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Tennessee State Lawmakers Who Survived Expulsion Vote; Senate GOP Confronts 2024 Primary Challenges And Trump's Influence; DOJ, Pentagon Search For Source Of Leaked Classified Documents. Aired 7:30- 8a ET

Aired April 11, 2023 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

GLORIA JOHNSON, (D), TENNESSEE STATE HOUSE (via Skype): If you heard the questioning of those two young men compared to my questioning, you definitely heard racially-tinged questions. It's blatant, quite frankly.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Representative, do those statements make it onto the local media? Would you like to see more coverage? We just did a segment a couple of minutes ago about state legislatures not getting the coverage that is warranted and some of these things going on in silos with people doing and saying reprehensible things.

JOHNSON: Yes. You know, I think it's critical that we have our eyes on our state legislature. That's where -- that's where democracy dies. That's where they're attacking because they can in those red states or those super-majority states. And we've got to have our eyes on everything that's happening there because it is -- you know, democracy dies in darkness. And I feel like for a while Tennessee has had no eyes on what's happening.

During COVID, we didn't have a lot of visitors inside the Capitol and people couldn't come if they wanted to come for gun violence bills or some of those things. It was hard to get people to the Capitol because of COVID. Now that we've opened back up and people are coming it's great to have those people's voices in the hallways to remind folks that that's who they work for and not the lobbyists and the special interest groups, which is, I feel like, their bosses.

LEMON: Yes.

You said democracy dies in darkness. Speaking of democracy, Justin Jones has called for Republican Speaker Tennessee House -- the Tennessee House's Cameron Sexton to resign, calling him an enemy of democracy. Do you also think Sexton should resign?

JOHNSON: Yes. I mean, we had a disgraced speaker right before him and he is doing many of the same things, just not as zealous and openly, I guess. But he has limited debate to almost nothing on the House floor. He make -- they make up the rules as they go along.

We asked for to be able to show video and we were told no video. Then we come in and the first thing they do is make a motion to have video. And, of course, they have the votes so they voted in their video. But we weren't prepared for video because they had already told us no.

They change the rules as they go on. There's no debate. Our mics are cut off. We are some -- most often not called on.

The other day when America was watching we had more healthy debate on bills before those -- before the hearings. We had more healthy debate on bills than I think we've ever had in three years -- three or four years on the House floor because people were watching.

LEMON: So, because of what happened the legislature has been so divided. Do you think that in getting the people's work done, is this going to make it harder or easier moving forward now that this controversy has reached a worldwide audience?

JOHNSON: You know, that's an interesting question and I've been asked that question, and I'm hopeful. I'm always hopeful. But I'm hopeful that they're listening, that they're open. That they realize perhaps we shouldn't stay with business as usual. We should be a more deliberative body, a more transparent body, and I'm going to be hopeful that's going to happen.

It remains to be seen how they actually handle this. If they use it as a learning experience. Hopefully, we will know soon by being able to deliberate and talk about some of these gun violence, gun sense regulations and legislation we want to put in because we want to protect the community.

You know, I always hear oh, don't talk about it yet -- it's too soon. But if you don't talk about it what we see is in the very next day or two we have another horrible incident of gun violence.

LEMON: Yes.

JOHNSON: And so, we do -- the time to talk about it is yesterday because we have got to stop this. And I would hope that my colleagues get on board and help us do something.

That instead of beefing up security and having tanks at schools, as one of our members suggested, we prevent guns from getting to the schoolhouse door. Because if you're ready for a gunfight at the schoolhouse door people are going to get hurt.

[07:35:02]

But we can prevent guns from ever coming to the schoolhouse door or to the bank doors. That's what we want to do. We want to work on prevention. We don't want gun battles at the schoolhouse door.

LEMON: We will be watching what happens in the Tennessee legislature tomorrow when there is a vote for Justin Pearson's reinstatement, and beyond.

Thank you, Tennessee State Rep. Gloria Johnson. We appreciate it. Be well. JOHNSON: Thank you.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Back in Washington, Republican leaders, this morning, are working overtime to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2022 -- the losses they saw at the ballot box. We have new CNN reporting ahead.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And before we go, a look at the rare Southern California super bloom, the first in four years thanks to a record amount of rain throughout the year, which has been devastating but also brought this, creating this sea of beautiful orange poppies.

LEMON: Awe.

HARLOW: I'd never seen that.

COLLINS: You could (INAUDIBLE).

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:40:00]

COLLINS: This morning there is new CNN reporting about how Republicans are working behind the scenes to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2022 after several of the candidates who were backed by former President Trump collapsed in the general election, handing Democrats the 51-49 Senate majority that they enjoy now. Republican leaders are now trying to pivot to a hands-on approach to the primaries actively working on recruitment and vetting to root out weaker candidates that risk setting up a clash with the party's hard- right candidates.

CNN's Lauren Fox is live on Capitol Hill with more. Lauren, it's not exactly surprising why they are doing this given what happened in the 2022 midterms and what they were expecting to happen. The question I think is how are they doing this? How does this work with Trump as well?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, this is the age-old debate in politics always -- how involved are you going to get in primary races? And this is something that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is trying to deal with head-on right now, making sure that they are getting involved in candidate recruitment early and often.

This reporting coming from our colleagues Manu Raju and Alayna Treene as they really pull back the curtain on what the National Republican Senatorial Committee is doing now to ensure that they don't lose in general elections across the country.

The 2024 map is really favorable for Republicans. They know that, but they don't want any unforced errors. And Republican leaders feel like they've learned their lesson from 2022.

Here is Sen. John Cornyn who told my colleagues, quote, "It never goes away" -- talking about that tension of getting involved in primaries. "Republicans need to make up their mind. Do we want to win or do we want to lose? And I think that it's that simple, and I think people are tired of losing."

Some of the races that Republicans are looking to make sure they get the right candidate in place for are in places like Arizona, places like West Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania.

In fact, Kari Lake met in February. She, of course, the failed gubernatorial candidate in Arizona who ran as a central tenet of her campaign on election fraud claims. And in her meeting the NRSC officials really tried to encourage her to move away from that message, arguing that is not the kind of message that's going to work in a general election.

Kaitlan, that's just one example of the way that Republican leaders are trying to get involved early in this race.

COLLINS: Yes, remarkable to hear what Cornyn said. You know, they're tired of losing.

Lauren Fox, we'll see if the strategy works. Thank you for that reporting.

HARLOW: Let's talk about that with CNN political analyst and national politics reporter for the Times, Astead Herndon. He also has a fascinating Times podcast called "The Run-Up."

The Kari Lake meeting is really interesting that a lot of sort of upper-echelon Republicans think she could be -- do really well if she were to run for a Senate seat there. But hey, stay away from some of this election denial and some stuff.

You went to Dana Point, California.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, PODCAST HOST, "THE RUN-UP": Yes.

HARLOW: You talk about that on the podcast -- to be with those Republicans. What did you learn there?

HERNDON: Yes. At the RNC, it's really -- that's kind of an NRSC crowd. This is the Republican establishment really trying to lay down a marker of what it has learned from the 2022 midterms. And that really -- that really adds up to what Lauren just said -- that they say that they learned their lessons and they are trying to impose on the Trump grassroots that they cannot kind of go down the line of election denial.

But what we had heard from RNC members was that the backward-looking nature of elections now didn't speak to Americans. And they were pointing to people like Gov. DeSantis, Mike DeWine -- people on statewide levels who did better, trying to encourage candidates in 2024 that they talk a little more like them and a little less like Donald Trump.

But the problem is they don't have control over the base. And so even as the kind of Republican establishment tries to impose a certain sense of messaging on its candidates, these are candidates who have risen by having a conflict with the RNC. Kari Lake has tried to stoke that conflict with the RNC. And so that's been part of their rise in terms of national prominence.

And so you see kind of the top down trying to tell them how they should calibrate their messaging. But they're dealing with candidates who they don't really have full leverage over because part of their --

HARLOW: Yes.

HERNDON: -- political appeal has been pushing back against them.

HARLOW: That's quite a conundrum.

HERNDON: Yes, it's the rock and the hard place.

LEMON: Oh my, you just read my -- I was just going to say they are -- the adage a rock and a hard place is there between that. Listen --

HERNDON: Yes.

LEMON: -- and between the old and the new -- the sort of more traditional Republican and the sort of outspoken hyperbolas, if that's a word, Republican.

Even Republican Sen. John Cornyn is saying the GOP infighting in the party establishment and activist base is costing them the majority there, admitting that he's sick of it. Here is what he says. He says, "It never goes away. Republicans need to make up their mind. Do we want to lose?" And I think that's -- it's that simple that people -- they're tired of losing, as he said in his thing there.

HERNDON: It is. And it kind of reminds you in 2020 when Joe Biden was able to convince the Democratic base to focus on electability. To put everything aside and say actually, the main priority is who can beat Donald Trump, and that should be the organizing principle.

[07:45:00]

That is kind of the argument you hear the non-Trump wing of Republicans making right now. It's to say let's move on from the kind of value-driven, grievance-driven politics and let's focus on the type of candidate that can best beat Joe Biden on the other side.

The problem, again, is that Trump has gotten so many people involved in the party. This is one of the things we heard in Dana Point. There has been so much Republican activism they have transformed the party from the kind of George Bush era of the past. And that takes -- and there's a lot of Republicans who take more pride in it.

And so there's going to be difficulty for the establishment side of Republicans to really find a message that works on issues like abortion, on issues like guns -- issues that have real tension between their activist class and the other kind of compromise general election position, while at the same time really satisfying a grassroots base that drives the energy in the primaries and drives the energy for the upcoming presidential election.

Because remember, even on stuff like abortion -- you know, Ron DeSantis is currently pushing a six-week abortion ban in Florida. That would be a position that's difficult for a general election.

The audience you have to please in the short term is much different than the audience that the Republicans have to think about in the long term.

COLLINS: Yes, and look at how Republicans have handled the abortion fight that we're seeing right now with this -- with this pill -- with the ruling from what happened in Texas. A lot of them have been very quiet --

HERNDON: Yes.

COLLINS: -- on it.

HERNDON: Yes. They -- I've heard someone call this the ostrich strategy -- you know, sticking your head in the sand. It's not working for Republicans.

And I think for Wisconsin it was a real wakeup call for them. There's been several of these, right? Ever since the Dobbs decision came down there was Kansas, there was the results in the midterms. But I think Wisconsin and the margin in Wisconsin specifically really shook Republicans.

COLLINS: Yes.

HERNDON: They are losing both in the suburbs. These are people who are being persuaded to go vote for Democrats in the big number -- much bigger numbers than even we saw in Barack Obama's Democratic Party. But they're also losing in terms of Madison and those young people being motivated to come out. This is a dual problem for them.

And places like Wisconsin, which we know is a 50-50 state, the Democrats are outperforming in terms of money and outperforming in terms of a special election. That's real warning signs.

When I talked to the leader of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin he said very clearly while the -- while the state race was about gerrymandering nationally, it was about abortion locally. That's what they messaged about and that's what they won on.

LEMON: What drives people to the polls for -- in the primary, right --

HERNDON: Yes.

LEMON: What ignites them doesn't necessarily drive them to the polls in the --

HERNDON: Right. The activists are --

COLLINS: Yes. HERNDON: -- controlling the primary.

LEMON: Yes.

HERNDON: The general election is about that compromised position.

LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: Thanks, Astead --

COLLINS: Thanks, Astead.

HERNDON: Thank you.

HARLOW: -- as always.

LEMON: So, the Pentagon doing damage control after highly-classified military and intelligence documents leaked online. The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee warning the leaks could have deadly consequences.

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[07:51:48]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION: We don't know who is behind this. We don't know what the motive is. And I think -- I can't remember who asked before, but we don't know what else might be out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: A lot of unknowns this morning as the Biden administration is scrambling to contain and assess a major leak of classified documents from the Pentagon. They've exposed U.S. intelligence on its adversaries and its allies.

Congressman Jim Himes, who is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said, quote, "Anything that points to sources and methods carries the very real risk that those sources and methods go away. And that can mean people being killed, that can mean technologies being shut down. And that translates into bad outcomes on the battlefield."

Joining us now is former defense secretary under former President Trump, Mark Esper. Secretary Esper -- I mean, how devastating is something of this kind of a magnitude where they don't know yet if it's even been contained?

DR. MARK ESPER, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, AUTHOR, "A SACRED OATH: MEMOIRS OF A SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DURING EXTRAORDINARY TIMES" (via Skype): Yes, it's pretty bad, Kaitlan. And you're right -- we don't know how big or how bad it can get. I mean, you look at the tactical level it affects what happens on the

ground between Russia and Ukraine. At the strategic level it affects our ability to get more information. It affects our sources and methods. And then you have a political level between us and our allies and what it means about the relationship there. And then finally, it does impact competence within the United States government itself between departments and people about our ability to keep secrets.

HARLOW: I think it was striking how much we heard from John Kirby. You heard a little bit of it there saying how much they don't know. They don't even know if it's over at this point.

And you dealt with not the same thing but similar leaks. It was 2020. You were defense secretary. This was about Russia -- information that Russians had be -- had paid militants in Afghanistan to kill U.S. troops.

But can you just speak to having helmed one of those investigations and how important it is to know what you don't know?

ESPER: Right. Well, we launched an investigation in the summer of 2020. It was -- it was a variety of issues. It was operational deployment issues. It was other matters. And it went on for months and months to kind of ferret this out and find out where it was coming, who, why, what. And even by the time I left office the investigation still wasn't concluded after six-plus months.

So it's going to take some time --

HARLOW: Yes.

ESPER: -- I fear, to get to the bottom of this.

And meanwhile, we have war happening in Ukraine and hopefully soon a counteroffensive by the Ukrainians themselves --

HARLOW: Yes.

ESPER: -- against Russia.

LEMON: The question always is why? Is the point just to destabilize?

ESPER: Who knows? I mean, I think that is a big question. It seems in recent years it's often been people who disagree with policy. That was my experience at the Pentagon -- or have a different view about how America is acting in the world. If you look at the -- I think the Snowden and the Manning cases -- those were two examples.

But we don't know until we know. And look, we have to find out is it an American? Is it somebody else? Is it both? These are big unanswered questions that we need to get to the bottom of, and quickly.

COLLINS: Have many people have access to these kinds of documents? How hard is it going to be to narrow it down?

ESPER: You know, when we first opened up the investigation I launched in 2020, I thought it was a few dozen. It quickly became hundreds and then eventually in the thousands.

[07:55:04]

COLLINS: Wow.

ESPER: It depends on how much it was released. In this case, we know that the information was shared with foreign partners.

So again, I don't think we know the scope of this problem and it will take a while to determine that.

HARLOW: The Washington Post has exclusive reporting on some of the information, they say, from this leak, including one of America's closest allies -- a recipient of a lot of U.S. aid, by the way, Egypt, recently ordering subordinates to produce up to 40,000 rockets shipped to Russia.

What did you think when you read that?

ESPER: Yes. Look, it's very interesting. Egypt has had a -- an arms relationship with -- if you will, with Russia for decades. I was troubled by it as secretary of defense because we give them over a billion dollars a year in assistance.

HARLOW: Right.

ESPER: And to see them turn around and then use their own currency to buy Russian arms was troubling for me. And this is just another -- you know, another example of a so-called partner dealing with the Russians.

Now, we don't know whether it's true or not so we need to get --

HARLOW: Right.

ESPER: -- to the bottom of that. And I think this will be an oversight question for Congress.

HARLOW: Right. And Egypt's response has been -- our response has been based on non-involvement. That's the word they used.

COLLINS: Yes, a major question for Congress and also what this means going forward if these documents were altered. If it's accurate.

Secretary Esper, thank you for your insight on all of this this morning.

ESPER: No, thank you all.

HARLOW: Louisville, Kentucky -- another city in America and it is mourning like so many this morning. Five people murdered in a mass shooting at a bank. We're live on the ground as we get new data on the prevalence of gun violence in America.

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