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Oregon Standoff; Trump Feud. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 27, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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


[14:00:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is next. For viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much.

Hi, everyone, I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

Two major stories we're following for you on this Wednesday. First up, Donald Trump refusing to take part in this last debate before the Iowa caucuses over this feud with Fox News. The backlash and the reaction, it is rolling in. You will hear what his campaign is now saying.

But first, we have to take you to Oregon. Breaking news there. Any moment now the FBI will be giving a news conference about the standoff that has now turned deadly against the activist holding a government building hostage - a federal government building hostage. The group has been there now nearly for a month. CNN's Sara Sidner is just outside that wildlife refuge where all of this has been going down.

Sara Sidner, tell me what you know.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We have just gone through an extremely thorough checkpoint here outside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The FBI is here. They have cordoned off the area. This is the first time that we've seen this. So there's certainly a different mood about - and a different move afoot from the authorities here.

What we can tell you is that earlier on we were closer to the headquarters there. And the folks that have decided that they are going to stay put are starting to use some of the equipment, the federal government equipment that's inside those buildings that they've taken over, and they're digging and they're using them to block the roads. For example, there's a huge front loader that's blocking the road that goes up to the headquarters to stop any authorities from being able to easily access them.

And as you mentioned, you know, there's a lot of nerves right now. People are pretty nervous about what might happen because (INAUDIBLE) arrests (INAUDIBLE) 24 hours. And during one of those arrests, when they pulled over a car outside of the refuge, they were driving somewhere towards Burns, they got stopped, pulled over and in that car happened to be Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan -

BALDWIN: Sara, let me jump in and cut you off. That news conference has just begun. Let's talk on the other side. GREG BRETZING, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, PORTLAND DIVISION: The

FBI, along with our partners with the Harney County Sheriff's Office, the Oregon State Police, and the many other state, federal, and local agencies that we have been working with, have had a very delivered - deliberate and measured response. We have worked diligently to bring the situation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to a peaceful end. But because this is an ongoing investigation, there are many specifics we cannot talk about at this time. There are still people illegally occupying Malheur Refuge at this point.

I will say that the armed occupiers have been given ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully. They have given - been given opportunities to negotiate. As outsiders to Oregon, they have been given the opportunity to return to their families and to work through the normal legal process to air their grievances. Instead, these individuals have chosen to threaten and intimidate the America they profess to love. And, through criminal actions, bring these consequences upon themselves.

Yesterday, the FBI, with our partners, took the first steps to bring this occupation to a conclusion. We worked to ensure that we could do so peacefully and safely, out of harm's way of the citizens here in the county, removing the threat of danger from anybody who might be present. We continue to work to empty the refuge of those who continue to illegally occupy the refuge and remove them in the safest way possible.

Eight people were arrested. And one man died yesterday as we attempted to take him into custody. Because there is an ongoing investigation by the (INAUDIBLE) county major crimes team on the part of the Oregon State Police involving this process, I cannot comment on the details or on the specifics. I would, however, ask for your patience as this shooting investigation goes through this normal outside process. At the appropriate time, the medical examiner's office will release the identity of the decedent and the Oregon State Police will then be able to address the details of the event.

[14:05:08] Let me be clear, it is the actions and choices of the armed occupiers of the refuge that has led us to where we are today. They had ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully. And as the FBI and our partners have clearly demonstrated, actions are not without consequences.

Containment roadblocks are now in place around the refuge. The disruption to the good people of Harney County that they have had to endure for the last several months will continue for a while longer. If the people on the refuge want to leave, they are free to do so through the checkpoints, where they will be identified. If they have questions or concerns, they can contact the negotiators on the telephone number that has been provided to them.

As I conclude, I want to share my promise to the citizens of this county, to the people who live here, who work here, who are raising their families here, that we will continue to look for safe, peaceful procedures on how to bring this to a peaceful conclusion. We recognize that the sooner we do so, the sooner this community can begin to heal. Thank you.

BILL WILLIAMS, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON: Good morning. My name is Bill Williams. I'm the U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon.

I've been coming to this county for the last 15 years on behalf of the U.S. attorney's office for various work-related responsibilities. And through that time, I'm keenly aware of the concerns that are important to this community. I have seen firsthand the passion in this community that it has for its way of life. Clearly, this has been disrupted by the armed occupation.

The FBI, Harney County Sheriff's Office, Oregon State Police, Oregon Sheriff's Association and numerous law enforcement agencies from around the state have been working very hard to resolve this situation in a peaceful manner, to stop the threats to public safety, and to end the significant disruption this has caused to the people of Harney County. We continue working towards resolution, and will do so with the primary goal of restoring normalcy to this community and highlighting the already existing cooperative efforts of local and federal partners in this county to address their own issues, both locally, federally, and state.

There are currently eight people in custody. Seven in Oregon, one in Arizona. They will have their initial appearance here in Oregon for the seven in Oregon at 1:30 p.m. before a federal magistrate. At some time in the future, the defendant in Arizona will come to Oregon for future court proceedings.

As Mr. Bretzing announced, last night on behalf of the FBI, these eight people were arrested for the federal felony offense of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats. This is an ongoing investigation and we will not be commenting on the case. Instead, we will let the publicly filed documents in the case speak for themselves.

In closing, I want to thank the federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement officers and agents who are working very well together to support in community and this effort. I want to thank the people of Harney County and the Burns Paiute Tribe for their patience and their passion for returning this community to normalcy. We will continue working around the clock until this matter is appropriately resolved.

Thank you.

SHERIFF DAVE WARD, HARNEY COUNTY: Good morning. I'm Sheriff Dave Ward.

I've been working on peaceful resolution to this problem since November 5th when several of the individuals arrested yesterday came into my office. They had ultimatums that I couldn't meet. I'm here to uphold the law. I'm disappointed that a traffic stop yesterday that was supposed to bring peaceful resolution to this ended badly. Multiple agencies, law enforcement agencies, put lot of work into doing - putting together the best tactical plan they could to take these guys down peacefully and find some resolution to these issues that we're going through in our community. It didn't have to happen. We all make choices in life. Sometimes our choices go bad.

[14:10:53] The occupation at the refuge and the actions of some of the folks down there have created a lot of stress in our community. It hasn't just been isolated to the refuge. I think that's a point that gets missed quite a bit. Some of these folks have spent a lot of time in town trying to stir some issues within the community. If it was as simple as just waiting out some folks down there to get out of some buildings, we could have waited a lot longer. But this has been tearing our community apart.

It's time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on. There doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community. If we have issues with the way things are going in our government, we have a responsibility as citizens to act on those in an appropriate manner. We don't arm up. We don't arm up and rebel. We work through the appropriate channels. This can't happen anymore. This can't happen in America. And it can't happen in Harney County.

Thank you.

BALDWIN: All right. So, wow, that third and final speaker, Sheriff Dave Ward there in Harney County, Oregon, getting applause for really sort of the more passionate remarks. I mean he's the one there on the ground. He's frustrated. As Sara Sidner was just reporting, you know, in the wake of this armed occupation of this federal building in Oregon, this is something that his community's been dealing with and it's been tearing his community apart. And so he's saying the time is now. As we were just reporting, eight people were arrested. And he's sorry about the fact that one person's life was lost in the wake of that. But that was just the FBI, U.S. attorney, and there the sheriff reacting to what's been going on for the better part of a month in this part of Oregon.

Coming up next, it is the unprecedented move that has everyone talking today. Just days before Iowa votes, Donald Trump refusing to appear on the debate stage over his feud with Fox News. Will this backfire? What instead will he do?

You're watching CNN's special live political coverage on this Wednesday. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:17:33] BALDWIN: All right, and we're back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Now to the race for the White House. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump says he will skip the Republican debate tomorrow night, the final debate before the all-important Iowa caucuses. And his bold move is now teeing up another debate that's hitting a fever pitch. Here's one of our questions, is his boycott brilliant or the biggest political bungle ever with the caucuses all of five days away?

Trump's refusal to do this Fox News event comes after a long running feud with the network that has quite simply boiled over. The Republican frontrunner has been pressing Fox not to allow its anchor, Megyn Kelly, to moderate, accusing her of bias. Kelly and Trump have had strained relations ever since the first GOP debate when Kelly asked Trump about comments he made in the past that ridiculed women. This war of words has been escalating. Trump even putting up an online poll asking if he should attend. And then Fox sent out this statement, quote, "we learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings."

That came from Fox. Trump said that statement broke his patience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I came here to do the debate. When they sent out the wise guy press releases a little while ago done by some PR person, along with Roger Ailes, I said, bye-bye, I'm going to have something else in Iowa. We'll do something where we raise money for the veterans and the wounded warriors. We're going to do something simultaneously with the debate. They can't toy with me like they toy with everybody else. So let them have their debate and lets see how they do with the ratings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Today, Donald Trump's campaign manager said this conflict isn't so much over Megyn Kelly necessarily, but Fox News. And Fox is, by far, not the only network to face a Trump threat. Both CNBC and this network have also been the target of a debate dis (ph).

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So we actually called Ben Carson, and myself, we were on the phone to say, listen, you can have it three hours. We're not going to participate. And we won. Everyone said, you can't do that. You can't dictate. No. No. No, we won.

How about I tell CNN, who doesn't treat me properly. They don't. They just don't. Right? They really don't. And I - I have a lot of respect for some of the people over there, but they don't treat me - how about I tell CNN that I'm not going to do the next debate. OK?

[14:20:18] But how about we do this with CNN? I won't do the debate unless they pay me $5 million, all of which money goes to the Wounded Warriors or go to vets? Truth. Truth. I would love to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: How did we get to this point? Good question. How did a few flare-ups between Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump become this full on political power struggle? It all started last year at the very first Republican primary debate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BALDWIN (voice-over): August 6th, 2015, Megyn Kelly's very first question to Donald Trump, the question that started it all.

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: One of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don't use a politician's filter. However, that is not without its downsides, in particular when it comes to women. You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. Your Twitter account has several -

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Only Rosie O'Donnell.

BALDWIN: August 7th, fueled by what Trump calls unfair questions from the moderator, Trump tells CNN's Don Lemon.

TRUMP: She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions. And, you know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her - wherever.

BALDWIN: Trump later said those comments were misunderstood. Nevertheless, that did not sit well with women viewers, especially Megyn Kelly herself.

KELLY: Apparently, Mr. Trump thought the question I asked was unfair and felt I was attacking him. I felt he was asked a tough, but fair question. Mr. Trump did interviews over the weekend that attacked me personally. I have decided not to respond. Trump, who is the frontrunner, will not apologize. And I certainly will not apologize for doing good journalism.

BALDWIN: After a deluge of insulting tweets against Megyn Kelly and Fox News, Trump announces a boycott of the network, tweeted on September 23rd, "Fox News has been treating me very unfairly and I have therefore decided that I won't be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable future. That boycott lasted all of six days when he appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor."

BILL O'REILLY, HOST, "THE O'REILLY FACTOR": So you're back.

BALDWIN: October 7th, Megyn Kelly opens up to Charlie Rose about this ongoing feud.

KELLY: Neither one of us wanted any sort of a war with Donald Trump, you know, and we didn't think that benefited the channel, we didn't' think it benefited me, and we don't think it benefited Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: After another round of Twitter insults against Kelly, Trump follows up the December 15th Republican debate on CNN by again airing his Fox grievances with Bill O'Reilly.

O'REILLY: You're back. How does it feel?

TRUMP: I'm back.

O'REILLY: How does it feel?

TRUMP: Well, it feels good. You've always been fair to me, Bill. BALDWIN: Which brings us to this week. Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump

were set to come face to face again, in a primary debate, just ahead of the Iowa caucuses. But it seems there will be no burying of the hatchet, so to speak. Here's what he said to Wolf Blitzer on CNN Monday.

TRUMP: But I'm not a fan of Megyn Kelly. I don't like her. She probably doesn't like me. And that's OK. But she better be fair. I'd like to go to the debate. I enjoy the debates. I've done well in the debates. Every single poll has said I've won every debate. But we're going to see what happens. It's going to be exciting.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: When you say probably, you haven't 100 percent decided you will be (INAUDIBLE).

TRUMP: No, nothing's 100 percent.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: With me now, Trump supporter Terra Grant, "Baltimore Sun" TV media critic David Zurawik, Kevin Sheridan used to serve as senior advisor on the Mitt Romney campaign, was the spokesperson for the RNC, Republican National Committee, and CNN legal analyst Mel Robbins.

Awesome having all of you.

Kevin Sheridan, you're up to bat first. You say Trump should go ahead and just buy the WWE. This is so thick. Tell me why.

KEVIN SHERIDAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Donald Trump, we should know better by now. This is - he's a master showman. He's been doing this for six months and we keep falling for the same tricks. He's - he's either trying to get ratings for himself for this or just suck up all the oxygen for the next three days. He's doing both - or he could do both. Either he's going to go ahead, he's going to show up as a surprise on Thursday night at the debate, you know, it will get crazy ratings, it will be this big show, or he'll do his own thing and we'll talk about it for three days. Either way, he's - he wins.

BALDWIN: Terra, Trump's your guy. You say this is brilliant. Why?

TERRA GRANT, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Oh, I think it's brilliant because it's a win/win for Donald Trump no matter what he does. If he leaves Fox News - I don't think - and I have to agree, I don't think it's specifically Megyn Kelly that has ruffled his tail feathers. I think Fox News took a stand. I think they said - they could have chosen anyone to moderate this debate and they chose Megyn Kelly after everything that has happen. Come on. They played right into Donald Trump's hands.

[14:25:07] Donald Trump said, I'm not playing with you guys. I'm going to take my ball. I'm going to go raise some wealth - I mean some great wealth for some really great veterans. And, you know what, we'll see how you guys turn out on the other side without me. So -

BALDWIN: But I'm wondering - I'm wondering how much of this would be justified - and, David, I want your response, because, listen, we sat here on the show yesterday, Fox News had just released that statement, you know, talking about the Ayatollah and Putin, this now infamous statement from Fox and I'm wondering, you know, from you, as a news organization, if you want to host an unbiased debate and you put out that kind of statement, was what Trump did at all justified?

DAVID ZURAWIK, MEDIA CRITIC, THE BALTIMORE SUN: Well, you know what, Brooke, Fox made a big mistake with that statement. I tell you what. I don't know if it justifies what he did. I don't think it does. But it gave him an opening that justified it for a lot of people. Up until that statement yesterday, Fox had the high ground. And a big part of it was Megyn Kelly behaving in a high ground manner while Trump sniped on Twitter, Trump got in the gutter, did all of this stuff. They were high ground.

As soon as they put that statement in, they let themselves be dragged down to his level of social media snark. That's a serious mistake. Now, losing the debate is going to cost them money, no way about - whether it's make goods or whether they've got to give the money back up front to the advertisers because they were selling it at high rates.

But one thing I do want to say also, Brooke, is that when you guys said, how did we get here, that's a great tick tock. There's one part of it though that I think a lot of people have overlooked. And if you go back to that -

BALDWIN: What's that?

ZURAWIK: Well, when you go back to that first debate, the audience of 24 million blew everyone's minds in the business. And what had been seen with these debates as primarily a public service kind of thing, we're giving the voters information, all of a sudden it became commercialized like it had never been. And some smaller cable channels could balance their bottom line with a couple of debates. And Trump being a business man and a show biz performer understood the star system and said, wait a minute, I've got leverage here because these guys are getting rich off me on these debates.

It's another part of our culture, Brooke, that I think has become commercialized and I think in some ways it really diminishes the whole process of electing presidents. That's why I say everybody lose in this. I don't know if people are saying, oh, you know, we - I just heard one of the people on the panel say win/win for Trump. I don't know. You know, even if I was a hard core fan of his -

BALDWIN: Yes.

ZURAWIK: I'd like to see him in this debate just before the election. And also, I wonder if, does he care more about himself than he does about the American people? This sound like a petty start. Remember when like actors on "Friends" or somebody held out for more money and we thought we weren't going to get episodes and we got all upset and starting hating them.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes. It's funny you mentioned "Friends." ZURAWIK: (INAUDIBLE).

BALDWIN: I was talking to my - I was talking to my executive producer earlier, who I'm just going to call out, who I thought made a great observation, which is, it's almost like we're watching an episode of "Celebrity Apprentice" and this is all about out strategizing one another.

ZURAWIK: Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: Mel Robbins, I want to hear your voice in this whole thing. I know you talked about how this is sort of quintessential brand Trump. What do you think of the discussions so far?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR: You know, I don't know. I guess the problem that I have with this is that he's a business guy and I think we're thinking too much about his giant strategy. He's being himself. He knows that he is the biggest asset right now to any media outlet because he is the story. And as a business owner, you control your most valuable assets. It serves him absolutely no good to show up at this particular debate, Brooke. He's ahead. He's ahead. What does he have to gain by showing up for crying out loud? And he has done everything that everybody said that he would not do. He has run when they said that he wouldn't. They said he wouldn't disclosed his financials and he did. They said he would not staff up professionally, and he did. They said that he would never get the demands met of shorter debates, and he did. And he is not going to play by somebody else's rules because his rules are working.

BALDWIN: No, it's unprecedented, absolutely. And though - to the women, I want to take this to another level. Let me just remind you of a conversation, first and foremost, let me toss in some sound. This is a conversation that Donald Trump had with Megyn Kelly five years ago. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're not seeing a lot of courage here, are we?

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I - not so far.

TRUMP: Not lots of courage.

KELLY: Are you still going to do it if it's just those two?

TRUMP: You know, these Republicans, they're supposed to be brave.

I was disappointed in Mitt because I really thought that he would go out and had courage because here we're going to be talking about things that other people would not have talked about. I think I know the issues better than most, if not almost all. I mean I know moderators that are doing debates that don't even know what they're talking about.

KELLY: Do you really think that you're a better moderator than I am? TRUMP: No, I could never beat you. That wouldn't even be close. There

would be no contest. You have done a great job, by the way, and I mean it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:30:04] BALDWIN: OK, charming perhaps there five years ago. Flash forward to this tweet from Mr. Trump, quote, "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct."