Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Pentagon Official Leaves Administration; Democrats Vying for Latino Vote; Weinstein Jury Deliberation. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired February 19, 2020 - 09:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:31:18]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Back now with breaking news at the Pentagon.

Another senior official leaving. Sources tell me and Barbara Starr that one of the Pentagon's most senior officials, John Rood, being force out. I'm told Rood, who serves as the undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon, has lost the support among senior national security leadership. He's been asked to resign.

As the Pentagon's top official policy, Rood oversees all of the country's key national security priorities, Russia, China, the Korean peninsula, and, this is notable, Ukraine. We should note, he was involved in certifying to Congress that Ukraine had embarked on significant reforms to justify its receipt of that crucial security assistance, a move that contradicted, of course, the president's reason for withholding the aid.

And note this, hours after Trump's July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Rood e-mailed Secretary of Defense Esper and said the following, quote, placing a hold on security assistance at this time would undermine our defense priorities with a key partner in the strategic competition with Russia.

A little more context here. Rood joined the administration January 2018 under Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who, of course, resigned himself. Again, the latest administration who disagreed with policy decisions and now leaving the administration.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: It's really important reporting, and it just continues the trend here of those who do not agree with the president of important positions, unable to do their jobs.

SCIUTTO: Right. Loss of contrarian views within -- within the operation, of course, the Pentagon, while the nation is at war.

HARLOW: Yes. Good reporting from you and Barbara.

Let's bring in to this discussion our political and national security analyst David Sanger.

Good morning, David.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Good morning.

HARLOW: Every good leader, the best leaders, right, the best CEOs are the ones that surround themselves with people smarter than them and who have contrarian views. And day by day, as Jim's reporting lays out this morning, those people aren't going to be there anymore.

SANGER: Yes, so John Rood, while he had a history of some clashes in the past with Secretary Esper, before Secretary Esper was in this post, was an experienced -- a very experienced arms control expert, was in the Bush administration. We all knew him there at that time. And it's hard to overstate the breadth of the job he's in. This is the person who goes to the Situation Room, deputies meetings, and tries to sort through all the policy issues. So it's a pretty critical job.

The fact that that e-mail surfaced really says a lot because that put him in the sort of Vindman category of, what do you mean, your policy is to support the Ukrainians?

SCIUTTO: He disagreed with the White House, in effect with the president, on a whole host of things, believed the U.S. should stand up to Russia with more aggression and toughness, disagreed on the Ukraine aid, as you note there, was clear in the e-mail with that assistance hold. But also other issues like restarting large-stale military exercises with South Korea, something the president stopped.

Do you see the president's hand in a departure like this?

SANGER: It's hard to know whether the president himself was involved. There's plenty of reason to believe that Secretary Esper may have wanted his own person when he came in, and that moment has come. But what's really fascinating about this is that once again we have an example of an administration with a stated policy push back hard against Russia, push back hard and contain China, and a president who periodically undercuts it.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANGER: Same thing with North Korea. So you could argue that Rood's biggest crime here was that he was executing the stated policy at the Trump administration.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And there's so many examples of that. It's written in the policy and the president goes another way.

HARLOW: Let's turn the page here to the meeting that the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is having in Riyadh today.

[09:35:03]

He will be meeting with Mohammad bin Salman. Of course this is now 16 months after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Promises made by Pompeo to hold Saudi accountable on that, on human rights, of failure to report to Congress by the deadline, you know, what they know about this. What should Americans expect from this meeting where they -- it says they're going to talk about human rights.

SANGER: If they talk about human rights, it will be, I suspect, briefly so they can go out and later say they talked about human rights.

Khashoggi is a really interesting example. We're now about 500 days since his murder.

What the president said and, more importantly, what Secretary Pompeo said was they would get to the bottom of it. They would get a report from the Saudis, and they would hold people accountable.

When you raise this with Secretary Pompeo, he gets pretty short tempered. You've seen many examples of reporters who have asked the question. And his basic view is, hey, I'm not there to go tell countries who's going to run them. So these are the people we have to deal with. They basically want to make this go away.

And, you know, it's an interesting point that Democrats can -- have raised before and could again in the debate tonight, which is, you could say to the Saudis, yes, we'll have to deal with Saudi Arabia, you are a close ally, but we can't deal with this person he -- who participated in the killing of an American resident.

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this just briefly because the administration's been pushing for an end of the Saudi prosecution of an American citizen, American doctor, his family being held in Saudi Arabia right now, Walid Fitaihi. It raises the question, what is the U.S. getting in return for giving Saudi Arabia something of a pass on Khashoggi?

SANGER: You know, that's been the question all along here because if you take the same set of events, the same human rights abuses, and you said they happened in Iran, which they do all the time, what do you hear from the administration?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANGER: An unending series of discussion of penalties, sanctions and so forth. There is no pressure on the Saudis. The Saudis recognize at this point that they can pretty much get away with anything, including murder, in this case.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANGER: And not have to go pay a significant price.

SCIUTTO: Yes, a brutal murder, we have to remind people. Just a brutal one.

David Sanger, always good to have you here.

SANGER: Great to be with you.

HARLOW: Thanks, David. SCIUTTO: Coming up, in Nevada, the Latino vote is crucial. So who's making the best case to win it there? We're going to be asking our experts, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:49]

HARLOW: Right now, all eyes, or a lot of eyes, on Nevada as Democratic presidential candidates face their first real test with a significant population of Latino voters.

SCIUTTO: Joining us now, Domingo Garcia. He is president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Ana Navarro, CNN political commentator and Republican strategist.

Thanks to both of you for being on here.

So, really, a first test in this Democratic race with a more diverse field of voters certainly than we saw in Iowa and New Hampshire. Pew poll on Latino voters view of Democrats is, I think mixed is the best word you could describe, 5 percent excellent. I mean you add up the good and the excellent, it's still 45 percent. But a lot on the other side of the ledger there.

And, Ana, is that troubling for Democrats going into this knowing that they need a strong turnout, I mean certainly in the general as well, and strong support from Latino voters?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think it should be a challenge to all Democrats. And I think it's important that all the candidates understand that the Latino vote is not something that should be taken for granted in any state or in any party. It needs to be earned. It needs to be a result of policy, of showing up, of being there, of speaking to the community, of taking you seriously.

The one thing communities don't like is for somebody to show up three days before an election and try to say, you know (SPEAKING SPANISH). Really the only one who can kind of butcher the Spanish language in this field is Pete Buttigieg.

And I think it's also important that candidates understand that Latino candidates are not just Latino. They also care about women issues --

HARLOW: Yes.

NAVARRO: And they care about the environment.

SCIUTTO: True.

NAVARRO: And they care about economic issues. So, you know, it's not just a monolithic niche.

SCIUTTO: Yes. That's a good point.

HARLOW: Yes, it's such a good point, Ana. And, Domingo, exactly to the point that she makes, Christiane Ramos (ph), a former spokesperson for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, just has a new, interesting piece out, and the headline is, "Latino Support for Trump is Real and that's a Problem for Democrats." He's pointing to Pew polling that show 28 percent Latino support for the president in the exit polls in 2016 and that that's up to 30 percent now.

And he writes exactly what Ana just said, and that is, quote, when Democrats reach out to Latino voters, they are too focused on immigration and say too little about other issues that those voters prioritize.

Is he right?

DOMINGO GARCIA, PRESIDENT, LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS (LULAC): I think there's a -- there's a large section of the Latino population that is socially conservative, especially on issues such as abortion, prayer in schools and topics like that. And that's always been there.

However, the fact that President Trump has used immigration and Latinos as political pinatas to score points with the extreme right, I think it's starting to -- and using it as a wedge issue has Latinos looking for somebody who is talking about inclusion, who is talking about the diversity of America and bringing people to the table. And there are pocketbook kitchen table issues that every Jose and Maria is interested in.

Are they going to raise that minimum wage to a living wage. A lot of them, Jose and Maria, are picking the food, they're waiting on the -- on our tables today, they're cleaning the hotel rooms that people are staying at, at the Nevada caucuses and in those casinos there in Las Vegas.

[09:45:05]

And they're building America with their hands, constructing bridges and highways and tall buildings. And they want to see, is somebody giving them a living wage? Latinos have the largest number of uninsured demographic in terms of health care providers. Who is going to give Medicare for all or Medicare health care plus. And those are the issues that they're looking at in terms of deciding their vote.

SCIUTTO: And health care always at the top of the list for all Democratic voters.

So, Ana, what is then the non-monolithic message, right, to Latinos on immigration, because, as you watch the Trump administration's moves here, it is not just about stemming illegal immigration. You have measures being taken to stop legal immigration from other countries, including from Latin America. So what is the message that they want to hear from Democratic candidates as an alternative to Trump?

NAVARRO: Is that for me, or for him?

SCIUTTO: It's for you.

GARCIA: Yes.

NAVARRO: Well, look, I think -- I think a lot of Latinos, whether you are illegal immigrant or whether you've been here before this, you know, whether the border crossed you have been impacted by the divisions in America, by a President Trump who divides us depending on where we come from, where we were born, where our parents were born, who questions Mexican American judges' ability to do his job simply because his parents immigrated from Mexico.

And so what, you know, I think a lot of Latinos, what cuts across is the idea that we -- that we don't want our kids to go into school and to be told, go back to where you came from. We don't want our kids to go to school and be bullied because of the color of their skin or because of their name or because of their accent. We want to be treated as equals. We want to be given that respect.

And, you know, and for there to be an understanding that we are a crucial part of America and love America. But the only way to get there, Jim, the only way is if we show up to vote. So for months now, for weeks, certainly since the Iowa caucuses, we've been saying, these two states are too white. They're not diverse enough. They're not representative of America.

So this is the first state in Nevada where almost 30 percent of the population is Latino. Where it is not just, you know, frothy milk demographic. And so if you want to get taken seriously, you've got to show up and vote. You've got to show up and make your voice heard. You've got to talk about the issues that are important to you because, if not, you're just a sleeping giant. And a sleeping giant ain't no good.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that is true for all Americans, all voters, right. I mean you can talk all you want on social media. If you don't vote, you know, you have no voice.

HARLOW: Totally.

GARCIA: And if I could add to that real quick.

Look, I -- we know this playbook. President Trump is going to scapegoat immigrants, Latinos and Muslims, the others so that he can maintain his grip on the white working class vote that he got in Wisconsin, in Michigan and Ohio.

And it's important that we get a candidate who says, you know what, Latinos are just as American and have fought in every war that this country has had. But you cannot use those type of language. It results in somebody driving all the way from Allen, Texas, to El Paso and killing 22 American citizens by and large because they're Mexican.

And that rhetoric, I think, is going to drive up the Latino vote this year. For the first time in American history, Latinos will be the largest minority ethnic voting bloc here in this presidential election. So we're going to have a say so. And I think there's going to be repercussions to that rhetoric coming from the extreme right and from the White House.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Domingo Garcia, Ana Navarro, always good to have you.

NAVARRO: Thank you.

HARLOW: Say hi to Cha-cha for us.

GARCIA: Thank you. Yes.

HARLOW: Her little dog always in the studio.

All right, join us tomorrow as we continue our special town halls ahead of the Nevada caucus. CNN sits down with Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren. That is live from Las Vegas tomorrow night, 8:00 Eastern, only on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:53:33]

HARLOW: Jurors are coming back for a second day of deliberations in disgraced Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein's sex crimes trial.

SCIUTTO: Weinstein could be sentenced to life in prison if he is convicted.

CNN's Jean Casarez joins us now live outside the courthouse.

What are you learning? Do you expect a decision as soon as today?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this will be their first full day of deliberations. The jury is just about to start deliberations for the day. And they had two notes yesterday, very interesting. The first one was just about 40 minutes after they had started deliberations, and it was, we need some legal definitions.

Can you define for us forcible compulsion, which is an element in many of these crimes? Can you define rape? Can you define consent? Criminal sexual act in the first degree? So the judge called them in and said, I just explained this to you. I cannot give it to you in writing. If you want to hear it again, we can come back into the courtroom. I can read it to you again. They didn't ask for that. They kept going.

But this jury instruction, and this verdict form, and we do have it, we've seen it, is very confusing because the counts are inconsistent in a sense of what you can convict for, what you cannot if you already have one conviction.

The jury also had a question about, well, if we can convict on number one, why can't we convict on three, four and five or three, four and -- or five. And I just asked a noted attorney in the courthouse, I said, do you think the jury's confused about the law? And the attorney said to me, attorneys are confused about that verdict form. [09:55:06]

And here is what it is. The two really most serious counts are predatory sexual assault. They are life felonies potentially. But included within predatory sexual assault are some of the other counts, like rape, criminal sexual act in the first degree. So if you convict on the top two counts, you can't convict then on some of the what are lessers in a sense because they're already included because that would be duplicity of convictions.

But I think the jury has a robust deliberation ahead. Anything is possible. A verdict could be today. They also asked for exhibits yesterday. But, obviously, this is a very serious felony case for so many reasons.

Jim. Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Yes, and concerning if the lawyers are confused by the jury instructions there.

Jean Casarez, we know you'll be on top of it.

HARLOW: Thanks, Jean.

Hours from now, the shakeup in the Democratic debate. Michael Bloomberg is taking the stage tonight for the first time.

SCIUTTO: Plus, King George VI never wanted the throne, but he must lead England through its darkest hour. Watch the new episode of "The Windsors: Inside the Royal Dynasty," Sunday night, 10:00 Eastern Time, only on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)