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CNN NEWSROOM

Obamacare Over GOP Proposal; Secret Service Responds to Claim; White House Counsel Appointed; Nine Killed in Flash Flood; Chicago Violence Claims 11 Lives; Tech Firm Combats Harassment. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired July 17, 2017 - 09:30   ET

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


[09:30:00] REP. SCOTT TAYLOR (R), APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: The ACA and health care.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: I think Americans would really welcome bipartisanship in Washington.

Congressman Scott Taylor, thank you for joining us.

TAYLOR: Thanks, Poppy. Appreciate it.

HARLOW: And, again, thank you for your service to this country.

TAYLOR: Thank you.

HARLOW: All right, so if the Russians that Donald Trump Jr. met with had this ulterior motive and were so bad, then why did the Secret Service allow the meeting to happen, right? Well, that's the latest defense out of the White House. The issue is, Secret Service wasn't even protecting Donald Trump Jr. at the time. They came out and pushed back hard on that one. That's next.

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HARLOW: So who else was involved in that June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and the Russian attorney? The U.S. Secret Service says, not us. That is in response to a claim by the president's own lawyer, Jay Sekulow. Listen.

[09:35:01] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY SEKULOW, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S LAWYER: Well, I've wondered why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in. The president had Secret Service protection at that point and that raise a question with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Except Don Jr. didn't. Here's what the Secret Service said in a statement to CNN. "Don Trump Jr. was not a protectee of the USSS (U.S. Secret Service) in June, 2016. Thus we would not have screened anyone he was meeting with at the time."

Joining me now, CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

It's a bizarre defense even to begin with, not to mention that the Secret Service had no purview over Don Trump Jr. What does this tell us about the effort to fight back from the White House on this?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, let's talk about one thing. Jay Sekulow I think said two very interesting things over the weekend. One was, remember, we spent months hearing that this - there was no contact between the Trump campaign and the Russians. It was all fake news. The whole thing was ridiculous. That is now out the window. And the defense that Jay was offering over and over again was, well, there was no crime here. That's a considerable change of the goal posts now.

HARLOW: It is.

TOOBIN: You know, maybe there was a crime, maybe there wasn't, but just it's worth noting that change.

The Secret Service point - now I've known Jay Sekulow for a very long time. He is an extremely fine lawyer.

HARLOW: I was just going to say, very good lawyer.

TOOBIN: Very good lawyer. Experienced Supreme Court advocate. But what that tells me is that he does not have a lot of access to his client. That the client is not being forthcoming about the whole story. If you listen to Jay's story that, you know, Jay's advocacy, it's really based in the law, it's not based in the facts. He, obviously, had not talked to Donald Jr. about whether he was a Secret Service protectee at that time.

So he made this, you know, wrong claim that the Secret Service would have somehow been involved. And I think it illustrates how the defenders of Trump and the Trump campaign don't know all the facts. None of us do. That's why the story keeps evolving the way it does.

HARLOW: So you have said on our air, this is - this is the administration and their attorneys, Jay Sekulow in this case, moving the defense lines back.

TOOBIN: Right.

HARLOW: Except haven't they now moved them back as far as you can go? As far as you can go is, well, it wasn't illegal.

TOOBIN: Right. That's right.

HARLOW: They're sort of no like, OK, we can do it again.

TOOBIN: That's right. It wasn't a high crime and misdemeanor justifying impeachment.

HARLOW: Yes.

TOOBIN: I mean that's sort of the next line of defense. You know, that's true but - I mean they do have some good arguments. I

mean it is still not clear whether any crime was committed, even if you believe more sinister interpretations of what the Trump campaign was doing.

HARLOW: Right.

TOOBIN: You know, we hear this word over and over again, collusion, collusion. Collusion, which is sort of agreements between the campaign and the Russian government, is not a crime under most circumstances.

HARLOW: Right. Right.

TOOBIN: And there's no crime except under anti-trust law involving collusion.

HARLOW: Or federal election law. You could say what is of value to the campaign.

TOOBIN: Well, federal election -

HARLOW: But I hear you. So the White House now adds a new guy. From all I've read, a very high-powered, experience white collar defense attorney, Ty Cobb, as White House Counsel. How does this change their approach? Is this pushing Kasowitz out after his tasteless e-mail response?

TOOBIN: Bizarre phone call - e-mail, yes.

Well, I - I don't know whether Kasowitz is in or out.

HARLOW: Yes.

TOOBIN: I mean that's really just beyond my knowledge at this point.

You know, the purpose of hiring Ty Cobb is to keep an organized face on the response to all these inquiries. But what that doesn't answer is whether, a, he will have access to Donald Trump to get answers when questions come up, and, b, whether Trump is going to continue tweeting on his own, stuff that is relevant to the investigation and whether Cobb will have any influence on the president's statements or his tweeting.

HARLOW: No one has before.

TOOBIN: No one has before. The record is not good.

HARLOW: Maybe you would, Jeffrey Toobin.

TOOBIN: Yo know what, I am out of that business. I am a journalist now.

HARLOW: Because you're here.

TOOBIN: Exactly.

HARLOW: Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much.

Ahead for us, some deadly weather. One second a family is spending their Saturday swimming in the Arizona River. The next, a flash flood carries trees and rocks right at them, killing at least nine. That's next.

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[09:43:31] HARLOW: At least nine people are dead and one is still missing in Arizona. This is after a flash flood sent a wall of water crashing into a swimming area that swept away a family of 14. Six of those killed were children. The storm threat is not over yet.

Let's go to our meteorologist Chad Myers.

How could this happen with no warning?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it happens every single day in the desert in the summer. It's called monsoon season flash flooding. And it is the most dangerous, most tragic thing that happens in the desert because you think it isn't going to rain. It rains on top of a hill. That water washing downhill. It's not even raining where you are. It rained up there. You don't expect it to come downhill. And it does.

The rain came through Payson. It was all the way down through and even into Tucson. Tucson had their first wet day in almost half of a year. In fact, 138 days ago was the last time it truly rained in Phoenix.

The rain was on top of the mountain. It rained hard. Probably an inch of rain. Something else on top of this mountain, about a month ago, a wildfire. A wildfire scorched the ground that this water, this rain was raining on. That wildfire makes the ground what we call hydrophobic. It makes it like asphalt. The rain will not soak in. Even the rain that we're going to see today - here's the forecast for today - will not soak in.

So here's the southwest. It happens every summer. It is called monsoon season. People drive from Phoenix. They go up here to the water wheel. And then you take that waterwheel, you climb up the canyon, a beautiful cool little splash here, back into the canyon through here, where the cold spring is. But it rained on top of the Mongolian (ph) Rim. It rained where that - where that forest fire was a month ago. And that water was tragically running downhill at a pace they could not get out of the way.

[09:45:23] Poppy.

HARLOW: Six children killed. Unbelievable.

MYERS: Ys.

HARLOW: Chad Myers, thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

HARLOW: Tragedy also in Chicago over the weekend. A deadly weekend. Multiple shootings killed at least 11 people. A nine-year-old boy among them. Also a man who dedicated his life to preventing violence.

Our Ryan Young is live with more.

You know, we talk about the same thing, Ryan -

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy, it really is -

HARLOW: Right after the Fourth of July and once again.

YOUNG: Yes, I mean really staggering numbers and it hasn't really stopped since the Fourth of July. You think about that weekend. One hundred people shot during that weekend and 40 killed - I mean shot the following weekend and now this weekend you have 58 people shot during the weekend. So you look at the numbers. They're just staggering. You talk about a nine-year-old who was sitting in the car with his stepfather when someone rolled by and started opening fire. That young man was shot in the back and he died.

Then later on this weekend, someone pulled up with an AR-15 on Saturday and opened fire on a crowd hitting that activist several times before he died. Of course, a lot of people in the community are asking that question, why and when will it stop?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICIA CARTER, VICTIM'S NIECE: People are just so cold-hearted. How could you just take somebody's life? He helped everybody. Not - I just don't understand.

DONOVAN PRICE, KNEW VICTIM: I met him when I was a little boy and all through time there's so many stories of him doing good in the community, him paying for funerals for other people, people to go to school, whatever anybody needed, whatever anybody need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Right, and you think about this, the activist dedicating his life to trying to stop violence ended up getting killed, standing there in the street with a crowd of people. People are definitely asking for help. They want more help from the federal government. The police department has obviously changed some of their procedures. But when you look at this summer, how hot it's been, how violent it's been, people are just hoping that it gets better before it gets worse. Poppy, really no answers right now.

HARLOW: That's heartbreaking and it's happening consistently.

Ryan Young, thank you for the reporting for us this morning from Chicago.

Up next, something you will not want to miss. Silicon Valley exposed. A culture of sexual harassment and assault. Now six women come forward and tell our Laurie Segall their stories.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You preyed on a group of women that you thought were too afraid or not in a position to speak up and, clearly, you were very, very wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[09:52:11] HARLOW: A prominent Silicon Valley tech firm has a new idea for combatting sexual harassment, a black list. "The Washington Post" reports confirm its e-mailing a form to entrepreneurs, encouraging them to report harassment. That's just because more and more women are coming forward with these unreal stories of a toxic culture that is pervasive.

Joining us now, Laurie Segall, CNN's senior tech correspondent.

And, Lori, you had an entire special on this over the weekend. What are these women telling you?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN SENIOR TECH CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the stories are pouring in. I sat down with six different women, all who have different stories, and they're speaking out in hopes that their voice will bring about change. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEA ARTHUR, FOUNDER, THE DIFFERENCE: You don't want to tell people that you were in a business meeting and somebody shamed you and made you feel less than. Who wants to say that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was the moment that I felt my leg being grabbed under the table that I thought, holy moly, this is real.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are sitting at a Starbucks and he grabs my face and tries to make out with me.

CECILLA PAGKALINAWAN, FOUNDER, APPLOUD, SKYLETREK: I hate to say this, but it's the norm. And I hope that we can change that.

So, this is my story from 2001. The environment was a lot different because of the dot com crash. So I was faced with raising more money or letting go of employees.

So one time I had a meeting with a potential VC (ph), one of the more powerful ones out there, and he order a $5,000 bottle of wine. And I couldn't even remember how many times the glass got filled. All of a sudden he was conveying to me how attractive he was to me, tried to lean over to kiss me and I pulled away.

I'll never forget it when he touched me under the table and like looked into my eyes and grabbed my leg and squeezed it and say, you know, I'm going to help you. I'm going to do this for you, as if he was my savior or something. And at the same time he's violating me.

ARTHUR: I was lucky enough to have an adviser or mentor who had never expressed any romantic or sexual interest on me and we were literally working on spreadsheets, the least sexy thing in the world. I remember it. We were sitting side by side in front of a computer and at the end of that he stood up and he - and he pulled out his erect penis, genitalia. He pulled out his erect penis and it was like right in my face. It was awkward. It was uncomfortable. It was unfair. But it happened. And it wasn't the last time something like that would happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When he did that, it made me feel disgusted -

PAGKALINAWAN: Demoralized and disrespected.

GESCHE HAAS, FOUNDER, DREAMERS/DOERS: Like I didn't have any worth as a woman in business.

PAGKALINAWAN: Like all of my accomplishments, that I already raised $5 million in venture funding, like none of that mattered.

LISA WANG, COFOUNDER, SHEWORX: If I was sitting across from the investor who harassed me. I would say to him, I'm here to talk business and nothing else.

[09:55:05] ARTHUR: It's strange to me when you look at your pipeline and your deal flow as opportunities for your romantic life. Don't date your deal flow. It's not that hard.

PAGKALINAWAN: What else do you need to prove? You already have the money. You have the power. You have the decision making ability. You have - you have it all. Like, what - why - why do you do this?

SUSAN HO, COFOUNDER, JOURNY: You preyed on a group of women that you thought were too afraid or not in a position to speak up. And, clearly, you were very, very wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEGALL: You know, Poppy, the next phase of this is, how do we push this dialogue forward? You know, how do we get more women in leadership positions? Also, how do we create a structure where women can safely report sexual harassment without fearing retaliation.

HARLOW: How do you hold these guys accountable for what they have done?

SEGALL: Yes, absolutely.

HARLOW: Those are the women speaking out about it. How many more women has this happened to?

SEGALL: That's the big question.

HARLOW: I'm so glad you did this. Where can people see it all?

SEGALL: All at cnnmoney.com. We have a whole landing page (ph). So we have many women's stories on there.

HARLOW: Thank you, Laurie.

SEGALL: Thank you.

HARLOW: I know how hard you worked on it.

We have a lot ahead. The Senate health care vote delayed. But how long? Senator John McCain could be the crucial vote, but he's out for the week recovering from surgery. An update on his condition, next.

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