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Roger Stone Sentenced to 3 Years, 4 Months in Prison; Bloomberg Battered During First Debate; Warren Has Strong Debate Performance; Battle Between Moderates Klobuchar & Buttigieg; Outrage Grows over Trump Naming Richard Grenell as Acting DNI. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired February 20, 2020 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:30:43]
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Back to the breaking news about longtime Trump adviser and friend, Roger Stone. A judge just sentenced Stone to 40 months in prison for obstruction, lying to Congress, and witness tampering in connection with the 2016 Russia meddling investigation.
The judge pointed out Stone was not prosecuted for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president. He will also get two years' probation and pay a $20,000 fine.
Jeff Zeleny is our CNN senior Washington correspondent. He's is in Las Vegas where President Trump is about to speak.
Jeff, can you hear me? Jeff Zeleny, you're live, can you hear me?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, President Trump will be coming here to the Metropolitan Police Department in Las Vegas in just a short time. He'll be giving remarks at a prisoner reform graduation ceremony.
We have not heard the president address at all the sentencing of Roger Stone today, of course, sentenced to 40 months in prison, but we do know the president has been watching this very carefully.
He has said repeatedly, just a couple of days ago, before coming out here to the west coast, that he believes Roger Stone has been treated very unfairly. He says he has not weighed in if he's going to issue a pardon.
That's what we're all watching here. As the president does give those remarks here in Las Vegas, will he be talking about the Roger Stone sentencing? We simply do not know. We have asked the White House. They have not said.
We clearly know the president has expressed big skepticism of how his longtime ally, Roger Stone, has been treated. We'll see. Certainly an interesting moment of timing, given the fact the president is speaking here at a criminal justice reform event.
Of course, that has been one of the center pieces of his agenda. We'll see if he talks about Roger Stone -- Brooke?
BALDWIN: Keep a close ear on that for us.
Jeff Zeleny, for now, thank you.
Meantime, Senator Elizabeth Warren had one of her strongest debate performances yet. What does this mean for her campaign over the next two weeks?
Plus, why did it get so personal between Senator Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg? We'll talk about those awkward moments next.
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[14:36:53]
BALDWIN: Debate stage newcomer, Mike Bloomberg, isn't the Democratic frontrunner but his competitors treated him like one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'd like to talk about who we're running against, a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians. And, no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump. I'm talking about Mayor Bloomberg.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Mr. Bloomberg had policies in New York City of Stop-and-Frisk, which went after African- American and Latino people in an outrageous way.
(APPLAUSE)
WARREN: It targeted communities of color. It targeted black and brown men from the beginning.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He didn't get a whole lot done. He had Stop-and-Frisk throwing close to five million young black men up against the wall.
PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL: We shouldn't have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I actually welcomed Mayor Bloomberg to the stage. I thought that he shouldn't be hiding behind his TV ads.
SANDERS: We're sick and tired of billionaires like Mr. Bloomberg seeing huge expansions of their wealth while a half a million people sleep out on the street tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Today, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are seeing an immediate cash infusion. Team Warren pulled in $2.8 million during the debate. And for Sanders, it was $2.7 million. With me now CNN's chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, and Azi
Paybarah, who is a "New York Times" metro reporter.
Welcome to both of you.
Mike Bloomberg, was that the beginning of the end?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't think so. And I'm saying that, obviously, as an observer, as somebody who lived through, we all did, the 2016 campaign. Different time, different party. I get it.
But this was a terrible, terrible night for him. There's no one in his orbit who will say anything other than that. They get it. They know it. It's correctable.
The question -- and you can answer this better than I because you watched him for so long -- is whether he has it in his DNA to do that correction, to figure out a way to legitimately answer the worst moment, which was the NDA, which he had zero answer for, the fact that there are NDAs about suits that women --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: So many people around him, how could he not have that answer ready?
BASH: I don't know. We don't know.
I will say one thing that is kind of bubbling today, Brooke, which speaks to the potential inability of him to come back, and that is he's making another mistake. His campaign is making another big one today. That is there is a video his campaign tweeted this morning that's got about a million views that didn't happen. It is a deceptively edited video. We can show part of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm the only one here that's ever started a business. Is that fair?
(CRICKETS)
BLOOMBERG: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[14:40:06]
BASH: That didn't happen. He said those words. There was maybe a quick second when nobody kind of answered him, and then he moved on saying OK. And --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Even with the crickets. BASH: Right. And so his campaign is saying, come on, it was tongue in
cheek. In today's day and age, where we are so concerned about things that are doctored, deep fakes on the Internet, number one.
Number two, his whole argument was -- against Bernie Sanders, was you're acting like Donald Trump, and kind of half-jokingly I was talking to somebody in the Trump campaign who said we would never do that, and if we did, we would get a whole lot of crap for it.
And so, you know, it makes it hard to -- harder to take the arguments that he's making seriously when he does something like this.
BALDWIN: What do you think of all of that?
AZI PAYBARAH, METRO REPORTER, "NEW YORK TIMES": It sort of reminded me of something that happened in his very first debate in 2001 against his Democratic opponent, Mark Green.
Mark Green, the public advocate at the time, had pulled out of a couple of quotes that were very unflattering and controversial at the time. And he asked Michael Bloomberg about this, and Michael Bloomberg said, hey, come on, that was taken out of context. And Mark Green pressed him and said, did you say those words, and Michael Bloomberg, a novice debater kind of like what we saw last night, well, yes, I said it, but not in that kind of way.
And here we see him using his fortune, using his very well-staffed campaign to put out a video that. Like you said, didn't exactly happen. And the problem is that it mirrors very closely what the Trump campaign has done before.
Remember the Nancy Pelosi video? Tearing up the speech at the State of the Union? They put out a version of it that made it seem like she was tearing up other remarks in moments during that speech.
Now, you can laugh it off and say, hey, this is tongue in cheek. This isn't really -- this isn't meant to be a journalistic enterprise. But when it starts mirroring what the Trump campaign does, that gives some Democrats pause about who they're going to be rallying around as they head to November.
BALDWIN: They're already punching back on, why do we want a Democratic version of President Trump.
Were you surprised at how po he did last night?
PAYBARAH: I --
(CROSSTALK)
PAYBARAH: I was. Because I have never -- I think people who covered Michael Bloomberg saw Michael Bloomberg, what they hadn't seen is someone challenge him that directly. The New York City press corps is as tough as any press corps out there.
And kudos to the moderators for stepping back and letting Elizabeth Warren continue to press and go forward and explain not just what those NDAs were and what was unclear about them, but why it was problematic. The moderators stepped back and let Elizabeth Warren have a big night --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: I'm glad you brought up Elizabeth Warren. She did have a huge night. They fundraised big time. I think it was the best night of her campaign last night during that debate performance. The one to beat within her lane of the Democratic Party obviously is the frontrunner, which is Bernie Sanders.
How does she, Dana, kind of make her way, you know, with regard to those voters who seemingly love him and also, you know, did she prove last night that she really can go toe to toe with Donald Trump?
BASH: For people who are looking for that answer, for that person who can go toe to toe, people who are looking at her and hoping to get another kind of breath of support and desire to back her, absolutely.
What Elizabeth Warren did is she gave herself a little bit more life. She made a lot of money, according to the campaign. They got a lot of donations.
But Andrew Yang, who was with us last night, was reminding us, as somebody who had to suspend his campaign because of a lack of fund, when you're up against not just Michael Bloomberg, who has a lot of funds, but even Bernie Sanders, who has a lot of money, even just getting a handful of a million dollars when you're looking at not just Nevada and South Carolina but the breadth of Super Tuesday that we're going to see at the beginning of March, she's going to need a lot more than that.
But you know what? She was -- I think she was vintage Elizabeth Warren, prosecutor.
BALDWIN: Prosecutor.
BASH: She was a prosecutor, but also he represents everything that she has spent a career fighting against.
BALDWIN: Fighting against.
BASH: And he was a foil that she used better than I think we've ever seen.
Nobody expected her to come that hard at him, and she did.
BALDWIN: I want to play one more clip. She's more of a progressive.
Then you have this battle between the moderates and specifically it almost seemed personal. Some of what was happening between Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. Here's that clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BUTTIGIEG: You're literally are in part of the committee that's overseeing these things, and were not able to speak to literally the first thing about the politics of the country --
(CROSSTALK)
[14:45:04]
KLOBUCHAR: Are you trying to say that I'm dumb? Are you mocking me here, Pete?
(CROSSTALK)
KLOBUCHAR: I am the one, not you, that has won statewide in congressional district after congressional district.
(APPLAUSE)
BUTTIGIEG: If winning a race for Senate in Minnesota translated directly to becoming president, I would have grown up under the presidency of Walter Mondale.
(APPLAUSE)
KLOBUCHAR: I wish everyone was as perfect as you, Pete. You have not been in the arena doing that work. You've memorized a bunch of talking points.
BUTTIGIEG: I'm used to Senators telling mayors that Senators are more important than mayors, but this is the arena, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: I mean gloves off, right?
PAYBARAH: Do not mistake Minnesota nice for Minnesota weak.
BASH: I thought that was Minnesota nice. And that's how she really felt.
BALDWIN: What did you make of that, and also what's the path for moderates out of you guys?
PAYBARAH: I don't know the answer to that second question, but those two are representing a generational change within their party.
And also, they are both relying on things that members of their party have been very successful at, running against Washington. We've seen people do that before. Remember, Barack Obama did that.
BALDWIN: Yes.
PAYBARAH: But also Democrats believe in government, and they want to make it work, and therefore, validating the role that government does and the people who work in it is something that is very attractive to Democratic voters. And when Amy Klobuchar talks about time in government, people hear that and they appreciate it because a lot of them want to see the government work unlike what they've seen since 2016.
BASH: I think we can do all the political analysis in the world, but let's talk about the humanity here. They obviously don't like each other. That was human.
PAYBARAH: You think?
BASH: That was human. And they didn't really care anymore to pretend otherwise.
BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.
Being their authentic selves in one way or another.
Azi and Dana, thank you both very much --
BASH: Thank you.
BALDWIN: -- for that analysis.
Also tonight, do not miss Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren in a CNN town hall before the Nevada caucuses. It starts tonight 8:00 right here on CNN.
The outrage is building after President Trump names a loyalist with zero intelligence experience to lead the entire Intelligence Community, yes. Those details are ahead.
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[14:51:39]
BALDWIN: President Trump's new pick to lead the Intelligence Community has zero intelligence experience. Richard Grenell, who has been serving as the U.S. ambassador to Germany, is a staunch Trump supporter, and will take the reins next month after Joseph McGuire steps aside.
His lack of experience is drawing sharp criticism within the Intelligence Community, as you can imagine, when stacked up to his predecessor, the appointment is even more staggering. Veterans of the CIA, Navy admirals, defense directors, just some of the positions former DNI chiefs have held before taking this job.
What does this mean for America's security moving forward?
Vivian Salama is CNN's National Security correspondent. She is with me now in Washington
And, Vivian, going through the list, past directors have clocked decades in the Intelligence Community. Why him?
VIVIAN SALAMA, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well, like you said, he's a Trump loyalist, and this is a time, especially now, where President Trump is deferring a lot of top jobs to people that he trusts, that he knows are loyal to them, that he doesn't feel are going to, say, leak or do anything that would undermine his administration.
And so, obviously, it's a time where the president is quite sensitive about this. And Grenell has been particularly an outspoken advocate for President Trump's policies overseas.
And he was a very controversial figure when he arrived in Germany to the point that he was rubbing -- you know, brushing up against so many German officials, including Angela Merkel, who was a little bit put off by his style.
Everything from calling for the empowerment of conservatives across Europe, something that really rubbed a lot of European officials the wrong way, to threatening German companies that were operating in Iran in a tweet on his first day on the job, saying they needed to leave Iran right away.
So he's really gone all out echoing the president's beliefs and policies but also staying extremely loyal to the president. And that's how he's ended up getting this job.
BALDWIN: Again, this is -- he's acting DNI, right? This isn't a permanent position. Do you have any sense on whether or not it will become permanent?
SALAMA: So it's interesting. It's like you said. He probably has a very difficult battle to get Senate confirmed. And so to be the official nominee, you would have to get Senate confirmation. And given that he lacks experience and he's also a very controversial figure, it really is going to be an uphill battle for him either way.
There's something called the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, and he's been named under that act, which essentially allows him to hold the position as acting DNI for a couple of weeks until the administration names someone that would be permanent and would actually have to go through the Senate confirmation.
Now, if they do that, he actually can stay in the position indefinitely until that person is nominated. But there has to be a nominee in a matter of weeks in order for him to be able to stay indefinitely in that position.
And so there are a couple of loopholes here where, technically, he needs to get out of the job in a couple of weeks. But he could stay on longer if there's a nominee hovering out there and going through the extensive nomination process.
BALDWIN: We'll watch what happens with him, Vivian, for now. Thank you.
[14:54:51]
Back to our breaking news. Roger Stone finally learned his sentence this morning. Will President Trump pardon his friend after a flood of comments and tweets about the case?
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BALDWIN: We continue on. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being here.
The warnings against presidential pardons are already out now that Roger Stone knows how much time he will be spending in prison.
Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson just sentenced the president's longtime ally and friend to three years and four months in prison, two years' probation, a $20,000 fine, and community service.
[15:00:03]
Yes, it is a lighter sentence than prosecutors initially offered in that first round of sentencing recommendations. The same Recommendation that set off that crisis after the president tweeted his opposition to it and senior Justice Department officials rescinded it.
