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Dodge City, Kansas, Mayor Resigns over Threats for Supporting Mask Mandate as Cases Rise; Interview with Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D- IL); Putin: If Russia Wanted Navalny Killed, It Would Have "Finished" the Job. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 17, 2020 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR & CNN HOST, "S.E. CUPP UNFILTERED": It makes no sense strategically. It's nonsense. If I were a Georgia voter, I would be pretty offended.

BRIANNE KEILAR, CNN HOST: I want to turn to a story you wrote about. The longtime Republican mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, who recently left the Republican Party, just resigned after receiving threats for publicly supporting a mask mandate.

You have coronavirus deaths, hospitalizations, new cases that hit an all-time high in this country.

Why does this continue to be so political when we are confronted with this undeniable death toll?

CUPP: It's political. And it's also, I should point out, sexist. I looked at a lot of resignations since the pandemic. People put it around 70 resignations of public health officials. They're not famous, high-paid people. These are county health directors.

The majority of the ones who have resigned because of threats, are women. They've been subjected to sexist attacks, being called the "C" word, being stalked, their kids being used. It's unfortunate and gross.

This is a time when you want people in those jobs who know what they're doing and are not going to bow to political pressures or vigilantism.

Unfortunately, for people like you and me, Brianna, we get attacks, but that should not come with those jobs. Those jobs should be protected from that kind of vigilante mob justice.

Unfortunately, we're seeing too many, too many resignations of good, qualified women in public health.

KEILAR: Thank you for talking about that and highlighting that, S.E. Always great to talk with you. CUPP: Thanks.

KEILAR: Next, the Senate majority leader says Congress may have to work through the weekend to get a COVID relief bill passed. I'm going to speak with Senator Duckworth about what the holdup is.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:36:02]

KEILAR: Lawmakers are closing in on a second economic relief package after months of negotiations. We will, though, have to wait a few more days before a deal is finalized.

Here's the latest from the Senate majority leader.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): For the information of all Senators, we're going to stay right here, right here, until we are finished, even if that means working through the weekend, which is highly likely.

If we need to further extend the Friday funding deadline before final legislation is passed in both chambers, I hope we'll extend it for a very, very short, short window of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Senator McConnell is referring to the Friday government shutdown deadline.

I'm joined by Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois, to talk about what we're seeing happening in Congress.

Senator, thank you so much for being with us.

Are you confident and in agreement with the Senate majority leader that Congress will avert a shutdown and there will be a small stopgap measure passed that will keep the government open until the final deal on this stimulus is reached?

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): I want to be more hopeful than that. I want to pass the stimulus itself. I don't intend on stopping working until we have a stimulus deal.

I also think that some sort of deal to respond to COVID is also vitally important.

I don't intend to stop working or celebrate Christmas until we get this deal done.

KEILAR: It looks like Democrats have dropped state and local aid, which was a point of contention with Republicans. But there's unemployment, there are stimulus checks for Americans, there's assistance for small business. Is it enough for what Americans really need right now?

DUCKWORTH: Well, it's not enough, but it is better than nothing.

So right now, I think the goaled number is around $600. We'll still discussing who gets those checks.

Also talking about some money that Democrats would like to put in there, about $40 million to go to states for distribution. There's some questions about that. I think some of the Republicans don't support that.

I do think we need to provide funding for our state governments, especially when it comes to pandemic response. So we will continue to negotiate and keep working on it.

KEILAR: Do you think there will be another similar rescue bill shortly before President-Elect Biden becomes President Biden?

DUCKWORTH: I will push hard for another rescue bill. We desperately need to send money to state and local governments.

I just got off a call with a half dozen of my mayors in Illinois.

They all said the same thing, we are now laying off first responders or not able to hire new first responders. We're at that point.

If you don't spend money to help us, because we have lost tax revenue, we will not be able to provide something as basic as public health and safety.

That's one thing I will be pushing very hard on with the Biden administration.

KEILAR: You are, of course, a combat veteran, a Purple Heart recipient. President Trump tweeted again today he will veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which is a critical military spending bill.

What plan does the Senate have to override that possible veto?

DUCKWORTH: We have enough votes to override that veto in the House and the Senate. It passed the Senate by 80 votes or something, so we have enough to override the veto.

It's shameful that President Trump would vote against or troops, that he would veto a pay raise for our troops. There's funding in that bill for training, for equipment, for taking care of military families.

[14:40:08]

He is connecting his personal vendetta against social media companies to this budget. So we'll come back and override it.

I'm not going to celebrate Christmas until we get our job done here in Washington. KEILAR: Federal agencies revealed they were hacked and that it is,

they believe, by Russia. But at this point, we haven't heard from the president.

What's your reaction to that?

DUCKWORTH: I'm not surprised. We should. He's never called out Russia or Vladimir Putin for their bad actions, and I'm not surprised.

I can't believe in all the tweeting he's done, he has not tweeted at least, the very least of this condemnation.

It's basically cyberwarfare against multiple agencies, everything from health care to national defense.

It's not surprising. But, you know, it's really sad that our president still, to this day, won't stand up to the Russians.

KEILAR: I wanted to ask you about something that Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. She said the Democratic Party needs new leadership.

She also said there's been a failure to groom new Democratic leaders. I think specifically she was also talking about the House, but to get rid of some of the Democratic leaders that that would create a vacuum.

So it's set up as a situation where it can't be done, but she says there should be new leadership.

What do you think about what she said?

DUCKWORTH: Well, I think the Democratic Party is a large umbrella, and we welcome all voices and all diversity. I think that's the strength of the Democratic Party.

I know, for example, I've been able to participate in the Democratic Party on everything from policy issues to helping pass legislation, even in a Trump administration.

I'm very comfortable with where we can come together and work together. That's my focus, to come together as a party to work for the American people.

We still have to pass another stimulus bill. We still have to get our kids back in school safely. We have to get more vaccine, more vials of vaccine so that Americans can get vaccinated.

We have a lot of work in front of us. I would rather focus on that before we start sort of soul-searching for the Democratic Party.

Let's talk about the American people and what working families need first.

KEILAR: Do you want to see more young Democratic talent groomed?

DUCKWORTH: Well, there's a lot of Democratic talent out there. A lot of it is being groomed. But I will tell what you we need is a diversity of voices.

We need folks from the middle of the country, the industrial Midwest, to talk about what the people in our country need, the desperation that exists among our farming families, desperation among places that used to have manufacturing that's now left.

We have a lot we can talk about. And I do think we have those voices that are emerging within the party.

But again, the first priority for me is let's get this COVID response package passed. Let's pass a defense budget. Let's get back to work and get the American people the help they need and get people vaccinated.

KEILAR: Senator, thank you so much for being with us. We're looking to see what Congress can achieve here in the coming days.

DUCKWORTH: Thank you.

KEILAR: Senator Tammy Duckworth with us there.

And next, a widespread hack of several U.S. government agencies. And intelligence officials say Russia is to blame. Now one of President Trump's own former advisers is urging him to take action.

[14:44:03]

Plus, Russian President Vladimir Putin responds to a CNN investigation about the poisoning of an opposition leader, by saying, that if he wanted the man dead, Russia would have finished the job.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: A massive cyberattack on the American government is affecting at least three major U.S. agencies. And the top suspect in this sophisticated large-scale hacking is Russia.

CNN has confirmed that systems belonging to the Departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security and Commerce were all compromised.

"The Washington Post" reporting that the Treasury Department was also impacted.

President Trump's former Homeland Security adviser, Tom Bossert, says the threat is even greater.

In a "New York Times" op-ed, Bossert says this:

"The number of organizations that downloaded the corrupted update could be as many as 18,000, which includes most federal government unclassified networks and more than 425 Fortune 500 companies. The magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate."

Bossert headed the Trump administration's cybersecurity efforts before he was pushed out in April of 2018.

I want to bring in CNN's senior national security correspondent, Alex Marquardt, to talk about this.

Alex, when you see it put into that context, it is crazy. So how did this happen, and what's being done about it?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, you called it a sophisticated attack and that's right. This was extraordinarily sophisticated.

And it was based on trusted software that is widely used, as you saw in that Bossert quote, by both the federal government and the private sector.

[14:50:01]

The intruders didn't break in so much as they slipped in. They used a software update to get in. And now the question is: How can you fix this?

The first thing the cyber agency, CISA, which is under the Department of Homeland Security, said was, take all of your devices offline that use this software.

But now, going forward, they're going to try to figure out to what extent this breach was -- allowed the intruders to get access to valuable information.

And, Brianna, that could take a very long time. It could take months, more than a year. We may not know the full extent. That's how sophisticated it is.

This was an ongoing attack. The government has said that. The Russians are still inside these government systems.

Just a short time ago, we got another alarming alert from that cyber agency, CISA. They said that "removing the threat actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging for organizations."

They also went on to say, Brianna, that "there are ways that these actors got in that have not yet been revealed."

Tactics that have not yet been revealed. And that speaks to the complexity and the ongoing nature of this attack by, as you say, actors that are suspected from coming from Russia -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Wow.

Alex Marquardt, thank you for your report.

After days of silence, Russian President Vladimir Putin is responding today to an exclusive investigation by CNN and Bellingcat into last summer's poisoning of Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.

The investigation uncovered evidence that an elite Russian intelligence team specializing in nerve agents trailed Navalny for years. Putin today claimed, if Russian special services had wanted to kill

the opposition leader, they would have, quote, "finished it."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translation): In this case, of course, the special services should keep an eye on him. But it doesn't mean that he needs to be poisoned. Who needs him anyway? If they wanted to, they probably would have followed it through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: All right. Joining me is CNN's chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward.

Clarissa, it was an extraordinary response from Vladimir Putin. Tell us more about how he and other key Russian officials are responding to this exclusive reporting.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, it's important to point out that there was absolutely no response for almost 36 hours. And then, finally today, we hear from the president himself.

And essentially he's not really denying the core facts of our story. He's not denying that an elite team of FSB operative was trailing Navalny's move, every single move, for more than 30 trips over three years.

The excuse he gave for that is the key. He said Navalny was working with U.S. intelligence services and that, because he was working with U.S. intelligence services, it would be reasonable for Russian intelligence services to follow him.

But he stopped short of agreeing to admit that they had anything to do with the poisoning.

As you said -- you played that sound from him yourself. If we wanted to finish it or if they wanted to finish it, they would have followed through. I.E., Alexei Navalny would be dead.

What's important to remember, if that pilot on that flight to Moscow had not diverted to Omsk, had continued to fly another three hours with Navalny on board, who at that time was extremely sick, almost every expert we've spoken to has said the same thing, Alexei Navalny would, in fact, be dead.

One other interesting detail that also I found quite chilling just listening to President Putin talking about Navalny. He never calls him by his name. Never.

He will only refer to him as the patient in Berlin, referring to the fact, of course, he went for medical treatment after he was poisoned to Berlin.

And that, I think, gives you a sense of just how much of a threat he sees Navalny as.

Of course, on the major allegation of our piece, there was no real answer. And that is not just that he was being followed by a bunch of FSB operatives but that those FSB operatives were experts in chemistry. They were medics, doctors.

And they were in regular contact with a laboratory here in Moscow, the Signal Institute, that CNN and Bellingcat have determined has been researching and developing Novichok. No response to that allegation -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Your report is fascinating just in how many dots you connect there.

And I know you've been digging into this case involving Alexei Navalny for a while now. What are the biggest unanswered questions remaining at this point?

WARD: I mean, the main question remaining is: Is there definitive proof available that those FSB operatives, who we can place at the scene of the crime, actually were the ones to place the poison somehow on or into Navalny's person?

I'm determined that we will find out -- Brianna?

KEILAR: We'll be watching, Clarissa. Again, thank you so much. We've been talking the past few days about your exclusive reporting. It has been phenomenal.

[14:55:05]

We thank you again for being with us to talk about it. Clarissa Ward.

Next, as the FDA meets to potentially authorize a second vaccine, a powerful winter storm hitting the northeast. Details on whether it's impacting the delivery of any vaccine shipments that are already on the road.

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[15:00:02]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi there. You're watching CNN on this Thursday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being here.

We begin with what could be another historical moment in the fight against this pandemic.