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Tim Murtaugh is Interviewed about Trump's Taxes and Coronavirus; California Fires in Wine Country; NYC Schools Reopen; Kentucky AG to Release Recordings. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired September 29, 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]
TIM MURTAUGH, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: Possible under a law signed by your former boss, Barack Obama, that allows people to claim losses in previous years and carry them forward. Your former boss signed that law. That -- that -- that is the -- that's what's at issue here (ph).
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Don't go personal here, Tim Murtaugh. Don't go personal here. I worked as chief of staff to the U.S. ambassador to China.
A couple question -- so you will not answer what --
MURTAUGH: That's not personal, it's a fact. President Obama signed that law.
SCIUTTO: You will not answer -- you will not answer what the president paid in federal income taxes in 2016 or 2017, or should we take "The Times" as correct that it was $750?
MURTAUGH: I have just told you the president -- look, Jim, voters care more about who is the better candidate to protect their jobs, to continue to grow the economy. This is a pre-debate tactic that they tried in 2016.
SCIUTTO: A non-answer. Moving on.
The audit focuses on a $72 million tax refund that the president claimed in 2010. Can you explain how he received a multimillion dollar refund in a year in which he paid little to no federal income taxes? Can you explain that to our viewers who might not understand?
MURTAUGH: Well, I'm glad you asked me that question, Jim, it's because of a provision in the stimulus law, signed, again, by your former boss, President Obama, that allows people to claim losses in prior years.
SCIUTTO: Tim, have you ever received a tax refund in a year in which you paid no taxes?
MURTAUGH: No, I have not.
SCIUTTO: OK.
MURTAUGH: And I am also not a multibillionaire real estate mogul either, John -- or, Jim -- I'm sorry, Jim.
SCIUTTO: OK. I imagine very few our viewers did.
Moving on, did the president's business make any money these years where he claimed there, because it's either one or the other, the claims are legitimate because there were no profits in his business or there were profits and the claims are illegitimate? Did the president's businesses make any money during these many years he paid little to no federal income taxes?
He claims to be --
MURTAUGH: I'm curious, Jim, have you ever -- I'm curious, have you ever asked anybody why it was that Hunter Biden got a $3.5 million Russian wire transfer while his father was the vice president?
SCIUTTO: I'll -- I'll get -- I'll get to Hunter Biden in a moment. I'm just asking -- I'm asking you --
MURTAUGH: Have you -- have you quizzed anybody on that little number?
SCIUTTO: You are the communications director for the president whose running for re-election.
MURTAUGH: That's quite a maneuver. How -- why is it that foreign interests were shoveling buckets of money -- yes, and we also have an opponent in this race, Jim, in case you haven't noticed.
SCIUTTO: Tim, are you going to answer questions or do talking points be -- because the question is, did the president's businesses make any money --
MURTAUGH: Why were foreign interests shoveling buckets of money at Joe Biden's family while he was the vice president?
SCIUTTO: Did the president's -- did the president's businesses make any money during these years where he paid little to no federal income tax, yes or no? Did they make any money?
MURTAUGH: Again, Jim, for the fourth time, the president has always said that he will release his taxes when the audit concludes. "The New York Times" confirms that the audit has been ongoing for ten years.
SCIUTTO: As you know, there's nothing about an audit that prevents someone from releasing taxes.
OK, let's go to the Russian mayor that you're talking about, Hunter Biden.
MURTAUGH: If you are under audit -- Jim, by the way -- by the way, these -- these documents were illegally leaked to "The New York Times." Would you like someone doing that to your taxes, Jim? Would you enjoy that? SCIUTTO: Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow -- Tim Murtaugh --
Tim Murtaugh --
MURTAUGH: Yes.
SCIUTTO: Tim, I pay my taxes. I pay federal taxes and I'll tell you on this program, many times more than the billionaire president does.
Yury Luzhkov, he is the former mayor of Moscow --
MURTAUGH: Again, the president has paid tens of millions of dollars in federal taxes, Jim. Tens of millions of dollars.
SCIUTTO: Not in federal income taxes. You won't answer the question, let's move on.
Yury Luzhkov, who's the former mayor of Moscow --
MURTAUGH: Well, let me ask you a question, have you seen the documents --
SCIUTTO: Revealed in an interview that President Trump was in talks with him --
MURTAUGH: Have you seen -- Jim, Jim, let me ask you a question.
SCIUTTO: That the president was in talks with Yury Luzhkov, the same person you're saying has -- paid money to Hunter Biden's private equity fund. He was in talks with President Trump about building an underground mall there in the 1990s.
Should the president answer questions about his business relationship with the late Moscow mayor?
MURTAUGH: Jim, the president was a private businessman at the time and leading a global enterprise. And that's what was happening at that time.
When you talk about the wire, $3.5 billion --
SCIUTTO: Was there something fundamentally wrong then with -- with doing business with --
MURTAUGH: Joe Biden's son received that wire while his father was the vice president of the United States. That is not the same situation as a private American businessman building business interests around the world.
SCIUTTO: So Trump -- OK.
MURTAUGH: For you to make that -- that -- that comparison shows that you're just not interested in talking about anything that involves Joe Biden.
SCIUTTO: Trump can speak to the Moscow mayor. OK, fine.
MURTAUGH: You're just not interested in it. And why is that?
SCIUTTO: Because you're the --
MURTAUGH: Why would you not?
SCIUTTO: Because, Tim, we're -- Tim Murtaugh, you're the -- you're the communications director for President Trump.
MURTAUGH: $3.5 million wire to Hunter Biden while his father -- that's exactly right and we have an opponent in this race, Jim, and we reserve the right to talk about our opponent from time to time, whether we're on CNN or not.
SCIUTTO: Let's move on.
"The New York Times" reports the president has more than $400 million in debt. Is that true or false?
MURTAUGH: Again, the president has said -- I don't know how many times you want to go down this road.
SCIUTTO: Answer the question. Is it true or false, does the president have $400 million --
MURTAUGH: The president has been under audit for the last 10 years, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Does the president have $400 million in debt?
MURTAUGH: If the president has -- look, listen, Jim, let me make this simple for you.
SCIUTTO: Ask you answer that question, yes or no?
MURTAUGH: Prior to running for president, the first -- if -- if you -- prior to running for president the first time, the president released over 100 pages of financial documents. All of those individual items are in those more than 100 pages. I invite you to go look them up.
SCIUTTO: OK, I'll take that as a non-answer.
MURTAUGH: What we would want to be talking about is actually this campaign in which we have an opponent, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Robert Cardillo, who's an intel agency chief under President Trump said that debt like that creates a venerability that foreign --
MURTAUGH: I don't know if you noticed this or not, but there are two names on the ballot.
SCIUTTO: that foreign adversaries can exploit. The debts of that amount create -- and if you or I applied for a -- a security clearance and had debt anywhere near that amount or more than our assets, it would be considered a vulnerability.
Who does the president owe this $400 million to? MURTAUGH: Well, Jim, you had a misstatement in your question right
there. The loan amounts are far, far below the actual value of the property. And, in fact, he is very leveraged -- he's leveraged at a very small amount as compared to those other real estate -- most -- most real estate --
[09:35:05]
SCIUTTO: So he does have $400 million in debt?
MURTAUGH: I told you it's in the -- it's probably in the public disclosures and the president remains under audit.
SCIUTTO: OK.
MURTAUGH: And for the last ten years he's been under audit.
I think I've now answered this question seven times, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Actually --
MURTAUGH: So if you want to keep spending our time here on CNN focused on this one, singular question, then keep doing it over and over again.
SCIUTTO: I asked you a lot of questions you didn't answer.
Let's talk about Covid.
Today U.S. deaths have now passed 205,000. Last time we spoke, I asked you half a dozen times if the president took any responsibility for these losses. Your answer was, I'm quoting you, the president has accepted responsibility for being the one who is in charge of the unprecedented American response to this.
I'll just ask you again, does the president take any personal responsibility for the loss of life from Covid in this country?
MURTAUGH: The president is responsible for taking early action, restricting travel from China, which saved thousands of lives, which we know President -- if he were president at the time, Joe Biden would not have done. Just yesterday, Jim, the president made an announcement of 150 million rapid tests --
SCIUTTO: Does he take any responsibility? Tim, you're not answering the question again.
MURTAUGH: Jim -- Jim, do you --
SCIUTTO: Any responsibility?
MURTAUGH: Are you aware there's debate tonight? Can we talk about that maybe? Do -- or are you standing in for Joe Biden right now?
SCIUTTO: I'm aware. I'm going through the topics first (ph). Can you answer the question, does the president take any -- MURTAUGH: Is this -- is this -- is this debate prep? Are you standing in for Joe Biden?
SCIUTTO: No, I'm asking you questions because you're the communications director for Donald Trump.
MURTAUGH: I mean going back to the last time -- your -- I'm standing in a debate hall. Do you see the debate hall behind me, Jim.
SCIUTTO: I'll take it as a -- I'll take it as a non-answer, the president take responsibility.
MURTAUGH: There's a big event here tonight. Are you aware of that?
SCIUTTO: The -- I'm very aware. That's why we have the campaign director -- the campaign communications director on.
MURTAUGH: And I have told you, the president is responsible for leading the unprecedented --
SCIUTTO: A question for you.
MURTAUGH: The unprecedented -- unprecedented campaign -- go ahead, Jim. Go ahead.
SCIUTTO: President Trump has said that he does not need formal debate prep for tonight. He's called it unnecessary.
I wonder as his communications director, do you agree with that?
MURTAUGH: The president prepares for debates every single day just by being president. And I would say, just, you know, based on your exchange with me right here, this is also the kind of practice that the president gets where he goes and has his regular, I would call them skirmishes, with the hostile Washington press corps. So the president is ready. And we expect to see Joe Biden very ready too. You know, he's been doing this for 47 years. He knows his way around the debate stage. He managed to defeat two dozen Democratic challengers and -- in 11 debates in the Democrat primary. So he did very well. So the president will be ready.
SCIUTTO: By the way, Tim, we have a Biden spokesperson in the next hour where we'll be asking many of these questions.
And when -- on the question of federal income taxes and others --
MURTAUGH: Oh, I'm sure it will have the same tone and -- I'm sure. I'm sure it will be just the same. I'll be sure to watch and see how that one goes.
SCIUTTO: And when -- on the question of federal income taxes and others -- when you're willing to answer those questions, please come back to this broadcast, Tim.
MURTAUGH: OK.
SCIUTTO: When you're willing to answer questions on federal income tax paid, et cetera, please come back on the program.
MURTAUGH: I answered them over and over, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Actually you didn't.
Tim Murtaugh, we wish you good luck tonight. Thanks very much.
MURTAUGH: Great, thank you, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Donald Trump and Joe Biden face off, as we said, in the first presidential debate. Watch it play out live on CNN with special coverage. It starts tonight, 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
And we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:42:07]
SCIUTTO: Welcome back.
For the first time in six months, students will be back for in-person classes at some New York City schools, but parents in the nation's largest school district, they're on edge as the city sees an alarming surge in Covid-19 cases.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So the overall rate of positive Covid tests across New York City is still at about 1 percent, but there are some significant outbreaks in neighborhoods in Brooklyn and in Queens, rising as high as 17 percent in some pockets.
Our Bianna Golodryga has more reporting on this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST (voice over): Six months after Covid-19 shuttered New York City schools, six-year-old Andonios (ph) and his two-year-old sister Zoe (ph) are finally putting on their backpacks.
MELODY ANASTASIOU, TEACHER, NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS: I was so thrilled that I was able to even to get my two-year-old to wear her mask so vigilantly and to keep her hands so clean.
GOLODRYGA: Vigilance is especially important for Melody and Areta (ph) Anastasiou, given that Melody, a teacher herself, suffers from autoimmune disorders.
ANASTASIOU: I live in a state of fear.
GOLODRYGA: She understands the concerns over keeping schools closed, but she's not convinced that now is the time to reopen.
ANASTASIOU: Forcing this very large school system to go back to normal is kind of forcing a square peg into the round hole. GOLODRYGA: While most of the nation's largest school districts have
started the fall semester virtually, New York City, the country's largest with more than 1.1 million students and 75,000 teachers, is offering families some in-person learning. Options include one to three days a week of in-school or all online.
But even with the positivity rate of less than 1 percent in New York City among the lowest in the country, reopening schools has been a contentious process filled with concerns.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's creating a lot of anxiety for the teachers because it's a lot of unknown, right? It's a lot of uncertainty.
GOLODRYGA: Pressure over safety conditions from the city's teachers and principals union led the city to push back its initial in-person start date by 11 days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you asked me if we were ready to open today, I would say we are not.
GOLODRYGA: That was followed by yet another delay for Mayor Bill de Blasio.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY): We're going to make sure it's safe and so I ask everyone for some patience here.
GOLODRYGA: Finally, the announcement of a staggered reopening plan. Last week, some 90,000 preschoolers and special needs students resumed face-to-face instruction. The city has created a Covid situation room to monitor both testing and contact tracing, as well as hiring an additional 4,500 teachers. Despite initial setbacks, de Blasio insists he's taking the right path.
DE BLASIO: So we're trying to be measured, we're focused on the data and the science with every move we make, to make sure we come back, but we come back safely.
GOLODRYGA (on camera): What is your reaction to everything that he's laid out suggesting that everything that needed to be done has been done?
ANASTASIOU: First off, when I heard about the war room, I thought, well, why weren't we doing that already?
[09:45:01]
GOLODRYGA (voice over): Melody will be teaching remotely. Her medical condition qualifies her to work from home. But her kids will be at school for most of the week, and that has her worried.
ANASTASIOU: There's an extreme amount of guilt, and I think any parent could understand that. But then it's also the fear that you are taking this huge, tremendous risk and could potentially bring ruin.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BRENNAN: And, Jim and Poppy, after that interview with Melody, she sent me an e-mail in which she said, even though my husband and I are at risk when we send them out and they return, the irony is not lost on me that my children have to attend some in-person learning so that we can do our job well.
And there you see the conundrum. For their -- for them to do their jobs at home, their children have to go into school. We know how important it is for children to go into school. But, obviously, you want to do it safely. And when you hear headlines like those out of the papers this morning that the CDC was under increased pressure to reopen schools from the federal government, it does make your worry. And there are reports this morning that there are infections among teachers and staff at 150 New York City schools. That's out of 1,700. So it's very few, but it's something to pay close attention to.
HARLOW: Yes.
SCIUTTO: No question.
Bianna Golodryga, thanks very much.
Up next this hour, at least three people have now been killed in just the latest outbreak. Look at those pictures of wildfires in California's wine country. So many homes, so many lives changed. Thousands have been forced to flee as the fast-moving fire continues to spread.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:51:00]
HARLOW: California's Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency as fast moving wildfires race through wine country. There are, so far, at least three people have been killed from them.
SCIUTTO: CNN correspondent Josh Campbell is in Santa Rosa, California.
Josh, it's such a sad vision there. So many memories lost. Of course, lives lost as well.
Tell us how things are looking now.
JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Jim, so many lives. Thousands of lives have been upended here in this part of northern California. Thousands of evacuations. And you can see behind me some of the results of this fast-moving fire. This was once a home here. You can see a vehicle there that was now torched. Again, we're talking about thousands of homes having to evacuate because of this incident.
Now, just to give you a sense of how fast-moving this fire here where I'm at in Santa Rosa, how fast this was moving. U.S. government satellite data show that when this thing kicked off it moved at a rate of one acre every five seconds. One acre every five seconds. Incredibly fast-moving. Now, of course, this story isn't just about property. It's also about
people. We're sadly learning that just north of us, in Shasta County, California, three people died as a result of a fire there. So this continues over and over. At this point, we're looking at 36,000 acres, zero percent containment.
Of course, as we cover these stories, whether it's a shooting or any type of incident that involves people, it's important to not just talk about the what, but the why. Experts continue to tell us that we are seeing the results of global climate change with those CO2 emissions causing rises in temperature, causing earlier snow melt, lower precipitation. When you are a firefighter on the front lines trying to fight these fires, that is what you are dealing with. And, of course, the future is even more bleak than that. The latest national climate assessment tells us that for western -- the western part of the United States, we are looking at two to six times more areas burned in the coming future.
Jim. Poppy.
HARLOW: Wow, two to six times.
Josh Campbell, thank you for being there for us. It's tragic what's happened.
Kentucky's attorney general is doing an about face this morning. He is complying with a judge's order to release the grand jury recordings in the Breonna Taylor case. Ahead, what one juror said that prompted this move.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:57:26]
SCIUTTO: Welcome back.
Kentucky's attorney general now says that he will release recordings of grand jury deliberations in the case of Breonna Taylor. The attorney general, Daniel Cameron, says that the grand jury ultimately decided no charges should be filed against the officers in Taylor's death.
HARLOW: However, one officer was charged for firing into a neighbor's apartment despite the bullets that went into Breonna Taylor's apartment.
Shimon Prokupecz is live for us again in Louisville, Kentucky.
Good morning, Shimon.
The A.G. there, Cameron, initially resisted these calls because grand juries, I mean, for people who don't know, they're like all in secrecy. You never usually get recordings or transcripts or anything. But now the public is going to get it. Why?
SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, an unprecedented step. A grand juror has filed a motion saying that the attorney general mischaracterized their work, mischaracterized exactly the evidence that they were looking at. And so as a result of that, this grand juror coming forward yesterday, the attorney general issued a statement.
And here's what he said. He said that the grand jury is meant to be a secretive body. It's apparent that the public interest in this case isn't going to allow that to happen. As the special prosecutor, our team has an ethical obligation not to release the recordings from the grand jury proceedings, and we stand by our belief that such a release could compromise the ongoing federal investigation and could have unintended consequences such as poisoning the jury pool.
And as I said, this happened after a lawyer filed a motion on behalf of an unidentified anonymous grand juror who complained about the way the attorney general characterized their role, the grand juror's role.
And here's what the grand juror says in their motion. They say that the Attorney General Cameron attempted to make it very clear that the grand jury alone made the decision on who and what to charge. Using the grand jurors as a shield to deflect accountability and responsibility for these decisions only sows more seeds of doubt in a process while leaving a cold chill down the spines of future grand jurors.
And, of course, the issue here for the Breonna Taylor family, for the lawyers and for many of the people who have been out here protesting, wanting to see charges against these officers is exactly what evidence did the attorney general present regarding the death of Breonna Taylor? Well, I think that's all going to be very clear now. The attorney general admitting that he only presented that one -- charges of wanton endangerment to the jury.
[10:00:01]
SCIUTTO: Shimon Prokupecz, still so much to learn there. Thanks very much for being on the story.
PROKUPECZ: Yes.
