Michigan Governor Grilled On Flint Water Crisis; Michigan Gov. Testifies About Flint Lead Poisoning; Lawmakers To Mich. Gov.: You Need To Resign; Flint Mom Outraged Over Capitol Hill Hearing; Flint Mom: "I Don't Feel Like We Got Straight Answers"; Flint Mom Confronts EPA Chief Face-To-Face; Flint Mom: "EPA Lied"; Flint Mom: "We Will Never Trust A Water Source Again"
COOPER: Well, some of the adjectives used to describe today's testimony in the questioning blistering, withering, unrelenting. It's a fair description of the grilling of Michigan's Republican Governor faced today on Capitol Hill. Governor Rick Snyder he was there to testify, of course about the lead contaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan. A man-made public health crisis, and that's important to remember this was a man-made crisis. It happened on his watch. A disaster that state officials really ignored for 18 months. Even in the face of growing evidence. Also testifying before the House Oversight Committee, the head of the environment protection agency. Now from the start we should point out this hearing was incredibly contentious. Here's Sara Ganim.</s>SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Governor Rick Snyder desperately trying to hang on to his job.</s>SNYDER: And I kick myself every single day about what I could have done to do more.</s>GANIM: But members of Congress were not sympathetic.</s>CARTWRIGHT: Plausible deniability only works when it's plausible. And I'm not buying that you didn't know about any of this until October 2015. You were not in a medically induced coma for a year. And I've had about enough of your false contrition and your phony apologies?</s>REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D) MASSCHUSETTS: We have no evidence of you traveling to Flint for seven months, Governor. I'm glad you're sorry now. I'm glad you're taking action now. But it's a little bit late for the kids in Flint.</s>REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D) MARYLAND: The chief-of-staff told you about these concerns and you did nothing or he didn't tell you and you are an absentee Governor. You need to resign.</s>GANIM: It wasn't just Governor Snyder who faced blame. Republicans mostly focused their sights on President Obama's EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.</s>REP. JASON CHAFFETZ, CHAIRMAN, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Well, you just don't get it. You just don't get it. You still don't get it.</s>REP. PAUL GOSAR (R) ARIZONA: Not only am I asking you to be fired. If you're not going to resign, you should be impeach.</s>GANIM: Snyder and McCarthy face often the contentious hearing often bickering over who is more to blame.</s>SNYDER: Administrator McCarthy just get on the phone and call me. This is that not technical compliance again. This is that culture that got us in this mess to start with. Where is common sense?</s>GINA MCCARTHY, ADMINISTRATOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: I will take responsibility for not pushing hard enough. But I will not take responsibility for causing this problem. It was not EPA at the helm when this happened.</s>GANIM: McCarthy deflected several questions about whether the EPA did anything wrong.</s>REP. BUDDY CARTER, (R) GEORGIA: With common sense not have told you, hey, stop drinking the water.</s>MCCARTHY: Not at that point in time.</s>CARTER: Not that that point in time, and what point in time?</s>GANIM: As the questions continued, Flint residents protested in the hallways like they have been for months. E-mail show Governor Snyder's top staff members knew of problems four months before action was taken and the public was warned. Some members of the committee weren't buying Snyder's claim that he wasn't looped in.</s>CUMMINGS: There's no doubt in my mind that in a corporate CEO did what Governor Snyder's administration has done, he would be hauled up on criminal charges.</s>GANIM: Sarah Ganim, CNN, Washington.</s>COOPER: Now should point out at the Democratic debate in Flint, both Democratic candidates, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have called for Governor Snyder to step down. Also said that they wanted to see the results of investigations that hearing room today was packed. They needed overflow room to hold everyone who came to watch it, including dozens of people, as you saw in that report, from Flint. Now among those people was a woman named Leann Walters. Now back in January, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta met Walters' 4-year-old twin sons. And like thousands of children in Flint, they drank the lead-tainted water. One of the twins is much smaller than his brother. His mom says he's barely grown at all over the last year. Medical experts agree that there's no safe level of lead for children. A local doctor found that lead levels in Flint kids doubled and even tripled in some cases. Is hard to imagine after the city switched its water source to the Flint River to save money. Leann Walters joins me tonight. Leann, there was obviously a lot of anger and a lot of finger pointing from politicians. Do you feel you got the answers you wanted?</s>LEANN WALTERS, FLINT, MICHIGAN RESIDENT: No, I really feel like there should have been some more in-depth questions that were asked today. I mean I'm grateful for everything that they did ask, but I really feel like there needed to be more timeline questions that were asked today. Is trying to get us closer to the answer to what happened.</s>COOPER: Do you think there was enough of a focus on what's going to be done to actually help you and other families?</s>WALTERS: No, I don't. I don't think we got any really straight answers on that today. One of the things that Snyder had talked about today that really stuck out for me was when he was talking about the water infrastructure money that is put to the side for the whole state of Michigan. That is completely unacceptable.</s>COOPER: Now you are saying Flint should be the priority? The people of Flint have been poisoned. That should be priority number one?</s>WALTERS: Oh, absolutely. You know, you didn't change the water source in Michigan for the entire state. You changed it for the city of Flint. Therefore, as, you know, Snyder had final approval on that. The money needs to go to Flint first and foremost, then once our infrastructure is fixed, then the rest of the state.</s>COOPER: You confronted the EPA Chief Gina McCarthy today after the hearing. What did you want to hear from her or hope to hear from here?</s>WALTERS: Well I don't agree for the fact she would not take any responsibility on the EPA shoulders today for what has transpired. I mean the MDEQ is primarily at fault for this but EPA plays a part it to and does share blame. And I actually confronted her face-to-face about some of her testimony because what she was saying was a lie.</s>COOPER: The lie is what, that they knew and they are not really owning up to it?</s>WALTERS: Well the lie was that when she was talking about -- when Miguel's report came out in June, that the reason why they didn't step up and move faster was because they said it was localized to one specific area. That is a lie. Knowing there was no corrosion control in place at that time, you cannot definitively say it was localized to one area because you're breaking a federal law.</s>COOPER: Who ultimately is to blame here in your eyes? I mean, who do you feel holds the most responsibility or is frankly there a lot of blame to go around because there were a lot of hands in this?</s>WALTERS: There is a lot of blame to go around to all levels of this. But essentially, you know, she was making -- Gina McCarthy was making Governor Snyder look good today by the fact of what she was doing. And it's sad because as the leader of the EPA, the good people that work for the EPA, the people in region five that are on the ground in Flint really trying to do good and make a difference are the ones who are going to suffer for it was blow back today from what she said. And the way she presented the EPA today.</s>COOPER: We heard from the Democratic candidates when they were in Flint. Both now think Governor Snyder should resign. Do you think he should?</s>WALTERS: Honestly, I truly believe at this point, you know, we should use his guilt to get what we need in regards to our infrastructure. Why not use it to get the people what they need.</s>COOPER: That what if somebody came in his place, he might not feel it that same sense of personal failure?</s>WALTERS: Well, not so much that. It just that with him already being so neck-deep into this, he's got the guilt of what's happened. And I really feel it would hinder us time wise to, you know, have him resign or to have him be recalled in getting things done. It would make things go even slower than they are already going and they're going slow enough.</s>COOPER: And just finally how is your family doing?</s>WALTERS: My family is dealing with some serious health issues. My son is still not growing. My boys have speech issues and hand-eye coordination issues.</s>COOPER: Can you drink the water in your home now or do you still have to go travel, get bottled water to bathe to drink?</s>WALTERS: We still do bottled water. We will never trust the water source ever again just because we're told to.</s>COOPER: Leanne, thank you so much for being with us. And I'm so sorry for what you and your neighbors are going through.</s>WALTERS: Thank you.</s>COOPER: Hard to imagine what the people of Flint are going through and still are. Coming up, the Secretary of State, John Kerry says, ISIS is responsible for genocide in Iraq and Syria. An exclusive look inside rebel-held Syria, the damage on the front lines.