Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Trump Makes Another Threat to Close U.S.-Mexico Border; Trump Vows to Protect People with Pre-Existing Conditions; Pete Buttigieg Campaign Raises $7+ Million in First Quarter; Passengers Report Delays on Delta & Southwest Flights; Biden Accused of Inappropriate Behavior by Former Nevada Legislator; College Student Stephanie Josephson Murdered After Getting into Car She Thought was an Uber. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired April 01, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCI JOSEPHSON, MOTHER OF STEPHANIE JOSEPHSON: Unspeakable and violent acts that has created a hole in the universe.

[07:00:06] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There will never be another soul like Stephanie Josephson.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY.

This week begins with President Trump taking on two big battles: the border and health care. President Trump is again threatening to shut down parts of the U.S./Mexico border. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney says the president is serious.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: But we're also concerned about the effect of the American economy and the nation as a whole from having 100,000 -- more than 100,000 people cross illegally this month.

If we close the borders, why would we do that? Because we need the people who are working at the legal ports of entry to go patrol -- and I'm not making this up -- where there's no wall. We were not lying to people when we said that this was an emergency. Very few people believed us, especially folks in the media and the Democrat Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, Mulvaney also guarantees, he says, that no one will lose their health coverage as the Justice Department supports a court decision aimed at striking down all of Obamacare. But the Trump administration does not have a replacement plan.

Mulvaney says the White House will give lawmakers an outline for what the president would like to see.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: There is also breaking news from the campaign trail. South Bend Mayor Poot [SIC] Buttigieg -- I blew the "Pete" part.

CAMEROTA: I know.

BERMAN: "Buttigieg" I get every time.

CAMEROTA: It's getting harder now.

BERMAN: "Buttigieg" I can do, but I screwed up "Pete."

Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, just announced his campaign has raised more than $7 million since launching his exploratory committee in January. That is an impressive haul for a mayor who many had not heard of until the CNN town hall about three weeks ago.

Other campaign news: Joe Biden doing damage control, trying to defuse a potential crisis, although one of our guests calls this a test, not a crisis.

The former vice president is defending himself against allegations by a former Nevada legislator, Lucy Flores. She says Biden made her feel, quote, "uneasy, gross and confused" in 2014 by smelling her hair and kissing the back of her head. Now, Biden says he does not believe he has ever acted inappropriately but adds it was never his intention to make her feel uncomfortable.

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's bring in our guests. We have Joe Lockhart, CNN political commentator and former Clinton White House press secretary. We also have David Gregory, CNN political analyst; and Margaret Talev, CNN political analyst and senior White House correspondent at Bloomberg News.

OK, Joe, the border. What happens if the president this week shuts down the border? What does that mean?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it means economic chaos for the U.S. economy along the border states. And it exacerbates the problem rather than solves the problem. And you add in the idea that we're cutting off aid to three countries which will exacerbate the economic and political stability in those countries. And, you know, you take what was a manufactured political crisis. And he just might turn it into a real crisis.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean hold on. I want to just challenge you on that. Because you just heard Mick Mulvaney say Democrats like you, Joe Lockhart --

LOCKHART: Right. CAMEROTA: -- didn't believe us. And there does seem to be a humanitarian crisis -- call it what you want -- at the border, where there has been a spike in numbers of families and people presenting for asylum. So much so that they say that our system is overloaded. And they have to undo the valve right now and let people out into the interior, because they actually can't process them. So crisis or no crisis?

LOCKHART: Well, I agree. I think Mick Mulvaney said something important there, which is we weren't lying.

Yes, they were lying. They were lying about this, and they're lying about health care and pre-existing conditions. Any time you have someone going on TV and saying, "We weren't lying," you're generally pretty sure they were lying. So yes.

CAMEROTA: My point is the system is overwhelmed. Or are they lying about that?

LOCKHART: Well, if the system is overwhelmed, the last thing you want to do is cut off economic assistance to those three countries where most of these people are coming from. The very last thing you want to do.

And for our own -- if just for our own self-interest, the worst thing you can do is shut the border down completely, because that will wreak havoc on the local economy.

Don't listen to me. Listen to the members of Congress along the border states. Listen to the mayors of those towns, the governors of those states. No one thinks it's a good idea to shut the border down.

BERMAN: The interesting thing, also, is the numbers are increasing of families who are presenting at the border. But by and large, and they don't break these numbers down for us, which is notable in itself. But by and large, we believe that most of the people right now at the border are presenting themselves at points of entry.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Not jumping over -- not jumping over a place where there could be a wall. So it's not a wall debate.

CAMEROTA: And that's legal, by the way. That's not illegal. That is legal.

BERMAN: So this isn't about the wall.

LOCKHART: And it's one of the -- one of the ways that Mick Mulvaney is not telling the truth. He just said that we have this 100,000 people who are coming here illegally. They're not coming here illegally. They're presenting themselves in a legal way. It is prescribed in our law that you're allowed to apply --

[07:05:08] CAMEROTA: But it's still overwhelming the system.

LOCKHART: It may be overwhelming the system. But they're lying about the underlying parts of it. And that's important to point out.

BERMAN: David.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: What overwhelms the system is real. The number of people who are seeking asylum who are presenting at the border that our system cannot absorb is a problem that predates this administration. It's something that President Obama dealt with, as well. Any administration would be dealing with this right now.

The problem is we're not having a debate about this level of complexity and where the system is overwhelmed. We're having a debate about whether to build a wall, not build a wall, how to stop, you know, drug dealers, rapists and gang members from coming in. Because that's how the president casts it, instead of understanding that people have an economic incentive out of desperation, in many cases, or fleeing violence, domestic violence or otherwise, to come into the country and that there's an opportunity to do that; and there's people who, like coyotes along the border, who are waiting to facility that at great potential peril to people who are going to make that crossing.

The president has an opportunity to take the country to school on this and to really have a debate about how there could be some big-ticket fixes to this. He's chosen not to do that. He wants to demagogue the issue.

And so we've had the creation of false crises and losing an opportunity to do what the president has made it very clear he wants to do, which is he wants to govern on this issue as a principle issue him as a principle political issue and an agenda item, which is fine. It's a real problem. But the way he goes about it totally obscures what the -- what the real issues are.

BERMAN: You're saying he wants a headline more than he wants a fix?

GREGORY: He wants the issue. He certainly wants -- he just wants the issue. He wants the issue as wall as metaphor to be tough on border security without dealing with what really is overwhelming to the system along the border.

TALEV: There is also the matter of commerce. Right? Which is that there's like -- the stuff that frontloads up at the border takes a process over a period of weeks. So if the president actually went forward with this any time soon, there would be, we think, a massive backlog of the ability for goods to get back and forth across the border.

We're talking about a top trading partner of the United States. This has potential impacts on the U.S. auto industry, food, a number of other things. So there is the economic risk that may hem the president in to some extent.

And there's also how this fits into the larger foreign policy picture, which is that the president and his national security adviser, John Bolton, the president's team has made a big deal about wanting to be a more important ally to the Western Hemisphere, to build alliances with South and Central America.

And, you know, Venezuela politics is one thing. But when you're cutting off aid, or talking about cutting off aid to three of the countries in your hemisphere that need it most, that may undercut some of the president's broader hemispheric foreign policy goals.

So I think, between the economic -- the economy and the foreign policy piece, I'm very curious to see what the president actually intends to do about this in the next week.

CAMEROTA: OK. Another thing people are curious about, Joe, is the president's health care plan.

LOCKHART: Yes.

CAMEROTA: So Mick Mulvaney seems to be saying, "Trust us. We'll have a plan in place by the time Obamacare is overturned." It's hard to take then at their word -- their word for it, because over the past ten years, or however long, they have not had a plan that Congress or the public has liked.

LOCKHART: No. They -- they've put forward various plans. But you'll remember, leading up to the midterm elections, they promised to protect pre-existing conditions. None of their plans for the previous ten years did that.

They do things like say, "Oh, you can do pre-existing conditions. But we're going to allow insurance companies to charge an unlimited amount if you have one." That's not protecting pre-existing conditions.

So election day happened. As soon as election day is over, they go back, revert to their previous idea that, you know, all of Obamacare is wrong; you don't get pre-existing conditions.

I expect as we get closer to election day, there will be more talk. But we're ten years in.

You know, I saw Kellyanne Conway yesterday complaining that, "Well, we've only been in office for two years. Give us time." It's a four- year term. I mean, how much time do they need? They don't have a plan.

And it really -- you know, I'll come back to this. There's a price to be paid when you sit on national television and just openly lie. Ron Brownstein had a great tweet yesterday, which was, "In the entire summit on health care, the only two true words were 'the' and 'and.' The rest of it was a lie."

BERMAN: Let me read to you what Mulvaney said yesterday to Jake. "The debate about pre-existing conditions is over. Both parties support them. And anybody telling you differently is lying to you for political gain."

The fact is the Republicans that they have had in the past have all said, "Yes, we'll guarantee that you get coverage for pre-existing conditions." But they waived the right on the community rating. They would allow states to get a waiver so that insurance companies could charge more for people with pre-existing conditions. That is just a fact. That is what the plans have said in the past, David. And Republicans, they can justify that, they can explain it. But they need to own it.

[07:10:10] GREGORY: There's inescapable truths about how the healthcare system works, how the insurance market works. And if you allow that kind of variability on charging more for pre-existing conditions, it's like the fundamental flaw of the individual mandate. If younger, healthier people are not buying into the system, then the system is overwhelmed by those who have a higher utilization of health care, which tend to be older, sicker people. That's what throws everything off.

And the insurance -- the insurance companies always win in the end. And that was always the intention of Obamacare.

But the fundamental political point and policy point is that Obamacare is such a durable part of the social policy firmament in this country. You can't just take it away. People will not support that. It's complicated enough. Everybody goes through, trying to understand their own health care insurance reality and the plans that they're dealing with.

The idea that government is going to come in and do a wholesale change is going to be very difficult for any party trying to pull that off, very difficult to take away a benefit that has already been given and has now been flowing toward people without insurance for a decade.

CAMEROTA: All right, Margaret. Let's move on to 2020. Let's focus on Buttigieg and Biden.

So Buttigieg has just released, in the past hour, his fundraising numbers for the first quarter, which were impressive, $7 million. And, you know, our polls, I mean, Harry tells us that he has gotten a lot of attention, particularly since the CNN town hall.

BERMAN: He's at 4 percent in the polls right now, the last poll that we saw, which is an impressive number.

CAMEROTA: For a South Bend mayor.

BERMAN: Yes.

TALEV: That's right.

CAMEROTA: And so, you know, as a White House correspondent, as you are, do you have a sense of how closely the White House is monitoring all this, who makes them nervous?

TALEV: It's funny. He is not someone who is on their radar screen early on. But everybody is watching those numbers.

Seven million, of course, sort of pales in comparison to what Bernie or Beto O'Rourke can do over the same period of time. But it's an enormously important number at this early stage of the race for kind of, you know, getting some credibility on the big kids' table and on the stage.

And I think that's probably really important for Buttigieg at a time when he is -- and right now, his contest is more about capturing hearts and minds of Democrats. He can worry about Trump later, if it comes to that. Right?

But there are a lot of Democratic donors who I've talked to who have met him or have been watching him on TV and are very interested in him. So I think that number will be important for him. And you know, it comes at a time when we're beginning to see people reaching out to younger voters, and trying to assess, you know, where people's interests lie.

BERMAN: And Joe Lockhart, you took issue with something I said last hour. The first controversy surrounding Pete Buttigieg --

LOCKHART: Yes.

BERMAN: -- is criticism he made of the Clinton campaign.

LOCKHART: Right.

BERMAN: He suggested that Hillary Clinton made a mistake by saying that America is --

CAMEROTA: Is already great.

BERMAN: -- still great. And -- and he says that that was not the right message. Should have been talking about people in economic need.

I said Buttigieg probably welcomes --

LOCKHART: Yes.

BERMAN: -- this controversy to differentiate himself. But you think I'm wrong about that and Robert de Niro's Robert Mueller.

CAMEROTA: And everything.

LOCKHART: Well, you know, it's -- I'll let Robert de Niro speak for himself. He's waiting for you in the green room. He just showed up.

But no, I do think -- I do think it has some peril. Because I think there's a lot of emotional investment among rank-and-file Democrats with Hillary. And as much as people -- it's almost like, I can criticize her as a supporter, but I don't want somebody coming in and telling her that I did something wrong. So I think that was a mistake.

It's the only mistake he's made so far. I'm not -- I'm not saying that this somehow dooms his campaign. I don't think -- you know, I think the impressive part about the money, though, is not that it shows he can raise. It means he's going to be able to sustain his campaign.

BERMAN: Yes.

LOCKHART: It means he is in it through the debates and beyond. And it gives him a shot.

I think you're going to find that, you know, of the 15 or 20 candidates that are in, some of them are going to start dropping out, you know, by the middle of the year, because they can't sustain it. But he can run a campaign on, you know, $7 million and -- and play with the big boys and women.

CAMEROTA: And David Gregory, your comments on Pete Buttigieg or Joe Biden? Player's choice.

GREGORY: Well, I mean, I think that he -- that the mayor is occupying a lane that nobody else has right now. Right? So there's energy of his youth and what he brings to the race that can differentiate him. That's what you want to do at this stage of the race. It's all you can do at this stage of the race, which is in these early money primaries, to try to show some relevancy. I think that's important.

And look, Biden represents, you know, an older establishment part of the Democratic Party, where he's got super-high name recognition. He can come in as the -- as the leader right away, as the front runner when he gets in.

[07:15:03] But he's going to have to face a lifetime in politics, which includes the fact that he says he's a tactile politician. He is a guy who uses his hands a lot and puts his hands on people. And this is someone who came forward, in Lucy Flores, who said, "Look, this is just over the line, in terms of just in my personal space."

Far different from being accused of sexual assault, but certainly within this Democratic Party, where these issues have become very important -- not just in the party, elsewhere, as well. But I think it will play out in the party in this presidential race. He's going to have to answer for it as he's in the process of doing.

BERMAN: All right. Joe Lockhart, Margaret Talev. David Gregory, who I will say, can do a better Robert Mueller, I am sure, than Robert de Niro. I know you can.

GREGORY: I don't know.

BERMAN: You absolutely can. We'll get you back at 8 a.m. to show us what you practiced. All right. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, guys. Thank you very much.

We do have some breaking news right now, because airline passengers across the country are reporting delays on at least two airlines -- Delta and Southwest Airlines. It appears that there is a technical issue that is causing some chaos at airports.

And CNN's Christina Alesci joins us on the phone now from LaGuardia Airport. She's there.

What's the scene, Christina?

CHRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Well, it's kind of a nightmare situation for anyone trying to make a morning meeting.

What happened was I was scheduled to take a 7 a.m. flight. At about 6:40, the gate agents start telling people that there was a technical issue. Obviously, everybody was kind of wondering what it is. And then the gate agent provided periodic updates that basically said it was some kind of software issue, a database management outage, maintenance outage that resulted in the pilots not being able to get the information that they need to fly.

And I was monitoring social media. I noticed, you know, this is not a problem that's just affecting me right now, but airports across the country. Travelers are reporting similar things.

Delta tweeting out, "I completely apologize. We're currently experiencing a system-wide outage. We are working diligently to get it back up and running. We do not have a specific time as of yet."

So I think everyone is just monitoring their social media feeds, trying to figure out what exactly the software issue might be. But again, the gate agent here is at LaGuardia, reassuring passengers there's nothing wrong with the actual mechanics of the airplane. It seems like a technology issue at this point.

CAMEROTA: All right, Christina. Thank you very much. Please keep us posted as to what's happening at airports that are affecting so many travelers this morning.

BERMAN: All right. A college student murdered after getting into a car she thought was an Uber. Police say they have a suspect in custody. The latest on the investigation next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:21:34] CAMEROTA: We're getting some chilling new details about the murder of a college student in South Carolina who police say got into a car she thought was an Uber. It was not.

Investigators say child safety locks tracked 21-year-old Samantha Josephson in the back seat. The driver is now charged with her kidnapping and murder.

And CNN's Dianne Gallagher has been following this for us. She is live in Columbia, South Carolina, with the latest.

What have you learned, Dianne?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and Alisyn, look, those details, of course, the child locks, that is chilling. But for so many people, this is incredibly terrifying, because they can imagine themselves doing exactly what police say that 21-year-old Samantha Josephson did just before 2:00 a.m. on Friday morning.

They say that she was coming out of the bar here behind me and that she had called an Uber. She was waiting for that Uber to come pick her up. She saw a car that they say she believed matched the description of what she was waiting for, and got in.

But police say that the person behind the wheel was not her Uber driver. They say that it was 24-year-old Nathaniel Roland. And they say that he took her and, at some point, killed her.

They found her body roughly 12 hours after they say that Roland picked her up here, about 70 miles away in rural Clarendon County. Turkey hunters discovered her body. Police say that she had wounds to the head, the neck, the upper body, hand, foot and that inside that vehicle, they stopped it just about 25 hours after they say he picked her up here, not too far from this exact same place. They say a short chase ensued. They caught him, and that inside that vehicle, they found blood that matched Samantha's, and they found her cell phone.

There was a child seat in the car. And again, they said that those child safety locks on the windows and doors were engaged, meaning that she would not have been able to get out of the car if she tried.

He did not show up for his first appearance. His public defender said they don't have any comment right now, but Samantha's mother did. Here's what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPHSON: I cannot fathom how someone could randomly suggest a person, a beautiful girl, and steal her life away. His actions were senseless, vile and unacceptable. It sickens us to think that his face was the last thing that my baby girl saw on this earth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Now, Samantha's father has said that he wants to now make it his life's mission to make sure that people are safe when it comes to ride-shares. I mean, again, you're essentially getting in a car with a stranger, John. And that people need to make sure the driver says their name first, that they ask the driver their -- the driver's name instead of just saying the name so they can confirm.

Check the license plate. Because in South Carolina they're not required to be on the front of the vehicle. So make sure the tag matches.

And the father says more than anything, travel in groups. Please don't travel alone.

BERMAN: Be careful. Dianne Gallagher, thank you so much for being with us.

GALLAGHER: Yes.

BERMAN: And thank you very much for those warnings also about best practices when using any of these ride-share companies.

Joining me now is Andy Shain. He is the Columbia bureau chief for "The Post and Courier," who's been covering this story all weekend long.

Andy, let me just start with this question about the crime here. Was the suspect on police radar at all before this? Had they had any warning about behavior like this, or was it just completely random?

[07:25:04] ANDY SHAIN, COLUMBIA BUREAU CHIEF, "THE POST AND COURIER" (via phone): You know, he really wasn't on radar. His past criminal record in South Carolina shows no history of violent crime. He mostly has traffic tickets for not wearing a seat belt. The most severe crime he has on his record is, you know, taking possession of an item, you know, by false pretenses. It looked like it was from a pawnshop last year. I mean, really, that's about it.

I think this is very surprising how, based on his record, that he's now been charged with murder and kidnapping.

BERMAN: It's surprising. And also, just as to the chilling nature of it, because it really does make it seem so random from the victim's standpoint. It just happened.

So you've been covering this, as we said, all weekend long. What's the latest you're hearing?

SHAIN: Well, I mean, right now, I mean, obviously, everyone on the University of South Carolina campus is shocked. Five Points, the area where Samantha was enjoying an evening at a bar with some friends is sort of the bar district for the college. You know, she said that, apparently, she wanted to go home, had called an Uber.

Her father said she actually approached another car that she thought was her Uber and said it -- he wasn't. And then the second car came up, and that's the one that she got into.

We've talked to several students and some other folks who have said it's not uncommon for people to walk up to cars and say, "Are you my Uber?" Or to -- you know, obviously, I talked to someone who said that one time he was sitting in Five Points, and three different people came up to him and asked him if he was their Uber ride.

So this is not uncommon, especially when we're talking about an area with 35,000 college students, many of whom obviously go out and enjoy a night of drinking.

BERMAN: Look, there's a dance. I mean, there's a dance everyone knows coming out of a bar or a restaurant or a public place. Everyone looking for which car is theirs, trying to find their driver. We've all seen it happen, again, which is what makes this crime so chilling.

You've spoken to Samantha's friends. What are they saying this morning?

SHAIN: Well, they -- yes, a lot of the friends spoke at her vigil yesterday. They held a vigil on campus. And they talked a lot about what a wonderful person she was, what a caring person she was. A great personality. You know, she had a full ride to law school awaiting her next fall.

And they talked about how excited she was for that. You know, it's you know, while it's a large campus, a large state school, you know, there's a lot of niches -- she was in a sorority -- that make it very close, a very tight-knit community, in a way.

The school has come together. The school president has pledged to honor her this week. And one of the ways he's going to do it is they're going to ramp up training safety about ride shares. Some of those tips that Dianne talked about earlier, to emphasize to students.

But her father also asked Uber to try to take some extra steps, as well, to help riders identify their drivers correctly.

BERMAN: Andy Shain, thank you for giving us insight from the community into what's going on there. As we said, this is a terrible tragedy and a warning to all of us. So thank you very much.

SHAIN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, John. Former Vice President Joe Biden is under scrutiny for his treatment of women. What does this mean for his campaign?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)