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Former Massachusetts Senator Seeks VA Post; Four Officers Shot in Three States; Ohio Rep. Challenges Pelosi. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 21, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:34] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello there and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Brianna Keilar.

And we are now 60 days out from the swearing in of the 45th president, and still the eyes of the world are on this now familiar gilded bank of elevators in the Trump Tower lobby in Manhattan. Confidants, potential candidates for high-powered jobs in the new administration are still coming and going. And today's list is said to include former Texas governor and former Trump rival for the GOP presidential nomination, Rick Perry, Democratic Congressman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallon, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Also, she happens to be Mrs. Mitch McConnell.

CNN's Jason Carroll is as close to the action as he can get.

What's going on there, Jason?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, back-to-back meetings yesterday, Brianna. More back-to-back meetings today.

One of the other names I want to add that that list is former Massachusetts governor - Senator Scott Brown, being considered for secretary of Veterans Affairs. He had his meeting a little earlier this morning, Brianna. He just wrapped it up and gave his assessment of how it all went.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BROWN (R), FORMER SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS: We, obviously, spoke about my passion and his passion, which are veterans and veteran's issues. And, you know, obviously it's, I think, the toughest job in the cabinet is to lead the V.A. because it has - while it has so many angels working there, it has so many great problems as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: So, again, Brianna, a lot of meetings taking place yesterday and today. There was a thought that perhaps there would be some announcements that would come out over the weekend or perhaps an announcement later today. What we can tell you is, if an announcement doesn't come today, certainly expecting one by the end of the week.

Brianna.

KEILAR: There's just a myriad of people that we're seeing who are all across the political spectrum.

CARROLL: Yes.

KEILAR: Even just today going in and out of Trump Tower. Kellyanne Conway says some of them are just giving advice, but there's also questions about whether some of these folks might be considered for a position just because Donald Trump is so unpredictable. What are you hearing?

CARROLL: Well, yes. I mean, when you think of a choice, you think of people such as Tulsi Gabbard. You know, this is a person who is a Democrat from Hawaii. Not an obvious choice there. Someone who has been critical of Hillary Clinton, though, in some respects, and a supporter of Bernie Sanders. So some in the political arena say she might be an obvious choice. But when you consider what Donald Trump said, that he would not have a Democrat in his cabinet, you wonder about these choices.

I can just say this about - this process has been a visual process in some ways. You know, in past administrations, a lot of these - this type of process has been behind closed doors. So you have to think of the optics and, you know, sometimes the optics work if it appears that you're, you know, looking across the aisle for a particular choice here or there. But listen to what Kellyanne Conway says here. She basically said a long list of - you know, a short, long list of candidates coming through her. These are her words. So what you have to imagine is, perhaps some of these meetings are for optical reasons, but perhaps it's also what Kellyanne Conway said is, you know, perhaps Donald Trump is taking advice from some of these people. Some obviously more under serious consideration than others.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly is the case. Jason Carroll in New York outside Trump Tower for us. Thank you so much.

I'm joined now by A.B. Stoddard of Real Clear Politics, and Anna Palmer of Politico.

This is a question I want to ask you guys, and I know there's two sides to this, because a lot of people will say, what is he doing? He's got Mitt Romney. He's got Tulsi Gabbard. There's no way he's ever going to give a position to these people. But on the other side, I think a lot of people would also say, it's really good to get a lot of differing points of view. So is this spectacle? Is this - are these cameos in a reality TV show, or is this really cabinet selections?

ANNA PALMER, SR. WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: I think two things. One, I think it's definitely theater, right? Donald Trump knows how to play the media. We're standing out there for hours on end, you know, with bated breath, who's going in and out of these three elevator banks? I would say a second thing is, is Donald Trump is known for wanting to get a lot of different opinions and he wants to hear from a lot of different people before he makes up his mind. I talked to Andy Hutster (ph), who is in line to potentially be labor secretary. He said he had one meeting with him and he went around the room and wanted everybody's opinion and even the guy coming in with a soda, he would want his opinion, too.

[12:05:03] KEILAR: And, you know, because Donald Trump isn't - he isn't an ideologue. You know, I think Republicans look at him and they're actually - they worry that maybe he - you know, he isn't a true conservative. And sometimes his policies, if you - if you're able to pin them down, or - they're kind of this grab bag. So that seems to be how he's looking at people here.

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOC. EDITOR & COLUMNIST, REALCLEARPOLITICS: Right. I think you made a good point that initially they had this narrative last week that they had to change and counter, which was that he was only talking to loyalists. And they're not - a lot of the people that were always with him from the start, the most devoted supporters, those are the people that were going to get the jobs. It was Newt Gingrich. It was Rudy Giuliani. You know, it was Michael Flynn.

So then they brought in everybody and started doing this big, you know, shopping bonanza where everyone's coming, including Mitt Romney, who said terrible things about him. So it makes him look magnanimous, it makes him look like a leader who's not afraid to take a bunch of differing opinions.

But you're right, it could - it could end up backfiring on sort of the chiefs around him who want him to do this or that with his cabinet. He could end up making a wildcard decision because he does like to have all these conversations. He isn't predictable. You can't tie him down ideologically. And so something zany could come of it.

KEILAR: Mitt Romney, is that really - is that really a possibility?

PALMER: So people we were talking to last week said that this was not. This was more of just, you know, him going in, trying to kind of be a peacemaker. But what I think in the days since the meeting, people really do think that he could be, (INAUDIBLE) very seriously, the secretary of state position.

KEILAR: The president, President Obama, speaking in Lima, Peru, he has not weighted out - or he has not ruled out this idea of weighing in, which is weird, quite frankly, for someone who will be an ex- president. George W. Bush didn't do it. Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As an American citizen, who cares deeply about our country, if there are issues that have less to do with the specifics of some legislative proposal or battle, but go to core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I'll - I'll examine it when it comes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He is reserving the right, A.B., to weigh in. STODDARD: You know, he was very appreciative of the fact that George

W. Bush left the White House and never commented on his presidency. That said, things are different now. And I think the Democrats, a, expected to win the election, and they expected Donald Trump to tweet from the sidelines and do everything he could to erode the confidence in Hillary Clinton, what little there was going to be, and to delegitimize her from day one, call for her impeachment and on and on.

So now the Democrats are in the wilderness. They have no leader. And I think they're really counting on, in this sort of wild west of a Donald Trump presidency, with all the threats to, you know, press freedoms and everything else that the Democrats see, they are really pressuring Obama to stay active and weigh in as a president if they - if things - if he thinks things are sort of going off the rails. And I think he was probably torn about this because of George W. Bush's precedent, but we're in a no-precedent zone now.

KEILAR: Is he just appeasing Democrats who want him to remain engaged, as A.B. said, or is he - do you think in the next year or two years or so that we are going to actually see him talk about the current sitting president?

PALMER: I totally agree with you. I think there is a vacuum right now in the Democratic Party. There isn't a leader. President Obama's popularity has never been higher than it is right now. I don't think, frankly, it's a legacy issue. This is - what Donald Trump does could either erode his entire presidency, whether it's Obamacare, whether it's the Iran nuclear deal, or he could kind of try to, you know, help Donald Trump into a line where his legacy is what he wants it to be.

KEILAR: Anna Palmer, A.B. Stoddard, thank you so much for joining me. I do appreciate it.

And now we have some breaking news. Four police officers ambushed in three states in one day and there is an active manhunt right now for the suspect who killed a police detective in San Antonio. You can see on the map here the shootings. And as we've mentioned, there was one in San Antonio, one in St. Louis, one in Gladstone, Missouri, and then one in Sanibel, Florida, yesterday. Three of these happened after traffic stops as police officers sat in their squad cars. And the one in San Antonio was especially brutal.

Polo Sandoval joining me now from outside police headquarters in San Antonio.

And there's really no way to describe this, Polo, except to say that it was execution style.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And that's how authorities are handling this, Brianna. Of course the main headline that just came out of a press event that just took place inside the police department a few moments ago is that police officers are now treating what was initially considered a - who was initially considered a person of interest is now their suspect.

[12:10:00] These are - want to show you some brand new - some newly released images and some video put out by the San Antonio Police Department in which you can see this individual, who is now being considered a suspect, make his way into the police department the morning of the attack. This footage that you're looking at, these pictures, taken about three hours before Detective Ben Marconi was shot and killed just outside police headquarters. Investigators aren't sure what he was doing inside the police department. He apparently requested to be buzzed in by the clerk. The clerk, sure enough, allowed him to come inside. He had a very brief exchange with the clerk, asking for some form of assistance. And then 20 seconds later, made his way out of the police department itself. We now know that about two to three hours later, though, he would pull up allegedly behind Officer Marconi's squad car and then pull the trigger.

The other question here, what was the motive? What you to hear directly from San Antonio police chief found (ph) what they believe led to the death of one of their own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF WILLIAM MCMANUS, SAN ANTONIO POLICE: I think that the uniform was the target. And anyone who happened - the first person who happened along was the person that he targeted. We consider this suspect to be extremely dangerous both to the police and to the public. So if you see him, see this car out there, or see the individual that you believe matches the description of the person in the video, please, call us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: San Antonio Police Chief McManus there reiterating the need for help from the public. They know that if they're going to be able to track down this individual that, as you just heard, they consider extremely dangerous to public and police, that it's going to be with the help from the public. They know someone knows something. This individual is quite recognizable.

And finally, Brianna, I can tell you that this is painful for police, but also it is personal. All these investigators that are making their way in and out of headquarters are seeing these pictures. They are seeing this makeshift memorial that continues to grow. And people from the community who have stopped by expressing their condolences and their gratitude and warm wishes for the department, again, investigators making this a priority right now, trying to get this individual off the street. As they now know, or at least they suspect, that their office was specifically targeted because of the uniform he was wearing yesterday.

KEILAR: Polo, tell us about these other shootings, the two separate ones in Missouri and one in Florida. What do we know?

SANDOVAL: Right. There are some similarities here. For example, the one in St. Louis, Missouri, a 46-year-old sergeant who was apparently shot during a traffic stop. Fortunately, he is expected to recover. But, again, there are some similarities here. We just heard from the police chief here in San Antonio, he's been in contact with federal authorities and some of his counterparts in some of the other states, they don't believe that they are directly linked. And then, of course, there's yet another one in St. Louis, another one in Florida. Four officers shot within a 24-hour period. Sadly, Brianna, the only one who did not survive, right here in San Antonio.

KEILAR: That's right. Polo Sandoval, thank you for that report in Texas for us.

I want to bring in now, CNN's senior law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes. He's a former FBI assistant director.

So we look at what happened yesterday, Tom, and it's - it's stunning to have all of this happen in one day. What do you make of this?

TOM FUENTES, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, first of all, it's not just over the weekend. We had a U.S. - a deputy U.S. Marshal killed on Friday trying to arrest somebody who had been wanted for attempting to kill police officers already. We had a border patrol officer killed last week. So we've had other officers killed. This is a continuation of, you know, basically a dangerous situation for police.

KEILAR: Detective Benjamin Marconi is the officer who was killed in San Antonio and what we don't know from what police are saying, the latest press conference that they did, what we learned was that they were asked, when he went into the police headquarters and he asked a question, what was it? And they're not revealing that. They're not saying what the suspect said. Why is that so important? And, also, what should we take from them not revealing it?

FUENTES: Well, believe it or not, that's not unusual in cases like this to have people make false confessions. So they don't want to put information out that only that person would know so that he can come in and say, oh, yes, I walked into the police station and said such and such. So they will withhold specific information like that, that only the killer himself would be aware of, that information. So that's one reason.

KEILAR: OK. And so when you see these three of the four, and I know you're talking about the wider net of violence against police officers that we've seen -

FUENTES: Right.

KEILAR: But you see three of the four are police officers sitting in squad cars, and shooters have come up to them. What do they need to do? What does law enforcement need to do to be more vigilant? They normally are -

FUENTES: There's nothing.

KEILAR: But, of course, they're concentrating at the time.

FUENTES: There's nothing they can do to be more vigilant.

KEILAR: Nothing they can do. FUENTES: If you're in your squad car - this happened when I made traffic stops as a police officer, hundreds and maybe thousands. You're in your squad. You're dealing with the motorist you stopped or you're assisting. It might be somebody with a flat tire. You're calling for help. And someone taps on your window or comes up to your window, often they want to ask directions, they want assistance from you, or they're broken down two blocks back, could you come help. So no officer is going to say, I'm not talking to you. I'm going to stay in my bullet-proof coon.

[12:15:06] KEILAR: Yes.

FUENTES: They're going to, you know, deal with members of the public all the time and put themselves in that situation. So they're easy targets. They're in uniform. They're out in public. They're on the street or in their squad cars and there's really nothing they could do.

I've heard the advocacy for two officers in a patrol cars. If you do that, especially in rural areas, then that means it's going to be twice as long for you to get a squad to come -

KEILAR: Sure.

FUENTES: Because two officers instead of two patrol cars. If you're in an urban area, we had the two officers sitting in the squad car in New York City a year and a half ago or so that were both killed sitting in their police car. So police officers are going to always be in a vulnerable situation. I think that if the time has come to maybe pass a federal law that says, state, local, uniformed police office, detectives, if they're enforcing the law, they're on duty and somebody attacks them and kills them, that should be a federal crime. We have the FBI investigating if other federal agents get killed, DEA, Marshals, FBI agents. I think that we should add uniformed police officers or detectives as well if they're enforcing the law or in - on duty, let's say, or just coming or going from duty, that should also be -

KEILAR: It's certainly a discussion that needs to be had. Tom Fuentes, thank you so much.

We're going to talk about this next, a bruised Democratic Party coming out of this election. They're now facing a new fight. Who's going to lead them after what we saw on November 8th? I'm going to talk to the congressman who says he can do better than Nancy Pelosi.

Plus, Donald Trump is not backing away from Twitter. He's taking on "Saturday Night Live," taking on the cast of "Hamilton." We'll talk about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:32] KEILAR: For the first time since Democrats lost control of the House in 2010, Nancy Pelosi has a fight on her hands for control of her party's caucus. The lawmaker on your left, Ohio Representative Tim Ryan, is challenging Pelosi for the post of House minority leader. In announcing his bid last Thursday, Ryan said, and I quote, "Democrats have been reduced to our smallest congressional minority since 1929. Keeping our leadership team completely unchanged will simply lead to more disappointment in future elections." House Democrats were due to pick leaders last week, but they put it off for a week to consider their options.

And in the meantime, Congressman Ryan is joining me on the phone from Cleveland to talk about this.

Congressman, thank you so much for taking the time. I want to ask you, because I that a lot of this, it's not just about a fight to win here, because you're up against incredible odds. Nancy Pelosi, who, as you know, is probably one of the best whips in the House, used to be the whip for Democrats, says that she has two-thirds of the caucus onboard with her. So what are your objectives?

REP. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO (via telephone): Well, you know, I go in to win, but clearly it's, you know, David versus Goliath here. There's no question about that. But, you know, we need have an honest conversation. We still, to this point, have not had the kind of conversation, the kind of debriefing that you need to move forward.

And it's like, look, these reorganization moments are messy. They're always messy. But they're necessary for us to figure out what direction we need to go in. And in my - my goal here, of course, is to win and be a leader because I think I could do a very, very good job and I think I could go anywhere in the country.

But I want to ask the question to my colleagues. How many seats do we have to lose before we make a change? We've lost 68 seats since 2010. Is it 80 seats? Is it 90 seats? Like, what's the number that forces us to do things differently? And so I'm pulling the fire alarm here.

KEILAR: OK. Yes, you're pulling -

RYAN: And I'm pulling the fire alarm because -

KEILAR: You're pulling the fire alarm and I know part of that is because you looked at your own county, Trumbull County. You also represent Youngstown to the south of you, as we talked about. But in Trumbull County, the incredible change in results in just, really, four years. Donald Trump won by seven points. Barack Obama won by 23 points. I mean that was a huge wake-up call for you and you said that Democrats don't understand what happened. So as someone from this part of Ohio where you are, what do they need to know? What happened?

RYAN: Well, I mean, there's a reason I got 70 percent in that county or more and our national candidate, you know, had the problem that you just mentioned. We need to talk to working-class people. You know, we - we don't talk to everybody anymore. We slice and dice and we talk to subgroups and interest groups that - all on issues that I support, by the way. I'm as progressive as anyone else in our caucus, but we don't have a unifying message that we could talk about in every room. And I'm just saying, you know, those people in that county, the average median household income is $57,000 a year, which means a husband and wife with a couple kids each make less than $30 grand a year. And they think that Democrats don't care about them. And they we in droves to Donald Trump.

And we need to speak to their economic interests, that we get it, that we understand, that we talk about those things, and we try to fight hard for those things and they see us, you know, the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party as well as elitists and people who are more concerned with raising money and the donor class than the middle class. And they - they - they've flipped their middle finger to every establishment on last Tuesday. The Democratic establishment, the Republican establishment, Wall Street, they all got a middle finger from middle America and Democrats, I fear, are in denial right now of what's happening.

KEILAR: All right. Well, we will see if what you are talking about registers. You've certainly been getting a lot of attention.

Congressman Ryan, thank you so much.

RYAN: Thanks for having me.

[12:24:58] KEILAR: And next, could a vicious few during the campaign end with Mitt Romney working for Donald Trump? A lot of people are doubtful about that. I'm going to talk to a former top adviser about what might be going on behind the scenes, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mitt Romney is here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really? OK. Send him in, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi.

Hello, Mr. President-elect. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor Romney, so good of you to come.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This isn't going to work, is it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think so.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great. Great. Great talking to you. (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:30:11] KEILAR: President-elect Donald Trump may have found some common ground with one of his harshest critics