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The Lead with Jake Tapper
White House Stands By Stephen Miller; Buttigieg Struggling to Win African-American Votes; Impact of Impeachment; Week Two of Impeachment Hearings Set to Begin. Aired 4:30-5p ET
Aired November 18, 2019 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:30:01]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He, too, is slated to appear on Tuesday.
ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: There is no one star witness that this whole case will rise or fall on, not that we know of right now. But I think Vindman is sort of another brick in the wall that House Democrats are trying to build.
HILL: Former Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker defended the president's actions in closed-door testimony, telling lawmakers there was -- quote -- "no leverage implied."
REP. MARK MEADOWS (R-NC): There was no linkage. And I think further testimony and depositions will confirm that multiple times.
REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D-CA): We have text messages from Volker and Sondland.
HILL: Volker's private text message the morning of the July 25 call revealed Ukrainian officials pushing for a White House meeting, Volker writing to an aide for Zelensky: "Assuming President Z convinces Trump he will investigate, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail down a date for the visit to Washington. Good luck."
On August 9, Sondland messages Volker: "I think POTUS really wants the deliverable," going on to suggest Volker should ask for the Ukrainian president's aid in crafting a -- quote -- "draft statement, so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover."
Volker will also appear on Tuesday.
SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Kurt Volker, let's remember, is a former career Foreign Service officer. Kurt Volker knew what normal foreign policy looks like.
HILL: The week's final witness, Fiona Hill, is expected to describe what she saw as a nightmare scenario: private interests driving U.S. policy.
High stakes heading into a potentially explosive week of testimony. REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: We are adjourned.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And our thanks to Erica Hill for her reporting there.
Is the impeachment inquiry changing any minds of any voters in key battleground states?
We're going to go live to a county President Trump won by just 109 votes in 2016.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:36:22]
TAPPER: Our 2020 lead.
Many Democrats and Republicans think that impeachment is helping their side. A new CNN "Des Moines Register"/Mediacom poll of Iowa shows 60 percent of Republican voters say impeachment will be a political winner for Trump's reelection.
A smaller percentage, but still a plurality of Iowa Democrats, 45 percent, think it will make it easier for their party to win in 2020.
CNN's Miguel Marquez is looking at how impeachment is playing in a another swing state, Wisconsin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Third- generation farmer Greg Lohr on the fence.
(on camera): In 2020, what are you going to do?
GREG LOHR, WISCONSIN VOTER: Still undecided.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Dairy cows and harvesting an already late crop, a bigger worry than impeachment.
G. LOHR: I think they should just forget that and just worry about the issues at hand and try to help people. I mean, there's just -- there's going to be a new election in another year, I guess.
MARQUEZ: On impeachment, Sauk County, Wisconsin, northwest of Madison, divided as ever, farmland and picture postcard towns where the Ringling Brothers got their start.
In 2016, candidate Trump won this rural county by 109 votes.
Doris Lohr is an independent who supported Hillary Clinton. She dislikes the president, but isn't sure there's enough to remove him from office.
DORIS LOHR, WISCONSIN VOTER: Yes, we need to be unified. We need to be -- but we're not making progress in America. We're going downhill.
MARQUEZ: The county's divisions obvious. At a regular Democratic protest of the president, they get support as much as thumbs down, among other, less polite gestures.
Mike and Kari Walker, co-owners of the Touchdown Tavern, both described themselves as moderate conservatives. Both voted third party in 2016. She's opposed to abortion rights, but is considering a Democrat.
(on camera): Can either of us see yourselves voting for a Democrat in 2020? And which one, if so?
(LAUGHTER)
MARQUEZ: Boy, that was a pained expression.
KARI WALKER, WISCONSIN VOTER: It is pained.
MIKE WALKER, WISCONSIN VOTER: I will tell you, I love Andrew Yang.
M. WALKER: Obviously, he's very smart.
K. WALKER: And he's funny.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): On impeachment, they haven't decided whether the president crossed the line.
K. WALKER: I don't think it's a witch-hunt. I don't think it's a waste of taxpayer dollars. I don't -- I think we need to go through this.
MARQUEZ: Veteran, business owner and independent voter Gregg Snell says he doesn't like Trump, but impeachment?
GREGG SNELL, WISCONSIN VOTER: Well, I believe it's a pretty drastic step. Whether I like the man or not is immaterial. Impeachment is -- it's pretty drastic.
MARQUEZ: Dan Shay lives paycheck to paycheck. He voted for Trump, now so disillusioned, he switched parties.
(on camera): Where is Sauk County right now?
DAN SHAY, WISCONSIN VOTER: A toss-up. He's going to have to come here, work his butt off to try win this state back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARQUEZ: Now, both parties are going to contest Sauk County and Wisconsin heavily. The Democrats have their convention here. The Republicans say it's trending more conservative, so they think they can win it. At the end of the day, the way the Electoral College is sort of shaping up, those 10 electoral votes in this state could decide who sits in the Oval Office -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right, Miguel Marquez, thanks so much.
And Miguel will be checking back in with the voters of Sauk County, Wisconsin, to see how views evolve in that swing district in that key battleground state throughout the impeachment inquiry.
Let's chat about this.
And this isn't so theoretical, because there have been some elections in the last few weeks. And we have seen Democrats win the Kentucky's governor's race, the Louisiana governor's race and do really well in Virginia.
[16:40:05]
It doesn't seem like it's necessarily hurting Democrats, although I don't know that it's helping them either.
SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I was thinking about it this way.
I mean, there was a lot of coverage in the run-ups to the governor's races about how perhaps the Republican candidates were seizing on the impeachment issue as a way to motivate conservative voters, bring out the base.
And I think that did not happen. It did not turbocharge the base, perhaps, like it did -- like the Kavanaugh issue did last year. So the problem, also, what the president did there is that he personalized the races so much.
I mean, it's one thing for him to go in and rescue a struggling gubernatorial candidate, particularly we saw that in Kentucky and to a lesser extent in Louisiana, but he really made it about himself. He made it, do this for me. He was like, go out and vote for me. Send a message to people nationwide, to people in Washington.
And that, we certainly saw, didn't work.
TAPPER: And it -- go ahead.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: What we have seen also is that the president has struggled to actually convert his base's fervent support for him and translate that and push that over to other Republican candidates.
TAPPER: Obama had that problem too. It doesn't really translate necessarily.
DIAMOND: Right.
And so that's also why I kind of start to think, as we prepare for this to head to the Senate side, as we expect the House to impeach President Trump, what does that do for Republican support there? The president has been relying on them, and he's relying on the fact that he's got the base.
Republicans know they need his base. So that's something to think about.
TAPPER: Do you think it's a wash? What do you think?
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's a little bit of a wash.
But, look, I think the danger, I think, for Trump is that people are just sick of the drama one way or -- and all of the tweeting that he's been doing, I think, reminds people that he's just -- it's all about him and this sort of nastiness and tearing people down. And we have seen movement among those white suburban women.
MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I'll just close with the reminder, which I can now echo President Obama on. He was talking about policy, but I'm going to talk about impeachment. I think it applies too, that the rest of the country, particularly swing states, are not Twitter.
And they're going to react differently than liberal Twitter to impeachment and to policy than the rest of the electorate. And Democrats should be careful.
TAPPER: Stick around, because we're going to talk about 2020 next.
After some very good news, Mayor Pete Buttigieg finding out he's polling lower than Marianne Williamson among one key group in one key primary state.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:46:53]
TAPPER: In our 2020 lead today, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg riding a high from that new CNN/"Des Moines Register"/Mediacom poll putting him at the very top of the heap in Iowa.
But, today, he's in Atlanta working to shore up what another poll shows is a glaring problem with his campaign, his lack of support from a key Democratic demographic, African-American voters.
A new Quinnipiac poll from South Carolina shows Mayor Pete has zero percent support among black voters. That's right, zero, clearly a drag on his overall numbers in South Carolina, where he's at just 6 percent, with former Vice President Joe Biden leading the pack at 33 percent.
Let's chat about this. Karen, you're the Democrat at the table. What is the problem? Why can't Pete Buttigieg make any inroads with black voters?
FINNEY: They don't trust him.
And what you hear is, it goes back to his role as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and the challenges he's had with the black community and the fact that his answer was, well, we tried and I failed. And people liked that answer in the beginning because they said, well, that's being really honest.
But if you're black people in that community, you say, yes, but it's -- we took the impact of the fact that you failed. And they really haven't come up with a good answer yet. And so I think that has just sort of continued this lack of trust.
TAPPER: And listen, Mary Katharine, to 2020 candidate former Secretary of HUD Julian Castro talking about Mayor Pete.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIAN CASTRO (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I believe Mayor Buttigieg has a real problem with black voters. If you can't excite people and speak to the African-American voter in a genuine way that's based on a track record, it's too risky to be at the top of the ticket.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: I don't know about the Buttigieg part of that, but what do you what do you think about the overall assessment?
HAM: Look, I think it's a real problem for any Democratic candidate if they're polling zero in this demographic.
Now, we have seen instances where black voters in South Carolina, in the South, places where there are just disproportionately black voters in the Democratic primary, have decided once they see that someone proves his mettle, as a Barack Obama did, they will very quickly move over to that candidate.
But I don't see the opportunity. Maybe winning Iowa is the opportunity for people to Pete Buttigieg to do that and say, look, I'm the guy who could pull this off, and they give him another hearing.
But I do think there needs to be an opportunity for him to have another hearing.
TAPPER: And let's give him as do for the Iowa poll which just came out. He's polling ahead, 25 percent. I mean, that is big. The next in line is Senator Elizabeth Warren. She's nine points behind him, 16 percent, followed by Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders at 15 percent.
It's not just that he's ahead. He's nine points ahead of his closest rival, Elizabeth Warren, who people a few weeks ago, days ago thought was the Democratic front-runner, really a pretty remarkable rise in that state. KIM: And it's a colossal jump too from where he had been previously in the CNN/"Register" poll, in the Monmouth polls.
I think that's what's going to make the debate performance really interesting on Wednesday night. We saw how, in the last debate, Elizabeth Warren was really perceived to be the front-runner, just by the fact -- or just by one fact that everybody else on the stage was going after her.
So I think it seems pretty clear that Mayor Pete will be a major target of the other candidates on the debate stage on Wednesday. And how they go after him, whether it's his record with the black community, whether it's his positions on the Medicare for all issue, it will be really interesting.
[16:50:09]
TAPPER: And one of the things he's trying to do is cast himself as not necessarily more moderate when it comes to policies, but also -- well, that also, but also in temperament.
President Obama warned Democratic candidates, most voters don't want to tear down the system. And here is what Mayor Buttigieg had to say about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The presidency that I'm envisioning is one that delivers big and bold changes and answers, but also seeks to do it in a way that can unify and include as many as possible.
I just reject the idea that the bigness or boldness of an idea or proposal should be measured by how many people it angers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIAMOND: Look, I mean, obviously, this kind of gets to the core of this electability argument that the Democratic primary voters have been having this entire cycle.
And it seems like we are especially entering an election cycle where every voter wants to be a pundit and every voter is looking at this kind of through the lens of an election analyst on TV.
And I think that is kind of impacting how people are kind of thinking this through. Again, this also -- Pete Buttigieg's strong showing in Iowa is also a factor of his ground game, the amount of money that he's been spending on TV there, and there are still several months still to go.
Also, one thing that is still going to happen between now and the Iowa caucuses, a potential impeachment trial in the Senate, where you're going to have several senators like Elizabeth Warren on stage there. Pete Buttigieg will be in Iowa. So we will see how that kind of plays in either one's favor. HAM: Let me just close with, I agree with President Obama.
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: You love saying that.
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: He's the man behind President Trump's hard-line immigration policy, and now e-mails show Stephen Miller's ties to Web sites and organizations pushing white nationalist conspiracy theories.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:56:22]
TAPPER: In our national lead today, the White House is standing by Stephen Miller, President Trump's senior adviser, but they are not denying the legitimacy of a trove of e-mails given by a former editor at Breitbart to the Southern Poverty Law Center that the center says clearly show Miller as a Senate aide before Trump won pushing a white nationalist agenda.
CNN's Sara Sidner took a look at some of the more -- the 900 e-mails between Miller and Breitbart.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A trove of e- mails released by the Southern Poverty Law Center show now senior White House adviser Stephen Miller pushing theories from white nationalist sources to far right Web site Breitbart.
In one e-mail, dated October 2015, while Miller still worked for then Senator Jeff Sessions, he touts what he saw as the dangers of allowing hurricane victims from Mexico to come to the U.S.
"They will all get TPS," he writes. That's temporary protection status. He goes on to write: "That needs to be the weekend's big story. TPS is everything."
Then he sends then Breitbart staffer Katie McHugh an article from prominent white nationalist Web site VDARE of the dangers of TPS.
In 2018, well after Miller joined Trump's inner circle, the president ended the TPS status for several countries, including in Central America and Africa. McHugh, who gave the e-mails to the Southern Poverty Law Center, has recalled on the phone a conversation with Miller to discuss an article about interracial crime on the white nationalist Web site American Renaissance.
KATIE MCHUGH, FORMER BREITBART EDITOR: He would pull crime statistics from there and then try to funnel that through conservative media in order to target people of color. SIDNER: In another e-mail in July 2015, Miller sent McHugh a link
from the Web site Infowars, which peddles in conspiracy theories. The Infowars headline quotes Reverend Franklin Graham: "We are under attack. Stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S."
A year-and-a-half later, shortly after the president took office and Miller was in the West Wing, the newly elected president signed an executive order based on this campaign pledge:
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
SIDNER: McHugh was fired by Breitbart in 2017 after she tweeted derogatory statements about Muslims. She has since denounced far- right politics and agreed to speak to us via phone only.
MCHUGH: Breitbart editors expected me to take their editorial direction from Stephen Miller, up and including to editing the headlines on news pieces.
SIDNER: Ultimately, the Southern Poverty Law Center says Miller's efforts with Breitbart were meant to influence policy. And it worked.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you see in these e-mails is Stephen Miller creating an appetite for the type of anti-immigrant policies the Trump administration has enacted through Breitbart News.
SIDNER: Miller did not answer specific questions about his e-mails. Instead, a White House spokesperson send us this statement: "SPLC is engaged in a vile smear campaign against a Jewish staffer. While Mr. Miller condemns racism and bigotry in all forms, those defaming him are trying to deny his Jewish identity, which is a pernicious form of anti-Semitism."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an absolutely laughable and offensive attack. I think Miller is responding with these charges of anti-Semitism because he has no other answer to it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIDNER: Now, Breitbart News told CNN the SPLC claims to have 3-to-4- year-old e-mails involving an individual whom they fired years ago. "And you now have an even better idea why we fired her."
That's a quote from them. They say it is not exactly a news flash that political staffers pitch stories to journalists, but McHugh disputes that, saying that she was basically just a stenographer for Miller -- Jake.
TAPPER: Sara Sidner, thanks.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:45:00] JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: In our 2020 lead today, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg riding a high from that new CNN Des Moines Register Mediacom poll putting him at the very top of the heap in Iowa.
Well today he's in Atlanta working to shore up what another poll shows is a glaring problem with his campaign, his lack of support from a key Democratic demographic African-American voters.
A new Quinnipiac Poll from South Carolina shows Mayor Pete has zero percent support among black voters. That's right, zero. Cleary a drag on his overall numbers in South Carolina where he's at just six percent with former Vice President -- Vice -- former Vice President Joe Biden leading the pack at 33 percent.
Lets chit chat about this. Karen, you're the Democrat at the table. What is the problem? Why can't Pete Buttigieg make any end roads with black voters?
KAREN FINNEY, FORMER SR. SPOKESWOMAN FOR HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN: They don't trust him. And what you hear is, it goes back to his role as Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and the challenges he's had with the black community and the fact that his answer was, well we tried and I failed.
And people liked that answer in the beginning, because they say, well that's being really honest. But, if you're black people in that community, you say, yes, but it's -- we took the impact of the fact that you failed. And they really haven't come up with a good answer yet. And so, I think that has just sort of continued this lack of trust.
TAPPER: And listen, Mary Katharine, to 2020 candidate, Former Secretary of HUD, Julian Castro, talking about Mayor Pete.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIAN CASTRO, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF HUD: I believe Mayor Buttigieg has a real problem with black voters. If you can't excite people and speak to the African-American voter, in a genuine way that's based on a track record, then it's too risky to be at the top of the ticket.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: I don't know about the Buttigieg part of that, but what do you -- what do you think about the overall assessment?
MARY KATHARINE HAM, CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST: Well, I think it's -- I think it's a real problem for any Democratic candidate if they're pulling zero, that's -- in this demographic.
Now, they're -- we've seen instances where black voters in South Carolina or in the south, places where they're disproportionally black voters in the Democratic primary have decided once they see that someone proves his metal, as Barak Obama did -- TAPPER: Right.
HAM: -- they will very quickly move over to that -- to that candidate. But, I don't see the opportunity, maybe winning Iowa is the opportunity for Pete Buttigieg to that. Say, look, I'm the guy who could pull this off and to give him another hearing. But, I do think there needs to be an opportunity for him to have another hearing.
TAPPER: And let's give him his due for the Iowa poll, which just came out. He's pulling ahead 25 percent. I mean, that is big. The next in line is Senator Elizabeth Warren; she's nine points behind him, 16 percent, followed by Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders at 15 percent.
It's not just that he's ahead, he's nine points ahead of his closest rival, Elizabeth Warren, who people, a few weeks ago, days ago, thought was the Democratic frontrunner. Really, a pretty remarkable rise in that state.
SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER FOR WASHINGTON POST: And it's a colossal jump too from where he had been previously in the CNN Register Poll, in the Monmouth Polls. I think that's what's going to make the debate performance really interesting on Wednesday night.
We saw how in the last debate Elizabeth Warren was really perceived to be the frontrunner just by the fact -- or just by one fact that everybody else on the stage was going after her.
So, I think it seems pretty clear that Mayor Pete will be a major target of the other candidates on the debate stage on Wednesday. And how they go after him, whether it's his record with the black community, whether its his positions on the Medicare For All issue, will be really interesting.
TAPPER: And one of the things he's trying to do is cast himself as, not necessarily more moderate when it comes to policies, but also -- well, that, also, but also in temperament.
[16:50:00]
President Obama warned democratic candidates most voters don't want to tear down the system and here is what Mayor Buttigieg said about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
PETE BUTTIGIEG, 2020 PRESIDENTAL CANDIDATE: The presidency that I'm envisioning is one that delivers big and bold changes and answers but also seeks to do it in a way that can unify and include as many as possible. I just reject the idea that the bigness or boldness of an idea or proposal should be measured by how many people it angers.
(END VIDEO)
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Look, I mean, obviously this kind of gets to the core of this electability argument that the democratic primary voters have been having this entire cycle and it seems like we're especially entering an election cycle where every voter wants to be a pundit and every voter is looking at this kind of through the lens of an election analyst on TV and I think that is kind of impacting how people are kind of thinking this through.
Again, this also Pete Buttigieg's strong showing in Iowa is also a factor of his ground game, the amount of money that he's been spending on TV there and there are still several months still to go. Also one thing that there is still going to happen between now and the Iowa caucuses, a potential impeachment trial in the Senate where you're going to have several Senators like Elizabeth Warren on stage there. Pete Buttigieg will be in Iowa so we'll see how that kind of plays in the other one's favor.
MARY KATHARINE HAM, CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST: And let me close it. I agree with President Obama.
TAPPER: Thank you for saying that. He's the man behind President Trump's hard line immigration policy and now emails show that Stephen Miller's ties to websites and organizations pushing white nationalist conspiracy theories. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:55:00]
TAPPER: Internationally today the White House is standing by Stephen Miller, President Trump Senior Advisor. But they are not denying the legitimacy of a trove of e-mails given by a former editor at Breitbart to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But the center says clearly show Miller as a center -- as a Senate aide before Trump won pushing a white nationalist agenda. Sara Sidner took a look at some of the more -- the 900 e-mails between Miller and Breitbart.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA SIDNER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A trove of e-mails released by the Southern Poverty Law Center show now Senior White House Advisor Stephen Miller pushing theories from white nationalist sources to far right website Breitbart.
In one e-mail, dated October 2015, while Miller still worked for then Senator Jeff Sessions, he talked what he saw as the dangers of allowing hurricane victims from Mexico to come to the U.S. "They will all get TPS," he writes. That's Temporary Protection Status.
He goes on to write, "That needs to be the weekend's BIG story. TPS is everything." Then he sends then Breitbart staffer Katie McHugh an article from prominent white nationalist website VDARE of the dangers of TPS.
In 2018, well after Miller joined Trumps inner circle, the president ended the TPS status for several countries, including in Central America and Africa. McHugh who gave the e-mails to the Southern Poverty Law Center has recalled on the phone a conversation with Miller to discuss an article about interracial crime on the white nationalist website American Renaissance.
KATIE MCHUGH, FORMER BREITBART EDITOR: He would pull crime statistics from there and then try to funnel that through conservative media and that in order to target people of color.
SIDNER: In another e-mail on in July 2015, Miller sent McHugh a link from the website InfoWars which peddles in conspiracy theories. The InfoWars headline quotes Reverend Franklin Graham. "We are under attack. Stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S."
A year and a half later shortly after the president took office and Miller was in the west wing, the newly elected president signed an executive order based on this campaign pledge.
TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
SIDNER: McHugh was fired by Breitbart in 2017 after she tweeted derogatory statements about Muslims. She has since denounced far right politics and agreed to speak to us by a phone only.
MCHUGH: Breitbart editors expected me to take their editorial direction from Stephen Miller up and including the editing of headlines of news pieces.
SIDNER: Ultimately, the Southern Poverty Law Center says Miller's efforts with Breitbart were meant to influence policy and it worked.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you see in these e-mails is Stephen Miller creating an appetite for the type of anti-immigrant policies the Trump administration has enacted through Breitbart News.
SIDNER: Miller did not answer specific questions about his e-mails. Instead, a White House spokesperson sent us this statement.
"SPLC is engaged in a vile smear campaign against a Jewish staffer while Mr. Miller condemns racism and bigotry in all forms, those defaming him or trying to deny his Jewish identity, which is a pernicious form of anti-Semitism."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an absolutely laughable and offensive attack. I think Miller is responding with these charges of anti-Semitism because he has no other answer to it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIDNER: Breitbart News told CNN the SPLC claims to have three to four year old e-mails involving an individual whom they fired years ago and you now have an even better idea why we fired her. That's a quote from them.
They say it is not exactly a news flash that political staffers pitch stories to journalists. But McHugh disputes that saying that she was basically just a stenographer for Miller, Jake.
TAPPER: Sara Sidner, thanks. You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
