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Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is Interviewed about the Relief Package; Political Leaders Facing Backlash; Gang Rapes at Chinese Internment Camps. Aired 9:30-10a ET.

Aired February 19, 2021 - 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: Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont is with me. He's also newly the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

It's good to have you. Good morning.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): It's good to be with you, Poppy.

HARLOW: You know, no one can debate or argue with the fact that Americans are in desperate need of help. We know that. But the Republicans see it differently than you guys do in terms of the scope, the size of this package, how it's targeted, exactly what it does. And I want to ask you about pushing this through reconciliation, potentially with no Republicans, because you have, for so long, been a supporter of bipartisanship.

I mean I, this morning, went back and read an op-ed you wrote in 2011 in "The Hill" and you said, a new Congress brings a new opportunity to bridge the gap and restore bipartisanship. We have a new Congress. We have a new president. And I wonder if you're concerned about the first major piece of legislation that goes through the Biden administration not being bipartisan at all and if that just drives division more in this country?

LEAHY: I hope it can be bipartisan by the time we get done. First off, though, everybody's got to realize we need the legislation. The country is hurting. The pandemic is continuing. If we don't get help, especially in rural areas, small towns and cities, we could face as much as a generation being set back. We have to move forward.

President Biden has been very strong on that. I know a lot of Republicans will say privately that they know we have to go forward but what about this or that? I point out that in the past almost all of the reconciliation bills have been bipartisan. Republicans and Democrats coming together. We should do that.

I've already begun meetings in the Appropriations Committee, meeting privately with both Republicans and Democrats, saying, let's work together. I think on the Appropriations Committee we can.

I'm hoping by the time the reconciliation bill hits the floor, people realize that people in their states are hurting badly and they need this help.

HARLOW: So, Senator, if -- I know you want it to be bipartisan. But if it's not and if it gets through without any Republican support, there's now pretty much an agreement that the process for infrastructure, for an infrastructure bill, could also be done through reconciliation because of the impact on the budget. Would you support that? Meaning, is it just this one, or is this how it's going to go forward if it needs to for anything related to the budget?

LEAHY: Well, if you can't get bipartisan support, this probably will be the way. But I think we're a lot better off if we can work out bipartisan bills.

For example, we've done this in appropriations where we've gotten almost all senators in both parties to support our appropriations bills. I know the senior Republican on the vice chairman of the committee, Dick Shelby, wants to do that. I want to do that. I think we can bring together both Republicans and Democrats in Appropriations.

But we can't sit here and just keep talking back and forth and doing nothing.

HARLOW: So --

LEAHY: The fact is the American people need help right now.

HARLOW: So on this issue of, are we going to compromise, are we going to get along and get, you know, at least 60 votes to get, you know, legislation through, other legislation through the Senate, is the issue of the filibuster and where it stands, and your Democratic colleagues are divided on this. You've got even Biden, you know, saying that he has an openness to eliminating it. You have Chuck Schumer a few months ago saying the same.

You said in 2019 that you don't want the Senate to change the legislative filibuster. And that things need to come back to voting and working together. Joe Manchin, you know, has used the choice word BS when it comes to eliminating the filibuster.

Do you agree with Joe Manchin? Where are you now on this?

LEAHY: Joe can be -- Joe Manchin can be a little bit more direct than I can, and I love him for it. But the -- I would much prefer to see us work things out together, having amendments on the floor.

One of the problems we had during the last few years, Mitch McConnell would not allow amendments to come to the floor. I think Chuck Schumer's willing to.

Vote things up or down. If you just hide behind, well, we don't have the votes, we can't have the amendment, that's the way of saying, I don't want to take a position. We're not elected to avoid taking positions. I have cast more votes than all but a couple of senators in the history of the country.

[09:35:01]

And I can look back over 16,000 votes and say, there must be some in there I would do differently. But so be it. Vote the best way you can when you do. Don't hide behind arcane rules that block you from voting.

HARLOW: OK.

Senator, let me -- I want to end on this because you, obviously, voted to convict the president but you also presided over the impeachment, the second impeachment trial of President Trump. And constitutional law Professor Michael Gerhardt served as your special counsel during that process. I thought what he said to my colleague Pamela Brown about where we are after it was really interesting.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think the fact that Congress has once again acquitted a president has siphoned power away from the legislative branch and made the executive branch more powerful?

MICHAEL GERHARDT, SPECIAL COUNSEL TO SEN. LEAHY FOR SECOND TRUMP IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: I think Senator Sasse is absolutely correct. I think that what happens when presidents get acquitted, as has happened twice with Mr. Trump, that makes the presidency stronger and it makes Congress weaker.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Do you agree with him as you reflect on that trial?

LEAHY: I think that can be so. I have a huge amount of respect for the professor. He worked with me during this trial. His advice was invaluable.

I was concerned that in a case that was so clear cut, why there weren't more guilty votes on the Republican side, albeit, of course, they were the most they'd ever had. And it was the highest number for any impeachment trial.

But, you know, I was a prosecutor. I was a trial lawyer. And I sat through every second of that thing because I had -- I presided over the trial. I thought the case, the evidence was overwhelming. Even some of those who voted not guilty said that they thought it was overwhelming, but it was a political decision.

Mitch McConnell probably explained best what happened. He voted not guilty and then gave a speech saying the president's conduct was terrible and there was still going to be consequences in courts, in both in the criminal courts and the civil courts around the country. And I think there will be. I think that this bipartisan commission that Speaker Pelosi wants to have is a superb one. And I think we should -- we should really rely on that. I've talked with her about it. They should have subpoena power, and we should be able to go forward.

HARLOW: OK.

Senator Leahy, thank you. I heard the phone ringing so hope you didn't miss an important call in the background.

LEAHY: No, no, no, somebody got the phone, don't worry.

HARLOW: Thank you, Senator.

We'll be right back.

LEAHY: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:42:22]

HARLOW: So right now there are a number of lawmakers, leaders facing pretty widespread backlash during their states being in crisis. In Texas, Senator Ted Cruz tried to go to Cancun while his state was freezing. Well, he got caught and now he came back and he says he regrets it.

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration is being investigated for its handling of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes. The state's attorney general says those deaths were undercounted by as much as 50 percent. And then there's the alleged call threatening a fellow Democratic lawmaker in New York.

And in California, the effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom gaining some momentum centered on his handling of the pandemic and some perceived failures in leadership there.

No one better to bring in than Dana Bash, our anchor and chief political correspondent.

Dana, great to have you.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Nice to be here, Poppy.

HARLOW: It's -- I'm not going to say, you know, equal opportunity offenders. These are different things. But we're talking about big name leaders in both parties letting their people down in moments of crisis.

What do you think?

BASH: That this is when voters are paying attention. You know, it's easy to, you know, idolize a governor or even just like different parts of his or her persona when things are OK. When things are bad, the expectation is that they step up because if people are unable to go to school or to, you know, go to work, like that is, you know, the case all over the country, but particularly in California and New York, people are dying, or in Texas, you know, unprecedented situation, natural disaster going on, people are really scrutinizing leaders because this is what they are there for.

You know, Poppy, I remember covering George W. Bush's re-election campaign in 2004. And one of his kind of punch lines and funny lines is, when he thanked the mayor -- when he thanked the mayor for being there, he would say, fix the potholes. And it was a joke, but it was also --

HARLOW: But real.

BASH: Very telling because that is what people are looking at.

HARLOW: Yes.

BASH: And so you have these -- and I'll tell you, Maeve Reston, our colleague, did a great story that's on cnn.com about all of this.

HARLOW: It's a great piece. Yes.

BASH: And all of these people that you just mentioned are up for re- election. And so they're going to be viewed through a very different lens understandably than they would have been a year ago.

HARLOW: Yes. For sure.

And then with Cruz, our K-file team, you know, nothing you write or say ever goes away with those folks.

[09:45:04]

And they dug up a Ted Cruz comment, I think it was a tweet back in December, calling people hypocrites, complete and upper hypocrites. He said, don't forget Mayor Adler, Texas mayor, who took a private jet with eight people to Cancun while in Cabo, recorded a video telling Americans stay home if you can. This is not the time to relax.

My point in that is, it's like, OK, so clearly he's being hypocritical now. But my question out of it is, what were they thinking across the board?

BASH: Yes.

HARLOW: Like, how much do you think hubris plays into this and believing that you are, you know, Teflon?

BASH: A lot of that. Right. Believing your own publicity. Obviously, as you said, they're very different factors and very different dynamics with all of these individuals. But with Ted Cruz, I mean, there's the hypocrisy that you just showed.

But then there's also the underlying anger that's going on. I mean, Poppy, I've talked to Republicans in Texas over the past few days who are so upset at all of their leaders, all of them -- all of their leaders. So that is the context in which Ted Cruz had this unbelievable gaffe and a gaffe with images which can be, you know, thrown all over the Internet with memes that are endless making fun of him. And -- but it is -- it is rooted in anger and real fear about what's going on with them personally.

HARLOW: Yes, for sure. Dana, thank you for the big picture.

BASH: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: You do so well putting it all in perspective. You should -- if only you were the adviser to all of them.

Dana, thank you.

OK, we'll be right back.

BASH: No thanks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:51:15]

HARLOW: Shocking allegations are emerging of gang rape at detention camps in China's Xinjiang region. The U.S. government accused China of the mass internment of up to 2 million members of mostly Muslim ethnic minority groups, namely the Uighur population, in this province in recent years and it is what the State Department now says amounts to genocide.

Beijing denies this, claiming the camps are vocational training centers aimed at creating jobs and stamping out Islamist extremism. A warning, the following story has language that many viewers will find very disturbing and if children are watching, this is not an appropriate story for them to see.

Here is the reporting from my colleague Ivan Watson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The traumatized survivor of a nine-month nightmare. Tursunay Ziyawudun, a refugee from China' Xinjiang region, describes the torture and rape she says she endured during detention at a Chinese internment camp.

WATSON (on camera): How is your health today after your experience in the camps?

TURSUNAY ZIYAWUDUN, FORMER XINJIANG CAMP DETAINEE (through translator): I was in a lot of pain and suffered bleeding. After I arrived in the U.S., I had to undergo surgery and my uterus was removed. I've suffered a lot of damage.

WATSON (voice over): Tursunay is an ethnic Uighur. In March 2018, she says police in Xinjiang detained her at a so-called vocational training center for women. ZIYAWUDUN (through translator): Because I lived in Kazakhstan for five

years, they wanted me to confess to say I was influenced by American propaganda and foreign organizations.

WATSON: During one interrogation, Tursunay says guard beat and kicked her until she blacked out. In the camp, Tursunay says authorities began forcibly implanting female detainees with contraceptive IUDs. After a botched procedure led to breeding, she says she was taken into a room.

ZIYAWUDUN (through translator): There were three guards, they inserted a stun baton inside me and twisted and shocked me with it. I passed out.

WATSON: On a separate occasion, she says guards wearing masks once again took her from her cell.

ZIYAWUDUN (through translator): In the next room, I heard another girl crying and screaming. I saw about five men going into that room. I thought they were torturing her, but then I was gang raped. After that, I realized what they also did to her.

WATSON: Tursunay first revealed these claims in an interview with the BBC. The Chinese government did not answer our questions about the women named in this report, but Beijing did vehemently deny any human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

WENG WANBIN, CHINESE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (through translator): There has never been such a thing as systemic sexual abuse or mistreatment against women. China is a country ruled by law.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why you are here?

WATSON: There's strict state censorship in Xinjiang and police followed and harassed CNN journalists when they last visited.

WATSON (on camera): Tursunay claims she was held at a facility outside the city of Ghulja. CNN has also obtained rare testimony from another woman who says she worked in a camp near the city of Urumqi.

QELBINUR SIDIK, FORMER TEACHER IN XINJIANG CAMP (through translator): The woman all had their hair shaved off. They wore gray uniforms with orange vests and printed numbers on them.

WATSON (voice over): For 28-years, Qelbinur Sidik worked as an elementary school teacher. In 2017, she says she was ordered to teach mandarin at an internment camp holding thousands of women. Speaking from relative safety in the Netherlands, Qelbinur says on her first day of work in the camp, she witnessed a disturbing sight.

SIDIK (through translator): Two soldiers were carrying a Uighur girl out on a stretcher. There was no spark of life on her face.

[09:55:02]

Later, a female police officer told me the girl died on her way to the hospital due to heavy bleeding.

WATSON: Although Qelbinur did not know the cause of the woman's death, she says later that same female police officer told her male guards routinely gang raped detainees at the camp. The officer also told her --

SIDIK (through translator): When they drank at night, policemen told each other how they raped and tortured girls.

WATSON: In previous reporting on China's mass internment policy in Xinjiang, CNN heard testimony from Gubahard Galilaba (ph), a citizen of Kazakhstan, who alleges that she endured sexual assault from a guard during prolonged detention in Xinjiang.

CNN cannot independently verify the accounts of these women. China has attacked their credibility, calling these women actors playing victims from Xinjiang.

WATSON (on camera): The Chinese government says no women are abused in the camps. What do you say to the Chinese government?

ZIYAWUDUN (through translator): I am a 43-year-old woman. Do you think this is something I can be proud of sharing with the whole world? I would tell them that I'm not afraid of them anymore because they already killed my soul.

WATSON (voice over): She hopes her brave decision to speak out will encourage others to do the same.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Wow. What an incredibly important story.

Ivan Watson, thank you for that reporting.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)