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Secretary of State Pompeo Misses Deadline for Providing Requested Documents to Congress; Reporting Indicates Second Intelligence Officer May File Whistleblower Complaint against President Trump and Testify Before Congress; Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders Released from Hospital after Suffering Heart Attack; Moderate House Democrats Hold Townhalls after Supporting Impeachment of President Trump; President Trump Attacks Republican Senator Mitt Romney on Twitter; Device Deployed to Clean Up Plastic in Oceans; U.K. Prince Harry Sues Tabloid Press. Aired 10-11a ET.

Aired October 05, 2019 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:17]

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you on this Saturday. It is 10:00, October 5th. I'm Christi Paul.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Boris Sanchez in for Victor Blackwell. You are in the CNN Newsroom. Plenty of news to get to today.

PAUL: That's an understatement this morning. We're glad to have you here.

SANCHEZ: Thanks for watching.

PAUL: Several new threads on the impeachment inquiry into President Trump this morning. First of all, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defending the State Department for ignoring the subpoena deadline to give Congress documents related to Ukraine. Today in Athens, Greece, he said the department will, quote, obviously do all the things we're required to do by law.

Also, the White House has been subpoenaed by Congress to hand over their documents on Ukraine. We're going to go live to the White House in just a few minutes.

SANCHEZ: This is all happening as a second whistleblower may be getting ready to file a separate formal complaint. "The New York Times" is reporting that another intelligence official has concerns over the president's interactions with Ukraine, and the paper says this official has more direct knowledge of Trump's July phone call with the leader of Ukraine, and they have spoken to the inspector general to corroborate the details in the original complaint.

PAUL: Finally, "The Washington Post" reporting the president's phone calls with foreign leaders are, quote, an anxiety ridden set of events for his staff who worry he will make promises he shouldn't keep. I want to go to CNN's Kristen Holmes at the White House right now. So

speaking about Ukraine, Pompeo said today the State Department was very focused, quote, at the direction of the president. Does anybody know what that means yet?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: OK, Christi and Boris, I'm going to break this down, because there was a lot going on in that Pompeo press conference. Now, that line in particular, he was talking about the president's direction for a good relationship with Ukraine, specifically talking about Ambassador Volker and how hard Volker was working to make sure that there was a solid relationship between Ukraine and the United States.

But that wasn't all the said. He went on to defend the fact that there was this investigation into the 2016 election. Remember that line from the call with Ukrainian president where he talks about that. We know this is a theory that President Trump has pushed over and over again, that some of this came out of Ukraine, some of that interference came out of Ukraine.

But what Pompeo didn't talk about was what is at the crux of this impeachment inquiry, which was the conversation asking for dirt on his political rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden. I do need to note that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on either of their parts. So this is a very interesting way to defend a part of what is going on, but not entirely the whole thing.

And as you mentioned, Christi, he also talked about the fact that he missed that State Department deadline, making a little bit of news. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The State Department sent a letter last night to Congress, which is our initial response to the document request. We'll obviously do all the things we're required to do by law. I was a member of Congress once. Article One has a certain set of powers, and Article Two has an obligation to make sure that we protect officials at the State Department.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So obviously there a little bit of news that they say they are going to eventually turn over those documents.

Now, in terms of the White House subpoena, we have not heard whether or not they are going to comply. All we've heard so far is a press statement from the press secretary essentially saying that these subpoenas change nothing and that this is more just Democrats being political.

SANCHEZ: Kristen, we also learned that Mike Pence, the vice president, has been subpoenaed as well. What's the word from his office?

HOLMES: This is really interesting. We know that originally they had requested some documents. Now they have requested another round of documents, they being the three committees that are investigating -- excuse me, conducting this impeachment investigation. The White House -- excuse me, the vice president's office, they say that this is just not a serious request. They didn't even learn about it until after the media reports.

But this is all surrounding that meeting last month in Poland. You remember, President Trump was supposed to meet with the president of Ukraine. Instead he sent Vice President Pence. Now these committees, they want to know, they're interested in any role the vice president might have had in communicating President Trump's messaging or his viewing to Ukraine.

SANCHEZ: All right, Kristen Holmes from the White House, thanks so much.

Congressional Democrats are lining up witnesses for a busy week of hearings, and may be hearing from one more person. "The New York Times" reporting a second intelligence officer is weighing whether to file a whistleblower complaint and potentially ultimately testify before Congress.

PAUL: CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is with us now. Shimon, any idea as to what that potential second whistleblower is weighing to make that determination?

[10:05:00]

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: I think it's all about probably whether or not they can testify, whether or not their identity would somehow be compromised if they were to testify. There's also concerns, obviously, about classified information. A lot of the lawyers here that are involved in representing, certainly the whistleblower, the concern is obviously they need clearance in order to go ahead and have this -- allow their clients to make testimony and for these lawyers to be present during this testimony. So that's something that's going on.

Certainly significant reporting from "The New York Times" that there may be potentially a second whistleblower. And what's significant about this person is that it backs up the initial whistleblower, the main whistleblower here, that put all of this out there, that started all of this. This second person, apparently, according to testimony that was given yesterday by the Intelligence Community Inspector General, backs up the whistleblower. And this is someone that they interviewed as well, the investigators there at the Inspector General's Office, they interviewed to get information from this person to back up some of the claims from the whistleblower. We don't know if we will ever hear from either one of these individuals publicly, but certainly that is still ongoing.

And then you have other big moments here coming up this week. Of course, there's always the unknown that's going to hit us and come out of nowhere, but there is one key person that's set to testify in a closed door proceeding on Tuesday, and that's Gordon Sondland, he's the E.U. ambassador appointed by the president, longtime friend of the president. He was a donor to the president. And what's important with him is that there are text messages, also like we've seen with the person who testified yesterday, Volker, there are text messages between them. There are text messages with Sondland and a career diplomat where the career diplomat raises issues about the assistance, the security assistance, the money that Ukraine was supposed to get, raising concerns that perhaps what the president was doing here by withholding some of this money was political, was because he wanted Ukraine to investigate the whole thing with the Bidens and other issues, and raising concerns that perhaps the president was doing this for political reasons. And there are text messages where this happened. So certainly Gordon Sondland who's going to appear before the Hill on Tuesday before these members, that's going to be a key issue, something that they want to know. And they have the text messages, so they're going to be able to ask him a lot of questions about that.

SANCHEZ: That's right, Shimon. Sondland famously responding call me to a question about whether the U.S. was offering aid in exchange for these investigations. That's all we have time for. Shimon Prokupecz, thanks so much.

PAUL: Sabrina Siddiqui, national politics reporter for "the wall street journal" and CNN political analyst as well as former White House counsel to President Clinton, and CNN legal analyst Jack Quinn. Thank you both for being with us, we certainly appreciate it. I want to ask you, Jack, about Secretary Pompeo. He's missed three deadlines already, and yet we hear from him today saying, when he's in Greece, that the department will, quote, obviously do all the things we are required to do by law. Aren't they required to hand over these documents?

JACK QUINN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, they are. The subpoena is valid, and Congress has a right to demand this information. And he clearly can be held in contempt if he doesn't -- if the information is not forthcoming. Now, Congress has something called an inherent contempt power, which, by the way, if that involves the House of Representatives, in order to execute on that by, for example, holding the individual to whom the subpoena is issued in contempt, and then levying punitive measures in order to encourage the person subpoenaed to comply, you don't need the other body in the Congress, that is to say the Senate now, to participate in that decision. The House could do this on its own.

PAUL: So Sabrina I wanted to ask you about these other subpoenas from House Dems that they have issued for acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney as well as Vice President Pence. What specifically do we know that they want the two of them to produce?

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think what Democrats are trying to do now is put together a broader picture of from start to finish what the administration's efforts looked like in terms of applying pressure to Ukraine to investigate one of the president's political rivals and try and further the president's own political motivations based on the allegations at hand, who was involved in that effort, who had knowledge of that effort, and then any attempts that may have been made by the administration to conceal those efforts. [10:10:00]

We already know based on the summary that the White House released of the president's call with his Ukrainian counterpart that President Trump did repeatedly press President Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, and he of course mentioned his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. He even offered the assistance of his own Justice Department. Now it's about not just corroboration, but really understanding just what this entire potential effort looked like and who had knowledge of it.

So I think that you're going to see escalating tensions, of course, with the administration not seeming to comply, and whether that's going to lead to contempt or whether it will be evidence for Democrats as they try and build a case of obstruction. That remains to be seen. But certainly at the moment it seems like both sides are bracing for a showdown as Democrats issue these subpoenas, and you've seen the president ratchet up his own rhetoric and try and rally Republican troops on Capitol Hill in his defense.

PAUL: I want to listen here to Matt Gaetz, Representative from Florida. He was just recently last hour on with Michael Smerconish, and Smerconish asked him what kind of precedent would it be to sit for a future election if the president's request for foreign assistance in our elections are normalized? Very important word there, "normalized." Let's listen to what the representative had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: You heard my commentary. What kind of a precedent would we be setting for future elections if the president's requests for foreign assistance in our elections is normalized?

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Well, I have to reject the premise of the question. I think that the president's context for these discussions isn't forward leaning into the next election. He is attempting to solicit Ukraine's support to find out what happened in the last election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Jack, what's your response to that?

QUINN: Well, they're saying that they want to look backwards and revisit the whole Mueller investigation and so on. But that's not what this is really about. The president and his people are clearly most concerned about reelection. And what they want to do here is make sure that the president gets reelected. And part of that was to get Ukraine to participate in an investigation of the Bidens. That's the principle purpose here. The secondary benefit of their involving the Ukrainians in terms of getting help and revisiting the 2016 election, I think that's mostly just smoke being blown at this whole thing in order to obscure what they're really up to. But there's a side benefit there, if they can somehow keep the process of discrediting Mueller and his investigation moving forward. But the key thing here is what they are doing. Your question -- I

think the heart of your question, and it's critically important, is do we really want to permit, as happened in 2016, foreign countries to be involved in our election process, not just involved in our election process, but manipulating it, moving it in a different direction than the American people would otherwise choose. This happened in 2016. There's no doubt about it. And it's unthinkable that we could have foreign countries, by the way surreptitiously, not out in the open when the American people when they donate money or go to the polls, but this would be foreign governments operating behind the scenes under cover of night in order to manipulate the election process as part of a scheme to comply with what is going on, on our side here, is extortion. We can be very gentle about it and say the president is prodding them to cooperate. He is extorting their involvement in this process. That's a crime. That's a crime.

PAUL: Sabrina Siddiqui and Jack Quinn, I'm sorry we're out of time. Thank you both so much. Appreciate you being here.

QUINN: Pleasure.

SANCHEZ: After several days of speculation, it turns out it was more than just hard stents. It turns out that Senator Bernie Sanders had a heart attack this week. But his campaign says it will not keep him off the campaign trail. Hear his message to voters after he left the hospital.

PAUL: And New York police have arrested a man they say went on a deadly rampage overnight. What we're learning about four victims.

SANCHEZ: And take a look at these live pictures from Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta getting under way. More than 500 balloons set to light up the sky during the nine-day event. We'll take you there live.

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[10:18:45]

SANCHEZ: The Bernie Sanders campaign is confirming what many have suspected all week, that the 78-year-old senator suffered a heart attack.

PAUL: Sanders left a Las Vegas hospital yesterday. He thanked the doctors and the nurses who helped him recover, but the question is will this affect his run for the presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hello, everybody. We are in Las Vegas. I just got out of the hospital a few hours ago, and I'm feeling so much better. I just want to thank all of you for the love and warm wishes that you sent to me. See you soon on the campaign trail.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PAUL: CNN's Ryan Nobles following this story. He looks great there, Ryan. What are we hearing about his recovery?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't think there's any doubt that he does feel a lot better. Whenever you're dealing with a situation like this with your heart and you have two stents put in an artery that has a blockage of some sort, you are going to feel better. And I'm told that Bernie Sanders feels a whole lot better, that he was bouncing off the walls of his hospital room and that he wanted to get back out on the campaign trail as soon as possible.

But the campaign is taking a very cautious approach to this at this point. The only date that they have confirmed that Sanders will take part in in terms of the campaign going forward is going to be at the debate, the CNN debate on October 15th, so that's about two weeks from now.

[10:20:02]

Now, he's expected to head back to Burlington, Vermont, today. That's of course his hometown, where he's expected to take a step back, recover and recuperate, and then decide what takes next. And I know this morning you guys spoke to a doctor from the Cleveland Clinic who talked about Sanders' prognosis and what it means for the campaign. Take a listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. STEVE NISSEN, CARDIOLOGIST, CLEVELAND CLINIC: There's no reason why he can't fairly quickly get back to what he's doing. We know something about his disease. We know it was relatively limited. We know he got treatment very early, and the right treatment is to reopen the artery. And so in the modern era, a heart attack is something you recover from fairly quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: Now, of course there's two different conversations here that are taking place. There's the health concerns, and then there are the political concerns. And as the doctor said, Bernie Sanders is likely to make a full recovery from this heart attack. He may need some sort of behavior modification, but he could go on to live a long life. But the political concern here is that he is a 78-year-old man who has now suffered a heart attack. That is something that could make life difficult for him from a political perspective. But at this point, Boris and Christi, the campaign says they plan to move on as if nothing happened, and that he is in this race for the long haul.

SANCHEZ: The senator also staying on message very quickly after being released from the hospital, tweeting out that he's lucky that he had good health care and that everybody should have that sort of access to health care. He tweeted Medicare for all. Ryan Nobles, thanks much.

NOBLES: Thank you.

PAUL: So there are political ads, campaign signs, you've got rallies, you've got all kinds of things. How exactly does political propaganda -- how is it effective? How is it really? We're going to discuss with Jason Stanley, he's the author of "How Propaganda Works." That's next.

SANCHEZ: Plus, the battle against the British media continues for the royals. Why Prince Harry is now suing U.K. tabloid newspapers. Those details ahead.

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[10:25:57] PAUL: It's 25 minutes past the hours right now, and lawmakers have been meeting with their constituents during recess to try to gauge public opinion on the impeachment process.

SANCHEZ: Yes, New York Democratic Congressman Max Rose held a town hall in Brooklyn where he discussed his support for the inquiry. Rose represents a predominantly Republican district in New York, so you have to ask, how are his constituents responding to his position? CNN correspondent Polo Sandoval joins us now from New York. Polo, how are his constituents feeling about this?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Guys, it's a tough position to be in, right? You have at this point, you have Max Rose, the last New York City congressman who had essentially been a holdout when it comes to deciding on whether or not to support this impeachment probe. But then this week a shift in that message as he basically added his name to the list of moderate Democrats who are coming out supporting this impeachment probe. He's not alone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congresswoman Slotkin, welcome.

SANDOVAL: It's a change of heart for some moderate Democrats in Congress who at one point refused to go anywhere near the word "impeachment."

REP. ELISSA SLOTKIN, (D-MI): I have not been supportive of an impeachment inquiry up until now.

SANDOVAL: Michigan Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin's announcement this week prompted a not so warm response from Trump supporters in her district.

SLOTKIN: The most powerful man in the world reached out to a foreigner, a foreign leader, and asked him to dig up dirt on an American.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not true. Not true.

SANDOVAL: Impeachment also on the minds of constituents in Congressman Max Rose's district. It's a one red spot in New York City.

REP. MAX ROSE, (D-NY): We need to emphasize that this is a sad and tragic day for the United States of America.

SANDOVAL: At a Friday night town hall, the Democratic lawmaker once again took questions about his recent decision to back impeachment.

ROSE: We are going to push and push and push so we make sure that we are holding this White House to a standard.

SANDOVAL: Rose's district includes Staten Island's Richmond County. It's the only county in New York City that voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Despite that, there was little evidence of any broad anger at Rose's town halls this week, even among non-Democrats like Roy Russo.

ROY RUSSO, RESIDENT, NEW YORK: I think that's a political thing that he just almost has to do because he's a freshman congressman. I don't know how he can go otherwise. It's a political party and he has to support it. It doesn't affect my thinking of him or my opinion about the impeachment.

SANDOVAL: While many of his constituents say impeachment is not a top priority, it is for Democrats like Rose. He has a message for Congressional Republicans.

ROSE: They can show some semblance of political courage and integrity as we seek to get to the bottom of what perceives to be a serious issue of corruption and national security.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And Rose told me that he's very well aware that there are many in his constituency that he believes will be upset by the decision that he made this week, but he also said that he's very well aware, to use his own words, that there are many who will be elated by this news. Ultimately, though, Boris and Christi, he says that he's confident that this will not distract many in his constituency when it comes to some of the more local issues.

PAUL: All right, Polo Sandoval, good to see you. Thank you.

SANDOVAL: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: Joining us now to discuss all of this is Jason Stanley. He's the author of "How Propaganda Works." Good morning, Jason, thanks so much for joining us. Certainly, a timely conversation to have with you. You wrote about the theory of how propaganda works. What we're seeing play out right now in real life between Democrats and Republicans carving and framing their narratives, not just theory. So how critical is propaganda amid this impeachment inquiry?

JASON STANLEY, AUTHOR, "HOW PROPAGANDA WORKS": It's very critical. Now, we must bear in mind that the U.S. government has always lied to its citizens -- The Iraq War, the financial crisis. It's not the lying that's new. But what's distinctive and new right now is something different, bald-faced lying.

[10:30:01] The president is not lying. As the philosopher Jessica Keiser argues, bald-faced lying isn't lying. Bald-faced lying, there's no intent to deceive. The president's supporters know the things he is saying are untruths. The president is bald-faced lying because he's trying to place himself at the center of a reality drama of us versus them, where it's about winning or losing, it's not about the truth. And that's something we have to resist.

SANCHEZ: Now, Jason, some would say, supporters of the president would say that he speaks a truth that the press and that the left simply doesn't understand. Is that indicative of his use of propaganda, or is that simply a deeper problem in the culture itself?

STANLEY: It's both, because we've had a division of our information space. So people just get information from one source, and they don't trust other sources. But it's not really trust. We find 40 percent or so, a large group of Republicans who are denying that Biden was ever mentioned in the Ukraine transcript. So the information space is corrupted beyond that.

I believe that many of Trump's supporters know that what he's saying are false -- that he's uttering untruths, but they think it doesn't matter because the truth doesn't matter. What the president has done is he's destroyed the information space so everyone thinks it's just us versus them. It's just Democrats versus Republicans. And what we have to return to is a focus on what's true and what's not.

SANCHEZ: So how does the media do that? If there are so many outlets, if he's destroyed the information space by spreading misinformation, how do we then go about that?

STANLEY: Well, I think not representing this as a Democrats versus Republicans thing, not representing it as a political thing, focusing on the facts, saying this was in this transcript. The president is denying it, not representing this as a political battle between us versus them. We know from history that totalitarian regimes set things up so it's all a spectacle, all a game between them and us. And we have to avoid that, and we have to return the information space to one where people are focusing on what's true and what's not, and they leave the partisan battles to one side for the moment.

SANCHEZ: Easier said than done. Jason Stanley, thank you so much for the time this morning.

STANLEY: Thank you.

PAUL: President Trump is tweeting to one person in particular that you may think of as an unlikely target of some of his latest attacks.

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[10:36:47]

PAUL: New this hour, the president has an awful lot to say this morning about Mitt Romney. The first of two tweets reads this, "Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian president was a continual and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked." That was followed by a second tweet insulting the senator, saying that he's bad for Republicans.

Our panel with us today, former Democratic Party Chairman A. Scott Bolden, and KABC talk radio host John Phillips. Gentlemen, thank you both for being here.

SCOTT BOLDEN, FORMER D.C. DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIRMAN: Good morning.

JOHN PHILLIPS, KABC TALK RADIO HOST: Good morning.

PAUL: So reading these tweets -- good morning to you. How does this help the Republican Party?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Well, and I thought the coffee was going to be the best part of waking up in the morning.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDEN: I'm waiting, John, come on.

PAUL: I'm just trying to make sure you were woken up.

BOLDEN: Let's just get started.

PHILLIPS: Yes. Well, this is all about Mitt Romney kicking tires on a White House run, and the president of course is responding to that via his favorite means, which is Twitter, although I don't think he has anything to worry about with Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is a guy who was scared out of the last race by Jeb Bush, low energy Jeb, and now he's thinking about getting back in now that he's in the U.S. Senate. President Trump is more popular among Republicans certainly than McCain or George W. No Republican is going to give him any problems in the primary, but it is nice to see him going off on Twitter.

PAUL: A. Scott bolden, do you agree with that?

BOLDEN: It's entertainment, too, pure entertainment. I think Mitt Romney is not worried about losing his seat on the Senate because he's got a strong base in Utah. I think he's a strong moral voice that we need in the GOP. And it will be interesting to see how many will follow, versus to continue to support a president that has put his political interests in a foreign country ahead of American interests. And while we were joking earlier, this is very serious. I know John knows it's very serious. But more Mitt Romneys, if they stand up, like a few other senators, will understand that this is not only serious, but our American democracy is at risk, and that's no laughing matter.

PAUL: I want to ask you about some of the other news that's making headlines this morning. House Foreign Affairs Committee aide telling CNN that Secretary Pompeo again missed yesterday's subpoena deadline to turn over documents. Secretary Pompeo has been in the House for six years. He served in the House. He understands the role of congressional oversight, John. So what are -- what can committees do at this point, and why would he not cooperate?

PHILLIPS: Well, Adam Schiff seems to have a different revelation every day. It was the whistleblower, then it turns out he was talking to, now I guess there's a second one that he's inferring is going to come out and say some stuff very soon. And this is a situation where if they had the goods, they would put them out there and they would show it. Cut out the middlemen, cut out all of these people. It's Adam Schiff who is the one that's doing the talking and putting the words in everyone's mouth as this ventriloquist. Come out and tell us what you got so we can look at it and move on.

[10:40:08]

PAUL: OK, let me ask you this, though. Today in Greece, the secretary of state said that in terms of releasing these documents, that the State Department focused, quote, at the direction of the president. So is the president telling him not to release these documents?

BOLDEN: Of course, the president -- I'm sorry, go right ahead.

PHILLIPS: Go ahead.

PAUL: John, go ahead.

PHILLIPS: Well, we'll find out in due time. I mean this is what happens with the separation of powers. They'll investigate. Ultimately, we will find out. But again, if they had a smoking gun, if they had a quid pro quo, if they had something, they wouldn't be implying it, they would be out there waving it on live television.

PAUL: So --

BOLDEN: But Christi, we are out there waving it. We got the quid pro quo. We've got the memo in Trump's own words. We have the texts that have been disclosed. We have the intelligence and diplomacy community that are cooperating. We may have a potentially second whistleblower who was the corroborator for the first whistleblower's complaint to the inspector general. And so we are waving it, and we are doing investigations, and we are going down the impeachment road.

And you know what? If the State Department doesn't want to cooperate, if no agency won't cooperate, if the White House won't cooperate, add it to an obstruction charge. They have got enough documents and enough witnesses already. Proceed laser-like to impeachment, and then put the GOP on the Senate, and put Donald Trump and our American democracy on trial before the Senate. And I hope that the GOP will come to their senses and vote for American democracy and not for this president.

PAUL: OK, so here's the thing, Scott. You say that they have enough evidence. Do Democrats have enough money? And here's why I ask this. Let's take a look at some of the fundraising numbers here, because President Trump is killing it when it comes to fundraising numbers. I think he's up to $125 million compared to the highest Democrat who has, I believe it's $25 million. So, John -- or Scott, how do Democrats compete with that economically? Are there still too many people, I suppose, that are in the field? And at what point do you reach a sense of urgency that, hey, we have to whittle this field down so we can focus this money?

BOLDEN: I think by December or January the field will be whittled down based on the process for who's appearing in the debates. That's the first thing.

Secondly, if you look at the amount of money all of the Democratic presidential candidates are raising, it's a lot of money. The Republican -- the GOP as well as Trump, certainly because they're the incumbent and they have that 40 percent who are diehard GOP and Trump fans, they certainly are going to outraise the Democrats for now. But in totality there's a lot of interest in all of these Democratic candidates. When you whittle the field down and the DNC starts to support that one candidate, and then we start doing joint fundraising, I think the numbers, if they don't even out, it doesn't matter, because money doesn't win elections. Connecting to voters and voters win elections.

And they have got a great -- the Dems have a great message. And Trump, every time he opens his mouth, I've got to tell you, it helps the Democrats and their voting base.

PAUL: I apologize that we have run out of time, gentlemen. A. Scott Bolden and John Phillips, we appreciate you both so much. Thank you.

BOLDEN: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, a potential phone hacking scandal involving Prince Harry's voicemail. Details ahead.

PAUL: First, though, after several initial failures, a device designed to clean up plastic floating in the ocean is finally working. This week's Mission Ahead looks at the challenges of designing this system and why we should all care about the plastic that's in our waters.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOYAN SLAT, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE OCEAN CLEANUP: What we see here are actually the stomach contents of a single sea turtle that was found dead two years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was all in one sea turtle?

SLAT: One sea turtle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are approximately 150 million tons of plastic in the world's oceans. And a recent U.K. report predicts that that number will triple in the next decade.

SLAT: Only if we go out there and clean it up, this amount of plastic is going to go down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How? It's an almost 2,000-foot-long floating pipe with a net hanging below. Winds and waves propel the U-shaped system, creating a funnel to catch plastics. Every few months a boat brings the collected plastic back to shore. This first version of the system was deployed to much fanfare in 2018, but it failed to collect and retain the plastic. Since then, the team has added a parachute to slow it down and a cork line to prevent the plactic from going over the top of the floating pipe. Now, the team says, the new system is working.

[10:45:11]

But critics have worried about the system's effect on marine life.

SLAT: We don't have anything that can entangle marine life. And what happens is that the current flows underneath it while the plastic, which floats, will remain in this zone in front of the system.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The ultimate goal, to clean up 90 percent of ocean plastic by the year 2040.

SLAT: Back in the day people said, well, there's no way to clean this up. The best thing we can do is not make it worse. But to me that's a very uninspiring message. Everybody wants the future to be better than the present. That's what we hope to achieve with this cleanup.

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PAUL: A grim story out of New York to tell you about. Police say four men there were killed in their sleep just a few hours apart overnight.

[10:50:00]

PAUL: According to investigators, the men, who are homeless, were beaten to death. This happened in two separate locations in Chinatown. A 24-year-old man, also believed to be homeless, is in custody, and there was a fifth victim attacked, but that person survived. Investigators say the attacks appear to be random.

SANCHEZ: Prince Harry is suing the owners of U.K. tabloid newspapers, "The Sun" and "The Daily Mirror," for allegedly hacking into his phone.

PAUL: This of course, after his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex sued the U.K.'s "The Mail on Sunday" as it's called, claiming it illegally published a private letter to her father. CNN's Anna Stewart has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: It's just days since Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, launched legal proceedings against "The Mail on Sunday" for allegedly publishing a private letter to her father, and now her husband, Prince Harry, has filed new claims against tabloid newspapers. Buckingham Palace has confirmed that the lawsuit regards the illegal interception of voicemail messages. Newsgroup Newspapers, the parent company of "The Sun" have confirmed that they have received a claim, and a source at the publisher of "The Mirror" says it's aware of the legal proceedings but it hasn't yet received official notification. Both paper have declined to comment on the allegations at this time.

The big question here is when did this alleged voicemail interception take place. Does it date back to the so-called hacking scandal of 2005, 2006, that was the hacking of royal and celebrity phones, and engulf those newspapers as well as the now defunct "News of the World." This scandal resulted in numerous lawsuits, settlements, criminal charges, and even jail time for some journalists, as well as the multimillion-dollar wide ranging inquiry into press standards by Lord Leveson.

Prince Harry's decision to sue tabloid papers comes days after his wife's and after his extraordinary and emotional statement on the tabloid press, in which he criticized the double standards, he said, of a specific press pack which gave positive coverage of their recent trip in Africa and of his wife, but he says they vilified her for the last nine months. It feels like the first shots of a new royal battle against the British media.

Anna Stewart, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Now here's something a bit more uplifting. A hot air balloon fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with hundreds of balloons, even more people. We'll take you there live. Stay tuned.

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[10:55:50]

PAUL: She was tired of seeing news reports about violence in her city, so this week's CNN Hero had an idea. What if she decided to help people regain a sense of community, and do this one block at a time? She began in West Englewood, that's one of Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods. Here's Robbin Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBBIN CARROLL, CNN HERO: I started coming out to the community. The lots were all empty. The houses were getting boarded up. People were not coming outside. I stood on the corner and just asked anyone that walked by, are you interested in taking back your community? And everyone said absolutely, yes. We are really a brave space and courageous space.

We're going to get there.

We will work through all of what is holding you back to becoming the person and the potential that you have to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

To see how they have transformed the block and learn more about Robbin's incredible work, go to CNNHeroes.com.

SANCHEZ: And these are some incredible pictures from Albuquerque, New Mexico, the land of enchantment. This is Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. More than 500 balloons will light up the night sky during the nine-day event.

INGRAHAM: Beautiful. We hope that you make some great memories today.

SANCHEZ: CNN Newsroom with Fredricka Whitfield is up next. Thanks for watching.

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