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Obama Tackles Gun Control Policy; Boehner to Hold News Conference; Resignations At State Department; Robert Bork Dead

Aired December 19, 2012 - 14:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: A bit of a surprise. Moments ago, in the White House briefing room today, you had the president speaking before reporters answering several questions about the fiscal cliff and blasting Republicans in the process.

Well, here's what we've learned since. Speaker of the House John Boehner, he will be responding. He'll be responding in just minutes from now here. So we'll take that for you live.

But let me just begin with what the president began with, with this debate sweeping the nation right now. He wants ideas on changing the nation's gun laws. Wants the ideas fast. The president tapped his number two to lead the interagency effort to come up with some proposals. And, guess what, he gave Vice President Joe Biden one month to do it. The president says this is not some wishy washy blue ribbon government study group. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not some Washington commission. This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. This is a team that has a very specific task, to pull together real reforms right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Now, President Obama also emphasized no law can prevent every act of violence. And he wants, he says, the nation must also look at a culture that glorifies guns, glorifies violence, and look at how we treat those who are mentally ill.

I want to go to the White House, to our correspondent there, Brianna Keilar.

And, you know, to talk about the president's timetable here, we're talking 30 days, a month. You know Washington. You've covered Washington for years. Is that even possible?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's still to be seen and you can't really overstate how difficult of an issue this is to tackle in Washington and in Congress, Brooke. But the president laid out a timeline where he said Vice President Biden and this -- essentially a task force is going to be giving him specific policy recommendations no later than January. And he said he wants Congress to act in a timely fashion next year. So meaning toward the beginning of the year. That's the extent of the timeline he laid out there.

But I think what was also interesting was that he talked about appealing to the American people. And obviously this is something that he's been used to doing as he's been campaigning and he's tried to do this on the fiscal cliff as well. But he made it very clear that he will be using the bully pulpit to try to persuade Americans and to really sort of seize the moment of just how people have responded differently to the shooting.

And let me tell you, he had -- he has talked -- the White House has talked and he also laid out some things that he would like to see in this event in the briefing room. He talked about the assault weapons ban, banning high capacity ammunition clips, closing the gun show loophole. And also you mentioned mental health, which I think is something that would be easier to push, kind of in a bipartisan fashion.

The big question too is sort of what you talked about, dealing with the culture that glorifies violence. Those were his words. How do you do that? That still has -- that's still to be seen.

BALDWIN: What about also, though, Brianna, the gun law? This is a very powerful, very affluent group of people. So how would the White House bring let's say the NRA to the table in a very sort of high pressure timetable right now?

KEILAR: This struck me because when the president was asked about this during questioning, he said that he has faith basically in members of the NRA. So making it clear that he's going to be trying to appeal to actual members as mothers and fathers. That he said when you look at the NRA, there are a lot of people there who want to be sure that people go through background checks, they want to make sure that kids are safe. He thinks that there is sort of a place where NRA members don't want to see military style weapons in the hands of people period or who might do harm. So I think that was sort of where he was looking and sort of using the bully pulpit.

But at the same time, remember, Friday we'll be hearing from the NRA for the first time. They have been saying no comment. They have remained mum following the shooting in Connecticut on Friday. But this is just a really a sign now that things are very much heating up here, that we will be hearing from them on Friday, and that we heard from the president getting specific today, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Right, NRA finally releasing a statement after our show yesterday. Shocked, saddened by the news. And we will await that news conference on Friday.

Brianna Keilar for me at the White House. Brianna, thank you very much.

Now talking about the president here, his attention quickly turned during the briefing today to the fiscal cliff. Which, keep in mind, is less than two weeks away. No deal yet, but in the past couple of days, it appears both sides are inching closer. All that said, President Obama seemed a little frustrated today. Watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: At some point there's got to be I think a recognition on the part of my Republican friends that, you know, take the deal. You know, they will be able to claim that they have worked with me over the last two years to reduce the deficit more than any other deficit reduction package. That we will have stabilized it for 10 years.

That is a significant achievement for them. They should be proud of it. But they keep on finding ways to say no as opposed to finding ways to say yes. And I don't know how much of that just has to do with, you know, it is very hard for them to say yes to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: President Obama essentially giving Republicans their talking points.

Let me bring in chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash, who's been waiting, minutes away here from Speaker of the House John Boehner.

And, you know, Dana, there was a moment where the president threw out a number. It was a number that caught you by surprise.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): There was. I mean when he was talking about, you know, where they could go or couldn't go, he mentioned, you know, why can't they go to something along the lines of 700,000, talking about the income level here. Unclear if that was done on purpose to sort of throw out a number to say, you know, maybe this is a potential middle ground for us. But regardless, the whole -- the sound bite that you just played was kind of the crux of the message from the president and why it's pulling John Boehner out to his press conference.

And I should tell you I'm on the phone because I'm standing right outside where he's going to do his press conference in a few minutes.

But the point is, is that, you know, you won't take yes for an answer. That's what the president says. And what we're likely to hear from the speaker, Brooke, is, you're not giving me enough to say yes to because where things broke down earlier this week was when the president gave what he clearly thinks was a very -- more than reasonable offer, which from his perspective is pretty balanced when it comes to deficit reduction with about half from spending cuts and about half from tax revenue. And the speaker is likely to say again here, as he has said before, he doesn't see the math that way. He thinks that there is still way too much in terms of revenue and not enough when it comes to spending cuts.

BALDWIN: Well, as we await Speaker Boehner -- we saw that empty podium there -- you know, we talked to you yesterday about the so-called "Plan B", where Speaker Boehner basically threw out the number 1 million. So, you know, that's the option for tax rates to go up for folks making more than a million bucks. And we know that Grover Norquist, you know, he actually endorsed the so-called "Plan B". So it sounds like he's giving Republicans a pass with that option.

BASH: Yes. And so that's sort of the other -- the -- the other -- I think it's the only movement that's going on here on Capitol Hill with regard to the fiscal cliff is that Republicans in the House, preparing for a vote tomorrow on the so-called "Plan B" issue. And one of the open questions has been whether even the House Republicans can get enough of their own caucus to vote for that, because there is some concern that they would still be voting for a tax increase even though the legislation would say taxes for everybody making a million dollars or less would stay the same.

Grover Norquist was a big deal today. He released a statement saying that he did not believe anybody who voted that -- for that would be violating his famous pledge of no tax increases. But other pretty powerful, pretty well stated anti-tax group have not said that. They're still pressuring conservatives to vote against this bill.

I think sort of big picture, what does this all mean.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BASH: Several Republicans have told me that they believe that the House Republicans and the Senate to whatever extent, they have to get a vote on this very divisive issue of tax rates out of their system before everybody can sort of realize that they're not going to get anything done on that. That if nobody does anything (INAUDIBLE) keep in mind, if nothing is done, everybody's taxes will go up on January 1st and so maybe that would be sort of the last minute impetus for the president and the speaker to come together. And given where they are, it really isn't that, that far apart.

BALDWIN: All right. Well, we will wait. You're on the phone. We wail wait. We'll come back to you as soon as we see Speaker Boehner perhaps responding to that specific number that the president threw out, the $700,000 income level. Dana Bash, stand by. We'll come back to you.

I just want to totally switch gears here, because we need to talk about the State Department and the news that's been made there the last 24 hours. Three people, including the security chief, resigned from the U.S. State Department today. This is all regarding that immediate fallout of the scathing review by the panel looking into the deadly September 11th attack in Benghazi at the consulate there in Libya.

You know the story. It was the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans at the U.S. consulate. Now, the State Department blasted by this review for quote/unquote "systemic failures." Among them, and I'm quoting, "grossly inadequate security" and the dismissal of repeated requests to beef up personnel. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin here after reading this review.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: There was a breakdown in Benghazi on September 11th that is stark and challenging to all of us in public life. I went through the litany of things that were given to us by this accountability review board. Our intelligence fell short. Our security personnel were inexperienced and unprepared. Our security systems failed. Our host nation was lacking in protection for our own people. And senior State Department officials unfortunately showed a lack of leadership and management ability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The panel also found that there was, quote/unquote, "a lack of transparency, responsiveness and leadership," both in Libya and in Washington. In a letter to U.S. congressional committees, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she accepts all 29 of the report's recommendations.

And I want to bring in our senior international correspondent, Arwa Damon, for us.

And, Arwa, I mean you were there. You were there on the ground days after that attack in Benghazi. And my question to you is, from what you know, is this report consistent with what you saw with your own eyes?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It most certainly is, Brooke. And, in fact, following our first day of reporting on the ground, which was three days after the attack took place, we had, in fact, reported that there was no protests that had occurred. That this was a highly complex attack that took place from various different sides, parts of the consulate compound and that the gates were fairly easily breached. This was all information that we were able to gather speaking with some of the local guards at the time, speaking with eyewitnesses, and then, of course, having full access to the site itself because even three days after the attack had taken place, the site was not secured.

In fact, other journalists, in the weeks afterwards, were also able to access the site and even then there were still sensitive documents to be found. And so it most certainly seems that the U.S., first of all, grossly miscalculated the threat that existed against it in Benghazi, not to mention, of course, failed to put in adequate security measures given the type of threat that did exist. Because what we knew leading up to the attack was that western interests had been targeted on numerous other occasions. The consulate itself had been targeted as well. And as we do know now, repeated requests for additional security personnel were not fulfilled. And this, of course, had devastating consequences.

BALDWIN: On that point, on the inadequacies that you point out and the lack of manpower, I mean that's part of this review, that they need to beef up the personnel at these consulates here. And in this case, you know, you've seen these consulates, you've seen embassies in different parts of the world. What kind of security do you think would have made this consulate in Benghazi safer?

DAMON: I mean, look, it's always been difficult for the State Department because, on the one hand, they do not want to create these fortresses like the one they have in Beirut, where we are right now, or Baghdad, for example, that are completely and totally inaccessible and really isolate American staff from the population with whom they are supposed to be connecting.

That being said, what we have -- what took place in Benghazi is the complete and utter extreme of that spectrum. This facility could have been surrounded by blast walls. There could have been an outer perimeter that was even farther away that would have perhaps given staff on the inside more time to secure themselves. The compound, as we were saying, was fairly easily breached. They don't know exactly why it was that through the main gate the attackers were able to move so quickly, but that most certainly could have been beefed up.

BALDWIN: OK.

DAMON: The outer perimeter of security was Libyan guards who were armed with radios. That obviously was not adequate either. So there are a number of things that could have happened beforehand.

BALDWIN: Arwa Damon, we appreciate you there for us live in Beirut.

Again, we're awaiting, back to Washington, awaiting the speaker of the House, John Boehner, to respond specifically to the president's comments when it comes to the fiscal cliff. Thirteen days to go. He's speaking in just a moment. Back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let's go ahead and bring up that live picture. Guys, just take it full. Just take it full so you can see. This is -- we are awaiting Speaker of the House John Boehner. We've been talking about this for months and months here. We -- many members of Congress would like to avoid going over the fiscal cliff, although some have proposed that we go over it. We're awaiting the speaker of the House because we're told he's going to be directly responding to what the president said in the daily briefing just a little while ago.

The president, of course, was speaking about gun control and this interagency group that he's assigning the vice president to be in charge of. So that was part of the daily briefing. But, again, part of it was the fiscal cliff. And here he is, John Boehner.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Good afternoon, everyone.

Republicans continue to work toward avoiding the fiscal cliff. The president's offer of $1.3 trillion in revenues and $850 billion in spending reductions fails to meet the test that the president promised the American people a balanced approach. And I hope the president will get serious soon about providing and working with us on a balanced approach.

Tomorrow, the House will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American, 99.81 percent of the American people. Then the president will have a decision to make. He can call on the Senate and Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history.

(END LVIE FEED)

BALDWIN: Wow. Well, that was -- forgive my surprise. That was short and sweet. John Boehner basically saying what Dana Bash had predicted, that the speaker of the House would come out and say that the president's offer was not at all a balanced approach.

Let me look over at my notes because John Boehner said he hopes the president gets serious soon. Let me know, guys, in my ear if we have Dana Bash on the phone sort of react to this. OK. So we're going to get Dana Bash on the phone. But basically they've been going back and forth. A lot -- the latest proposal that was just endorsed by Grover Norquist, you know the pledge, they threw out this number of a million dollars here. So folks would be taxed a million dollars or up.

OK, guys, I hear you.

So we have Dana Bash on the phone.

Dana Bash, you called it. Speaker Boehner said that this is not a balanced approach and, guess what, back to the drawing board?

BASH: Well, I think the drawing board has sort of been where it is for the past couple of days. As you heard, there were some frustrated reporters, myself included, that he made a very short statement and then walked away and didn't want to take any questions.

But, look, the bottom line is that what you just saw from the political standpoint, which matters a lot right now, is him trying to shift the blame back to the president, who did a -- I think a pretty bit -- a pretty good job of using the bully pulpit as only the president can today of saying, look, guys, you know, I've offered what I think is a really balanced approach and you just won't take yes for an answer. So the speaker felt compelled to come out and try to shift that blame back to the president.

The big question, Brooke, is whether or not while all this, you know, to'ing and fro'ing is going on in public, whether or not any discussions can restart in private. My understanding is that there have not been any significant negotiations over the past 36 hours or so. They certainly have been in contact by e-mail and talking about staff at the White House and the speaker's office, but not serious negotiations. And my impression is that probably won't happen until the speaker gets through the next move as he mentioned, which is --

BALDWIN: The vote tomorrow.

BASH: The vote tomorrow on the House floor.

BALDWIN: The vote tomorrow.

OK. Well, we've also just learned, as you and I have been chatting, Dana Bash, that leader Nancy Pelosi will be speaking at the top of the hour. So here we go. The president, then John Boehner, then Nancy Pelosi. I don't know if that goes down as the shortest news conference in Washington history. I think that might have been less than 60 seconds. Dana Bash, we will continue this conversation on the fiscal cliff a little later on in the hour. It's getting interesting, folks.

More news developing right now, including this.

Bracing for the blizzards. As folks get ready to head out for the holidays, current forecasts show a travel nightmare.

Plus, the person of the year, President Barack Obama. But not everyone's impressed with "Time" magazine's choice.

And, should the government buy back guns to boost the economy? You'll hear the case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Conservative jurist Robert Bork has died at his home in Virginia. Bork had suffered from heart disease. He was 85 years old. Robert Bork, some story. A quarter century later, wounds still haven't healed from Bork's tumultuous brush with the U.S. Senate, which rejected Bork for a seat on the United States Supreme Court. So here's how this whole thing started. Only hours after Bork's nomination by President Ronald Reagan. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, the gloves are off from the get-go. Democrats portrayed Robert Bork as this right wing zealot. Republicans countered the Democrats had liberal allies. They mounted this massive smear campaign. I want you to listen to this. This is how the weeks of debate concluded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JAMES MCCLURE (R), IDAHO: The opponents of Judge Bork have to stick by their guns and stick together. There is safety in numbers. Wolves know it and interest groups know it. And senators apparently know it.

SEN. JOHN DANFORTH (R), MISSOURI: All of us who have sat there, not just members of the committee, but members of the Senate, and let these ads go on and let this trashing going on and let this good man be characterized as some sort of Frankenstein's monster without raising a voice against it, all of us are accomplices.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: I heard this morning lynch mobs. I heard from another senator this morning, $15 million ad campaigns. Where I come from, they call that making things up out of whole cloth. It's bizarre. It's ridiculous. Look at the record.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You recognize that last face? A familiar face. That's the vice president. That was Vice President Joe Biden, who was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, played a stroll role in Bork's rejection. Jeffrey Toobin joining me now.

Jeff Toobin, before we talk about Robert Bork himself -- welcome, by the way.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Should we talk about how Joe Biden's hair looked in those days?

BALDWIN: Could we -- I wish we could, but we won't.

TOOBIN: OK.

BALDWIN: Anyhow, would you agree that this whole Bork saga -- and this, you know, this is back in '87 -- would you agree that it still reverberates today in this hyper partisan way that our political system functions?

TOOBIN: Absolutely. And it reverberates at the Supreme Court to this day. The issues that Bork was defeated on, is there a right to privacy in the Constitution, is abortion a right that women enjoy under the Constitution, those are the issues that are still at the heart of what the Supreme Court fights about. The Supreme Court is going to address the issue of same sex marriage come March. That was the kind of issue that Bork spoke out on. This was a fight for the ages. And extremely significant because that seat that Bork didn't get went to Anthony Kennedy, who has been no liberal, but has been a supporter of abortion rights. He has been a supporter of gay rights. And so the country is different because Robert Bork lost that seat and Anthony Kennedy got it.

BALDWIN: It's incredible. That's incredible. You mentioned that civil rights, women's rights, privacy rights, his nomination seemed to really cut to the bone of how Americans view these so differently. And I want you to listen again, here again is Senator Joe Biden questioning Bork about a case actually involving privacy in the bedroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: If they had evidence that a crime was being committed --

ROBERT BORK, SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: How are they going to get evidence that a couple are using contraceptives?

BIDEN: A wiretap.

BORK: Wiretapping?

BIDEN: Wiretap.

BORK: You mean to say -- BIDEN: A legal wiretap.

BORK: You mean to say that a magistrate is going to authorize a wiretap to find out if a couple is using contraceptives?

BIDEN: They could, couldn't they, under the law?

BORK: No. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That dispute over Bork was so intense, a lot of folks might think it had to do with Bork's character. But for the most part, Jeff Toobin, this was about the law, was it not?

TOOBIN: It was. And, you know, there's a verb that came into usage --

BALDWIN: Borked.

TOOBIN: As a result of that. You know, getting borked. And, you know, it's interesting, that word has different meanings to different people. To conservatives, it means being tarred unfairly, being abused by the congressional hearing process. Democrats, to this day, are very proud of those hearings because they say Bork was rejected because his views were too extreme -- too extreme in their conservatism.

So this is a subject that still gets a lot of people angry all these years later because the issues are still very much on the front burner and they are hot button issues in terms of -- and privacy. I mean that dispute he was having with Joe Biden was about a case called Griswold versus Connecticut, which said that states could not ban married couples from buying birth control. And Bork had been critical of that decision and Biden was incredulous that he could be critical of that decision. And those fights are still going on.

BALDWIN: It is incredible to think that because he did not get the position, it was Justice Kennedy and how much of that then influenced, you know, who we have on the bench today and the decisions that are made in 2012.

Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much.

TOOBIN: Good to talk to you.

BALDWIN: From coast to coast, complete strangers, they're finding a way to honor and remember the 26 Sandy Hook Elementary School victims. We will show you the many, many random acts of kindness, next.

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