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Authorities Were Warned 10 Days Ago About A Potential Attack In Sri Lanka; Democrats Are Grappling What Their Next Move Should Be After The Mueller Report; A Recent Poll That Said 60 Percent Of Voters Support Congress Getting That Full UnRedacted Report; Expectation That Former Vice President Joe Biden Is Going To Make Things Official This Week After Months Of Deliberation And Deadlines That Have Seemed To Pass. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 22, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:00]

Authorities were warned 10 days ago about a potential attack. CNN's Ivan Watson live in Colombo, Sri Lanka with the breaking details. Ivan.

IVAN WATSON, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN NEWS: Good morning, John. You know, the situation here is still fluid and tense, there is a vehicle down the road and the authorities, the soldiers here have cleared out because they're clearly suspicious about that vehicle right now.

So that gives you a sense of some of the insecurity on the streets right now in a country that is declaring a curfew starting at 8:00 pm and has cut off access to social media sites for the Sri Lankan population.

I'm standing in front of St. Anthony's Shrine, that's one of three catholic churches that was bombed on Easter Sunday, and there's still rubble in front of here and the clock tower is stuck at 8:45 am.

John and Alisyn, that's when the bomb - bomber is believed to have attacked when worshippers had gathered here. The death toll, the casualties simply staggering, at least 290 killed, more than 500 wounded.

Now you've raised this memo that some government ministers have distributed on social media, which sites a foreign intelligence agency saying that they had chatter of possible threats coming from a Sri Lankan group called the National Thowheed Jamaat, and the possibility that they were planning suicide attacks against catholic churches and against the Indian High Commission here.

And despite that warning, nothing was in pace to protect this church from the deadly attack and the two other churches that were hit nor the three luxury hotels here in Colombo that were also attacked.

One government minister I spoke with called this negligence and incompetence and now the Sri Lankan government has apologized for letting that crucial piece of information slip through the cracks.

There has not yet been a claim of responsibility, this is a country that's still very much in shock and in mourning. One government minister saying that this is a brand new type of terrorism for Sri Lanka, that's saying a lot in a country that fought a civil war for decades here. Alisyn and John.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Ivan, thank you very much. We're going to get into all of that. So joining us now is Bobby Ghosh, he is the editor and editorial board member at Bloomberg.

Bobby, great to have you here in studio. So what do we know about this local terror group that now authorities are blaming for this?

BOBBY GHOSH, EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER, BLOOMBERG OPINION: We know very little about these guys, they are so small that they have barely ever registered on the radar of counter terrorism professionals, people who watch terrorist groups for a living.

Until yesterday they were only known for a couple of things, one attacks against vandalism basically against Buddhist statues, and one of their leaders was arrested and charged for inciting racial hatred.

This is a huge leap to go from there to pull of a massive multi-prong terrorism attack, one of the biggest and most deadliest terrorist attacks in all of Asia, 300 people killed, seven suicide bombers, six different targets, three different cities.

This is an enormous leap for a group that small. My sense is that they are more shoes (ph) to fall on this, we're just beginning to hear the first of the (inaudible).

CAMEROTA: And when you say that, you mean that it's possible that they had - that they coordinated with a larger outfit?

GHOSH: Well it would - that would be the immediate suggestion. In January, Sri Lankan police found a weapons cache and a - and a - and a bunch of explosives in another town not one of the ones that was attacked.

And at that time, they thought they said that these weapons and this ammunition had something to do with the Islamic state, but there was no mention and they thought again that these would be used against Buddhist targets, not against the Christian minority.

So it's - people will now be tempted to join dots together, but like I said we - it's too early to tell, we just don't know enough.

CAMEROTA: It sounds like not enough dots were connected. There were apparently red flags 10 days ago, I think a police source said that they had some sort of warning that something was coming, and now the Sri Lankan government, this top cabinet official says we are very sorry as a government.

We have to say we have to apologize to the families and institutions about this incident. It sounds like they just - I don't know if they were out of practice because they - they haven't had something like this for a long time, but they didn't send out the proper alerts.

GHOSH: Yes, I think it's a combination of they hadn't had the practice for a very long time, suicide bombings, very familiar to Sri Lankans of a certain age, but that civil war ended 10 years ago. You have a whole generation of young people who have only sort of small memories of that war.

And also because the original threat from 10 days ago was connected to this small group, and a group that has really no real history. I think that allowed the authorities the luxury of saying, no, no, no. These guys are not capable of an attack like this.

[06:05:00]

Now we know different.

CAMEROTA: We'll continue to follow it obviously throughout the morning. Bobby Ghosh, thank you very much for being here.

GHOSH: Anytime.

CAMEROTA: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Democrats are grappling what their next move should be after the Mueller report. At least two Democratic presidential hopefuls are calling for impeachment, while party leaders urging caution.

CNN's Abby Phillip live at the White House with more, Abby what's the latest?

ABBY PHILLIP, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN NEWS: Well good morning, John. President Trump has turned his anger to the aids who's testimony and noted contributed to that second volume of the Mueller report on obstruction.

And that obstruction portion is exactly what has prompted Democrats to begin to grapple with the real possibility that they must - they might need to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scheduling a conference call with the Democratic Caucus today, insisting that Congress will not be silent after the Justice Department released a redacted version of the Special Counsel's report last week. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says the caucus will weigh the option of pursuing President Trump's impeachment over the coming weeks.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: I think what we are going to have to decide as a caucus is what is the best thing for the country? Is the best thing for the country to take up an impeachment proceeding, or is it in the best interest of the country not to take up an impeachment that we know will not be successful in the Senate because the Republican leadership will not do its duty? PHILLIP: House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler who leads the committee where impeachment would start saying he wants to hear Mueller testify first.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D), N.Y.: If proven, some of this would be impeachable, yes. Obstruction of justice, if proven, would be impeachable.

PHILLIP: Mueller outlined at least 10 episodes that he investigated where the president attempted to thwart his probe. The Democrats have been divided on the issue, with Nadler, Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer urging caution.

As a handful of the caucus' more progressive members and two 2020 candidates call for impeachment proceedings to begin.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), M.A.: This isn't about politics, it is about what a president of the United States should be able to do and what the role of Congress is in saying no, a president does not get to come in and stop an investigation about a foreign power that attacked this country.

PHILLIP: President Trump responding asking how do you impeach a Republican president for a crime that was committed by Democrats? As members of the administration continue to falsely insist that the president has been exonerated.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: The president is not going to jail, he's staying in the White House for five and a half more years.

PHILLIP: President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani raising eyebrows with this defense of the Trump campaign's willingness to accept political help from Russians.

RUDY GIULIANI, DONALD TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: Any candidate in the whole world - in America would take information negative -

JAKE TAPPER, HOST, CNN NEWS: From a foreign source? From a hostile foreign source?

GIULIANI: Who says it's even illegal? There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.

TAPPER: There's nothing wrong with taking information -

GIULIANI: It depends on where it came from, it depends on where it came from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: It would require 20 Republicans in the Senate to join with Democrats to actually impeach President Trump, a pretty high bar considering that Republicans have been unwilling to abandon the president. But one Republican Senator Mitt Romney did criticize President Trump

for the conduct described in the Mueller report, only to be attacked by Rudy Giuliani on the Sunday morning shows and also by President Trump. John and Alisyn.

BERMAN: Abby, thanks a lot and now we're going to dig a little deeper with Seung Min Kim, White House reporter for the Washington Post and a CNN political analyst.

Seung Min, Democrats at the cross roads, how do they see the risk reward ratio right now?

SEUNG MIN KIM, POLITICAL ANALYST, CNN NEWS: Well it's a really delicate balancing act for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team, because I think the consensus that they've laid on at this point and what you're hearing from the rest of our leadership team is that they want to continue the investigations, they want to continue digging.

It's the impeachment question that they are not quite sure about. But I think what you saw yesterday - or in the last several days since the Mueller - the redacted Mueller report was released was a caucus that's really struggling with this question, because now they look at the report and they see - they see information about the president's conduct that they feel that they just simply cannot ignore, but they also recognize a reality that he is not going - the president is not going to be removed from office except through the normal electoral process.

So they're really wrestling with this question now, it'll be debated later in calls today and in meetings. I thought what Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the oversight committee said though was really interesting.

Yesterday when he said history will smile upon Democrats in the House if they do proceed with - proceed with this, even if it doesn't have a chance in the Senate.

BERMAN: History may smile, politics might not, and I suppose that's where the rub is. Is the consensus among the leadership right now that let the investigations go forward and how much pressure is the left going to exert on the presidential candidates? [06:10:00]

KIM: Well it's a lot of pressure coming from some of the presidential candidates themselves, and I'm not sure quite yet that what Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro have said will rain down on some of the other Democratic candidates.

You've seen most of the other 2020 candidates be cautious on the impeachment question right now. But I think what you're going to continue to - the drum beat that you're going to continue to hear from House Democrats right now is the request for more information.

We know that Democrats were not satisfied with the redacted report, they had been asking for the entire report for weeks now, including the underlying information. And you kind of see how that - how that demand kind of serves an out, they can sort of punt the impeachment question for a little longer saying well to make a full determination on whether we pursue impeachment, we need more information.

We need the full unredacted report, and the public does support them on this, there was a recent Monmouth poll that said 60 percent of voters support Congress getting that full unredacted report, but again the public doesn't yet support them on that impeachment question.

BERMAN: Not even a little. Fascinating stand on principle, risk political backlash, we will see. Thank you, Seung Min, we'll talk to you soon.

CAMEROTA: All right, John, wait until you hear this story. A comedian who rose to fame playing the president of Ukraine on TV is about to become the new president of Ukraine.

Exit polls show the comic beating the incumbent in a landslide victory. CNN's Phil Black is live in Kiev with more. Tell us how this happens, Phil.

PHIL BLACK, CORRESPONDENT, CNN NEWS: Well Alisyn, it looks like a spectacular victory for Volodymyr Zelensky, securing around 73 percent of the vote and he's achieved it through what can only be described as an extraordinary campaign.

He's not a politician, he has no experience, he is a comedian, someone who became famous in this country through pretending to be Ukraine's president on television through playing the character of a regular guy who accidentally becomes president and goes about fighting corruption, cleaning up politics.

That's also the image that he sold to the Ukrainian people. He did it in a pretty vague way, no detailed policies, few interviews, no real public discussions or rallies. Rather online videos, slick videos where he was often cheeky and mocked his opponents, the old guard (ph) of Ukrainian politics.

And it was all hugely effective, it really resonated across Ukraine, either with people who were simply desperate for change and didn't want to vote for the status quo, the protest vote if you like, or those who were really sold on Zelensky and who are now looking to him to deliver on their hopes and dreams.

But on day one of his presidency, he will face a long list of really big problems, notably the economy, it's in really rough shape, quality of life and poverty are big problems here and there is the war in the east of the country against Russian backed separatists.

That's a significant problem and we are now looking at a scenario where this man who has become famous as a comedian, a professional clown, he is the person who will be standing up to, negotiating with a man not known for his easy smiles, the Russian President Vladimir Putin, an incredibly experienced leader.

President Trump has also called Zelensky to congratulate him on the win and the election, it's the other important historic point here. A sitting president being removed peacefully and democratically, the last one was kicked out of office through a violent hard won revolution that left 100 people killed, and that was only five years ago, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh, Phil, these are very interesting times. Thank you very much.

BERMAN: To say the least.

CAMEROTA: Alec Baldwin's on line two, he wants to know when he's getting in the race. We - and on that note, we do have breaking 2020 news, another Democratic member of Congress is jumping into the presidential race. Who is it? That's next.

BERMAN: Could it be Alec Baldwin?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:00]

CAMEROTA: All right, we do have some breaking 2020 news, Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts just announcing that he is running for president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SETH MOULTON (D), M.A.: We need to restore our moral authority in everything we do, whether it's appointing a cabinet member, negotiating a treaty or signing an executive order, I will always uphold America's values.

I'm running because we have to beat Donald Trump and I want us to beat Donald Trump because I love this country. We've never been a country that gets everything right, but we're a country that at our best thinks that we might. I'd be honored if you'd join me in this mission.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

All right, it is a crowded field of Democrats, I think that's fair to say.

BERMAN: Nineteen (inaudible).

CAMEROTA: That's exactly right, these are the folks who are challenging President Trump. So let's discuss with Seung Min Kim, Arlette Saenz CNN political reporter and we're also joined by Abby Phillip.

Ladies, great to see you this morning. So Seth Moulton, we've had him on the program several times, he's an impressive guy, he has an impressive background, but you know I just - Seung Min, I guess I'm just wondering what is the mental calculus that somebody undertakes when they go you know, there's 18 other sort of impressive people in the race - BERMAN: But there's still a lane.

CAMEROTA: -- but there's still a lane. What's - what's the thinking here?

KIM: Well the phrase has been that every senator gets up in the morning, looks in the mirror and sees a president. I guess it's every House member nowadays also sees that. But you're right that it is a crowded lane, but what Congressman Moulton is seeking to do right now is to kind of create a platform centered on national security, which is pretty interesting because even though there are 19 Democrats in the race, no candidate has made that his or her specific lane, the specific focus.

There are two other veterans in the race, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard but they have been focusing on broader issues as well and Congressman Moulton who is also a veteran wants to make that his focus and see how much that resonates in this very crowded field.

Now he does have some - a prickly history with the Democratic Party, particularly considering he was one of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's main antagonists in her leadership race, so we'll see how much of that has an impact.

He has gotten some backlash back at home in the recent months, but it'll be an interesting candidacy to watch.

BERMAN: Fascinating, 40 years old, former marine, only politician I'm aware of who actually didn't talk about medals he'd actually won. But that's - the focus on national security is going to be interesting given that that's a core responsibility for commander in chief.

Arlette, someone else making the experience argument is obviously going to be Joe Biden, you are hearing that he is going to make his big announcement finally this week. Tell us more.

[06:20:00]

ARLETTE SAENZ, POLITICAL REPORTER, CNN NEWS: That's right, John. We expect that former Vice President Joe Biden is going to make things official this week after months of deliberation and deadlines that have seemed to pass.

But I'm told by those involved in the discussions that he will likely be announcing around mid week, likely via video, following - followed by a series of events. And really Biden's entry in the race is going to answer the biggest remaining question about what this field is going to look like.

We could see a few other candidates enter in the coming weeks as well, but Biden is really that one big name that people are waiting to see how exactly he's going to shake up the race.

He is a front runner in all of the polls and one thing that's going to be interesting to watch is that Biden has never run as a front runner, so how is he going to handle that status as he's expecting arrows to come his way, not just from President Trump but also his fellow Democrats.

CAMEROTA: Abby, do the folks at the White House put Vice President Biden in a different category than the rest of the candidates?

PHILLIP: They do, because Biden unlike most of the rest of the candidates has what President Trump also has, which is almost universal name recognition. It's really important in a race where you have 19 candidates, all of them at various levels of notoriety in the public sphere.

And Biden, for the - for one, is at the top of the pack because people just simply know who he is. But then beyond that, there is a real issue for the White House about Biden's potential platform, his resonance among working class voters, his ability to hold onto some of the union families and households that shifted to President Trump from the Democratic Party in the last election.

And I think Trump - Trump advisors, if they're being honest with you, will tell you that that is a big piece of the puzzle for President Trump. If he's going to recreate what happened in 2016, he's going to have to hold on to many of those very people in the industrial Midwest in states like Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

And Biden is the one person who they think has the best chance of being able to do that in this next race.

BERMAN: Seung Min, how's Biden being seen in the Democratic field? Obviously iconic as Obama's vice president, would be one of the oldest candidates ever to run if - certainly if he won the nomination.

Are they seeing him as someone who's got a lane of the center left, or someone who is - might be on the wrong side of the timeline and not liberal enough?

KIM: Well he's clearly leading in a lot of the Democratic primary polling, him and Senator Bernie Sanders, a lot of that does seem to perhaps be name - that universal name recognition.

So but there's no doubt that he is the front runner. But there's also no doubt that he's going to have to contend with a lot of questions about his past, whether it's behavior, I mean there's been - we know there's been a lot of stories about different women who have said they aren't - they weren't comfortable with his physical affection in recent years.

Also questions about his policies and his - how he handled certain high profile issues as a senator looking at financial policy, looking at how he handled the Anita Hill hearings as a member of the Judiciary Committee.

And those are questions that as the Democratic Party has shifted more progressive, those are questions that Biden is certainly preparing for and will certainly have to answer once he get - officially gets in the race. CAMEROTA: OK, so as all of this is happening, there's also the

question as we start this new week, Arlette, of what Democrats are going to do now that they have seen for the most part Robert Mueller's findings.

So they are all having meetings, they are debating what their next course of action is and does it seem as though - well let me play it for you what one of the presidential candidates, Elizabeth Warren, Senator Elizabeth Warren, has said.

She has been the most vocal about calling for impeachment investigation. So watch - listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: I took an oath to the constitution of the United States, and the constitution makes clear that the accountability for the president lies through Congress, and that's the impeachment process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Arlette, is there a feeling that that idea is gaining momentum?

SAENZ: Well really Alisyn, we're seeing these two different strategies playing out in the Democratic primary field. You have Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro among those who are saying that they should begin impeachment proceedings, but they're trying to define the debate there.

But then you have the rest of the field which is basically not saying that they should get started with impeachment, saying that they need to push for the unredacted report and have hearings and let the process play out.

But what's going to be interesting to watch is whether this bet that someone like Elizabeth Warren is making on going ahead and making the impeachment proceedings, putting that front and center, whether it's going to play off with a core base of voters who do feel like they would like to see the president impeached.

But one thing that the Democratic primary candidates, many of them are noting is that they're not getting questions about the Mueller report or impeachment on the campaign trail.

[06:25:00]

We'll see how that all plays out as we await more fallout from the report.

BERMAN: Abby, speaking of defining the debate, I've got to ask you what the White House's reaction is to the president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani going on the Sunday show this weekend and telling our own Jake Tapper that Russia - getting information from Russia, no big deal, not even illegal. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GIULIANI: There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.

TAPPER: There's nothing wrong with taking information -

GIULIANI: Depends on where it came from - it depends on where it came from. You're assuming that the giving of information was a campaign contribution. Read the report carefully, the report says we can't conclude that because the law is pretty much against that.

Do you - people get information from this person, that person, this person -

TAPPER: So you - you would have accepted information from Russians against a client - against a - against a candidate if you were running in the presidential election?

GIULIANI: I probably - I probably wouldn't, I wasn't asked, I would have advised just out of excess of caution, don't do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Abby, is this the new White House line?

PHILLIP: Well you have - people have been saying for weeks that Rudy Giuliani, maybe he's lost it, some people are saying maybe he's crazy like a fox, and I think this might be one of those examples where Giuliani is basically doing what he has done for the president for the last year and change, which is basically moving the goal posts in the public sphere, changing the debate about what is wrong and what is right, making it about what is - you know, the only thing that matters now according to Giuliani and to the president's allies is what is on pen and paper illegal.

And I think what he's saying in that clip is that it's just not illegal and so as a result of that, it's permissible and you can't criticize President Trump for that. That is a political argument that is aimed at undermining all of this talk about impeachment that we've been talking about.

And I think you're going to - I wouldn't be surprised if you hear the president's allies echoing that. But at the same time, there are people who are President Trump's allies who have been saying for a long time, this was obviously inappropriate.

It was clearly something that they should not have been open to and the fact that they were is really troubling and you can't - you can't get around that, but they're trying to change the public narrative so that they can tamp down some of this criticism that's starting to build up that's leading to this impeachment debate, in particularly in the House.

CAMEROTA: Except that on pen and paper it is illegal. Here's the law.

BERMAN: There's that, yes. CAMEROTA: Let me just read it so that everybody can be on the same

page, contributions and donations by foreign nationals in connection with elections, a foreign national shall not directly or indirectly make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value like say information that helps you win, or expressly implied promise to make a contribution or donation in connection with any federal, state or local election.

It actually is on paper as illegal, and they certainly thought it was a thing of value because they wanted to use it to win.

PHILLIP: Well and I just - I just want to say quickly, I mean the thing that Giuliani is also trying to say is that even thought they were open to it, they may have sought out help from wherever it was coming from, they didn't collude or conspire with effort to - that systematic effort to undermine the election.

He's making a really fine line argument here and it's - and it's about the fact that even though they were open to it, maybe they didn't actually engage in the act itself -

CAMEROTA: But they did.

PHILLIP: -- of taking the information.

CAMEROTA: But they did, I mean they had a meeting and they did.

PHILLIP: Yes.

BERMAN: You know, what could possibly go wrong down the road, this is a big - American elections are open for foreign business. Anyway, thank you all very much, a lot to discuss going forward.

CAMEROTA: All right, we have a very big night ahead on CNN. There are five Democratic presidential candidates in back to back town halls in New Hampshire. So all of this begins at 7:00 pm with Senator Amy Klobuchar, then followed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

This is must see TV, will have to be up until midnight.

BERMAN: It's a town hallapalooza (ph).

CAMEROTA: It is a town hallapalooza (ph).

BERMAN: Big news will be made I am sure. All right, up next, the IRS facing a deadline tomorrow to turn over President Trump's tax returns to a top House Democrat. So what happens if they don't comply? A live report next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END