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A.G. Barr Confirms DOJ Is Vetting Information On Bidens From Giuliani; Interview With Westchester D.A. Candidate Mimi Rocah On Barr Confirming Information From Giuliani; Trump May Regret Boosting Bernie Sanders As Nominee; Trump's New Budget Features Massive Cuts To Food Stamps/Social Programs/Foreign Aid But Fails To Deliver On Deficit; FBI Investigates After Van Plows Into Tent Of Trump Volunteers. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 10, 2020 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Today, Barr didn't dispute that Giuliani is feeding the Justice Department information about his political pursuits. But quote, "We can't take anything we receive from the Ukraine at face value. That is true for all information that comes to the department relating to the Ukraine including anything Mr. Giuliani might provide."

Mimi Rocah is former federal prosecutor. And we should also disclose she is running for district attorney in Westchester County here in New York.

Mimi, great to have you back.

MIMI ROCAH, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR & DISTRICT ATTORNEY CANDIDATE IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NEW YORK: Thank you. It's good to be back.

BALDWIN: Barr also said the DOJ has, quote, "The obligation to have an open door to anybody who wishes to provide information that they think is relevant."

But giving an open door to whatever Giuliani is bringing in?

ROCAH: This is, to me, the ultimate sin in terms of the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice should be nonpolitical.

I know that sounds a bit naive, but in my experience, 16 years under different administrations and both parties, there were not investigations done against one political party because they were a political rival, and that is what is happening here.

Yes, you have an open door but you don't roll out the red carpet, which is what they are doing for Giuliani.

While Barr is saying the right things about scrutinizing the information, I do not think we can take it at face value right now.

And it's not Rudy Giuliani's job to go out and collect, quote, "information." BALDWIN: Isn't that what got them in this mess?

ROCAH: Yes. Exactly. Had, the beginning, had there been real sincere concerns about particular companies, particular people, corruption in Ukraine, that's when the FBI, through established procedures that we have there, could have been brought in and gone into action.

Who knows what the results what have been? It seems, from what I have heard, there would not have been a been "there" there. But that's not the point.

That is what was done. And that is what makes this look so political now.

BALDWIN: So this got us all thinking about -- let me all take you back to the moment during Bill Barr's confirmation and the question that Senator Kamala Harris of him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): Has the president or anybody at the White House asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? Yes or no, please, sir.

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The president or anybody else?

HARRIS: It seems you would be remembering something like that and be able to tell us?

BARR: Yes, but I am trying to grapple with the word "suggest." I mean, there has been discussion of matters out there that -- they have not asked me to open an investigation but --

HARRIS: Perhaps they suggested?

BARR: I don't know. I wouldn't say suggest.

BALDWIN: Hinted?

BARR: I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We remember the moment, but knowing what we know now, what does his non-answer answer say to you?

ROCAH: Yes, this is not the first time this is coming up. Unfortunately what we see now, because Trump is emboldened, and everybody around him is emboldened, now it's more in the open.

There, he was afraid to give a straight answer. But today, he came out and basically said we are opening the door to an investigation of a political rival, whoever suggested it in the first place.

Bill Barr, he also declined to testify under oath when he was subpoenaed many months ago. It is really time for that to happen. We need answers and need them under oath.

BALDWIN: Mimi Rocah, thank you.

ROCAH: Thank you.

BALDWIN: President Trump's new budget is here and it's blowing a big hole in one of his campaign promises, on top of call for major cuts to food stamps, Medicaid and more. We have those details for you.

And why Trump supporters are boosting Bernie Sanders, and how it can actually backfire, according to my next guest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:37:41]

BALDWIN: Back in 2015, when he announced he was running for president, many Democrats had hoped Donald Trump would be the Republican nomination, thinking he would be easy to beat. And now we know the conventional wisdom was turned upside-down in 2016.

Now with Senator Bernie Sanders surging to the top of the Democratic field, many Trump allies are cheering him on, believing the self- proclaimed Democratic-Socialist will be easy to defeat in the general election.

But this new piece in the "Daily Beast" today makes the case the Republicans are actually playing with fire and the high-stakes plan to get Sanders nominated could backfire.

Here's the headline: "The Trumpists Boosting Bernie Sanders Might Get What They Wish For -- And Regret It."

Matt Lewis is a CNN political commentator and a senior columnist at the "Daily Beast." He wrote the story.

Matt, great to have you on as always.

MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to be back.

BALDWIN: Your advice to Republicans is know your history and be careful what you wish for. Talk to me about that.

LEWIS: Absolutely. Democrats thought Ronald Reagan would be easy to beat, right, an actor and too conservative and too old, all of those things, he could never get elected.

Democrats thought Donald Trump would be easy to defeat for a lot of reasons.

Now Republicans think Bernie Sanders, because he's a Socialist, because he's old, for a lot of reasons, would be a great person to run against. Not only would it guarantee Donald Trump's re-election, but it might give Republicans back the House. And my advice to Republicans is, when it comes to elevating a Democratic Socialist to the nomination, be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

BALDWIN: Why? Why should Bernie Sanders, why should be Sanders nomination actually scare Republicans?

LEWIS: First, if you're a conservative Republican and you believe in things like free market, the idea of elevating a Democratic-Socialists to the Democratic nomination is a scary and risky idea.

Once you become a nominee of a major political party, all bets are off.

Do I think Bernie Sanders would be as likely to win as Joe Biden? No, I don't think he would be as likely. I abide by the conventional wisdom. But once you are the nominee, you could win. You have a chance. We saw that with Donald Trump.

So I think it's a very risky proposition.

And by the way, I would say, just like Ronald Reagan, Bernie Sanders would have a chance if he became the president, not only to win but to dramatically shift the paradigm and shift America in a way we have not seen in a generation.

[14:40:07]

BALDWIN: We wait until November to see if he gets the nomination.

But, Matt, it's not just this notion that Republicans pushing the narrative that a Bernie Sanders nomination would be a disaster for Democratic, but so are 2020 Democrats running against Bernie Sanders.

This is Joe Biden at the recent New Hampshire debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: With regard to Senator Sanders, the president wants very much to stick a label on every candidate. We are not only going to win this time but we have to bring along the United States Senate.

And Bernie has labeled himself, not me, a Democratic-Socialist. I think that's the label that the president is going to lay on everyone running with Bernie if he's the nominee.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Do you think he's wrong here? Maybe more of the country will embrace Socialism if Bernie Sanders is the nominee?

LEWIS: I think Joe Biden has a valid point. Donald Trump will call Bernie a Socialist and use that, I think, somewhat effectively, especially with older Americans. It's going to be a stain on Bernie Sanders' record and will tarnish his reputation I think.

But it will excite young people who have a different perspective and maybe a different recollection about a perspective on history.

Again, Bernie Sanders has a populist appeal. I could imagine him doing OK in a place like Michigan when he talks about income equality and the haves and have nots, and the corporate media. And I can see Bernie Sanders exciting young people in a way Joe Biden couldn't.

I think conventional wisdom is that Joe Biden is a better match-up against Trump if you're a Democrat. But Bernie Sanders, you never know. Who thought that Donald Trump would ever be the president?

BALDWIN: I was about to say. You never know.

LEWIS: And Republicans --

(CROSSTALK)

LEWIS: And Republicans, by the way, are boosting Bernie and possibly going to vote for him in some states to help -- Hugh Hewitt, who is a conservative commentator, columnist and radio host, he's going to vote for Bernie Sanders. You never know.

BALDWIN: How about that? How about that?

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Pigs, yes.

LEWIS: Pigs fly.

BALDWIN: Matt Lewis, thank you.

LEWIS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: A programming note for all of you. Take a look back at some of the most hard-fought presidential races throughout history. The CNN original series "THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE" is back, starting Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific here on CNN.

Speaking of President Trump, he unveiled his new budget today and it is filled with big cuts to food stamps and other social programs. But it is missing one of biggest campaign promises.

Plus, so much for falling in love. CNN has learned that President Trump now wants a bit of a break from North Korea's Kim Jong-un.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:47:20]

BALDWIN: President Trump's $4.8 trillion budget blueprint arriving on Capitol Hill today. This gigantic document delivered to Congress a few hours ago. You can see stacks and stacks of it.

Even though it's unlikely to become law, it looks different than what President Trump initially campaigned on.

Remember, Trump said he would get rid of the national debt in eight years. Under his presidency, the national deficit and debt has ballooned. Now it will take until 2035 just to close the deficit.

There was his pledge that Mexico would pay for the border wall. Well, American taxpayers are already footing the bill and will continue to do so. The president wants $2 billion more for the wall.

And there's steep cuts proposed for non-defense spending, i.e., safety net programs that millions of Americans depend on.

Maya MacGuineas is the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Maya, a pleasure to have you on.

Let me play some sound and have a question for you. This is the president just a while ago speaking to the nation's governors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are not touching Medicare. We want to keep Medicare. And we are not touching Social Security. We are making our country stronger again. We're not decreasing Medicaid.

But we are doing a lot of things that are good, including waste and fraud. Tremendous waste and tremendous fraud.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Trump promising again he won't touch Social Security or Medicare and he tweeted that. But this proposed budget targets programs Americans depend on, $1.5 trillion of proposed cuts for non- defense spending.

Maya, I want to start with the food stamps. It's called SNAP. About 40 million Americans rely this to put food on their table. How hard could this hit them?

MAYA MACGUINEAS, PRESIDENT, COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL BUDGET: Yes, for the portions of the budget that go after the low- income mandatory spending programs, could really have an effect on the people that depend on them. Those are the welfare type of programs.

And it's honestly not where the biggest savings are to be had. The biggest savings, of course, would be in our big middle-class programs, retirement and health care. And those are the ones that need real attention.

If you are going after the pieces of the budget where low-income people depend on them, and in all likelihood we will be in a recession in the next coming years because the expansion has been so long, that would have a profound effect on people who depend on them.

BALDWIN: What about Medicare? Despite what the president has promised in the past, would Medicare get hit?

MACGUINEAS: Yes, it's like a whiplash on this one. First off, promises not to touch Social Security and Medicare, while they sound good, politically, they are highly irresponsible because both Social Security and Medicare have trust funds that do not have enough money to pay for promised benefits. We have to touch those programs.

[14:50:05]

The president's budget actually does have reforms in Medicare. Though he will get hit on them, I will put out there that they are reasonable reforms that will not have negative effects on beneficiaries. And they should be the kind of things we talk about.

But if have the president running away from his own ideas, it's going to be pretty hard to those get any momentum.

And then there are a bunch of parts of the budget that really don't make any sense, extending tax cuts, huge domestic discretionary cuts to parts of the budget that we have agreed to the spending caps to, and really unrealistic economic assumptions where those parts of the budget should not be taken seriously at all.

BALDWIN: When you look at President Trump, there seems to be a tweet for everything, even when you go back to the archives. Back in 2011, Donald Trump excoriated then-President Obama over the deficit then.

And now that deficit -- we are talking about the gap between what the government spends and what it takes in -- topped $1 trillion in 2019 for the first time since 2012.

Does this proposed budget even address that?

MACGUINEAS: The goal in the proposed budget is probably the right one. Get the budget down to balance in about 15 years. It's actually even aggressive. That would be a reasonable fiscal goal.

Because there are so many parts of the budget that are not realistic, we are not going to end up close to that were you to follow the budget.

But I would remind people, like you just did, that when the president first came into office, his first budget was expecting deficits that would be about $500 billion this year, and not $1 trillion.

The reason they are so big is because the president, aided and abetted by Congress, but he signed into law $4.7 trillion in new borrowing. So instead of moving in that direction of bringing the debt down, we've increased it massively.

This year's deficit is more than 50 percent policies that the president has signed into law.

So while the budget has a pathway towards balance, there's nothing that we have seen in terms of what this White House has really pushed after their budget have come out that will make it likely those savings will materialized.

And they need to. The deficits are huge. The debt is near record levels. We should be taking this more seriously.

BALDWIN: I am still back on thinking of the 2035 deadline. You're saying 15 years is aggressive.

May MacGuineas --

(CROSSTALK)

MACGUINEAS: That's what the problem is, I'm afraid.

BALDWIN: Exactly right.

Thank you so much.

MACGUINEAS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: The summits, the love letters and a trip to the DMZ apparently were not enough. President Trump now is telling his advisers he wants a break from North Korea's Kim Jong-un. Details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:57:12]

BALDWIN: Federal investigators in Jacksonville, Florida, are looking into a possible politically motivated attack on a group of Trump campaign volunteers. Sheriff's officials say a man drove his van into a tent where volunteers were registering people to vote.

This man, Gregory Timm, is now facing multiple charges, including aggravated assault.

Let's go to Jacksonville. My colleague, Rosa Flores, is covering this.

The volunteers say they were targeted. What do police say?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, before this case was turned over to the FBI, the sheriff's office told our affiliate, WJXT, that investigators there were looking into the possibility that this could be politically motivated. They were looking into that fact.

Since then, it has been turned over to the FBI. And the FBI says they are reviewing the case. And in a statement to CNN said, quote, "The FBI takes all reports of harassment, intimidation and violence seriously. And we work together with our law enforcement partners to investigate activity which may constitute a federal crime or pose a threat to national security."

We are also learning more about what transpired earlier that day from incident reports released from the sheriff's office, with witness accounts and details, that say the suspect, Gregory Timm, was driving slowly towards the tent, showing no emotion, waving at everybody. And according to the Florida GOP, he was recording all of this, made

some sort of obscene gesture and came to a stop and was about six inches from hitting a senior citizen volunteer.

Needless to say, the GOP in Florida is outraged by what has happened. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN BLACK, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN PARTY OF DUVAL COUNTY: It was a partisan political attack. You cannot call it anything other than that. And to do so is dishonest. It's factually incorrect. Do not make excuses!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: According to the Florida GOP, volunteers are undeterred. Take a look behind me. The Deval County GOP office is open and we have seen people walk in and out.

And, Brooke, hear this, we have learned one of the volunteers present during the attack is out today registering people to vote.

BALDWIN: Wow.

Rosa Flores, thank you.

We continue on. Top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. Thank you for being here.

In New Hampshire, the countdown is on and the claws are out as the 2020 Democratic candidates fight for any edge with voters in tomorrow's first-of-the-nation primary.

And despite the policy differences, there's one thing uniting the contenders, and that's attacking Pete Buttigieg.

Here's Sanders and Biden, and with the former self (ph) in there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:00:05]

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am running against a candidate, Pete Buttigieg, among others, who has raised funds through billionaires.