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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

NY Times: Reporting Reveals Mulvaney Deeply Involved in Aid Freeze; Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is Interviewed About Ukraine Aid Freeze; Washington Post: President Trump's Lawyer Got Involved in Back-Channel Talks with Maduro. Aired on 8-9p ET

Aired December 30, 2019 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:29]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening.

Tonight new reporting on some of the central facts, the impeachment case against President Trump. "The New York Times" citing previously undisclosed emails and documents, as well as interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials providing perhaps our best look yet at the decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine, which the president allegedly withheld in exchange for Ukraine announcing investigations into Bidens. It was, according to that reporting, very much a top-down affair driven by the president with Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney deeply involved in the aid freeze and other senior officials pushing back.

National security adviser John Bolton for one, also Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. As for Mulvaney, he is described as attempting to facilitate the president's wishes despite warnings such as this one from top budget officials against withholding what was after all congressional-mandated spending.

Quoting now from "The Times": The aide, Robert Blair, replied that it would be possible but not pretty. Expect Congress to become unhinged if the White House trying to countermand spending passed by the House and Senate, he wrote, in a previously undisclosed email. And he -- and he wrote, it might further fuel a narrative that Mr. Trump is pro- Russia.

Now, according to "The Times", those carrying out the president's orders to freeze the aid, for the most part, did not know about the pressure campaign on Ukraine's president. However, a testimony in the House shows Mick Mulvaney could be the exception which is why -- one of the reasons why Senate Democrats want to hear from him and three others, all four for whom the president has blocked from testifying,

In a moment, one of "The Times" reporters on the story. But, first, the latest from CNN's Boris Sanchez just outside Mar-a-Lago.

So, do we know the president has been working on any kind of strategy for the Senate trial since he's been down in Mar-a-Lago?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, it appears at this point that President Trump has been trying to sort out strategy for a Senate trial while here at Mar-a-Lago by quizzing allies, aides and advisers over how he should handle things moving forward. The president apparently seeking input from a multitude of sources and we're told by people close to the president that he keeps hearing from allies that he needs to bolster his White House legal team, specifically, they encouraged him to bring on a scholar in constitutional law.

The feeling amongst some close to the president is that White House counsel Pat Cipollone could use some help. They don't feel he's going to give the president a TV moment that he's looking for. And as you know, Anderson, the president wants a show.

Coincidently, there was a constitutional law scholar at Mar-a-Lago over the past few weeks and Alan Dershowitz, a frequent defender of the president, a staunch ally of President Trump. There are still some other open questions out there as well. Notably, just how involved some of the president's allies in the House are going to be in a Senate trial. People like Congressman Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, et cetera, and also whether we are going to see those live witnesses that the president has demanded but Republican senators have been less than enthusiastic about Anderson.

COOPER: He was golfing today with Lindsey Graham. Is that right?

SANCHEZ: Yes, that's correct. Lindsey Graham, someone who the president is frequently golfed with on the links with him today. We're told that Senator Graham has been frequently meeting with White House counsel Pat Cipollone in recent weeks.

He's actually not only the congressman from South Carolina that was golfing with President Trump. A former congressman Trey Gowdy was also out on the golf course with President Trump. Remember, Gowdy was supposed to join the White House legal team a few months ago but couldn't because of lobbying rules and would have to wait until next month to jump on the team. Perhaps they get a bit of an early start golfing this weekend at the president's resort in West Palm Beach, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Boris Sanchez. Boris, thanks very much.

Joining me now is "New York Times" Washington investigative correspondent Mark Mazzetti, who shares a byline on the Ukraine aid story.

Mark, your piece, it's fascinating the amount of confusion and frustration it paints at so many levels. It wasn't only within the West Wing and Budget Office, it spread to the Defense Department, State Department and Congress as well.

MARK MAZZETTI, WASHINGTON INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK TIMES: Yes. What we endeavored to find out here was what was the origin of the freeze in Ukraine aid? Who were the prime movers?

You know, in the impeachment testimony over the last few months, a lot of people who testified only hear about it secondhand. We wanted to find out how it all began and what we found was that there was a lot more concern at the highest levels of the Trump administration pretty early on, including this email that you cited earlier from the end of June where Robert Blair, who's a top aide to Mick Mulvaney, basically lays out that this is going to go badly.

[20:05:12]

Congress is not going to take this well and if anything, he understated exactly what would happen. Of course, the Ukraine aid was part of the reason why the president was impeached.

So, you see a lot more when you dig into the sort of machinery of how this was held up a lot more concern, confusion, anger about what was going on.

COOPER: It was also interesting, I think, in the article that Mick Mulvaney would leave the Oval Office or the room when President Trump and Rudy Giuliani were discussing matters.

MAZZETTI: Right. And that was this idea that whatever President Trump and Rudy Giuliani were discussing was privileged through attorney-client privilege and Mick Mulvaney shouldn't be there. But what we found was that, you know, in the personal Mulvaney, there's more of a kind of blurring of the two channels that were -- that are at the center of this story.

One of the channels, of course, is the pressure campaign to get the Ukraine government to investigate the Biden family. The other is the freezing of aid. Those are the two parts of the quid pro quo.

What we found was actually, some of the players actually mixed more than was known previously, and some who said, well, we didn't really know that the aid was being held up for this specific political reason -- actually, there was more knowledge there. And I think that was one of the significant findings of our piece.

COOPER: Also, if one of the president's arguments has been that this wasn't a personal, you know, request, this was about U.S. foreign policy, had nothing to do with investigations of the Biden, the idea that Mick Mulvaney would make a show of leaving a room because what Biden -- what Giuliani and the president was discussing was based on, you know, the personal lawyer-client relationship on personal matters -- I mean, that's just not the case here. I mean, it goes against the -- you know, if it was just officially personal matters, then the whole idea is it's just confirmation that the president was pursuing his personal interests in a way that affected U.S. foreign policy.

MAZZETTI: Right. So that's what you see in this -- some of these new revelations is there's a lot more mixing of the official U.S. political -- sorry, the U.S. policy towards Ukraine and what the president was pursuing privately for his own political gain in finding dirt about the Bidens that many may have suspected for a long time that these things were, of course, never totally separate. I think there's more information now that they really were blurred.

COOPER: And just, finally, very quickly. At the end, there's an email from someone in the White House, I can't remember who it was, to someone in the Defense Department essentially saying, well, look, the Defense Department could have gotten the aid going and the responsibilities at the White House. And their defense official response, what was the response from the Defense Department?

MAZZETTI: The response was, I'm speechless. You must be joking.

The allegation was at the end of the day throughout this whole process, it was really not the White House's fault that the aid was held up, it was the Pentagon. This was from a top pentagon budget official who called the bluff and said we know what really has gone on here.

COOPER: Yes. Mark, it's fascinating, from "The Times". Thanks very much.

MAZZETTI: Thanks, Anderson.

COOPER: Again, the names you see all over "The Times" reporting and they happen to be witnesses the Democrats want to testify during the impeachment trial, four in particular -- Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton, Robert Blair, Michael Duffey. Republicans who are resisting the call, and as you know, House Speaker Pelosi has still yet to send articles of impeachment across to the Senate.

One other piece of late news on the subject, a federal judge late today dismissed a challenge by former Trump national security official Charles Kupperman to a House subpoena. Judge Richard Leon ruled that since there's no expectation lawmakers will refile the subpoena, the lawsuit is unnecessary. John Bolton, as you'll recall, declined to go before the House until that lawsuit was ruled on.

Let's get some perspective from House Judiciary Committee member, Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin.

Congressman, these new details from "The Times", how much do they change or do they change the calculus for the Democrats here?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, they fill in a lot of the details that were kind of abundantly directed to by Ambassador Sondland who said everyone was in the loop. "The New York Times" report suggests everyone was in the loop. Everyone understood it.

"The Times" report also demonstrates meticulous consciousness of guilt as the White House officials involved tried to cover their tracks and tried to displace their own responsibility onto the Department of Defense and other actors.

[20:10:04]

But ultimately, the report demonstrates that one person and one person only was at the heart of the entire scheme against Zelensky and that was Donald Trump. He hatched it. He conceived of it. He executed it, and he swept up all of these different government powers in the process.

And so, they withheld the money. That's a violation of the Constitution itself because under Article 1, it's Congress that decides where money should go and we appropriated that money. It cleared the Department of Defense anti-corruption protocol. And they violated the Impoundment Control Act by not notifying us formally they were trying to withhold that money.

COOPER: Does "The Times" -- did the details give Nancy Pelosi more of a reason to delay sending the articles of impeachment over to the Senate, do you think?

RASKIN: Well, no, I don't think so. I mean, look, we had 17 witnesses who were sworn under oath. And they all told us different parts of the exact same story, which is the president executed a shakedown of the Ukrainian President Zelensky in order to get him involved in our presidential campaign in order to smear Joe Biden, in order to rehabilitate this discredited conspiracy theory about 2016. That's the basic story. Now we could have had 18, 19, 20 witnesses if we were willing to drag this on for months, but all of them have told us the exact same thing.

In any event, what's put into the bill of indictment, which is what an impeachment is, doesn't have to be exhaustive. That's what the trial is for. And so, at the trial, the Senate ought to call everybody who they think they need to fill in any material element missing from the case.

What we don't have right now is any kind of alibi or any kind of alternative hypothesis about what happened. Everybody agrees this is not an Agatha Christie mystery. At this point, we know exactly what the president did. And I think that all of the senators have to have a fair and open mind, including the Democrats who must be open to any exculpatory evidence, any evidence that contradicts the overwhelming weight of evidence coming out of the House.

But unless that evidence comes forward, I would say that this is one of the most open and shut cases I've ever seen in my life.

COOPER: Certainly, Republicans see it differently, particularly in the Senate, and don't seem so inclined to bring forward any evidence or witnesses. How does this stalemate, if that's what it is, how does it get solved?

RASKIN: But look at the conundrum in what you just said. If they don't see it the same way and if the president is convinced this is a fraud, a hoax, B.S., everything that he's called it, then he should bring forward the witnesses that will show that. He should bring forward people to swear under oath why all of the other witnesses were wrong and why the House of Representatives' understanding of what took place is false.

But it doesn't help just to sit on the sidelines and throw tomatoes and eggs especially when Chief of Staff Mulvaney himself has basically confirmed it saying, of course, there are political quid pro quos in the way we conduct our foreign policy. And the president himself has basically said this is what I wanted from Ukraine, I wanted them to go after the Bidens. So, what we have essentially is one story, which is the president

tried to drag a foreign government into our election in order to get himself re-elected. And that is a high crime and misdemeanor. It's a crime in progress, and if we let it go, American democracy will be forever altered in a very negative way.

COOPER: Yes. And if all you have is eggs and tomatoes to throw -- that's what you end up throwing. I mean, it doesn't seem like they have an argument to actually make.

RASKIN: Well, you know, the president blockaded a whole series of witnesses in his cabinet, the secretary of state, secretary of energy, head of Office of Management and Budget. He can send those people to go and testify if he has an alibi, if he has an alternative story.

Right now, we have not seen one. And what we need from the Senate is a commitment to have a fair trial.

COOPER: Yes.

RASKIN: The reason why the Constitution uses the language of a trial and the chief justice of the United States superintendents the whole process is because it has to have the integrity of a trial. There got to be witnesses, there's got to be evidence. The jurors have to be open to evidence on all sides and then there has to be a fair outcome that the country will recognize as a real adjudication of what took place.

COOPER: Yes. Congressman Raskin, appreciate your time. Thank you.

Coming up, Rudy Giuliani, a new reporting on his involvement, a shadow diplomacy someplace far from Ukraine but kind of similar in almost every other respect.

Also, a rabbi joins us to talk about healing and spreading love in the face of the latest episode, and a growing wave of anti-Semitic hatred and deadly violence.

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[20:18:51]

COOPER: Even as we were learning more about how the freeze on aid to Ukraine played out and how deeply Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was involved, there was new reporting as well that another key player, the president's TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Only this reporting is on its role in another apparent piece of shadow diplomacy. "The Washington Post" citing people familiar with the affair, placing Giuliani at the center of an effort to negotiate the exit from office of Venezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro.

It came, according to "The Post", as news the White House officials and apparently against the wishes of the national security adviser John Bolton. Neither Bolton's lawyer nor the White House nor Giuliani responded to requests to comments from "The Post." I want to talk about it with CNN military and diplomatic analyst,

retired Rear Admiral John Kirby who served as State Department and Pentagon spokesman during the Obama administration. Also, Republican strategist and CNN political commentator Scott Jennings and Kirsten Powers, CNN senior political analyst and columnist for "USA Today."

Admiral Kirby, as a formers spokesman for the State Department, is this how diplomacy is supposed to work?

JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: No. Most decidedly not, Anderson.

I mean, two things count for a lot in diplomacy, accountability and alignment. And in this case, if "The Washington Post" reporting is accurate, Giuliani is out there meeting with Maduro, trying to negotiate a deal, basically a regime change for his departure.

[20:20:04]

That is not an alignment with the U.S. foreign policy on Venezuela, as stipulated by the Trump administration.

And, of course, the other thing is Mr. Giuliani's not accountable to the American people, to the Congress, or to the State Department for his actions. He's accountable to only one person, Donald Trump, and that means that he's undercutting U.S. foreign policy at a very critical time in a very important part of the world.

COOPER: Yes. I mean, Kirsten, it's -- I mean, I guess the president can have emissaries, you know, outside the usual chain. We've seen that with envoys and stuff. But usually, those are -- in at least a public role or public position. And they are usually trying to advance what is actually U.S. policy.

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. Well, you know, so this is similar to Ukraine in a lot of ways as you pointed out, but I think one way that it's different is that, you know, Rudy Giuliani and the Ukraine situation was -- was part of the scheme to pressure the government into digging up dirt on a campaign rival so that made it very distinct. It also was at odds with a lot of what the government policy was regarding Ukraine, except for the fact that Donald Trump support what he was doing.

So, to me, the question, where is Donald Trump in all of this? Is -- has Donald Trump asked Rudy Giuliani to do this?

I still think it's not the appropriate way to conduct foreign policy, but ultimately, if Donald Trump told him to do this much the way, you know, I think that he did in the Ukraine situation, it certainly seems that way, then that -- that actually is the government policy. It's at odds the same way Bolton was very unhappy what was happening with Giuliani regarding Ukraine, but in the end, the president decides, you know, whether or not he wants Rudy Giuliani doing this.

COOPER: Scott, is this appropriate? SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I don't know because

we don't know exactly in whose interests Giuliani was acting. I mean, he obviously as admiral curb Kirby said, he's accountable to the president in some way because he claims to be his lawyer. But he also apparently has paying clients in some of these situations, maybe in this one.

And so, although he's accountable to the president, there may be other people paying him trying to get outcomes which may or may not be in alignment with U.S. policy. And so, if I were the president here, even if I asked Rudy Giuliani to insert himself into the situation, what I would want to know is were you acting in the instructions I gave you and not trying to calibrate those against some other paying client which may or may not be exactly what I want? May or may not be exactly what I want?

So I think the muddy waters here. Who do you answer to? Who gave you the orders? And are you coordinating with the government appropriately?

You know, those are the kinds of questions you would want to know the answer to before you decide whether it was appropriate or not.

COOPER: Yes. Admiral Kirby, it's -- I mean, it's like if in past administrations, you had an envoy on Northern Ireland who also had business on both sides -- you know, in Northern Ireland and United Kingdom and you're not even paying the envoy and you don't know really who's working for. I mean, Scott makes a really interesting point.

KIRBY: No, he does. There's a lot of questions here we don't know from this story. I think we need to learn more before we rush to a particular judgment.

That said, when a president, and lots of presidents do this, they hire special envoys, those envoys report up through the State Department chain of command. There is accountability inside the chain of command and up to the president. And they're also fully vetted before they become special envoys.

In this case, I'm imagining, Mr. Giuliani hasn't been fully vetted for his activities with Maduro in Venezuela and he certainly doesn't appear at least from the reporting right now to have been working through and with the State Department along that chain of command. Again, it goes to accountability and that's worrisome.

COOPER: Again, Kirsten, it's not exactly -- we're talking about Ukraine, there's also turkey. Giuliani has business interests there. You wonder where else he was using his connections to the president to advance his own business interests in terms of, you know, lobbying the president on behalf of people who he had business relationships with.

POWERS: Yes, I mean, that seems to be what he's up to. And I think, you know, the president has to be aware of it. It's been widely reported on. You know, he's also representing people -- I mean, at a bare minimum, it's a conflict of interest to have the president's personal lawyer representing, for example, you know, somebody who's being investigated, Venezuelan who's being investigated for money laundering in Florida who -- you know, you have -- at least according to this report, Rudy Giuliani went to the Justice Department to ask them to drop the charges against this person.

That seems like a conflict of interest to me. And the -- I do feel like if this was the Obama administration and one of Obama's -- you know, Obama's personal lawyer was going and doing something like this, people like Scott would definitely be criticizing it.

COOPER: He's also in, Scott, a business -- I mean, Rudy Giuliani, let's be honest, he's in the money business now.

[20:25:01]

I mean, he was once a public servant and -- you know, obviously, he had the record he had. But he's in the business of making money. He does security contracts in parts of the world, you know, for -- in Ukraine and elsewhere, and has clients which are not -- you know, he's not making wills for them.

He's doing sort of obscure arrangements in, you know, some pretty interesting, odd places. And, you know, he has a lot of money pressures personally.

JENNINGS: Yeah, look. I don't begrudge people for having clients. I mean, he's a well-known person. He is he a lawyer. He's got a reputation. Obviously, people want to hire him and if that's how he wants to make a living, I really have no problem with that.

What concerns me is that if he is representing to the president one thing and saying, I'm doing this because it's in your best interest, but, in fact, it may be in someone else's best interest. And so, is he making the president believed, I'm helping you while he's making money on that? If I were Donald Trump, that would concern. Is he making money on my back and is he doing things ultimately that are going to come back and hurt me, say, I don't know, get me impeached by the United States House of Representatives.

And so, I just -- to me, I think if you're going to help the president and be his lawyer, that's fine. I think if you're going to make money and have consulting arrangements, that's fine. The mixing of the two combined with the fact that he is un-appointed and unelected, and therefore as Admiral Kirby said, unaccountable, it gives me a lot of pause. And frankly, it's not inured to the president's benefit here, which as a Republican, you know, bothered me.

COOPER: This is one of the reasons people pay their lawyers, as opposed to kind of letting their lawyers make up their salaries in other ways based on what they themselves are doing. Anyway --

JENNINGS: You get what you pay for in this world, Anderson. You get what you pay for.

COOPER: That is definitely true.

(LAUGHTER) COOPER: Admiral Kirby, thank you. Scott Jennings, Kirsten Powers, thank you.

Up next, new information on the attack on a Hanukkah celebration outside of New York City. We're going to have a live report on what authorities found after the suspect's capture. The story of one of the heroes of that sickening night.

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[20:31:23] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES: Dozens of congregants from 2-months-old to 80 had gathered in the Rabbi's home in Monsey, New York for a Hanukkah celebration and that's when a man yielding a large machete broke in and started attacking. The attacker is accused of stabbing five Hasidic Jews, Saturday night. He's facing new federal hate-crime charges tonight.

We are also learning tonight about a journal the FBI says it found in the suspect's home that shows "anti-Semitic sentiments," in their words, "they include references to Hitler and Nazi culture," that's a quote, "on the same page as the Star of David and a swastika." New York City police captured the accused man after tracking down his car through a license plate reader that captured the tag as he drove across a bridge into the city.

The gruesome attack on innocent worshipers also brought amazing stories of courage and quick thinking that go beyond just stopping the bloodshed. Our Sarah Sidner tonight has more on the story of one of those heroes.

SARAH SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Witnesses say the suspect slashed his way through a houseful of Orthodox Jewish worshipers injuring five and leaving behind a terrible blood-soaked scene during what was a Hanukkah celebration. Josef Gluck, was inside that home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEF GLUCK, STABBING ATTACK SURVIVOR: When I first saw him, he came -- I just saw him wielding his knife back and forth trying to hit the eyes (ph).

SARAH SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Was he saying anything?

GLUCK: Nothing. He didn't say a word to anyone inside. He just spoke to me outside once.

SIDNER: What did he say?

GLUCK: Hey you, I'll get you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Gluck managed to get out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEF GLUCK, STABBING ATTACK SURVIVOR: There were kids in there so I decided to run back in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Run back in, and fight. His only weapon, the furniture around him, now in shambles.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEF GLUCK, STABBING ATTACK SURVIVOR: I picked it up from the back and I pushed it in his face; he was three feet away from me. I hit him in his face and he started -- and I -- and then he started coming after me out -- towards the door.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: When the attacker left, Gluck followed at a distance, worried he was about to go into the synagogue next door. By then the ambulances were arriving, treating the wounded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH HANS, HATZOLOH EMS OF ROCKLAND COUNTY: It was a very jarring scene. There was a lot of blood. There were patients that were laying on the floor, severely injured and it's just something that you don't see every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: His team whisked away four of the five injured in the Hatzoloh Ambulance Service, a volunteer service made up of Jewish community members.

Less than two hours later police tracked down the suspect using a license plate number Gluck had given them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEF GLUCK, STABBING ATTACK SURVIVOR: Thousands of Jewish members went to sleep more calm that night, not worrying about the kids going to school the next day or their husband's going to pray the next day or they going shopping the next day, not knowing what's going to happen.

SARAH SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You were the guardian angel?

GLUCK: God is the guardian. I'm a messenger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Sarah Sidner is with us now.

I mispronounced the town, it's -- it's Monsey.

Sarah do we have any comment from the suspect's defense attorney? SIDNER: We do now. Michael Susman who is defending the suspect has basically said, look, him and the pastor of the family say that you know, they went through a bunch of these papers, some of the same papers that you were hearing prosecutors' cite and they say look this is the ramblings of a disturbed individual but they say they don't see anything that points to an actual anti-Semitic motive in this case. He says this is the person who has a long history of mental illness. This isn't about him being a terrorist or he should not be called a terrorist but indeed he is someone who has struggled with mental illness for much of his life. That is what we are hearing from his defense attorney in this particular case. And he is on a five million-dollar bond, in just those first charges, the five charges that are being brought. In the county there are of course now five more charges being brought by the Feds; those are all hate-crime charges, Anderson.

COOPER: And those hate-crime charges are based on [20:35:10] at least in part, not only the attack itself but -- some of the journals that this person kept. I mean there were -- from what I -- from what I've -- understand and what we know...

SIDNER: Yes.

COOPER: ... at this point, multiple...

SIDNER: Yes.

COOPER: ... searches about Hitler and hating Jews and why did Hitler hate Jews and where --religious areas around me (ph).

SIDNER: That's exactly right. They are basing it on what the evidence that they have gathered, not only that but also looking at some of the things that he searched for, like synagogues in New Jersey and New York. as well, they are looking into his electronics and his communication as well basing all of that on -- saying that's the evidence that shows that there is some anti-Semitism going on going on here, that this was based on hate which is why those hate charges came forward, Anderson.

COOPER: Yes. Sarah Sidner, thanks.

Even before Saturday night's attack, CNN was able to confirm that in New York City this month alone there were at least 10 separate acts of violence targeting Jewish people.

Here with his thoughts is Rabbi Shmuel Gantz, who spent Saturday night with the victims of the Monsey attack.

Rabbi Gantz, first of all I want to thank you for your time and I -- I'm sorry we are meeting under these circumstances. How is the community holding up right now?

SHMUEL GANTZ, DIRECTOR, CHABAD JEWISH CENTER OF SUFFERN: The community holding up. It's just a glimpse of the -- how the community is holding up. They had a welcoming of a New Torah, the next afternoon, after stabbing and the Rabbi himself, the Rabbi that his whole family was experiencing this tremendous terror came out to dance with the Torah, on the streets with...

COOPER: Wow.

GANTZ: ... thousands of fellow Jews and fellow brothers and sisters, just being there in their presence and adding some more light into this dark world.

COOPER: I mean that's -- not only...

GANTZ: It's just unbelievable.

COOPER: ... it's not only an extraordinary sign of -- a show of faith, it's a show of fearlessness?

GANTZ: You know, the -- as you know, we cannot double down on our strength and vigor to continue and we need to continue spreading goodness and kindness and light into this -- into this amazing world. You know, anti-Semitism has been going on in the capital of our anti- Semitism, in New York City, for many, many years as you know, and it spilled over to Rockland County and to Monsey but to stand behind and to be frightful (inaudible) so the tag line which really bothered me today, "Jews are going underground," and for me that was a very painful response to terror.

COOPER: What do you say to people in -- who are fearful, who do have a desire to remain quiet or you know, just try to -- who are fearful, how do you -- how do you not give in to that?

GANTZ: We listen to our children. We validate their questions. We listen attentively. We create warm environments around our children and our family. And at the same time we gain on our faith, that's been for the last 3 1/2 thousand years of Jewish people and the people in the world that have been -- especially the Jewish people have been through every hardship that a nation can endure.

And as we say in the Haggadah, Passover, we say, not one nation has been up on us, against us, but God is there for us and helps us and strengthens us and that's -- as a rabbi and as a community leader and as a father and as a family man, this is why -- how we have to talk to our community, talk to our fellow members in leadership and not to be frightened. And I think that's really one of the things that the anti-Semites, that the haters want us to do is to double -- to get down and be frightened, lock our doors.

And obviously we put all security measures -- in strong -- and strong place and we don't rely on prayer alone, we protect ourselves, we alert the security, we fight back if we need to, at times when we need to fight back but at the same time we know that God doesn't take a soul away from this world unless it's that soul's time. And you know, thank God, by miracles, these five people it wasn't their time, and God stood there with them in fighting them, and that's what we teach our children, the concept that we have to strength -- stand strong in faith.

COOPER: Rabbi Gantz, I really appreciate talking to you tonight. Thank you very much. GANTZ: Thank you Anderson. May we only share on some -- good occasions.

COOPER: And I wish you peace and strength in the days ahead. Thank you.

GANTZ: Thank you [20:40:10].

COOPER: Well ahead, the first votes in the 2020 election are barely a month away, and these are the Democratic candidates to beat (ph) in Iowa but the one who is in first place, still has some big challenges to overcome. That's next [20:40:18].

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[00:44:16] COOPER: Just 35 days now until the first in the nation, Iowa caucuses, 35 days. The numbers remain strong for Pete Buttigieg, a RealClearPolitics poll averaged this month, this shows the South Bend mayor comfortably among the Democratic front runners, edging out Bernie Sanders for the top spot; but former Vice President Joe Biden is on the rise, up about 3 points since early November; Senator Elizabeth Warren has dropped from first place to fourth in the same period; no other candidate gets double-digit support.

With me now is "Des Moines Register's" Political Editor, Rachel Stassen-Berger and CNN Political Commentator, Bakari Sellers.

Rachel, why do you think that Mayor Buttigieg is leading in Iowa and why the polls there looks so different than the polls nationwide?

RACHEL STASSEN-BERGER, POLITICAL EDITOR, "THE DES MOINES REGISTER": Well I think that -- I wouldn't (ph) have seen the candidates, a lot more than a lot of states nationwide. We've had more than 2,000 candidate-events so far and we are expecting another thousand before the caucuses so there's a different relationship that I wouldn't have with the candidates than most [20:45:09] of this -- the country.

COOPER: And Bakari, I mean Buttigieg obviously has this lead in Iowa. He -- reality is elsewhere, I mean in -- he has 4 percent of -- 4 percent of Iowans are African Americans. If you look at a state like South Carolina, there's a Quinnipiac poll has him polling at zero percent among African Americans. How much would a win in Iowa for Buttigieg actually mean for the broader race, for not necessarily New Hampshire but for South Carolina and beyond?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. There are couple of things. One, I mean it does have something to do with the number of visits, individuals have gone to Iowa but I think even more importantly, is the lack of diversity that you see in Iowa, the lack of diversity you see New Hampshire; that's where Pete Buttigieg is doing extremely well. The question is, can he overcome that hump and can he actually garner any diversity, can he actually garner any support.

I have said this a thousand times on CNN because it range (ph) true, the people who choose the Democratic nominees are my mom on her friends; they're African American women, that is who chooses -- of a certain age, that is who chooses the Democratic nominee. Those are the voters in South Carolina, those are the voters on super Tuesday, those are the voters throughout March; those are also the voters that are not reflective in Iowa.

Now if he does happen to win Iowa, which I will stay that we still have a -- yet a ways to go, it will give him a springboard. Pete Buttigieg, let me say this, for everyone watching, Pete Buttigieg is not the future of the Democratic Party, he's the right now. He's a great voice of the party. He just have an obstacle because of a lack of relationship with the black voters which I believe to be insurmountable at this time.

COOPER: Bakari, you were raised right, you did not say your mom's actual age which I have feeling she would be upset about since...

SELLERS: Of a certain age.

COOPER: ... she's of a...

SELLERS: Of a certain age.

COOPER: ... of a certain age. No. It's a line I used to use as well. I use as well. Very well, it's very nice.

Rachel, I -- historically, how much did things change in the last month leading up to the Iowa caucuses, in Iowa themselves?

STASSEN-BERGER: That's right. We've been doing a lot of looking at historic polls and what has happened in the past and that last month is obviously crucial. What we've seen up to this point, one of the experts on this process, has said it's you know, it's really the introduction phase, getting to know you, and the last month i and s about persuasion. And a lot of that comes down to organization on the ground, who can turn interested in people into committed people; who can turn on -- even on caucus night, one person's supporters, into their supporters.

And on the critique of Buttigieg and obviously Iowa is a very white state, it is also the state that -- where Barack Obama spring-boarded into the national consciousness back in 2008 so you know, it's a white state but he was the first African American president and so you can't necessarily equate a candidate's race and their attractiveness to Iowa.

COOPER: Bakari, I mean even if Vice President Biden doesn't win Iowa or New Hampshire, how much of it all do you think that hampers his road beyond?

SELLERS: Not much. I mean I think that -- one of the things that has to be said just as we're here talking about and evaluating and analyzing Pete Buttigieg's, is that Pete Buttigieg is going to be the best Pete Buttigieg he can be; he's not Barack Obama.

One of the things that has to happen though for Pete, Elizabeth, Amy Klobuchar, the list goes on and on, Cory Booker, et cetera, those individuals who are not Bernie Sanders, those individuals who are not Joe Biden, is that they have to win Iowa.

Joe Biden's going to be just fine. If Joe Biden finishes in the top two, three, four, in Iowa, New Hampshire, he's going to be fine. He's going to do well in Nevada. He's going to do well in South Carolina. He's going to do well on super Tuesday.

The same goes for Bernie Sanders. I mean at the end of the day, there's no one who's shown outside of Bernie and Biden, that they have any longevity. I think that Iowa plays a unique import right now. The uniqueness is that, there are certain people who have to win Iowa, and right know if anyone wants -- if anybody wants to tell you they know who's going to win Iowa, they're lying to you. I mean I think that we can just go back to 2003, in December of 2003, and John Kerry is running third or fourth, and John Kerry ended up winning that race and becoming the nominee. I'm not sure we'll have anything that drastic but there still are people...

COOPER: Right.

SELLERS: ... who can -- who are running third and fourth. I still tell people that Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, a number of people can still win Iowa right now, it's still up for grabs.

COOPER: Yes. Thirty-five days, a lot could happen.

Rachel Stassen-Berger, Bakari Sellers, thanks very much. Happy New Year.

Coming up, I want to tell you about a break-out artist -- who was a break-out artist, became a musical legend, if you don't know about her you should, just ahead I'll talk to Linda Ronstadt, ahead of the new CNN film, "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice [20:49:48]."

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[20:53:57] COOPER: She's won 10 Grammys, had 11 platinum albums, and was a true break out artist and a musical legend. In her own time, Linda Ronstadt was a joy to watch, still is, and to hear and is now the subject of a new CNN film, "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice."

I sat down with her not too long ago, at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, in Washington, to talk about her incredible music, the illness that stopped her from performing, and about politics.

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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES: Hearing the diagnosis how -- what is that like?

LINDA RONSTADT, MULTIPLE GRAMMY WINNER, RETIRED POPULAR MUSIC AMERICAN SINGER OF THE POST-1960S: What I was shocked. It wasn't what I was expecting. I had this tremor; I went to the doctor and I expected he was going to say I had a pinched nerve and that he could fix it. You know, he said, "Well, I think you might have Parkinson's disease," and I was totally shocked. It took him about a year after that to come to the diagnosis, and then took a little bit longer to come to Supranuclear Palsy.

COOPER: Initially they thought it was Parkinson's and then they realized...

RONSTADT: It had (ph) progressively...

COOPER: ... it was (inaudible)...

RONSTADT: ... (inaudible) different ways that you walk, that they can -- and they -- I also read that they can diagnose Parkinson's really early by listening to the voice -- to their voice; since my voice had been recorded so much at the time, I'd like to see if I was right about starting in 2000 but I'm sure I was because I [20:55:10] know the feeling.

COOPER: It seems particularly cruel to have something that affects your voice...

RONSTADT: Well...

COOPER: ... at first beyond -- before really even anything else?

RONSTADT: ... it's a strain in my family relations because some of my family in Tucson are Republicans and instead of talking about that, we sing together and we'd have a great time.

COOPER: Singing is what brought your family together?

RONSTADT: Yes.

COOPER: So what -- so know that you don't have singing what...

RONSTADT: Well now have to be careful because we've had so much taken away from us by this administration, that I'm not willing to let him take my family relationships away. My family we're -- the parts that were Republicans were fairly rational Republicans; we don't have that in that current White House.

COOPER: So you can still have family gatherings, it's just a little more strained?

RONSTADT: I try to -- just hum a little harmony someplace in the corner.

COOPER: To yourself?

RONSTADT: Yes.

COOPER: I've read that you -- have -- read a lot about the Weimar Republic in Germany, and you sort of see parallels between then and now?

RONSTADT: Well great parallels. I mean the intelligentsia of Berlin and the literati and all the artists were just busy doing their thing and there were lot of chances -- as Hitler rose to power, there were a lot of chances to stop him and they didn't speak out and the industrial complex, thought that they could control him, once they got him in office and of course he was not controllable.

And by the time he got establish he put his own people in place and you know, stacked the courts and did what he had to do to consolidate his power. And we got Hitler, and he destroyed Germany. He destroyed centuries of intellectual history, forward and backward; the you know, the people like Beethoven, and Garter, and Thomas Mann, became jokes, they became Nazi laughing stocks.

COOPER: I think a lot of people though would be surprised to hear comparisons between what happened then and now?

RONSTADT: If you read the history, you won't be surprised. It's exactly the same. Get -- find a common enemy for everybody to hate, when -- I was sure that Trump was going to get elected the day he announced, and I said he's going to -- it's going to be like Hitler, and the Mexicans are the new Jews, and sure enough that's what he delivered, you know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: She has a lot more to say. She's a remarkable artist, and a person. The CNN film, on Linda Ronstadt's life and career, premieres on New Year's Day at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

Stick around, our second hour of 360 is about to begin. We're reporting on the timeline that led up to President Trump's decision to put a stop to Military aid for Ukraine [21:02:30].

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