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"New Yorker" Publishes New Allegations against Brett Kavanaugh of Sexual Misconduct; Christine Blasey Ford Agrees to Testify before Senate. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 24, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: -- a price that makes it functionally out of reach for most folks. But People seem hip to this trick. The Kaiser poll found that 56 percent of Republicans, 71 percent of independents, and 88 percent of Democrats want to keep the Obamacare provisions prohibiting insurance companies from charging sick people more. And there's evidence this resonates even with Trump's base. Check this out. In the 11 states that have the most people with preexisting conditions, Trump crushed Hillary Clinton by an average of 26 points. No wonder Trump told a crowd in Las Vegas this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Donald Trump and Republicans will protect patients with preexisting conditions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Facts matter. And telling folks you support a popular provision that goes to the heart of their health and their wallet while also supporting legislation that would do the opposite, that's a special kind of hypocrisy.

And that's your reality check.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: John Avlon, thank you very much. Why Democrats would rather run on health care in some places than against President Trump in others, very interesting.

Lot of news that we're all over this morning. So, let's stay on it.

Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, September 24th, 8:00 in the east. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill is here for explosive new allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The top Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein, is now calling for immediate postponement of Kavanaugh's confirmation proceedings after a second woman has accused him of sexual misconduct. The report is laid out in graphic detail in "The New Yorker" by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer, and it came out just hours after Professor Christine Blasey Ford agreed to appear at an opening hearing on Thursday to tell her story of an alleged sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: The White House and Kavanaugh deny the claim made by a former classmate of Kavanaugh's at Yale. Deborah Ramirez alleging Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a drunken dorm party when they were at a party in the early '80s. She says he thrusts his genitals in her face, causing her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.

Joining us now, senior correspondent for "New York" Magazine and coauthor of "Notorious RBG" Irin Carmon and CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. As we look at all of this has been playing out, again, just to set the scene, especially for folks who are just joining us, this article and these new allegations came out just after we had learned of in fact what had been agreed upon for this hearing with Christine Blasey Ford which is set to take place Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m. Jeff, just remind me again in terms of where your head is at on this. We look at these new allegations, is there a chance that this changes anything, moving forward to Thursday?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think, remember, this is a political process, not a legal process. And politics -- and everything affects politics. And the issue here is, is Brett Kavanaugh going to get confirmed? And there are a handful of votes in play, it seems. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, perhaps Jeff Flake. And it seems to me that these allegations do affect whether those senators will vote to confirm Kavanaugh. And we're going to have to see how credible the two witnesses are on Thursday, and if anything comes out between now and then.

But this story certainly is consistent with the portrayal of the person in Miss Ford's story, and that, I think, will have an impact.

BERMAN: Irin, we had Ronan farrow on last hour, and he responded to the criticism of this story that he wrote along with Jane Mayer, that he acknowledges in the story that it took six days for Debbie Ramirez to decide, to reassess her memory before she wanted to tell the story. He talks about how they couldn't find a corroborating witness putting Kavanaugh in that room with Ramirez. He did not half the people who came forward or were asked have a vested interest because they're named as being complicit in that article alongside of it. But the so called holes in the story, or where the story doesn't have corroboration, do you think that raises significant questions about the overall allegation?

IRIN CARMON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: I think anybody who doesn't think that "The New Yorker's" journalistic standards are up to snuff should welcome an FBI investigation. So there have been calls all along for a neutral fact-finding process. The FBI has investigative powers that a journalist doesn't. So if you think that this is not fully substantiated, why not talk to more people?

I also read in Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow's reporting a lot of things that made me question Christine Blasey Ford account, and Mark Judge in particular's response to it that he never saw Brett Kavanaugh behave that way. There are two aspects of "The New Yorker" article that really jumped out at me that actually are not directly related to Deborah Ramirez's allegations. And one is that a girlfriend of Mark Judge goes on the record saying that he told her about inappropriate drunken behavior, what could be described as a gang rape. [08:05:04] And that's an allegation that she made that he told her

about that hasn't been proven. And also his roommate, his freshman roommate at Yale talking about him being drunk and belligerent. That is a different presentation than what Brett Kavanaugh has put forward. And I think it makes you understand why Mark Judge is somebody that the Senate Republicans don't want to be in Thursday's hearing.

BERMAN: To be clear, no one is on trial here.

CARMON: No one is on trial.

BERMAN: But it's Kavanaugh's confirmation, not Mark Judge's. But if you're not going to have Mark Judge come testify and if your justification for that as a Senate Republican is we already know he denies it, it does draw that denial into question.

CARMON: He said he never saw Brett Kavanaugh behave that way. And I just think why not question everyone who was supposedly involved in this incident and can speak to the character of this person who, after all, is up for a lifetime appointment, that is going to make decisions that is going to affect millions of people's lives, half of which are women.

HILL: It's interesting, you asked Ronan when you spoke with him earlier, whether Deborah Ramirez, his sense was whether she would come forward. And he said she's talking now. Kellyanne Conway earlier this morning was speaking with CBS this morning and she said people who want to testify should come and testify. Mark Judge, as we know, has said he doesn't want to testify, he doesn't want to say anything. It would be interesting to see, Jeff, though, if Deborah Ramirez, in fact, does come forward and say I would like to be here whether she would be allowed to speak.

TOOBIN: It certainly seems unlikely to me that she would be allowed. The whole Republican agenda here has been to compress this hearing. They didn't want to hold it in the first place. They wanted to get it out of the way. They wanted to do it Wednesday, not Thursday. It will be interesting to see if she volunteers to testify. My guess is the Republican will not want to put her on the stand, at the witness table, because they want to get this over with and get it to a vote, because time is not their ally, as they recognize. As more time passes, more facts come out, like yesterday's "New Yorker" story. And that hasn't helped Kavanaugh's cause.

BERMAN: It does provide some context into this battle over the delay. Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer, as you point out, Jane Mayer is one of the authors of this, and sometimes that gets obscured, so thank you for listing that there, they know that there were Democratic staffers on the Senate that who new about this story last week and they also say there were Republicans. So you could see why the Democrats would want to delay in the Ford testimony, because they wanted to wait until things come out. And you could see why Republicans want to speed it up, because they would want to prevent that. So it does provide some context there.

Also some other things, Irin, we should talk about and think about over the weekend. Number, one, Brett Kavanaugh apparently will produce a calendar which he says will not show any entries suggesting that he attended a party. People have looked at it -- and Jeffrey is going to point out who among us keeps calendars from when we were 17?

TOOBIN: When you were 17, when you were hanging out with four friends at a friend's house, did that appear in your calendar? Come on. This allegation may or may not be true, but the idea that some 17-year- old's calendar proves one thing or another just seems so absurd to me. We do live in the real world here.

BERMAN: Nonetheless is going to come forward with that calendar, Irin. And also Leland Keyser, who is one of the women who apparently Professor Ford says was at the party is now saying that she's never met Brett Kavanaugh, she's never been at a party like this, so she does say she believes Professor Ford. So again, there are new failures to corroborate exactly Professor Ford's story.

CARMON: Right. And again, as Jeff mentioned, this is not a criminal case. These are people who are testifying as to the character of someone who is up for a -- not just for a promotion, this is not just a job interview, but a lifetime appointment that is going to have enormous consequences for the country.

I do feel like from a political standpoint it gives people who are looking to vote no a reason to say, OK, this is not corroborated. But again, there's only one person she says was in the room, and that's Mark Judge. And I think we should hear from that person. That person should be extensively questioned about what the pattern of behavior was like when they were at Georgetown prep and what was the character of Brett Kavanaugh, because that's what it's about, right? It's not about whether she's on trial either. Yes, Mark Judge is not on trial. But Brett Kavanaugh is up for a really important job and I think people deserve to have a neutral record of what it was that happened. And journalism can do a lot but it can't do everything.

TOOBIN: And if we can also just remember that everything we know about sexual assault is that women, the victims, are reluctant to talk about it, are reluctant to tell their friends, their family, other people what went on. So the fact that ford -- she wasn't called ford in those days -- did not tell her friends, did not -- that is not exactly incriminating of her.

[08:10:09] CARMON: No.

TOOBIN: It doesn't prove that it took place. But I just think we have to recognize how these stories unfold generally in the real world.

CARMON: Yes. I can say from reporting on this, this is not fun. Nobody wants to put themselves through this. This is not fun attention. Christine Blasey Ford has been separated from her family, she has gotten death threats. Deborah Ramirez knew that going into this decision to tell her story. So I think we should evaluate that in that context as well.

HILL: It's not a decision people make lightly. BERMAN: Not at all. Jeffrey Toobin, Irin Carmon, thanks very much

for being with us.

CARMON: Thank you.

BERMAN: This controversy surrounding Brett Kavanaugh continues to draw comparisons to the 1991 hearings of Clarence Thomas when Anita Hill publicly accused Thomas of sexual harassment. Joining us now exclusively is Angela Wright-Shannon. She testified to Congress behind closed doors, she was interviewed by the FBI about her experiences with Thomas, who was her boss at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But Angela, again, just to remind people, you were not allowed to testify in the public hearing, correct?

ANGELA WRIGHT-SHANNON, ALLEGES CLARENCE THOMAS SEXUALLY HARASSED HER: That is correct. I was only allowed to enter my statement in the record, and that was a statement that they took before they subpoenaed me to come to Washington.

BERMAN: And as you look at what's happening now -- and we're going to get to your opinion of the merits of this case versus what was going on with Clarence Thomas in a moment. I think people will be surprised, maybe, by your opinion on this. But the fact that in this case there are not going to be any additional witnesses allowed to testify, does that remind you of the failure to allow your public testimony all those years ago?

WRIGHT-SHANNON: Yes, it does. And it's very frightening to me that we would still have a judicial committee who willing to suppress testimony in such an important nomination as this. It doesn't really matter to me whether they take -- the vote is going to be what it is. But I think the American public needs to hear what everybody has to say. Anyone who knows anything about this situation should not only be allowed to testify but they should be compelled to testify, like Mark Judge. He should be subpoenaed. I was subpoenaed.

BERMAN: Go ahead.

WRIGHT-SHANNON: He should be subpoenaed. I don't think anyone who has any information or has spoken out on this should be allowed to say I'm just not going to participate. This is an important nomination. This is an important situation. And even if the Judiciary Committee votes to put Mr. Kavanaugh on the court, the American public needs to know how that vote came to be and what other witnesses have to say before they voted.

BERMAN: And what is the failure to allow that to happen in your own experience of not being allowed to speak publicly perhaps tell you about the intentions of those running this hearing?

WRIGHT-SHANNON: I think the intention is just as it was with Professor Hill, to isolate Professor Ford, to humiliate her, to challenge her integrity. And as long as you don't have anyone else to corroborate her testimony, then it's easy to paint her as someone who is just not credible. BERMAN: Now to the part that I think will, perhaps, surprise some

people. While you do not support the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh for a variety of reasons, you don't necessarily think that these accusations -- and when we first talked to you, when you first spoke about this, it was only the one from Professor Ford -- you don't think that they necessarily deserve the cloak of the Me Too movement in that they're different and different enough from what Clarence Thomas was accused of in 1991. Explain.

WRIGHT-SHANNON: Actually, my opinion has evolved considerably over the past 24 hours. Initially, I couldn't quite wrap my -- throw my support to an allegation against the actions of a drunken teenager. You put kids and alcohol together and bad things are likely to happen. But that was looking at the initial accusation against Brett Kavanaugh as a one-time encounter when he was a drunk -- house full of drunken teenagers at an unsupervised party.

The allegation that have since come forward, especially with Deborah Ramirez, now makes me see it in a different light because I do now see a pattern that is beginning to emerge where apparently Mr. Kavanaugh, if you are to believe these two women, have a pattern of drunken sexually abusive behavior with women.

BERMAN: Of course, again, Brett Kavanaugh --

WRIGHT-SHANNON: So I do --

BERMAN: Go ahead.

WRIGHT-SHANNON: I'm seeing more similarities as more issues come to light.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, Brett Kavanaugh denies both instances, both what Professor Ford is saying and now what Debbie Ramirez is saying. But this evolution to me is interesting because it happened, we should tell people, over the last 12 to 14 hours, , and that's significant --

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WRIGHT-SHANNON: Yes.

BERMAN: - because before that you did a series of interview were you said that what Clarence Thomas was accused of doing happened in the workplace as a professional in the years very soon before he was nominated to a Supreme Court seat and that what happens in high school should be treated differently. You did feel that way before last night.

WRIGHT-SHANNON: I absolutely, and I still feel that we have to be very careful. We need to be - we as in those who of us who support the #metoo movement - we need to be delivered and judicious before we start applying labels, before we call someone a sexual predator.

I want to make sure that we are actually hitting the mark, and I was not convinced that a one-time encounter with a drunken 17-year-old fit that bill. Yes, drunken 17-year-olds can bad decisions, but can then move into become mature, productive, respectful citizens.

But in this particular case, the difference was that with Clarence Thomas we were talking about a man in power, in a position of influence who used his influence to harass the women in his employ - in the workplace and who had already demonstrated a pattern of that. And there were several women who were willing to attest to that -

BERMAN: Right.

WRIGHT-SHANNON: - during the confirmation hearings. That was different from the initial story that we were getting from Professor Ford about what appeared to be a one-time encounter at a house with a bunch of drunken teenagers and no supervising adults around.

BERMAN: And again, just to put a point on it, yes -

WRIGHT-SHANNON: But at this point -

BERMAN: But now - again, but now you see it differently, which perhaps explains to people how the next four days could play out and how the impact of this new New Yorker story and the allegations from Debbie Ramirez what that could mean.

WRIGHT-SHANNON: Oh, I see it much differently now because there are people who are coming forward and apparently there's someone other than Ms. Ramirez according to this attorney.

But I think that the way it's going to play out is going to be very similar to the way it played out with Professor Hill. The more evidence that comes forth and more women that come forth I think the more you're going to see the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee close ranks and try very hard to suppress that information.

I think it's dangerous. I think that we need to know everything that people are saying whether or not the committee believes them and votes on them. The public needs to hear what the women want to say about this nominee.

BERMAN: Angela Wright-Shannon, I have to say you have a unique perspective on all of this. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, and thank you so much for explaining your evolution that really has taken place over the last few hours. Appreciate your time.

WRIGTH-SHANNON: Thank you for listening.

BERMAN: Erica -

HILL: President Trump has a big week ahead. He wakes up here in New York this morning. The president said to address world leaders several times this week at the U.N. We'll take a look at what's at stake next.

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[08:20:00] HILL: President Trump arriving moments ago at the United Nations. He spoke briefly with reporters. He did not answer questions - ignored questions about his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, but did weigh in on other issues. Let's take a listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have words on North Korea?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Moving very well. The relationships are very good with North Korea. We are mandating ship stored (ph). Looks like we'll have a second summit quite soon. As you know, Kim Jong-un wrote a letter - a beautiful and asked me for a second meeting, and we will be doing that. Secretary Pompeo will work that out in the immediate future. Looks like it's moving very, very well. Tremendous progress for North Korea. Certainly since we got here it was different world. That was a very dangerous time. This is a lot - this is one year later, a much different time. Thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEOCLIP)

HILL: Joining us now, David Sanger, National Security Correspondent for the New York Times and a CNN Political and National Security Analyst, and Samantha Vinograd who previously worked in the Obama administration as the Senior Advisor to the National Security Advisor, also a CNN National Security Analyst.

David, you and Mark Landler this morning in the New York Times write about the concern this year is not about President Trump being undipomatic.

BERMAN: Not fire and fury.

HILL: Not fire and fury, not talking about rocket man because we know he's evolved on that, now referring to Kim Jong-un as very honorable, but you write the concern is him being overly enthusiastic about engagement with wily adversaries. How much of a consumer threat (ph)?

DAVID SANGER, NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT AND CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: That's right. The worry now is almost the reverse of what it was a year ago. A year ago, people were afraid that the president was about to talk us into a war.

Today, the concern is the president may give up too much. The North Koreans have not, since Singapore, dismantled a singular part of their nuclear infrastructure, and they've made it clear they're still building, that they won't until the United States signs onto a peace agree that ends the Korean War, which would sound simple enough.

But the concern that the administration has right now or many of the North Korea hawks inside the administration is that the president is so eager for a deal that he's going to give up a lot up front and not, in fact, get the denuclearization, which so far is not on any agreed schedule. It's just sort of this vague sense and, of course, the North Koreans view denuclearization very differently than we do. They view it as us pulling back as well from South Korea.

BERMAN: It was really interesting watching him walk into the United Nations. That's his first public statement at the beginning of this week, Sam. And it was one of conciliation with Kim Jong-un, and the contrast between last year could not be more different. I'm wondering when he addresses the United Nations tomorrow what we'll hear from him. What do you think are the main messages that we can expect him to convey?

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well John, can I just point something about North Korea that the president very conveniently glosses over?

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VINOGRAD: North Korea was the all star of President Trump's bad boys roster last year not just because of its nuclear weapons but also because it starves its regime and because it's other illegal activity like chemical and biological weapons.

That has not changed. On Wednesday, President Trump is hosting this special session of the Security Counsel, which is really just about Iran. He will not mention that North Korea is engaged in so many other malign activities.

So some things have changed since last year. North Korea is summiting with President Trump. They're pen pals. They're exchanging letters. This whole other host of malign behavior is still ongoing.

HILL: And the president's said to meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-inn, where he's expected to learn a little bit more about what happened with President Moon and with Kim Jong-un. It's interesting, though, you know based on what Sam points out here, David, and just moving forward in terms of that relationship as you pointed as well.

There are still so many unknowns as to where we stand. The president this morning, his own words, tremendous progress on North Korea. And yes, we're at a much different point than we were last year, but there are many unknowns. How much do you think will actually come of this meeting with President Moon?

SANGER: Well, the big difference here is whether he can sew up with President Moon a common strategy. President Moon so far has been in favor of signing that peace agreement on a way to a bigger peace treaty, and I don't think anybody's got a problem with that in concept.

I think the question is one of timing and tactics. And President Moon at this point main concern is just keeping President Trump from getting to a point maybe after the midterms of coming to the conclusion that the North Koreans aren't really about to give up all of their nuclear weapons and the other kinds of weapons that Sam was discussing. And he's afraid of a reaction later on. And so, he wants to begin to wrap the president in much bigger diplomacy here, and I think the question is whether it's the right moment to go do that.

Sam is absolutely right that the North Koreans have chemical, biological, and, of course, the only thing they've attacked us with has been cyber. So it's going to be interesting to watch the contrast between how he discusses North Korea and how he discusses Iran.

The other concern that his aids have is that he would try to go off and meet President Rohani, who's also in New York now, and would meet him without being prepared for a summit. There's a sense he was pretty underprepared for Mr. Kim.

BERMAN: So Sam, on Iran because this meeting that's happening later in the week extensively (ph) about chemical and biological weapons, but it's really about Iran and that's what the president wants to talk about, what do you think that this administration wants to achieve, and what will the rest of the world - how do you see them pushing back?

VINOGRAD: Well, we have a couple things that we know that the president has on his agenda (inaudible) Iran. He wants a better nuclear deal than the one that President Obama signed and that I was at the White House when we started the negotiations on, but he also wants to address the whole other range of malign activities that the Iranians are engaged in.

So while he is summiting with Kim Jong-un and specifically focused on nuclear weapons, he's telling the Iranians, "I'm not just happy talking about the nuclear file. I want to address your state sponsorship of terrorism in places like Syria, what they're doing in Iran." They've attacked our diplomatic facilities in Iraq.

He will not be satisfied unless the full scope of Iranian malign behavior is addressed before he thinks about any kinds of sanctions relief. And remember, he's also seeing the Prime Minister of the U.K., the President of France, and they're still pushing for sanctions waivers.

BERMAN: Sam, David, thank you very much for being with us. Appreciate it. We'll be watching all week.

HILL: Family members for Republican Congressman Paul Gosar appear in a campaign ad not to support him. We'll speak with one of them live about why they've decided to speak out against their brother next.

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