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Bill Maher Speaks Out; Lawsuit Sheds Light on FOX News and Election Lies; Winter Weather; Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Biden Student Loan Forgiveness Plan. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired February 28, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: U.S. officials say ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, poses an intelligence risk to national security.

And this Navy warship now the USS Robert Smalls, renamed to honor a black sailor born into slavery. Smalls was born in South Carolina, forced to serve on the Confederate side of the Civil War. Eventually, he piloted the ship where he was serving out of Charleston Harbor back to the U.S. Navy. He eventually became captain of that ship, a civil rights advocate, and a member of Congress.

Thanks for your time today on INSIDE POLITICS. We will see you tomorrow.

Abby Phillip picks up our coverage right now.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Abby Phillip in Washington.

And happening right now, Supreme Court hearings under way that could affect millions of people who owe money on their student loans. Justices are hearing arguments in two cases challenging President Biden's plan to wipe away more than $400 billion in student debt. Six Republican-led states and two individuals are challenging its legality.

Let's bring in CNN's Jessica Schneider and Rene Marsh. Both are at the Supreme Court right now.

Jessica, I want to start with you first.

It's no surprise this is a conservative court. And, so far, it sounds like they have been pretty skeptical of the Biden administration's arguments so far. Tell us about what's been happening.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right, Abby.

The conservative members of this court are really given considerable pushback on the idea that President Biden and his administration can even put into place this sweeping debt relief.

They're really zeroing in on the price tag of this program, more than 400-plus-billion dollars. And they're also wondering about the real powers of the presidency and, by way of that, his education secretary, because the main issue in this case is whether or not the Biden administration and the education secretary can wipe away what is a sweeping amount of debt for millions of students.

Forty million students or borrowers are eligible; 26 million so far have applied; 16 million were approved before this program was stopped by the lower courts. And it remains blocked as the Supreme Court hears these arguments. This would really do away with up to $20,000 in debt for a number, millions of borrowers here.

The solicitor general arguing for the Biden administration is saying that, yes, this administration has the power to wipe away some of this debt because of the HEROES Act. And that act, that statute says that the education secretary can waive or modify loan provisions in the event of an emergency.

The administration is pointing to the ongoing COVID pandemic as that emergency, but, again, the conservative justice is here acting very skeptical. They're saying that this big of a program, 400-plus-billion dollars, should really be in the hands of Congress. They asked about separation of powers.

And then Justice Neil Gorsuch and other conservative justices also touched on this idea of fairness. Take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

NEIL GORSUCH, U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: What I think they argue that is missing is cost to other persons in terms of fairness, for example, people who've paid their loans, people who don't -- have planned their lives around not seeking loans, and people who are not eligible for loans in the first place, and that a half-a-trillion dollars is being diverted to one group of favored persons over others.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: So we're hearing a lot of pushback from the conservatives in these ongoing arguments that are still ongoing now, just about three hours in, because, of course, these are two separate cases brought by six Republican-led states and also two individual people who say that they are not eligible for any of this debt relief.

So, Abby, a lot on the line here for millions and millions of student loan borrowers who are really waiting for the Supreme Court to act here to determine if that debt will, in fact, be relieved -- Abby.

PHILLIP: Yes, exactly, so much on the line.

And to that exact point, Rene, you have been covering the rallies outside of the court today. What has been the reaction among the protesters gathered there to all of this?

RENE MARSH, CNN GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes, as Jessica, put it, Abby, a lot of people in limbo at this point.

Outside of the Supreme Court today, we saw students. We saw student loan borrowers. We also saw advocates, all with the same shared story of basically drowning in debt.

We heard lots of different stories out here, from the 25-year-old living in New York City with her parents are, afraid that she may never realize the American dream of financial freedom or homeownership because of her college debt, to Democratic Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, who talked about her struggle to pay off her student loan debt over a course of more than 20 years, to grandparents on fixed incomes who are seeing their benefits garnished to pay off loans that they are in default for.

[13:05:00]

And so we're hearing the full gamut of how this issue impacts people in their everyday lives. But it's not just people who have graduated, also students here today who are just entering their college career. I spoke with one freshman who's already concerned about how she will pay back her loans. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DESTINY PERRY, STUDENT LOAN BORROWER: I'm here because I'm a first- generation college student. And my parents did not go to college.

Most -- the main reason was because of student loans, and they weren't able to afford it. And, right now, I have taken out a lot of loans. I live in a single-parent household of five. And, yes, I'm out here trying to -- trying to just go through college without having to stress about payments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: And while these students and these borrowers will not get their answer as far as how the court rules today, they are waiting anxiously for when that decision does come down, because it is very clear, in talking to many of them here today, they understand it's not just about the loans.

This really is about their financial future, and they get that, and that is why they're so very concerned -- Abby.

PHILLIP: All right. We will have much more to come on this very important stories, as we will follow these two cases really closely.

Thank you, Jessica Schneider and Rene Marsh.

And, right now, we are tracking whether mayhem on both coasts. Nearly 30 million Americans are under winter weather alerts in both the West and the Northeast. You can see the snow blanketing Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston could see up to six inches of snow by the end of the day.

But, also, in parts of California, they are still cleaning up from the last snowfall, and now even more is on the way.

CNN's Jennifer Gray is over in the CNN Weather Center, and Stephanie Elam is over in snowy San Bernardino just east of Los Angeles. Stef, let's start with you. What are the conditions there right now in

this part of California?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's cold. It is very snowy.

We actually just rode up here closer to crest line, Abby, to get a better look. It is foggy. It is still very treacherous at some points, where we see some rockslides and some snowslides onto the road.

All of this has made it very difficult for them to get emergency services to people up there. And a lot of people were trapped over the weekend. In fact, we just talked to a group of friends who were coming up here to an Airbnb to celebrate one of their buddies' birthdays, and a two-hour drive took them 10 hours.

And it got so treacherous on Friday evening that they ended up abandoning one of their cars, and they were just now digging it out. So that just gives you an idea of what they have been dealing with. Over the weekend, we know that there were 600 kids who were at a science camp who were supposed to come home on Friday, but were not able to make it home.

But they got a nice extra escort by officials to get them out over the weekend. They actually got home yesterday, just because that's how bad it was.

What they have seen in this area, Abby, is three times the amount of annual snowfall in less than four days. And guess what? We're not done. This is the first time that we have even seen a blizzard warning for San Bernardino County, was just last week.

We're expecting two to three more feet of snow to come in later on this evening and tomorrow. And, as you can see, they're still very much working on it, because up there you see some of that fog. We were just up there. It's not easy to see. The visibility is low. And there are still a lot of cars under snow abandoned on the side of the highway.

PHILLIP: Yes, and a lot of Californians not used to this kind of weather, rightfully so, who really need to be careful on those roads.

And, Jennifer, to Stephanie's point, is there more winter weather in store for California?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: There is.

We have another huge system that's coming on shore as we speak, so more blizzard warnings in effect for the Sierra. You can see that in orange. We have winter weather advisories all across anywhere from the Southwest to the Rockies to the Northern Plains. So this is going to be a another very impactful storm system, and you can see pushing in rain across the lower elevations.

We will see all snow up the mountains, several more feet of snow expected all the way through tonight into tomorrow, still coming down. This is Wednesday morning, still seeing snow for some of the higher elevations, rain for Southern California and snow for portions of the Southwest. Look at this. We could see wintry precipitation all the way down into Mexico.

So this is going to travel very far south. And look at all of this snow. Here's your snowfall accumulation. We could see anywhere from, say, three to four feet of snow across the Sierra, and that's on top of what has already fallen. And then, across the Rockies in the Southwest, we could see anywhere from six to eight inches, depending on where you are.

So, the big picture, we are going to see snow for the Plains, snow for the West. We have above-average temperatures for the Southeast, and then looking at the Northeast, where we finally got a little bit of snow for some of the big cities. This is existing. So, New York City, you're finished with the snow. Boston's in it for just a little while longer.

[13:10:04]

The winter storm warnings are basically for interior sections of New England for the snow that's yet to fall. So, we could see an additional four to six inches, maybe eight inches for the higher elevations. But it's remarkable to think the lack of snowfall that New York City has seen. We have only seen a little more than two inches for the season.

The snow yesterday and today was less than two inches. Their seasonal average is almost 30 inches, Abby, so we are well under where we should be for New York City. We still have March to go, so, hopefully, we will get a little bit more snow in there, but just a snowless winter across the Northeast.

PHILLIP: Yes, snowless winter in the Northeast and tons of snow in the West. It's really very strange.

GRAY: Bizarre.

PHILLIP: But that's the weather these days.

Stephanie Elam, thank you so much. Get warm out there. And thank you, Jennifer Gray, in the Weather Center.

More truth comes out from a new and explosive legal filing against FOX News. It says that Rupert Murdoch, that many of his stars promote lies about the 2020 election, and he punished others who practiced honest journalism.

Plus, Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis is ramping up his cross-country appearances. And he's also releasing a new book ahead of an expected presidential run. We will have details on that ahead.

And Vladimir Putin makes a rare admission about his war in Ukraine.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [13:15:38]

PHILLIP: They knowingly spread lies, and they did it for money. That's the accusation in another damning court filing in the billion- dollar defamation lawsuit against FOX News -- FOX News.

And it has the company's chair, Rupert Murdoch, under oath admitting that numerous hosts endorsed the 2020 election lies, even though they knew that they were baseless. And they did it because they needed it to deliver much-needed ratings.

And the conservative media mogul also took explicit steps to make sure that he and the network were helping the Trump campaign and the Republican Party.

Our CNN senior media reporter, Oliver Darcy, has been tracking all of this and this extraordinary lawsuit.

Oliver, look, we saw the evidence that FOX hosts spread the election lies. They knew that they weren't true. Now we have Murdoch providing a lot more details about the extent of it. In this latest filing, it really shows that there is knowledge at the top, the very tippy tops of the FOX structure, about what was going on there. And they knew that it wasn't true.

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: That's exactly right, Abby.

It exposes FOX. It continues to expose FOX for the dishonest organization it is, and it starts at the very top with Rupert Murdoch, who is, of course, the FOX Corporation chair and the boss behind the whole network.

And in this legal filing, we have now our first look at Rupert Murdoch's deposition that was taken by Dominion last month. And, in it, he acknowledges that his top hosts, people like Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, that they endorsed -- that's the language he used -- that they endorsed some of Trump's election lies, despite them knowing and him knowing that they were not true.

This is a big deal because FOX has really been arguing that the hosts maybe didn't endorse it, but they gave -- they allowed commentators to come on the air and make some of these remarks as part of news coverage of Trump's election lies.

But Murdoch himself is saying, no, they endorsed these lies. And elsewhere, in private e-mails that Dominion has obtained, for instance, Murdoch is calling those lies. He says they're damaging to the country. He at one point referred to them as B.S.

And so it's very clear that, behind the scenes, FOX executives, FOX stars knew that these lies were not true, but they continued to peddle it to their viewers, and, it seems, because of a financial incentive.

PHILLIP: Yes, they were concerned about their competitors, who were in that moment being endorsed by Trump siphoning viewers away. Oliver, the other part of this is the way that these filings seem to

show that this organization, FOX, was really gearing themselves toward helping the Trump campaign, the Republican Party. They talked about their efforts to help Republicans win the Senate, focusing on the run- off campaigns.

Tell us about all of that.

DARCY: Yes, there's so many revelations, Abby, in this filing, it's impossible to detail it in a -- in one segment, but there are a few that I want to highlight.

First is Rupert Murdoch himself admitting that this was about the money. He was asked in the deposition -- I will read to -- from it to you -- about why he allowed Mike Lindell, the MyPillow conspiracy theorist, to go on Tucker Carlson's program.

And Murdoch answered very candidly, surprisingly, in this -- in this deposition. He said: "It is not red or blue. It is green," green, as in money, as to why he allowed Mike Lindell to go on Tucker Carlson's program.

In another -- in another part of Dominion's filing, we -- he uncovers or they uncover that Murdoch asked the FOX News CEO, Suzanne Scott, if she could ask host Sean Hannity if he could say something supportive of Lindsey Graham -- quote -- "We cannot lose the Senate, if at all possible."

And that also jibes with the fact that Murdoch in the previous filing was uncovered to have said that she needed, Suzanne Scott needed to do anything possible to help in Georgia, where there was also a special Senate election.

And then another revelation this -- from this filing here is that Murdoch gave Jared Kushner, apparently, confidential information about Biden's ads before they were public and shared debate strategy with Jared Kushner, who was then a senior adviser to President Trump, so really just striking revelations from this Dominion filing, things you normally would not see at an actual news network.

[13:20:26]

These things would normally result in investigations internally, disciplinary action. But, at FOX, it was coming from the highest- ranking executives.

PHILLIP: And it seems that the discipline was meted out to the people who pushed the truth. There were staffers and talent who were punished for pushing back on the election lies. What have we learned about that?

DARCY: That's the shocking thing here, right?

So people have asked me, has there been any disciplinary measures against the people who were allowing this lying to be -- to happen on FOX's air? And it seems that the opposite has really happened. The liars haven't been punished. They're still on prime time at FOX. They're still holding high -ranking positions, like being a CEO of FOX News.

The people who were seemingly punished were the people trying to tell the truth. In this filing, it's revealed that Bill Sammon, who was the FOX News D.C., bureau chief, Murdoch suggested that he should be fired because he oversaw that call where FOX News called Arizona, you will remember, before anyone else, for Joe Biden, which effectively gave Biden the election.

And so Murdoch said, we should maybe fire this guy, and suggested it would be a good show of faith to the Trump supporters. And so that's really what's shocking here, is that the people who are lying are still in their positions. People like Bill Sammon, who seemingly wanted to just deliver the news, tell the truth, they have been let go or reprimanded.

PHILLIP: Yes, it is really shocking. That's probably the best way to describe it, but also really reveals, I think, what a lot of people see when they watch FOX as well.

Oliver Darcy, thanks for all of that.

And let's get some more on this from former U.S. attorney Harry Litman.

So, Harry, all of that we just went through with Oliver is pretty damning in a lot of ways. You have top FOX executives and anchors. They're admitting that they knowingly lied on the air. You have evidence that staffers who pushed back on those lies were punished, proof that the directive was coming from the top of the network, and it was to help Trump.

And you have testimony that it wasn't about the truth. It was about ratings, and it was about money.

So putting all of these together, this is a defamation case. They have to -- Dominion has to prove that FOX knew that they disregarded the truth. Are they going to be able to do that in this case?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Yes, I think so.

And, as you suggest, it's a really rare and hard burden. Since the Supreme Court put that requirement in place, it's almost never happened that somebody can be a big media defendant like this. But as Oliver -- he made a very good tour of sort of big details here, Rupert Murdoch essentially throwing several reporters under the train.

The entire organization knows that it's a lie, and they continue to push it. And as he also detailed, they're basically not -- acting not as a news organization, but as an arm of the Republican Party. So it's all revealing and stunning, as you say. It's also totally down the middle for the legal claim they're making, because we know it's false.

And it really will come down to, did they know it's false? And this most recent filing has vivid details, especially including Murdoch, who oddly is ready to give up on a lot of its reporters, but just wants to say FOX itself didn't do that. That's not sort of a legal distinction.

And Dominion, I think, is going to get to trial in a couple of months and going to be able to prove, it seems, an overwhelming case that FOX knew and, at a minimum, was reckless about -- that also counts under the law.

PHILLIP: Yes.

LITMAN: That it was spreading falsehoods. That -- that translates into defamation.

PHILLIP: All right, Harry Litman, you gave us a lot to chew on there. Thank you for breaking all of that down for us.

And, today, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is kicking off his book tour ahead of an expected 2024 White House run.

And now we are learning that he is set to visit three early stops next month on the Republican primary calendar, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. And this comes as he uses the full force of his office to pick major political fights involving everything from Disney to diversity initiatives.

So, to discuss all of this, we have with us CNN chief Washington correspondent, the one and only Jake Tapper.

[13:25:02]

So, Jake, thanks for being here.

Look, the DeSantis moves are super fascinating. He's clearly laying a groundwork for running for president without actually running for president. And it's the culture wars that are at the heart of it. All of this stuff, the Disney part of it, taking on the College Board, taking on the idea of diversity initiatives, writ large, it may play well in Florida.

I wonder, what do you think? Does it play well outside of his home state?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: I think it plays very well with Republican voters, base voters. And that is his primary focus right now, not only to sell books, but also, if he does, in fact, launch a nationwide campaign.

I mean, polls indicate that he is the second most popular Republican presidential candidate, were he to run, second only to Donald Trump. He's competitive with Donald Trump in that sense. He's in double digits. And these issues are ones that those voters really care about and like him for.

I mean, Florida is, I think it's fair to say, a red state now, as opposed to what it was 10, 20 years ago. But one of the reasons is because of Republicans like Ron DeSantis. I mean, you remember, he barely won reelection -- barely won election in 2018, and then he won with almost 60 percent of the vote last November.

So he's doing a decent job, not only selling himself to more traditionally Democratic voters, but also maybe even bringing some people into the Republican Party.

PHILLIP: I mean, the other part of this that is also fascinating to me is that this is being put under the umbrella of freedom, right?

But you have some conservatives, like former Vice President Mike Pence, saying: Look, this is not my version of freedom. I mean, we don't want the government telling you what you can and cannot learn.

Do you think that that argument is really going to go far in today's Republican Party?

TAPPER: It's tough to say.

I mean, I think that there is a lot of fodder for conservatives on that subject. For example, if the Democrats are going to have their convention in Georgia in 2024, why couldn't the Major League Baseball All-Star Game be held there a few years ago after that new voting legislation passed?

So, I do think that there is an opportunity there for conservatives to say that corporations are getting too political. By the same token, the Disney situation is also different, because Disney started off with this special territory that they got to self-govern.

So it wasn't like they were being penalized from something that every other corporation and company in Florida had. It's some sort of special dispensation that was taken away.

But, as you note, Abby, Vice President Mike Pence disagrees. And I think there is going to be a robust debate within the Republican Party in the primary about what exactly conservatism is. Is it letting companies run themselves without the pushback from the government, or is it good to have a fighter in there representing the conservative cause, which is, I think, how DeSantis is positioning himself?

PHILLIP: Yes, so much to watch there.

But the real reason that you are gracing our screens right now, you have got a really interesting sit-down interview tonight with Bill Maher, the comedian who is known to be a pretty controversial figure. And he talks to you a little bit about -- about how he approaches that, actually given all of this cultural work context.

The interview airs tonight at 9:00. Tell us a little bit about it.

TAPPER: Well, I mean, he's interesting because he is somebody who has not -- he's a liberal. He describes himself as a liberal, generally speaking, but he's obviously annoyed a lot of people on the left, those that he would describe as part of the woke team. That's how he would -- he would put it.

And, as a viewer, I have noticed that, sometimes, during his show, in the past, he would be heckled -- not heckled, but people would who boo or hiss, not a lot of people, but some people in his audience.

And we talked a little bit about that, among many other topics. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": And there are people who actually say to me now, "Oh, I miss the days when you used to fight with the audience."

(LAUGHTER)

MAHER: Well, maybe you do, but I don't.

TAPPER: Yes.

MAHER: You know?

But I was never one of those comics who could just pretend, oh, I'm sorry. I must have made a mistake there. I'd be like, no, I didn't make a mistake. There's nothing wrong with that joke. Stop groaning. Get the stick out of your (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

I must have said that 20 times on my show.

TAPPER: Yes.

MAHER: And then, when the pandemic came around, first, we didn't have any audience. Then we shot here.

And when we came back, we were allowed to have like half the audience because of social distancing. And, again, they just weeded out the people who were groaning. And I would say, in the last three, four years, I have never had that problem again. And it is such a pleasure.

[13:30:00]

My audience who comes to my show now understand me. They think like me. They have open minds. They're not woke. They're generally liberal.