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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Hillary Clinton Responds to E-Mail Controversy; Oklahoma University Students Expelled; School Expels 2 Students Caught on Tape; Dems Call Letter to Iran "Sabotage"

Aired March 10, 2015 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Hillary Clinton finally talking to the press about the e-mail controversy, but Republicans say she raised more questions than answers.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The politics lead. The former secretary of state explains why she used a private e-mail account when she was in charge of the State Department. She says it was easier, more convenient. But now, of course, she says it would have been better, simpler, smarter to use a .gov official e-mail account. What about those 30,000 e-mails she described today as personal? Are Republicans going to demand to see them?

The national lead. Oklahoma University kicks out two students I.D.ed on a video, expelled. That video, of course, of SAE frat boys chanting the N-word. Now their house mom who just earlier was swearing this disgusting behavior is not SAE, well, she's caught on tape herself.

And in other national news, new dramatic video showing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sprinting from the carnage he created as prosecutors in court detail what the admitted Boston bomber scrawled on the inside of that boat.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to THE LEAD. You hear that closing bell. I'm Jake Tapper.

We're going to begin with the breaking news in our money lead, the Dow tanking, closing down more than 300 points today.

Let's go right to Alison Kosik. She's live in New York.

Alison, what happened?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jake, investors certainly got spooked today in a big way, selling stocks as fast as they could. And that's because the dollar is crushing other currencies and actually gaining on the euro.

The worry is the stronger dollar spells bad news for U.S. companies that do a lot of business overseas. And, sure, the strong dollar may speak to the health of the U.S. economy, that it's doing better than the rest of the world. But here's the rub. That stronger dollar cuts into profits for companies and it makes their stuff more expensive overseas. Now some analysts are expecting corporate earnings to be in the red in the first six months of this year.

But the good news is the prices of imported goods could be cheaper to the U.S. And if you're traveling to Europe, your money will go a lot further. Some analysts are saying it's possible that one euro could equal one dollar in the not-so-distant future -- Jake.

TAPPER: Alison Kosik keeping her eyes on the markets for us, thank you so much.

Let's turn now to our politics lead, because just a few minutes ago, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrapped up a press conference, her first time speaking publicly about the e-mail controversy that has embroiled her expected presidential bid for the past eight days.

She tried to explain that the BlackBerry that spawned that meme was her only device during her tenure at the State Department. Clinton thought it would be easier to lug one four-and-a-half-inch phone instead of, well, two. In her statement and her Q&A which ran a shade under 21 minutes, Clinton said she did this out of an abundance of caution and care.

She says she never sent classified material over e-mail and any e- mails she chose not to keep, in her words, were personal. She described them as things about Chelsea's 2010 wedding or her mother's 2011 funeral or her "yoga routine."

The Republican-led committee investigating Benghazi already letting it be known today they are not satisfied with the secretary's answers. In a statement issued just minutes ago, Congressman Trey Gowdy says, "Because Secretary Clinton has created more questions than answers, the select committee is left with no choice but to call her to appear at least twice."

Let's go right to CNN senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar.

Brianna, you were inside the U.N. as Clinton took questions. You asked her if she deleted any work e-mails. Were you and the other reporters there happy with her answers to the questions?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think there are still a lot of questions, and it seems we may not know the answers to them, Jake, because she retains control of that server.

That's really the heart of it. That's why I asked this question. But she said -- she revealed actually -- and this was something we didn't know before -- that when she went through the process of separating her government-related e-mails from the e-mails that she and her team deemed to be personal e-mails, she or someone on her team deleted the personal e-mails.

So I asked her really, what would she do, to what length would she go to prove she hadn't also deleted government-related e-mails? Here's the exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Did you or any of your aides delete any government-related e- mails from your personal account?

CLINTON: We did not.

In fact, my direction to conduct the thorough investigation was to err on the side of providing anything that could be possibly viewed as work-related.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Even some Clinton supporters have suggested this idea of having an independent third party come in, Jake, and take a look at the server to really prove her case on this. But she made it clear that's something she's not open to. She said she felt as if she's met her obligations on this.

TAPPER: And also, of course, Brianna, a lot of questions about how these e-mails were stored, how safe and secure they were since they weren't under official government control. What did she have to say about that?

KEILAR: Well, we knew that this server had been registered to the home that she and President Clinton share in Chappaqua.

We understand now from what she was saying is that it is now physically housed there, we believe. She said it's physically housed somewhere where it's protected by the Secret Service. And she said that this is certainly a very secure situation. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: The system we used was set up for President Clinton's office. And it had numerous safeguards.

It was on property, guarded by the Secret Service. And there were no security breaches.

I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail. There is no classified material.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Of course, Jake, it isn't just an issue of classified material. It could be an issue of what's called SBU at the State Department, sensitive, but unclassified information. We still don't have the answer to that question.

TAPPER: Brianna Keilar live for us in New York, thank you so much.

Let's bring in former deputy press secretary for Hillary Clinton Karen Finney, plus CNN political commentator and former senior adviser to Mitt Romney Kevin Madden.

Thank you both for being here.

Kevin, how did she do?

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Look, I honestly try to look at these as clinically as possible, try to see which way they're going to move the political needle.

And I think she had three constituencies here. I think the first constituency was worried Democrats that are worried about this taking over potentially a storyline not only for them, but for her potential campaign. I think they came out of it a little less worried than they usually went into it. But there's still a lot of questions out there.

I think the second constituency would be the media. I think the media is still going to have lots and lots of questions here. And I think that third constituency would be persuadable voters. I think reading from a script and I think only answering questions halfway is really going to really -- is going to have an impact on those persuadable voters, because the one thing they look at Hillary Clinton and they still can't get over is, can I trust this person? I think that remains a problem.

TAPPER: Karen?

KAREN FINNEY, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: So, I would say I actually don't think that many persuadable voters are -- that this what they're paying attention to now, because I think they have more to do in their own lives, like getting their kids off to school and worrying about their mortgages.

But I certainly think, for those who are interested in it, you know, I guess, not surprisingly, I disagree with Kevin, in that I think people like to see people come out. You can dispute, did it take too long, did she take enough questions? I think she was never going to satisfy that.

And she stood there and she took questions. It's my understanding actually that it was her idea that she stand there and take questions and not just do an interview, as some had suggested.

TAPPER: Let's talk about the fact that it took eight days for this, which as you will acknowledge in this media environment is like seven years, right?

FINNEY: Yes.

TAPPER: Did she say anything today that she couldn't have said eight days ago?

FINNEY: You know, I don't know the answer to that, obviously, because I don't know from a technical perspective if there were things that they wanted to go back and double-check or triple-check.

But what I will say that she said today that I thought was important and I give her credit for, she said, I would have done it differently. If I had to do it again, I would have done it differently. And I think to Kevin's point, it is a situation where either you're going to -- either you believe her or you don't. Either you believe -- and that frankly is what a campaign is all about.

It's all about, is this person credible to or not? From my perspective, 20 minutes of questions, I think she was credible and I think the answer was pretty simple. It was convenience.

TAPPER: I think last time you two were here, we talked about how this reminded one of you two of Romney releasing his tax returns.

MADDEN: Yes, I actually said that.

TAPPER: You are the one that brought that up.

(CROSSTALK)

FINNEY: He's still bitter about that.

TAPPER: No, but the idea of you're going to do it anyway, so do it immediately makes sense here.

And I guess does -- I don't know how candid you're going to be about this, but the fact that these political skills seem a little rusty as a Democrat who wants to vote for her, does that concern you?

FINNEY: No.

I also get we're that we're not -- if were in the heat of the campaign, I would have expected it to come a little sooner. I think there were logistical concerns. They couldn't do it yesterday because of the thing they were doing with Melinda Gates. I think they were trying to figure out, how do we not step on -- to be fair, people have been working on both today at the U.N. and yesterday for years.

And there are a lot of other people involved. I think there is a sensitivity to that. But, no, look, the important thing is, she came out, she took responsibility for it. I think again we're left with, you know, Colin Powell said, I didn't turn over anything because I didn't have anything.

Do we trust him? Do we believe him? Jeb Bush has said, here's what I have turned over. I have made the decision of what I'm going to turn over, what I'm not going to turn over. Do we trust him? Hillary Clinton said, here's what I have done. Do you trust her?

MADDEN: I fundamentally disagree with the idea that voters aren't paying attention to this. They are.

You look, it's not only front page of "The New York Times." This is on the front page of "The Columbus Dispatch," "The Las Vegas Sun." It's everywhere. Voters are going to pay attention to this. And trust is an issue. It's not just about the economy or national security. They want to trust their public officials right now. Right now they have a very low sense of trust in leaders in Washington.

That's why I think as far as why this took so long, I think voters wonder whether or not she had something to hide in those eight days. Eight days and one tweet, that was all we had. So that trust issue is going to be here every day all the way through to the end of the election.

(CROSSTALK)

MADDEN: And that's a problem for Hillary Clinton.

FINNEY: But that's essentially exactly what I said. That's what a campaign is. Every day, people are watching and making a decision, do you trust this person or not? I think she gave a very reasonable answer, that it was more for convenience. And I think it's a fair point to make.

MADDEN: There's a lot more questions coming.

FINNEY: OK. But the server that she's talking about also happens to encase things from a former president of the United States of America. That's an unprecedented situation.

TAPPER: Clinton began her remarks today by addressing another major political story today. And that is the letter written to the Iranian leaders from the 47 Republican senators. Hashtag #47traitors, that's trending on Twitter, Kevin.

Was this a misstep by the Republicans?

MADDEN: I don't know yet. I still this still has to be played out.

I think there are serious questions about whether or not the role of Congress, this is the proper role of Congress, whether or not it's undermining foreign policy. There are questions there. I'm not the beset expert to talk on that.

I do think that when you look at how the American public views this, I don't think it's really that much of a risk to go hard against Iran right now. People are very worried about the deal that is being cut over there. People are worried about its influence in a very unstable region of the world right now.

So I think that is -- we have to watch over these next two weeks whether or not the public views some of the mechanics of how the Congress should work and how it should be interfering or not interfering with foreign policy with whether or not they feel -- they agree with strong words against Iran.

TAPPER: Karen, polls indicate that people are very suspicious of Iran and do not trust that any plan will be adhered to by Iran.

FINNEY: Well, as well they should be.

But I think from a lot of Americans also, though, we like to put on a unified front. What we have seen in the last couple weeks, between Bibi coming here and now this letter from the Republicans, it's embarrassing, because it basically says, we can't get our act together, and yet we're supposed to be trusted at the table with the P5-plus-one to make this negotiation? It looks like junior league.

TAPPER: Karen and Kevin, always love having you guys here. Thank you so much, Karen Finney, Kevin Madden.

In our national lead, two University of Oklahoma students just expelled for taking a -- quote -- "leadership role" in the singing of that racist song, as today new video comes to light showing that the fraternity's house mother used the N-word at least seven times -- her response coming up.

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TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

The national lead now: the president of the University of Oklahoma said there would be zero tolerance for bigotry on his campus. And today, he set out to at least try to probe that. David Boren announcing via Twitter, the two fraternity members from Sigma Alpha Epsilon have been expelled from the school for their leadership role in singing a racist chant which got videotaped and sent anonymously to the school newspaper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD (chanting): You can hang them from a tree, but they'll never sign with me. There will never be a (AUDIO DELETED) SAE!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The fallout over this vile video now extends far from fraternity members directly involved, sorority members seen possibly chanting along could be targeted in an official investigation, and a house mother for the fraternity who initially expressed shock over the chant to members of the media is now being scrutinized for a video which surfaced which shows her using the N-word over and over again while singing along to a rap song.

CNN's Miguel Marquez is live in Norman, Oklahoma, with an update.

And, Miguel, we just learned that one of the fraternity members seen prominently in initial video has been identified by name.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He has. It is Parker Rice. He's 19 years old. He pledged SAE the previous semester.

We went to his house in Dallas today. He and his family have left that area. They clearly do not want to talk to the media right now, probably for very good reason, although there are many of the members of the media who want to talk to them.

This as Norman and the University of Oklahoma here is grappling with this sprawling controversy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: It's the racist song --

CROWD (chanting): You can hang them from a tree, but they'll never sign with me. There will never be a (AUDIO DELETED) SAE! MARQUEZ: -- sparking outrage nationwide.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's sad and it's hurtful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Disgusting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pure disgraceful.

MARQUEZ: Now, two students expelled. University of Oklahoma president says he's employing zero tolerance, singling out the two who took a leadership role in the SAE fraternity video, saying they created a racist, hostile and exclusionary environment.

This, as all SAE members are vacating their house. Today, even the Sigma Alpha Epsilon letters gone.

The fraternity's house mother Beauton Gilbow now also stirring anger after this video from 2013 surfaced in which she repeatedly sings the N-word.

(AUDIO DELETED)

MARQUEZ: Gilbow has now responded to the video saying, "I am heartbroken by the portrayal that I am in some way racist," claiming the video is being taken out of contest. And she was innocently singing along to the Trinidad James song, "All Gold Everything."

Before the video featuring her went viral, though, Gilbow told CBS News her fraternity family was not racist and she was shocked to hear them use the N-word.

BEAUTON GILBOW, HOUSE MOTHER OF SAE FRATERNITY: I heard the words. Unbelievable. This is not -- this is not SAE.

MARQUEZ: Howard Dixon who worked as a cook at the SAE house for 15 years is today out of a job.

HOWARD DIXON, COOK AT SAE HOUSE: We used to have so much fun -- game- day and football season -- and now, it's all gone.

MARQUEZ: But contributions of more than $50,000 has already been raised online to help him out.

William James who says he's the last African-American member of SAE here is in disbelief.

WILLIAM BRUCE JAMES II, LAST AFRICAN-AMERICAN MEMBER OF OU SAE: I walk those halls. I lived in those rooms. My picture hangs on the wall. I held offices in that house. They were talking about me.

MARQUEZ: Students here in full protest mode, the storied football team linking arms in a powerful show of support. But there is fallout. One star recruit who had signed to play for OU says no more.

JEAN DELANCE: I wouldn't want my son or my child to go there or to anywhere like that, my brothers go anywhere like that. So, it was just very disturbing to me. I don't like it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Now, the University of Oklahoma says that it's continuing its investigation and there could be more expulsions ahead.

Meanwhile, students here are grappling with all of this. The Greek organizations here on campus meeting tonight to impart, talk about how they move beyond this. And also tonight, another demonstration at the now defunct SAE house -- Jake.

TAPPER: Miguel, members of the sorority that was reportedly there as well, Tri Del, some possibly chanting along, although you can't really tell from the video, could they be facing any discipline?

MARQUEZ: It is possible they could be facing discipline. It's not sure -- it's not obvious how far the school will go in all of this. Certainly somebody who took that video wanted it out there as well. There may be two people who took that video may be out there as well. So, I think the university wants to know who was on that bus. Everybody and they will deal with them one at a time -- Jake.

TAPPER: I wanted to ask you about these two individuals who came forward and shared this video. I know we're not identifying them. Are they OK? Are they safe? Have you heard anything about them?

Because I would think doing that they'd be able to figure out, the fraternity members can figure out who shot the video and they might theoretically be putting themselves in harm's way.

MARQUEZ: They could be, and I think everybody has gone to ground, the fraternity members, the sorority members, nor those who hot shot the video want to be named, want to be out there, and had certainly kept it quiet. The university, however, says that it has launched a full investigation and presumably they know everybody involved or soon will -- Jake.

TAPPER: Miguel Marquez in Norman, Oklahoma, thank you so much.

In our world lead today, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that the letter written by 47 Republican senators to the leaders of Iran was either meant to help Iran or to hurt the American president. But did those senators who wrote that letter to Iranian leaders actually break the law by doing so, as some Democrats say? That's next.

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