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CNN NEWSROOM

Boeing Unveils Overhaul To 737 Max Software System; Green New Deal Shot Down By Senate; Sen. Mike Lee Weighs In On Fixing Climate Change; Trump Again Snipes At Puerto Rico Over Aid Money; Monica Lewinsky Weighs In On Mueller Report; Biography: Barbara Bush Kept Trump Countdown Clock; Betsy DeVos Defends Cutting Spending To Special Olympics. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 27, 2019 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Secretary Chao also defended the FAA's decision not to immediately ground those 737 MAX 8, saying the FAA make fact-based decisions not hasty ones.

Boeing executives meeting with pilots and officials to reveal new training.

Shimon Prokupecz, CNN crime and justice reporter, is in Seattle for us today.

Shimon, what's going on there and what is this really about?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, for one, Brooke, a very different setting for me than what I'm usually covering, but --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Planes look good on you, Shimon.

PROKUPECZ: Oh, yes. Big day for Boeing, nonetheless. This was their way of trying to rebuild this plane to rebuild the American people, flyers' trust in this plane. And what they did today was they presented all the features of this plane. And then they also said they're going to be enhancing this plane.

They're issuing new software to try and avoid this issue and they're also enhancing training. And that is the big thing here. When they had initially put this out, when they put out this plane, there really wasn't any kind of enhanced training. So as a result, these two crashes, they're now saying, we're going to enhance training so that pilots can get a better understanding of this plane, how it operates.

The issue here obviously has been the automated system. We've heard a lot about this, the MCAS systems. If there's erroneous data -- they're trying to prevent erroneous data from triggering the MCAS system and by updating the software, Boeing officials say they hope they can prevent future crashes.

Obviously, they want to get these planes back in the air. The airlines want these planes back in the air. And so they're hoping -- their hope is by the end of the week they can submit some of these changes to the FAA and, therefore, start the process of getting these planes back in the air -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Got you. And we'll be listening in to those federal aviation officials getting grilled on the Hill next hour, Shimon.

Shimon, in Seattle, thank you.

Let me show everyone a picture here. A Republican Senator. This photo of a bunch of babies -- and what says is a solution to climate change. You have to stick around to watch this.

Also, Monica Lewinsky is weighing in on Bill Barr's summary of the Mueller report and it involves the "F" word.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:36:27] BALDWIN: The Green New Deal, championed by freshman Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, getting shot down in the U.S. Senate. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell brought it to the floor late Tuesday, but not a single Senator voted to take up this resolution.

Senate Democrats say they saw it as a trap to depict them as Socialists in the 2020 election. Over on the House side, the congresswoman ripped Leader McConnell for saying the Senate vote, saying, quote, "He doesn't want to save our planet."

Let me play you the back and forth before Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Republican colleagues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SEAN DUFFY (R), WISCONSIN: I think we should not focus on the rich, wealthy elites who will look at this and go, I've got big money in debate. Everyone we should do this. We should all sign up for it. If you're a poor family just trying to make ends meet, it's a horrible idea.

It's kind of like saying, I'll sign on to the Green New Deal but I'll take a private jet from D.C. to California. A private jet? Or I'll take my Uber SUV. I won't take the train. Or I'll go to Davos and fly my private jet. The hypocrisy.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, (D), NEW YORK: This is not an elitist issue. This is a quality of life issue. You want to tell people that their concern and desire for clean air and clean water is elitist? Tell that to the kids in the south Bronx, which are suffering from the highest rate of childhood asthma in the country. Tell that to the families in Flint whose kids -- their blood is ascending in lead levels, their brains are damaged for the rest of their lives.

Call them elitists. You're telling me those kids are trying to get on a plane to Davos? People are dying. They're dying.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Let's discuss all of that with CNN Climate Correspondent, Bill Weir.

BILL WEIR, CNN CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Hi, friend.

What did you make of that?

WEIR: At least people are talking about it. This wasn't even on anybody's radar the last couple of election cycles. But this Green New Deal has sparked conversation that's scientists have been hoping for, for so long. How they talk about this in the halls of Congress is much more benign and mellow than when you go into climate labs around the world.

As the congresswoman from New York was pointing out, the Midwest is under water right now after the bomb cyclone, after the flooding and the freezing and the thawing, and all of that water is coming down stream into Missouri and Mississippi. The headquarters off an Air Force base in Nebraska was seven feet under water on Friday. It's a national security issue.

The Green New Deal, nonbinding resolution, just saying, hey, the problem is so grave, it's bigger than we can imagine, why don't we all muscle behind this and create a Manhattan Project.

But now Republicans are being forced to figure out how do they knock it down, what do they have on their side as far as ideas? Lamar Alexander, this week, said climate change is real. It's mostly manmade. We should do something about it. Her plan is way too "pie in the sky" and too crazy. But again, at least there's a conversation.

BALDWIN: As part of the conversation, Senator Mike Lee, Republican, took to the Senate floor with props because he says he has an idea. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MIKE LEE (R), UTAH: This is the real solution to climate change. Babies. Climate change is an engineering problem, not social engineering, but the real kind. It's a challenge of creativity, ingenuity and, most of all, technological innovation. And problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws. They're solved by more humans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:40:18] BALDWIN: So he says making babies creates more creativity, it creates more ideas, it creates more problem solving?

WEIR: Diddle while the world burns, is a way to think about it. He's right. His argument is that American babies are going to be the best educated and the most innovative and all of those sorts of things. But for perspective, there are about 3.5 billion people on the planet when I was born.

Now my daughter's 15, we're at 7.5. They'll be close to 10 by the time she's my age. So adding more people to the spaceship earth is one issue. For other perspectives, I was just reading a scientific survey that predicts, if nothing is done, the way the oceans are heating up and coral reefs are dying, if you have a baby today, she will never know what wild seafood is by the time she's 30.

BALDWIN: I was saying to you on a commercial break, there are real conversations among women who are at that age where everyone is trying to figure out, do I want to, and because of the issues with climate they're choosing not to, because of that.

WEIR: Babies born today, when they are 30, there will be tens of millions of climate refugees looking for high ground. And the idea that technology will save us from this, by one estimate, we would need a carbon capture machine, like a big air scrubber.

We need to be putting one online every day for the next 70 years. Right now, there are 20 on the planet. And meanwhile, what's more likely to happen is billions of air-conditioners will go out into the stream, right?

BALDWIN: Right.

WEIR: And so, again, the conversation, you want to figure out the particulars of how we get to the moon, let's just get to the moon and save life as we know it.

BALDWIN: Bill, so glad we have you here. You're just in on the science and bringing the issue to light. And, you know, it's been such an issue even on the campaign trail, so far. Talking to former Vice President Al Gore, the other week. He was saying at least that's a dramatic change from when he was coming along a number of years ago.

We'll keep having these conversations.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Bill Weir, thank you so much.

WEIR: Thanks for having me. Of course, thank you.

BALDWIN: Betsy DeVos is firing back at her critics today after she announced funding cuts for the Special Olympics. We'll share her explanation.

And new revelations today about Barbara Bush, and why she kept a Trump countdown clock on her bedside table until the very end.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:47:09] BALDWIN: President Trump, again, slams Puerto Rico, telling a group of Senate Republicans during this closed-door meeting that the U.S. territory is mismanaging disaster relief funds after being hit by a series of deadly storms and hurricanes in 2017. The president's comments could complicate the upcoming Senate vote on disaster aid.

So let's start there with Ana Navarro, our CNN political commentator.

And, you know, I know how you feel about Trump. I also know apparently how Trump feels about Puerto Rico, but just given the setting of where the president was making these comments, it was this big Republican policy luncheon. What does that tell you?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It tells me that it's top of mind for him, you know, that he goes in there and he's talking about that. We've read reports this week about this where he feels that Puerto Rico's mismanaging the funds, where he wants to find ways to cut the aid and cut the funds to Puerto Rico.

Look, I hope, you know, Puerto Rico doesn't have Senators. I hope that the Senators from my state, Florida, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott step up. We have an enormous Puerto Rican community in Florida. What happens when Puerto Rico affects Florida directly. It should be the concern of every Senator and every Congress person because Puerto Ricans are Americans too.

They are just as American as you and me, as people in New York and Texas and Florida. The difference is and why Donald Trump might see them differently and treat them differently, that they don't -- they do not vote in a presidential election.

BALDWIN: The fact that he threw out this number, Puerto Rico's received more than $90 billion in aid when we were doing all the fact checking, the "Washington Post" found Congress has approved only $1.5 billion so no one can figure out where he got the $90 billion.

NAVARRO: No one can ever figure out where he gets his numbers. More than that, from the number, Hurricane Maria happened. And remember it was a very active hurricane season. Texas had a hurricane. Florida had a hurricane.

And I can tell you as a Floridian that the difference in treatment between Florida and Puerto Rico was night and day, whereas Florida and Texas got immediate and a lot of aid, Puerto Rico, which need it more and we knew it need it more because the infrastructure was in worse shape and because it's an island and it did not get the same level of aid at the same speed that Florida and Texas did, from day one, Donald Trump has been treating Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans as second class citizens and that is unacceptable.

BALDWIN: He makes those comments a day or two after the biggest day of his presidency, the Mueller report and Bill Barr coming out with this four-page note on that. And because of this, this USC law professor tweets the following, tweeting, "Imagine if the Starr report had been provided only to President Clinton's attorney."

So he's going back to Whitewater. General Janet Reno, who then read it privately and published a four-page letter stating her conclusion that President Clinton committed no crimes. Guess who responds to that? And we had to blur the middle colorful word of hers. Monica Lewinsky, she tweets, "If F'ing only."

You think she's right?

[14:50:23] NAVARRO: She brings up a good point. One of the biggest problems in politics today and why people are so fed up with Washington and politics in general is hypocrisy and inconsistency. The point that the professor there's making is true. What if the shoe had been on the other foot?

What if it was a Democratic precedent getting away with this type of thing from a political appointee? Republicans would be setting their hair on fire. We're paying attention to it because certainly Monica Lewinsky, you can't make this stuff up. Who would have thought that decades later, Monica Lewinsky would be owning the Internet through a tweet --

BALDWIN: With three little words.

NAVARRO: Twitter wasn't even invented with the Ken Starr thing, thank god. That would have been X rated.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

NAVARRO: There's a valid political point. And any time one of these circumstances or situations happen, politicians, elected officials on both sides should ask themselves, what would I be doing and what would I be demanding and what will I be pounding the podium over if this were not my party, if it were the other party?

BALDWIN: I wanted to also ask you just about the Barbara Bush book is coming out. Our friend, Susan Page, over at "USA Today," she wrote this book. We're getting a glimpse of what's inside. You haven't heard these. Barbara Bush jokingly blaming her health problems on Donald Trump.

She wouldn't classify herself as a Republican and she actually kept a Trump countdown clock on her bedside table until the very end and when I read all of this minus the heart problems, I was like, is this Ana Navarro? Trump countdown clock sounds like something you might have in your House.

NAVARRO: Listen, I interacted with her some -- through Jeb mostly -- and she had a wicked sense of humor. She had a very dry sense of humor. I suspect some of this was said in jest but not without some truth behind it. I think like so much of the country, she was feeling angst and she was feeling conflict and she was feeling worry and concern for what's going on --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Even in a great Republican family.

NAVARRO: One of the most interesting parts of that book, of the exerts, is where Susan Page says that when she last asked her if she was still a Republican, she said no. It's something that so many Republicans mainstream Republicans, establishment Republicans, sane Republicans, normal Republicans, you know, Republicans, before Trump, before this hostile takeover by a man that wasn't Republican until five minutes ago, wrestle with a lot.

There's a lot of people don't soul searching. There are some who have left the party. There are some who are clinging to the last palm tree on this deserted island feeling like a castaway. Not that I'm self- reflecting or anything.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I know.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Love having you on. Love that you just let it rip.

Ana Navarro, you're the best. Thank you very much.

We are keeping a close eye on news on North Korea. A warning to lawmakers from the top commander, why the U.S. night not be able to see an attack coming.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:58:14] BALDWIN: Despite coming under fire for proposing funding cuts to the Special Olympics, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is defending her move. Devos writes, "The Special Olympics is not a federal program. It's a private organization. I love its work and I've personally supported its mission but given our current budget realities the federal government cannot fund every worthy program, particularly ones that enjoy robust support from private donations."

And Secretary DeVos told a House panel, tough decisions had to be made.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARK POCAN (D), WISCONSIN: The cuts to Special Olympics, do you know how many kids are going to be affected by that cut, Madam Secretary?

BETSY DEVOS, EDUCATION SECRETARY: Mr. Pocan, let me just say again, we have made -- we had to make some --

(CROSSTALK)

POCAN: OK.

DEVOS: -- tough decisions with this budget -

POCAN: This is a question of how many kids, not about the budget.

DEVOS: I don't know the number of kids. I also know that --

(CROSSTALK)

POCAN: It's 272,000 kids. I'll answer it for you. That's OK. No problem.

(CROSSTALK)

POCAN: It's 272,000 kids that are affected.

DEVOS: Let me just say that I think Special Olympics is an awesome organization. One that is well supported by the philanthropic sector --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's Lauren Fox is live on Capitol Hill.

And, Lauren, during the hearing, how did Secretary DeVos ultimately explain why she chose Special Olympics for those funding cuts?

LAUREN FOX, CNN REPORTER: She said that these are tough decisions and these are hard for the U.S. government, and essentially they get a lot of money in donations and, therefore, it's not the federal government's responsibility to fund it. But she also said in her statement, quote, "It is unacceptable, shameful and counterproductive that the media and some members of Congress have spun up falsehoods and fully misrepresented the facts."

She's going on the defensive here. She's saying basically that her budget does include money for families and people with disabilities. She said it includes $3 billion for students with disabilities. And she tweeted a series of numbers.