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Wesleyan University Ends Legacy Admissions; Whistleblowers Accuse DOJ Of Mishandling Hunter Biden Investigation; Two Recent Bison Attacks Cause Major Injuries. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired July 20, 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]

MICHAEL ROTH, PRESIDENT, WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY: We're talking about a relatively small number of highly selective schools that give unfair preferential treatment to the children of alumni.

It was clear we should get rid of it. The Supreme Court's decision saying that we shouldn't consider the groups with which students are identified -- racial groups -- made it even clearer to me that it was indefensible to give preference to the children of alumni. We love having the children of alumni who deserve to be on campus and most of the ones who come do deserve to be there. But we don't need to give preferential treatment to people who already had the resources bestowed upon them.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

One of the critiques of getting rid of legacy admissions -- especially for private schools, perhaps like yours -- is that it hurts their ability to raise money.

Do you think Wesleyan will be hurt at all financially by this decision?

ROTH: Well, I am the president of the university and although I am a teacher and historian my job as president is to make sure the school has the financial resources to do the work it needs to do, which includes financial aid for almost half of our students. And so, I would not be able to make this decision if I thought it was going to hurt the school economically.

I believe that Wesleyan's alumni will actually be more generous and more supportive because this is the decision that aligns with their values. This is not a decision that will take something away from them. This is a decision that makes them proud to be alums of Wesleyan.

PHILLIP: I want you to listen to what President Biden said about affirmative action after the Supreme Court made that decision a few weeks ago -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the poor kid -- the poor kid -- maybe the first in the family to go to college gets the same grades and test scores as the wealthy kid. His whole family has gone to the most elite colleges in the country and his path has been a lot easier. Well, the kid who faced tougher challenges has demonstrated more grit, more determination, and that should be a factor that colleges should take into account in admissions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: This kind of speaks to what you were talking about earlier. But I wonder, do you think that there needs to be --

ROTH: Absolutely.

PHILLIP: -- preferences for people from disadvantaged backgrounds in spite -- no matter what their race is?

ROTH: Yes. I think that -- and one of the things I hoped would happen with this announcement is that we would be able to show -- give attention to all the programs we have in schools like Wesleyan have to find talented students who think they can't afford to go to a place like Wesleyan but, in fact, it could be free for them.

And we want to find students who have not had advantages given to them but have enormous potential, have enormous talent, have great ambition. And they are the ones who most deserve to be at schools like Wesleyan because they have shown the ability to overcome obstacles to get their work done and to fulfill their ambitions.

PHILLIP: And over in Washington, some lawmakers are calling for a bill that would basically prevent colleges from using preferences for donors and for alumni.

Do you think that is a role for the federal government? That they ought to be doing that?

ROTH: I don't think that this is a subject for legislation myself. I don't think these preferences should be in place.

But I think much more important for Congress to work on is to adequately fund K through 12 education to make sure that some people aren't systematically disadvantaged in this country because of where they happen to live and where they go to school.

I think it's much more important to focus on where most people go to school, which is not where we have legacy admissions. Where most people go to school are big public universities and colleges and community colleges, and it would be great if our legislators spent time worrying about how to fund those schools adequately.

PHILLIP: Yes, focusing on that pipeline to college, not just what happens when they get there.

ROTH: Exactly.

PHILLIP: Wesleyan University president Michael Roth, thank you very much for joining us this morning. ROTH: Thank you for having me.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we are about a month away from the first Republican debate, and Donald Trump -- he said he doesn't need to be on the stage if he has a big lead in the poll. How the former Republican National Committee chair is responding next.

PHILLIP: And 13 women and two OB/GYNs testifying in a Texas court after filing a lawsuit challenging the state's abortion ban. Their emotional testimony is ahead.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:37:18]

PHILLIP: The clock is ticking and time is running out for GOP presidential hopefuls to make that debate stage. The Republican National Committee has implemented three criteria to qualify, including reaching one percent in three national polls, having 40,000 unique donors, and pledging to support the eventual GOP nominee.

Now, five of Trump's rivals are on the cusp of qualifying, having already reached that donor mark. Trump, for his part, has questioned the strategy behind debating at all given that he has a huge lead in the primary field.

RNC chair Ronna McDaniel had this response to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: I think he should be on the stage. I want everybody on the stage that qualifies, obviously. I think it's a mistake to not do the debates --

STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS HOST, "FOX & FRIENDS": Sure.

MCDANIEL: -- but that's going to be up to him and his campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And joining us now is CNN chief national correspondent John King -- the John King. Thank you for waking up early for us, John.

MATTINGLY: Contractually, that's how you have to respond to him right?

PHILLIP: I know. I will say that.

MATTINGLY: Like, that's how you have to address him -- the John King. It's weird and, like, you have a rider with the M&Ms and all that, too.

PHILLIP: So, John --

MATTINGLY: Before 8:00 a.m., anyway.

PHILLIP: Right.

So John, what do you -- what is your sense of things right now? Trump is facing his third indictment.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.

PHILLIP: He's 30-40 pounds -- points ahead in the polls. And Ron DeSantis is really struggling.

Does he take the debate stage at this point?

KING: The expectation if you talk to people close to the former president is yes as of this morning. The as of this morning part is important though, Abby and Phil. You've both been through this with Donald Trump. He likes to keep us waiting. He likes to keep teasing us. He says he doesn't have to be there because he has that big lead.

And we have a pretty consequential 39 days between now and that debate. It is certain we will hear from Jack Smith -- or almost certain we will hear from Jack Smith's grand jury looking into the election interference. It is most likely we will hear from the Fulton County grand jury before the Republican debate -- Fani Willis about looking into election interference by Trump in that state.

So are there plenty of opportunities for Donald Trump to say never mind or I have other things to do? Yes. But the people around him say despite him sort of leaving it out there -- I don't need to be there -- that they do expect him to be at the first debate as of now, in part because we all know Donald Trump. He loves that spotlight.

And he's likely to skip the second debate. That one is scheduled at the Reagan Presidential Library. He has a long-running feud with the people who run that library. He hasn't been invited out there to speak.

So I think as of today, you should expect him to be there for the first one -- probably not for the second one. But again, it's Donald Trump so we will have this conversation many times.

MATTINGLY: John, I feel like at this point in the race conversations are often talking about the same dynamics over and over again. Can we do the thing where, like, you generously allow me to barge into your office and ask you what are you hearing right now? And you're not too exasperated usually but you actually tell me really interesting stuff.

What are you hearing behind the scenes right now from top campaign officials?

[07:40:03]

KING: That we live in this upside-down world where bad news benefits Donald Trump. You were talking about this in the last hour where he's fundraising. His poll positions have stabilized. You can read that two ways and we can get into some of the polling if you want where he has usually high 30s -- somewhere around 40 percent. If all these other candidates -- if there are five, six, seven, eight

candidates on the ballot in Iowa, New Hampshire, and beyond and Donald Trump stays at 37 percent, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee.

A long way -- I talked about 39 days to that first debate. We have 180 days until anybody votes, so we have a long way to go here.

But right now, in the upside-down defied political gravity world that Donald Trump has his -- has us in for years now, he short-term benefits from this. That doesn't mean it strengthens him as a general election candidate. But at the moment, it just keeps his base intense and in and keeps him in the high 30s, which in a crowded field is good for Trump.

PHILLIP: I want to ask you about some news that came in late yesterday, which is that New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who is often out there talking about this race -- he decided not to run for president but is a critic of Trump and says the party --

KING: Right.

PHILLIP: -- needs to move on. He says he's not running for reelection.

You know, Politico had a piece I think -- I thought put it well. Does this spell the end of that -- the beginning of the end, perhaps, of that genre of Republican governors who can thrive in a purple state? Who is trying to course -- chart a course in the middle. Does it say anything that he has decided not to run again?

KING: Yes, but I think, again that's a big TBD as to the impact. There are a number of anti-Trump Republicans. Now Chris Sununu is saying he won't run for reelection. Liz Cheney, of course, being voted out -- losing a primary and leaving the House of Representatives. Frequently here on this network, the former lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan.

A number of these Republicans are moving to the sidelines and essentially saying I may have a political future but I'm going to wait this out. This Trump thing is going to run another cycle. I don't like Trump being the leader of my party so I'm going to go over to the sidelines and wait this out.

That is a -- it is proof, to your point Abby, about the power of the Trump effect. How he has redefined the Republican Party.

I would say this, though. Chris Sununu on the ballot in 2024 probably has to be a little more careful about what he says if he was running for reelection in a presidential election year. Now he's a free agent. He won't be on the ballot in 2024. He's a fierce Trump critic. His state has still on the Republican calendar the first presidential primary after the Iowa caucuses, so look for him maybe to be even more vocal trying to help somebody.

His big choice now is does he pick? Does he pick somebody else -- PHILLIP: Yes.

KING: -- in that Trump field? Does he put his popularity to the test in New Hampshire in that race?

PHILLIP: Yes, and a big question related to that is how much effect would it have in the --

KING: Right.

PHILLIP: -- state of New Hampshire where some Republicans in that state are actually quite far to the right and maybe not so much aligned with the Chris Sununus of the world.

John King --

KING: No question.

PHILLIP: -- we love having you on early in the morning. Wake up early for us again.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, buddy.

KING: Sure thing. Come to New York someday.

MATTINGLY: I hear you.

KING: There's a train from here to there.

MATTINGLY: Oh, yeah. That's a good point.

PHILLIP: We know all about that.

MATTINGLY: Love John King. Thanks, buddy -- appreciate it.

Well, for the first time, a second whistleblower -- IRS whistleblower publicly accused the Justice Department of mishandling an investigation into Hunter Biden. Joseph Zeigler was one of two whistleblowers who testified in a six-hour hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday. Both men saying that federal prosecutors did not follow normal procedures a criminal investigation -- in the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes.

Here's part of that testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH ZEIGLER, IRS SPECIAL AGENT: It appeared to me based on what I experienced that the U.S. attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited, and marginalized by DOJ officials as well as other U.S. attorneys.

We're not disgruntled. We're not out here to get people. We're here for accountability and that we learn from this.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MATTINGLY: And CNN's Kara Scannell is here. And Kara, I actually watched some of it and read most of the transcript of the hearing. I thought it was kind of a fascinating hearing not because of the political back and forth but because of the witnesses themselves.

What was your takeaway from watching?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, that's the first time we've seen and heard from Joseph Zeigler. He'd previously been an anonymous whistleblower in this case. And he's a 13-year veteran of the IRS.

So things that both he and his supervisor, Gary Shapley, who also testified, had said the DOJ had deviated from some of its normal course. And specifically, what they pointed to was when they said they uncovered evidence that could potentially tie to either President Biden or his grandchildren they were blocked from pursuing further investigation into that.

Zeigler specifically said he wanted to interview Hunter Biden's children because Hunter Biden had taken tax deductions based on some finances, so he wanted to follow the money trail and talk to them. But he said that they were told no -- that they couldn't pursue certain of the steps, which according to his testimony and Shapley, DOJ prosecutors said that would get them into hot water. So they're raising these as potential red flags.

Now, the -- Merrick Garland, the attorney general; the U.S. attorney for Delaware, Trump appointee David Weiss -- they have pushed back on this. They have said that there was no interference in this investigation and Weiss had full authority to bring any charges he wanted.

[07:45:06]

PHILLIP: And these are serious allegations but, of course, the hearing was full of a lot of theatrics, including from Marjorie Taylor Greene, which will probably come as no surprise to people paying attention.

But I wonder, what did Democrats say and do to respond to what was being said yesterday?

SCANNELL: Right. Some of the Republicans -- this was about whether DOJ is politicized. And also, they have been talking about investigating the Biden family. Well, Jamie Raskin, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, pushed back on this. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): But one thing you will not hear today is any evidence of wrongdoing by President Joe Biden or his administration. Like every other try by our colleagues to concoct a scandal about President Biden, this one is a complete and total bust.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCANNELL: And as you can imagine, we're going to hear a lot more about this in the months ahead. They're hoping to get David Weiss to come testify before the committee, as well as Merrick Garland, in September.

MATTINGLY: All right. Kara Scannell, thank you.

SCANNELL: Thank you.

PHILLIP: And over the last two weeks, two women were seriously injured in bison attacks in two different national parks. So are the animals being too aggressive or are people just getting too close?

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:50:00]

PHILLIP: In just a matter of a few days, two women were seriously injured in separate bison attacks while visiting national parks. On Saturday, in North Dakota, a woman suffered injuries to her stomach area and foot when bison charged at her. Then on Monday, a bison gored a woman in Wyoming. Both were sent to hospitals to be treated for their injuries and investigations into the attacks are ongoing.

Joining us now with more insight into this is Yellowstone wildlife safari guide, Grant T. Johnson.

Grant, wow -- this sounds really scary and both of these incidents are different. But I wonder -- I mean, are people just getting too close to these animals, or is something else happening here?

GRANT T. JOHNSON, YELLOWSTONE WILDLIFE SAFARI GUIDE (via Webex by Cisco): So, overwhelmingly, the incidences that we see between bison and people are a result of people just getting too close to the animals. And right now we have a bit of a convergence of two big contributing factors.

First, we have the beginning of the bison rut. This is the beginning of the bison mating season so both the male and female bison have elevated levels of hormones and that makes them a little bit more agitated and a little bit more competitive on the landscape.

Secondly, July is the busiest month for people to be visiting the national parks. And so the risk of being attacked by a bison or any other animal is outrageously low. With this many people in the park it's not surprising that this is the time of year that these types of things happen.

MATTINGLY: I'm going to ask the thing that I feel like everybody is probably thinking, which is one, like it shouldn't be that hard to not go close to bison. It seems like a logical thing. And so, my initial question as I've seen these reports is this like a social media thing? Is this people trying to take pictures of themselves?

Why are people going so close to them, based on your experience? JOHNSON: So I think it's a bit of a few factors.

I think, for sure, social media has been a negative influence. People are trying to recreate photos they've seen or get a new photo that no one has ever seen, and doing risky behaviors is a way to get that done.

Also, I think a lot of people do not have familiarity with real, authentic wildlife and when they come into these areas they think that they're essentially visiting a zoo. And this is not a zoo. These are national parks. These are true, wild, authentic wildernesses and these animals are wild and they're potentially dangerous if we push the limits with them.

PHILLIP: What is your advice to people if they find themselves -- we're looking at some scary footage there of a bison charging at someone. So what happens if you're in that situation? What would you advise people to do to basically save themselves from being seriously injured or perhaps even killed?

JOHNSON: So, the park service is very clear on their rules that they have set forth, and these aren't just polite suggestions. This is the law in the national parks.

If you're in your car there's essentially no risk as long as you're pulled off the side off the side of the road. You can stop. You can enjoy the wildlife. You can take photos and enjoy the experience.

If you're outside of your car, whether that's walking, hiking, or just standing on the side of the road, you need to stay certain safe distances away from the animals. Bears and wolves -- that's 100 yards, and all of the other animals, including bison, is 25 yards. If you see the animal drastically changing their behavior because of your presence, you are too close even if you're beyond those limits.

So, with bison, they are nice enough to give us warning signs that they are getting agitated. You will see this exaggerated head bobbing. You will see them kind of scratching and stomping at the ground. And most distinctly, you'll see their tail go up.

If you see any of those factors happening, back up, increase the amount of space between you and the animal, and let other people know, too, that they're getting too close. You're not just putting yourself in danger, you're putting other people at danger and you're putting the animals at danger.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

Grant Johnson, look, let's be clear. Our national parks are a treasure. It is absolutely worth doing that in the summer. But listen to the guidelines and listen to the safety warnings.

Grant, we appreciate it.

JOHNSON: Thank you very much. MATTINGLY: And right now, overfishing and climate change are killing off reef sharks in coral populations throughout the ocean. But one lab in Florida is making a major push to restore endangered sea life. Here's a look at the Mote Marine Laboratory in today's Impact Your World.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coral reefs are actually the center of marine biodiversity and a big part of that is sharks doing their job in the ecosystem.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reef sharks are probably keeping some of their prey species in check. Corals need these nutrients that sharks are bringing in from other habitats.

We just released a study of the five main reef shark species. They have declined somewhere between 60 and 73 percent each. And what we find is that's because of people fishing them too hard. I think we can get people to reduce fishing overall, but what we need is the coral reefs to still be there because these sharks need habitat.

Sharks are important for corals and corals are important for sharks. Around the globe, unfortunately, we're seeing coral reefs degrade. Here in Florida, we've lost somewhere on the order of 90 to 95 percent of our living coral.

[07:55:06]

We're in the Florida Keys at the Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research and Restoration. It's the largest land-based coral nursery in the United States at the moment.

Those corals are grown out in a -- in a farm setting and then moved into an offshore nursery. And then ultimately, all of those corals are outplanted directly onto the reef. Mote has, to date, outplanted just over 210,000 fragments of coral onto Florida's coral reef.

I'm confident that we have the capabilities of assisting in the recovery of those corals so that they are there to support our shark population.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: To learn more about organizations helping with shark conservation, visit cnn.com/impact or text FINS to 707070 to donate.

PHILLIP: And Donald Trump is beefing up his defense team and he has quietly hired another attorney. Justice sources tell CNN that his legal team is scrambling to find out if the special counsel has more witnesses and more evidence that they don't know about.

MATTINGLY: And breaking overnight, Russia intensifying its attacks on Ukraine's southern region, targeting grain storage and the infrastructure for exporting food to people who desperately need it. We're going to have a report from the ground coming up next. (COMMERCIAL)

MATTINGLY: Well, good morning, everyone. We're going to start with news.

Odesa enduring one of its most hellish nights since Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion began. Russian missiles raining down on the city far away from the front lines. Ukraine says the Russians are striking grain facilities, which would feed the world. We're going to take you there.

[08:00:00]