Transcripts For CNNW CNN Special Report 20190322

Braces for the report thats been a dark cloud over this administration for almost two years now, sources are telling cnn that team trump is taking a, what me worry approach to this. A source familiar with whats going on inside the white house saying theres growing optimism that the report will not accuse the president of committing any crimes, but that hasnt stopped the white house special counsel emmitt flood and his team from gaming out possible responses to mueller, based on scenarios ranging from a report damaging to the president to one that clears him. Another source admitting, quote, were tea leaf reading like everyone else. Ask lets not forget this word sla salad from the president just yesterday. No collusion. I have no idea when its going to be released. Its interesting that a man gets appointed by a deputy, he writes a report. You know, never figured that one out. Man gets appointed by a deputy. He writes a report. I had the greatest electoral victory in the history of our country, tremendous success, tens of millions of voters, and now somebodys going to write a report who never got a vote. Well see what the report says. Lets see if its fair. I have no idea when its going to be released. But there is a lot we do know tonight. We know that mueller has already brought criminal charges against 34 people and three companies, including half a dozen members of team trump, michael cohen, michael flynn, rick gates, Paul Manafort, george papadopoulos, and roger stone. We know that five people have been sentenced to prison, including manafort, and cohen and papadopoulos, plus richard pa nato and alex van der swan, we know that at least 16 Trump Associates had contacts russians during the campaign or transition. But there are still plenty of questions about team trump and russia. Just listen to what happened when cbss Norah Odonnell asked them Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort about russia. This was back in 2016. So to be clear, mr. Trump has no Financial Relationships with any russian oligarchs . If thats what he said thats obviously what the our position is. Well, that is about as awkward as it gets. But theres Something Else that we do know. We know that the president s strategy in all of this has been to call the investigation a witch hunt, tweeting more than 170 times and saying it out loud over and over and over. The witch hunt continues. Its a total witch hunt. Ive been saying it for a long time. Its a witch hunt. Thats all it is. Witch hunt. Witch hunt. Its just a terrible witch hunt. Witch hunt. So far this thing has been a total witch hunt, and it doesnt implicate me in any way. But in the face of all of that, theres this tonight from a New York Times oped by james comey, the man whose firing led to muellers appointment on may 17th of 2017. Heres a quote, it says i have no idea whether the special counsel will conclude that mr. Trump knowingly conspired with the russians in connection with the 2016 election or that he obstructed justice. I also dont care. I care only that the work be done well and completely. If it is, justice will have prevailed and core American Values been protected at a time when so much of our National Leadership has abandoned its commitment to truth and the rule of law. But this is far from the only investigation looming from this president , for this president i should say. Remember when President Trump stood next to Vladimir Putin and said he didnt see any reason russia would interfere in our election . Taking the russian president s word over his own intelligence chiefs. My people came to me, dan coats came to me and some others. They said they think its russia. I have president putin, he just said its not russia. I will say this, i dont see any reason why it would be. Now House Democrats attempting to investigate the president s contacts with putin charge the white house is stone walling them. The white house today rejecting congresss request for do you means insisting president ial communications with foreign leaders are protected and confidential. And House Oversight chairman Elijah Cummings said today his committee has new information, new information alleging that Jared Kushner has been using whatsapp to communicate with foreign leaders and alleging that ivanka trump may be in violation of the president ial records act with her use of personal emails. Hmm, personal emails. Seems to me i recall someone else complaining about that. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. Lots to discuss now. Laura coats and garrett graph, garrett is the author of the threat matrix, inbound Robert Muellers fbi. I cannot believe that were talking about emails after all of this. It is unbelievable. Well get to that. Thank you for joining us. I want to start with mueller first. Like i said, he has been on the job for 674 days. Hes expected to hand over his findings to the attorney general any moment now. So walk us through what the next step and steps are and how this unfolds. Right, so once this is all done and mueller is ready to submit the report, he will notify the attorney general that theyre done, that the report has been completed, and then the report will get delivered to the attorney general. They will then let the public know there will be a theres a process in place where theyre going to let the public know that this is this is done, and at the same time members of congress will be notified that the reports been submit sked a that muellers work is complete. I assume in that process the white house will be notified. In the initial stages, whether this is tomorrow or whenever this happens, we are not going to learn anything thats contained in this report. At some point and the attorney general is likely to set a date, could be ten days from when the report is submitted he will say i will submit the my report to members of congress, that is the dumbed down version, the info s information that he can openly discuss, make public from the Mueller Report, which is going to contain lots of classified and other secret information, hes going to say, okay, well, in ten days i will submit a report to members of congress and then we go from there. You know, its going to be another waiting game, right . Were going to have the we have this initial waiting game to say hey, mueller is done. The reports been submitted, and then were going to have a second waiting game of members of congress receiving whatever it is the attorney general decides he wants to let them see. So this is the next phase of a new phase . Weve been waiting for two years, and now we move on to the new phase. Garrett, i want to look at the special counsels mandate, right . It hasnt been clear to many people, or they try to misrepresent it. Heres what it said, any lengths and or coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of president donald trump, but then it goes on to say and anything Something Like and anything that arises after that. Can we expect a clear answer to this . Not necessarily because one of the big challenges that bob mueller faces in this is the question of what does he do with information that doesnt rise to the level of a chargeable crime. You know, laura sort of understands this from the prosecutors standpoint. You know, the prosecutors standard is not quite sort of beyond a reasonable doubt, but its effectively you need to be 85 sure that you can convict this person in federal court of the charges that you are bringing against them. Thats a high bar for a reason, and bob mueller presumably has found all sorts of information that might be shady. It might be suspicious, might be sketchy, might not be the type of thing that we want circling around american politics. It might not be the type of thing we want a president s family to be engaged in, but isnt an identifiable federal felony that he feels that he can bring charges against. And so what does he do with that information in the report that he turns over, and what does that what does bill bar then do with that investigation in turning it over to congress or making it public. Remember, everyone here involved in this process is going to have looming over them the shadow of jim comey really screwing up the situation in the summer and the fall of 2016 when he sort of went further than anyone really thinks he probably should have gone to talk about Hillary Clinton and all of the things that she did wrong but that werent criminal. Yeah, and its interesting. If there are things that he did wrong and then they redact them, i guess thats justice for you. Laura, i want you to weigh in. Youre the legal expert here, similar question. Are we going to have a clear answer . Not initially, no, were not going to have any clarity. Were going to have a waiting game again. The waiting game actually is good in the way of justice. You absolutely have the comey factor weighing in here. You do not want people to be tarred and feathered in the Public Square if there actually is no basis to prosecute them. Having said that, however, there may also be a basis to prosecute someone but there also may be a doj policy that says that were not going to put light on this issue and let the public know. Im talking about the president of the United States. If he is in fact, implicated, remember one of the very important things that the attorney general will weigh is this notion of the guidance thats been issued internally in the department of justice not to indict a sitting president. If that is the case, it would be more than simply the comey effect of trying to say somebody was did erroneous things but not yet criminal, they were highly careless, but it wasnt actually felonious, it may be that given the guidance you cant do anything about it at this point. But laura, what about the question of whether theres a the president obstructed justice because congress will have to hear muellers view on that . Absolutely, and of course think about the two parallel tracks here, don. Youve got the criminal implications if hes implicated in an actual crime. You have the Political Considerations that dont have to follow and track the definitions that we have in the code of criminal law about whats a high crime and misdemeanor, for example, so on the impeach ment side, remember the guideline, thats the important thing, the guidance thats been issued has not been set in stone, and certainly the balancing test that would go in favor of figuring out whether that should actually be the case, whether or not to indict a sitting president would also have to include the notion of are we going to allow and would you allow somebody to evade justice as the head of the executive branch in their pursuit of trying to find out information . Ive been consistent about this, don. Obstruction of justice while it has been the basis to at least try to bring down a former president , obstruction of justice is never the end game of a prudent prosecutor. It would be akin to saying rather than pursue the crime you were fleeing, im going to give you a speeding ticket along the way, and im going to end my inquiry there. You were speeding from something. Thats all i need to know. They are going to be and they should be over the last two years now looking at whatever thing you do not want them to see. I think thats the crux of the Mueller Probe related to his mandate. Mmhmm. Will there be more indictments . Hold that thought right after the break. Ich is doing its best to make you everybody else. Means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop. Does this sound dismal . It isnt. Its the most wonderful life on earth. Yeah, i thought doing some hibachi grilling would help take my mind off it all. Maybe you could relieve some stress by calling geico for help with our Homeowners Insurance. Geico helps with Homeowners Insurance . They sure do. And they could save us a bundle of money too. 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This meter shows how much stuff, or dissolved solids, gets left behind. Our tap water is 220. Brita . 110. Seriously . But zerowater let me guess. Zero . Yup, thats how i know it is the puresttasting water. I need to find the receipt for that. Oh yeah, you do. And were back now. Laura coates, garrett graff, the question i asked just before the break, shimone, are we going to learn of more indictments . I dont see there being any more indictments coming from the mueller team. Weve not seen the mueller grand jury really in weeks, don, weeks if not months and weve not seen any activity, normally our folks who are at the courthouse and obviously staking out the mueller team, when we see activity, when things are coming, we would have indications just by the activity. We would see people leaving and coming. So i dont believe theres going to be anything else from the mueller team. I think some of whats going on here just quickly is that this report is probably going through many different hands at the fbi Intelligence Community, and i think perhaps that could be where the holdup is now. They keep scrubbing it perhaps. And the other thing i think to keep in mind is that this report, i think, most people on the mueller team and at the department of justice do think that eventually its all going to be made public, somehow, some way, whether its through court battles, through congress, this stuff is going to get out. They need to consider that because of whatever they put in there the public is going to eventually know, and there are certain things as they have to deal with russians and investigations of russians and intelligence that they have to be sensitive, and i think that in part is whats holding a lot of this up. So, garrett, two questions here, the first one if you can answer quickly. Do you disagree with what shimone said . Do you think there will be more . Well see more indictments . Shimone might be right that there arent new indictments, but i think there are too many loose ends at this point for mueller not to have any further indictments at all, and that its entirely possible that there are sealed indictments waiting waiting for some future moment to be unveiled. Okay. So the other question i have for you, garrett, 87 of americans say that they want a public report on muellers findings. Do you think theyre going to be disappointed . Its just its too hard to know because we you know, mueller has had lots of time to think through his strategy for what was going to be in this final report and how thats going to sort of what hes going to say to the Justice Department, but he doesnt necessarily have any control over what bill barr turns over to congress, and so i think that there is a chance that barr will try to bottle up some part of this. The white house might try to assert executive privilege. We might be settling into something that could take months to unfold before we really understand the totality of what bob mueller is reporting. But at the same time, i dont think bob mueller has put as you were saying earlier more than 600 days into this investigation and isnt going to leave confident that hes told the public everything that they need to know, that hes had all the time he needs to work out whatever the Creative Strategy is he needs to make what should be public public. Okay. Laura, stick around, im going to have you follow up with the legal ramifications of this. I want to talk about the House Oversight chairman, Elijah Cummings, he is saying that he has information alleging that Jared Kushner has been using whatsapp to talk to foreign leaders and ivanka trump using private emails. Jared kushners attorney abbe lowell didnt deny that kushner shared classified information through the encrypted messaging service. He said that question is above his pay grade. So what is going on . What are you learning here . Look, this is a problem for Jared Kushner, and then, you know, the white house wonders why the Intelligence Community doesnt want Jared Kushner having a security clearance. Its because of activity like this. The fact that hes having these conversations over whatsapp with foreign leaders is extremely dangerous. You know, his attorney abbe lowell has tried to walk this back saying no, i dont think there was classified information. Then he says its something you need to take up with the white house is what he told Elijah Cummings. The problem here is there are secret ways to do this. Jared kushner should be going through secure channels, their phones, plenty of other ways for them to communicate. It is a problem, specifically because a, we dont know whats being discussed and b, any conversations with foreign leaders could be susceptible to people intercepting them. A lot of people think whatsapp is safe. Shimon its just shady and its hypocrisy because this is exactly what trump railed against Hillary Clinton for during the 2016 campaign, all those emails, she had a private server in her house. I got to get laura in here. What does this mean legally if theyre indeed doing this. Lets not put the form over substance. Its not just the fact that hes doing it, its not just the notion that youd prefer him to do Something Else. Theres actually a thing called the president ial records act that says you are required if you have any any of these personal informations to at the very least to forward them to your actual official account so it can be part of the government record. Why is that important . You want to ensure there are not compromised communications, that there is some way to corroborate or substantiate accusations or claims that are made by foreign leaders or members of foreign communities, and you want to be able to have that substantiated. It looks shady as you said, don, to not actually do that because it seems much like what kushner was accused of earlier, which is trying to create a back channel to evade scrutiny, and to evade the National Security protocols. Its really important not just because you prefer it but also think about this, Jared Kushner is somebody whose own security clearance was in question because they thought that he may be somebody susceptible to bribery or compromise in some form or fashion because of his ties to Foreign Relations issues or whatever it may be. So now the notion that he is also having communications in light of those concerns and still has a very high security clearance to solve the middle east peace crisis is of concern. Its hypocritical but also violates the law. Im just wondering when, i dont know, the president s going to start saying lock him up, lock him up. I mean, i dont know, it seems like, i dont know. The garrett the white house is refusing to hand over information about the president S Communications with Vladimir Putin arguing that these documents are protected and that theyre confidential. We know that after the 2017 meeting with putin that the president kept aides in the dark, took his interpreters notes. Its just a lot of questions about what happened here, and a lot of questions about transparency in this administration. Absolutely, and to lawyers point sort of one of the main reasons you engage all of these official mechanisms that surround a president , surround White House Communications is to ensure that the u. S. Government has a good understanding and can back you up when the foreign leaders, when the foreign powers, when foreign agents are asserting that certain things have happened, that certain deals have been made, and again, we sort of keep coming back to with Vladimir Putin this incredibly strange behavior that you only see surrounding the president and Vladimir Putin and their one on ones out of which seems to come no u. S. Policy. You know, there arent people in these meetings following up and coming out with todo lists and followup communications and readouts and sort of all of the things that you would normally expect to see, and unless youre sort of expecting that, you know, Vladimir Putin and donald trump are getting together to talk about, you know, Manchester United and this years football league, i dont knyou know, it weird that these two leaders are getting together and having these conversations for apparently no reason related to the u. S. Government. Thank you all, fascinating conversation. Fasten your seat belts. Here we go again. With 87 of americans saying that they want muellers report released. The house unanimously voting that it should be and even the president claiming he hopes it will be, made public. The question is will it be . Im going to ask congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee. Shes next. Shi were waiting on the report, and as we wait for mueller to file his report with the attorney general anytime now, one big question is will the American Public ever see it . Heres what the president said. Doesnt the public have the right to see the Mueller Report . I dont mind. I mean, frankly i told the house if you want, let them see it. Let it come out. Let people see it. But will we really get to see it . Joining me now is congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee, a Texas Democrat who is a member of the Judiciary Committee. Congresswoman, thank you so much. We have a lot of ground to cover here, boy. Thank you. Things are heating up. The president surprised a lot of people yesterday when he said that he wanted the Mueller Report to be made public, and the American People, the American Public expect that to happen . Well, why dont i surprise the American Public and say that i absolutely agree with the president of the United States on this point, that it should be released and the American People think so as well. Don, 80plus percent of the American People want it to be released. My answer is absolutely the document should be released. And as you may know, when mr. Muellers finished, he is to notice the House Judiciary Committee and the senate Judiciary Committee that the report is finished and we hope to receive it soon thereafter. The president has ranted, congresswoman, about mueller and his team since the beginning. Do you think he actually wants this report released . Well, i think the administration over these past two years has been an administration of smoke and mirrors. There have been incidences and actions and firings and obstruction of justice, corruption and maybe even abuse of power that we would never have imagined in our lifetime, so i dont know whether the administration is accurately saying they want it released, but this is a document that came about because the Deputy Attorney general felt that there was some form of obstruction of justice, and he determined because the attorney general recused himself, that a special counsel should be appointed. That special counsel was appointed to determine whether or not there was collusion between the trump campaign, the Trump Administration, and russia, and what kind of interference in the 2016 election. Since that time, we have seen layers and layers of documents and commentary by people in the Trump Administration that really point to the possibility of russian collusion and or russian intrusion into the election, so i would make the argument that maybe the president is being a good citizen. But id make the argument that its imperative that the American People see this document and i see no means or barriers to prevent it, and the attorney general should review the document carefully and be very cautious of preventing it from being seen by the American People in the United States congress. Well, im glad you mentioned the attorney general because when the report is handed over and mueller hands over that report, the spotlight is going to be on a. G. , the attorney general bill barr who testified in front of congress that he wants to be as transparent as he can. Heres what he says, and then well get your response. I am going to make as much Information Available as i can consistent with the rules and regulations that are part of the special counsel regulations. Im in favor of as much transparency as there can be consistent with the rules and the law. I dont know what at the end of the day what will be releasable. I dont know what bob mueller is writing. So it seems like hes giving himself some wiggle room there. If President Trump tries to claim executive privilege and block the release of this report, will Congress Fight that . Absolutely. And im glad you played that video, that tape. Attorney general barr is a seasoned lawyer, but more importantly this is his second goround as attorney general of the United States of america. He is well aware of the context of special counsel regulations. Theres nothing in those regulations, to my knowledge, that bars the transmittal of the document to the American People and to the United States congress. Obviously we know the trend or the standards that if there are innocent persons there that would be harmed possibly by their names remaining in the document, its possible to redact, but we certainly dont want to give permission to redact the whole entire document, and his comments about we dont know whats going to be in it. Hes absolutely right. Mueller has kept this very close checlose to the chest, rightly so. I applaud him for the work. Now if his work is finished, the American People who are the beneficiaries of the process of the rule of law absolutely need to be able to see this document, and i would make the argument that congress would be appropriate in its effort to secure it. Hopefully it will be a collegiate way of transfer of the information, the document, to congress as an independent branch of government, but otherwise there may be a subpoena or other methods to secure that document. We have to be the peoples house in the house of representatives in particular, and i would make the argument that we have every right and should use every point to get this document for the American People. So before i let you go, congresswoman, i want to ask you about this massive chemical fire. It is in deer park, texas, just outside of houston. Houston is where you are right now. There was a shelter in place order earlier this morning. Thats since been lifted. What can you tell us about this situation . What do you know . Well, the nation watched as this billowing black smoke literally took over not only the city of deer park but many areas surrounding that. What i can tell you is that im very proud of the local officials, county, city, the various cities, First Responders who acted very quickly. But what i can also tell you is that we have great concerns of the aftermath, the toxicity that may be in the air, may be in the water. There are federal agencies here on the ground that are assisting local and state authorities skpr, and i think we have a lot of work to do with how these chemicals are handled, what actually happened in this particular company, and whether or not it will happen again. We note that there have been some clean water violations with this company that have not been remedied, so the good news is there was no loss of life, but this is going to probably include continued federal investigation and certainly the local leaders here want to have answers, and they will be investigating as well, and what we want to do what is best for the people and provide a safe and safe quality of life, safe air, and safe water for the surrounding communities, and were going to continue to work on that. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee, thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. Have a good night. You as well. James comey coming out with an oped telling the world what he wants from Robert Muellers report. Were going to tell you what he says. Thats next. danny let me get this straight. After a long day of hard work. 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Justice system works, lets discuss now matthew axlerod is here who was a Justice Department senior official in the obama administration. Good to have you on. So lets talk about james comeys oped this afternoon in the New York Times. It is entitled what i want from the Mueller Report, and heres what it says he wants to happen. Even though i believe mr. Trump is morally unfit to be president of the United States, im not rooting for mr. Mueller to demonstrate that he is a criminal. Im also not rooting for mr. Mueller to clear the president. Im not rooting for anything at all except at that the special counsel be permitted to finish his work, charge whatever cases warrant charging and report on his work. So from what we understand, it looks like the special counsel has finished that work, but thats just one part thats over, right . Yeah, thats exactly right. There are a number of other inquiries at the department of justice that will continue even when the special counsel finishes his work, and then also once his work is completed, things will switch to another forum, namely the congressional oversight committees who are just beginning their work of oversight and of investigating what happened here, so even though special counsel muellers work is coming to a close, the investigative process is going to continue on. You worked with the Deputy Attorney general sal yates, how do you think now attorney general barr will handle the release of this report . Yeah, so i think he has a difficult strategic decision to make. There are always institutional clashes between the legislative branch of congress and the executive branch in the form of the department of justice over oversight requests because congress believes it has a legitimate need to conduct oversight, and the department of justice believes it has a legitimate institutional need to keep certain Law Enforcement information confidential. You played the clip earlier of attorney general barr during his confirmation hearing going through the special counsel regulations, and hes right as to what they say. They say that the special couns counsels report will be delivered to him and just to him and that then he will provide a separate notification to congress. So under the special counsel regulations, he is not obligated to turn over the Mueller Report to congress. But look, those are executive branch regulations. That wasnt a law passed by congress, and congress isnt going to agree with that outcome as you just heard the congresswoman say. So if youre attorney general barr, and you know that this is going to be a long, drawn out battle for the not just the Mueller Report but likely underlying investigative materials, you have a strategic decision. Do you provide that information early and claim youre being fully transparent, or do you fight . And if you fight, you risk the chance that you are going to be accused by the democrats on the hill of covering things up and of stone walling, and so there are a lot of, i think, difficult Strategic Decisions to make about institutional interests and sort of what the political fallout will be. Mmhmm. So ive got to ask you, the president aired some of his grievances about Robert Mueller at the white house yesterday, i want you to listen to this. Mmhmm. I know that hes conflicted, and i know that his best friend is comey, whos a bad cop. I know that he put 13 highly conflicted and, you know, very angry i call them angry democrats in, so you know, so what it now lets see whether or not its legit. So he says that mueller is conflicted and questioning whether or not the report is legitimate. Its the same thing that he has been doing has been saying for the months now. Mueller was appointed by the acting a. G. No matter how many votes he got, is this president missing the whole point here that no one is above the law . Yeah, i got to say that what the president said yesterday unfortunately is in keeping with attacks that have been lodged against the special counsel in this investigation from close to the beginning of it. And they are unfortunate and a sharp break with past practice in both republican and Democratic Administration of senior white house officials including the president himself respecting the work of the fbi and the Justice Department. This is not without consequence. A tax on the special counsel and his team are attacks on the notion as you said that no one is above the law. Theyre attacks on the rule of law. Its an interesting strategy for someone who continues to assert that he did nothing wrong. You would expect someone who is confident that they will be vindicated would want the investigators and the prosecutors to be seen as on the level legitimate, but thats not the approach this white house has taken. And i will say just to add one thing, you know, i had the privilege of working a little bit with Robert Mueller when i was at the Justice Department, and hes an icon to federal Law Enforcement. He is exactly the type of person you want doing this because he does things the right way. He does them with integrity, and he does them on the level. If there are things, charges to bring, hell bring them. If there arent charges to bring, he wont bring them. That goes for the members of his team as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you. The field of democratic president ial candidates already pretty crowded, but there are a will the of rumblings, a lot of rumblings about what joe biden is going to do. We have some word from his camp tonight, so stay tuned. Well be right back. Ahead. George has entresto, a Heart Failure pill that helped keep people alive and out of the hospital. Dont take entresto if pregnant; it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. Dont take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren, or if youve had angioedema with an ace or arb. The most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium. Ask your doctor about entresto. The beat goes on the beat goes on that was great that were playing four on four with a barbershop quartet . [quartet singing] bum bum bum bum. Pass the ball. Pass the rock. Were open just pass the ball no, i cant believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my Car Insurance with geico. Yea. [quartet singing] shoot the j shoot, shoot, shoot the jaaaaaay. Believe it geico could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. What you dont belknow about your garageave you fidoor. Ercent will kill you. Its official, you cant eat wheat bread. Someones been stealing packages. They call em porch pirates. Porch pirates. All im saying is that. In five years, robots will be able to do your job, your job. Black or grey. Are you listening . Always, denise. In a world full of fear. Device speaking simplisafe, on. Home is the place. You should simpli feel safe. So more than a dozen democrats are already vying to replace President Trump, who former Vice President joe biden who hasnt even made it official is getting plenty of attention tonight including questions about a potential running mate. Lets discuss with former governor nominee Andrew Gillum and dnc chair howard dean. Lengthy resumes and titles here. Mayor, im going to start with you. Joe biden has yet to announce he will run. Cnn is reporting he may not announce until late april. Whats he waiting for . Whys he taking so long . I mean, the truth is the Vice President there probably isnt any person in the United States maybe not even in the world who doesnt know who he is. He gets the luxury of a long record, a long resume, and friends all across the country that he has the opportunity to call on. And my guess is the ability to pretty quickly esemble a team should he decide to run for president. So i think the Vice President probably assumes hes got time on his hands. I will say people are probably eager to know one way or another. Its my hope hell make a decision. And if it is to run this race for president that he get in because he may need some time to make sure he can work through all the issues that can be raised over the course of this race. Okay, so i want to bring in governor dean now. Biden is reportedly choosing his running mate early, governor. Would he have have to do that for maximum impact if he announces that . Its something we took a close look at when i was running. We actually had interviewed a candidate, and i didnt do it in the end because i was afraid there might be a brokered convention and id have to make a deal with somebody. I didnt want to have a candidate running with me the whole time and then throw him over the side. But it would be very unconventional. I actually think it would be good for biden to do it. Our party is young, theyre of color and theyre female. And joe is older and hes not the only older candidate. But i think we cannot win with only two white guys at the top of the ticket. And i cant think of anything to energize to ticket more than somebody that looks like the Democratic Party running with him. Im going to stay neutral in this race because im running the data projects, but that would be something i would seriously consider doing if i were joe. Okay, so let me ask and i want both of you to answer this. Governor, ayou first. Heres what people are saying. Joe biden, Stacey Abrams, if that ticket happens, its a done deal. What do you say to that, governor . Nothing is ever a done deal, but in politics it would be pretty hard to refute that. Stacey is someone who many of us believe was should be and has been the governor in georgia. Shes unbelievably smart. She hit the, say, Union Rebuttal out of the park. And so, you know, she would be formidable and shes obviously well qualified. But im sure there are other people that joe could pick, and he may not do it at all because its really an unconventional thing to do. But i think its going to really stir up the race if he does it. Mayor gillum, should it be a bidengillum ticket . Come on, listen, im not sure whats happening here with regard to this Vice President ial conversation at this point. First of all, to the Governors Point if we want to make sure that our nominees reflect the diversity of the party, then Stacey Abrams deserves to be in the conversation as a potential contender for president of the United States. Not Vice President but as a contender for the democratic nomination for president. But the truth is we are a long way off here. Were going to have a vigorous primary. I dont think anybody needs to short circuit that process. I think you get in there, you get measured on your merit, put forth your agenda, what you believe. And i dont think the Vice President necessarily needs the cover of anyone. I think he can stand on his own, and i believe he deserves to be evaluated off otherwise beliefs and his position. Okay, mayor, before i let you go because i want to talk to you about launching this Voter Registration drive in florida that you launched, which stated intended of denying trump a second term. Florida obviously listen, floridas got 49 electoral votes. If you want to deny a reelection of donald trump then you want the state of florida. And i have committed with working with our patterns to register and reengage a million voters with the expressed intention of denying trump a reelection to the white house, but importantly also building important instruct in the state that would help to turn the state of florida blue for the long haul. Thank you, gentlemen. I wish we had more time but we have see much news tonight. Please come back and well discuss this and other issues. Thank you so much. I want to remind you next week im going to be hosting a town hall with democratic president ial candidate and senator cory booker. Wednesday march 27th right here on cnn at 10 00 p. M. Eastern. Thanks for watching. Our coverage continues. Everything. Tried in search of a whiter smile. And year after year, their choice is crest 3d whitestrips. 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