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Interview with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Federal Regulation of PFAS Chemicals; New CNN Movie Profiles Halston. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired August 22, 2019 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): -- I'm a gun owner, I -- they taught gun safety and things like that. Now, they've become a lobbying group and the second the president said he might be willing to do something responsible, the head of the NRA's on the phone to him --

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Yes.

LEAHY: -- said, "No, we won't allow you -- we won't allow you to do that." And the president caved.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I'll tell you, I was a member of the NRA, too, as a kid. And I used to do, you know, rifle training, target shooting, et cetera.

I wonder, from your perspective, is the plan being discussed by Senator Lindsey Graham, of course, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Republican, and Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, of federal funding for states to pass so-called red flag laws. Does that have legs, in your view? Could that see a vote in the Senate?

LEAHY: States could pass red flag laws now. We have a Republican governor, and we passed a red flag law in Vermont. And there's a lot of gun owners in Vermont, myself included.

But that's only a first step. We have to close the background checks, we've got to make sure that there's background checks whether you're at a gun show or a gun store. And frankly, we have got to limit the number of rounds you can have in a semi-automatic weapon, as a first step.

There are -- you know, in Vermont -- and we have a lot of gun owners in Vermont, but -- we limit the number of rounds you can have in your semi-automatic during deer season to six rounds, to give the deer a chance.

I'd like to give children -- children who are in a school, a chance. People who are going to a concert, give them a chance.

The idea that this last mass shooting, he fired 41 rounds --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

LEAHY: -- in 30 seconds. That's the kind of weapon you have on a battlefield.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

LEAHY: There's no place for that in the United States.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, that was a 100-round magazine. It's incredible.

Let me ask you this, then. As you approach this issue, because you hear that Republicans on the Hill would act if they had the president himself to get behind some of these measures. Do you believe this president, who has gone back and forth just in the last 24 hours, on background checks for instance, do you believe he will exercise leadership here?

LEAHY: I don't think he will because he doesn't stay in the same position more than a day at a time. You know, look what happened. The second he showed even a modest step -- and it was a modest step forward on gun control, and I was glad he took at least that modest step -- he gets a phone call.

In fact, how many of you could just pick up the phone and call the president of the United States? Well, the head of the NRA could. And he called him and said, "No, no, we can't allow you to do that." And immediately, the president backs off. That's not leadership.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

LEAHY: Let's -- let's vote. And then it's up to the president. He can sign it or not sign it. But all these people who give stories or give speeches in the Senate, "Oh, we pray for you, we have sympathy" -- stand up and vote for something. Show where you are. You don't deserve to be in the United States Senate if you don't have the courage to vote.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you on another topic, if I can. The president, saying that he may wipe out birthright citizenship. That is a right guaranteed in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, that people born on American soil are citizens. He would do it by executive order. Of course, that would be challenged in court.

But give me your reaction to the president expressing support for such a move. What does that mean to you?

LEAHY: It's not the first time he's said, well, by executive order, he'll amend the Constitution. You don't do it that way. The Constitution is the Constitution. He is not a dictator and he can't act like a dictator. It's only in dictatorships, that they can do that.

The fact is that you're born in the United States, under the 14th Amendment, you're a citizen. You can't change that by executive order. You could only change that by amending the Constitution. And we're not going to amend the Constitution on that.

I think of a powerful speech that John Roberts, who is a conservative chief justice of the Supreme Court, talking about things like Plessy v. Ferguson, separate but equal, and how wrong that was, and then the Supreme Court came forward and did Brown v. Board of Education and changed that. Well, we're not going to go back to Dred Scott.

Your previous person on there did a brilliant job of describing what the law is: follow the Constitution. I don't know if the president's ever read the Constitution, but I would urge him to sit down and read it.

[10:35:06] SCIUTTO: Yes. All Americans should. Senator Patrick Leahy --

LEAHY: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- we appreciate having you on.

LEAHY: Thank you very much.

SCIUTTO: And to all of you, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: This is concerning. You may not know it, but you probably have traces of manmade chemicals in your bloodstream. In fact, most of us do. For most of us, it might not cause any issues. But in high amounts it has been linked to a long list of diseases, and it is not regulated at all by the government. CNN government regulation correspondent Rene Marsh joins me now.

[10:40:11] So you talked to two families who say they were devastated by this. How serious, how widespread a problem?

RENE MARSH, CNN GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Jim, this story -- I mean, there are people across the United States of America, literally living off of bottled water because they cannot drink the water coming out of their tap, it's contaminated with chemicals that are linked to health issues but still aren't regulated by the EPA.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: -- chemical in your body?

SANDY WYNN-STELT, HUSBAND DIED OF LIVER CANCER: Yes.

MARSH: Very high levels?

WYNN-STELT: Very high levels.

MARSH (voice-over): Sandy Wynn-Stelt never suspected the water that flowed through her pipes may be poisoning her.

WYNN-STELT: There's a good chance this will be what ultimately kills me.

MARSH (voice-over): Sandy's water is tainted by PFAS, a class of chemicals that studies have linked to kidney and liver cancer, thyroid problems, high cholesterol, birth defects and pregnancy complications. It's in most products that are water-, heat- and grease-resistant, like nonstick pans, food containers and fabric protectants.

And Belmont, Michigan, where Sandy lives, has some of the highest levels of PFAS in the nation. The groundwater was contaminated by a nearby shoe factory, Wolverine Tannery, which dumped waste materials covered with Scotchgard for years, according to state officials.

WYNN-STELT: This is what I drink out of, brush your teeth out of, cook with.

MARSH (voice-over): Sandy is suing Wolverine and 3M, which makes Scotchgard, over her contamination and the death of her husband, Joel. He died of liver cancer in 2016, one year before she found out the water was tainted, so he was never tested for PFAS.

WYNN-STELT: Every night, you try to fall asleep and you wonder, "Is that what did it?" Is -- "should I not have had him drink so much water?"

MARSH (voice-over): The state of Michigan is also suing Wolverine which, in a response to CNN, said it blames 3M, and that some of the lawsuits against it "include misleading and unsupported allegations."

3M told CNN it "regularly and proactively examines the environmental impact of our products," and has "invested more than $200 million globally on PFAS remediation efforts."

MARSH: Is this the largest environmental crisis that this state has seen?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In terms of residential drinking water impacts, yes.

MARSH (voice-over): Thirteen hundred miles away, every day, dairy farmer Art Schaap milks 1,800 cows on his New Mexico dairy farm. And every day for nearly a year, he dumps it all down the drain.

ART SCHAAP, DAIRY FARMER: That'd be about 12,000 gallons a day of milk.

MARSH (voice-over): The milk is contaminated, according to FDA tests, and his milk license, suspended. Cows lie dead from old age on his farm because no one will buy their beef.

SCHAAP: We have no income. For our family, it's been devastating.

MARSH (voice-over): Firefighting foam used in training exercises at a nearby military base contaminated the groundwater on Schaap's property.

PFAS contamination sites are everywhere, 712 locations in 49 states have been discovered, according to the Environmental Working Group, an activist nonprofit.

Manufacturers like 3M and Dupont have stopped making two of the chemicals in the class, but they're still shipped in on products from overseas. They're so prevalent, CDC scientists believe PFAS chemicals are in the bloodstreams of nearly all Americans. Despite all that, the chemicals are unregulated.

SCHAAP: I almost feel like we live in a third-world country when we see a problem like this, that's polluting the groundwater, we have proof from the tests, but yet everybody's standing -- sitting on their hands --

MARSH (voice-over): Environmentalists have been trying to get the EPA to act for years. The Obama administration took some steps to address PFAS issues, but there's little confidence the Trump EPA will move quickly to make new regulations.

Betsy Southerland worked at the EPA for 33 years before leaving in 2017.

BETSY SOUTHERLAND, FORMER EMPLOYEE, EPA OFFICE OF WATER: They are solely devoted to deregulating, to repealing public health protections --

MARSH (voice-over): Internal government e-mails show the Trump administration wanted to suppress a CDC study that showed the chemicals were dangerous, even at levels the EPA had deemed safe. A White House aide wrote in an e-mail, they could not get the CDC to, quote, "realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be.

TEXT: Union of Concerned Scientists: The public, media, and Congressional reaction to these new numbers is going to be huge. The impact to EPA and DoD is going to be extremely painful. We (DoD and EPA) cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be. EPA's COS is likely reaching out to HHS COS.

MARSH (voice-over): After mounting public and congressional pressure, the study was released. The EPA did put out an action plan in February, but critics say it's just promises with no real movement.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: Well, the EPA is responsible for regulating these chemicals. And in a statement, the agency said it was a top priority for the administrator, and it will decide whether to set a limit for the chemicals by the end of the year.

[10:45:00] But members of Congress say that the EPA is just simply not acting with enough urgency, and so there is this bipartisan push in Congress to essentially force the EPA to act in about two years.

SCIUTTO: To do its job, in effect. And we know that the Trump administration has scaled back EPA efforts on a whole host of things. Is that affecting their response to this particular class of chemicals?

MARSH: Well, there -- again, there's this bipartisan frustration because we know in 2018, Scott Pruitt said, "Look we were going to set limits on these chemicals and how much is allowed in water." And then now, in 2019, the EPA, they hadn't done it yet. They're saying, "You know what, we're really going to do it --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MARSH: -- "this year." So, you know, many people see this as foot- dragging.

SCIUTTO: Rene Marsh, thanks so much. Good to have you on the story.

Still to come this hour, remembering the rise and fall of Halston, a man who redefined American fashion. I spoke to his niece about her time working with the legendary designer. It made history. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:54] SCIUTTO: During the height of his fame in the 1970s, the name "Halston" was synonymous with fashion, style and glamour.

Now, the new CNN film, "Halston," looks at the iconic designer's meteoric rise to fame, his status as a groundbreaking stylist to the stars as well as a fixture on the New York party circuit, as well as the ultimate loss of his fashion and lifestyle empire, that mystified both industry insiders and the general public. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was dealing with the creme de la creme of women in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you the person who put the pillbox on Jackie Kennedy?

HALSTON, FASHION DESIGNER: Yes, I was.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That hat was genius. If you look at the inauguration, most of those ladies wore a mink coat. Jackie was in a cloth coat and a cloth hat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll never forget that, the impact that had had. It was -- even out in Montana, where I was sitting at the time --

HALSTON: Oh, yes. It was a very funny story because it was rather windy day and she put her hand on the hat, and it ended up to have a dent in it. And so when, during all the ceremonies, it had a dent in the hat, and everybody who copied it put a dent in it, which was so funny.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Well, it's a great story. Joining me now is Halston's niece, Lesley Frowick. She worked with Halston during the latter part of his career. She is now a founder of the Halston Archive Foundation. Leslie, it's great to have you on.

LESLEY FROWICK, NIECE OF HALSTON: Thank you so much for having me on. I'm delighted to be able to speak about my beloved Uncle Halston.

SCIUTTO: Well, tell us about the relationship. Because he was, of course, an iconic designer, really just a larger-than-life personality as well. But he was also your uncle. What was your relationship like, growing up with him, and then later, working with him?

FROWICK: He was a wonderful uncle to have. My first memories of him, he came to visit our family when we were living in Montreal. My father was working for the State Department, and that was his first overseas, if you will, position. And Halston hopped up to be with us for Christmas, circa 1960. So it was probably right before he designed the hat for Jackie Kennedy, but he had already had tremendous successes to that point.

But as an uncle, he was just our uncle. He loved to get down on his hands and knees and play with us and make us giggle and I remember him giving me a Christmas present. It was a doll that was twice my size, and I actually still have that doll.

He was just a wonderful, generous, loving uncle. He loved all of his nieces and nephews and brothers and sisters. It was a big, loving family that we came from. So it was -- we were always so proud to see his continued successes and accomplishments, and it was just sort of like the sky was the limit. When would it stop? He just kept producing.

SCIUTTO: Well, one of his achievements was bringing early American design, one of the first American designers to put American fashion on the map globally, and expanding the brand from sort of the highest levels of fashion for the stars, to the general public. How did he do that? What was so special about his designs that made that possible?

FROWICK: Well, he always had sort of the zeitgeist of the movement. He understood the Women's Liberation Movement. He used to say he was probably one of the only designers that used to tell clients to leave their bras at the door.

He wanted women to be free and have the ease and elegance that he provided for them with their lifestyles. So he created a new way of looking at the way people looked at fashion.

SCIUTTO: Yes. My mother was a big fan and women's liberation was important to her, and the style seemed to reflect that. So I definitely get where you're coming from.

You're in charge of the archive now, you've also written a book. I wonder if you could help our viewers understand what's his legacy in American fashion and culture?

FROWICK: Well, he was a very powerful force in the American fashion industry. He had -- was actually the spokesperson for the American fashion industry for a period of time. [10:55:05] He dressed the stars, he was ubiquitous everywhere. His

impact was -- you see it still. We're still talking about it, we're producing movies about it. You know, you go to H&M, you'll see nods to Halston's style with halter dresses and silk jersey dresses or probably polyester jersey dresses, cinched in at the waist. There's so much of Halston everywhere that you see.

Just the way people did business, too. I mean, he was the first sort of sacrificial lamb to put his name as an haute couturier on kind of a class-to-mass endeavor. And now so many of the designers sort of have to do that as part of their portfolio.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, Lesley Frowick, thanks so much for helping to tell the story here. We appreciate you coming on.

And to you at home, be sure to tune in. The all-new CNN film, "HALSTON," will premiere Sunday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, only on CNN.

Thank you, Lesley.

FROWICK: Thank you very much.

SCIUTTO: Right now, a massive manhunt is under way in California. This, for two gunmen who shot a deputy outside a sheriff's department building there. That deputy is alive because of his bulletproof vest. We're following the very latest on that story, stay with us.

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