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President Trump Just Pulled Herman Cain Out Of The Running To Join The Federal Reserve; Comedian Who Once Played A President On TV Will Now Be The Leader Of Ukraine, Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Are Expecting Their First Child Any Day Now. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 22, 2019 - 15:00   ET

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

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So Pelosi sending a message to the Caucus tonight, "Let's investigate. Let's hold off on the impeachment talk for now, even as our views may differ, we'll see if that works." But that's one of the message that we could expect to hear in this conference call tonight, Brooke.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: We will wait for your reporting after the call. Manu Raju for now. Thank you so much. Up on Capitol Hill for us. Next, President Trump just pulled Herman Cain out of the running to join the Federal Reserve, but CNN has uncovered sexist comments from his other pic, on the board, Stephen Moore, who has said things like quote, "Is there no area in life where men can take vacation from women? We will give you the full context just ahead.

Plus, as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle expect their first child any day now, there are reports of drama within the Royal Family, we have those details ahead.

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[15:35:25] BALDWIN: Herman Cain is out as a possible pick for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board. President Trump tweeted, Cain requested not to be nominated. Cain face scrutiny over allegations of sexual harassment that ended his 2012 presidential campaign.

The President's other controversial Fed pick Stephen Moore had some real problematic thoughts about women and specifically women in sports. Listen to this. CNN's "KFile" dug up some sexist comments that he made when explaining the pay disparity between male and female athletes.

Moore said that women were asking for quote "equal pay." Equal pay for inferior work. And a rant also about March Madness. He wrote that changes to include women were quote "un-American." And when "KFile" reached out to Moore, he said , "This was a spoof. I have a sense of humor." Well, no one's laughing.

Criticizing female athletes who are advocating for pay equality, criticizing women for working for an honest day's pay, asking if there is any area in life quote "where men can take vacation from women." Yes.

Let's go to Andrew Kaczynski who uncovered all of this. He is CNN's "KFile" senior editor, and also with us, CNN political commentator, Catherine Rampell. She is a columnist for "The Washington Post." And so Andrew, first to you, we should also just point out that Stephen Moore was a CNN contributor until recently, I was unaware of any of this that he had ever said, what else did he write?

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN "KFILE" SENIOR EDITOR: So he -- the thing that was very interesting about his comments that he said, "This was a spoof. I have a sense of humor," I mean, first off, what is the joke?

BALDWIN: There is no joke.

KACZYNSKI: Yes, like, what is the joke? The second thing is he wrote these columns in 2001 and 2002, twice in 2003. The sort of bigger column that where a lot of these quotes come from, he basically proposed changes for March Madness. And he said, "There shouldn't be women refs. There shouldn't be women announcers."

He wrote that in each one of these four columns, and he did appear to get some backlash at the time, because in a column two weeks later, people complained to him about his column. They said it was sexist. And he said, "Look, for all I care, women can use chimpanzees to ref their games. I hate women's basketball." So he clearly was mocking this and did not see it as an issue.

BALDWIN: And again, these -- it's not like he was sitting on some podcast and speaking off the cuff. These were columns where he thought to write them, and they were copy edited.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And it's not just women athletes, to be clear, that he has made vaguely sexist remarks. He has been, I think, on a CNN show sometime in the last couple of years, saying that it was perfectly appropriate for male bosses to never take one-on-one meetings with female either underlings or colleagues, I don't remember, because they might be, you know, accused unjustly of sexual harassment.

He's made weird comments about -- vaguely sexist comments about female hosts on Fox News. So I think the general takeaway from all of this is that I have been saying and others have been arguing that look, Stephen Moore seems like a nice guy. He's an affable guy, nothing against him personally, he doesn't belong on the Fed Board, not because of any sort of personal issues.

Whereas with Herman Cain, it was a slightly different story. But because he was a longtime partisan operative, who was unqualified, and who didn't seem to have fixed principles when it came to setting Fed policy.

But all of these kinds of comments that Andrew and others have dug up suggests that maybe the part about him being like a decent, nice guy, or at least always behaving decently, is somewhat more questionable, and that he definitely should not be in charge of any female employees, for example.

BALDWIN: What does it tell you too that this is how apparently this White House picks these positions by watching these people on television, and also the lack thereof of vetting them?

KACZYNSKI: Yes, I mean, we've seen this time and again. It seems like every time that I'm on your show, we're talking about someone who didn't get vetted and resigned or dropped out of a role for some comments they made that the White House didn't look into.

But at least with Moore, we sort of -- he is a commentator. He was on CNN. He does a speech every single night. He's writing columns and his political views have sort of shifted with the wind on certain things.

But one thing is, he's just been very, very pro-Trump because Trump took his views on economics, and I think that's sort of the appeal for the White House.

RAMPELL: Yes, it's about personal loyalty. It's not about qualifications. It's not about whether you have principles.

[15:40:10] RAMPELL: It's not about qualifications. It's not about whether you have principles and it's not about whether you treat the people you work with decently necessarily.

BALDWIN: What about just turning the page, lastly to Herman Cain now that Trump yanked the nomination. We know how you have felt and how you have written extensively about Herman Cain. But just your quick reaction to that.

RAMPELL: I think it's interesting in that just a few days ago, Herman Cain on his web show said. "No way, will I back down. No way will I withdraw my name. Never going to happen. If Trump wants to withdraw my name, that'll be up to him. But I'm going to stick it out. And I think Trump will as well." And then, of course, Trump today said, actually, Herman Cain withdrew his name.

So who knows? I mean, the way that these kinds of announcements usually work is that the vetting happens before the announcement, right? So that the kind of stuff that Andrew would dig up or other people have dug up, wouldn't come out publicly, right? The White House would do that on their own. And if there is an embarrassing stuff there or things that that otherwise reveal a nominee, a potential nominee to be unqualified, they just won't make the nomination.

And instead, this time around, they put the cart before the horse, and they said, you know what we're going to Trump said, tweeted, I'm nominating these people. And then that just, you know, created a lot of additional incentive for more scrutiny of the records.

BALDWIN: Catherine Rampell, Andrew Kaczynski of the "KFile." Just keep on digging back there. Thank you guys so much.

Next, how about the story of Ukraine, a comedian who once played a President on TV will now be the leader of Ukraine. Details on how this 41-year-old political novice won the presidential election with the help of social media.

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[14:46:07] BALDWIN: He played a President on a popular Ukrainian sitcom and now comedian Volodymyr Zelensky has been elected to serve as the real President of Ukraine and he did it by ousting the incumbent in a landslide election winning one in 70 percent of the vote.

To say Zelensky is a political novice does not do him justice. Until recently, he played a history teacher on TV who gets elected President after a rant about government corruption, and it goes viral.

But Ukraine's real life problems are no laughing matter. Remember, it is in the midst of an often bitter conflict with Russia and Ukraine is one of Europe's poorest countries. CNN global affairs analyst Max Boot is with me now. And I mean, I gave a snippet of who he is. Tell me more about who he is and how he pulled it off.

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, it is a wild story, Brooke. It's as if Julia Louis-Dreyfus had actually become President after playing the President on Veep. I mean, this is kind of emerging of reality TV and reality that we've seen going on in many countries, including this one. And obviously, Ukraine is the latest place where this has happened.

I mean, I think, you know, aside from the fact that Zelensky is a very unusual character going from being a comedian and TV performer to President. I mean, I think we'll have to see how he does. But I think it's basically a good news story, because, you know, in 2014, Ukraine had a revolution. They overthrew Viktor Yanukovych, this Russian-backed strongman and the test of any democracy is not just whether you hold one election or whether you hold a second election or whether you can transfer power from one head of state to another, and that has actually happened the last couple of days and you know, all kudos to Petro Poroshenko for giving up power for recognizing Zelensky. Ukraine is showing how democracy actually works.

BALDWIN: I want to come back to a comment Poroshenko made just as you think ahead to foreign policy and dealings with Russia. But just do you think that this win, was it Trump effect? And by Trump effect, I mean, just having a TV star turned President or is this the effect of you know, people turning to satire for comical analysis/leadership in a country? To what do you attribute this?

BOOT: Well, I think it's what you're seeing in Ukraine is what you see in almost every democracy, including ours is that people are sick of professional politicians. And so they're looking for amateurs who will step in and a kind of a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington kind of wait and clean up the cesspool or drain the swamp.

Unfortunately, we've seen that more often than not, it's much easier to get elected leader of one of these countries than to actually implement any kind of reforms. And in the case of Ukraine, I mean, let's remember that Petro Poroshenko himself, he was an amateur, too. He was elected in 2014, owner of the largest confectionery company in the in the country, no political experience. And now voters are disgusted with him. They're going for somebody else, who's a TV comedian.

And generally, the record of people who are complete outsiders is not that impressive once they get into office.

BALDWIN: So he said as he was out the door, this is the previous President of the Ukraine saying that Zelensky was too inexperienced to stand up to Russia effectively. Meantime, Zelensky told reporters that he would reboot peace talks with the separatists fighting Ukrainian forces and volunteers in the east.

BOOT: Right.

BALDWIN: How does he handle --

BOOT: Well, I don't think anybody knows. I think this is the Ukrainian version of, "I alone can solve these problems," something that we heard in this country not too many years ago, and we've seen how that's worked out. I mean, nobody really knows what this program is.

Clearly, Ukrainians are war weary. They've lost 13,000 people in the war that Russia launched in 2014. They are also wary of corruption and the country has horrible problems, stagnant economy, lots of corruption. And Zelensky is basically saying, I'm going to come in and clean this up, but nobody knows how. And that's going to be a huge challenge for him.

BALDWIN: Max Boot, thank you.

BOOT: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, they're expecting their first child any day now, but a new report in British media says that they may move to Africa after the baby is born. Hear how Prince William is responding to rumors that it's a sign of a rift within the family.

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[15:54:21] BALDWIN: Chilling new information in connection with the unsolved murder of two Indiana teenagers -- Abby Williams and Liberty German went hiking together in February of 2017 and mysteriously vanished. Their bodies were later found near a bridge along with a cell phone recording from one of the girls' phones with a strange man's voice. Well, today the police released a longer version of that recording. They also released an updated sketch and say they have a new theory on who the killer might be.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOUGLAS CARTER, SUPERINTENDENT, INDIANA STATE POLICE: We also believe this person is from Delphi currently or has previously lived here.

[15:55:09] CARTER: Visit Delphi on a regular basis or works here. To the killer who may be in this room. We believe you're hiding in plain sight. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Police hope that this new video and sketch might spark someone's memory so they can find the killer after over two years of investigating.

And new numbers out today show another jump in measles cases across the country. The CDC announced 626 people have gotten sick with the measles so far this year. That is 71 more than what the agency reported last week. That includes cases reported in Iowa and Tennessee for the first time bringing the total number of states with measles cases to 22.

In the coming weeks, the CDC says it expects to pass the record high since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000.

We've got an animation for it and everything. Here we go. Now to a reported drama playing out overseas, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are expecting their first born any day now. But there was another headline that could bump the baby right up the front page. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex may move abroad as soon as the baby is born.

The London "Sun Times" reports plans are being discussed to possibly send Prince Harry to Africa where both he and Meghan would take on a bigger international role on behalf of the Commonwealth. You'll remember the Queen recently appointed Markle as the Vice President of the Queen's Commonwealth Trust, but is that the real reason?

CNN Royal commentator Victoria Arbiter is with me now. So good to see you. Everyone is you know -- so I mean, what we know about their passions for Africa. But why move to Africa? What's up?

VICTORIA ARBITER, CNN ROYAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think this notion of sending them to Africa is kind of wide of the mark. I think what's happening behind the scenes here is just sort of trying everyone to get their eggs in a row and just sort of feel out, what is it that you're passionate about? What is it that you want to do?

Harry and Meghan are enormously popular, and I think the Royal Family is seeing an opportunity to harness that popularity. We've got Brexit going on. We've got republican tendencies rising and in a number of the Commonwealth realms. So by accessing the Commonwealth, by sending Harry and Meghan out there and really trumpeting their role and supporting the Commonwealth, there's an opportunity to do a lot of good things.

Now, this notion of exiling them or banishing them to Africa that seems preposterous to me. I think what's happening here is the Queen is saying, "Harry, Meghan, clearly, you want to have a massive impact. What do you want to do? Where do you see yourself doing that? Where can you make the biggest impact?" And so I think for the two of them at the moment is Southern Africa.

BALDWIN: So as they go embark on that journey with this new little precious child. Is there any truth to the friction -- the alleged friction between the brothers? ARBITER: I think there's something going on between the brothers.

Certainly, this narrative has gone on for such a long time. The old adage where there's smoke, there's fire. Something is going on. But it seems terribly medieval to say that they are so at each other's throats, William is going to cast Harry off and send him down to Southern Africa to move him out of the way.

BALDWIN: Your word "preposterous."

ARBITER: Preposterous. We don't operate like that anymore. Plus, William is not in charge. He's not even the immediate heir. He is the second heir. The Queen is the one that makes these decisions, and she'll be making those decisions with Prince Charles. She's not going to send Harry and Meghan somewhere where they'd be miserable. To what end?

So I think she's really discussing with Harry and Meghan, what they see in their future. They've had a dramatic impact on their charitable endeavors already. But Meghan, in Rwanda for the Clean Water Campaign before she even married Harry. Harry with his conservation work, Save the Rhino, working with elephant conservation organizations in Southern Africa. He has said he feels most at home there.

One of the diamonds in Meghan's ring is from Botswana. They went there for her 36th birthday. It's where they fell in love.

BALDWIN: It's a precious place for them.

ARBITER: It's there. It's there. So I think really, yes, there is some truth, Brooke to whatever is going on with Harry and William, but I think it's been blown out of proportion. We don't know what the origins are and we don't know what's going on with them behind the scenes.

BALDWIN: I have you with 60 more seconds? Do we know what they would do once they're there?

ARBITER: I think mostly, it would be to champion the work of the Commonwealth. But I think also, Meghan has made it very clear that she's interested in supporting women's rights, making education accessible to all women.

Harry, I think will continue with his conservation, his work on behalf of veterans. I think there's a lot that they would get stuck into, and I think they'd be passionate about it. But more than that, they'd be afforded some privacy, some quality family time without having to deal with the British press on their backs all the time.

BALDWIN: Victoria Arbiter, thank you for the scoop.

ARBITER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: As always, from the U.K. on these Royal families and the Royal babies now. Thank you for being with me. Thank you as well. I'm Brooke Baldwin here in New York. Let's just remind everyone, we've got this huge night of Town Halls tonight on CNN starting at 7:00 o'clock Eastern with five people who would like to become the next President of the United States, so stay tuned here.

In the meantime, let's go to Washington, "The Lead with Jake Tapper" starts right now.

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