Act. And it's in the heroes package, and Roger Wicker has it in the Senate. So, we -- there is a plan, but no one's doing anything about it, you know? You're right. The restaurant industry is this quiet giant.

We're 11 million jobs, 10 percent of the American workforce, one of the biggest private sector job creators. And we mean so much to America -- I always say, it's like a cornerstone species. You take the restaurant industry out, everything is going to be caved in. So now, we know that that's how many jobs are at stake. I think -- and what studies have shown is that our industry will probably lose half of its restaurants by February if a package is not put into place.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and that package, I mean, one of the things I know, on October 1st, the house did pass this $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus proposal, there was $120 billion in there to help independent restaurants and bars. But, you know, we know that it's in limbo.

I mean, that's what Congress is -- one of the things that Congress is haggling over. And so Johanna, when you talk about how many hospitality workers will have to reinvent themselves, what does that look like for you? How will you begin to do that?

ORTIZ: Well, at my hotel, we're approximately 475 employees. On a daily basis, we used to have scheduled hundreds of employees on one day. Right now, we're down to about maybe 25 a day. So most of us are on layoff. We've been on layoff since March.

And fortunate for me, I am a member of the union represented by the hotel, so they have been able to ensure us actually a severance pay that will be paid out today, which is going to come great for everyone who is home, and they've also ensured health coverage.

CAMEROTA: Thank goodness.

ORTIZ: So, it's one less thing to worry about.

CAMEROTA: Yes, thank goodness. Well, Bobby Stuckey, Johanna Ortiz, we're thinking of you. Thanks so much for sharing the personal struggle that you're going through right now, and of course, that extends to all of us, you know, how different the landscape is going to look after this pandemic. Thank you both, good luck. We'll check back and keep in touch with you both.

ORTIZ: Thank you.

STUCKEY: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Coming up, we have a CNN exclusive. The U.S. government's three-year investigation into millions of dollars in Trump campaign cash. Details finally revealed and we'll tell you if there are still questions unanswered.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:40:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, a CNN exclusive. So CNN has learned that federal prosecutors, including special counsel Robert Mueller spent more than three years investigating whether money flowing through an Egyptian state-owned bank could have backed millions of dollars that Donald Trump donated to his own 2016 campaign.

Ultimately, the Mueller team was not able to obtain all the information it wanted nor could the U.S. attorney in D.C. who continued the investigation until this year, and decided not to pursue charges. Senior justice correspondent Evan Perez joins us now. Evan, you were part of the team that broke this story and there's a lot in here that's so interesting that just wasn't publicly known.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. This investigation was conducted with the utmost secrecy given the sensitivity. It started soon after Trump won the presidency in 2016, and it continued until this Summer and has never been described before publicly. Now, we spoke to more than a dozen sources familiar with the effort.

In addition to what we learned in newly released court documents and hints in public records, two of the sources told CNN that FBI investigators first became interested in the case after intelligence, including from an informant suggested that Trump's last-minute $10 million injection into his campaign, less than two weeks before the 2016 election could have been backed by money that came from overseas through an Egyptian state-owned bank.

Now, it's not clear that investigators, they ever had concrete proof of a relevant bank transfer. But multiple sources told us that there was sufficient evidence to justify seeking a subpoena in court and to keep the investigation open, even after the Mueller investigation ended.

Now, this investigation of a potential campaign finance law of violation began with the FBI and the U.S. attorney here in Washington before special counsel Robert Mueller took it over. And it was largely conducted by Mueller's team of investigators. And when Mueller was done, the investigation continued.

It was handed back to the U.S. attorney here in Washington, who soon afterwards told a court that it was still a robust probe, that they -- but they felt that they never got the records that they needed from the Egyptian bank, and it was just this Summer that the case was closed with no charges.

Now, among the chief questions that prosecutors were trying to answer, but they never did was whether Donald Trump was supported by or indebted to a foreign power. Special counsel Robert Mueller had no comment for the story, and a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, 2020 campaign Jason Miller, told CNN, quote, "the president has never received a penny from Egypt", John.

BERMAN: So, was there ever any kind of discussion to try to get to the bottom of this by issuing a subpoena for the president's own financial records?

[07:45:00]

PEREZ: Well, yes, multiple sources tell us that last year, federal prosecutors in Washington pushed for getting the president's financial records. Now, the decision went to the then U.S. Attorney Jesse Lou, who after weeks of poring over the investigation records decided to reject the subpoena request. Sources tell us that Lou decided that there was not enough evidence to meet the standard for a subpoena.

Interestingly, she did not close the case. Now, as for the Justice Department, here's what a senior justice official told CNN in response to this reporting. Quote, "the case was first looked at by the special counsel investigators who failed to bring a case and then it was looked at by the U.S. Attorney's Office and career prosecutors in the national security section who also were unable to bring a case.

Based upon the recommendations of both the FBI and those career prosecutors, Michael Sherwin; the acting U.S. attorney, formally closed the case in July."

BERMAN: So obviously, the special counsel's office was known for keeping all of their threads under wraps, but --

PEREZ: Yes --

BERMAN: And there were really -- there was never anything close to a leak about this, even after the case was closed. So how did they go about keeping the secret?

PEREZ: Well, the Egyptian investigation was never actually mentioned in the Mueller report. It was listed among 11 cases that Mueller transferred to other prosecutors when his investigation ended, but that entry was actually redacted.

The only public indication was a secretive court proceedings over a subpoena that Mueller's team issued to an unnamed foreign company for records. Neither the company nor the details of what prosecutors were looking for was ever publicly disclosed. But CNN is told that it was a fight with a state-owned Egyptian bank. A spokesman for the Egyptian president didn't comment when we reached out to them.

BERMAN: And obviously, this investigation continued under the Barr Justice Department. Did prosecutors explain why?

PEREZ: Yes, you know, we know that they told the court that the investigation was continuing robustly, and quote, "very much a live issue". We know about the consideration of a subpoena under Jessie Liu, but that's about it until it was closed. The fact of the matter is that the case was closed without investigators really getting an answer to their ultimate question, which was whether Donald Trump was supported by or indebted to a foreign power. John?

BERMAN: Evan, I've got to say, this does fill in a lot of holes and provides new perspective on the whole thing including one of the more mysterious episodes and a whole floor of a court house --

PEREZ: Yes --

BERMAN: Was shut down at once. Really terrific reporting, thank you very much --

PEREZ: Thank you. Thanks.

BERMAN: Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, John, President Trump spent years trying to convince you that Obamagate was bigger than anything he was involved in, bigger than even Watergate, though President Trump often struggled to define what it was. Well, President Trump's conspiracy just bit the dust. John Avlon has our reality check. Hi, John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey. Fake, phony, dishonest, liar. Those are just a few of President Trump's favorite insults he likes to hurl at opponents. But because we know that projection is the president's favorite political weapon, those words might really refer to him.

And they definitely refer to the giant fraud he tried to force upon the American people with the now officially bogus scandal sometimes known as unmasking or Obamagate. But the threats to arrest his political opponents went poof when "The Washington Post" reported the DOJ prosecutor looking into it quietly concluded with no charges and no public report.

That's because it was always BS. The facts weren't there. It was just another one of the president's 20,000 lies. But armed with the power of the bully pulpit, Trump's lies were amplified through hyper- partisan news and willing apparatchiks in the Senate and his administration who tried to weaponize the federal government against political opponents. So, let's not forget how much distraction and division and trashing of democratic norms it took for us to get here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It was the greatest political crime in the history of our country, I'm talking with 50- year sentences.

The unmasking and the spying. Well, the unmasking is a massive -- it's a massive thing.

We're talking about unmasking, yes, that was a big deal. Horrible deal.

It's probably treason.

Obamagate, it's been going on for a long time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is the crime exactly that you're accusing him of?

TRUMP: You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody, all you have to do is read the newspapers except yours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Speaking of news, "Fox" portrayed it as one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history and pumped it up for years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Joe unmasked for himself and Biden might want to start thinking about getting his story straight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just think these people are sociopaths.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They wanted Flynn crushed purely because he happened to be in the way of the power they seek.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They all knew Trump was going to expose them, they just knew it and they couldn't let that happen. They're just so ruthless!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Yes, get this, according to transcripts, "Fox News" mentioned unmasking at least 1,697 times since Trump took office.

[07:50:00]

That's hours of airtime that could have been spent informing viewers, not misleading them. Instead, they chose to go full state TV and parrot the president without evidence. But these baseless claims were also elevated by officials like then acting DNI Rick Brunell who declassified names for what appeared to be nakedly partisan purposes and senators who embarrassed themselves by cheerleading Trump's conspiracy theories. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was a cabal, this was a conspiracy.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Remember this, the Obama-Biden Department of Justice spied on four American citizens.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a smoking gun if there ever was one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This would be a scandal of the biggest thing since Watergate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something is amiss here, something was going wrong. I think the chickens are coming home to roost.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: It was all a lie. This wasn't a case of an honest mistake, those happen in life and politics and in news. This was Donald Trump and his henchmen distracting the nation for years, working his supporters into a froth and the belief that the president would soon be announcing arrests.

In the end, the Justice Department didn't bend under intense political pressure, but the country suffered. And as with any long con, the real victims were the true believers who got played for fools, in this case by the president. And that's your reality check.

CAMEROTA: The irony, John, is just so rich on so many levels. Also the president is really against unmasking unless it has to do with coronavirus.

BERMAN: The only thing I would say --

AVLON: It writes itself.

BERMAN: Is you know, "Fox" is going to fox and what they did is unconscionable with this, but it's a lesson to everyone. It's a lesson to everyone. Whenever you see a story pop up in a paper, saying questions arise about dot, that means they don't have it themselves, that means they're reporting on the "Fox" nonsense or the nonsense from a senator who is spouting something that is clearly false. This is a lesson here that people need to pay attention to, John.

AVLON: That's a long lesson, and don't be a stenographer to people in power, particularly when they have terrible records for telling the truth.

BERMAN: Yes --

CAMEROTA: John, thank you very much for all of that reality. Early voting gets under way today in another battleground state, a key ruling overnight orders North Carolina to revise its absentee ballots and its rules. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:55:00]

CAMEROTA: Early voting begins today in North Carolina as President Trump heads to that battleground state. Meanwhile, a legal fight over how to fix ballot errors is leaving thousands of voters in limbo. CNN's Dianne Gallagher is live in Charlotte with more. What do we know, Dianne?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I talked to one voter who is standing here right next to me who has experienced that exact issue with those mail-in ballots. Now, there are 33 different locations here in Mecklenburg County for them to do early voting. And when I asked most people why they did not want to vote by mail because more than half a million people already have, I got the exact same answer. What did you tell me?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't trust the system. I didn't trust them mailing me something and me going through.

GALLAGHER: And the thing is the data shows that there might be a reason for them to feel that way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GALLAGHER (voice-over): Every day for more than a month now, Lee Zacharias checks the mail and comes up empty.

LEE ZACHARIAS, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I submitted my application August 20th in person at the Board of Elections office.

GALLAGHER: You have not voted yet, though?

ZACHARIAS: I have not received a ballot.

GALLAGHER: Like thousands of others in North Carolina, because of the pandemic --

ZACHARIAS: I have a compromised immune system.

GALLAGHER: Zacharias is voting by mail for the first time this year or trying to. According to ballot tracks, a new tool that North Carolina voters can use to check their status, her original ballot was mailed on September 11th. She contacted Guilford County in late September and was told ballot tracks might not be accurate, so to be safe, they canceled the original and sent her a new ballot which she's still waiting to get.

ZACHARIAS: Makes me angry.

GALLAGHER: Across town, a different kind of voting problem. Forty- seven-year-old Vincent Gager returned his and his 83-year-old dad's ballots weeks ago. So, he was shocked when we told him state data shows their ballots haven't been accepted.

VINCENT GAGER, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I've been doing it the same way for years. I sign his, you know, I'm the witness because you know, I'm his son.

GALLAGHER: He's not alone. So far, more than 1.3 million North Carolina voters have requested an absentee ballot, and almost 40 percent of them have already been returned. But according to state data, nearly 7,200 are still under review, meaning the vote hasn't yet been accepted. Black voters make up only 16 percent of the total statewide ballot returns, but they account for almost 40 percent of the ballots listed as pending.

ANTHONY SPEARMAN, PRESIDENT, NAACP, NORTH CAROLINA: This is no way to run an election.

GALLAGHER: Dr. T. Anthony Spearman is the president of the North Carolina NAACP. He's also a member of the Board of Elections in Guilford County where nearly 6 percent ballots returned by black voters are still listed as pending.

SPEARMAN: So many of them are for the first time undergoing this process, and their naivety to it is causing some of these rejections.

GALLAGHER: As election workers review ballots for processing, they're supposed to notify a voter if they find a problem. Most issues can be fixed or cured without having to fill out a new ballot. But a slew of lawsuits surrounding what to do with ballots that are missing witness information led to the state board telling counties to do nothing and just wait for court guidance, leaving thousands of voters in limbo as the clock ticks down to election day.

SPEARMAN: And people are losing confidence, they're losing trust in the election cycle.

GALLAGHER: Creating suspicion in the shadows of North Carolina's ugly history of minority voter disenfranchisement.

GAGER: And I feel like they're trying to do voter suppression.

GALLAGHER: Still waiting on her ballot, Zacharias is suspicious, too.

ZACHARIAS: So I want to cast a vote.

GALLAGHER: Are you afraid that your state is going to prevent you from doing that?

ZACHARIAS: I don't know the answer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GALLAGHER: And the state and the county boards say, look, voting by mail is trustworthy, it is safe, it is secure.