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Bloomberg Qualifies For Democratic Debate In Nevada; Judge To Hear From Roger Stone Defense Team, DOJ Amid Sentencing Chaos; Hospital Director Dies Of Virus In Epicenter Of Wuhan. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired February 18, 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: Top of the hour, 10:00 Eastern, good morning, I'm Poppy Harlow. So glad you're with me.

A shake-up before the showdown, Michael Bloomberg has just qualified for tomorrow's Democratic debate in Nevada. The newest national poll shows Bernie Sanders surging to the lead with 31 percent, but look at right behind him, that is the former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, coming in at 19 percent.

Now, he will go toe-to-toe with his political rivals who are taking aim at the hundreds of millions of dollars he is shelling out on this election. He's also joining the stage following weeks of intense criticism over past comments on controversial policies, like stop-and- frisk, that he enacted as mayor here in New York City.

And in a move to perhaps get ahead of those attack, his campaign just released a new criminal justice reform proposal.

Let's go to Las Vegas. That is where we find again this hour our Arlette Saenz. Take us through all of these numbers in this national poll and what they tell us.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, this new national poll is bringing a new face to the debate stage with Michael Bloomberg now qualifying to appear in his first debate against his Democratic rival. But the poll is also showing us major gains for both Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders.

If you take a look at where the Democratic field stands now, according to this poll on the national level, Bernie Sanders is at the top of the pack. He's actually gone up nine points since this poll in December, showing that he's far and away the leader right now of this Democratic field.

Now, right behind him is Michael Bloomberg. He is actually up 15 points from December. That is the biggest gain in this poll. And then Joe Biden has dropped quite a bit, nine points to third place. You also see drops for Warren and Buttigieg, Klobuchar has climbed a little bit.

But while Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg are leading the Democratic pack now, when you take a look at the head-to-head matchups between these Democrats and President Trump, this poll shows that people believe that Joe Biden is the one who has the best chance of defeating President Trump. He is leading in the head-to-head matchups, 50 to the president's 44. He's followed by Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders.

So this new poll gives us a bit of a snapshot of the race after those first two contests. And as Michael Bloomberg is now going to face his Democratic rivals for first time on the debate stage, he has come under a lot of criticism, we're going to see how much incoming fire he might be getting on that debate stage.

And then also there's some CNN presidential town halls taking place right here in Las Vegas this evening for Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar. We'll see if they decide to take aim at Michael Bloomberg as well.

HARLOW: Yes, we'll see. Arlette, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Minutes ago, Bloomberg released a new criminal justice reform plan. Let's go to our Abby Phillip who has some of the details.

These plans are always important when they come from candidates, but I think the timing of this coming right now, when he has been under a lot of scrutiny for his stop-and-frisk policy and just recent apology about it in New York City and then about his comments on redlining, et cetera, what does this plan include?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy, that's absolutely right. The subtext here matters quite a bit. You know, Bloomberg is under fire for these comments that he made about stop- and-frisk, a policy that exploded under his tenure as mayor. And he, in an old video, seemed to imply that the point was to, in fact, target minority youth. But now with this criminal justice reform plan, you see Bloomberg really aligning himself with where the Democratic Party is.

Virtually, all of the other candidates have proposed similar proposals. We're talking about broadly reshaping the way the criminal justice system addresses these racial disparities in terms of sentencing, and in terms of the prison population and also in terms of policing.

His proposal addresses the use of force and proposes raising the standard for the use of force across the country. He proposes, you know, mandating implicit bias training for police, and also decriminalizing marijuana use and possession. That is a big thing for virtually all of the presidential candidates. And it really has specific resonance for Bloomberg, especially as someone who was a mayor of a major city.

It also aims to cut the prison population by half, by 2030, and reforms police forces with a history of abuse. And then he also ties a lot of this back to President Obama trying to reinvigorate an Obama era program called My Brother's Keeper, the purpose of that being to address the sort of things that will prevent young minority youth from entering into the criminal justice system in the first place.

But as you pointed out, Poppy, a lot of this is about the Bloomberg campaign, trying to get ahead of what is likely to be a lot of attacks coming from his Democratic rivals on his history with the issue of criminal justice.

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And some of these proposals really just put Bloomberg in line with his Democratic rivals and also it's a form of a repudiation of the stop- and-frisk program that he defended up until very recently, Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, very recently. Abby, stay right there.

Let's bring into the conversation CNN Editor at Large Chris Cillizza and Molly Ball, National Political Correspondent for TIME. Guys, thank you for being here. And let's just take a minute to listen to this, because Sanders has not been afraid to attack Democrats throughout the process, Bloomberg not afraid to fight back. Here is a clip of this ad.

For people just listening, it talks about the Bernie Bros, or some the tactics of some Bernie Sanders supporters.

Chris, how do you see this unfolding on stage between Senator Sanders and now number two in the polls, Michael Bloomberg?

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN EDITOR AT LARGE: Yes, Poppy. It's kind of amazing that the whole Bernie online community hasn't become an issue until now. Candidly, in 2016, Hillary Clinton sought to make it an issue, that this was part of the race then. It's a big part of the race now.

Yes, I think Bloomberg will say, look, Bernie, these are the people who support you. What do you say to them? Sanders has not had the answer to those questions yet.

Now, that said, I would rather be Bernie right now in this race with his issues than Bloomberg. Solely because to Abby's point, the reason that we're getting a criminal justice plan today is because Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday, tomorrow, can say, well, I've got this plan, so all the past things I said about stop-and-frisk and redlining and various other things, those all pale in comparison to this new plan. I'm giving something positive to talk about.

So I'm interested to see how Bloomberg approaches the debate tomorrow night. I think some of it will be dictated. Does he become the center of attacks? We have seen Elizabeth Warren be that person at times, we've seen Joe Biden be that person at times, we've seen Pete Buttigieg be that person at times. We've not really seen Bernie Sanders be that person. Obviously, we haven't seen Michael Bloomberg because he hasn't been in debate yet. So who gets the incoming is really important. HARLOW: Molly, what's fascinating not only is the nine point drop that Biden suffered in this new national poll, but the African- American support in the Quinnipiac polling about a week ago that has declined for Biden by 20 points, and the increase in African-American support nationally, Molly, that Bloomberg has seen, despite all these questions about stop-and-frisk, et cetera, what do you make of that?

MOLLY BALL, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, African-American voters are Democratic voters, like everybody else. They are just asphyxiated on electability as the rest of the Democratic primary electorate, perhaps more so. I think, you know, if you're an African- American voter for a long time, you haven't had the luxury of waiting for a candidate who is perfect on all of your issues. You want a candidate who can win, you want a candidate who represents what you see as the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

So, fundamentally, I think we just see African-American voters making the same calculation with regard to Joe Biden as the other Democratic voters were making in Iowa and New Hampshire, looking at Biden's performance, having doubts about whether he would be able to be on that debate stage with Donald Trump and win the election, despite, you know, those head-to-head national matchup numbers saying, I'm just not sure about this guy.

And so we see, you know, the air coming out of his balloon with basically every demographic group in which he was previously strong. That's what happened to him in Iowa and New Hampshire. And the big danger for him, because he has regarded that loyalty with African- American voters, which he has earned, which is very deep, which comes from his history on civil rights as well as his partnership with Barack Obama. But if those voters start to conclude that they don't think he can win, that's a big flashing red danger sign for Joe Biden.

HARLOW: Abby, you spent time -- not only have you reported on Mayor Pete Buttigieg's presidential bid, but you spent a lot of time in South Bend doing actual reporting on the of his impact term there in office, on the town, on factories, on jobs, et cetera. What do you make of the fact -- guys, if we have the polling, let's pull it up, because, I think, stunning to see, I mean, now he's coming in at 8 percent in this national poll after two incredibly impressive turns in Iowa and New Hampshire. Do we know why?

PHILLIP: Well, it raises some real questions about the underlying strategy that the Buttigieg campaign has been relying on, which is that they believed that if they performed really well in Iowa and New Hampshire, that voters broadly would give them a second look. That argument was often deployed when they were answering questions about their lack of minority support. But it was actually a pretty broad argument for the entire Democratic electorate, especially as we approach Super Tuesday when the race becomes much more nationalized.

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So the drop that you're seeing there, I think, is really calling into question whether that strategy actually will work for him and also whether or not they factored in the possibility that Bloomberg would suddenly take a lot of this air out of the balloon. I think for a lot of these candidates, Bloomberg is kind of out of left field factor here that is undermined their broader strategy from the beginning. And it's going to make it really difficult because, you know, Buttigieg needs to not only do well in Nevada, in South Carolina, he needs to have basically rolling down the hill type of momentum going into Super Tuesday, and it's hard to see that happening given where his numbers stand at the moment.

HARLOW: Yes. He needs snowball momentum, in a good sense of the phrase.

PHILLIP: Yes.

Cillizza, you wrote about this in your column last night. It's not just Bloomberg with all that money and all those ads in the airwaves, Tom Steyer pulling a double-digit in Nevada and in South Carolina.

CILLIZZA: Yes.

HARLOW: And what that means for the likes of Buttigieg?

CILLIZZA: Yes. I mean, it's easy to get lost in the -- I think he's now over $400 million in ad spending of Bloomberg. It's a massive sum of money, but second place by a long shot is Tom Steyer, who is also a billionaire, who has spent lots of time and lots of money in Nevada and South Carolina and polling, and I'll note, most polling done before Iowa and New Hampshire. So we haven't had that much data in Nevada and South Carolina since.

But before, he's in the mid double-digits in both of those places. So I think it raises two questions. One, now that the race has sort of turned to these states, Steyer was basically nowhere in Iowa or New Hampshire, one, does his support stay, is it just people who saw his ad or is it people who are really with him? And number two, if it goes, and I think some of it will go if it goes, I don't know how much, if it goes, where does it go? Is it Buttigieg, is it Warren, is it Sanders?

It's hard to take -- Steyer's appeal is not easily sort of put in a package. So it's hard to say it will transfer over to this one candidate. But he Is someone with -- if you're talking about the most combined support in South Carolina and Nevada, it's Sanders, Biden and Steyer right now, at least. We will see what happens. Obviously, we've got four or five days left before the caucuses. But he is a real factor no matter what.

HARLOW: Yes. So when you couple all that together, finally, Molly, quickly, Amy Klobuchar, she's up in this poll to 9 percent, she has that Klomentum, if you will, as it's been dubbed, after the last debate. She's got to perform well in this debate tomorrow night. But, again, Bloomberg eats away at any sort of Klobuchar gains, doesn't he, in terms of that more moderate lane?

BALL: It seems like it. I mean, what Amy Klobuchar doesn't have, of course, is hundreds of millions of dollars to get her message out and raise her visibility with those same kind of voters who might find her appeal to the same kind of qualities, right, effectiveness, moderation, pragmatism, that's her message as well. But she clearly is getting crowded out on the airwaves.

We have seen her be a very effective debater particularly when it comes to sort of landing zingers on the other candidates. So I have to think that she is going to be looking to maximize. And, indeed, she has said, she welcomes Bloomberg being on that debate stage because she wants to have the opportunity to take him on. So I would definitely watch her on tomorrow night.

HARLOW: Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

CILLIZZA: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: Also, in addition to the debate, join CNN for a series of live town halls with several of the top 2020 Democrats. This is all taking place in Las Vegas, ahead of this weekend's Nevada caucuses. The two-night event starts tonight, continues again on Thursday, 8:00 Eastern only right here on CNN.

Well, ahead for us, soon, the judge in the Roger Stone case is set to hear from the defense and the Justice Department after a pretty wild week of back and forth over this sentencing, a week that saw the president accuse the judge of bias and several prosecutors completely quit the case. We'll tell you what's ahead on that.

Also, the director of a hospital in Wuhan, China, the city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak, has died as a result of the virus. The death marks a tragic first in the epidemic.

And the Boy Scouts of America files for bankruptcy amid a wave of sexual abuse lawsuits. What does this mean for the victims?

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HARLOW: In the face of Attorney General Bill Barr asking him to pull back on his tweets and criticism, that is the president, President Trump is not stopping. In fact, he is stepping that up. This morning, not content just to tear into the Stone sentencing guidelines, but also arguing that the whole case should be thrown out and there should be another trial.

Let's go to our Political Correspondent, Sara Murray, who joins me.

I mean, you've been following this very closely Sara. In a few minutes, the judge in this case, Amy Berman Jackson, is going to have this conference call with the DOJ and with the defense for Roger Stone, this as the president calls for a completely new trial.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the president is not just the one calling for a new trial. Roger Stone has filed a motion with the judge, it's under a seal, asking for a new trial. So we don't know exactly what his reasoning is there. And this is the first time that Amy Berman Jackson is going to have a chance to talk to both sides, Roger Stone's attorneys, as well as the Justice Department, after the four prosecutors who were originally on this case withdrew.

Now, it's supposed to be a scheduling call, so you would think that they would have a discussion about the sentencing hat is set for Thursday and whether it's possible for every party to move forward on that timeframe.

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But, obviously, she is the judge overseeing this case. She can ask the parties on the call whatever she wants about what has transpired in the last couple of weeks.

HARLOW: There is that. We'll see what happens there and if she brings up, again, as you know, why that those four prosecutors quit, walked away from the case.

On top of this, there is a group of more than a thousand federal judges that are now calling an emergency meeting, this is as reported by USA Today, because they think, Sara, that the Justice Department is in crisis. And I should note that this is being led by a Bush- appointed U.S. district court judge.

MURRAY: That's right. I think that the sentiment that we've heard from the judges who do speak out is that they are not -- they don't identify themselves by who appointed them. They identify themselves as independent judges who have lifetime appointments, who are there to uphold the law. But this association that spoke with USA Today expressed that they are concerned about intervention from the Justice Department, intervention from President Trump in politically sensitive cases. And they felt they couldn't until their spring meeting to get together and address this.

So I think that tells you how seriously judges are taking this, the moves we have seen from Bill Barr and certainly what we have seen from President Trump on Twitter. And as you pointed out, even now, Trump is tweeting about the judge who is overseeing Roger Stone's case today. There are plenty to chew over in this meeting, I think.

HARLOW: Sara, thank you on both. We'll see what happens from that phone call in less than an hour.

Let's talk about all this. CNN Legal Analyst, former federal prosecutor, Michael Zeldin, joins me.

Michael, I'm so glad to have you and your brain on this. You just wrote a fascinating piece about all of this when it comes to Stone and sentence. Because I think there are people who have said it was extreme, who have said it was harsh. If they're in that camp, you have a message for them about what you argue was actually required under the Justice Department rules set by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's right. Under the Sessions sentencing memorandum in 2017, prosecutors are obligated to charge the most serious offense and then seek the stiffest sentence if they are convicted of that sentence (ph). That's a difference from what Holder had previously, which asks for more individualized sentencing.

So the irony here is that Barr sides with the Holder theory of individualized sentencing versus the Sessions theory of seek the maximum, which is what the seven to nine years derives from.

HARLOW: So, if that's the case, why then was Barr surprised by the Stone sentencing recommendation or so surprised to make a move of intervention like this?

ZELDIN: Well, that's the $64,000 question, Poppy. In my experience in the main Justice Department, where I was the section chief, when there was a political case or there was a case of high visibility with the U.S. Attorney, we went back and forth and back and forth until there was consensus about what it was that we were going to file and then it was filed. This notion of surprise is, in fact, very surprising because, normally, these things are all ironed out behind closed doors and then that which is filed is the final word.

So Barr is going to have to testify as to how it came to pass that there was this miscommunication between the U.S. Attorney's Office and main justice that led to this need to remove the original sentencing memorandum and replace it with something more watered down.

HARLOW: But on your point about watered down, because this initial sentencing recommendation by those prosecutors who left the case after Barr intervened was seven to nine years. The new sort of ask here of the judge is something less than that. They called that excessive and unwarranted. But there is not a years or months number tied to what they're requesting in terms of the sentence for Stone. Is that odd to you?

ZELDIN: Yes. Normally speaking, in a federal case, the sentencing memorandum asks the judge for a specific sentence. It will say that we think that what is appropriate here is -- we saw that in the Mueller case, right? He said we thought a sentence of zero to six months in Flynn or 18 months in another case is the appropriate sentence. That's normal.

Here, when the new sentencing memorandum was filed that Barr directed, it said to the court, we think seven to nine years is excessive, but we are not going to make a specific recommendation as to what is appropriate. We're just going to say to you, Judge, make up your mind. What's odd about that, of course, Poppy, is that, of course, it's up to the judge to make up her mind. That's always been the case. They only make non-binding recommendations. They can't bind the judge.

And so it is, again, something that Barr is going to have to explain how it came to pass, that there was this miscommunication or whether it was not a miscommunication, but the fact that it was Barr knuckling under the president's pressure and that's what caused this to be changed.

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That's the real issue.

HARLOW: Well, he is set to testify under oath before Congress at the end of next month. So I'm sure he'll get those questions.

ZELDIN: I hope so.

HARLOW: Let's see what his response is. Michael Zeldin, so good to have you, as always, thank you very much.

ZELDIN: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: The wait is over. Around 160 Americans in Southern California finally get to go home after weeks in isolation. But for hundreds of others, their quarantine is just getting started.

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HARLOW: Well, this morning, the Chinese government is facing more criticism.

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