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Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) Is Interviewed about the Compromise Package; FBI Raids Homes of Deripaska; Clarissa Ward's New Podcast. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired October 20, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:36]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden set to make major cuts to what was a $3.5 trillion spending bill, telling Democratic lawmakers he's ready to drop that price tag by more than a trillion dollars. What's out, two years of free community college, paid family leave also trimmed, the child tax credit paired back. This morning, there are major signals, though, that progressives are willing to sign on and to compromise.

Here to discuss, Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York. He's a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, vice chair of the Homeland Security Committee.

Good morning. Good to have you with us, Congressman.

I have to say, I have noticed a clear change in the language and the messaging which started last night, has certainly continued into this morning, specifically from Representatives Khanna, Bera here on our air, also, you know, Congresswoman Jayapal. They're far more optimistic.

What happened in that meeting? Did the president give an ultimatum?

REP. RITCHIE TORRES (D-NY): No, the president was listening to the priorities of each member. And, you know, the president is a man on a mission. He's intent on passing not one but two of the largest infrastructure investments in the history of the United States. And the purpose of the meeting was to impress upon members of Congress the fierce urgency of delivering for the American people. The president wants to get this done as quickly as possible. And that was the core of his message.

HILL: But there is something that changed, that this urgency, which has been there, seems to have taken on new significance and new meaning. Is this simply about the president needing something when he goes to Glasgow or is there more to it?

TORRES: I think there are two dynamics at work. I mean first is the deadline. The surface transportation authorization is set to expire on October 31st. And so there's a greater sense of urgency as we approach the deadline. And as you noted, you know, toward the end of October, the president is set to go to the G-20 and he views the Build Back Better Act not only in domestic terms, but in geopolitical terms. It's important for the United States to demonstrate that we can lead on critical challenges like climate change and that democracies cannot only survive but thrive in the 21st century. So he views it from a global perspective.

HILL: Was there any discussion about domestic concerns about next year's midterms?

TORRES: There was no discussion of politics. The conversation was primarily centered around policies and the people whose lives are going to be uplifted as a result of those policies. Whether it's the child tax credit --

HILL: So -- I was just going to say, speaking of those policies, I know that -- it's my understanding you made it clear to the president, the two that are most important to you are the child tax credit and affordable housing.

TORRES: Yes.

HILL: So take -- let's take those one by one.

When we look at the child tax credit, what we're hearing is this now would only be extended by one year. It would likely be means tested. You said back in April, the American Families Plan is incomplete without a permanent child tax credit going on to say, without making that permanent, we'll live to regret it.

Can you support a bill that does not make this permanent or would you regret that?

TORRES: Look, I have a rule of never negotiating in public. But the president is keenly aware that my highest priority is the child tax credit. And I said to the president, he could be to the 21st century what FDR was to the 20th century. But the greatest difference between FDR's New Deal and Joe Biden's Build Back Better is racial equity. And there's no greater triumph of racial equity than the child tax credit, which has led to radical reductions in poverty for black and brown families and we have an obligation to sustain those reductions well into the future.

I do have a concern that a one-year expansion would be a death sentence for the child tax credit if the Republicans were to assume control in 2022. The child tax credit would likely be left to expire. Millions of children would likely be plunged into poverty and our greatest triumph of great racial equity would likely be undone. So I'm going to fight my heart out to ensure that there's a long-term expansion of the child tax credit.

HILL: Congressman Ro Khanna, this morning, told my colleague, Brianna Keilar, I think we feel once we extend it the Republicans won't be able to take it away. Do you see then this being a separate bill down the line? TORRES: I mean I respectfully disagree with that analysis. You know, a

Republican Party that's willing to derail the peaceful transfer of power and sacrifice the full faith and credit of the United States is more than willing to deny income support to poor people. So I would not take for granted the inevitability of an expanded child tax credit. Our mission should be to expand it for as long as we can.

HILL: Looking at affordable housing. You spearheaded a letter that was signed by a number of others this week.

[09:35:04]

But you -- specifically about affordable housing. And you listed some priorities in there that by my quick math added up to about $7.2 billion. I think we can put those up on the screen.

We're hearing numbers perhaps that were floated in the meeting yesterday that fall short of that number. Can you tell us what the president's commitment to you if at all was on housing, affordable housing in this bill, and if that number falls short, is it a deal breaker for you?

TORRES: Look, there was no number that was specified, but there's a concern that affordable housing could be on the chopping block. And, you know, what I said, you know, in my conversations with the president, I quoted the great philosopher Jimmy McMillan (ph), who famously said, the rent is too damn high. I said, Mr. President, we can't build back better if the rent is too damn high. And the United States has become dangerously unaffordable. So unaffordable that we're leaving behind our essential workers.

You know, in the United States we have the working poor. We increasingly have the working homeless, right. Fifty percent of the household heads in the New York City shelter system are working people. Many of them are essential workers who put their lives at risk for all of us, but who find themselves languishing in a shelter because the rent is too damn high.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there's not a single county in America where an essential worker earning minimum wage could afford a two-bedroom apartment. Our essential workers made our country work for us. We have to make our country work for them. We have to make America affordable to all Americans.

HILL: I only have time for a yes or no, do you think the president heard you?

TORRES: Look, the president said that he has seen the power of Section 8 housing in his own life, so he understands on a personal level the importance of affordable housing.

HILL: Yes. Congressman Ritchie Torres, appreciate it. We'll continue the conversation. Thanks.

TORRES: Of course.

SCIUTTO: Yes, we'll see if the president was listening.

Ahead, the FBI raids two homes connected to a central figure in the Russia investigation. What could the feds be searching for there? I'm going to speak to former FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe. That's next.

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[09:41:37]

SCIUTTO: The FBI has raided two homes tied to a Russian oligarch who was a central figure in the Mueller investigation. Investigators search locations in Washington and New York linked to Oleg Deripaska. This in connection to a probe based out of the FBI's New York office. Deripaska has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was connected as well to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The U.S. sanctioned Deripaska back in 2018 in response to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Joining me no to discuss, Andrew McCabe, CNN's senior law enforcement analyst, of course, former deputy director at the FBI.

Andrew McCabe, good to have you on this morning.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So a representative for Deripaska released a statement saying that these searches related to a U.S. sanctions investigation, as opposed to looking back at the Mueller investigation regarding election interference in 2016. Based on your reading of this, does that seem accurate to you?

MCCABE: Well, it's the -- I think it's the most likely explanation. However, I would point out that there is really no way to separate the sanctions from the Mueller investigation. You'll recall that in April of 2018, Deripaska was sanctioned, along with about six other oligarchs and several government officials because of their involvement in meddling in the presidential election in 2016. So one is -- is really connected to the other.

SCIUTTO: Are there still -- of course the Mueller investigation went on for a number of years, investigating those central claims, right, of one, how Russia interfered, but was there any involvement of Trump campaign officials, and except for a couple instances, for instance, Paul Manafort sharing internal campaign data with a Russian contact attached to Russian intelligence, Mueller was not able to stand up the central claims or suspicions or allegations.

Is that -- are those threads done as far as you're concerned?

MCCABE: Well, I think some of them are probably dead ends at this point. So, for instance, continued investigation of Paul Manafort would be essentially time wasted, right? Manafort has been -- was pardoned by President Trump, so really can't be held responsible for those things any longer. However, that doesn't mean that the FBI should stop focusing intently on characters like Oleg Deripaska and others, Russian oligarchs, Russian business men who clearly were engaged with individuals associated with Russian intelligence, like Constantine Kilimnik, to undermine our democracy in 2016. So that investigation, the counterintelligence implications of that investigation I would be pretty confident continue to this day.

SCIUTTO: The trend lines here are not good because in 2016 Russia interfered. The question was, did they get help from the Trump team. That's not been able to be -- to stand up. But in 2020, you had, for instance, Rudy Giuliani openly meeting with the Ukrainians tied to Russian intelligence who seemed to be providing him deliberately, right, and him accepting, you know, some false information about Joe Biden.

You have a very real possibility of Trump running again. I just wonder, where has the country been left after all this. If you haven't policed it so far, and there really haven't been any penalties, does it just make it more likely to happen again?

[09:45:04]

MCCABE: There's no question, Jim. 2016 opened the door and in 2020 we saw people like Rudy Giuliani and others associated with the administration run through that door, right? Not just walk through it, but run through it in a very blatant and forward way.

Let's not forget that the special counsel team was able to draw a very, very tight line from Oleg Deripaska through his deputy, Viktor Boyarkin (ph), to Constantine Kilimnik, who was the deputy of Paul Manafort. We absolutely know that Manafort was directing the exchange of internal polling data. Some of the precise communications the Mueller team was not able to get because Manafort was using encrypted platforms to do those and also because he lied about it. We know he lied about it. That's why he lost his agreement and ultimately got convicted and went to jail. So it happened. They just couldn't prove it in a way to bring it into court and prove conspiracy.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCCABE: In 2020, Giuliani was just open about it, right, traveling to Ukraine, meeting with known intelligence service connected people, trafficking in disinformation that had been provided to him essentially by the Russians.

So this is a flood that we absolutely have to stop if we don't want -- if we want, excuse me, to keep the malign influence of foreign governments like Russia out of our democratic process.

SCIUTTO: Well, there was legislation before Congress, blocked by Republicans, and none since introduced by Democrats when they controlled both chambers. We'll see if that action takes place.

Andrew McCabe, thanks so much.

MCCABE: That's right.

Thanks, Jim.

HILL: Still ahead, Queen Elizabeth canceling a trip due to medical advice. What Buckingham Palace is saying, next.

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[09:51:16]

HILL: Queen Elizabeth has canceled a trip to northern Ireland. This cancellation coming at the last minute after royal doctors advised her to rest. The queen, of course, is 95. She was supposed to visit today and tomorrow. Buckingham Palace, though, says this morning that she reluctantly accepted that medical advice and decided to cancel the trip and to rest for the next few days.

SCIUTTO: A source tells CNN this is not related to COVID. The palace released a statement saying, quote, her majesty is in good spirits and is disappointed that she will no longer be able to visit northern Ireland. Get well, we hope.

HILL: Exactly.

Meantime, we are very excited about this. Today CNN Audio is releasing the first episode of Clarissa Ward's podcast "Tug of War." As you know from her reporting, Clarissa is on the front lines of conflicts around the globe. She is documenting some of the greatest power struggles of our time and their impact.

SCIUTTO: For her first episode, she spoke with Afghan citizens who watched two decades of progress crumble under the Taliban's rapid advance taking over the country. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAHARZAD AKBAR: I never thought I'd do this, but I have been encouraging people to leave. No woman's life is going to be better. I mean, yes, you know, hopefully the bloodshed would stop, but Afghan women deserve more. They deserve to live, not just survive. And in any scenario that I can imagine, it's just going to be survival, at least for a while.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward joins us now to discuss.

And, Clarissa, I was speaking with the former Afghan ambassador to the U.S. yesterday who made a very similar point about just the sort of collapse of these hopes for women in Afghanistan. And I wonder, as you were speaking to them there for this podcast, what did you hear? I mean is there any hope?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think the story isn't over yet, Jim, in the sense that the Taliban may not have changed. And we're seeing more and more evidence that they are, in fact, the same organization, or a very similar version of it to what we know of them from the 1990s. But the people of Afghanistan have changed a lot over the last two decades. And we see that in these extraordinary acts of courage from ordinary people, women, taking to the streets, protesting, despite Taliban fighters carrying whips, beating them, trying to disperse them violently. They still return to the streets. They're still demanding their rights.

And so there has been a definite shift, I would say. But this is the sort of whole issue that I'm exploring in this podcast, is this tension between autocracies, which we know are on the rise, and democratic grassroots movements, which are inspiring and fascinating in terms of the level of courage and conviction that they demonstrate. But also in terms of the sort of David and Goliath scenario, whereby you have these huge powerful, often violent actors in state roles, and then ordinary people engaging in these extraordinary acts of courage trying to fight that state and sort of look at -- and how feasible and how successful can these movements really be.

HILL: To that point, I think it's a lot of these stories that really bring people in, especially when we're talking about something like Afghanistan and especially here in the U.S. And it seems to me, at least in my experience listening to podcasts over the last couple of years, one of the things I love about them is that they really give you a little bit more time to explore those connections and really those personal moments to bring people in.

WARD: Absolutely. And this was a learning curve for me. I hadn't done Audio before but I loved it because I get to take the viewer, or the listener in this case, along on the ride with me.

[09:55:07]

And I'm constantly doing little Audio diaries, telling them about the things that I'm seeing, I'm smelling, I'm experiencing, having more vulnerable, emotional moments myself, making connections with people I'm talking to. These are the moments that often don't make it on to the front page of the news or the first story on the evening news, but they really instruct the way you understand or feel about a conflict or a culture or a people. And having a podcast really provides an outlet to explore that and to really get into the storytelling and to take people on the journey with us.

SCIUTTO: Well, it sounds really fascinating.

You can check out -- subscribe as well -- to Clarissa's new podcast "Tug of War." You can find it anywhere you get your favorite podcasts.

Clarissa, thanks so much.

WARD: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, Democrats appear to be nearing a deal on President Biden's signature spending bill but, boy, are they giving up a lot. We have detail about the concessions the president proposed during meetings with progressives and moderates coming up.

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