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Ousted Navy Secretary Blasts President Trump in New Op-ed; Interview with State Senator Audrey Gibson (D-FL) about Biden Endorsement; Impeachment Issue Not Top Priority to Voters; Inspector General Report Claims Trump Admin Can't Give Reliable Count of Family Separations. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 28, 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]

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: They want the troops to feel very confident that there is clear precise decision-making, that there is not political influence on their mission and what they are being asked to do.

Troops reflect American society. Broad range of political opinions, many, of course, do support the president and think he's looking after them. But here there -- at the Pentagon especially, there are senior commanders who are very privately growing increasingly worried about the president's interference, about his decision-making, about him exerting political influence on what the military is doing.

And it's really all come to a head in recent days over his stepping into those court-martial cases involving alleged war crimes by a number of military members. It cost the Navy Secretary Richard Spencer his job when he objected to the president's interference. And he wrote in the "Washington Post," I want to read it to everyone because it crystallizes what some of the concerns are.

Spencer writing that the president's intervention in the military justice system was, "shocking and unprecedented. It was also a reminder that the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices."

That's really the point here. The military does not operate in this country on anything but uniform rules and practices. Remember, President Trump has called these now pardoned service members essentially war heroes. He said he was defending them against the deep state, implying that that was the Pentagon. And in the past, recent past, he's tweeted the troops, U.S. troops are trained to be killing machines. That is absolutely in the view of senior commanders not what they want to hear -- Ana.

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Barbara, let me ask you about a related development. We're learning that the three Navy SEALs that were pictured with Officer Eddy Gallagher will not face the review board. Tell us more about that.

STARR: Yes, that's right. Of course Gallagher -- this is what really led to Spencer being fired. Very complicated. There was going to be a review board, an impartial military review board of all of those Navy SEALs being able to keep their SEAL status upon retirement. The president intervened in the Gallagher case over the objections of the Navy secretary and said he would keep his trident, his SEAL status no matter what.

Now because of all this controversy, the other SEALs, they are also now not going to face a review board. The feeling inside the Navy is this has become so controversial, be very tough for them to get an impartial review and the bottom line is the Navy very much right now wants to move on -- Ana.

CABRERA: All right, Barbara Starr reporting at the Pentagon, as we also anticipate the president's call with military leaders around the world later today. Thank you for that reporting, Barbara.

Joe Biden scoring a major endorsement out of Florida. We'll talk 2020 next. I'll speak with the top Democrat in the Florida statehouse and ask her why she's throwing her political weight behind the former vice president.

[10:35:00]

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CABRERA: The state of Florida is once again setting up to play a major role in who occupies the White House in 2020. Former vice president Joe Biden just picked up a key endorsement from a top Democrat in the Sunshine State. And she joins us now. Audrey Gibson is the minority leader in the Florida state Senate and the highest- ranking female African-American elected official in the state.

Thank you so much for being with us.

AUDREY GIBSON (D), FLORIDA STATE SENATE: Thank you for having me.

CABRERA: Why throw your support behind Joe Biden now?

GIBSON: Well, I looked at all of the candidates over time. I was leaning towards Joe initially, but I wanted to make sure I was very deliberate about watching other candidates and understanding who is most poised to make sure that we win in 2020.

CABRERA: And why do you think Joe Biden is that guy?

GIBSON: Well, I believe in his passion as well as his compassion. He's very genuine and he has the experience. I believe that certainly in his capacity as vice president under the first African-American president, Barack Obama, who chose him as his vice president, that sends a message of trust and reliability. And that is what we need in this country in our president.

CABRERA: Politico actually recently quoted another African-American member of the Florida House, Chevron Jones, as saying black voters equate Biden with Obama. Is that how you see it? GIBSON: Mine is more of a trust issue. I mean, I believe that

certainly I mentioned before election last cycle that many were in mourning because they really wanted to have the president run -- be able to run again, President Barack Obama. However, for me, I believe -- I watched the vice president also and being dispatched by the president to certainly work with international leaders. And that's going to be important in the -- for the next president because obviously we don't have that.

[10:40:09]

And also, if President Obama trusted Joe Biden, I trust him, too.

CABRERA: It sounds like you see Biden's past service as his strength, but he has faced criticism for his past over how he handled Anita Hill hearings, for example. His past stance on criminal justice issues, his past relationship with segregationist senators and more recently Cory Booker went after Biden's stance on keeping marijuana illegal federally arguing it impacts minorities in a disproportionate way. Does any of that give you pause?

GIBSON: Well, and I had a conversation recently with a constituent actually on the criminal justice part of it. And I explained to him that when communities, particularly African-American communities, were being ravaged with drug lords, infiltrating our communities, that many thought that the right thing to do was the war on crime and the war on drugs and minimum mandatory sentences to clean the streets.

Today, many of those same individuals, including Republicans and high- ranking elected officials in that party, believe in reform. And because we understand now the damage that that type of attitude reeked in particularly African-American communities. And so, there are probably some historical issues, as you mentioned, but the good part about it is the realization of what should be in today's world.

CABRERA: OK.

GIBSON: And so if you don't continue to make the same mistakes and you realize that we should handle things a little bit differently, and I think Vice President Biden did realize that, then we can move forward.

CABRERA: OK. OK. Audrey Gibson, Democratic minority leader in the Florida state Senate. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.

GIBSON: Happy Thanksgiving.

CABRERA: Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee pick up the next phase of the impeachment hearings next week. But polls show impeachment isn't a top issue for voters. What can Dems do to change their minds?

[10:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CABRERA: Welcome back. Lawmakers are on Thanksgiving break right now, and they're taking time to meet with their constituents ahead of next week's new slate of impeachment hearings. But a recent CNN poll shows impeachment is not a top issue for voters.

Joining us now to discuss is "New York Times" politics editor and CNN political analyst Patrick Healey and national political correspondent for "TIME" and CNN political analyst Molly Ball.

Guys, great to have you with us. Patrick, let me start with you because our new CNN poll finds that basically support for impeachment has not really moved. It was sort of between 47 percent and 50 percent since late September. How might that impact Democrats' messaging as they move forward into this next phase?

PATRICK HEALY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, Democrats are going to be coming into next week having a big decision to make, basically, how broadly to go with Articles of Impeachment. Whether to bring in the Mueller report, for instance, or whether to focus on Ukraine. And the real issue for Democrats here is that they've spent several weeks now building a case specifically on Ukraine, trying to shape public opinion, get voters to understand issues like abuse of power and bribery.

And they really haven't moved the needle in an extraordinary way. The Trump White House, the Trump campaign, the Republican establishment has been very effective in basically saying this is a partisan sham. So, if Democrats decide to go broad and bring in the Mueller report, it really -- it could risk kind of confusing the issue and saying, boy, we're now throwing a lot of things at the wall to see if they stick.

CABRERA: Right.

HEALY: And voters may sort of see that and start seeing this as more of sort of big and slightly messy Democratic cover.

CABRERA: It could muddy the waters. But even if they stick with Ukraine, Molly, Democrats are on track, you know, to hold this full House vote by the end of the year, they say. They're moving quickly. And yet we're learning more and more information all the time on this specific case. Are they risking missing some key information and witnesses?

MOLLY BALL, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. There's actually a pretty active debate among Democratic House members in particular about this issue. It's very similar to, you know, when a prosecutor builds a case at some point they have to decide this is enough to convince a jury, you're never going to track down every stray piece of information, you're never going to get every single witness that you think might be relevant. And so they have to decide at what point is it better not to bore people or make them tired of the case or make it seem like yesterday's news or something that's just going on and on and on.

At the same time, there are a lot of other Democrats who feel that given all of what they consider wrongdoing by the president and his administration it would send the wrong message to only impeach over this one issue and not broaden it out to present to voters the full case of things that they believe the president has done to violate his oath of office and abuse his power.

[10:50:06]

So there's a debate going on behind this. And the official line is that they actually haven't made the decision. The official line is this is in the hands of the Judiciary Committee. The other committees, similar to what the Intelligence Committee is doing now, are also going to report out what they think based on their own investigations because remember there have been six committees all simultaneously doing these investigations of the president on various issues. And then it's going to be up to the Judiciary, and they maintain that that decision has not been made what to put in those articles and how to move forward.

CABRERA: And even who else they may interview. Because, Patrick, John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, they could offer something to the Democrats' case, right? But would whatever they have to say be something that could potentially change Republican minds?

HEALY: I think it's on two tracks. One is Bolton and Mulvaney, if they were somehow to come before the committee, before the committees, could change both some Republican minds in Congress possibly but more so voters. You know, a lot of FOX News watchers know John Bolton from his years of appearances. And right now John Bolton, for instance, would be pretty high-level witness who if he said damning things about the Trump White House, at least some of those Republicans who followed Bolton for years, who like Bolton, would have to reckon with that, similarly with Mulvaney. That's kind of public opinion.

In the House, in the Senate, Ana, it may change some minds. But really right now what we're seeing is so many Republicans are kind of dug in to defend the president. That unless you had a truly dramatic flip by a John Bolton or certainly a Mick Mulvaney, it's hard to see right now, at least, at least right now, a lot of changing minds.

CABRERA: All right. Patrick Healey and Molly Ball, thank you both for taking the time especially on a holiday. Happy Thanksgiving to both of you. Hope you get to go dig into some turkey.

Coming up, why the Trump administration has no idea just how many children were taken from their parents or how many have actually been reunited.

[10:55:00]

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CABRERA: The Trump administration doesn't know how many families were separated at the border when it implemented its Zero Tolerance Policy. And they still don't know just how many families have been reunited. A new Homeland Security inspector general report shows widespread errors prevented officials from being able to properly collect and track the data.

CNN's Natasha Chen is following this story for us.

Natasha, what were these errors and will the government be able to find and reunite these families?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, a lot of these errors point to software problems and the systems from different agencies not talking to each other. The report says this caused a lot of extra work and overall this policy ended up costing more than a million dollars in overtime. We're talking about five different IT systems across three different agencies mentioned in this report.

For example the Border Patrol system did not even have features in its software to mark that a child was separated from its -- from his or her family until nearly two months after the Zero Tolerance Policy ended. And as of February of this year, that system still couldn't automatically tell Health and Human Services about a separated child. HHS had to manually check a box that a child was separated from a family based on e-mails from Border Patrol.

Here are some quotes from the report to give you an example. CBP adopted various ad hoc methods to record and track family separations. But these methods led to widespread errors. Without a reliable account of all family relationships, we could not validate the total number of separations or reunifications." And they continue then to say that they then cannot tell how many separated families were actually reunified.

Here is what they do know. They say CBP estimates during that six and a half week window of the policy there were about 3,000 children separated from their families, an estimated 2100 reunified, but they found 136 children with potential family who were not accurately recorded. And when they extend those dates wider to October 2017 through February of this year, they found an additional 1200 kids not accurately recorded.

They say that the agencies were aware of these problems since November of 2017 but did not address them before the Zero Tolerance Policy took effect the following year. And they say, like we mentioned, this cost more than a million dollars in overtime and did not achieve the original goal of deterring catch and release, and ended up resulting in these kids being held for longer than the 72-hour legal limit.

And the inspector general did make about five recommendations for fixes, updating systems, automatically sharing data between agencies, and they did acknowledge that most of those recommendations, Ana, are being addressed right now.

CABRERA: Wow. That story just never ends.

Natasha Chen, thank you for that update.

CHEN: Thank you.

CABRERA: Thank you for joining us. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Wishing you the very best today. I'm Ana Cabrera. "AT THIS HOUR" starts now.

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