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Soon: House Votes On $258B Postal Bill In Rare Saturday Session; Speaker Pelosi Addresses House Vote On USPS Changes; White House Threatens To Veto Democrats' $258 Postal Service Bill; Trump Accuses FDA Of Delaying Vaccine Until After Election; Bannon Faces Fraud Charges In Border Wall Fundraising Campaign. Aired 12-1p ET
Aired August 22, 2020 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:00:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That uplifted us all. The pair also tells local affiliate WALB, they have another surprise coming soon so stay tuned. Some lucky kids there.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: Hello everyone and thank you so much for joining me. I'm Bianna Golodryga in for Fredricka Whitfield and we are following new developments unfolding on Capitol Hill, where a divisive and rare Saturday vote will be taking place in the House today. Lawmakers in Congress are about to begin debating a $25 billion package to help boost the postal service with a vote expected this afternoon.
The bill is aimed at preventing delays and interference with election mail, a critical priority now that many Americans are mailing in their ballots because of the pandemic. The White House is threatening to veto the bill if it makes it to the president's desk. And for the very latest, let's bring in Phil Mattingly on Capitol Hill. So Phil, what is happening in the House chamber right now and how is this expected to play out today?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes Bianna, I think the thing that's happening that you should really pay attention to is that the chambers are even in session at all. Right now taking a couple procedural votes but the fact that in the middle of August when lawmakers are usually back in their districts, in between the two national conventions, Democratic one that just ended. Republican one that starts on Monday, lawmakers are back on Capitol Hill and for Democrats, they say this connotes the urgency of the matter that they're dealing with, with the U.S. postal service.
Obviously across the country, lawmakers in both parties really have heard reports of significant delays about delivery and Democrats taking the president's own words have tied that to the potential for problems in the election balloting in November, particular with mail- in ballots as the pandemic sweeps across the country.
There's an assumption that mail in ballots will be going up 10-20-30- 40 million more than perhaps they have in the past so the vote the Democrats are holding today is directly because of that. This vote would give $25 billion to the U.S. postal service, an entity that has long had financial issues and those issues in some cases have been exacerbated by the pandemic and they will also put an immediate stop and in some cases, reversal many of the changes operational wise, the U.S. postal service is put in place over the course of the last several months that have been blamed for some of the slowness in the deliveries.
So Democrats are moving forward with this bill as you noted, White House is threatened to veto. One thing to keep an eye on with this vote today is where Republicans land. This will be kind of a proxy vote for the partisanship of the two parties. All Democrats are expected to vote for it, the vast majority Republicans are expected to vote against but not all of them.
If you're a Republican from a rural district, if you're a Republican from places where the postal service is extremely important or a place where perhaps you have a difficult re-election fight, keep an eye on how those Republicans vote. We already know a couple will be voting with Democrats on this.
Again, not a lot but some and it could be an indication kind of where this is heading, going forward. Bianna, I will just say one more thing. This bill is not expected to be taken up in the United States Senate. The Senate's not coming back from their recess before September at this point in time but this issue is going to keep going obviously.
There's a hearing with Postmaster General in the House on Monday.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, Mitch McConnell saying he's not going to take this as a standalone issue so this debate will continue. Phil Mattingly, thank you on a rare Saturday there in Capitol Hill. Well, the White House is vowing to veto this bill if it does get to the president's desk and the Trump campaign is now accusing Democrats of pushing conspiracy theories about the post office.
For more on this, let's bring in Sarah Westwood at the White House and Sarah, the president himself has been spreading falsehoods about mail- in voting, calling it fraudulent. Now he's accusing Democrats of conspiracy theories. Tell us more about this.
SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes Bianna, those charges come from talking points distributed last night by the Trump campaign in the Republican National Committee to supporters and those accused Democrats and frames their concerns about the Post Office as conspiracy theories.
So Republicans make the argument in those talking points that if there's going to be an issue with the election, it's not going to be because of operational problems with the Post Office but because of the expansion of mail-in voting and they also make the charge that a lot of those structural and financial problems that the postal service is having predate the Trump administration so none of them could be President Trump's fault.
Now keep in mind that President Trump himself characterized his opposition to more funding for the Post Office as a way to prevent the expansion of mail-in voting so that's the president himself who made that association and meanwhile the White House last night, announced that they would veto that bill that Phil was just talking about, that's moving its way through the House right now.
That would it be dead on arrival if it were to get to the president's desk. For starters that $25 billion figure is much higher than what the White House and Republicans had tentatively agreed to during the failed stimulus talks. They had wanted something more in the neighborhood of $10 billion and the White House is also warning that they want strings attached to that postal service funding.
They don't just want the influx of cash for USPS, they want it to be earmarked specifically for COVID and for election purposes. They also accuse Democrats of trying to use the pandemic as a pretext for limiting any changes or reforms to the Post Office, reforms that the White House argued in a statement are needed to modernize the Post Office.
So I want to read you part of that statement. "The administration strongly opposes passage of H.R. 8015 that we're talking about. Instead of reforming the United States Postal Service to ensure its continued viability in the modern economy, this is bill would arbitrarily give the postal service $25 billion in emergency taxpayer funding, without linking that funding to either the pandemic or the upcoming election."
[12:05:00]
Now the White House, remember did not want a postal service specific bill. They wanted this postal service money to be tied to the things that the Republicans wanted in the stimulus talks. The president has said as much. So they are opposed to the fact that they are even having a clean piece of legislation here, Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: All right, Sarah Westwood, thank you so much. And joining me now is Democratic Congressman Jerry Connelly. He's on the Oversight Committee which will hear testimony from the Postmaster General DeJoy on Monday. Congressman, thanks so much for joining me on a busy Saturday afternoon.
While there's little doubt that the House will pass this legislation, it's unlikely to be considered in the Senate. As you've heard, Mitch McConnell said earlier in the week, that he was doubtful that a standalone bill could pass and DeJoy said he doesn't need those $25 billion so what is the ultimate strategy here?
REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-VA): Well, let's remember the genesis of the $25 billion. That wasn't plucked out of Democratic minds as some good liberal thing to do. The $25 billion revenue stabilization was recommended unanimously by the Republicans Trump appointed majority on the governing board of governors of the postal service.
It's a Republican idea, unanimously recommended to Congress. That's what we're acting on.
GOLODRYGA: You had written a letter a few weeks ago, to Louis DeJoy, expressing concern and asking questions about the changes of the Post Office. You said that you just heard back from their General Counsel. You actually get a chance now to ask him directly in another hearing scheduled before your committee but were those questions answered from what you heard Friday and addressed in yesterday's hearing? No?
CONNOLLY: No, what I saw was a lot of wiggle room by DeJoy and on Monday, he's going to be under oath so he's going to have to be very careful about those answers. We didn't get the kind of reassurance we want for example, on restoring and reconnecting sorting machines. You know, a sorting machine can handle 32,000 pieces of mail an hour so dismantling 671 of them really has an impact on mail volume and we've seen that so we need much more specific assurances. I also want to query Robert Duncan who is the Chairman of the Board of Governors, where have you people been during this crisis? Did you approve these changes?
What kinds of analysis went into deciding all of a sudden, that we can take a series of measures that have the impact of delaying the mail and perhaps slowing down the ability of people to have their ballots mailed on time and counted?
GOLODRYGA: Well Congressman, I do know that one of the issues that you raised was the hiring freeze and elimination of overtime pay. DeJoy said yesterday that he would not impose those changes now until after the election. Does that allay some of your concerns?
CONNOLLY: It goes in the right direction but I want to be more specific because when he says, well, I'll be flexible in overtime, well, what does that mean? Overtime right now is is an essential tool. 40,000 posts - postal workers have either come down with Covid-19 or been quarantined because of it and tragically several dozen have died so overtime it's just a nice thing to do to reward good performance.
It's an essential tool in keeping the delivery of mail going and so I want a much more specific commitment that he'll return to the practice of the use of overtime before he took over.
GOLODRYGA: And I'm sorry, we're going to interrupt you here to hear from Nancy Pelosi.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: What a sad time it is across the country with storms coming in the rest but from my own personal experience in the state of California, we have wildfires burning that are burning a lay of the land the size of the state of Rhode Island. The size of the state of Rhode Island. We thank our firefighters for their courage, our first responders for their courage and - and community service.
It's so sad. Well, I remember when we had the fires before, they said the fires - the smoke cannot will not exceed the love that we have for each other to come to each other's support. It is - it's very, very sad and I commend our governor, Governor Newsom knew some for his leadership but he and I and all of us, Mike Thompson whose district is very affected by it, all of us salute our firefighters and all of them. We just came out of the convention as you know and I'm very proud of -
I'm very proud of the values that were presented there. In my remarks, I said we come together not to decry the darkness but to light a way forward for our country.
[12:10:00]
That was my statement but I was so pleased that it was so much a part of our President-to-be, our nominee Joe Biden's statement and so today, I come to shine a light forward for our postal system. Most people don't know, perhaps you do, how significant the postal system was in the establishment of our country.
Since that time it has been as American as apple pie, motherhood, baseball, you name it. Over 90 percent of the American people support the postal system. There isn't any agency of government that can make that claim. It is a service, postal service so when people say well, it doesn't pay its own way.
It's not a business, it's a service and while we always want to subject every federal dollar to the scrutiny of what we're getting for it, let us remember that it is a service. No business that I can think of would ever be saddled with what we've done to the postal service, saying that they - in 2006, a bill passed that said that that the postal service should pay 75 years of its health benefits in ten years.
75 years of its health benefits in ten years. That is a responsibility that I don't think most businesses could meet and also come out with it on top so earlier this year, Mr. DeFazio put forth a bill to limit what that is so when they say it doesn't pay - we had to do these cuts and those cuts and those cuts, we're cutting service. We're cutting service, not we but the new Postmaster General.
So we have called our members back for legislation that allocates the resources $25 billion, that were recommended by the U.S. Postal Service, the board of governors at the postal service. They are a board that are bipartisan and 100 percent appointed by President Donald Trump and they recommended the $25 billion, actually they recommended more which we will have in other bills.
So that's part of this legislation. It is also necessary for us to have this legislation because in my conversations with the Postmaster General which were most unsatisfactory, he said he had no intention of restoring the post office boxes that were removed, no intention of restoring the sorting machinery in the postal services and other infrastructure, very essential to keeping the mail on time.
And when I suggested that we have the ballots in the election treated as first class mail, he said he had no intention of doing that but if it was in the bill then he would and yesterday, you see that he's now saying that he will but to make sure that that happens because his comments are one thing, his actions will be another.
And that's why we have this legislation. We'll be talking about it on the floor. Our distinguished Chair Carolyn Maloney, Chair of the Committee of Jurisdiction will be making her presentation, since the board is over - at 1:00 and we'll have more to say.
But I think it's very useful to people to take the pride that it does. Letters to Santa. Messages from the tooth fairy, families communicating. I know people are doing some things on social media and that's good but as a grandmother, I can tell you there's nothing, no substitute for a drawing or a note from your grandchild through the mail.
But more important than that, is important as that is to our culture, our health. 1.2 billion prescriptions sent through the mail in 2019. 80-90 percent depending on the figures and we're trying to verify them but at least 80 percent of the prescriptions sent from the VA to our veterans through the mail.
So when the mail slows down, the medication slows down, the health of our veterans are affected and that too we are hearing from the mail slowing down. And that's what we have to address today and again, we'll go over all the provisions of the bill about stopping the slowing down of mail but this was an intention. Now the Postmaster General is saying we're going to 0 we're not going to do any of this until after the election. Our legislation is not just about the election.
[12:15:00]
It's about surprise - surprise Mr. Postmaster General, the coronavirus, Covid-19 which has a big impact on the election as well on as first and foremost on the health of the American people. So this isn't just about until after the election if that can be trusted.
It's about the lengths as we say in the bill, the end of January or the end of coronavirus whichever takes longer. And so this is why this legislation is necessary too because even in his statements which are ambiguous, they aren't - they don't go far enough.
I'm excited about the history of it. In the early 1770s, building on the work of Benjamin Franklin, who oversaw the precursor of the postal service from 1753 to 1774, the revolutionaries established underground networks. The committees of correspondence and then the constitutional post that enabled them to communicate without the knowledge of the British.
It goes on to say, the earliest committee was formed in 1764 in Boston, it goes on. Our first Postmaster General was Benjamin Franklin. The exchanges that followed what I just described built solidarity during the turbulent times and helped bring about the formation of the first Continental Congress and in any event when Alexis de Tocqueville spoke in that century, he said Alex - it's Alexis de Tocqueville would praise the postal service, writing that not in the most enlightened rural districts of France is there an intellectual movement so rapid or on such a scale as in this wilderness.
The effectiveness from the start and so that - as they say, rooted in American history, part of the communication that established us from going from colonies to a country, there for America's families to communicate, businesses to thrive, medicines to be delivered, now at this case, time of an election at the time of the pandemic, a safe way for people to vote.
It's very important to shine a bright light on the postal system and to show our appreciation for what it's done. Nearly 100,000 - 97,000, I think the number is that 97,000 veterans are employed by the postal service so this for us is a joyous occasion to come together, to vote for the postal service and to meet the needs of our people, our constituents.
You can ask any member of Congress across the country, Democratic or Republican if they're hearing from their constituents on this subject and they are. As we go forward then just to note that tomorrow will be 100 days, today 99 days since we passed the HEROES Act.
It is very urgent, even more so than when we passed it for us to have the values that - this isn't a discussion about just dollars, it's about values and how we value the health and wellbeing of the American people. How we honor and value the work of our heroes, our healthcare workers, our first responders, our teachers, our teachers, our transportation, sanitation, food workers, all, many employed by the state and local government.
And a big obstacle to our going forward is the attitude of the Republicans. Let the states go bankrupt and not fully coming to the table to support that and of course, right now as a grandmother and a mom of grand children in school and children who teach, we have - we really have to make it safe for our children to go to school and that takes money.
It takes money for distancing and more teachers, bigger classes - classrooms or more classrooms, ventilation and the rest. Out of 100 biggest school systems - school districts in the country, over 75 of them are either - 62 are virtual, another dozen or so hybrid. A small number actual and our fight with the administration has been that all - they want the bulk of the money to go only if you actually open up, which is a small percentage of the biggest school districts in our country.
[12:20:00]
So - and who pays mostly for schools but state and local government. So we can't have the firings that will incur if we don't fund state and local government to address the funds that they had spent, the outlays they have made on the coronavirus and the loss of revenue but more important than that even is the firing - the firings that will occur could be in the millions.
Already it's 1.5 million, could be 3.5 million more people fired and what does that do but add to the unemployment ranks and what does that do but hurt our economy so in any event, this today is one piece of what we had in HEROES Act. I'm not for splitting it up except this is an emergency and it has policy in it that was not in the HEROES Act.
So I'm very proud of our members for coming back for this. On the course of the day, I'll be meeting with them, we'll be talking about the justifications by what measure, what justification scientific, institutionally, etcetera are we saying we need so much more money for education than the administration is ready to give.
What scientific basis are we justifying the finding that we want for testing, tracing, treatment, distancing, etcetera. By what justification are we saying we need over $50 billion for childcare. We're telling people that they have to go to work and they can't because they have a child who's not going to school.
So childcare is an answer in some of those cases so the list goes on and we have put the justification for it. I would do so more intensely as we negotiate an agreement that we must have for the American people.
Again, I'm sad about the state of California but anytime a natural disaster hits, it's so sad and Iowa is suffering so badly in all of this. I hope that as soon as we can be, the federal government will be there to support our members of Congress there have been asking for. Any questions. Yes ma'am.
REPORTER: First of all, we've seen that it looks like the Republicans will not be supporting this bill and I'm wondering if it - if it does not go through, can you tell us are there any negotiations on the next COVID package? Is there any other opportunity for the spending that you're seeking you know if this stalls?
And then just more broadly, is there anything you could tell us, what is the message to voters who may be concerned about the problems with the mail and wondering what they should do, they go to the polls, should they send their ballot through mail? What advice?
PELOSI: We have a three-pronged question there. First, let me say, we will pass the bill and it will be in a bipartisan way today and then we will send it to the Senate and let me just say that, as I've always said public sentiment is everything. They'll be hearing from their constituents because this hits home.
Not receiving your mail on a timely fashion hits home, not receiving your prescription especially for our veterans hits home and away that is harmful to our country as well. Secondly, we're hoping that the need for us to go forward in terms of we can open our economy if we have our testing. We can open our schools more safely if we have the point of - point of care testing, tracing, treatment, et cetera.
Why they will not follow science is beyond me but nonetheless it's - we have to make that case and it's safer. As I said it was 99 days since we passed our bill. In that time, how many more people, it was 4.2 million more people have become infected. 4.2 million since we passed our bill.
88,000 more people have died, taking us past 175,000 people. You see the statements that are being made that if we wear mask, if 95 percent instead of 55 percent of people wore masks, the lives that could be saved, going forward. Why don't we also learn from what has happened in the past when they said we're going to press the pause button. They forgot to tell the virus, they were pressing the pause button. [12:25:00]
It didn't pause. So it's - so we have to - we have to, we must absolutely have an agreement as we go forward that helps state and local government do their job to fight the coronavirus, to educate our children, to do so in a way that is safe and again, honors our heroes. Pass something that is sufficient in terms of crushing the virus.
Instead they're crushing the Affordable Care Act in court and the pre- existing condition. So we have a - this is not just about dollars and cents, it's about values and common sense. And then to the last point in terms of voting is that look, don't pay any attention to what the president is saying because it is all designed to suppress the vote.
He's going to have law enforcement. That's in their playbook. We've seen their playbook. It's in their playbook that they'll have people intimidated to vote by having ICE agents or other law enforcement there to instill fear in people as they show up. Why are they here? What - it's scary. But ignore that.
It's just suppress the vote tactic as is the suppressing of the ability of the postal system to deliver on its responsibility, to treat first class - ballots as first class mail and to deliver in a timely fashion and not - and not ignore the need for overtime, not ignore the fact that so many members of postal service have contracted coronavirus so need for temporary employees to fill that in and not ignore - he said very blatantly, I have no intention of replacing those mailboxes.
I have no intention of replacing the machinery and the sorting machinery and that by the way, is a - that by the way is an OSHA issue in terms of sorting and then machinery to help, do it so I would say to the final part of your question is, ignore them. Make a plan to vote. Do so to vote early so that we will have an outcome that is clear as close to election night as possible.
I say that because the more that vote my mail, there may be some counting after the election but I hope that our victory will be so big, it would be so big, that it will be so clear and by the way, from the standpoint of the House, it is my political goal to win so big that it we are putting down the down payment of winning for two years from now.
Now when you get into voting and voting by mail, once again Mr. President, you come into my wheel house. As Chair of the party for a long time, northern chair and state party chair in California had the experience of recognizing how important time is. It's about time, is that the time it takes to get the mail to the people to vote, to get it to the post office, to make sure it's there in a timely fashion.
It's about the time it takes to print some of the materials, both the ballots as well as the persuasion so I've been known to be there with my friends and volunteers to sitting there all night next to a printing machine to make sure somebody else didn't come in ahead of us with their - with their mailer so that we could be on time for the post office. So this is - this is exciting for our country. It's how we
communicate, it's how we vote, it's how we protect the health and wellbeing of the American people and what they are doing, both in the postal service until they got caught and what the president is saying and now his move about putting law enforcement, extra law enforcement people at the polls.
Why would he do that except to scare people off? Why pay attention to that? Just honor the vision of our founder that this is a democracy and everybody's going to have the chance to vote and have their vote counted as cast.
Another question. Yes ma'am. I have another subject I want to bring up so let's move on.
REPORTER: Chief of Staff Meadows was on the Hill today and he tweeted on -
PELOSI: Who is?
REPORTER: Chief of Staff Meadows was on the Hill today.
PELOSI: Oh Meadows.
[12:30:00]
REPORTER: He tweeted out a message to Democrats saying, if you really want to help Americans, how about pass relief for small businesses and employment along with postal service funding? You said that you don't want to break things down. You said that today is going to be focused on the postal service.
PELOSI: That's right.
REPORTER: But are you -- what about the members in your party who think that maybe a vote on a smaller heroes added to the $2.4 trillion heroes bill with a shorter timeframe is perhaps a good idea?
PELOSI: Well, let me just say, you listed some things that what's his name put forth. He didn't say anything about schools. He didn't say anything about crushing the virus. He didn't say anything about people who are being evicted. He didn't say anything about food insecurity among millions of America's children. He didn't say anything about state and local. That's completely unacceptable.
On the other hand, what I -- what my colleagues, my colleagues, I welcome their suggestions and that we're all in sync. We said we would come down a trillion dollars. We're ready to negotiate at that level. And again, we're making some plans for some things that we want to do next, because it's what how many days until the election, 73 or something? Seventy-three-day, 99 days since the bill, 73 days since the election and we're getting ready for this legislative session that comes and the legislative session that begins in January.
So we have -- were in sync in our caucus and his list is very deficient when it comes to our children, their childcare, their food, their housing, their education, their health in terms of the virus, and know, just again, state and local does do over 90 percent of the education.
I want to bring up another subject that the President brought up this morning which is very scary and everybody should take note of it. The Food and Drug Administration, the FDA has a responsibility to approved drugs, with their judging on their safety and their efficacy, not by a declaration from the White House about speed and politicizing the FDA.
This was a very dangerous statement on the part of the President. Even for him, it went beyond pale in terms of how he would jeopardize the health and wellbeing of the American people and accused FDA of politics when he is the one who has tried to inject himself in the scientific decisions of the Food and Drug Administration.
One more question, and I have to go to the floor. Yes, Ma'am?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How does Mr. DeJoy compared to Benjamin Franklin with experiences he bring to the Java's (ph) Postmaster General, Madam Speaker?
PELOSI: Well, let me also say Abraham Lincoln was a postmaster. He was as well. I think Harry Truman worked for the Postal Service. I don't know exactly what his title was. So this this Postal Service has a great identification with leaders in our country. I wouldn't use the word compare, I would use the word contrast.
Benjamin Franklin understood the value of bringing people together in our country. He did not view it as a business enterprise. He believed it as a service, Postal Service. And that is what we have to support to bring it in and say, well, they're losing money and this or that. Really? Really? Are we losing money on delivering prescription drugs to our veterans? Are we losing money and how we have people communicate with each other and our families and create jobs, good paying jobs, 97,000 veterans who are employed by the Postal Service?
If -- I think the biggest contrast would be one sees it as a service for the American people. The other sees it as a business enterprise. And that is -- and doesn't value its purpose and doesn't value its purpose. The -- but hopefully he will see the light as he sees the legislation.
And if the Republicans in the Senate refuse to take it up, they're just going to have to answer to their own constituents. Why they don't want their mail delivered in a timely fashion. Why does it either rain or sleet or snow or dark of night will keep the courier from his or her now appointed rounds, that doesn't seem to be the purpose of the current leadership of the Post Service.
[12:35:00]
Thank you all. See on the floor.
GOLODRYGA: And you have just been listening to the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supporting legislation that the House will vote on shortly to support the U.S. Postal Service, a $25 billion legislation that she believes will be passed with bipartisan support. She also went on to give a brief history lesson of the U.S. Postal Service and talked about the need that it -- not only takes away voters confidence, but 1.2 billion prescriptions are sent by mail, 80 percent of prescriptions to the VA as well.
So she made this a much bigger issue than just the voting question. She also was asked what voters should be thinking at home whether they should be confused about whether or not their vote will matter if they send it via mail, and she said to ignore the President's comments and his attacks on the U.S. Postal Service and called it a suppressive vote tactic, so just ignore it.
One thing to note, she did raise on her own, that we should not ignore the President's attacks this morning against the Food and Drug Administration calling them dangerous, the President attacking his own FDA in terms of vaccines coming up ahead of the election.
Well, we will take a quick break and some officials coming up. Some officials are now predicting more than 300,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. by December. Plus a new warning about a drug that President Trump has promoted to treat coronavirus. And later a former top advisor for the President is facing fraud charges, the case against Steve Bannon and his reaction coming up here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:40:40]
GOLODRYGA: An influential new health model shows that 310,000 Americans could die of the coronavirus by December 1st. The researchers from the University of Washington say 69,000 lives could be saved if more Americans wore masks.
Meanwhile, the Infectious Diseases Society of America says hydroxychloroquine should not be used to treat coronavirus patients at all. The group now says doctors should not even experiment with the drug as part of a clinical trial. The FDA's most recent guidance cautions against the use of the drug outside of a hospital setting or a clinical trial due to a risk of heart rhythm problems.
All of this as President Trump takes aim at FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, who he nominated this past November. President Trump tweeting this morning, the deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics.
The President even claiming some in FDA are deliberately delaying vaccine trials so no one would be available until after the election. CNN has reached out to the FDA for comment. Mr. President, these are your own appointed officials. You heard Nancy Pelosi speaking out about this outraged as well.
Well, President Trump's former chief strategist says the fraud charges against him are quote, a political hit job. Steve Bannon is accused of taking money from a border wall fundraiser and using it for himself. Next, a former federal prosecutor joins me to break down the case. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:46:37]
GOLODRYGA: Steve Bannon says he loves to fight. And that's exactly what he has his hands on right now. The former top adviser to President Trump is charged with fraud and a border wall fundraising campaign that prosecutors say serve to enrich Bannon and three of his associates. Right after Bannon's arrest, the President downplayed his relationship with his former top adviser. CNN senior investigative correspondent, Drew Griffin, has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The President seemed to have amnesia over his once close relationship to Steve Bannon and the President's own support for the project called, We Build the Wall.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know nothing about the project, other than I didn't like when I read about it.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): That doesn't seem to line up with what others recall Trump saying about the project, like Kris Kobach, former Kansas secretary of state and advisory board member of the We Build the Wall Organization, who's repeatedly said not only did the President know about the project that raised $25 million in donations, but supported.
KRIS KOBACH, WE BUILD THE WALL ADVISORY BOARD: I've spoken to the President about this project on three occasions now.
Trump expressed clear enthusiasm for it. He wants it known that he stands behind this.
And he went further and he said I want the media to know that this project has my blessing. He was really making a point that he was behind this.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): A point echoed by the chief financial officer of We Build the Wall, Amanda Shea. She's married to one of the men indicted and posted this photo of her and President Trump last summer, saying she talked with President Trump, who had a lot of questions about the wall We the People Built through We Build the Wall. He was impressed, she said.
Donald Trump's son, Don Jr., was apparently impressed too. The Facebook account of the group's Founder, Brian Kolfage, shows him with the President's son taking a private jet to an event last year, where Don Jr. praised the private wall effort.
DONALD TRUMP JR., PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SON: This is private enterprise, at its finest, doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, Timothy Shea and Steve Bannon, according to prosecutors, worked together, to misappropriate hundreds of thousands of dollars of those funds for their own personal benefit. Payments allegedly went toward a boat, a luxury SUV, a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery.
That boat is one Kolfage used in a Florida pro-Trump boat parade. When reports accused Kolfage of misspending funds, last summer, he and Steve Bannon joked about it in a video from the border project site.
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: Welcome back. This is Stephen K. Bannon. We're off the coast of Saint-Tropez in Southern France in the Mediterranean. We're on the million-dollar yacht of Brian Kolfage. And Brian Kolfage, he took all that money from Build the Wall.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): The joke, not so funny now. Kolfage, a triple amputee Air Force veteran, repeatedly claimed he wouldn't take a single penny for running the operation.
BRIAN KOLFAGE, "WE BUILD THE WALL" FOUNDER: One hundred percent of your money goes towards the wall. It's not going to line someone's pocket. I'm taking zero dollars as a salary.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Reached by email, Friday, Kolfage told CNN, prosecutors lamped every purchase I've made in the past two years into the indictment, even before We Build the Wall, not taking into account the fact I have other sources of income to pay for things. Like Bannon said, Kolfage wrote, it's a fiasco.
According to the indictment, the co-defendants conspired to pay Kolfage's salary with donors' money by using a second nonprofit and hidden payments. Philanthropy expert Doug White says it's the type of alleged fraud that hurts all charities.
[12:50:10]
DOUG WHITE, NONPROFIT EXPERT AND AUTHOR: And that's what really breaks my heart. Here's an example. If the allegations are true of fraud at its worst and they were defrauded out of maybe checks of $10 or $50, some many, many more dollars, but none of that should take place under the guise of having someone then take that money or part of it to go live a lavish lifestyle. Absolutely has to be stopped.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): The others indicted Andrew Badolato, a 56-year- old Florida-based investor, who's been close to Bannon for more than 20 years.
In the early 2000s, Badolato and Bannon were also directors of a nasal spray company, called SinoFresh Healthcare. Executives there pushed to remove Bannon from the board for not investigating improprieties allegedly tied to Badolato.
Badolato went on to write for Bannon's Breitbart news site and he's repeatedly filed for bankruptcy, has faced more than a dozen state and federal tax liens.
The third conspirator, Timothy Shea, is accused of secretly filtering donations to himself and Kolfage, payments described as social media charges. The Denver real estate agent sells a pro-Trump energy drink that comes in a can with a picture of Trump in a superhero costume. (on camera): The charges against the men, one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one conspiracy to commit money laundering, are serious with maximum sentences up to 20 years each. Steve Bannon has not pleaded guilty to his charge. The other three men were arrested, posted bail, and will be arraigned later.
Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And our thanks to Drew Griffin.
Let me bring in Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and host of one of my favorite podcasts, Stay tuned With Preet Bharara. Preet,m there is a lot of evidence we just heard now and that piece, how damning is it against Bannon and his associates?
PREET BHARARA, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Very, it's very damning. You know, sometimes you have cases that you think are somewhat tribal, there are reasonable defenses, there's always some defense that someone can offer.
In this case, you think about what the fraud is. Sometimes you have frauds that are complicated. You need expert witnesses to come testify to explain some elaborate accounting gimmick. This is not that. All this is, is time and time again, members of the We Build the Wall announced to the public into potential donors that they will not going to take any salary, not one penny, 100 percent of the money was going to go towards the building of the wall.
And so you have that representation on one hand -- on one hand. And on the other hand, the prosecutor seemed to have documentary evidence of lots and lots of money going right into the pockets of the defendants in particular a $100,000 payment to the main defendant, Brian kolfage and $20,000 a month after that. So you have the representation, no salary, not one penny, and then you have documents likely showing, I'm certainly showing that money went into his pocket. Everyone understands that. And everyone gets that. And it's hard to imagine what an effective defense would be in this case.
GOLODRYGA: So was it that ostentatious and luxurious lifestyle that ultimately raised red flags for the prosecutors, I mean, that this organization was heavily promoted when it initially began.
BHARARA: It's hard to know, you know, there have to have been some basis for the prosecutors in the SDNY to begin an inquiry and issue subpoenas and do other kinds of investigative work. That may have been a suspicious activity report filed by one of the banks. There's a lot of bank investigation that went on here as you can see, if you read the indictment. It may have been some donor, raised a red flag and thought that maybe the money wasn't going to the right place. They may have had someone on the inside.
It's hard to know. But certainly, yes, part of what probably raised red flags is the kind of lifestyle that one or more of these people led, after they're saying, they're not using any of this money for anything other than the purpose for which they advertised it.
GOLODRYGA: And Bannon of course, was arrested by the U.S. Postal agent, service agent, so no lack of irony there. But he was onboard, a 150 foot multimillion dollar yacht owned by a billionaire Chinese dissident. Were you surprised given all of that and those circumstances that Bannon got released on bond?
BHARARA: You know, there's some irony, by the way, one can notice in a populace being found on a $30 million yacht. Yes. Look, I don't know what all the details are. It sounds like in this case, the prosecutors did not fight for detention pending trial that there was an agreement reached between the prosecutors and the defense, and they must have reason to believe that Steve Bannon doesn't represent a significant flight risk. It's a little bit harder, I should say, to flee country, at least by commercial airline now because no countries want people from America coming in because of COVID-19.
So they probably have a good sense. And I trust their instincts on this that Bannon will remain in trying to fight the charges and will not flee.
[12:55:04]
GOLODRYGA: Yes, because of course he does spend a lot of time at least pre COVID in Europe and has many contacts around the world. Prosecutors, Preet, also say that three men began to conceal their behavior after they learned that their group might be under federal criminal investigation.
They were using encrypted messaging applications on their phones. I believe Kolfage stopped receiving a secret salary payment. If the concealment is proven to be true, does that add to the severity of the case against them, meaning that they realize that they were under investigation, and thus they tried to change their behavior?
BHARARA: I would say two things. One is, one of the charges is money laundering is essentially a crime of concealment, that you're engaging in some specified unlawful activity. And he's trying to hide the proceeds by doing other things with that money. So that already has doubled the exposure for the defendants.
And with respect to that paragraph that you mentioned which if you're allowed to have a favorite paragraph in indictment, it's mine. It less goes to, in my mind, increasing the severity of the charges, it goes more to the likelihood of proving guilt. Because that paragraph and those allegations made clear that the gentleman involved knew what they were doing was wrong. They were conscious their guilt.
As soon as they found out in October of 2019 from one of the banks that maybe there was a federal investigation into their conduct, they changed their conduct. And they move to encrypted apps, as you say. That is classic consciousness of guilt. When people believe that something they're doing is wrong, they conceal it further and they change their behavior. He stopped taking payments at that point. That's incredibly powerful, persuasive evidence to a jury in this case. GOLODRYGA: Yes, not a very complicated case to assess there. Preet Bharara, always great to have you on, my friend, I'm sure you will be digesting this and much more on your podcast. Stay tuned. And we will be right back. Have a great weekend Preet.
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