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Schumer Withdraws Offer; No Wall No DACA; Kentucky School Shooting; James Hits 30,000 Points; Nunes Memos Debate; Sentencing for Nassar. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 24, 2018 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL ANCHOR, SPECTRUM NEWS: The name calling, the childishness, the tweets. It's hard to imagine that they're going to get this done by February.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I'm confused, is it shutdown Schumer or crying Chuck? Which one are we going with?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I -- you know, I think you've got to pick one nickname and stick with it. Crying is John Boehner.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It also depends if you're a politician or a Russian bots.

CAMEROTA: Yes, crying is --

CUOMO: Bots like the hash tag.

AVLON: Yes, the bot, yes.

CAMEROTA: That's -- yes. But I'm also confused about this. Why did Chuck Schumer offer to pay for the wall? That was the confusing part. That that was some other different negotiation. It makes more sense that he's back to his original position, doesn't it?

AVLON: Well, it was in the context of a negotiation to try to get something done to either overt the shutdown or stop the shutdown. But, you know, Errol's using words I don't understand like rational and fair and humane and immigration policy --

CAMEROTA: How dare he.

AVLON: Which really haven't been in the part of the conversation in our country for some time, certainly not in this era.

Look, Schumer's going to withdraw that offer in the context of the start of negotiations. But let's not be too cute or histrionic about this because there is a three-week window on this. And so it's going to require everyone summon their better angels and it's going to require the broad outlines of a deal that look a lot like what were brought to the table three weeks ago, before it was blown up by the president.

CAMEROTA: You mean the Graham-Durbin deal? AVLON: Yes, some version of that is what's going to end up happening, if anything happens at all. It's going to be border security, including building a wall in portions. It's going to be a DACA deal that probably at least gives legal status to the dreamers, if not full citizenship. It's going to be some compromise on chain migration.

CUOMO: You're talking about the pillars.

AVLON: Yes.

CUOMO: Because obviously the White House had said that deal is dead. But it was because of the matter of degree, not the boxes that were checked.

AVLON: (INAUDIBLE). That's also because Lindsey Graham's going after Steven Miller. There's bad blood.

CUOMO: Right. I mean, look, Errol, the problem for Schumer is, that deal means more to the Democrats than it does to the Republicans. How do we know that? Well, we know that because he offered the wall. And that is a big give because it's a silly give and they're not getting anything back for it.

We also know, if you ever read Chester L. Karis on negotiation, if somebody offers something once, they'll offer it again.

LOUIS: Of course.

CUOMO: So it's not the strongest move. But, also, we know that this bill of love stuff from the president is just talk. How do we know? Listen to what Mick Mulvaney, budget director, certainly knows the heart and mind of the president on this issue, listen to what he said on this show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Just say what his position is on it. How do they get to stay? Who gets to stay?

MICK MULVANEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET: Again, depends on what we get in exchange. What do we get for our border security? What do we get for a wall?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Love has no strings attached. It's not about a bill of love.

AVLON: Are we going Corinthians now? Full Corinthians.

CUOMO: It's about -- it's about -- love is great (ph). Love is fine. Only at weddings do you hear that.

LOUIS: It turns out love is a pretty good bargaining chip, right? I mean they like the idea because it is popular, right, because 90 something percent of the public wants to see some kind of decent resolution for the dreamers. Well, fine. He wants to then trade it for the wall or something else or for changing legal migration and for all kinds of other things, the military --

CUOMO: But then he shouldn't get any credit for having compassion towards the dreamers, because he doesn't.

LOUIS: No, that's right.

CUOMO: If you cared about them, you'd help them, period, and then you negotiate these other things for a flawed system. That's not what's happening.

LOUIS: Well, it's important to note, though, I mean, how far Schumer might be able to go. I mean somebody like Louis Gutierrez (ph) says, you know what, build the wall, just save our dreamers. There are a lot of people who feel that way in the Democratic base and, you know, building a wall amounts to a couple of billion dollars a year for ten years to enact a policy that many Democrats feel is never going to work anyway, it might be seen as a decent trade.

CUOMO: Be a big win for Trumpville, for the campaign. If he says he got the wall, it's a big deal.

AVLON: Yes. But, again, at some point you've got to start governing and thinking about the national interest. Both parties have to look out at their base. But if any deal gets done, elements of the base on both sides are going to be angry. That's how you know a real deal got done.

CAMEROTA: John Avlon, Errol Louis, thank you.

CUOMO: All right, so it is important at the end of the day to track everything that has happened and why our heads are shaking so much. So tonight in primetime we'll dig into these topics. We will try to get people close to the president to understand where his head is and where we go next. 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

CAMEROTA: Sometimes heads shake also after that.

CUOMO: Sometimes.

CAMEROTA: (INAUDIBLE).

CUOMO: Not mine. Mine just kind of lulls back and I fall asleep in the car.

CAMEROTA: Nods off.

All right, meanwhile, we have to get to this story.

Police in Kentucky are trying to determine why a teenager opened fire at a high school, killing two classmates and wounding more than a dozen others. The latest details in a live report for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:38:21] CUOMO: All right, we are following breaking news out of Afghanistan. A suicide attack at the Save the Children compound in Jalalabad takes two lives, injures 20 others. Authorities believe one of the attackers is still fighting police and security forces inside the building. Save the Children does humanitarian work, obviously, and advocates for youth worldwide. This incident comes just days after Taliban gunmen stormed the intercontinental hotel in Kabul, leaving at least 22 people dead.

CAMEROTA: A U.S.-led coalition says that 150 ISIS terrorists were killed Saturday in a targeted air strike overseer Syria. A spokesman for the coalition tells CNN that a week's worth of intelligence helped isolate an ISIS headquarters and command and control center. U.S. Navy FA-18 jets and unmanned drones were used in this attack. Military officials believe the terrorists may have been gathering for an operation.

CUOMO: An investigation underway into why police say a 15-year-old student opened fire inside a Kentucky high school, took two lives, and he injured 18 more.

CNN's Nick Valencia is live in Benton, Kentucky, with the latest developments.

Nick.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

Yesterday gunshots rang out here at this high school, and we're still trying to figure out why, what the motive is. Why a 15-year-old, somebody who's not even old enough to drive a car, would do something like this.

A very somber press conference yesterday from state and local officials who said that in some cases -- there was a state trooper who first responded here thinking that the 15-year-old girl who died at the scene here was his own daughter. It just speaks to the human toll here in this community, just how small and tight knit this place is.

[06:40:04] We know that there were 20 people affected by this shooting, 16 of them gunshot victims. Five of them this morning still battling for their lives in critical condition.

We're also learning the identities of the two that were killed. One of them died at the scene, that's Bailey Holt, just 15 years old, just 15 years old, and Preston Cope, another 15-year-old who's said to have died at a nearby hospital.

I mentioned the somber mood of this press conference. People here just wondering how something like this could happen here. It's a community that they don't worry about leaving their keys in the car when it's running, let alone something like this happening. One of the outstanding questions that we have this morning is whether or not this 15-year-old male student, who's alleged to have committed this mass shooting, will be charged as adult or a juvenile. Prosecutors tell us that they're still consulting about that. Hopefully we'll get some more clarification on that later this morning.

Alisyn. CAMEROTA: Nick, just horribly tragic. Thank you very much for the

update from there.

Now to a happier story. Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois will make history when she becomes the first sitting senator in history to give birth. This will happen this spring. She is one of only ten women who have given birth while serving in Congress. Her office tells CNN she is due in late April, a few weeks after she turns 50. This will be her second child and another girl.

Chris, as you know, I love a good fertility story. And she has talked openly about how she went through multiple rounds of IVF and got fertility treatments. And here you go.

CUOMO: Well, good for her. We hope the baby is healthy and we hope it's an easy pregnancy because she's got a lot of work to do in the meantime. This is going to be very impressive.

CAMEROTA: (INAUDIBLE).

CUOMO: All right, so LeBron James is in the news joining a very exclusive club last night. He became the youngest NBA player ever to reach 30,000 points. Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report."

It's a big deal, even for the king.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, quite impressive to do it this early in his career, Chris.

This "Bleacher Report" brought to you by the new 2018 Ford F-150.

LeBron now the seventh player in NBA history to reach the 30k mark, joining the likes of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. The Cavs were in San Antonio last night. And LeBron reaching the milestone with this jumper right here at the end of the first corner. Now despite the special night for LeBron, the Cavs losing again, 114-102. Their 10th loss in their past 13 games.

Now, before this game started, in a rather odd Instagram post, LeBron congratulated himself before reaching the 30,000 point mark. LeBron was speaking to the high school version of himself in the post. And let's just say social media had a field day with that.

All right, the New England Patriots will be the home team when they take on the Eagles in Super Bowl LII. That means they get to pick which jersey they will wear. And the team opting for their road white jerseys. And you may be thinking, why does this matter? Well, the team wearing white has won 12 of the past 13 Super Bowls. And, Alisyn, Tom Brady is a perfect 3-0 when wearing white in the big game. So if you're superstitious and you're a Patriots fan, this is good news.

CAMEROTA: I knew that outfits mattered. That's how I decide who's going to win a horse race. Finally you're confirming to me that this actually does matter. Andy, thank you.

SCHOLES: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: So Republicans demanding the release of this classified memo that we've been talking about that alleges FBI surveillance abuses. If that happens, is this a dangerous precedent? And what's in that memo anyway? We look into that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:47:46] CUOMO: All right, there is no question there is a Republican-led push to release a memo spearheaded by Republicans in the House Intelligence Committee. The chair there, Devin Nunes, had his staff put together a memo that alleges FBI abuses of surveillance laws. Sources say President Trump is inclined to allow that memo to be made public, but Democrats are against the move. Now, that shouldn't matter if the president wants to declassify. Something there are plenty of other ways to get it in the record.

So let's discuss. We have CNN legal analyst Carrie Cordero and CNN law enforcement analyst and retired FBI supervisory special agent James Gagliano.

You have the memo. You have the missing texts. And you have the overall assertion that the FBI is dirty at its highest levels by the president of the United States. No matter how much he wants to back off when convenient, that's what he keeps saying. He had Raj Shah, the deputy press secretary, put out exactly that statement just the other day. So let's discuss this.

First, in terms of the legalities of this, counselor, am I right, if they wanted to declassify this, the executive branch, the president, is ultimate power of classifying and declassifying. And Congress members have immunity for any speech or debate on the floor of Congress. So they could go on there and read the memo and put whatever they want into the congressional record.

Carrie, that's you. I never call Gags counsel.

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Certainly the -- sure. Got it. Got it.

Certainly the president is the ultimate classification authority. He has the authority to declassify information.

But let's be clear, Chris, this is not the way that intelligence oversight is normally conducted. There are times when members of the intelligence committees, whether it's in the House or the Senate, don't like what they're seeing, have concerns about what information they are receiving or they're being briefed on from the intelligence community. There is then a process that they go through where they would let the Department of Justice usually and the intelligence community, that means the director of National Intelligence, or the agency where the information originates, know what they want declassified and then there is a process that is gone through.

CUOMO: Right.

[06:50:00] CORDERO: And ultimately that could go up to the president, although that's very unusual and usually not necessary.

CUOMO: Right. No, I totally hear you. I'm just saying, in this environment, they keep saying the I.C. is dirty, right? That's part of the theory of the case. So if they want to go around it, they won't even show the FBI the memo to let them assess what's in it and see if any action is necessary. So I'm saying they could find their own ways.

Now, Jimmy, you are a fair broker on the FBI. People should know that. You were there. You're an alumnist, but you're very hard line in terms of law and order and doing the investigation. In fact you think as special prosecutor is needed to see what was done in the FBI with respect to these political investigations.

But not showing the FBI the memo, what does that mean to you? Why does this memo about FISA practices matter, and what about the move not even showing it to the DOJ?

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It's perplexing and befuddling. And, Chris, let's go inside the House Intelligence Committee. Let's look at what Devin Nunes and the members of the committee are looking at.

Go back to April of 2016. That's when Fusion GPS was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Yes, it had been started by "The Washington Free Beacon" on the conservative side. But that's when they took it over, the Democratic National Committee took it over.

Fast forward now to June 27th. The infamous Phoenix tarmac meeting between the former president and Attorney General Lynch. July 2nd, Hillary Clinton is e-mailed -- is e-mailed -- is interviewed by the FBI. July 5th, Director Comey comes out and does something unprecedented in the annals of the FBI. He basically comes out and uses trouse (ph) efficiency, no prosecutor would bring this case and here's why.

CUOMO: Unusual for an FBI because they do the investigating, not the decision to prosecute.

GAGLIANO: Extremely unusual.

Now, with the released Strzok and Page texts that we do have, if you line them up with that chronology, it's troubling. The insurance policy was talked about in Andy McCabe's office. I've known Andy for 20 years. Andy's a good and decent man. But when you read these texts and how they line up, the secret society, that we can't let this happen, we've got to move to what we talked about in Andy's office, those things are troubling.

Now, when you look at the five months' worth of missing texts, OK, we've got from December, which is the Trump transition team, he's elected in November, all the way to May, five months, that's in a particular period of time where the Russian collusion investigation, which it started out as a counterintelligence investigation, is heating up.

Does it look bad? Absolutely. Walks like a duck, talks like a duck. CUOMO: But that's not the standard. Because, first of all, Hillary

Clinton and her people made the same exact argument. They were putting together the same kind of timelines to say, look how they were out to get us in the e-mail thing. And, you need some proof. Even Ron Johnson, OK, Republican senator, certainly not looking to give a pass to anybody on the left certainly named Clinton, he says there is no proof to back up these suggestions.

GAGLIANO: Right. I agree. And if you read those text messages, we're doing it in a vacuum. We're not seeing context. And until you put them in front of Congress to testify under oath, we'll never know.

But when you also look at the damning texts about Loretta Lynch, knowing beforehand, after James Comey came out and said she knew nothing about this, I've spoken to nobody at DOJ or at the White House, it's so damning, Chris, that I think there's enough smoke there that we need a set of independent eyes.

CUOMO: Right. But you also have to get deeper into it. You're right, someone's going to have to assess it at some point. I don't know about a special prosecutor because if you keep prosecuting political gripes --

GAGLIANO: Yes.

CUOMO: You know, you're going to wind up in a rabbit hole.

GAGLIANO: Fair point.

CUOMO: And you've got to look at what Lynch knew and what Comey was saying she didn't know and you'll see a little bit more of a cross threading. But I appreciate the candor.

Carrie, appreciate the perspective. Thanks to both of you.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, now to this story that we've been following. The NCAA is investigating Michigan State University for its role in the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal. Nassar's sentencing hearing resumes in about two hours. Three more victims will read impact statements. Then the former USA Gymnastics and MSU doctor is expected to be sentenced for sexually assaulting more than 100 girls in his care. One of those young women will join us shortly.

But, first, we want to go live to Lansing, Michigan, and bring in CNN's Jean Casarez.

What's the latest there, Jean.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, 163 victim impact statements have been read in court. We believe one of the final young women this morning will be the victim who was the very first to come forward to "The Indy Star" in 2016 saying she was assaulted by Larry Nassar and that allowed so many other young women to come forward saying me too.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINA BARBA, VICTIM OF LARRY NASSAR: I am not weak. And I will not accept the feelings of embarrass or shame. I'm leaving those here with him.

CASAREZ (voice over): Defiant and emboldened, the victims of gymnastic Doctor Larry Nassar coming forward. Many confronting their abuser directly, including 18-year-old Emily Morales.

EMILY MORALES, VICTIM OF LARRY NASSAR: I wanted you to look at me. I believe in forgiveness, Larry. You and I are human beings. We make mistakes. Although you have hurt me, I want to forgive you and feel closure and move on to healing in my life. I want you to apologize to me right here. I want to forgive you, but I also want to hear you tell me that you regret all the hurting you've caused.

LARRY NASSER: (INAUDIBLE) I'm sorry (ph).

MORALES: Thank you.

[06:55:18] CASAREZ: New mother Brianne Randall traveled from Seattle to tell her story of being ignored by authorities after she reported Nassar's abuse in 2004.

BRIANNE RANDALL, VICTIM OF LARRY NASSAR: Do I look familiar to you? Do you recognize my name? The police questioned you and you had the audacity to tell them I had misunderstood this treatment because I was not comfortable with my body. How dare you. Sadly, they took your word instead of mine. I am here today to tell you I wasn't afraid of you then and I'm sure as hell not afraid of you now.

CASAREZ: Randall's travel expenses were paid for by the same police department that dismissed her claims over 10 years ago. The NCAA now investigating Michigan State University where Nassar was employed for nearly two decades.

ISABELL HUTCHINS, VICTIM OF LARRY NASSAR: By standing by and sweeping it under the rug, you are just as disgusting. If it had been your own daughters, would you still have remained silent?

ABIGAIL MEALY, VICTIM OF LARRY NASSAR: To MUS, USAG and whoever else is responsible for creating an environment in which this monster had unsupervised, uninterrupted, unprecedented access to hundreds of victims, you should have prevented this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: The MSU faculty senate held an emergency meeting yesterday on the question of whether there should be a vote of no confidence taken on MSU's precedent. Today, all 2,200 faculty members will be sent an e-mail to weigh in on whether that vote of no confidence should take place.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: And I do want to get into that with our next guest. Jean, thank you very much.

Joining us now is Larissa Boyce. She's a former Michigan State University gymnast and one of the women who gave a victim's impact statement in court.

Larissa, thank you so much for being here.

LARISSA BOYCE, FORMER YOUTH CLUB GYMNAST AT MSU: Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: OK, let me play -- you said something very interesting in your victim impact statement. So let me just play a portion of this for our viewers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARISSA BOYCE, FORMER YOUTH CLUB GYMNAST AT MSU: The disturbing truth is, you could have been stopped back in 1997. You and Cathy silenced me. You took away my confidence, you took away my innocence, and you took away my voice. But today is a new day. Today I am claiming my freedom from you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Larissa, what you're talking about there is, you were, as far as we know, the first person to come forward and tell somebody about what Nassar was doing in 1997. And the Cathy that you speak of there was the MSU gymnastics coach. What did she say to you when you came forward? What did she do?

BOYCE: She said that I must be misunderstanding medical technique. That she had been friends with Nassar for years and year and he would never ever do anything inappropriate. She led me through basically an interrogation and had other gymnasts come into the room and ask them in front of me if they had ever been uncomfortable with Nassar's treatments. And all of them but one other girl said no. So there were two of us that said that he was -- what he was doing to us. And that it made us feel uncomfortable. And she, instead of notifying authorities or even my parents, she sat there and told me, well, I can file this but there's going to be very serious consequences for both you and Dr. Nassar if I do this.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. And now, when you see what's happening in court, when you listen to these other roughly 150 young women, girls, who have come after you, what goes through your head?

BOYCE: It didn't have to be this way. He could have been stopped back then. They could have all been spared from this pain. So it is -- it is heartbreaking, maddening, frustrating. I think -- there's not enough words that can describe how it makes me feel knowing it could have been prevented.

CAMEROTA: You asked the MSU president, Lou Anna Simon, to attend the sentencing hearing to see with her own eyes what was happening there and to hear these survivor stories. What did she tell you? BOYCE: She said she didn't have time in her schedule to come and watch

me. And I just asked for me personally. She said she didn't have time and why don't we make a compromise, I'll watch the live stream. So --

[07:00:13] CAMEROTA: And should she keep her job?