CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Tammy Baldwin

Interview

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A[10:40:19] BERMAN: All right, in just a little bit on Capitol Hill, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, will be in the hot seat in what could be a defining moment when it comes to regulation of social media and the social networks. He will face lawmakers who will question him on problems plaguing his company including how Facebook let Cambridge Analytica harvest the personal data of some 87 million users.

One of the senators who will be part of this really important hearing today is Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

Senator, thank you so much for being with us. And I do want to talk about Facebook in just a minute.

SEN. TAMMY BALDWIN (D), WISCONSIN: Thank you.

BERMAN: But, Senator, if I can get your reaction to what has been this spate of breaking news over the last 24 hours, the FBI raiding the president's personal attorney, his home, office and hotel room, Michael Cohen. The president calls this an attack on the country. Do you feel like that's the case?

BALDWIN: You know, there was a high bar that needed to be met in order for the entry into Michael Cohen's residence and office and hotel -- hotel room. And that high bar means that there was probable cause. And this was not something that was conducted by Mueller, but indeed by the U.S. attorney in Manhattan who, by the way, is a Trump appointee.

BERMAN: Talking about Geoffrey Berman, no relation to me, who was actually appointed by the attorney general on a temporary basis, but is someone who maxed out in donations to the president, and is certainly a Republican here.

We just heard from Chuck Grassley, the chairman of Senate Judiciary, a Republican, moments ago who said it would be political suicide for the president to fire Robert Mueller, yet Republican senator leadership does not support any legislation that would protect the special counsel. What do you make of that?

BALDWIN: Well, certainly I do support such legislation, but I would argue that the rules are in place right now in order to -- first of all, the president himself cannot make that decision. It would have to be, you know -- it would have to be the deputy attorney general. And if he were to fire him, it falls under --

BERMAN: Right.

BALDWIN: -- the solicitor general's jurisdiction. And so certainly if the president is moving in that direction, I do believe we will be looking at some sort of constitutional crisis which I think we desperately want to avoid and certainly the president can avoid getting us into that sort of situation.

BERMAN: Let me ask you about Facebook now. You're just a few hours away from hearing from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. What do you feel like you need to hear from him today?

BALDWIN: You know, I -- first of all, I think we need to feel like Americans and Wisconsinites personal information is secure. Promises have been made. And we find years after the fact that people's privacy, their private information has been shared without their knowledge. And Facebook can't even answer to what it was used for, et cetera.

You know, I view this in very similar ways than I do the Equifax breach of nearly half of all Americans personal identifying information or Uber breaches and there are several others that have been announced just in recent days, that in the digital age consumers need to know who has access to their data, and needs to be notified if that access is breached.

In this case, we will not have Cambridge Analytica represented at the hearing today, and if -- if we're going to hear from Mark Zuckerberg that he doesn't know what they did with it, he doesn't know if they deleted the information as they said or as Facebook asked, that leaves us with a whole lot of additional questions to ask.

The other thing I want to hear from him is really an answer to some of the things we found in Wisconsin. Whether it was ads placed on Facebook, potentially from foreign countries, and what is going to be put in place in time for the midterm elections to make sure that we have gotten to the bottom of this and taken corrective actions.

BERMAN: Our Laurie Segall has done a lot of reporting on Facebook. And she reports that Zuckerberg is going to tell you that it's not Facebook's business model. He wants to clear up a misconception. It's not Facebook's business model he says to sell personal data.

[10:45:03] Do you feel like that might be parsing some of the language here?

BALDWIN: Well, I think we have a lot of questions along those the lines to hear precisely, you know, whether it's their business model, the question is, have they done it? And what were the consequences of that and how will they make sure that they're not going to do it again?

BERMAN: Wisconsin a key, you know, state in the Midwest, agriculture industry, we learned this morning that President Xi of China has suggested he might lower tariffs, he wants to lower tariffs for auto imports. This is something that President Trump has called for.

Do you believe that some of the president's pressure on tariffs has led to this reaction from China?

BALDWIN: Well, first of all, there have to be conversations going on between the U.S. and China. Certainly some of our agricultural products that Wisconsin is -- that Wisconsin produces have been under threat of increased tariffs. And, you know, we do know that China cheats in terms of a number of different ways. One is the theft of intellectual property, that's what some of these tariffs are focused on.

But we also know that many of their industrial enterprises are state subsidized, state-owned in some cases. I know that if Wisconsin farmers and Wisconsin workers have a level playing field, that they will compete and win. But I do think it's appropriate that we get that level playing field and go after China's cheating.

BERMAN: Senator Tammy Baldwin, thank you very much for being with us. We will all watch that hearing that you'll be part of today with Mark Zuckerberg. A very important moment. We appreciate it, Senator.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

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