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Interview with Tom Steyer (D), Presidential Candidate; Trump Congratulates Barr For Taking Charge In Roger Stone Case; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Wins New Hampshire, Edging Out Buttigieg. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired February 12, 2020 - 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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POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: Good morning, everyone, top of the hour. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

A president emboldened, a Justice Department under his thumb, it seems, this morning, congratulating his attorney general, Bill Barr, for, quote, taking charge. suggesting his handpicked attorney general had a role in a reduced sentence recommendation of long-time Trump ally, Roger Stone.

HARLOW: The president making it very clear he thought prosecutors' prison time recommendation for Stone went too far, calling seven to nine years a, quote, miscarriage of justice. Now, the DOJ is seeking to cut down that sentencing recommendation. And in a stunning response, all four U.S. prosecutors who made that initial recommendation have quit the case.

Let's go to our Evan Perez. He is live at the Justice Department. It happened fast, but what happened matters so much. Can you walk us through how we got here?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy. It was a surreal 24 hours or so at the Justice Department. You never see four prosecutors essentially quit their jobs on this Roger Stone case simply because of the disagreements that were happening in plain view. I'll take you through exactly what happened.

On Monday night is when these prosecutors put in -- filed the sentencing recommendations of seven to nine years for Roger Stone. You'll remember he was found guilty of lying to Congress and witness tampering. So on Monday night at about 6:07 P.M., they filed the first recommendation.

On Tuesday morning, early morning hours, at about 1:40 A.M., is when President Trump weighs in with his tweets, attacking the Justice Department for this seven to nine-year recommendation. Late Tuesday morning is when the Justice Department weighs in. A Justice Department official tells CNN and other news outlets that they were shocked at these recommendations and they're saying that they want leniency, a much more lenient sentence recommendation for Roger Stone.

And hours later is when the resignations start coming, first one, then two, then three, and then four. One of the prosecutors quit the Justice Department entirely. The other three are still employed by the Justice Department and other jobs. And

then just about before 5:00 yesterday is when the Justice Department filed its new sentence recommendation, which says that they believe that Roger Stone should get some jail time, some prison time, but the memo reads a lot like a defense memorandum. It says that Roger Stone is an old guy, he's an old man and he's a first-time offender and that he may not have really threatened a witness, which is one of the reasons why they had called for a tough sentence.

So it's sort of a surreal thing for the Justice Department to essentially disavow the work of its own prosecutors and then ask for leniency for someone who's been convicted.

HARLOW: Completely undercuts them.

PEREZ: Absolutely.

HARLOW: Evan, stay right there. Let's go to our John Harwood. He's following the latest at the White House. And, John, you have a new piece talking about this this morning, right, sort of unleashed the president on so many fronts and this one just congratulating Bill Barr for taking charge in the case.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, he's reveling in what he is doing right now. And the reason is America aspires to impartial justice. That's part of the American tradition, that's part of the rule of law that underpins the success of the American experiment, the American economy, many other things. The president of the United States does not aspire to that. The president aspires to what is good for him in the moment.

And so what he sees in this situation is people who have, in one way or the other, assailed him through testimony, through prosecuting his political advisers and in other ways and he is going to lash out at them, try to hurt them if he can. He signaled this in multiple ways, both ridiculing and questioning the faith of people like Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney, suggesting that Masha Yovanovitch and Adam Schiff are going to pay consequences for what they have done.

So there's a reason for people to be concerned about this and to question where is the -- are the brakes going to get put on. Career lawyers in the Justice Department resigned. That is an attempt to stand up. But there is no sign that we've seen, including through Manu Raju's reporting with Susan Collins today that Republican senators are going to stand up and constrain him.

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HARLOW: That's a good point. SCIUTTO: Well, it didn't happen in the trial. John Harwood, thanks very much.

CNN's Manu Raju joins us now from Capitol Hill. Manu, spoke to Senator Susan Collins, and to be fair, she was not the only one who said, hoped, however you want to say it, that the president would learn a lesson from impeachment, Lamar Alexander, John Thune, Rob Portman, but Susan Collins. So how does she defend that position now?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. She didn't exactly say. I asked her directly whether or not she still believes the president may have learned lessons. Initially, she said she believed the president did learn some lessons because he had been criticized on both sides and would be cautious in the future. And then she later said that perhaps that's more of an aspiration that the president would be more cautious and have learned his lessons.

And then I asked her just moments ago whether or not, in fact, she does believe the president learns lessons from being impeached in light of the recent actions, and she didn't say but she defended her vote to acquit the president.

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RAJU: In light of the president's actions, do you think there's any lessons that he learned from being impeached?

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I don't know which actions you're referring to. I've made very clear that I don't think anyone should be retaliated against.

RAJU: Has he learned any lessons?

COLLINS: There's a reason why in all the years that since George Washington was inaugurated as our first president, that we have never removed a duly elected president.

RAJU: You said the president learned his lesson. Do you think he learned any lessons?

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RAJU: So that was it. She was heading into a hearing. She didn't -- she was questioning why I was asking whether or not the president learned any lessons but she's the one who initially made that case that the president did because of the way the response has been from some Republicans criticizing his conduct.

So that is still an open question about how other Republicans are going to respond to to the Roger Stone situation. I caught up with one of the president's allies too just moments ago, Rick Scott, and I asked him about it. He said that the president -- he said, everybody deserves equal justice under the law and they said that he wants to learn more about it. Then I said, do you want to have Bill Barr come and testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee? He said he didn't know. So we're not hearing much from Republicans, including the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who I asked if he had any thoughts or concerns about this and yesterday he said he didn't have an opinion. Guys?

HARLOW: Okay. Manu, thank you very much for that important reporting.

Evan Perez back with us. Also joining us now, CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams. And, Elliot, let me just start with you here because you're a former deputy assistant A.G. for Legislative Affairs at DOJ, you have that experience. How out of the ordinary is all of what transpired here in the last 24 hours?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's pretty out of the ordinary. Number one, the idea of career prosecutors making a recommendation and then, number two, being superseded by their prosecutors in such a high-profile case. Now, remember, when a case is of this much public interest involving a defendant like this, these decisions would have been made, one, by the career prosecutors, but in concert with their bosses. And so the idea that the folks at main justice didn't know about this and were blindsided by it is just preposterous, and so that's part one.

Part two, obviously, as we know all too well now, the idea of the president of the United States, a president of the United States weighing in on a criminal matter is also quite remarkable. At the Justice Department, we got explicit guidance never to engage with the White House on criminal matters, even though the White House is the head of the executive branch. And so the idea of the president putting a thumb on the scale when a criminal defendant's trial or sentencing is pending is truly remarkable. We just really have never seen this kind of thing.

SCIUTTO: Evan Perez, you've covered this for a while time. And while this is out of ordinary with any other president, it's not out of ordinary with this president, right, or this attorney general. I mean, Bill Barr, he issued the rebuttal to Robert Mueller's report, which Robert Mueller contradicted. He launched an investigation into the origins of the Russian probe, still waiting for the results of that. He opened this special channel just in the last week, it seems, to get this information that Giuliani sourced from Ukraine, and now these decisions on sentences here. You covered the Justice Department for some time. What's the reaction inside that building to this?

PEREZ: Look, there's a lot of discomfort. I think there's a lot of shock at exactly how this was done. It's not -- as Elliot points out, this is not the normal course of things. And even though for three and a half years, guys, we've gotten used to sort of abnormality in this city, the Justice Department is supposed to be a different place. They're supposed to do business in a different way. And so you can tell though that there have been simmering tensions over this for some time. And Bill Barr, who is a micromanager, he does not let big things or small things go by without weighing in, was very much involved in this and with other things.

So I think in the coming days we're going to hear a lot more about exactly what's been going on behind the scenes, some of the tensions over this case, over some other cases, perhaps Michael Flynn and others that have been going on behind the scenes and which the president has very strong views on.

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Of course, he doesn't have to like say anything, he just has to tweet about it and everyone knows how he feels.

SCIUTTO: Yes, and he has an interest in it, right? I mean, that's the thing. That's why you have laws against conflict of interest. It's tied to the president's interests beyond his opinion of those decisions.

HARLOW: and, Elliot, in terms of what can actually be done, we heard what Nadler is up in arms over this, the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, is asking the I.G. to investigate it, but to what end?

WILLIAMS: Well, I mean, look, to what end, well, Congress, again, if we lived in normal times -- I'm sorry if started with that, because it's a tricky question.

HARLOW: You should preface every answer with that.

WILLIAMS: SO in normal circumstances, Congress would have hearings exploring this. You know, they're not going to make criminal referrals over something like this, but it's Congress' role under in normal circumstances to oversee behavior that takes place at the Justice Department. Number two, obviously, the inspector general can weigh in. Number three, an interesting one is the court still has -- the court overseeing Stone's trial has pretty broad discretion here to call in witnesses if she really wants. So if she thinks higher-ups at the Justice Department did something fishy in the conduct of this sentence, she can call them in. She can call the four prosecutors before allowing them to leave the case.

SCIUTTO: That's an interesting point. Judges have a lot of power.

PEREZ: Guys, but there was going to be a chance to examine some of this on Thursday. Jessie Liu, who is a former U.S. Attorney in Washington, was due to come up for a hearing for a treasury job and the president pulled her nomination last night. So we were all looking forward to Thursday when we thought some senators were going to be able to ask some very big questions about exactly what happened here. Of course, that now is not going to happen.

SCIUTTO: It shows you the scope of the president's action here on interests close to his heart.

I want to ask you this, and Elliot, based on your experience I can't make you look into the future, but remind folks, Bill Barr engineered the Iran-Contra pardons in his first stint as attorney general under Bush 41, controversial decision at the time. At the time he said -- in the years after he has a very expansive view of the president's pardon power. Looking ahead, is that something we should be prepared for the possibility of pardons for -- well, it's Stone or even someone like Manafort?

WILLIAMS: I think the president's tweets are laying a predicate for pardon, so like sort of preparing the public or just teeing it up what he's going to do.

Here's the thing though. I think Bill Barr is the symptom, not the problem. The problem is the president's notion of what his role ought to be with the Justice Department. Again, I sort of touched on it earlier. The president is the head of the executive branch. But there's very clear -- and I don't know if people really understand how problematic this is. There's very clear norms of how a president ought to behave and the level of -- even being the head of the whole enterprise, just staying out of criminal prosecutions.

And so, really, he is the problem here. Yes, Barr is intensely problematic with his behavior and what we've seen thus far, but this really comes down to a president who, from the beginning, has regarded the Justice Department as his personal attorneys, as we saw in that tweet today, congratulations, Bill Barr, or thanking him, right?

SCIUTTO: Those norms only matter if they hold. If they don't hold, they don't mean much. Evan Perez, Elliot Williams, thanks very much to both of you.

PEREZ: Thank you.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: The Roger Stone case just the latest example of a president emboldened after his acquittal. President Trump is now suggesting that the military should look into disciplining key impeachment witness serving lieutenant colonel in the army, Alexander Vindman.

HRLOW: Also, New Hampshire feels the Bern, but moderates like Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar make a strong showing there. What's ahead in the race and whose campaign is on life support?

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HARLOW: Senator Bernie Sanders gets a win in New Hampshire coming in just ahead of mayor Pete Buttigieg. And the New Hampshire vote shows there's a new fight between the moderates and the party right behind Buttigieg a surging Senator Amy Klobuchar rolling her third place New Hampshire finish right into Nevada. While former Vice President Joe Biden stakes his claim on South Carolina after a disappointing fifth place finish in New Hampshire.

Let's go to our Phil Mattingly who joins us with a map. So what tells us the most here?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Let's stipulate two things upfront. One, it's nice to actually have data the morning after a contest, unlike we were dealing with last week. And, two, 2020 is very different from than 2016. Guys, you know in 2016, Bernie Sanders just wiped out Hillary Clinton when it came to New Hampshire, but this is a different race. There are more candidates, there are bigger and better organizations. There's not necessarily a protest vote as we think existed back in 2016.

However, Bernie Sanders still coming out on top by a slim margin, 4,000 votes or so. But where he really did well was in the biggest, most populated areas of the state. The three largest towns, Bernie Sanders ran up good numbers. He also did well, as expected, in public university towns, places like Plymouth, places Keene, doing well in those areas.

But as you noted, Pete Buttigieg kept it close for a reason. This area in 2016 was all light blue, all Bernie Sanders. Look at all the light green here, including in this area, this neck of the woods, which is bordering Vermont, Bernie Sanders' home state. Pete Buttigieg was able to make gains and cut into some of those areas, also in the southeastern part of the state, some of the more affluent areas, some of the higher educated areas, Pete Buttigieg did well.

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If you look at the dark green and you see where Amy Klobuchar made gains, and a lot of towns that kind of lean Republican more traditionally but also and the fact that all three of these candidates in almost every single town in the state finished in the top three, not necessarily in this exact order but it was a three-candidate race in almost every single town here. That's where Klobuchar, that's where Buttigieg made gains, that's where Bernie Sanders was able to hold on to his lead.

Now, if you scroll down a little bit, you see the problems two other candidates had, Elizabeth Warren coming in fourth place, a distant fourth place, Joe Biden coming in a distant fifth place, Joe Biden not coming in first or really second in any of the towns throughout the course of the state. That's obviously problematic.

But there's a reason why Joe Biden was in South Carolina and not in New Hampshire last night, and here is why. I want to take a look at the demographics of the first two contests. And these are two contests that are not reflective necessarily of where the Democratic Party is on a whole. Iowa, 91 percent white population, New Hampshire, 92 percent, 93 percent white population, very small minority vote. That's about to change in a very big way in the next two contests and this is in part why Joe Biden was in South Carolina.

Take a look at South Carolina. Now, this is citizens all voting age population, 26.5 percent black in South Carolina. That's all voting age. You narrow it down to a Democratic primary and that jumps up 50, 60 percent. If you're looking at Nevada, 20 percent Hispanic-Latino vote, 9.7 percent black vote. This is more reflective of the Democratic primary. And the argument, what you hear from some candidates, is if you have the organization and if you have the support of the minority portions of the Democratic Party, then you have real options here.

But one thing to keep in mind as we go forward, we're kind of in a bit of a muddle right now. Bernie Sanders with 25.9 percent is the lowest share of vote anybody has ever won or has ever had to win a New Hampshire Primary in modern history, kind of underscoring the fact that there's no clear frontrunner here. And if there is one, it is obviously Bernie Sanders at this point.

But what does this all say is there's a lot more to come. These next two contests are going to be crucial. And for somebody like Joe Biden who's really pinned everything on these next two contests, it is everything in these next two contests. But what you can take away from last night, last night was a three-candidate race. There's the top three. All three I think are leaving New Hampshire feeling pretty good about themselves, guys.

HARLOW: They are. That's a really interesting last point you last made, Phil. Thanks very much, I appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: Well, my next guest says that the results in New Hampshire show that the race to be the Democratic nominee is wide open. Joining me now, Presidential Candidate Tom Steyer. Mr. Steyer, we appreciate you taking the time this morning.

TOM STEYER (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Jim, it's great to be with you.

SCIUTTO: So, yes, no clear frontrunner, a lot of races to come. That said, the two first races you have Buttigieg and Sanders finishing well ahead of the competition there. In your view, can either of them beat Donald Trump in November?

STEYER: Sure they can. Sure they can. But what really needs to happen, Jim, is we need somebody who can win on the economy. It's very obvious that Donald Trump is running on the economy. I mean, he talks about it every single day. And every single day, he says how great he is and how bad the socialist Democrats are. And so --

SCIUTTO: So what is the counter-message then?

STEYER: I can take him down on the economy because I'm someone who started a business and ran it for 30 years. And I can show that he's lying about his own record across the board. And no one can ever call me a socialist because obviously I worked in the private sector for 30 years and built a business from scratch. That's ridiculous. But we're going to have to take him down to win, Jim, and I can do it.

SCIUTTO: Okay. Two questions, I want to get to the economy, but you mentioned socialists. Can a Democratic socialist, as Bernie Sanders describes himself, beat Donald Trump? Is that an opening that means more likely victory for the president?

STEYER: Look, I will never be part of the campaign to stop Bernie at all costs. I know I can beat Trump on the economy and that's what I care about, is I know I can get on the debate stage and go toe-to-toe and show that he's lying across the board. He's a terrible economic president for the American people, and that's the fight we have to win and that's the fight that I can win. SCIUTTO: What is that message then? Because the numbers, unemployment is down, people have more money coming into their bank account. Beyond saying he's lying about it, how do you say Democrats will do better than that?

STEYER: This is the Mar-a-Lago economy, Jim. This is an economy that's growing, but all the excess money is going to rich people and that's been true for 40 years. You're right, we have a low unemployment rate, but the minimum wage is $7.25. You cannot live on the wages this economy is producing. And people are taking two and three jobs just to survive

The stock market is up. Trump loves to talk about the stock market. That's a big deal in the lounge at the Mar-a-Lago Country Club. That's where people own stocks. But this is not something that's working for working Americans. This is a devastatingly bad economy for working Americans.

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And he is a president who's going to balance the tax cut that he made for rich people and big corporations by taking away people's Medicare, Medicaid and social security. He's awful for the American people, and it's obvious.

SCIUTTO: That's your pitch. Your strategy has been spending a lot of money on ads. I mean, you look at the spending in New Hampshire, you outspent the others, I mean, Bernie Sanders, you outspent by a factor of four to one, finished with 3.6 percent of the vote. Does that show you your strategy -- that that message not getting across to voters?

STEYER: Let me put it to you this way, Jim. It's a new race. Mr. Mattingly was just saying beforehand it's a new race. We're now going to Nevada and South Carolina, where I'm polling in either second or third place and rising. We're now looking at the real Democratic Party, the wonderful diversity of the Democratic Party and the American people.

Heavy proportion of black people, heavy proportion of Latinos, which is the reality of America, and I'm doing really well there. Whoever is going to be the Democratic candidate, as you said, has to pull together the Democratic Party across all of our differences.

You know, we're the big tent both in terms of race, ethnicity, in terms of geography, in terms of mods versus progressives. Whoever is going to win has to get everybody to show up in November of 2020. I think that Nevada and South Carolina will be a very good test of that and I look forward to that test.

SCIUTTO: And to your point, they are more reflective of the general population in terms of diversity

I do want to ask you though about the bigger picture here, and we can throw these numbers up on the screen. The total ad spending to this point in this campaign by Democratic candidates, particularly in a different galaxy, you and Mike Bloomberg, Mike Bloomberg $350 million, a third of a billion dollars, you, $178 million. multiples of what the other candidates have spent.

Listen, I'm never going to criticize you and Mike Bloomberg for the success that you've had in the business world, but is this good for the Democratic Party? Is it good for the Democratic process to have two candidates in the Democratic race with advantages no other candidate has from personal fortune? Is that good for the party and the process?

STEYER: Jim, this race is not going to be won by money. This race is going to be won by message. If I don't have something to say that's important and meaningful and differential to the American people, I'm not going to win. If people don't trust me, I'm not going to win. And that's true of every single candidate. I started late. I'm not a famous person. I'm putting everything I have into this. I'm doing it because I think this is a generational race to try and take this country back for the working people. So I'm absolutely all in.

But this is -- the determination of success in this race will be the message of the candidate and who that candidate is. And that is what's going to win for everybody or cause anybody to lose. That's the fact, that's the determining fact, it's the only thing that will really matter in the end.

SCIUTTO: And, of course, more tests to come. Tom Steyer, good to have you on the program this morning.

STEYER: Thanks, Jim. Nice to talk to you.

HARLOW: The president is firing off personal and political attacks unleashed and seemingly emboldened after his impeachment trial acquittal. Who are his targets, ahead.

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