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Klobuchar And Warren, Only The Women Ask Forgiveness at The Debate; Trump Campaign Falsely Claims Clyburn Called for Trump's Hanging; What Was It Like Inside Trump's Hotel During His Impeachment; TSA Whistleblower Says Screening Changes Make Air Travel Less Safe; Police Officer Donates Liver to Boy She Never Met. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired December 20, 2019 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will ask for forgiveness. I know that sometimes I get really worked up. And sometimes I get a little hot. I don't really mean too.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'd ask for forgiveness any time any of you get mad at me. I can be blunt, but I am doing this because I think it is so important to pick the right candidate here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And I was -- started my day thinking about this and reading Maeve Reston's piece on CNN.com. and she points out how it was just the two ladies who chose to apologize. And I know Klobuchar was interviewed after the debate last night and she was like, don't read much into this. But yes, maybe I'm humble and it's just quite the juxtaposition against the guy in the White House. But why do you think the women were apologizing and should the men be instead?

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: So I've been thinking a lot about this moment, too and I've also been thinking a lot back on the 2016 election in covering Hillary Clinton for a while. I was at the Javits Center just down the road from here at her election night party. Everybody thought that it would be a victory night party and it turned out it wasn't.

And there's one sort of moment that I kept remembering when everybody knew that she was going to lose and everybody was sort of filing out, they were very upset. There were these cannons that were placed throughout the hall and inside were these opaque green sort of confetti that was clearly supposed to represent the shattered glass. They were supposed to be deployed at some point and they were being taken out and put into boxes.

And I was just thinking about how there was so much talk about sort of the symbolic moment what she accomplished by becoming the first Presidential female nominee. And I think this cycle that has sort of been overshadowed a little by the fact that has happened once before. There are several female candidates in the race and I think that moment last night so sort of brought into clarity how the very things that we talked about last cycle about this disparity, the gender disparity. How there are different standards for women and women candidates. Those things are all still true and it came out so clearly last night I thought.

BALDWIN: 30 seconds from you, Joan, just on this.

JOAN WALSH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I found it heartbreaking to be honest. We talk about bias in media and we talk about maybe the moderators did this or they did that. The moderates didn't do anything. They asked a question, like it or not and the women responded that way. And it just shows how we are trained to apologize for being forthright, and ambitious and direct and all the things you have to be to have a political career or any kind of career. So it was an uneasy moment for me, I'll confess. I thought about it all day.

BALDWIN: I just wanted to talk about it. Ladies, thank you very much for all that.

WALSH: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, the Trump campaign takes a Congressman's comments grossly out of context. Claiming that he called for the President's hanging. This lie is getting thousands of retweets. And so we're fact checking what was really said.

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: While impeachment proceeding may be in a lull until January, you can certainly expect campaigns on both sides to include impeachment in their ads and attacks over the next couple of weeks.

But the Trump campaign just misused one Democrats comments in a really troubling way claiming that House Majority Whip James Clyburn actually called for the President's hanging. Here to us fact check this is CNN's Daniel Dale. And so, Daniel, this is actually from a CNN interview. What is going on here?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Brooke, you know the thing, that movie posters are infamous for doing, where I like a movie reviewer will say this was the worst movie of the year and then poster will say like movie of the year. Well, that's basically what the Trump campaign did here except in a much more serious and troubling context. Listen to what Majority Whip Congressman Jim Clyburn actually said on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, delay is made necessary because the majority of the Senate has made it very clear that he's not going to be impartial, he's not going to be fair. He will collude, if you please, with the White House, at least the White House's attorneys, you know, to decide how he will go forward. If he doesn't come around to commit to a fair trial, keep those

articles here so, keep it as long as it takes, if you know, and he's told you what he's going to do. He's just almost like let's give him a fair trial and hang him. I mean it's reverse of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DALE: So this perhaps could have been clearer at the end but it clearly was not a proposal to execute Trump or anyone else. What Clyburn was saying was that McConnell in his previous comments had been so partial towards Trump saying things like he's going to coordinate a Senate trial with the White House counsel, that clearly favors Trump's acquittal. That these will not be fair proceedings and it's kind of like the reverse, as if someone said it's going to be a fair trial but we're going to hang him at the end.

And so there was no threat here at all and once again the Trump campaign and conservative allies on social media and elsewhere have grossly misrepresented these comments for their own purposes.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Every single time, Daniel Dale, for the fact check. Thank you.

DALE: Thank you.

[15:40:00]

BALDWIN: Still ahead, here, a CNN exclusive. A top official at the TSA is warning that changes to screening procedures is making air travel less safe.

Plus, the inside scoop on what was happening inside the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. as the President was getting impeached.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just in, despite the fact that it's not clear when a Senate impeachment will be the President's White House counsel, there in the red tie, and White House Director of Legislative Affairs, in the hat, arrived on Capitol Hill moments ago.

[15:45:05]

They were there to meet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and do a, quote, good straightforward run through on the Senate floor, which is closed to the public today. So on the day that the House impeached an American President for just the third time ever, what was happening inside in one of the many

places, one of the many places that bears the President's name?

Let's ask CNN's Michael Warren, he actually went to the Trump International Hotel in Washington to find out. So Michael, let's start with the mood. What was that like?

MICHAEL WARREN, CNN REPORTER: Well, you know, Brooke, for most of the day during the day as the impeachment debate was going on, on the floor, it was very much a normal day at the Trump Hotel.

It's very much a tourist destination here in Washington for pro-Trump people from around the country who are visiting, people come in taking pictures. They have Make America Great Again paraphernalia they're wearing. People were having lunch. And people weren't really paying much attention to the TVs that were showing the debate.

And in fact, once it got closer to happy hour, 5:00, 5:30, 6:00, people are meeting friends for dinner, having a good time, talking about things. And again, not really paying much attention to what's going on. That changed and the mood I think really changed with it once the votes started to come in and people did start to look at those TVs.

BALDWIN: You mentioned the TVs, so what channels were on?

WARREN: Well, two of them were on ESPN in the lobby bar, but one was on Fox News and other on CNN. And it was interesting to watch. Once these votes came in and they reached the threshold on those two articles of impeachment there was a kind of mood change, mood shift in the lobby.

People started throwing up their hands. Shaking their heads. A lot of sort of pro--Trump people in this lobby who are I think came in thinking, oh, this is the Democrats going after their President. It wasn't really going to make a big deal, because he's not going to be thrown out of office.

And I think that changed once the actual event occurred and people really kind of let it sink in. I talked to one woman at the bar who said she was sad. She was sad for him. And she recognized even though she was a big Trump supporter that this is a black mark on his presidency. And that mood shift was really kind of striking once those votes came in.

BALDWIN: And then what happens, Michael, when you left the hotel?

WARREN: Well, you know, tensions are sort of returning high. Washington, D.C. is a very liberal city. And this was certainly the case. I walked out going to get in my car coming back here to CNN bureau, and a man who seemed to be very angry was sort of walking toward the hotel. Very frustrated and said, I wonder who stays at this hotel?

Kind of angry and yelling at people coming out of it. So, look, on all sides of the aisle, tensions are running high and they were certainly running high on impeachment day right outside the Trump Hotel. Sort of a bizarre end to a very strange and historic day.

BALDWIN: What a crazy, interesting place to be witnessing history from within. Within that spot. Michael, thank you very much for that.

Coming up next, another disappoint for Boeing after it suspended production of its 737 MAX jet. Now the company's space program has hit a major setback as well. Why the Starliner won't complete its mission.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Today is the busiest day -- travel day of the holiday season. If you and your loved ones are flying you are going to want to hear this. A TSA whistleblower tells CNN the agency has been cutting corners on the screening process to shorten those wait times at airports.

Jay Brainard is the top TSA official in his state and he says among the changes the agency has reduced the sensitivity on walk-through metal detectors at airports all across the country reducing the likely number of pat-downs. The TSA is also disabling technology on the baggage x-ray machines in pre-check lanes, technology that is supposed to help screeners spot explosives and all of this is to make things move faster.

The TSA says the current system still has an appropriate level of security but this is one of those stories, do not miss the full interview on today, CNN, 5:00 Eastern on "THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer. So there's that.

Now to this, a snafu in space means Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not accomplish its mission. Nasa and Boeing officials say they are now working to bring the unmanned Starliner safely back to earth. Can they sort out the problems in time for a mission in early 2020 with crew aboard?

My favorite CNN space geek is Rachel Crane, she's CNN business, innovation and space correspondent. And so Rachel, the launch itself wasn't the issue. So what happened?

RACHEL CRANE, CNN BUSINESS, INNOVATION AND SPACE CORRESPONDENT: No. So the launch itself went off beautifully as did the separation from the Atlas 5 rocket. That went off without a hitch. Those are traditional pain points in space flight. This was completely different. So this was essentially a problem with

automation. Automation on board the Starliner.

BALDWIN: What does this mean.

CRANE: Now these are done robotically, there wasn't a human on board. So this mission was being run on automation.

BALDWIN: OK.

CRANE: And what happened here was during the orbital insertion burn which is essentially a fancy way of saying a maneuver to help Starliner to be able to rendezvous with ISS. An onboard clock failed. They don't exactly know how. They don't know why and so that burn happened prematurely.

[15:55:00]

At same time NASA tried to send commands to Starliner to power down. There was a communications issue, so the spaceship lost a lot of fuel. They decided to you know instead of continuing -- to abort essentially the main objective of this orbital test launch and put it into the safe orbit and they'll be returning back to White Sands -- or they'll be returning to White Sands, New Mexico in two days.

But what's really interesting here, Brooke, is that NASA, the administrator, the astronauts and Boeing all saying that this problem could have been avoided if the astronauts had been on board, had it not been a test dummy in there. Because they would have been able to manually override this automated system and they would have been able to keep it on course and they'd be heading to ISS right now. Or so they say.

So you know, there is still preliminary phases of the investigation, time will tell exactly what happened here, why that clock failed. But that's what they're saying now. That had the astronauts been on board that everything would have been fine. Astronauts also saying that they are still very, very confident in this system, the Starliner.

BALDWIN: We want to make sure we could get astronauts to the ISS and not constantly rely on the Russians. I know you'll covering it for us, Rachel Crane. Thank you very much.

And quickly here, a very sick eleven-year-old Colorado boy is getting a second chance at life. It's all thanks to a police officer who went beyond the call of duty and became a living organ donor. CNN's Lucy Kafanov has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLYDE HOFFMAN, ORGAN RECIPIENT: This is E8 Prowler.

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): There are few 12-year-olds who know as much about aviation as Clyde Hoffman.

CLYDE HOFFMAN: Yes, it's really beautiful. Just the curvature and everything.

KAFANOV: But it is not just his knowledge of planes that makes him special.

CLYDE HOFFMAN: Don't shoot this. This is a nuclear bomb. Probably not activated though.

KAFANOV: It's the fact that he's standing here at all.

CLYDE HOFFMAN: I was very thin and I was basically kind of yellowish, jaundice.

KAFANOV: Clyde was born with Alagille's Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that effects the organs.

MELISSA HOFFMAN, MOTHER OF CLYDE: His liver was probably functioning only at 10 percent.

KAFANOV (on camera): How bad did things get?

MARK HOFFMAN: He could barely keep 200, 250 calories down.

KAFANOV (voice-over): In the summer of 2018 the illness nearly claimed his life. He had to be put on a feeding tube and Colorado's transplant waiting list. Without a new liver, parents Mark and Melissa feared the worse.

MELISSA HOFFMAN: He would have died for sure.

KAFANOV: Wait times can often stretch into years but a month later, a miracle, a match from a living stranger.

MARK HOFFMAN: I could remember the day of the surgery and looking across the campus over to where I knew -- whoever this person was, was on a slab having their liver removed or a portion of it. And I'd never met her and there was a connection somehow.

CAROLYN BECKER, POLICE OFFICER WHO DONATED HER LIVER: I knew that there were kids out there that could use the help and I am healthy and had the means to be able to donate.

KAFANOV: That mystery donor, Broomfield, Colorado Police Officer, Carolyn Becker.

BECKER: We're never off duty and whether I'm wearing my uniform or not if I see somebody in need, I'm going to help. And that was true in this case too. I saw an opportunity to help somebody.

KAFANOV(on camera): You knew you could save a live.

BECKER: Yes.

KAFANOV(voice-over): Doctors removed a portion of the Officer Becker's liver and transplanted it into Clyde. His improvement almost immediate.

CLYDE HOFFMAN: My jaundice and my yellow eyes went completely away and the first time I ate a meal, I ate all of it. And that was amazing.

KAFANOV: The story almost ended there until a special thank you note arrived in Officer Becker's mailbox seven months later.

BECKER: Dear donor, thank you so much for my chance at a new life. I never could imagine this happening.

KAFANOV: After searching online, Becker learned that the Hoffmans who live two hours away in Colorado Springs were saddled with huge medical bills.

BECKER: I knew there was more I could do to help.

KAFANOV (on camera): And what did you decide to do?

BECKER: Thank you. That'll be so helpful for him. Thanks, have a good day.

I decided to stand on the side of the road with a sign much like panhandling.

Thank you, hi.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What a wonderful thing you are doing.

BECKER: Thank you. I appreciate that.

BECKER (voice-over): Raising more than $10,000, one donation at a time.

CLYDE HOFFMAN: This is a -- a E8 68 Prowler.

KAFANOV: So when Clyde and Officer Becker finally met more than a year after the surgery, the Hoffmans had a lot to be thankful for.

MELISSA HOFFMAN: It is hard to have words for it. I think that's why like the first week tears would come because it's a heartfelt decision.

CLYDE HOFFMAN: And you can see this is just like a lot of piping and tubing.

BECKER: You want to tell people, yes, go donate, donate your organs, right, but now I can truly say go donate.

KAFANOV (on camera): Do you think she went above and beyond the call as a police officer and as a human?

CLYDE HOFFMAN: Yes, I think so. I mean donating an organ, that's pretty big.

KAFANOV (voice-over): A big gift from a big-hearted stranger now a friend for life.

Lucy Kafanov, CNN, Broomfield, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: That is pretty big indeed. Lucy, thank you so much for that story and Officer Becker, you go girl.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thanks for being here. I'll be back New Year's Eve for the big party here on CNN. In the meantime let's go to Washington. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts now.

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