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White House Ends Protected Status of Haitian Immigrants in U.S.; President Yet to Weigh in on Roy Moore Controversy; CBS Suspends Charlie Rose Amid Sexual Harassment Allegations. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 21, 2017 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Mike is going to be flying on the team plane to catch the Sixers play the Hawks in Atlanta after the season. You go, Mike, you keep shining. We're all cheering for you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Can you hit that shot, by the way?

WIRE: Never, in a million years.

CUOMO: Don't be like that. I know you can. I know you can. Happy Thanksgiving. If I don't see you, we are thankful for you, my friend, even though you are so handsome.

WIRE: Thanks.

CUOMO: We are following a lot of news, some bid headlines. Let's get after it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Trump administration ending protected status for thousands of Haitians living in the U.S. after a catastrophic earthquake in 2010.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The government now says conditions in Haiti have improved enough.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's not jobs in Haiti. I don't even know how they're going to survive.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: The conduct as described should disqualify anyone.

We want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They want the votes but they are going to pretend like they are not responsible of enacting any standards for their party.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show of hands, how many people are comfortable with the president's tone?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's not perfect, but I think he's saying what a lot of us are thinking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He said he would bring the country together. That has not happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, November 21st, 8:00 in the east. The Trump administration telling thousands of Haitians in the U.S. legally that they need to go home. They have 18 months to leave the country or be deported. Homeland Security officials say they will not renew the protected status that has allowed those Haitians to seek shelter here since an earthquake ravaged their country seven years ago.

CUOMO: Veteran journalist Charlie Rose is now accused of sexual misconduct by at least eight women who worked on his PBS show. Rose has been suspended from CBS News, PBS, and Bloomberg which replays the Charlie Rose PBS show. This morning his CBS co-anchors addressed this scandal. There are questions about what CBS News knew and what they did about it. We have it all covered. Let's begin with CNN's Joe Johns live at the White House. Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. As part of a larger focus on immigration, the administration was once zeroing in on childhood arrivals from other countries. Now the target is people that came here to escape the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Tens of thousands of Haitians living in the United States will now have to choose between going back to their country or living in the shadows.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: The Trump administration ending a humanitarian program allowing approximately 59,000 Haitian immigrants to temporarily live and work in the United States, giving them until July, 2019, to leave the country or risk being deported.

Temporary protected status was given to Haitians in the U.S. in 2010 after a powerful 7.0 magnitude killed hundreds of thousands in the island nation. The Department of Homeland Security declaring those extraordinary but temporary conditions caused by the 2010 earthquake no longer exists. However Haiti remains the poorest country in the hemisphere, and a recent United Nations report estimates 55,000 Haitians are still struggling in the aftermath of the quake with thousands still living in makeshift camps seven years later.

The head of the Democratic National Committee responding in a statement, writing "Donald Trump's cruelty knows no bounds." Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen insisting that Haiti is not prepared to take back nearly 60,000 people. This announcement coming as a federal judge permanently blocks the Trump administration's executive order that would deny funding to so-called sanctuary cities. The judge ruling that the president cannot set new conditions on spending approved by Congress, rejecting the administration's argument that the order was merely an instruction to enforce existing law.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't want to defund anybody. If they are going to have sanctuary cities, we may have to do that. Certainly that would be a weapon.

JOHNS: This as the White House seems to imply that they would prefer to have alleged child molester Roy Moore in the Senate rather than his Democratic opponent if it means getting tax reform passed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So vote Roy Moore?

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Doug Jones is a doctrinaire liberal which is why he's not saying anything and why the media are trying to boost him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So vote Roy Moore?

CONWAY: I'm telling you that we want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through.

JOHNS: But just last week White House counselor Kellyanne Conway sending a different message.

CONWAY: Whatever the facts end up being, the premise is, of course, the principle, the incontrovertible principle is that there's no Senate seat that's worth more than a child.

JOHNS: Press Secretary Sarah Sanders refusing to take a stand on behalf of the White House.

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president believes this is a decision for the people of Alabama to make.

The people of Alabama should make the decision.

The decision that the people the Alabama need to make.

[08:05:00] JOHNS: President Trump has not personally weighed in on the Roy Moore controversy in more than six days.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you believe Roy Moore's accusers, Mr. President?

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Roy Moore, of course, continues to deny those allegations and says he will stay in the Alabama Senate race. Today the president for his part is expected to participate in the annual tradition of pardoning turkeys here at the White House in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday. It will be another opportunity to try to get a question or two to the president about some of the controversies of the day, Chris and Alisyn. CAMEROTA: OK, Joe, thank you. Bring that to us whenever you have it.

Let's bring in our CNN political analysts Joshua Green and Jonathan Martin. Great to see both of you. OK, so Jonathan, let me start with you. About Haiti, these 59,000 Haitians who were seeking shelter in the U.S. for the past seven years since their country was devastated by the earthquake, we've heard a lot of analysts say this is what the president promised during the campaign, but is it? Did he promise that asylum seekers and people who were seeking shelter, that he was going to send them back, or was he mostly talking about cracking down on illegal immigration?

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think most people would have told you he was talking about a harder line on the border, obviously talking about building a wall on the U.S./Mexican border and deporting some folks. I am not sure those that fled natural disaster were on the top minds, but I have got to say, if you surveyed the hardcore Trump base, I don't think a lot of them would have a problem with this, which is probably why he thinks he can do it.

Everything that this president has done has largely been with his base in mind, and you guys showed the clip of him staying silent as he was asked about Roy Moore in the West Wing there just now, and the reason he stays silent on that is for the same issue here. He does not want to get crosswise with his political base, whether it's on an Alabama race, on the immigration issue broadly or anything else.

CUOMO: Look, the Roy Moore situation is embarrassingly obvious. That is what it is. This is a man who shies away from nothing, certainly things he shouldn't talk about. He's not talking about Roy Moore because it doesn't work for him and he doesn't want to do it. We get it.

Josh, on the Haiti situation, the political cover becomes specious pretty quickly. The political cover is this is temporary. It has always been temporary. Why are you trying to make it permanent? Because everybody has, Republican and Democrat since it's happened. How is this not a play on us versus them because you are picking on the most vulnerable people in the immigration system?

JOSHUA GREEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's a very much a play on us versus them. And I think it's consistent with Trump's broader approach to immigration, to refugees, including economic refugees like those from Haiti. We got a signal that this was coming maybe six months ago when John Kelly who was then the DHS secretary extended these protections but for only six months, which is a shorter period than usual. Then last month Elaine Duke, his replacement at DHS removed these temporary protections from Nicaraguans. So you can --

CUOMO: And said that Haiti, that the conditions that existed that necessitated the exodus don't exist anymore, which just can't be true in any real way. They still have over 50,000 people in dire, abject need there. Anybody who has been to Haiti can tell you, you wouldn't make it there a week. So how strong is that basis in terms of justifying the policy? GREEN: I don't know how strong the basis is, but in terms of being consistent with what Trump and people like Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller have been trying to do all along, it's consistent in the sense that they have said from the get go we are going to use every level of government we can to expel these people from our country, and that's what we see happening.

The irony, Chris, if I could just add with the Haitian community is if you look at the Haitian community in south Florida, they were actually very strong Trump supporters because a lot of them were unhappy with the Clinton Foundation project in Haiti. I remember speaking to Trump campaign people at the time saying we are specifically targeting this community, and we are sending them Facebook ads to vote for Trump. So it's a real stab in the back to a lot of these people who voted for Trump and now find out that these protections are going to be yanked.

CAMEROTA: Jonathan, go ahead.

MARTIN: I was going to say, if you look at some of the stories this morning, El Salvador is next. I think they have a temporary refugee program in place based on a natural disaster of their own that I think is coming to an end here in the months ahead. It wouldn't surprise me at all, to echo Joshua's point, that you will see that moment used once again by the Trump administration to sort of flex their muscle when it comes to the immigration laws.

[08:10:05] CUOMO: So if you want to flex your muscle, what about the moral agency on Roy Moore, Jonathan? What is your take on this? They had Kellyanne go out there. She gave somewhat of a complicated explanation to "FOX AND FRIENDS." Let's listen to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONWAY: The principle, the incontrovertible principle, is that there's no Senate seat that is worth more than a child.

Doug Jones in Alabama, folks, don't be fooled. He will be a vote against tax cuts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So vote Roy Moore?

CONWAY: I'm telling you we want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The suggestion is they don't want to weigh in on the process, that's up to the Alabama state, that's up to the governor there, Ivey, a female who has said she has no reason to disbelieve the accusers but is still with Roy Moore. But what is missing? The deafening silence of the president of the United States. He had plenty of time to weigh in to the situation with LaVar Ball, but not Roy Moore. How is this OK, Jonathan Martin?

MARTIN: Because he would prefer to get into a feud with LaVar Ball. It's better politics for him than once again inserting himself into an Alabama political race where he's already gotten burned. And that's what you guys have to understand here, his hesitation to get involved in the Alabama race stems not just the issue of not wanting to go get crosswise with his voters, although that's it. It's the specific matter of the fact that he was in the state a few months ago to campaign for Luther Strange who is the appointee in that seat right now, and Strange got soundly defeated by Roy Moore in the Republican primary. Trump does not want to reinsert himself in Alabama again after being burned once there because he puts a premium on winning and being seen as a winner, and the idea of going down there once again and risking his capital I think does not appeal to him.

And that's the way he thinks. He is very reluctant to stick his neck down there. That does create awkwardness, though, because the White House has to have an answer when they go to shows like this and they don't really have an answer.

Real fast, on the tax issue, though, that Kellyanne Conway mentions, I think it's Senator Strange who is there right now who is more likely to be the one to cast a vote on taxes next month than whoever wins this seat in the special election on December the 12th. The Senate wants to have this tax bill to the floor before the Alabama Senate election is held, guys.

CAMEROTA: Josh, Jonathan did not mention the other awkward thing about commenting on this for President Trump.

CUOMO: There is that, too.

CAMEROTA: The more than a dozen accusations and allegations from women against him about sexual misconduct. So where do you think the White House is on this, Josh?

GREEN: I think they prefer Trump did not talk about this, but of course Trump unable to help himself, went out and started tweeting about Al Franken's -- or accusations against Senator Al Franken of sexual misconduct, which of course put the spotlight on his own dozen plus accusers. And I think it has been problematic for a lot of Republicans whose partisan instinct would be to go after Al Franken to put pressure on him to resign, and yet it's tough to do that with any moral and ethical consistency if you are not also willing to apply the same standard to your president who has had much more serious charges leveled against him that have not been answered.

CUOMO: Go ahead, Jonathan,

MARTIN: To Democrats yesterday, for a story that I was working on Senator Franken, Democrats privately in the Senate will say, look, we think we've actually got some breathing room on Franken at least for now, and obviously if more allegations come out, it could be problematic, but they think they have got some breathing room on Franken for the very reasons that Josh mentioned, because the Republican senators are somewhat constrained here not just because of the Moore situation be because they have a president who is facing all of these charges himself of sexual harassment that they don't have a lot of high ground on the GOP side when it comes to Franken. And so they are somewhat restrained to come out full force, demanding that Franken resign when they have their own mess.

CUOMO: Imagine if the allegations that came out during the campaign had come out now fresh now that the culture is starting to shift, now that women are coming forward, now that people are opening their minds to this situation.

CAMEROTA: I have thought about that scenario of what might happen. Jonathan Martin, Joshua Green, thank you both very much.

So as Chris has been just mentioning, there is this watershed moment, and now veteran journalist Charlie Rose has been accused of sexual misconduct by eight women. Powerful words from his CBS co-anchors about the scandal, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:18] CUOMO: Journalist Charlie Rose suspended by CBS, PBS and Bloomberg, which reruns his PBS show, because of sexual conduct allegations by eight women made to the "Washington Post."

This morning, his CBS co-anchors Norah O'Donnell and Gayle King addressed the scandal.

Here's a piece.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS NEWS: This is a moment that demands a frank and honest assessment of where we stand and more generally the safety of women. Let me be very clear: there's no excuse for this alleged behavior. It is systematic and pervasive and I have done a lot of listening and I'm going to continue to do that. This I know is true that women cannot achieve equality until there is a reckoning and a taking of responsibility.

GAYLE KING, CBS NEWS: I have to say, Norah, I am still reeling. I got an hour and 42 minutes of sleep last night. But my son and my daughter called me, called me and said, are you OK, I'm not OK.

After reading that article in "The Post," it was deeply disturbing, troubling, and painful for me to read. So, I think we have to make this matter to women -- the women who have not spoken up, the women who have not spoken up because they were afraid. I'm hope that now, they will take the step to speak out, too, that this becomes a moment of truth.

You know, I have enjoyed a friendship and partnership with Charlie for the last five years and have held him in such high regard, and I'm really struggling because how do you -- what do you say when somebody that you deeply care about has done something that is so horrible. How do you wrap your brain around that? I'm grappling with that.

I also find that it's -- you can hold two ideas in your head at the same time, you can grapple with things,

[08:20:05] And I -- to be very honest with you, I'm still trying to process all of this, I'm still trying to sort it out because this is not the man I know, but I'm also clearly on the side of the women who have been very hurt and very damaged by this. And I'm going to -- you know, I haven't spoken to him.

Have you spoken to him? I haven't spoken to him. I intent to speak to him certainly later today, but I'm sorry and I'm very glad that they have spoken up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Gayle King in a very real and poignant way speaking to the complexity of the situation emotionally, and with one laser focus, which is defending the women who came forward.

Let's bring in CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES", Brian Stelter, and CNN media analyst, Bill Carter.

Bill Carter, this is different. This is new what we are seeing come in wave after wave of allegations against men in positions of power. How does this reverberate through CBS News?

BILL CARTER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Well, I think it's going to give everybody a lot of reason to pause. I mean, Charlie was on "60 Minutes" as well and was really highly regarded. I think everybody in these positions now has to step back and say, you know, you can't have anybody who is accepting of this kind of behavior. And if people know about it, they have to come forward.

I mean, I don't know what people at CBS knew and what they didn't know, but it's certainly, through this article, incredibly pervasive and has gone on for a very long time, and certainly there are more than one woman who exchanged information on this.

And particularly bad in this case was that there were women in positions of authority who didn't speak up. That's really, really troubling.

CAMEROTA: Yes, we have that somewhere, the executive producer who women say that they went to from PBS, where also worked, Yvette Vega, who says I should have stood up for them, I failed. It is crushing, I deeply regret not helping them.

Well, you just can't get a stronger statement than that in retrospect what she should have done. I mean, she's remorseful now, Brian. But, God, what a remarkable and awkward and uncomfortable position for Norah and Gayle there to have to talk about their colleague whom they seem have great respect for and affection for. And Gayle talked about having to keep two things in your head at once, that we could have had that experience with him, and he could also have been serially preying on other young women.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: And I think a lot of people can relate to the feeling that Gayle King is grappling with, whether it's Harvey Weinstein seven weeks ago, or Kevin Spacey, other men accused in Hollywood, now in Washington, now in New York. You know, it's a kind of a whisper network now about who might be

next. Journalists continue to conduct these investigations and find this wrongdoing. And it's a remarkable thing. And it's remarkable feed of journalism that these stories are coming to light.

But here we are talking about not only the producers and journalists in CBS News where Charlie Rose help to build this morning show there for the last five years, and all of a sudden, he's been suspended and I'm told later today or tomorrow, we will see CBS likely sever ties with him.

CAMEROTA: To be fired.

STELTER: It's impossible to imagine him coming back on the morning show.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask you about that because CBS said in "The Washington Post" reporting that they didn't have -- let me just get it right, no record of sexual harassment complaints against Charlie Rose. Is that accurate?

STELTER: That is what CBS said. They reiterated to me just a few minutes ago, that they had no HR formal complaints against Rose from his time at CBS.

Now, we need to do more reporting to corroborate that. But that's the official line from CBS. I think it's possible, perhaps some staffers are now coming forward in the wake of the "Washington Post" story.

But think about this. I knew for weeks this story was in the works. A lot of reporters knew that Rose was being investigated by "The Washington Post" and other outlets. CBS kept him on the air for those weeks. He was covering stories of other alleged harassers on CBS this morning for three or four weeks. There's an odd twist to this story, maybe an uncomfortable twist, that he was involved in the coverage of these stories, and I wonder if there's going to be more scrutiny of CBS, what they did or didn't do in the more recent weeks.

But more importantly, this was alleged to be going on many years ago, and to this also scrutiny of PBS and Bloomberg about who didn't know what. You know, the common theme, whether it's Harvey Weinstein or any of these other men, is the people that looked the other way, who maybe didn't want to know the details.

CUOMO: Look, you know what, this gets complicated. This may be unpopular with some people, but it's responsible in the discussion. One, it's telling that the two co-anchors haven't spoken to Charlie. It shows that there's a little bit of an approach going on.

CAMEROTA: Distancing, right?

STELTER: That's true, that's true.

CUOMO: I mean, look, there could be other explanations, but there's that. Bill Carter, why am I saying that this next part may be unpopular.

Not all accusations are equal, OK? We're seeing that in the Roy Moore situation. You don't have a real vetting of fact. There is no investigation or prosecution by a government entity, a lot of it is what you choose to believe.

On the corporate level, that's going to be true also.

[08:25:03] To be clear, if CBS knew about these meritorious claims and did nothing, they need to be called out just as much as Charlie Rose, because that's how you change corporate culture.

However, in their defense, not a lot of accusations are equal and very often, the expedient thing to do is to settle a claim, because even you don't think there's not much to it, once if we find out about it, now you have a problem. So, it's difficult to kind of assess what's the right thing and the wrong thing.

How do you see it?

CARTER: Well, I agree with you in this sense. We have had so many of these reports, Chris. I mean, you are getting to a point where it seems like there has been gradations of what kind of behavior reaches a point where someone's career is over. What's happened in Charlie Rose is so egregious, you have to say, they have no choice now, as Brian said. I think they're going to let them go very quickly.

But we have episodes where I don't know what Jeffrey Tambor did on his show, and now, he's off that show, you know? I don't know what exactly qualifies, or Al Franken situation. I don't know yet --

CUOMO: Glenn Thrush -- I mean, Charlie Rose is overshadowing Glenn Thrush, "The New York Times" reporter, an MSNBC analyst. He also is in a position of suspension I believe right now.

STELTER: That's right.

CAMEROTA: But, listen, I will help you. I know the gradations. I know -- I know what the line is. Sexual assault is very clear. There are no gradations. If you --

CARTER: No gradation of that, absolutely.

CAMEROTA: There's no gradation.

And so, sexual harassment, I agree, is a very gray area, sometimes it's in the eye of the beholder. Sexual assault were some of these accusations if you are into, if you're grabbing somebody's privates, if you are making them cry, if you're pulling their hair, if you are forcing yourself physically on top of them --

CUOMO: Those are all crimes, by the way.

CAMEROTA: This is a point. Is it --

CARTER: It's all egregious. CUOMO: But those are crimes.

CAMEROTA: In that category, those things are very clear. When all the people -- look, I don't want to paint it with too broad a brush, but a lot of the accusations we've heard of the most powerful men fall into that category.

STELTER: Right, but some of the men are being accused of abusing their power, and some are claiming they didn't know somehow about these power dynamics.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: I just have to read this, because this is the head- exploding part for me.

Charlie Rose's statement, I just want to quickly read it.

It is essential that these women know I hear them and that I deeply apologize for my inappropriate. I'm greatly embarrassed. I have behaved insensitively at times, and I accept responsibility for that, though I do not believe that all these allegations are accurate.

Here's the part that blows my mind -- I always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now I realize I was mistaken.

Come on.

CARTER: There's a level of delusional aspect to this, that he thought he was going on with the behavior as though there was a reciprocation by the women? It's either he's completely delusional, or he's just lying here about this. And you're right, this is so over the top that you just -- it just boggles the mind how much of this was going on, except we all know that there's been this kind of subterranean thing for an awful lot of these men and an awful lot of them had reputations long before this came forward.

STELTER: And Charlie Rose is not the last person to be exposed.

CUOMO: Look, my hope is just that, you know, obviously, you draw a line, and that should be clear to everybody. Arguably, those are all crimes what you discussed, by the way.

CAMEROTA: There you go.

CUOMO: As soon as you touched me in an unwanted way, you could have a problem, sometimes, it comes to injury. There's a lot of other specifications.

But as we continue, as this pendulum swings, we do have to be dutiful about making sure that we are focusing on the right things, and that the lust of seeing people -- the reckoning that we keep hearing about, you know, to be done responsibility.

CAMEROTA: There you go. Up next, I check in with voters who supported President Trump, how they feel about the controversies plaguing his presidency, including the Russia investigation and Moore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Papadopoulos is a janitor in the Trump administration.

CAMEROTA: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a nobody.

CAMEROTA: So, even though he was in that foreign policy meeting, where are you getting that information?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't mean literally, but I mean, he was a nobody. That's my point.

CAMEROTA: How do you know that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because Trump says so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Hear what else they have to say when we get the pulse of the people, next.