Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

CNN's Starr Speaks Out About Trump DOJ Seizing Her Records; U.K.'s Reopening to be Delayed a Month as Variant Spreads Rapidly; Biden, Allies Appear in Family Photo at NATO Summit. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 14, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: For another 145 dog shows.

[07:00:02]

So, congratulations, Wasabi. Enjoy your win. Walk into glory, if you can.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: I understand that you are opposed to the exclusivity of this, Berman, but I also wonder if perhaps you aren't a little intellectually inconsistent. Because I look at you, I see someone who has that sparkle, as you put it. You have very nice hair.

And I will also say that I know you have legs under there, but I cannot see them right now.

BERMAN: Yes. But you haven't met my parents. I don't have breeding. I mean, like I promise you that, like I couldn't get within 100 miles of a purebred show for anything. Mutts are the nicest.

KEILAR: I know.

BERMAN: And what about goldens and labs? I mean --

KEILAR: And they're so happy. They're the ones you gravitate towards. Where are they in the show?

BERMAN: Now, I will tell you the outrage from last year when I said this, Alisyn like wouldn't even appear with me in public it was so fierce. This is dangerous ground we're walking on right now, but I know you're prepared for that.

KEILAR: Yes, dangerous ground. All you need though is a dog or mutt to protect you, and you're fine.

BERMAN: Well, the mutt will stand by you, because it's not worried about its hair, honestly. It's worried about you and only you.

New Day continues right now.

KEILAR: I'm Brianna Keilar alongside John Berman on this New Day.

President Biden in Brussels at this hour for the NATO summit. He's hoping to rebuild fractured alliances and deliver a strong message ahead of his meeting with Vladimir Putin.

BERMAN: Top organizations, including CNN, demanding answers today from the current attorney general into the secret subpoenas by the Trump Justice Department. CNN's Barbara Starr breaks her silence about being caught up in this dragnet.

KEILAR: And England slams the brakes on its reopening plan as delta coronavirus variant spreads. Should there be a warning for the U.S.?

BERMAN: And the education secretary joins us live on New Day to address the challenges of getting schools back open nationwide this fall.

KEILAR: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Monday, June 14th, and President Biden is in Brussels this morning for the first of two days of meetings with NATO leaders. He arrived at headquarters here just a short time ago, and the president is using this summit to not to just elbow bump the head of NATO but to re-establish America's credibility of the world stage and restore the relationship with NATO partners that soured severely under the Trump administration. He spoke with NATO's secretary general moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: We have new challenges, and we have Russia that is not acting in a way that is consistent with what we had hoped, and as well as China.

But I want to make it clear. NATO is critically important for U.S. interests in and of itself. If there weren't one, we'd have to invent one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Also on the Biden agenda today, a meeting with Turkey's strongman, President Erdogan, the two leaders looking to stabilize a necessary but somewhat troubled relationship.

The NATO activities, of course, all lead up to President Biden's face- to-face meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Geneva on Wednesday. According to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the president plans to deliver some pretty tough messages to his Russian counterpart.

KEILAR: Representatives from CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post are scheduled to meet today with Attorney General Merrick Garland, and this is coming after the revelation that the Justice Department under former President Trump took aggressive steps to obtain phone and email records of reports at the three outlets. And that includes my colleague, CNN's Barbara Starr, who's speaking out for the first time in a new op-ed. Barbara, thank you so much for joining us this morning from the Pentagon, where you have worked for years under multiple administrations.

Talk to us a little bit about what happened here. Tell us what it was like to find out that your records, your data had been seized, including personal data.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Brianna. Well, Bottom line up front, as I stand here today, both CNN and myself, we have no idea why the Justice Department snuck into my life. They went out in secret court proceedings last year. They went after some 30,000 of my emails and phone records, and not just my work email, my work phone. But they went after my personal accounts, my personal email, and my personal phone, which at this hour is at home sitting on my kitchen counter. They wanted all of it.

[07:05:00]

And I was not even allowed to know about it. It was a secret court. Our fabulous legal counsel, David Vigilante, participating in that secret court, he was under a gag order for a year, essentially, was not allowed until this past May to even let me know. I got a phone call at home telling that this had happened.

And to say I was dumbfounded would be such a vast understatement. I have no idea why they did this, what they were looking, apparently a leak investigation. But they wanted 30,000 emails. And, yes, I was surprised I even have 30,000 emails, you know?

So this was also communications from back in 2017 that they finally went to the secret court about in the middle of 2020. And I am not the subject of an investigation. There is no suggestion that I or CNN engaged in any wrongdoing. Let me read you just part of what the court said when we finally got the transcript. And I want to quote this. It says, the court has to conclude the theory of relevancy upon which this request is made is not based on sufficient, specific and arcticulable facts but rather on more speculative predictions, assumptions and scenarios unanchored in facts.

So, that is what the court had to say. They ratcheted back, severely restricted with the Justice Department could get access to. But as we meet with Merrick Garland later today, CNN executives, I won't be there, no answers, no answers about why they did this. And the big question, of course, if they can do it to reporters, can they do it to anybody else in this country?

KEILAR: Yes. That is a big meeting that's happening today. I want to talk to you about that first. But, again, I just want to mention, this was, as you said, 2017, and yet you just found out about last month, right? You just found out about it.

So, as you look back to the time period where this data was taken, you're confused what this is about. But what were you reporting on during that time?

STARR: Well, I cover the Pentagon, so I report on troops. Back in 2017, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, North Korea, NATO. CNN covers the world every single day, every minute of the day, all the journalists, all the people who work at CNN. So I was doing my job. I talk to lots of people.

And, you know, the other reporters from the other organizations that were also caught up in this, I'm not speaking on their behalf, of course, but it's the same thing. We talk, report, gather facts. If you asked me who I talked to -- I'm making this up, of course -- on June 30th, 2017, you can even show me the phone records. I don't know what we talked about back then. I talk to people all day long about all the issues that I cover just like everybody else at CNN.

KEILAR: And you talk about sort of the wide-ranging issues of all of this in your op-ed. But tell us why the seizure of journalists' records is so dangerous in your view?

STARR: Well, for me, I mean, first of all, let me just say, as an American, I would like an answer about why the Justice Department, and I don't limit it to the Trump Justice Department. This is a government of laws, not of people. So I want to hear from the Department of Justice of this country why they thought this was something that they could do. I would like an explanation. I don't expect that I will get one. But I say to Merrick Garland, I would like an explanation.

Various -- for the press, let me narrow it, the news media, part of the Constitution is the First Amendment, protection of the press. It's not flexible, not in this country. The press is protected. We are protected to do our job, to uncover facts, to present information to the American people, and very often it is information the government does not want.

For myself, it is even more serious, more sobering because I cover the military, something you know very well, Brianna, better than anybody. The U.S. Armed Forces take an oath to the Constitution. They swear to defend the Constitution with their lives, if necessary, and that Constitution includes the First Amendment and the protections of the free press. That's the hill that the Armed Forces are willing to die, and it seems to me the Justice Department could also meet that challenge.

KEILAR: I think we should be clear. The Obama administration did target some journalists.

[07:10:01]

What we are seeing happened under the Trump administration was a completely different level. But this tension we have seen across administrations. Now, the Biden administration is saying that they'll stop the practice of spying on journalists. I know that you don't necessarily expect to get an answer, but when there's this meeting between CNN and other news outlets and the attorney general, you know, what should come out of this?

STARR: Well, I think most news organizations would say that they don't want to see some memo, some policy. Let's have it in the law so this does not happen to other journalists down the road. We're well aware of also what's going on with records of other people in congress and their families potentially being seized. Let's have it in the law very clear so we're not standing here talking about the Trump Justice Department, the Biden Justice Department, the Obama Justice Department, government of laws, not of people, not of who is the political appointee in charge at a particular point in time. The law brought before the courts and not -- for myself, not in secret. Don't spy on me. Don't come into that phone on my kitchen counter this morning and try and get all the data off of it. I am lucky that I have the lawyers at CNN to defend me. I just didn't even know they had to.

KEILAR: You know, you started your career, Barbara -- obviously, we have known you for so many years at CNN, but you started out at a small community newspaper, and you write in your op-ed, I wonder now more than ever what happens if those with power try to intimidate reports whose small newsrooms like mine back in those days can't afford legal teams to fight back. How then will the people in that small town even know about potential wrongdoing?

As you point out, you have a legal team of CNN's to help you. But this is -- it just shows us how vulnerable news outlets that don't have that sort of standing, that prominence. How challenge this is for them?

STARR: Well, you know, we're all aware community journalism has been at risk for many years due, in some respects, to fragile financial situations. So many newspapers have shut down. We have seen the rise of independent media, which I believe is a good thing, bloggers, people who run their own news shops, essentially. They don't have the budgets. They don't have the resources.

And so it becomes more important than ever if you have a climate of chilling effect, which is what apparently the Justice Department was endeavoring here, going after sources, thinking then that maybe they'll find a leak, and in the future, people won't talk to reporters, people will be -- Americans will be afraid to talk to journalists, which is an appalling prospect.

These smaller news shops, they may not be able to survive that kind of pressure, that kind of intimidation. Here at CNN, like the other major news organizations, you know, I don't want to say -- I'm too cliche, but we are family. An attack against one is an attack against all. Here at CNN, we are a fierce family. I very much know from the folks in your control room right now that we don't see on air, to our desk assistants, to the correspondents, to the anchors, to the camera men, we all have each other's backs, we're not going anywhere, and we are very concerned that the journalists across the country have all the protections that they need also. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes. It is such a good point, Barbara. Because I think -- I speak for a lot of people at CNN when I say, when I heard that this happened to you, I thought, our Barbara Starr? I never thought that I would be talking to you about you going through something like this.

STARR: Well, Brianna, I had exactly the same thought. Me? Really?

KEILAR: It's incredibly surprising. Barbara, I do hope we get some answers on this though, and I really appreciate you being with us. Our CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr with us this morning.

BERMAN: The best in the business. KEILAR: Yes.

BERMAN: Bar none.

All right, this morning, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce that the planned relaxation of coronavirus restrictions in England will be delayed due to the spread of the delta variant first identified in India. The rules will now remain in place for another four weeks.

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen joins us now. And, Elizabeth, we see this, and it is of concern, right, because the U.K. had been doing so well.

[07:15:00]

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They had been doing so well, just like the U.S. has been doing relatively well over the past couple of months. And then this variant first thought of in India kind of swept in.

So let's talk about the U.S. for a minute. In the U.S., the U.K. variant swept in and pretty quickly became the dominant variant, and now we're starting to see the variant first spotted in India gained some traction. This could be a problem, especially for areas of the United States that don't have very high vaccination rates.

But before we get to, that let's talk about this variant that was first spotted in India. Technically, it's called the delta variant, and let's talk about why it is of such concern. It is around 40 percent more transmissible, according to Public Health England. And early findings show that people who get it, there's an increased hospitalization rate. So it appears to be more transmissible and appears to do more harm.

Now, let's take a look at the vaccine that so many of us have gotten. This is an incredible vaccine. But for the India variant, it is not working quite as well. Again, for the Pfizer variant, it appears to be about 88 percent effective against this variant first spotted in India, AstraZeneca, which, of course, has been used so widely in the U.K., 60 percent effective.

Now, I want you to look at those numbers. Those are not terrible numbers. I mean, those are good for a vaccine. But they are not as good as the numbers that we have in the U.S. with Pfizer and Moderna, with 94 and 95 percent efficacy. It takes a hit. The vaccines take a hit with this variant, so all the more reason why more of us need to get vaccinated.

When the vaccine is less effective, that means more people need to get it because we don't want to find ourselves where we were six months ago where COVID was running our lives. That's why people need to get vaccinated. John, Brianna?

BERMAN: It is a warning sign to be sure from the United Kingdom. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much. All right, you're looking at live pictures on the screen from Brussels. This is the NATO conference where President Biden is right now. And what you're looking at is the arrival of the leaders for what will be the family photo, the group photo of all the leaders together.

I'm joined by Bianna Golodryga, CNN Senior Global Affairs Analyst. And this is sort of like the beginning of the worst basketball game ever, where each leader is introduced, like the 6'10 sophomore from Belgium. In any case, that's what we're seeing here. But this is really important. This NATO conference is super important for President Biden as he tries to reset the image of the United States around the world, particularly with allies.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, just imagine his predecessor and his meetings with NATO leaders, right? This could not be more opposite from that and reassuring for many of those NATO partners as well. Joe Biden knows the stage very well. It's his platform. But, yes, there's a lot to deal with. Globally, there's a lot to deal with in these European countries, and particularly his backyard, the elephant in the room obviously being Russia, and what we saw even a few months ago with the troop buildup along the Ukrainian border there with Russia.

Now, some of those troops were pulled back and tensions did ease up, but it's just one of the many issues that the president will be contending with here as he meets with his NATO partners. And we see Justin Trudeau as well.

BERMAN: Justin Trudeau last time, and, of course, the NATO meeting with President Trump in Canada ended so badly with heated words between President Trump and Justin Trudeau, vastly different. This time, you're talking about the U.S. relationship with Russia. It was just a few minutes ago, President Biden said Russia is not acting in a way consistent with what he had hoped, which is actually one of the friendlier things he'd actually said about Russia in recent days. And Vladimir Putin has been posturing as well.

What do you think the metric for success for this meeting between Biden and Putin is?

GOLODRYGA: It's clearly setting the bar very low, which is what Biden did going into this meeting, saying that this is not a reward for Vladimir Putin. This is just him telling face-to-face some the issues that the countries face personally and their responsibilities globally. He said, I will tell him how I feel about Russia's transgressions, not just within the last few years but obviously over the last decade or so.

Keep in mind, this is Vladimir Putin's fifth president that he's been dealing with going back to Bill Clinton. So he is not a novice to this stage and this arena as well. He likes the attention. He likes the profile, though he's missing from the G7, formal G8 meeting. But this is something that he has built up too as well. It's not going to be a friendly meeting I think it's going to be a very terse and probably not very long meeting as well. BERMAN: And Putin, for his part, has been posturing, just frankly posturing, doing interviews where he's laughing at the idea of being called a killer, praising former U.S. President Donald Trump, I think, deliberately here. How is he trying to deliver himself prior to this meeting?

GOLDRYGA: Yes, really sort of taunting the Biden administration, once again, praising Donald Trump, saying that he's very bright and colorful, right, and very talented.

[07:20:005]

It's one thing to have an interview with an international journalist. Keir Simmons is a fabulous journalist, but there are many -- well, actually not that many because many have left the country, but there were many Russian journalists who would have loved to have interviewed Vladimir Putin and asked him similar questions. Obviously, he didn't grant them those interviews.

And so this is a situation where he's approaching the stage, being a pariah and trying to make the most of it. He likes the global attention. He likes the limelight. And this is his opportunity to showcase his famous whataboutisms with Biden.

BERMAN: With President Biden, the United States, the G7 and NATO, there's also something going on that's about more than just relationships and smiles too. It's a repositioning, an essential repositioning of the place of the western alliance in the world right now as opposed to Russia and opposed to especially China here. In the language that has come out of these meetings is very notably different than we've seen in the past.

GOLODRYGA: In particular with China. Because over the past four years, while it is reassuring for these G7 leaders to hear President Biden come out and say that democracy is back -- there you see Angela Merkel -- her last appearance before she'll be traveling to Washington for a meeting at the White House as well in July. So it was, on the one hand, reassuring to hear President Biden say the west is back, democracy is back, and this is really going to be a challenge of democracy versus autocracy.

In those past four years though, you've seen many European countries, Germany and Italy, in particular, have a closer relationship with China economically, Germany as well with Russia, even though there's a lot of tension between these leaders, the pipeline, the Nordstream 2 pipeline that was completed, near completion right now, the Biden administration and the Trump administration had been opposed to that. Nonetheless, they lifted any sort of sanctions that they would have put in place because they thought that the relationship with Germany was too important.

But, yes, I think the communique coming out of the G7 that China is going to be a focus is something that -- if anything, is more of a stronger takeaway than what we can expect to see from a Biden/Putin meeting. I think, again, the expectations are low. Perhaps we'll see them exchange of ambassadors again and that's good thing, open up more of the consulates. That's a good thing. You want a presence in each other's countries. They said they would not have a joint press conference. Perhaps there will be. I'm not ruling one out.

BERMAN: Talk about that a little bit. Why do you think that is?

GOLODRYGA: Clearly, it's to avoid what we saw in Helsinki. And no one is arguing that President Biden is going to do what President Trump did and say, I side with Vladimir Putin and I believe him and all of that, but I do think there was a sense that it could give Vladimir Putin once again the platform do what he does so well and, once again, throw out the whataboutisms. You want stability, Joe Biden? What's stable about troop withdrawal in Afghanistan? What's stable about your plans in Syria? He has a laundry list of these whataboutisms that he puts down there.

And he knows how to address the global public very articulately. Again, you look at what's happening domestically and issues that he said are off the table, right, what's happening internally. And it's a different story. There's nothing stable about that. He has dissidents thrown in jail, there's absolutely no opposition, really, within the country right now, not to mention Alexei Navalny and his team, which are now deemed extremist, all of that is off the table. And at least from Vladimir Putin's perspective of what can be addressed and what can't be, Joe Biden said perhaps they can find agreement on climate agreement, aid to Syria. I interviewed the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. a few weeks ago who said that she really wants to keep that last corridor of transportation to Syria open. Perhaps that's something we could see as far as aid and assistance.

BERMAN: A little bit later this morning, I'm going to speak to the parents of Trevor Reed, who was the former U.S. Marin, an American being held in a Russian prison right now.

GOLODRYGA: Who they haven't heard from the past few weeks now and has said to be very ill.

BERMAN: Yes. We have letter, a new letter from him from prison, which is heartbreaking, which talks about how he has COVID. He's very sick and he's calling obviously on the Biden administration to do anything, something, to get him released. Do you think there is a real possibility that that might happen in this meeting.

GOLODRYGA: Perhaps. And, again, that could be one of those deliverables that we could see come out of this meeting, Trevor Reed, and also there's another American who has been taken prisoner in Russia as well.

Alexei Navalny is a bit of different story. I don't think you would have an exchange even if the Biden administration wanted to propose on, because Navalny will not leave the country. He went back to be in prison there. He wants to be a politician there. He wants to, one day, lead that country. He will not be leaving that country. But perhaps Trevor Reed and perhaps some of the other Americans that are there would be exchanged.

What was interesting to me was Vladimir Putin over the weekend -- and Biden sort of played along with it -- suggested that, in terms of cyber crimes, right, and hackers, that there could be some sort of exchange, that the U.S. would send back those that Russia deems to be people who broke the law.

[07:25:07]

BERMAN: Hang on one second here. This is French President Emmanuel Macron right here. Interesting, obviously, France, a great ally of the United States since the founding of the United States, but also because of Macron's, I think, willingness the last few days to praise President Biden and to, I think, play into the narrative that the Biden administration wants that, quote/unquote, America is back, Macron basically just blurting out, yes, absolutely.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. And you saw the photos, and they couldn't be more drastic, the photos of him sitting with Joe Biden versus the photos with Donald Trump a few years ago. And Macron has been controversial over the past few years within Europe as well because he had sort of this mantra of let's go it alone. If the United States is going to be going it alone, we need to rethink how we approach NATO and the G7 as well and our own troop forces here.

BERMAN: So we now have seen all the NATO leaders introduced, the full all-star team. There is NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg back out there right now. Oh, maybe they're not done. Maybe they didn't get the full squad introduced.

It is interesting just to give a sense of how complicated President Biden's mission is these days. It's not just the meeting with Vladimir Putin that's a challenge. Later today, he meets with the Turkish leader, Erdogan, an autocrat in his own right.

GOLODRYGA: No love lost between the two.

BERMAN: No love lost -- there he is.

GOLODRYGA: There he is.

BERMAN: As if I meant it, President Erdogan.

And, look, this is complicated, A, because of the lack of democratic values he's espousing in Turkey, but also, B, because what an important ally Turkey is in NATO.

GOLODRYGA: Syria, right?

BERMAN: In Syria, Turkey's role in Afghanistan, Turkey's purchase of Russian weapons now, that will be interesting.

GOLODRYGA: It will be interesting, and also the relationship, the close ties that we've seen over the past few years between Turkey and Russia in particular is something that clearly is bothering not only the United States but NATO as well, buying any sort of military equipment from Russia. It defeats the purpose of a NATO alliance, and yet we have seen Turkey be sanctioned for some of their actions over the past few years. And many are questioning, again, you have a lot happening between the U.S. leader and Erdogan. Many still questioning why give Vladimir Putin such a big platform and have a summit in and of itself, you're going to see him later in the year in Italy at the summit in the G20. Why not have a bilat (ph) with him as opposed to a full-on summit here?

BERMAN: All right. Bianna, don't go far. Look, we're going to be watching this throughout the morning. We'll see the family photo in a little bit, a lot more to discuss. Thank you so much for your analysis here, as the team is announced.

Coming up, America's gun epidemic, the nation saw nine mass shootings in seven different states since Friday alone.

KEILAR: Plus, the challenge facing America's schools as they reopen post-COVID. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will join us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]