Sen. Elizabeth Announces Presidential Run; Trump Re-election Team Reacts to Warren Prior to Announcement; Warren Vows Not to Take Money from PACs or Lobbyists; Cory Booker Campaigns in Iowa; Democrats to Investigate, Trump Finances, Russia Ties
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again, everyone. Thank you for joining me this Saturday. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. We start with breaking news. The 2020 race for president is growing bigger by the day. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren just officially threw her name into the mix last hour.</s>SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I stand here today to declare that I am a candidate for president of the United States of America.</s>WHITFIELD: And she joins a rather crowded field of Democrats hoping to replace President Trump. Right now, Senator Cory Booker is making the rounds in Iowa. He's at a meet and greet in Marshalltown after a busy day and a half of campaigning in the crucial state. These candidates are entering the fray. Take a look as the Democrat Party is dealing with one explosive new report in Virginia politics. The latest surrounding Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax after a second woman came forward, accusing him of sexual assault, something he denies. Many of the 2020 hopefuls are now calling on Fairfax, the lieutenant governor, to resign. Let's start with CNN's M.J. Lee, live for us in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where Elizabeth Warren officially joined the presidential race and pledged her focus. Describe what it was like during her announcement.</s>M.J. LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is official, Fred. Elizabeth Warren is now a candidate for president of the United States. If you listen to her speech, you heard her say one word over and over again and that word was "fight." This is going to be so fundamental to her candidacy and her campaign, this idea that people need to come together to fight and take on a rigged system. Now, as much as fighting, though, I have to know there was mention of unity and bringing the country together and healing. When she said there's simply no room for bigotry in the White House. Take a listen to what she said.</s>WARREN: Whether it's white people against black people, straight people against gay people, middle-class families against new immigrant families, the story is the same. The rich and powerful use fear to divide us. We're done with that.</s>WARREN: Bigotry has no place in the Oval Office.</s>WARREN: This is who we are. We come from different backgrounds. Different religions. Different languages. Different experiences. We have different dreams. We are passionate about different issue. And we feel the urgency of this moment in different ways. But today, today, we come together, ready to raise our voices together until this fight is won.</s>LEE: Fred, her speech offered a good blueprint of the policy positions that are most important to her. No surprises there because these are the issues she has talked about so consistently, even over the last month after she announced her exploratory campaign on New Year's Eve. A take from her list: Her anti-corruption bill taking on Wall Street. Her support for Medicare for All. Her support for the Green New Deal as well. Her proposal to tax the rich, which she just unveiled last month. I was trying to count the number of times she said the word "Trump" in her long speech and it was only twice. When she was talking about the fact she believes this is the most corruption administration in living memory. However, even though she was reticent to say the word "Trump" in her speech, make no mistake about it, this is entirely about drawing a contrast between herself and the president of the United States. And this, of course, is going to be what we see in the next couple of months as more Democrats jump into the race, how different candidates can stand out and make the case for being the best candidate that takes on President Trump -- Fred?</s>WHITFIELD: All right. M.J. Lee, thank you so much. Meantime, President Trump's re-election campaign is already reacting to Senator Elizabeth Warren's decision to join the 2020 race. They did so preemptively before she took the stage. Let's check in with CNN's White House reporter, Sarah Westwood. Sarah, what caught the Trump/Pence campaign's attention on this?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Fred. President Trump's re-election campaign attacking Senator Warren before she started delivering that speech. They lashed out at her policy platform and, of course, they recycled the text on the controversy surrounding her claims to Native American heritage. Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign manager, said, in part, "The American people will reject her dishonest campaign and Socialist ideas like the Green New Deal. They'll raise taxes, kill jobs and crush America's middle class. Only under President Trump's leadership will America continue to grow safer and more prosperous." This is the first statement from the campaign against a prospective Democratic opponent. President Trump has not been engaging much on his potential challengers. Not been talking about various candidates who have started to wade into the presidential wrap, not Senator Booker, not Kamala Harris. But of course, they are not also mentioning him. This has really been going on without President Trump being a topic of conversation. But Trump has had a particular focus on Senator Warren. He's frequently used derisive nicknames like Pocahontas. He loves to talk about her. So we may continue to see this kind of rhetoric from Trump in the campaign now that she's officially in the race.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Sarah Westwood, thank you so much. Another Democratic presidential hopeful is out on the campaign trail. That would be Cory Booker. He's out in Iowa. We'll talk about him in a moment. Right now, I'm joined by Ron Brownstein, senior editor for "The Atlantic." And "The Atlantic's" White House correspondent, Elaina Plott. Good to see both of you. Warren did not hold back against the Trump administration. Listen to a portion of what she said.</s>WARREN: We need to change the rules to clean up Washington and end the corruption.</s>WARREN: We all know the Trump administration is the most corrupt in living memory.</s>WARREN: But even after Trump is gone, it won't do just to do a better job of running a broken system. We need to take power in Washington away from the wealthy and well connected and put back in the hands of the people where it belongs.</s>WHITFIELD: Ron, she went on to say Trump is not a -- he's not the cause of what's broken. He's just the latest symptom. Quoting her now, "kicking dirt on everyone else." Will that message resonate?</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Elizabeth Warren is the personification of the widespread view in the Democratic Party that Trump uses racism in the service of plutocracy, as the saying goes. He tries to divide Americans along racial and cultural lines to advance an agenda that benefits the affluent. That is, in fact, a widespread belief not only in the Democratic Party but among many political observers. I mean, you could see her strengths and her challenge in this announcement today. Her strength is that she knows why she is running. She wants to run essentially a class-based campaign on restoring the middle class. Running into the rich having too much power. She has an agenda that relates to that rationale. On a debate stage, she is going to look impressive. But she has two, I think, big challenges, Fred, just to put out right at the beginning. One, historically, white liberal Democratic candidates who can't get a reasonable share of African-American voters to vote for them don't win. That is just the absolute history, from Gary Hart to Bernie Sanders. That's the first problem. The second problem is that if Sanders runs, which all signs are he will, as our colleague at "The Atlantic" reported the other day, again, going to be moving closer to her, her lane could be very crowded. You could see assets on why she could be a strong candidate on display today. You can also see what the challenges will be.</s>WHITFIELD: You could see, she does embody the fighter mentality. She was up there professing about she had very strong messages being a fighter, holding the powerful accountable, and then saying, I'm quoting her now, "Race matters and we need to say so." But Ron thinks that is going to be to her detriment. That may not resonate. How do you see it, Elaina?</s>ELAINA PLOTT, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think Ron is right. It's not just something Elizabeth Warren has to worry about vis-a-vis African- Americans, but as we saw in Texas, Fred, with O'Rourke coming quite close to besting Ted Cruz in that Senate race in November, there are a sizable number of white suburban Republicans who are disenchanted with this president and may be very well looking for some reason to vote against him come with November. Elizabeth Warren is not that person. That's why you see so many political observers, including my colleagues at "The Atlantic," waiting with bated breath to see if someone like Biden does get in the race, to see if somebody like Sherrod Brown, who does speak to working class Americans quite effectively, to see if these people do get in the race. Once that happens and you have that progressive ring filled up and you have the more moderate ones start to get clustered, that I when I think this White House has to worry, in effect, that members in the, you know, on the fringes of the base will actually consider defecting come November.</s>WHITFIELD: While she made some pledges, you know, if elected president, she also made this pledge while on the campaign trail. Listen</s>WARREN: We also need to end the unwritten rule of politics that says that anyone who wants to run for office has to start by sucking up to a bunch of rich donors on Wall Street --</s>WARREN: -- and powerful insiders in Washington. So I'm opting out of that rule. I'm not taking a dime of PAC money in this campaign.</s>WARREN: I'm not taking a single check from a federal lobbyist.</s>WHITFIELD: So, Ron, you know, it's become very expensive to run. How will she make the money in order to stay in the race?</s>BROWNSTEIN: It is amazing. The biggest change in presidential politics really over the last 15 years if the development of the small-donor base that allows you to raise unprecedented -- look how much Beto has -- we talked about Beto O'Rourke raised in Texas from small donors. I think she will be able to raise money from a nationwide network of small donors. By the way, I'm not saying she can't get African-American voters to support her. I'm saying she must do it. It's been something that's tripped up white liberal candidates in the past. They haven't been able to. It's why you saw so much emphasis in her speech on racial inequities across a wide range of subjects, from home ownership to wealth building to criminal justice. That is the challenge for candidates like Elizabeth Warren. It's been the bridge too far for them in the past. It's something she has to figure out a way to get over, to cross that bridge if she's going to really stay in this race, you know, for the long haul.</s>WHITFIELD: And back to the money, I guess it's not unrealistic, you know, in modern times. Barack Obama, like it was $10 pledges online and, you know, really appealing to young voters. But, Elaina, you know, Elizabeth Warren, how will she -- I mean, she has the name recognition. She's been on the national stage for a very long time. But how will she be able to be viable by not taking PAC money, not taking lobbyist money?</s>PLOTT: I really don't think the concern should be too much about how she'll be viable, how she'll have the funds she'll need to run an effective national campaign. It's more about whether this line that I'm not going to draw a single track from a lobbyist or take any donation from a super PACs, does that resonate in 2019? This is, of course, something -- Barack Obama railed against the insider influence of Washington. Donald Trump did quite effectively as well. I think for a Democratic candidate to use this message most effectively, in trying to rally support from the middle class, has to look at specific policies from the Trump administration, such as tax reform ,and really note in specific ways in which it was not helpful to the middle class and was just beneficial to corporations and the most affluent in this country. I think just putting out there that you're not going to take checks from lobbyists is not the kind of message that actually proactively gets people to turn out.</s>WHITFIELD: All right.</s>WHITFIELD: Go ahead, Ron, real quick.</s>BROWNSTEIN: You can see, Fred, from the speech today, she is likely to stand out in the debates. I mean, she is probably the furthest ahead in the, quote, "ideas primary" on the Democratic side. She has a lot of specifics on a lot of subjects. I think that will help in her fund-raising. Part of the map she's got is Iowa and New Hampshire -- Bernie Sanders won -- only one of them will be viable after both, and that's right on a collision course early on in this calendar.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, we'll leave it there. Ron Brownstein, Elaina Plott, thanks so much to both of you.</s>PLOTT: Thank you.</s>WHITFIELD: I appreciate it. As I mentioned earlier, Senator Cory Booker, he's also out on the campaign trail. He's making his case to voters in Iowa today. Here's CNN's Rebecca Buck.</s>REBECCA BUCK, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: We're here in a bar in Marshalltown, Iowa, where Cory Booker is set to speak to a very crowded room of Democrats here, making his first impression on his first visit to Iowa as a presidential candidate. He had a full slate of events yesterday, traveling the state, from Mason City, Iowa, in the morning, to Iowa City in the evening. He finished up past midnight. He's keeping a busy schedule. It harkens back to his days running for city council in Newark and also for mayor, when he tried to knock on every door, meet as many people as possible. Booker saying no candidate is going to outwork him in the state of Iowa. This is a first-in-the nation caucus state. This is where the primary process begins. Booker's team is thinking, with a strong showing in Iowa, they can get a burst of momentum heading into the later states, New Hampshire, South Carolina and beyond. So this trip, they're laying the groundwork for that. Booker's message, that he has a unique set of experience among the other Senators running. He's the only one who was a former mayor. The only Senator in the entire Senate, he says, who lives in an inner city and can relate to those types of problems. He's also bringing a message here in Iowa of unity and love. Not going after the president. Not even going after Republicans, writ large. He says he's not in this race to beat Republicans. He's in this race to unite the country. Of course, it's too early to know whether that optimistic positive message is what Democrats will be hungry for in this election cycle but he's starting to make his case this weekend here in Iowa. Back to you.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Rebecca Buck, thank you so much. Meantime, former Starbucks CEO and potential 2020 candidate, Howard Schultz, will join CNN live from Houston to talk about his possible independent run in the 2020 election. He joins our Poppy Harlow Tuesday night, 10:00 eastern, right here on CNN. Still ahead, Democrats flexing their muscle. An oversight power opening new investigations into President Trump. I'll talk to Congressman Denny Heck of the House Intelligence Committee about what they hope to learn next.