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Senate Panel Grills Trump's Attorney General Pick Todd Blanche; Clayton Sidesteps Questions About Whether Biden Won 2020 Election; Cassidy Unleashes on Trump Health Nominees on Vaccine Misinformation. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired July 15, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Booker?

SEN. CORY BOOKER, (D-NJ): Good afternoon, Mr. Blanche.

TODD BLANCHE, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: Good afternoon.

BOOKER: Our president has a very well-documented history of attempting to corruptly influence government officials to advance his own personal interests. He called the Republican Secretary of Georgia, asking him to find enough votes to overturn the election. He withheld military aid to pressure Zelenskyy to investigate Joe Biden's son.

For these things, he has been impeached. He's been criminally convicted in Georgia -- indicted in Georgia, because he uses his power to unjustly influence people. When a president routinely pressures public officials for his own personal benefit, the Department of Justice has to remain independent.

This brings me, really, to you. And I think what has you at the center of so much concern is that you seek to lead the Department of Justice after being the president's personal lawyer. The American people are really entitled to know whether your allegiance to the rule of law is your focus or your allegiance to one man, who clearly has an insatiable appetite for revenge, self-enrichment, and the abuse of power.

So I want to talk about your record. Under you, the Department has prosecuted people that have caught folks on both sides of the political aisle by surprise. Jim Comey, Letitia James, my colleague Adam Schiff, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

This casts a shadow over your ideas, any ideas of independence. You directed the arrest of Mayor Ras Baraka of my city of Newark. You weren't at Delaney Hall on May 9, 2025, when he was arrested.

But yes or no, did you have a conversation with Special Agent-in- Charge, Ricky Patel, ordering him to arrest Mayor Baraka?

BLANCHE: I had a conversation. I didn't order him to arrest. I authorized the arrest, which is my job. BOOKER: So you were not there. And we have body camera footage of him then moving and saying, we are arresting the mayor right now per, this is his quote, the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. I want to put that into the record, your comments there.

And the district court, assessing all of your conduct, admonished the Department of Justice. This is their -- this is the quote of the judge, the federal judge. Your role is not to advance political agendas. Your allegiance is to the impartial application of the law and to uphold due process for all.

But this is just one example cited by over 1,200 current and former Department of Justice officials appointed under presence of both parties who warn that you should not be in this position because of your inability to be independent from your personal allegiance to Donald Trump over the rule of law.

I met yesterday with Epstein survivors. Some of them are here in the room today. Congress in a bipartisan fashion passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act because the American people were demanding justice. Yet you failed to abide by that law and release the files by the deadline established by the law.

And when the files were finally released, you failed to protect the survivors that that law was intended to protect. Survivors' personal information, including names, phone numbers, home addresses, and images were released. Powerful people were redacted. Survivors were subjected to re-traumatization.

More than 1,200 victims, yet only two people have ever been prosecuted, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Now, I was stunned earlier by your conversation with one of my colleagues that you wouldn't even commit to meeting with the survivors, but you did meet with Ghislaine Maxwell.

Your claim that you can't meet with these victims because they're represented by counsel is utter nonsense. Counsel can be present or a client can waive their right to have counsel, but you're a lawyer. You know this. That was not truthful, what you said to my colleague.

You said that they should meet with the FBI. All of these women have reported their crimes decades ago, but yet you won't meet with them. What you will do is meet with Ghislaine Maxwell. Over a year ago, you sat with her and you publicly said you were seeking the truth. So let's talk about what that two-day meeting produced.

Did your interview with Ms. Maxwell lead to a single additional person being charged, yes or no?

BLANCHE: No.

BOOKER: Did it lead to a single new investigation, yes or no?

BLANCHE: I can't talk about whether there was any investigation.

BOOKER: I'm not asking you about an ongoing or closed investigation. I'm just asking you about this unusual --

BLANCHE: I can't answer your question yes or no.

[12:35:00]

BOOKER: Did you or anyone else from the DOJ or associated with the president discuss a presidential pardon with Ghislaine Maxwell or her attorneys?

BLANCHE: No.

BOOKER: Did you discuss clemency, yes or no?

BLANCHE: No.

BOOKER: Did you discuss --

BLANCHE: She was convicted. What do you mean clemency?

BOOKER: Did you discuss her transfer to another institution, yes or no?

BLANCHE: No.

BOOKER: Well, just one week after your meeting, Ms. Maxwell was transferred from a low-security federal institution to a minimum- security prison camp. Were you involved with that transfer?

BLANCHE: When, as I've talked about before, in the time leading up to me going down to meet with her, we learned that she was receiving threats. It turned out --

BOOKER: I'm going to interrupt you for a matter of time because --

BLANCHE: OK, well, it's not a question I can answer apparently in the time you're giving me.

BOOKER: Sir, I'm going to tell you this because I deal with issues of criminal justice. When people are under threats in a Bureau of Prison facility, they're put into solitary confinement or protective. They're not moved to a camp.

BLANCHE: That's not always true. You're just wrong.

BOOKER: It is. What is true is someone that is accused of child sex trafficking under the Bureau of Prison's own policies is not put in a facility like this that seems, clearly, like a reward. The Department of Justice is also responsible that powerful corporations play by the same rules.

Let's take the proposed merger between Paramount, Warner Bros., and Discovery. This is no ordinary transaction. It was a proposed $111 billion merger involving two of the last remaining legacy Hollywood studios. As Deputy Attorney General and later Acting Attorney General, you exercise oversight of the Antitrust Division.

You approved the decision to close the Department's investigation into that merger, yes or no?

BLANCHE: I was part of the decision. I don't --

(CROSSTALK)

BOOKER: Yes, you were involved in that.

BOOKER: You don't even let me answer, man. That's incredible.

(CROSSTALK)

BOOKER: Did the career attorneys who investigated that deal recommend closing that investigation?

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: I didn't have a conversation with the career, but as I was saying earlier --

BOOKER: I didn't ask you that. I asked you, did the career attorneys who investigated the deal recommend closing the investigation?

BLANCHE: I have no idea what they --

BOOKER: You were in charge of that department, yet you have no idea. Well, this is --

BLANCHE: I didn't say I had no idea. I had no idea about the question you asked about what the career attorney's view was.

BOOKER: You do not know what the career attorney's view was?

BLANCHE: I'm not sure what the view was with respect to closing it or not closing it.

BOOKER: Well, let me tell you why. Ethics laws that bind you about the appearance of propriety are so, so damning in this case. On the same day that Paramount shareholders voted to approve the merger, David Ellison, the head of the acquiring company, hosted a dinner that you attended honoring the president of the United States.

While you were at that dinner, the DOJ was still investigating a merger. Did you speak with Mr. Ellison on that evening?

BLANCHE: No.

BOOKER: Did you discuss with anyone involved in that organization that evening the department's ongoing investigations?

BLANCHE: No.

BOOKER: Well, six weeks later, after that dinner, that investigation was closed, yet you're stating you have no idea if the attorneys in charge even finished their investigation.

BLANCHE: That's not what I said. BOOKER: What did you say?

BLANCHE: You asked me a question about whether the attorneys recommended that the investigation be closed, and I said I wasn't sure. That's different than what you just threw back at me.

BOOKER: Do you believe that that creates an appearance of impropriety that you were at a dinner?

BLANCHE: No.

BOOKER: OK. The Justice Department ethics rules are very clear about avoiding the appearance of impropriety. In a case like this, I don't think that's an appearance of impropriety. I think that's improper. That the connected and the powerful are getting a chance to rub shoulders.

It would seem appropriate that you avoid those kind of appearances in dinners like that.

BLANCHE: Every appearance or dinner or speech that I give are cleared by ethics officials.

BOOKER: So your attendance at that dinner was cleared by ethics officials?

BLANCHE: Everything that I do (inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

BOOKER: I didn't ask you everything you do. Was your appearance at that dinner?

BLANCHE: You can ask the questions, but you cannot control my answers. I'm under oath, and I can answer the questions and I choose to answer them.

BOOKER: Were you approved? Yes or no?

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: So what I will tell you is --

BOOKER: Were you approved by ethics?

BLANCHE: When I do things outside of the department, whether it's a speech, whether it's a dinner, whether it's an event, they are approved by ethics officials.

BOOKER: You did not answer whether that attendance was approved.

BLANCHE: Every time I go out, it's approved. Yes.

BOOKER: You know, Lincoln said about him that if you want to see the true character of a man, don't view him in adversity, give him power. I believe you've had a lot of power, and so we don't have to speculate

about what has been revealed with your time in that office. We don't need to worry about that power.

[12:40:00]

This isn't a job interview like usually before (ph). You got the job actually to be the number two and the Acting Director. So this isn't a confirmation hearing. This is more of a performance review. And clearly, when it comes to the treatment of Epstein victims, when it comes to politically motivated prosecutions, when it comes from avoiding appearance of impropriety with corporations, you failed.

You're asking this body for a promotion. And you've spent today making a lot of promises, promises to follow the law, promises to be independent, promises to serve the American people and not the president. But we don't need your promises. We have your record.

We have watched you exercise one of the greatest powers entrusted to any public servant. And what have you shown us? 1,200 victims waiting for justice. What have you shown us? There's two prosecutions.

While the party -- while the people involved, the victims, are waiting for action, one of the people prosecuted gets the most cushy arrangement possible after you visit with her. Again and again, you seem to be favoring the interest of a president and the powerful. You've chosen Trump over truth.

You've chosen corporations over the Constitution. And you failed to meet the test. I'll say this in closing.

This is why your nomination should fail. The attorney general's client is not the president. It's the American people. You've been protecting one man for most of your career, for years and years and years. He has demonstrated himself to put undue pressure. This is why he was impeached. This is why he was criminally indicted.

If your record and your testimony today should show us anything, it should show you, in my opinion, that you should not be confirmed for this job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Senator Booker. Before I commence with my questions, I've been asked by Chairman Grassley --

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': We're going to continue to monitor this hearing. We just heard from the Democrat from New Jersey, Cory Booker, making clear through his questioning that he does not support Todd Blanche, nor certainly did he before he started that questioning.

I want to go back to the Senator we heard right before Cory Booker, and that is Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a key vote on this committee. He, like John Cornyn, who we were talking about a little bit earlier in the program, is potentially a swing vote. He seemed to be kind of positive about Todd Blanche and his appointment, but he had some really important questions for Todd Blanche. And one of the things, Jeff Zeleny, that I think that we should maybe put in a little bit of context that you were hearing, I thought, was on the issue of what he called the $1.776 billion fund, the nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, which is holding back Cornyn from saying, yes, I will vote for his nomination because Blanche won't say absolutely, it's dead, and I'll put it in writing.

Tillis seemed to offer a solution or a compromise, which is to let Congress do it, to pass something by unanimous consent in Congress to make it legally null and void. What was your take?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That seemed like what he was doing, and I think in a normal world, I could see that happening by a U.C., as they call it, a unanimous consent, but it would also give a bit of a lifeline to Todd Blanche, so I'm not sure the Democrats will go along and do that, even it would mean effectively killing the $1.776 billion fund.

So it did sound like he was doing that, and Thom Tillis in his questioning sounded much friendlier. He had a lot of a Senator language there. He talked about situational ethics. He slapped him on the hand a little bit, but he did seem to offer him a way out of this.

I'm not sure if the Senate will go for that at this point, particularly if it stands in the way of -- or opens the door, I guess, for John Cornyn to support. I think this is one of the things where the testimony matters and the intervening two weeks before the vote happens also matters a lot.

BASH: If they don't have the votes, if John Cornyn or even Thom Tillis won't vote yes out of committee, they might not have a choice, but we'll see.

Yeah, situational ethics and political physics, I feel like that's the name of his upcoming memoir.

(LAUGH)

JASMINE WRIGHT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NOTUS: Yeah, I think if you were watching that from the White House, Tillis specifically, you felt a little bit better, particularly after Cornyn's comments we heard with Manu.

I think another part of his testimony focused on January 6th, the pardons. Of course, he said it was duplicit (ph) and Democrats were being hypocritical to criticize Trump on some of his pardons and not criticize Biden on some of his pardons.

[12:45:00]

But then he talked about the folks who were convicted of assaulting police officers on January 6th, and I think that one real through line of all of these questions to Thom Tillis has been the uniting idea that folks who served in the Senate were there on January 6th and had this really personal experience with that fear of what that felt like on that day. And you see that coming out in the questioning. You saw Tillis bring up January 6th and the folks who did assault police officers and take a drink of his water bottle in a moment that felt very emotional. He didn't necessarily complete his questioning of that moment. He said, can we work with you on it?

But I think that you're seeing that across the board, this idea that maybe some of the January 6ers, when we're thinking about the Republican questioners, maybe some of the January 6ers were over- weaponized or over-targeted. But the folks who assaulted police officers should be separate from that. And that has been a through line since January 2025 when Trump returned (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Before Senator Tillis moved on, he did get Todd Blanche to say that those who particularly assaulted police officers should have been prosecuted and were. And then Senator Tillis moved on.

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: You know, what's so frustrating to me as a former prosecutor, not only as an AUSA, but also the Civil Rights Division, you have hemorrhaging in the Department of Justice, mass exodus, mass firings.

And although he does obviously serve, if he has his (ph) capacity, the people of the United States government, the people of the United States in general, he should have had the backs of the prosecutors who secured those convictions. Pardon power is absolute. The president has every right to do so, to pardon who he would like.

Commutations are also part of that game as well. And as much as you don't like it, there is the prerogative. However, if you're going to be the person who is the figurehead, the person whose face is there and who's supposed to have the backs of your U.S. attorneys, your line prosecutors and beyond, you've got to say that the prosecutions themselves were justified.

You've got to say that although the president has exercised his right, that they did not go about prosecuting these cases or securing these convictions for pre-textual or political reasons. You have to support them because what you're doing by not doing that not only declines morale, it also signals to future jurors, future grand jurors, and judges that there is some reason to not believe in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion by people whose job it is to stand up on behalf of the people of the United States.

And so, there was a missed opportunity for him just then to talk about the president's pardon power, but also to be steadfast.

BASH: Well, there's a reason.

(CROSSTALK)

WRIGHT: And there's a reason.

BASH: And there's a reason for that. Yeah. Yeah. WRIGHT: There's a reason.

BASH: All right, we're going to have to take a quick break. And when we come back, we are going to talk about two other really important hearings happening on Capitol Hill for two other members of the president's team. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:52:35]

BASH: President Trump's nominee to permanently replace Bill Pulte, the current Acting Director of National Security, is in front of the Intelligence Committee today. Jay Clayton is currently the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. And many Democrats see him as a less political appointee than Pulte to lead the nation's intelligence community. But Democrats were still trying to hold his feet to the fire.

CNN's Brian Todd is following all of this in the hearing. One of the most striking questions that was asked over and over by Democrats is whether or not he thinks that the 2020 election was won by Joe Biden. And his answer or non-answer was telling.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very telling, Dana. He was asked by no fewer than four Senators, three Democrats and one Independent, did Joe Biden win the 2020 election? And to each question, each time he was asked, he did not say flat out that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

Here's an exchange between Jay Clayton and Independent Senator, Angus King of Maine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ANGUS KING, (I-ME): Who won the 2020 election?

JAY CLAYTON, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE NOMINEE: As I said to you, we went through our processes and Joe Biden became the president of the United States.

KING: That's not an answer to the question of who -- if -- I'm asking one more time, who won the 2020 election?

CLAYTON: I don't -- I don't -- I'm not -- this is like, I'm just not -- I'm here to talk about my qualifications.

KING: One of your qualifications as you told us you're going to tell the truth to power and you won't answer a very simple question (inaudible).

CLAYTON: I think I've answered it many times.

KING: You have not answered it.

CLAYTON: OK. (END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And he also didn't answer it when Democratic Senators Mark Warner, Mark Kelly, and Jon Ossoff asked him the same question. Did Joe Biden win the 2020 election? He gave answers similar to that. He went through the processes.

Jay Clayton said he got the certified votes. He was certified, but he never flat out said that Joe Biden won. Another really incredible exchange was he really claimed almost to not know about Tulsi Gabbard, his predecessor, about her visit to Georgia in January when she tagged along with an investigation into 2020 election files there in Georgia.

He didn't really know about it. He said -- when Jon Ossoff asked him about it, he said, I didn't know about it until you, Senator Ossoff, told me in your office. He seemed to have little or no knowledge of the Tulsi Gabbard visit.

[12:55:00]

Dana, this all speaks to the central question of Jay Clayton's hearings here. Is he going to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to pursue Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen? He claims that he will not do that, but you saw he just won't answer the question, did Joe Biden win? He knows what his possible future boss might think of it if he said that he did win.

BASH: Yes, which is why Angus King asks that question to pretty much every nominee that comes before any committee that he's on. With this particular position, as you well know, it takes on a different level of importance because it's not just about what happened in the past, it is what is going to potentially happen in these midterm elections, which is why they were all asking questions about that in various ways, shapes, and forms.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I should also say that the top Democrat on that committee, Mark Warner, also asked a version of that question, but then noted that he would be probably better than Bill Pulte, who has gone after the president's opponents.

TODD: Yes.

BASH: OK, there is another major Senate hearing that just wrapped up on Capitol Hill. Dr. Erica Schwartz is having her confirmation hearing to be the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The tension between the CDC and Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., especially over vaccine safety, dominated the hearing. We saw a side to Republican Senator, Bill Cassidy, we haven't seen in a while. He's clearly fed up with the vaccine decisions being made by Kennedy.

Here's how the hearing began, which set the tone for what was to come.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL CASSIDY, (R-LA) CHAIR, HEALTH COMMITTEE: I almost feel like I'm having to go after this question a little bit more firmly than I feel like I should. You can be CDC Director and just take orders. We need a CDC director that will actually stand up to crazy, stupid things being said that undermine faith in immunization.

Are you the person? And I'm being very direct here because, obviously, I feel like we've got thousands of kids hospitalized because people have promoted that immunization is bad, and now kids have died because of it. It is evil to do that, and people persist.

You are the bulwark. So I'm asking, will you have the ability and the firmness to stand up to that political meddling to say, no, that's wrong and this is right?

DR. ERICA SCHWARTZ, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION NOMINEE: Chairman, you have my assurances that I will continue to lead by my integrity. I will never compromise on the science. I will always, always have the public's health in mind. I have spent over 25 years making sure that my --

CASSIDY: That's not quite the direct answer I'm hoping for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Meg Tirrell joins me now.

Meg, it's really remarkable for many reasons, not the least of which is that the reason why White House officials, administration officials said that Erica Schwartz was going to be nominated is because they were looking for somebody normal, which was supposed to be code for somebody who agrees that there is importance in getting vaccines and that vaccine hesitancy is a dangerous thing for public health. That is not the kind of answer that she gave there.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT Yeah, and you know, you were talking just now about the question that kept coming up in that other hearing about the 2020 election. Well, the question you just showed from Bill Cassidy there was the question that just kept coming up in this CDC hearing with Dr. Erica Schwartz.

It was, will you stand up to power, specifically to Health Secretary RFK Jr. and to President Trump if, as the Senator said, they ask you to do something that goes against the science or in some cases, the Democratic Senators asked, if it's against the law. Now, Dr. Schwartz kept saying she didn't believe that they would do that.

We also heard from Cassidy at the end of the hearing just how frustrated he is with some of the vaccine language out there, including from the other nominee we heard from, Sean Kaufman, in this hearing. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASSIDY: Why would you repeat those damn lies? Because that destroys trust and we don't start getting back to where we trust unless people speak the truth. I'm sorry to be kind of worked up about this, but I've seen people die from these vaccine preventable diseases, including hepatitis B, and you're going to be one of the leaders in our response. Respond to that, please.

SEAN KAUFMAN, NOMINEE, HHS ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE: Senator Cassidy, I did say that I've always believed that vaccines are the gold standard of public health. It's in that same post and that post that individuals have misrepresented and mischaracterized that I had tied the infant dose to autism. That's a mischaracterization.

I have simply said public health owes it to the people to take a look at why there's been such an increase in autism and allergies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TIRRELL: Now we know that the White House has been trying to get away from these vaccine headlines, Dana, as they've heard it is potentially damaging for the midterms. That clearly, with RFK Jr. in this post as HHS Secretary, not going anywhere.

BASH: That was really something, Meg. Thank you so much. Appreciate your reporting. Thank you for joining "Inside Politics" on this very busy day here in Washington. "CNN News Central" starts right now.