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Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH) is Interviewed about Buttigieg; Trump Comments about Rivals; Biden Turns to South Carolina. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired February 12, 2020 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Some new pressure with a big surge for Senator Amy Klobuchar.

With me now is Democratic Congresswoman of New Hampshire Ann McLane Kuster. She is endorsing Mayor Buttigieg.

So nice to have you here. And let's begin -- and welcome to CNN. It's your first appearance with us. Thanks for joining us.

REP. ANN MCLANE KUSTER (D-NY): Thanks so much, Poppy. Great to be with you.

HARLOW: Look, Buttigieg is a two-term mayor. He's running against years and years of experience, Senate experience, a former vice president, eight years diplomatic experience. Joe Biden says he's a good guy, he's a great mayor, but he's a mayor.

In your opinion, why is Biden wrong?

KUSTER: Well, I think you could see it in the results in New Hampshire. Pete Buttigieg is honestly just an extraordinary person, and that came through to the voters. He's got a vision for America about health care for everyone and a clean planet, get past climate change. But most importantly, he has the temperament that I think the American people are looking for.

And when I was with him over the weekend, you could feel that in these big, big crowds that whenever we talked about the exhaustion that the American people are feeling from this president, to imagine a day we could be proud of the White House, we could be proud of the president.

And this very, very calm demeanor. I have to keep coming back to that. He is unflappable, and that's what the American people are looking for.

HARLOW: So --

KUSTER: And I think, honestly, the message resonated about small towns, places that are left behind. We have a lot of that in New Hampshire. And they look up to their mayor. You know, when the mayor of Nashua, Jim Donchess, endorsed Pete Buttigieg, that's meaningful to them. And the same old ways in Washington are not getting the job done.

HARLOW: Congresswoman, on the issue of experience and seriousness, you have heard time and time again in the last two weeks Senator Amy Klobuchar go after Mayor Buttigieg for when he said this in a speech in Iowa on January 28th.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm exhausted watching the coverage of what is happening in our nation's capital, as though by design to make us want to switch it off and just watch cartoons or something. You know, get a break.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Watch cartoons or something. She feels as though he's not -- didn't take the impeachment of the president seriously. Is she wrong?

KUSTER: Well, she's just misinterpreting the phrase. He said by -- almost by design. The point being, this White House is creating this exhaustion. And let me tell you, that was an exhausting week in Washington, and I want to give credit where credit is due to the senators sitting through that trial.

But from the perspective of the American people, it's the dysfunction that is Washington. We need to be getting things done. The House has passed 400 bills that are sitting on Mitch McConnell's desk, 275 of those bills are bipartisan bills.

HARLOW: So --

KUSTER: Nothing is moving. And the American people are tired of that.

HARLOW: South Carolina. You've got Nevada and then you've got South Carolina. And Joe Biden's camp is banking everything on South Carolina and especially on the African-American vote.

In the latest national polling, it's Quinnipiac, Mayor Buttigieg only holds 4 percent of support from African-Americans. He has not really been able to get that number up more than a few percentage points. Are you worried about that?

KUSTER: Not in the slightest. And let me explain why. Nobody in New Hampshire had ever heard of Pete Buttigieg either. And so to look at national polls is, frankly, irrelevant.

What you need to look at is the campaign that he's putting together. We've got a good strategy heading out to Nevada. A big break last night --

HARLOW: Do you know internally how he's polling among African- Americans, for example, in South Carolina, what your -- you know, his team's numbers are saying?

KUSTER: He -- I'm saying he's not known yet. He's not known yet. And they're hovering around Biden who is not going to be the most viable alternative. So I have no doubt over the next several weeks -- the Culinary Worker Union announcement last night that they are going after Bernie Sanders because he wants to take your health care away, that gives a big opening to Pete in Nevada.

And I'm very confident that we're going to see, in addition to Anthony Brown, we'll see other members of the Congressional Black Caucus coming around Pete. I've had a number of inquiries on the House floor and in conversations with people.

So this is going to play out over the next few weeks. And as they get to know Pete Buttigieg, the way we did, they'll see this vision for the future and this very even temperament. And they'll see that that's going to work with all types of voters. And I'm very excited about it.

This was a big boost coming out of New Hampshire. He's got the wind in his sails now. He heads out to Nevada leading in the delegate count.

HARLOW: Well --

KUSTER: After the first two contests.

HARLOW: He --

KUSTER: Nobody could have ever guessed that with a two-term mayor.

HARLOW: Here we go. We're going to see what happens.

KUSTER: Here we go.

HARLOW: Congresswoman Kuster, we appreciate your time. Come back soon.

KUSTER: Great to be with you. Thanks so much.

HARLOW: Sure.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, maybe an early sign of the line of attack on Bernie Sanders going forward on health care.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Political attacks and personal vendettas. President Trump is unleashing a series of power plays after his impeachment trial acquittal.

[09:35:07]

It's worth watching this. It's important.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Since his acquittal, President Trump has launched personal attacks and seems to be out for political revenge against those he feels crossed him. And by crossed him that means telling the truth apparently during his impeachment.

HARLOW: Now he is hinting that the military might take further action against ousted Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you look at Vindman's -- the person he reports to, said horrible things, avoided the chain of command, leaked, did a lot of bad things. And so we sent him on his way to a much different location, and the military can handle him any way they want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:40:07]

HARLOW: And this may not be over. The suggestion has been made by the president that there are more departures coming.

Let's talk about all of this really big picture, what it indicates, what's ahead. CNN politics reporter and editor at large Chris Cillizza is here, and senior editor for "The Atlantic" and CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein.

Thank you both for being here.

Cillizza, you wrote about this in one of your columns yesterday, just talking about the denial from the president, because it's not just Vindman, right, it's the -- you know, the basically total about face at the Justice Department on the suggestion for the -- you know, prison time for Roger Stone that -- what the president is saying here doesn't really matter because the facts are the facts.

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Yes, I mean, he's trying to create, I think, a distinction without a difference. He's -- he said yesterday in that same Oval Office spray that we just played, he said at one point, well, I didn't -- I didn't -- I involved myself a lot less than people think.

I didn't say anything to the Department of Justice, to which I would note, well, you sent a tweet saying you think, as it relates to Roger Stone, he was wrongly accused. You have 70-plus million Twitter followers. If you think that no one at DOJ saw that and the timing is coincidental, I have a video rental company named Blockbuster that I think you might be interested in. It's very hot right now.

So, I mean, look, you -- this is just logic, right? Donald Trump has long believed that there is a deep state conspiracy against him and it is focused in the Department of Justice. Remember, this is a president who publicly shamed and bullied his first pick to be attorney general, Jeff Sessions. I mean this is not new.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

Well, beyond that, though, Ron, it's not just the belief of the deep state. It's the president actin, it seems, in his own interests, right, over best practices, is it not? Because you see this not just against individuals, you see it against companies, right?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

SCIUTTO: Amazon is alleging that they lost a big Defense Department contract because he doesn't like "The Washington Post."

BROWNSTEIN: He equates himself with the state and he accepts no limits on the boundaries of presidential authority, including those that have been, you know, essentially followed by every president through American history.

Susan Collins, you know, may have had the definitive quote, I think, possibly of her career, certainly of her election, when she said she believed and later that she hoped Trump had learned his lesson from impeachment. In fact, it's pretty clear from the last week that he has learned a lesson from impeachment, only not the one that she was alluding to. He's learned that no matter what -- pretty much no matter what he does, Republicans in Congress are going to be fearful of confronting him or constraining him in any way so that, in effect, there is no practical way of limiting these arbitrary exercises of presidential power.

And that is the reality that, you know, the country has to face going forward, but also these Republican senators will be on the ballot defending in November. In many ways he is kind of sharpening the issue that they will face before voters this fall.

HARLOW: Chris, the -- so the reaction was swift from those in Congress, especially Democrats. Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, says -- wrote this letter asking for the DOJ IG to investigate this, right?

CILLIZZA: Yes.

HARLOW: But I guess I'm just wondering, after all that we saw happen with impeachment, to what end, right? What power does Congress have here other than Nadler or Schumer really being vocal about their frustration, then what?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CILLIZZA: Well, it doesn't -- it has only as much power as it's willing to take, Poppy. And to Ron's point, Republicans are not going to play ball with this and so Congress doesn't have a lot of power.

Chuck Schumer knows that. I mean he -- but he also, I think, feels compelled, both for -- for philosophic reasons, moral reasons, and also political reasons, to draw attention to this. Same thing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

I don't think either of them thought that Donald Trump was going to be impeached. Sixty-seven senators needed for removal. But they did it anyway believing it was the right thing to do. So I think that's what you see here.

But, look, the truth is, and Donald Trump knows this, he is now, if he ever was constrained by concerns about Congress, he is not now.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes. Well, and the subpoena power of Congress has been, you know --

CILLIZZA: I mean --

SCIUTTO: Grossly diluted, it appears.

CILLIZZA: Right.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you a question, Ron Brownstein, because the question throughout Trump's presidency has been, who are the adults in the room, or who is checking the president, his decisions, motivations on the inside?

I want to quote his national security adviser, O'Brien, because he's someone who has respect in the military.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: He said, this is in defending Vindman's firing. We're not a country where a group of lieutenant colonels can get together and dictate what the policy of the United States is. The policy of the U.S. decided by an elected president of the United States.

So he's -- he's in line with the president on this --

BROWNSTEIN: Oh, yes.

SCIUTTO: On this decision. But do you see anybody in his circle today who would tell him the hard truth or disagree with him?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Look, I mean he has reached the point where he has essentially pushed out anyone who does not accept the equation of his own personal interest with the national interest and will stand in any way.

[09:45:07]

I mean what we are seeing from William Barr is extraordinary in the long sweep of American history. Possibly unprecedented in terms of his willingness to allow the White House, allow the president to kind of bend and shape the administration of justice. And then -- but I have to go back to it, equally important are people like Marco Rubio, you know, yesterday saying, well, this is fine. And so we are kind of -- I don't know if the -- you know, we're in the water where the frog is boiling --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Or we're moving further and further into unchartered waters. But either way, what you are seeing is the elimination both inside the government and from Congress, the constraints on the president, and ultimately the only constraint being the choices that voters make in 2020.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CILLIZZA: That's it.

SCIUTTO: Chris Cillizza, Ron Brownstein, sobering, but thank you.

CILLIZZA: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Biden's big bet now, will South Carolina revive his struggling campaign? We're going to ask a member of the Biden campaign coming up next. You'll want to hear.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:29]

HARLOW: All right. Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign in South Carolina this morning, literally in there, went last night, following a pretty disappointing performance in New Hampshire. The former vice president finished fifth there.

SCIUTTO: But before the polls there even closed, as Poppy was saying, he went on to South Carolina, where he hopes to have a better showing.

Joining me now, deputy campaign manager and communications director for the Biden campaign, Kate Bedingfield.

Kate, good to -- good to have you on this morning.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER, BIDEN 2020 CAMPAIGN: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: These are two disappointing finishes in a row for Joe Biden, whose message going in to these races had been if not inevitability, electability. How do you answer voters who question right now whether he is the most electable candidate in the field?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, let's take a step back here because two out of 50 states have voted in this process. This is not the entire nation. It's not half the nation. It's not a quarter of the nation. It's two -- two --

SCIUTTO: Two predictive races, though. They've been -- they've been predictive. No one's come out of these races with those finishes and gone on to be the nominee.

BEDINGFIELD: Two -- no one has gone on to be the nominee who has -- does not have the support of African-American voters. And so what you've heard from Vice President Biden last night is that, you know, he believes that this race is moving forward to a place now where diverse voters are going to have their say.

This is the Democratic Party. African-American voters, Latino voters, AAPI, this is the base of our party. And, for the most part, you know, the vast majority, 90 -- for example, 99.9 percent of African-American voters have not yet had their say in this process. So now the race goes to -- goes to a place where diverse voters get to

have their say and Vice President Biden has been -- has been in this race. The candidate who's been able to rally that support, build that coalition. These are the voters that we're going to need to turn out to beat Donald Trump. And that's where this race is now moving to today.

HARLOW: Kate, I hear you on the black vote and, you're right, it is so important and those voices really largely haven't been heard in these first two contests. But I wonder if given that you're worried about the Quinnipiac numbers that show this week a big decline for the former vice president nationally among African-American voters. He has fallen in just two weeks from 49 percent support to 27 percent support.

BEDINGFIELD: No, we're not, because Joe Biden has those long relationships in the African-American community. Black voters know him. They know his heart. They know his record. They know that he's been there fighting for them for his entire career in public service.

And I think, you know, there's an important question that we need to ask ourselves as we look at the candidates who are coming out of New Hampshire. You know, there's a lot of scrutiny that has yet to be applied to the records of candidates like Mayor Buttigieg, like Senator Klobuchar, like Mayor Bloomberg.

I mean we even saw this week that as he has gotten some traction in the polls, he's started to undergo some of the scrutiny that, you know, that we've been undergoing since the day we got into the race, you know? Some new audio emerging this week about his record on stop and frisk that he hasn't really answered for yet.

So, I think that there are really important issues that impact the African-American community and, frankly, all voters that we're going to start debating in this race.

SCIUTTO: So right now Sanders is possibly the leader with Pete Buttigieg. An e-mail went out from a PAC supporting Joe Biden earlier this week warning that it would be a disaster for Democrats to have Sanders as the nominee.

Is Sanders a candidate, in your view, in the view of Joe Biden, that would lose the Democrats the White House?

BEDINGFIELD: Look, I think President Trump is desperate to pin the label socialist on any Democrat who runs. And with Bernie Sanders as the nominee, we'd have a candidate who happily calls himself a Democratic socialist.

I think up and down the ticket in places like Michigan, like Pennsylvania, like Florida, places where, you know, we need to win, we need to be competitive to take back the White House and to take back the Senate and to retain our majority in the House, I think that Senator Sanders at the top of the ticket is a tough sell.

And I think you'd only have to ask elected officials who are in those states who have come out and endorsed Joe Biden, who have said, you know, people who represent swing districts, people who -- like Abby Finkenauer in Iowa, for example, who won a district that Donald Trump won in 2016. She was able to win it in 2018. She came out and endorsed Joe Biden and said, you know, he's the guy that we need at the top of the ticket in order to get Democrats elected.

HARLOW: Kate, final question for you. As a senator, the former vice president voted in favor of welfare reform in 1996. Senator Sanders, in the House, voted against it.

Does he stand by that vote in favor of it?

[09:55:01]

BEDINGFIELD: Look, I think this is an attempt to take votes out of context, to try to smear, to try to -- this is a political --

HARLOW: Kate, that's unfair. I'm not smearing. I asked a very direct question. Does he still agree that that was the right vote?

BEDINGFIELD: I actually wasn't attacking you, I was attacking the campaigns who are moving this around to reporters trying to -- trying to gin up I think what I think is unfair -- unfair criticism.

HARLOW: No one -- no one moved it around to me. I read the transcript of -- I -- no one moved it around to me. I read the transcript of an interview he did with NBC on this a few days ago. No one sent me anything.

BEDINGFIELD: I think his entire -- I think in his entire career, Vice President Biden has fought for working people, he has fought for middle class families, he has fought for African-American voters, for Latino voters. I think voters know the totality of his record.

They know that he's somebody that they can count on in the White House to fight for them. And that's why they believe he's the best candidate to beat Donald Trump. I think his record across the course of his career, I would put it up against anybody in this race in terms of who's been there -- who's been there for hard-working people.

HARLOW: OK. We're out of time, but it -- but I was just looking for if he stands by it or not. We'll have you back. We'll talk about a lot more.

Kate, thanks.

BEDINGFIELD: I appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

HARLOW: President Trump is defending the Justice Department's decision to take charge in the Roger Stone's sentencing recommendation, going as far as congratulating his own attorney general, saying work well done for that remarkable reversal. A lot to talk about.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)