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Source: Trump Irate At Outgoing Intel Chief After Lawmakers Briefed Russia Prefers Trump Re-Elected; Jury Begins Day Four Of Deliberations In Weinstein Trial; Dems Slam Bloomberg On Stop-And- Frisk Policy During Fiery Debate. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired February 21, 2020 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00]
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: -- by the administration, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Well, intelligence officials briefed lawmakers and told them, Russia is doing it again, interfering in the 2020 election this time with the goal of getting the president reelected. But haven't lawmakers been warned about this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN COATS, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: We assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests.
CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: The Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections. We certainly are seeing and have never stopped seeing really since 2016 efforts to engage in malign foreign influence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[09:35:05]
HARLOW: CNN National Security Correspondent Vivian Salama joins me.
Vivian, first of all, welcome to CNN. I've followed your reporting for a long time. It's good to have you here, especially right now, I mean, we are months away from the election, and Russia is at it again, this time trying to get with a clear preference is the reporting for the president.
Why is the president so upset that the relevant committee was briefed about this?
VIVIAN SALAMA, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is something that has gotten under President Trump's skin for years now. And we know this because he has called out other officials overtime for talking about election interference without really clarifying in his words that it didn't actually lead to his victory. So he wants to say, OK, fine, maybe there was a Russian meddling, although he's even been skeptical about that. But I didn't win because of that. I won fair and square.
And so this is something that is really irritating for the president and he has called out, again, a number of officials. His former national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, he tweeted about him one time when he gave a speech about Russian meddling and said, you know, he forgot to mention that I won fair and square. And so this is obviously a pattern that we've seen overtime where he cast doubt over a lot of the findings when it comes to Russian election meddling, but also then he calls out officials and sometimes there are repercussions because those officials speak out.
HARLOW: Remember when the president met with Putin in June and appeared to joke about even the possibility of election interference again. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Of course I will. Don't meddle in the election. Don't meddle in the election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: For people who couldn't hear that and they're not looking at their screen, he said, don't meddle in the election, please, as he's sitting next to Vladimir Putin. How do you -- what is your reporting on how seriously the president takes these threats beyond? I know he didn't like the way the message was delivered.
SALAMA: Oh, he definitely does not agree with it to certain levels and he said even in his first meeting with President Putin of Russia in Helsinki where he was asked again alongside --
HARLOW: Yes.
SALAMA: -- Putin and he said, well, he told me he didn't do it and so I believe him. And so this is, obviously, something that riles the intelligence community and his own advisors who go out repeatedly saying that this is an obvious threat. It was a threat in 2016.
It's going to be a threat in 2020. And it's a real process here because it's not just, you know, a threat to physical infrastructure, or election voting machines and registration machines and actual election night results. We're talking about information and disinformation campaigns and you have the entire intelligence community trying to take on this battle which is just colossal in terms of fighting that disinformation.
But you also have the private sector, the Facebooks, the Twitters and everyone like that who also have to kind of get onboard and try to fight it. And then you have the president who's kind of casting doubt on the whole thing. And so it's really been something that has just really unsettled the intelligence community because they need their commander in chief to essentially lead the way on this. HARLOW: Indeed. Vivian, thanks for the reporting. Appreciate it.
SALAMA: Thanks, Poppy.
HARLOW: Ahead for us, jurors in the Harvey Weinstein trial wrapping up the week with a shorter day of deliberations today, day four, are they going to reach a verdict finally?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:42:40]
HARLOW: Disgraced Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault trial is entering a fourth day of deliberations right now. The jury is expected to start the day hearing a rereading of cross- examination of key witness testimony that could determine whether or not Weinstein spends the rest of his life behind bars.
Let's go back to our Jean Casarez this morning. She's outside of the courthouse here in New York City. So, Jean, the jury has focused several questions that they've sent in on actress Annabella Sciorra. Can you explain why those questions about her are so crucial?
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, she's very important. She is within the predatory sexual assault charge. Her own charge as an individual is out of the statute of limitations. It was 1993, '94 but a nuance in New York law allows her to help bolster the prosecution's case for one of the fresher accusers, 2006, 2013, to lend for a conviction on that he is a predator, which is potentially like felony.
But Annabella Sciorra, let me just give you a synopsis, 1993, '94, the winter, she was a very, very blooming actress. She'd already appeared in a Weinstein film. She was part of the Miramax circle. She was actually at a dinner that night for Miramax and Harvey Weinstein asked if he could take her home.
He'd done that before. Nothing happened. His driver dropped her off with Harvey in the car at her apartment, a very ritzy apartment, gramercy apartment north in New York City. She said she went up to the 17th floor where her apartments were, and about 30 minutes later, there was a knock on the door. She answered the door and it was Harvey. She said he pushed his way in, pushed her onto the bed and raped her. She then remembers blacking out, falling on the floor, and waking up at some point.
On cross-examination, though, I think one of the main points was, you live in 24-hour doorman building. People just can't walk up to a floor. Did you get a call that Harvey was coming up? No. Had you given Harvey your apartment number previous to that? No. And so there's an open-ended question, there's no evidence showing if he got up there, how he got up there. Also her story had changed a little bit. Cross- examination brings that out.
HARLOW: Jean, thank you very much. Again, they're going to have this all reread to them today. And we'll see what it means for a verdict. We appreciate your reporting. [09:45:02]
Ahead for us, Michael Bloomberg is pressing forward as allegations of racist tactics and also sexist remarks turn the heat up on his presidential run. I will speak with a pastor and a longtime supporter of his about all of this, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Attacks on stop and frisk not stopping. Presidential Candidate Mike Bloomberg continuing to take a lot of heat for that controversial policy while he was mayor of New York City. Listen to former Vice President Joe Biden taking him on at CNN's town hall last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[09:50:03]
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The way he refers to people of color, and the way he refers to -- I'm not even going to repeat the language he used about why he was doing this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Well, joining me now is Reverend A.R. Bernard, founder and pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in New York City. This is the place, the church in Brooklyn where Mayor Bloomberg went to apologize for stop and frisk during his tenure as mayor, right, before he got into the race. Good to have you.
REV. A.R. BERNARD, FOUNDER AND PASTOR, CHRISTIAN CULTURAL CENTER: Good to be with you. Thank you.
HARLOW: Thank you for being with us again. We enjoyed it last time. So, that's Biden's attack. And, then I want you to listen to what Elizabeth Warren said during the debate attacking him and get your reaction on the other side. Here she is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Listen very closely to the apology. The language he used is about stop and frisk. It's about how it turned out. Now, this isn't about how it turned out. This is about what it was designed to do to begin with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Are they right that he should still take heat and that his apology doesn't go far enough?
BERNARD: Look, I think heat is part of the political process. However, I think Mike missed an opportunity during the debate to point out that Joe Biden was one of the authors of the '94 crime bill. And Bernie Sanders voted for it. So, now, you have two individuals who are attacking him about stop and frisk, but the genesis of stop and frisk goes back to that crime bill, which is a reaction to high crime coming out of the crack of epidemic --
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNARD: -- of the '70s. That led to racialized, aggressive policing. It led to more sentences, the building of more prisons, 21 prisons in the United States, and it led to the mass incarceration of black and brown --
HARLOW: It's a really --
BERNARD: -- young men.
HARLOW: It's a fair point. You clearly weren't his debate prepper. But I wonder, you know the man so well. I mean, you were the first endorsement that his campaign put out in 2009 in that race again for New York City mayor. Why do you -- you know, why didn't he punch back?
BERNARD: I think that -- well, I don't know. I don't know how he was prepared, you know, for the debate, what happened. But, look, we need to put it into perspective. Stop and frisk, the crime bill, this is all part of a larger, broader problem within American society that goes back 140 years. We're talking about racialized policing and racialized criminal justice system that needs to change. I think Michael Bloomberg --
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNARD: -- has the means to change it, the motivation to change it --
HARLOW: But --
BERNARD: -- and he's looking for the opportunity.
HARLOW: But when he was given the chance to talk about it more in the debate, criminal justice reform, he literally said one line about it. Here it was. Let's play it, guys.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE BLOOMBERG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We've got to make sure that we do something about criminal justice in this country. There is no great answer to a lot of these problems.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: That's it.
BERNARD: Yes. And I think that he's still working through what are the answers. If we -- here it is from 1970s, that led to the '94 crime bill to where we are today with 2 million African American and Latino young men in the prison system, all right, at the state and local level predominantly, and we're still trying to figure it out. Why did we put it on him to come up with the answers --
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNARD: -- right away? And I'm not defending him. Not for his remarks, not for his comments.
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNARD: I'm not here to sanitize, moralize, or give Mike Bloomberg a mulligan.
HARLOW: Are you here to endorse Mike Bloomberg because you endorsed him when he was running for mayor?
BERNARD: I have not endorsed anyone yet. But, you know, think about it, Bernie Sanders came out on top, right? Good. But what would a Bernie Sanders presidency look like? Is America ready for those extremes? Extremes appeal to the emotions first then to the intellect. And when he said that it's immoral to be a billionaire, you know, I was taken aback. Because how much money can we make? Who determines that? He is talking about a fundamental shift in the American issue.
HARLOW: He certainly is, and he owns that and he has a very different view of what capitalism should be from Mike Bloomberg. But you -- what does it say to people that you don't -- you're not ready to endorse Mike Bloomberg yet.
BERNARD: I'm continuing to listen to his plans, his strategies, his programs. You take the Greenwood Initiative that is looking to bring economic empowerment to the black community. I think America is looking for a president who will continue to keep the economy strong, all right. But bring economic opportunity to everyone, black and brown --
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNARD: -- individuals, women and even blue-collar white workers in America.
HARLOW: Final question, should Mayor Bloomberg release those women or men from any NDAs they have with him, if they want to tell their story? Yes --
BERNARD: You know --
HARLOW: -- or no?
BERNARD: Well, I can't say yes or no because I don't know if all of those non-disclosure agreements are between Bloomberg personally or people within his --
HARLOW: From the ones he can, fair enough, from any ones he can --
BERNARD: -- company, I don't know.
HARLOW: -- that are with him, is it the right thing to let those voices be heard when you're trying to be president?
BERNARD: I think that he has to respond to that. And if it means letting those voices be heard, then that's a decision, a hard decision that he's going to have to make to be affirmative. HARLOW: He said no. Should he say yes?
BERNARD: I don't know. I think he's going to --
HARLOW: OK.
BERNARD: -- go through a process. He went through it with stop and frisk.
HARLOW: Yes.
BERNARD: Let's see what happens with this.
HARLOW: Reverend, good to have you. Come back soon.
[09:55:01]
BERNARD: My pleasure.
HARLOW: Thank you very, very much.
All right, so you're going to hear more from Mayor Bloomberg and the candidates. Join CNN for our next series of town halls just days before the South Carolina primary in Super Tuesday. The top 2020 Dems will join us including this time Michael Bloomberg. It is Monday and Wednesday night live from Charleston and only right here on CNN.
Russia's at it again. The intel community's top election security officials warn lawmakers, Russia is meddling in this election to try to help President Trump win and the president is furious. That's ahead.
Also, the Windsors, 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 on CNN.
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HARLOW: Good morning. Top of the hour, I'm Poppy Harlow. Jim Sciutto has the day off.
