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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Pete Buttigieg's Moderate Pitch; Will Barr Justice Department Investigate Joe Biden?; Interview With Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired February 10, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Today begins the first full week of the post- impeachment Trump presidency.

But President Trump is still stewing, firing two key impeachment witnesses from their administration jobs and lashing out on Twitter and in speeches.

Joining me now is one subject of those attacks, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Senator, it's good to see you, as always.

In recent...

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): Great to be with you, Jake.

TAPPER: In recent days, the president has tweeted about you a couple times, calling you Joe Munchkin, insulting you, suggesting you wouldn't even be able to understand the transcript of that infamous July 25 call with President Zelensky.

Why do you think your vote in particular has struck such a nerve with President Trump?

MANCHIN: Well, let's first start.

The name-calling, basically, munchkin, I guess that -- I guess he's confused on that, because I am a little bigger than him.

He's got me about 30 pounds on weight, but I am a little taller than him. So, that shouldn't be accurate there.

TAPPER: You're not a munchkin.

MANCHIN: I'm not a munchkin.

TAPPER: That's fact-check true. OK.

MANCHIN: The other thing is, is that I think, if you look, I voted with the president and with a bipartisan way more than anybody, Jake, 56 percent of the time.

So, for me to say, Mr. President, this is wrong. This is wrong. You can't do this. You can't use a rogue proxy, such as Giuliani, with our national policy, and threaten a poor nation that is trying to defend itself.

I said, here's a superpower of the world, the most -- the most powerful person, the president of the United States, calling the most inexperienced leader, Jake, and saying, hey, by the way, can you get involved in our politics here to help us a little bit and do something?

Corruption, fighting corruption is fine, but not going as far as they went with it.

TAPPER: So, you...

MANCHIN: So, I think that's when I was -- that took me over the top quicker than anything.

TAPPER: You spent the weekend in West Virginia, your home state.

MANCHIN: Yes.

TAPPER: President Trump has said that West Virginians are furious at you.

Are they?

MANCHIN: Well, there's some always going to be. I mean, this is part of the game.

When you divide the country up the way he has -- and I would say, Mr. Trump, you don't need to be a chief a uniter -- a divider in chief. He needs to be uniter in chief. He needs to be the head uniter for our country.

[16:30:05]

So, the country is split right now. So, there are people who get upset.

I explain to them. I have always said this, Jake. If I can go home and explain, I can vote for it. If I can't, I will vote against it.

I can explain this vote. The evidence was overwhelming, the evidence we received. I thought that the president was going to defend himself when he got to the Senate. He said he wanted have witnesses, and on and on and on.

And they took -- they didn't take that course. They wanted us to accept that, if it's the president does it, it's OK. The president is above the law.

And I said, I'm sorry, I can't buy on to that. That's not who we are. And that's not who the framers wanted us to be. And it's not the way that, if you read the Federalist 65, what Hamilton -- how he labored over this one article, the impeachment article, it was for this purpose.

And I hope that maybe my vote can send a signal to the president. I still want to work with you. I want you to succeed. But we're in this together. There's a division here. We have three equal branches of government. And we're a democracy because of that.

And I said, we have to have open and free elections. We can't have intervention, a foreign entity, any way, shape or form. So that's where I am. And I wish he would have produced witnesses. I said back home in West Virginia, if you accuse me of something, Jake, I can't wait to defend myself. I know I'm innocent. I want to defend myself. And, here, I'll have so and so come and tell you and testify, and I'll bring you documents.

Well, when you don't do that, that means it's either non-defendable or you already have the jury cooked, one of the two.

TAPPER: Mm-hmm.

President Trump just fired two key impeachment witnesses from their administration jobs, Vindman and Sondland, not to mention Vindman's brother.

Chuck Schumer says this is witness retaliation. Do you agree?

MANCHIN: Oh, absolutely.

I mean, how else can you determine anything else? Here's two people totally qualified. He did his job. Now, did he get fired because they have a dossier on him, a portfolio on him showing that he didn't act in a professional manner, that he had been in deficiency in some of his job relation? I don't know. I would like to see that report.

If that's not there, and they haven't built that over a period of time showing he wasn't -- he wasn't proficient, then the only conclusion you can make, Jake, is he got fired because of his being honest and coming forth as an American citizen and doing his job.

TAPPER: Now, earlier in this conversation, you criticized Rudy Giuliani and his rogue foreign policy.

MANCHIN: Yes.

TAPPER: You have said before that those moves by Giuliani are horrible for the country.

The attorney general, Bill Barr, today confirmed that the Justice Department is receiving information from Giuliani about the Bidens or whoever originating in Ukraine.

Do you have any concerns about that?

MANCHIN: Oh, sure I have concerns, if they're treating it any different than any other American would bring information that they think would be harmful to the United States of America and our way of life.

If that's being treated differently, with higher priority, and they're taking it more verbatim, then that would be very troublesome. So, I don't know that to be a fact. I would like to talk to Attorney General Barr myself and see what -- how they're operating and how they're really receiving the information, and how they're going through it to see if it has legitimacy or not.

TAPPER: I want to ask you, though, the White House released its 2021 budget request...

MANCHIN: Yes.

TAPPER: ... which outlines proposed cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, affordable housing, other safety net programs.

Now, this is just a priority list. It's not like it's going to automatically become law. But if this budget from President Trump were to be implemented, how might that impact the people of West Virginia?

MANCHIN: Well, in our state, we have -- we're the hardest working and we have been hit the hardest of any state. We have always done the heavy lifting.

So these types of programs that have been in necessity, especially with the opioid epidemic that we have, and the children, we have homeless children -- we have children that basically that our nutrition to them comes at the schools in the hands of us. And if you can't give a child a start, God help us all.

So, the only thing, I haven't seen the full -- our staff is breaking it down now. I haven't seen the president's full request.

But I always said this. When I was governor, and I used to put a budget forward, the budget that you put forward represents your values, who we are as a people, where the priorities in our life are.

And if the priorities, as far as -- is not in the human element that makes us the people that we are in America, and the compassion that we have for others, then I don't know what to tell you about that.

And I haven't seen it, but I'm understanding the cuts would be devastating in many, many areas. I'm hoping that we will reverse that. But, usually, these budgets are dead on arrival anyway. So we will go from there.

TAPPER: I want to ask you about the election in November.

The Iowa Democratic Party says that your colleague Senator Bernie Sanders won the popular vote and came in a close second in terms of delegates in Iowa. He could win New Hampshire tomorrow. What would that mean to you if Bernie Sanders is the Democratic nominee for president?

MANCHIN: Well, I think we have a long way to go.

But we just have to see who comes out of this the strongest and the fittest. You take a look and go from there. But Bernie -- the thing about Bernie -- and I have known Bernie for

quite a while now -- Bernie is the same person he is today as he was when I met him 10 years ago. He's never changed.

[16:35:02]

And if that's resonating, then there's got to be a middle somewhere, because Bernie is taking you to where your deep conscience is and thinking, yes, people haven't been treated fair. People have been left behind. Boom, boom, boom.

But maybe his fixes aren't something palatable to all of us. We would do it differently.

We have had this conversation, Bernie and I, before. I said, Bernie, as far as free education, I think any person that needs an education in America ought to have a pathway of earning it without having debt. But they have earned it by getting good grades and basically graduating on time.

And there's -- the carrot and a stick can work. But -- so we have a -- we identify the problems. We just have different solutions for them.

And I think that we will have to wait and see what the other states do in the caucuses and I guess in the primaries coming up. Super Tuesday will be a telltale for a lot of people.

TAPPER: Would you support Sanders over Trump, if it came down to that?

MANCHIN: Well, we'd have to see where we are at that time there.

Sanders, I can tell you one thing. He's got a good heart and he wants to do the right thing. His solution for fixing it might not be palatable and might not be something doable. I will have to see.

Who knows? Bernie might change and moderate just a little bit from now to then. Who knows?

TAPPER: All right, West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, thank you so much for your time, sir. Always good to see you.

MANCHIN: You too. Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: What Senator Lindsey Graham is appearing to do now to curry favor with the president.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:40:45]

TAPPER: And we're back with the politics lead.

Attorney General Bill Barr today confirming that the Justice Department is open to information or misinformation or disinformation from Rudy Giuliani about Vice President Biden and his son Hunter gathered in Ukraine.

But Barr did seem to deliver a word of skepticism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The DOJ has the obligation to have an open door to anybody who wishes to provide us information that they think is relevant.

We have to be very careful in -- with it -- with respect to any information coming from the Ukraine. We can't take anything we receive from the Ukraine at face value.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, an outspoken ally of President Trump, first announced that the Justice Department was cooperating with Giuliani yesterday.

CNN's Evan Perez joins me now.

Evan, what exactly is the process in place to review Giuliani's claims? Is it -- is he getting information from Giuliani the same way any of us could submit information, or is it different?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's kind of what the Justice Department is suggesting, Jake, but that sound bite you just played is pretty much all we could get from the attorney general before he made a quick exit from that press conference this morning.

And so the best we can figure out is that they have set up a process whereby, in a field office away from Justice Department headquarters, the Giuliani information can be looked at, can be vetted to see whether it is any there, there.

But as Bill Barr pointed out, there's a lot of skepticism that any of this information that Giuliani has been flogging for months is of any value whatsoever.

TAPPER: And, Evan, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, also yesterday defended the firing in the administration of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman.

He was fired from the National Security Council. He's still in the military. This is after Vindman testified in the impeachment hearings under a subpoena. He was forced to testify.

PEREZ: Right. Exactly. He was there under subpoena.

And, Jake, he -- what Lindsey Graham did was equate what Lieutenant Colonel Vindman did with the behavior of some FBI agents and some investigators in the Trump-Russia investigation that have now come under scrutiny by the Justice Department.

Take a listen to Lindsey Graham's comments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I appreciate his service. But there are FBI agents who took the law in their own hands. There are CIA agents who took the law in their own hands. There are Department of Justice lawyers who lied to the court.

There's been a movement since President Trump was elected by people in our government to take him down.

MARGARET BRENNAN, HOST, "FACE THE NATION": Is this retaliation, because...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And, Jake, obviously, these are far from the same thing.

So it's a curious comparison for the senator to make.

TAPPER: Curious is a nice word for it.

Evan Perez, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Let's talk about this.

Amanda, Graham clearly is suggesting, with zero evidence, that Lieutenant Colonel Vindman is part of some deep state conspiracy. Vindman was called to testify. He was subpoenaed. And the crime he committed -- and I put crime in quotes -- is that he told the truth under oath.

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, just listening to those clips, did impeachment happen? Did all that happen?

Rudy Giuliani, what is he doing? What is Rudy Giuliani's role? Oh, nobody knows. He's a personal lawyer digging up dirt. And somehow he has direct access to the Department of Justice, even though he's currently under investigation himself?

TAPPER: Yes.

CARPENTER: And he's shoveling dirt on a political opponent? It's like the last three months never happened.

TAPPER: Yes.

I mean, and I remember -- I mean, the weirdest thing about Lindsey Graham being as obsequious as he is to President Trump and doing everything that Trump would want him to do is that there was a time when he was the exact opposite, when they were running against each other.

This is Lindsey Graham in 2015.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GRAHAM: He's a race-baiting xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn't represent my party. He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.

He's putting our soldiers and diplomats at risk. He's empowering the enemy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Who is that guy? Who is that guy?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that's before his fate was tied to the person that he's describing.

I mean, in South Carolina, Trump is very popular. Lindsey Graham wants to continue to be a senator.

[16:45:01]

And he also -- it's that proximity to power. The more he is -- and we have seen this through lots of people. The more you're playing to the audience of one, the more you get in the door.

ROSEN: He's chairman of the Judiciary Committee now. So he actually has power.

I mean, he -- he's a lickspittle suck-up, right? I mean, there's just no question that he has this audience of one, as I said, with Donald Trump as well.

What is frightening, though, is that the Department of Justice would actually engage in this, that you would have Bill Barr, the attorney general, actually signal the same sorts of things.

And if you have the attorney general and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee essentially conspiring to do investigations of people for political revenge, those are those are powerful, outrageous things to do. And nothing has been learned by this president over the last three months.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, that's exactly right.

We see what happens to people who say no, who stand up to the president, who do things that are different than what he wants. He has them frog-marched out of the White House unceremoniously.

And that's why we're seeing so many people willing to comply with some of these seemingly outrageous requests from the president to dig up dirt on political rivals, to look into conspiracy theories about CrowdStrike, and whether the Democrats were in cahoots with Ukraine to take his campaign down.

The people who know better, including Lindsey Graham, are willing to entertain some of these things, in part because they don't want to be frog-marched out of the party by President Trump. TAPPER: And what's also interesting about this, as you point out, is

that I don't think anybody begrudges President Trump thinking that Lieutenant Colonel Vindman probably shouldn't be on his National Security Council anymore, given that they disagree about so many things.

But to have him escorted off the White House grounds, I think that only happened with Omarosa in the first few months of the Trump presidency. It's designed to humiliate.

Everyone, stick around.

Pete Buttigieg is hoping for another top finish by going after a surprising group of New Hampshire voters.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:51:05]

TAPPER: The 2020 lead.

Pete Buttigieg off a strong showing in Iowa, propelling his New Hampshire primary push. But the map alone presents a challenge.

This is a backyard race for both Senator Sanders from Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts.

And, as CNN's Abby Phillip reports, it's the moderate message from Buttigieg that may work to his advantage for tomorrow, though perhaps not after that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a pitch former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg makes at nearly every campaign stop.

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think we're going to defeat this president by inviting everybody to be at our side and get this done together.

PHILLIP: And it's aimed at New Hampshire's famously independent voters, like Jeffrey and Cathy Poston, who helped make up a whopping 40 percent of Democratic primary voters in 2016.

JEFFREY POSTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: We probably receive 10 to 15 calls a day from campaigns.

PHILLIP: Four years ago, Senator Bernie Sanders' massive victory over Hillary Clinton was powered by independent voters. But, this year, candidates like Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar are also competing for their support.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But I add to that being able to bring in independents, like you have in this state, as well as moderate Republicans, because there are so many of them out there that are looking for a candidate.

PHILLIP: The Granite State's unique primary means undeclared voters can either vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries, but, this year, with President Trump running largely uncontested, the action is expected to be with the Democrats.

CATHY POSTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: At this point. I won't vote Republican probably for a long, long, long time. The Democrats have me right now.

PHILLIP: They will have company, joined by what Buttigieg calls:

BUTTIGIEG: Future former Republicans. Soon to be former Republicans. Future former Republicans. I see a few acknowledging right here. We are glad that you're here. And you are welcome to be at our side in this struggle.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

PHILLIP: In Iowa, Buttigieg performed well in areas that flipped from Obama to Trump. And here in New Hampshire, campaign aides say they're following up with former Republican voters who expressed openness to his message, like Rick Mellin, a lifelong Republican who is now a registered independent in search of a candidate.

RICK MELLIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: I think that there's a few of them that really want to bring the country back together, get us back on a calmer, more sensible sort of direction.

POSTON: And with undecided independents like Kathy Bachelor, who, after three years of Trump, are looking for a change of tone.

KATHY BACHELOR, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: It's too negative. I want to think positive. We need to have some positivity in our life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP: Now, Jake, like in Iowa, where Buttigieg spent a lot of time in these so-called pivot counties that went from Obama to Trump, here in New Hampshire over the last week, he spent about a third of his time in townships in New Hampshire that also voted for Trump.

And I should also note that most of the voters who we spoke to said they were also considering Amy Klobuchar as one of their choices for tomorrow's primary -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Abby Phillip in Manchester, New Hampshire, thanks so much.

In our health lead today, 97 people confirmed dead in just one day. Sunday marked the deadliest day since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, the global death toll now over 900, mostly in China, total that surpasses the total death toll for the SARS epidemic in 2003.

The number of confirmed cases on the cruise ship docked south of Tokyo doubled overnight to 135; 24 of them are Americans.

In Beijing, President Xi wearing a face mask while visiting a hospital and saying China will fight the deadly virus with confidence.

In our tech lead today, the U.S. is blaming China for one of the largest data breaches in history, charging four Chinese intelligence officials with hacking Equifax, which exposed financial records of nearly half of all American, 150 million people.

[16:55:03]

China has continued to ramp up its hacking efforts, Attorney General Barr today citing Anthem and Marriott and the Office of Personnel Management among China's recent targets.

Coming up: The head of the Democratic National Committee talks about what's being done to avoid a repeat of Iowa.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM.

We're tracking two major stories.

On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, a new nationwide poll is shaking up the Democratic race.

[17:00:00]