[Mattingly:] Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand facing scrutiny for the way she handled a sexual harassment complaint involving two people in her office. Politico wrote the story this morning and says the woman making the allegation resigned in protest last summer. CNN's Athena Jones, spoke with an aide to the senator this morning and CNN and Athena, I think, everybody is trying to figure out what these all means? What can you tell us about what's happening right now?
[Athena Jones, Cnn National Correspondent:] Hi Phil, well this is certainly not a good headline for Senator Gillibrand who has made a name for herself as a champion of the Me Too Movement on Capitol Hill. She spent years fighting to prevent sexual assault and harassment in the military, on college campuses, changed how it's handling on Capitol Hill, so she's coming under scrutiny now because of the handling of this case. We're talking about a staff or the Politico did not, this accuser Politico did not name. CNN has not been able to identify her yet. We have are trying to reach out to the staffer who was accused, the former staffer, Abbas Malik, who was accused of making sexually harassing remarks last summer. Now, Gillibrand's office says that they handled this just as she has called for these situations to be handled. Let me read to you a statement from the senator herself. She said, "These are challenges that affect all of our nation's workplaces, including mine, and the question is whether or not they're taken seriously. As I have long said when allegations are made in the workplace, we must believe women so that serious investigations can actually take place, we can learn the facts and there can be appropriate accountability. That's exactly what happened at every step of this case last year. I told her that we loved her at the time and the same is true today." Of course, this staffer was not satisfied with that. But as this aide pointed out to me, look, what Senator Gillibrand and her office say, they can't avoid this sort of thing happening in any office place just the fact that she has a campaign in the Me Too Movement does not mean that she won't have people accused of harassment on her staff. They argue that they handled this case as it should have been handled and extensive investigation. They interviewed several employees, seven of them. They launched investigation as soon as they were told about this accusation. They did not find evidence of sexual harassment in this case. Phil.
[Mattingly:] Athena Jones in New York, very important story. And Rachael I think a very explosive story but she's given the senator's role and a lot of these things. What's your read on kind of happens next with this?
[Bade:] I think her statement was interesting because she says in there, you know, this process was handled correctly, we looked into this and we moved on, basically. But here's the problem. That staffer stayed on her in her office since this incident occurred for months and then when Politico started asking questions about it, she dismissed that staffer. So that raises questions about did she actually handle this the correct way? And for Gillibrand, this is an issue that she wanted to, you know, if she runs for president, this is going to be front and center. She talks about this often ever since she came to the Senate, for military sexual harassment when Brett Kavanaugh was getting confirmed. She was one of the most vocal critics saying, believe the women. And so if that's her public position, you know, privately clearly she's got an issue here.
[Raju:] And this such a centerpiece not just of the presidential campaign but also in her Senate career.
[Bade:] Right.
[Raju:] The one issue that she has tried to be on the fourth run off and this is also going to remind folks about the role she played with Al Franken as the fourth run.
[Bade:] Yes.
[Raju:] Calling for Al Franken's resignation the hurt a lot of Democrats. A lot of Democratic donors are not happy about that. So clearly people are all going to say, we'll look what happened? How did you handle this in your office? This statement today by her is not going to be enough. She doesn't have to answer questions about this at least today and in the coming days and weeks and we'll see others respond. One person is not responding, Al Franken and we reached out his office this morning, no comment.
[Mattingly:] Enough of Al Franken, yes, there will be more to this. Keep an eye on it for sure. All right, up next, are Democrats tired of waiting for Beto?