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Harvard President Resigns Amid Mounting Controversy; House Homeland Security Committee To Formally Begin Impeachment Proceedings Against Mayorkas; Sen. Bob Menendez Hit With New Allegations In Corruption Case. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 03, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:30:27]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Harvard president Claudine Gay is stepping down after only six months on the job. She made the announcement yesterday following a firestorm of controversy in recent weeks, including a plagiarism scandal surrounding her academic record. She also faced fierce criticism for her testimony at an antisemitism hearing on Capitol Hill last month in which she and other Ivy League presidents failed to outright condemn calls for genocide against Jews on campus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

CLAUDINE GAY, THEN-PRESIDENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: It can be, depending on the context.

STEFANIK: What's the context?

GAY: Targeted as an individual. Targeted at an individual.

STEFANIK: It's targeted at Jewish students -- Jewish individuals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: In a resignation letter to the Harvard community, Gay wrote her decision is in the best interest of Harvard and noted, quote, "...it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and upholding scholarly rigor -- two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus."

Joining us now, Harvard Crimson reporters Emma Haidar and Cam Kettles. They actually broke the story. They broke the news of Claudine Gay's resignation yesterday.

So just to be clear, you guys are also studying at Harvard at the same time. And I know just a few days ago the Crimson editorial board was saying, quote, "We still have faith in our president as a scholar because we regard her plagiarism as limited and unintentional, and because we recognize that a stopgap interim president would bring chaos instead of needed stability, we do not believe President Gay should resign."

The exact scenario you've described has now come to pass. What's -- has this surprised you?

CAM KETTLES, REPORTER, HARVARD CRIMSON, BROKE THE STORY OF PRESIDENT CLAUDINE GAY RESIGNING: What we know from our reporting over the last, really, three months is that yesterday's decision is not -- does not come out of the blue. There have been allegations of plagiarism that have been building over the last month. And really, the ongoing crisis that Harvard's leaders have faced since their initial response to the Hamas attack -- they haven't -- they haven't gotten past that.

And so, while we didn't know that it was going to happen yesterday, this is -- this response is something that the signs have been there for a while. The calls from Congress, from students, from faculty -- from, really, everyone in the Harvard community, to some degree, has been building for a very long time.

CORNISH: Emma, your reporting said that Gay faced intense pressure from external voices to resign. Cam obviously just listed a number of different voices, but were some more powerful than others -- the board, donors. What, really, you think made the difference?

EMMA HAIDAR, REPORTER, HARVARD CRIMSON, BROKE THE STORY OF PRESIDENT CLAUDINE GAY RESIGNING (via Webex by Cisco): I mean, there are definitely a variety of people at play here. There has been financial pressure on the university.

We've talked to people who have said that gift officers have been receiving numerous calls from donors either stopping or reducing their donations. So, definitely, donations have been -- played somewhat of a role. Major donor Len Blavatnik, who had formerly donated $270 million to Harvard Medical School recently announced that he was pausing donations.

Again, tension on the board, tension from faculty and students definitely all play a role. But overall, it culminated in her resignation.

CORNISH: CNN spoke with Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy last night to get his reaction. I want to play for the two of you what he had to say.

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RANDALL KENNEDY, PROFESSOR OF LAW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: President Gay and Harvard University have been the victims of misleading narratives.

One, the misleading narrative regarding her supposed indifference to antisemitism. She said over and over and over again that she found -- finds any instances of antisemitism personally abhorrent. She's said that over and over. Second of all, Harvard University has been said to be -- people have said that antisemitism is rampant at Harvard University. Not true.

[07:35:00]

People have said that her work has been saturated with problems of scholarly integrity. Not true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: He was defending a number of things there.

But for you, as students, does this kind of comport with how you think about Harvard?

KETTLES: I mean, there are a lot of people who after the decision came out expressed openly that it was unfair. Both the former president's statement and the corporation's statement both alluded to the impact of race on a lot of what's happened to Harvard and President Gay over the last few months.

You know, I think the claims that these allegations of plagiarism -- that the broader narrative have been in some way driven by ulterior motives is certainly something that a lot of people believe. The claims that -- the initial claims of plagiarism -- the activists that brought them to light made it very clear that it was supposed to damage the presidency.

I think -- I mean, certainly, there are a lot of people who feel that way. There are others in the student population and among faculty who feel this is the right decision. So, it's a mixed bag among affiliates.

CORNISH: Well, Cam Kettles, Emma Haidar, thank you so much for sharing your reporting.

KETTLES: Thank you.

HAIDAR: Thank you for having us.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we do have breaking news. We're learning that the House Homeland Security Committee will formally begin impeachment proceedings against Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas. He joins us live next.

CORNISH: And a federal appeals court in Texas just ruled that doctors are not required to perform emergency abortions. What this means for women who need one, ahead.

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[07:41:02]

CORNISH: We have breaking news just into CNN. The House Homeland Security Committee will formally begin impeachment proceedings against DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas. CNN's Lauren Fox joins us now from Washington, D.C. And, Lauren, what

details do you have?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. We are learning more information that in this new year, the House Republicans are planning to forge ahead with an impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security.

Obviously, this comes at a really complicated political moment for House Republicans and for the Congress at large. That is because right now, there is bipartisan efforts in the United States Senate to try to reach some kind of framework agreement that could actually improve border security along the U.S. southern border. Those talks have been hard-fought. They've been going on for weeks. And while they don't have an agreement yet they are trying to reach one in order to pass this larger supplemental package, which would include funding for Ukraine and Israel as well as money for the U.S. southern border.

But this dynamic now that the House Republicans are planning to move forward with this impeachment proceeding against Mayorkas shows you just how hard it is going to be. Even if the Senate can reach a deal, to get that deal through the House of Representatives. So right now, this is a complicating dynamic as the Senate is continuing those efforts. And they're in Washington working today to try to find an agreement on that bipartisan border security proposal.

CORNISH: All right, Lauren. Thanks so much.

MATTINGLY: And joining us now is Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas. Mr. Secretary, appreciate your time.

This was not planned this way but since the House Republicans have telegraphed for a while that they wanted to move in this direction, or planned to, now appear to be doing so.

I think what my colleague Lauren was just talking about is the critical point here. You are so deeply engaged in the border negotiations that are going on in the Senate. Does this undercut any possibility of getting a deal onto the House floor?

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Oh, I certainly hope not, Phil. And thanks so very much for having me this morning.

You know, yesterday, I joined the bipartisan group of senators who are negotiating a solution to a much-plagued, broken immigration system. I was very privileged to participate in that.

Before I did so, I was hard at work in the office with my colleagues addressing the situation at the border and addressing the many other challenges that the Department of Homeland Security confronts. And after I participated in those negotiations in providing technical and operational advice to the bipartisan group of senators, I returned to the office to perform the work of the Department of Homeland Security.

We have a broken immigration system. That is the one single fact about which everyone agrees. And our administration is focused on solutions and we're really pleased to join a bipartisan group of senators who are similarly focused on solutions.

MATTINGLY: Is there -- and I think one of the questions that I've had over the course of the last couple of weeks -- and I don't think I'm alone in this -- is even if you guys reach a deal or if the senators reach a deal -- and you've obviously been providing the technical assistance at length over the course of the last couple of weeks -- is there any commitment that House Republicans will move forward on an agreement if it gets 60 senators, especially when not only is there an impeachment but the speaker and I think dozens of his colleagues will be at the border today talking about this issue?

MAYORKAS: Well, when they're at the border they are going to see the magnitude of the problem and why we have said now for about three decades that our broken immigration system is in desperate need of legislative reform. So we are focused on solutions and we hope that they will return to Washington and focus on the solutions as well.

MATTINGLY: Are you communicating with House Republican leadership -- with the speaker's office right now?

[07:45:04]

MAYORKAS: Right now, I am focused on providing the technical and operational advice that is -- that the bipartisan group of senators have asked me to provide, and I feel very privileged to do so.

Not only are we doing that to advance the negotiations -- we're very focused on them -- but we've also submitted -- this administration has submitted a package to Congress for additional resources to plus up the number of border patrol agents, to plus up the number of asylum officers and immigration judges to infuse our system with much-needed resources.

MATTINGLY: You know, to that point, we talk a lot about what happens if the Ukraine aid runs out. Are you at risk -- is DHS at risk without this national security supplemental package of running out of funding? And what happens in that case given how stretched the border and the government is at the border right now?

MAYORKAS: We will not have the resources to perform our jobs as fully and completely as we could do so, and that would be a very sad state of affairs.

MATTINGLY: By when? Do you have a date on that?

MAYORKAS: We need additional resources. We need them now, and that is why the president submitted a supplemental funding package quite some time ago.

We need additional personnel to advance our security at the border. We need technology to advance our fight against fentanyl.

We need additional asylum officers to really accelerate the asylum adjudication process so people are not waiting six years before they receive their results, which is, in effect, a pull factor. The fact that people can stay here for six years before their asylum case is adjudicated is a powerful example of how broken our immigration system is and has been for so long.

We have a backlog of cases of about three million in immigration court proceedings. That has been building year over year over year for decades now.

MATTINGLY: When it comes -- I want to get to the specifics of what you're talking about -- the border crisis and the issues you guys have been dealing with or stretched to try and deal with.

But I am interested. Have you closed out any issues in the bipartisan negotiations -- the discussions that have been ongoing? And do you feel like the issues that we've been talking about over the course of the last couple of months -- raising credible standards for asylum seekers, expelling migrants at the border -- would that have a tangible reduction at border crossings?

MAYORKAS: So, Phil, I'm not going to get into the particulars of the negotiations. I will say this -- that the negotiations have made -- the negotiators have made substantial progress. They are focused on solutions. And they are focused on solutions that will deliver results and improve a broken system, including and very importantly, a broken asylum system.

MATTINGLY: When we talk about numbers, ABC News is reporting there were over 300,000 border encounters in December. CNN has reported over 225,000 were apprehensions from illegal crossings. These are record numbers. This has been a continuous trendline right now.

Is there anything on the executive authority side that you haven't done yet that you think you can that can stem these?

MAYORKAS: We are focused on the fundamental solution to a long- existing problem, and that fundamental solution is legislation. We have taken actions already to build lawful pathways, to deliver consequences, and do what we can. We've promulgated regulations to do what we can within the confines of the law. But fundamentally, the law is -- the laws themselves must change. And this is something about which everyone agrees, and that is quite rare when one is speaking about immigration.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, it's about the only thing on immigration that anybody seems to agree with on some level.

Mr. Secretary, could I ask you just on a personal level, you've been in this job since the start of the administration. I think you take heat on a lot of issues. You have a massive agency that draws heat on just about everything that you guys do.

The idea of impeachment proceedings starting -- does that affect you at all on a personal -- I know you work and are going to continue to do the work, but how -- what do you think when you see that?

MAYORKAS: You know, Phil, I come to the office every morning and I am surrounded by incredibly talented and dedicated people and it is extraordinarily motivating to see the work they do. To witness firsthand their selflessness, their talent, their tireless dedication. Many sacrifice a tremendous amount. That's what I think about.

And I'm incredibly proud to work alongside them and to support them in advancing the mission of the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of the American people under President Biden's leadership. That's what I think about every day.

[07:50:07]

And I'm incredibly proud of coming to work every day and leaving the office, as late as it might be, having done the work with such extraordinary people.

MATTINGLY: The last one before I let you go. You've been engaged in bilateral discussions with your counterparts in Mexico -- pretty critical discussions. I believe Mexican officials are going to come to the United States soon.

Have you seen a tangible effect of what you guys have discussed up to this point and what you've started to implement up to this point?

MAYORKAS: So, Phil, we -- we've started to see some results. These are not results that occur on the flick of a switch. I also have an engagement with my counterpart from Panama later this week.

The issue of migration is a regional one that challenges a regional one and requires regional solutions, which is why Sec. Blinken, Homeland Security adviser Sherwood-Randall, and I, and our entire delegation was down in Mexico last week and why I will be traveling there again and will be traveling in other parts of the hemisphere to address a regional solution to what is a regional challenge.

At the same time, with respect to the interests of the United States and our southern border, most particularly, it is Congress that must act. And I am hopeful that the bipartisan group of senators will achieve a legislative solution that the entire Congress will pass and we will see reform that has long been needed.

MATTINGLY: Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, we appreciate your time, sir. Thank you.

MAYORKAS: Thank you, Phil.

CORNISH: With uncertainty surrounding abortion access, new research shows thousands of women are stockpiling abortion medication just in case they need it in the future. We'll dig into the data next.

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[07:55:57]

CORNISH: New allegations this morning against Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez after a revised indictment reveals accusations of him helping a second foreign country -- this time, Qatar. Federal prosecutors say he accepted race car tickets and other bribes in exchange for his political influence to connect the Qatari royal family to a friend -- a New Jersey real estate developer, Fred Dabies -- in security a major investment in a Qatar fund.

Now, prosecutors point to the defendants attending an event hosted by Qatar's government back in 2021. And they say that Menendez then got an email with a computer screen filled with photos showing luxury watches worth up to $23,000 with a note that said, quote, "How about one of these?"

MATTINGLY: Now, Menendez was initially indicted last October on charges of acting as an unregistered agent of the Egyptian government after he and his wife Nadine were accused of accepting bribes. Now, that all stemmed from a raid on the couple's home in September where gold bars, cash, and a Mercedes Benz were found.

This indictment also suggests that after that raid the couple tried to cover up their actions and repaid tens of thousands of dollars worth of bribes. That came in the form of payments for a home mortgage and a Mercedes Benz.

CORNISH: Also new this morning, a federal appeals court has ruled that doctors in Texas are not required to perform emergency abortions. And the decision comes in a case where the state had sued the Biden administration, arguing against the 2022 federal emergency medical guidelines.

MATTINGLY: And with the fate of medication abortions in legal limbo, new research has found this uncertainty has led to thousands of women preemptively requesting medication abortion pills in case they need them in the future.

CNN's medical correspondent Meg Tirrell joins us now. Meg, I don't think people necessarily grasp the full kind of second, third, fourth order effects of this post-Roe v. Wade world. What has it done in terms of demand here?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, absolutely. So we know that medication abortion is the most common form of abortion in the United States, accounting for more than half, according to data from groups that follow this.

Now, these researchers looked at data from a group called Aid Access, which is a telehealth provider of medication abortion by mail. And what they looked at is these advance provision orders. So, folks who are ordering this in case they need it. And they've been providing this since September 2021.

But they looked at the impacts around the leak of the Dobbs decision -- that's that first spike you see there in May of 2022. They found that daily orders for these advance provision medication abortion pills went up by 10-fold from about an average of 25 a day before the leak of that decision to almost 250 orders a day after that.

Now, that started to come down a little bit after the actual decision came out. But then in April of 2023, when there started to become a lot of legal uncertainty around one of the medications used here, Mifepristone, those orders started to spike again, guys.

So overall, since September 2021, they say there have been more than 48,000 orders for advance provision of medication abortion pills. But, of course, these patterns have changed a lot with all of the legal uncertainty.

CORNISH: Is there any sense of where demand has been the highest? I've heard reports of people trying to get medications from Mexico. I don't know if it's certain states.

TIRRELL: Yeah. They actually looked at all the states based on the status of abortion access. And what they found is that the states where there was a lot of uncertainty -- where future bans were potential or expected -- that's where they saw the biggest spikes during these periods of uncertainty.

They also looked at the characteristics of the people who were ordering these advance provision orders and they found that predominantly, they were wealthier, white, over the age of 30, and didn't have other children, which they suggested reflected some structural barriers.

CORNISH: That's Meg Tirrell. Thanks so much.

And CNN THIS MORNING continues right now.

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MAYORKAS: When they're at the border they are going to see the magnitude of the problem and why we have said now for about three decades that our broken immigration system is in desperate need of legislative reform.