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Calls Increase For Attorney General Bill Barr to Resign; 14 Americans Test Positive for Coronavirus; Early Voting Begins in Nevada. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 17, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: And while it may be President's Day today, for these candidates, a day off is not on the calendar. So, here's just a look at some of the stops for Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren today.

Some 18,000 Nevadans took advantage of early voting before the official caucus day on Saturday. And, as you can see right here, that caused long lines and wait times of up to three-and-a-half-hours at one precinct.

But long lines may be the least of the problems here. CNN has learned that some volunteers and even the campaigns are concerned about how those results will be reported.

And for that, we go to CNN's Athena Jones.

You have that part of the story, Athena.

And we know one Democratic presidential aide told "The Washington Post" that it feels like the state Democratic Party is -- quote -- "making it up as they go along," after officials abandoned the apps that caused that meltdown in Iowa. What are you hearing what efforts to avoid a repeat?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, they're really working hard to avoid a repeat.

The chairman of the Nevada state Democratic Party, William McCurdy, has said they have been working around the clock to make sure that they have tested this tool they're going to be using. They're not going to use the app that was used in Iowa that went so awry.

They have bagged that. They're going to be using what they're calling a tool, a caucus calculator, but it will also be on an iPad. So there's still some technology involved. And so William McCurdy has said they have been working around the clock to make sure that volunteers are trained.

We have a producer who's been sitting in on one of those training, who says they are being very, very thorough. They're going over even just the basics of like how to turn on an iPad just to make sure people are very much prepared. We're also told that there will be guides there on caucus day, this

coming Saturday, to help volunteers if they're having any sort of problems with the technology. But, as you said, Brooke, I mean, this is what -- all eyes are going to be on Nevada to see if they can pull this off.

And it's interesting because this huge turnout that we're seeing already, it also adds to the challenge .It's more data to tally.

I should tell you an update we got. As of this morning, as of 9:00 a.m. this morning here, some 20 -- more than 26,000 people had come out to early caucus. They still have a couple more days to do that. But that 26,000 figure, that's already 30 percent of the total turnout in Nevada caucuses back into 2016.

So, state Democratic Party officials say they're enthusiastic about the turnout. They believe that the turnout could set a new record. And they're very hopeful and they're doing everything they can to make sure that they're prepared when it comes to tallying the results -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Athena, thank you on the enthusiasm and the turnout in Nevada.

And then there is former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who, despite not being on the ballot in Nevada, is drawing a lot of incoming from his fellow Democrats. Now he is returning fire on Senator Bernie Sanders and specifically Bernie Sanders' supporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is vitally important for those of us who hold different views to be able to engage in a civil discourse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Jeff Weaver is a senior campaign adviser to the Sanders campaign.

So, Jeff, welcome. Nice to have you on.

JEFF WEAVER, BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Great to be here. Thank you.

BALDWIN: All right, so Bloomberg has been laser-focused on President Trump. This is really the first time that he has set his sights on a Democratic opponent. What do you make of this?

WEAVER: Well, look, we call Mike Bloomberg the billionaire backstop. I mean, his whole campaign is designed to stop Bernie Sanders from getting the nomination and then going on to beat Donald Trump.

I mean, look, Democratic voters are united. Given what we have in the White House, we don't want a president who's going to cut Social Security, who's opposed to raising minimum wage, who wants to ration health care. We don't want that.

We don't want someone who has racist criminal justice policies. And so that's why we don't want Mike Bloomberg. We have got that now with Trump. We don't need that with Mike Bloomberg.

BALDWIN: A couple of points, just to challenge you on that.

WEAVER: Sure.

BALDWIN: Number one, this is not the first time that Senator Sanders' supporters have been criticized for their behavior.

Members of the powerful Culinary 226 Union in Nevada said that they were -- quote, unquote -- "viciously attacked" for offering facts on health care. Sanders says harassment is unacceptable to him. But do you need to address this?

WEAVER: Right.

BALDWIN: Do you need to address this in a more meaningful way when it comes to his supporters?

WEAVER: Well, we have and we do. And the senator has personally, as you just mentioned, Brooke. I have certainly done it many times. And other people in our campaign have done it many times.

Look, Bernie Sanders wants a civil discourse. It can be a rigorous discussion of the issues. People aren't going to agree. But it doesn't have to get personal. it doesn't have to get nasty. It doesn't have to get that kind of in-the-dirt negative.

And Bernie Sanders has spoken out against that and told anybody who carries on like that, he doesn't want them in his movement. So I think he's been very clear.

(CROSSTALK)

[15:05:01]

BALDWIN: Has it been enough if it's continued? Does he need to say more?

WEAVER: Well, the Internet is -- as you know, the Internet is not a place where you can control people often.

And there's a lot that goes on, on the Internet that I don't think any of us would condone.

BALDWIN: Yes.

As far as all the money, right, and Mike Bloomberg's spending, his latest tally shows him at over $400 million on ads. And so let me just play what Senator Sanders said just on Friday about money in the Democratic primary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SANDERS: Democracy, to me, means one person, one vote.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Not Bloomberg or anybody else spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to buy an election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: My question, Jeff, is, if Senator Sanders ends up being the nominee, and we know Mike Bloomberg has already pledged to donate something like a billion dollars to that person -- he wants to see Trump out of the White House too -- would you, would the Sanders' campaign take Bloomberg's money?

WEAVER: Well, no, Bernie Sanders has more individual contributions than anybody else, including Donald Trump?

BALDWIN: Was that a no? I just want to make sure I hear you on record.

(CROSSTALK)

WEAVER: That is a no.

BALDWIN: OK.

WEAVER: He can raise enough money with small-dollar contributions to run his presidential campaign without the money of billionaires. That's for sure.

BALDWIN: How about that -- recently, I know, Bernie Sanders, a huge part of his platform Medicare for all, right?

So Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, this key Sanders surrogate and very public backer of Medicare for all, said this about whether or not a Sanders election will guarantee Medicare for all actually becomes law.

This is what she said -- and I quote -- "A president can't wave a magic wand and pass any legislation they want. The worst-case scenario, we can't compromise deeply and we end up getting a public option. Is that a nightmare?" She says, "I don't think so."

And since Medicare for all is such a key part of Senator Sanders' candidacy, I mean, it sounds to me like the congresswoman is conceding that it will be difficult to get this accomplished with this current Congress.

So, Jeff, what's your response to that?

WEAVER: Well, we hope to have a different Congress, first of all, because, when Bernie Sanders is the nominee, he's going to bring out young people. He's going to bring working class people back in the Democratic Party and it's going to benefit Democrats up and down the ballot, frankly.

I mean, the point that the congresswoman makes is right. No president waves a magic wand gets anything done, despite what this -- our current president thinks. You do have to work with the Congress.

But there is no candidate out there who will fight harder for Medicare for all, who is more committed to Medicare for all, who understands that we need to make sure that everybody in this country has comprehensive health care without bankrupting families. No one understands that better than Bernie Sanders.

So folks want a comprehensive health care at lower cost and wants to wring out the excess of the private insurance companies and the drug companies. Bernie Sanders is your candidate.

There's a Yale study just out that shows that our current system, if we move to Medicare for all, we would save 68,000 lives a year. That makes private insurance in America the eighth leading cause of death in the country.

BALDWIN: I hear you on the need for it, your argument for the need for it.

Just making sure that, since it is such a central part of his campaign and her words, using a -- waving a magic wand, I think a lot of -- in talking to Sanders supporters, believe that it will be so if he is elected. And so you're acknowledging that you all don't have a magic wand, and depending on the state of the Congress, it may or may not happen?

WEAVER: Well, look, there are some things that he can do unilaterally. He can lower the cost of prescription drugs by allowing imports from Canada and other well-regulated countries.

He can take marijuana off the list of prescribed -- of prohibited drugs. There's a whole host of things he can change, a whole bunch of immigration rules that Trump has put in which he has pledged to do, throw them right in the garbage can the first day.

So there's tons you can do by executive order. There are some things that require a change in legislation. And putting in Medicare for all, obviously, is one of those things that requires congressional support.

BALDWIN: Last question for you, Jeff.

WEAVER: Sure.

BALDWIN: And it's that the senator has had strong showings in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

There has been a lot of criticism that these states aren't reflective of the diversity of the Democratic Party. And so now, with Nevada coming up Saturday, and then followed by South Carolina, how are you changing your outreach to voters, if at all?

WEAVER: Well, we have been reaching out to communities of color since the summer, when we started.

We don't view communities of color as some kind of group of folks that you put off in some silo. Our overall outreach program reaches out to voters of all colors, of all races, of all ages. So we have been talking to Latino voters here in Nevada since the early fall, African- American voters in South Carolina and elsewhere.

So we're feeling very good about moving into more diverse states, frankly. I think it's going to be a big benefit to Senator Sanders. As you may remember, he won the Latino vote here in 2016 in Nevada last time. So we're feeling very good about it.

Now, obviously, it's another caucus. You had some footage on there, concerns about the technology here. We share some of those concerns. Certainly, we want to make sure everybody's vote is counted correctly.

[15:10:00]

But moving into environments where there are more communities of color is absolutely a fantastic thing for Senator Sanders.

BALDWIN: Great.

Jeff Weaver, thank you for your time.

WEAVER: Thanks, Brooke. Thank you.

BALDWIN: And just ahead, we will get the perspective of Mike Bloomberg's national political director and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.

Senator Sanders may be -- excuse me -- will be one of the five 2020 candidates, Democrats, appearing in this series of CNN town halls this week. So you can watch him and Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar tomorrow night right here on CNN starting at 8:00 p.m.

And then, on Thursday night, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren will answer your questions. They will all be live from Las Vegas ahead of the next critical vote Saturday.

Coming up next for us here on CNN, though: The U.S. government evacuates hundreds of Americans from a quarantined cruise ship, but now 14 of them have tested positive for coronavirus.

I'll talk to an infectious disease specialist about whether the efforts to contain this disease are actually working.

And new today, the Rudy Giuliani associate accused of funneling Russian money into the U.S. election could now be facing new charges -- those details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:15:29]

BALDWIN: We continue to follow this breaking story on the coronavirus outbreak.

Fourteen Americans evacuated from a cruise ship in Japan have tested positive and have now returned to the U.S. And those passengers were in a larger group of more than 300 U.S. citizens taken off the ship and flown to military bases here in the States. They will now be kept in isolation.

After two weeks of being trapped on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, mixed emotions for the passengers headed back to the U.S. for another two weeks in quarantine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREY MANISCALCO, CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER: They have sent over a dozen e-mails assuring us that there would not be an additional quarantine. And they just told us that we'd be re-quarantined for 14 more days.

I have just lost a whole month of my life.

GAY COURTER, CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER: I want to go somewhere where I can feel safe.

And I just want to thank President Trump and the U.S. government. There's been a lot of silence on this. And now we know the silence has been putting together a brilliant plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Dr. Carlos Del Rio is a professor of medicine and global health at Emory University there in Atlanta.

So, Dr. Del Rio, thank you so much for being here.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, PROFESSOR OF GLOBAL HEALTH, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Delighted to be with you.

BALDWIN: Can you help us understand why health officials think it's a good idea to bring these infected coronavirus patients back to the United States?

DEL RIO: Well, they're -- first of all, they're U.S. citizens, so they need to come back home, right? They couldn't stay any longer in the Princess cruise -- on the Diamond Princess cruise.

So I think this is the right thing to do. I think it's been a very complex operation, in which they tested everybody. They found people who were infected. They put those people infected in a biocontainment unit in the plane, so separated from those that were not infected. There were two flights going.

And then those infected individuals have been brought back to the United States and put in isolation, while those uninfected who could have potentially been in contact are going to be kept in quarantine.

And I care very much the person saying, why continue quarantine? I think it's a precaution that is necessary in order to prevent further contagion from occurring.

I think what the public health officials are trying to prevent is continued spread here in the United States.

BALDWIN: Can you just explain the quarantine, this isolation a little bit more, how effective it is, especially when more and more people are getting sick?

DEL RIO: Well, it's a very important process of containment when you have an infection.

You put in isolation those that are infected, and you keep them there until they're no longer infectious. And then you put in quarantine those that have been exposed, but are still healthy, in case they develop disease during that time.

And you take the 14 or 21 days. The number of days that are decided depends on the incubation period of the disease. And here it has been decided to be 14 days. So, after I have been exposed to somebody -- and those passengers were exposed to people on the boat -- then you need to be kept in 14 days in order to be sure that you don't develop disease, and then you don't go home and give it to somebody else, who can then give it to somebody else.

BALDWIN: How about the fact that President Trump has said several times that this could go away when it gets warmer?

And, by the way, I have had a -- I have had a doctor on who agrees with him. And then you have that the head of the CDC saying it could take over a year. What do you think?

DEL RIO: Well, I mean, I think that, quite frankly, we don't know.

Coronaviruses tend to go away when there's warm weather. But, again, remember that we're seeing this virus right now in -- also in the Southern Hemisphere. Singapore is not necessarily cold right now. The temperature in Singapore is like 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

And they're seeing patients there. So I don't think this is just a matter of cold. I think this is probably going to go on, just like the flu and other viruses go on through long periods of time.

So I don't think we can predict the future. But, clearly, I wouldn't just trust that the weather is going to take care of this. I think we need to implement public health the way it's being done.

BALDWIN: And would you tell Americans who -- Asia is a lovely place to go, maybe not going to Wuhan. But would you advise people not to go to travel, vacation in Asia or go on a cruise?

(CROSSTALK)

DEL RIO: Well, right now, the travel industry is in turmoil. I think there's clearly the State Department and the CDC have a level four travel advisory against traveling to China, not only to Wuhan, so no essential travel to China. But, quite frankly, I wouldn't travel to Hong Kong right now, not

because necessarily because of the virus, but because Hong Kong is essentially shut down. And why travel if there are not going to be restaurants or things to do.

[15:20:02]

So, find other places to go. I think there will be opportunities to go to Asia later on.

BALDWIN: Dr. Del Rio, thank you so much.

DEL RIO: Happy to be here.

BALDWIN: Appreciate your expertise from Emory.

Coming up next: A bipartisan group of more than 2,000 former Justice Department officials sign a letter calling for the current attorney general to step down.

We will talk to one of them about why she sees Bill Barr as a grave threat to our justice system.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:22]

BALDWIN: There is a new twist in the complicated relationship between Rudy Giuliani and the Justice Department.

While one official is taking his tips on Ukraine, another office in the DOJ is investigating him. And now we're learning of some new accusations that may draw even more scrutiny of the president's personal attorney.

And it all has to do with Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas. Federal prosecutors are weighing more charges against Parnas, who is currently headed to trial on campaign violation charges. And now prosecutors are looking into whether Parnas and at least one of his business partners misled investors who put money into their company, which is called -- not making this up -- Fraud Guarantee.

CNN's Kara Scannell is all over this story.

And so talk to me about this $500,000 loan to Fraud Guarantee.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this was a loan that Fraud Guarantee had received in the fall of 2018.

And the money went directly to Rudy Giuliani. So prosecutors are now looking at this, and they're weighing bringing criminal charges here. And the angle that sources tell me and our colleague Erica Orden that they're focusing in on is the marketing of this loan.

What were they telling investors? And the questions that has become of concern to prosecutors is that they were perhaps misleading investors about the value of the company and what they intended to do with the proceeds of the company.

So this brings it closer to Giuliani, because he had received this money, and there are questions about what kind of services he actually performed for the company.

But his attorney tells us that Giuliani never authorized Parnas to use his name in any marketing. He says that he never -- he did do work for them and he did provide legal work, and he had no role at all in the marketing of this, so distancing himself from what it appears prosecutors are really focusing in on.

BALDWIN: Tell me about the timing of Parnas' trial.

SCANNELL: So his trial is set for October 5 later this year, and that's about a month before the presidential election.

Now, right now, he's going to try on these campaign finance charges, which are a little bit isolated from the world of the presidency. But if they do have this charge, it is very possible that we will learn more information about why they paid Rudy Giuliani this money.

Why was it structured in the way that it was, where it was money that was coming into Fraud Guarantee, but going directly to Giuliani? And there are possibilities that this pact seemed to solidify this relationship between Parnas and Giuliani.

It was thereafter that they were teaming up on their quest to dig up dirt on the Bidens, where they were making introductions for Giuliani and where they both seemed to have this shared alleged purpose to remove the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.

So we might see all of that start to spill out just one month before the election.

BALDWIN: Just one month.

Well, there's going to be some sort October surprise. We will see which one it is.

Kara Scannell, thank you for the update on Lev Parnas.

Now, just into us here, the number of former Justice Department employees calling for Attorney General Bill Barr to resign has nearly doubled in a day. Now there are more than 2,000 former prosecutors and staffers, their names listed here, up from 1,100.

They have served for Republicans. They have served for Democrats. And 19 of them say they served the DOJ for more than 40 years. And they have all signed this online letter condemning Bill Barr for his interference in the sentencing of the president's longtime friend Roger Stone.

You remember the story. We talked about this couple days ago. Those four prosecutors withdrew from Stone's case last week, after they were undercut by a new sentencing recommendation that called for a lighter punishment for Stone.

And so the letter reads in part -- quote -- "Mr. Barr's actions in doing the president's personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words. Those actions and the damage they have done to the Department of Justice's for integrity and the rule of law require Mr. Barr to resign."

And Arianna Berg is a former federal prosecutor who worked in the Southern District of New York who says that she is -- quote -- "proud" to join her former colleagues in signing this letter.

So, Arianna, thank you for being on with me.

ARIANNA BERG, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Thank you so much for having me, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So, let's all just -- there's hardly you can imagine Bill Barr resigning, right?

So let's factor that out, despite all these signatures. What do you hope to achieve by signing this letter?

BERG: You know, I didn't sign this letter lightly, Brooke.

I'm proud, it's true, to stand with the over now 2,000 former Department of Justice alumni in condemning Bill Barr's actions and calling for his resignation. But I didn't sign it easily.

Calling for the resignation of an attorney general is almost an anathema to the oath that many of us swore to when we became assistant U.S. attorneys.

I served, as you mentioned, under both Republican and Democratic attorneys general. And so it was