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Subpoenas Issued in Russia Probe; Trump on Mueller Investigation; Job Milestone for Trump. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 04, 2017 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: John King. Thanks for sharing your day with us.

The president heads off today for a 17-day break from Washington. And the Congress, on vacation, too. Here's a safe bet. The Republicans won't be bragging about their half year report card.

Plus, a strong July jobs report pushes President Trump past a milestone. More than 1 million new jobs in his first six months. That's good news. But, some important context. More jobs were created in those same six months last year when Barack Obama was president.

And as the special counsel investigation enters an important, new chapter, the president says, pay no attention and falsely labels it all a Democratic charade.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Russia story is a total fabrication. It's just an excuse for the greatest loss in the history of American politics. That's all it is. Democrat lawmakers will have to decide. They can continue their obsession with the Russian hoax, or they can serve the interests of the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: More on that in a moment.

With us to share their reporting and their insights, Abby Phillip of "The Washington Post," Naftali Bendavid of "The Wall Street Journal," CNN's MJ Lee, and Jackie Kucinich of "The Daily Beast."

In addition to blaming Democrats last night, you just heard him, for Russia election meddling investigations that are all led by Republicans, the president offered some advice for the special counsel and his investigators.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What the prosecutor should be looking at are Hillary Clinton 33,000 deleted e-mails, and they should be looking at the paid Russian speeches and the owned Russian companies. Or let them look at the uranium she sold that is now in the hands of very angry Russians. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The crowded in West Virginia loved it. The "lock her up" chants that were 2016 Trump rally staple, revived last night. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, though, has his own plan and it is one that suggests this Russia cloud over the Trump White House will extend for months and months and maybe months more to come. CNN has learned the special counsel is using a Washington, D.C.-based federal grand jury for subpoenas and other investigative tools. And that the scope of the investigation has now expanded to included not just 2016 interactions between Trump associates and Russians, but also financial dealings by the Trump organization and Trump allies that go back years.

Our justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz joins us with more.

Shimon, when it comes to the financial records, what specifically is the special counsel looking at.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: All right, so there's a whole host of issues, different financial dealings we're told that he's been looking at specifically with Trump properties, things that are related to Trump Tower in New York. Some of their real estate records, going floor by floor in some cases looking to see if there were any -- any interesting connections to the Russians. And so far we've been told they have found some interesting connections. That is the investigators have found some interesting connections.

You know, it's kind of why Bob Mueller hired all of these different prosecutors, 16 prosecutors, with various backgrounds. And many of them specifically with financial -- you know, they have a history of investigating financial crimes. And, you know, they're historically very well-known, seasoned prosecutors from various offices around the country.

KING: And, Shimon, this was an investigation that obviously started because of 2016 Russian election meddling. Perhaps meetings between Trump associates in 2016 with the Russians. Why are they going back as far as we know to 2013?

PROKUPECZ: Well, they're very curious about the time he spent, that is the FBI and the prosecutors now, are very interested in the time he spent in Russia in 2013 during the Miss Universe Pageant. It was a time when he was meeting with -- they believe was meeting with a lot of very -- some of the wealthiest people in Russia and perhaps may have built some relationships there. And they really want to see if it's family and other associates have sort of been conducting business with them since that time.

KING: Interesting to see how the president will react to details about that. He did draw that red line, saying it should be just about 2016.

Shimon Prokupecz, thanks very much. Continue the investigative work. We'll keep in touch.

Now to the president's rally rant last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Most people know there were no Russians in our campaign. There never were. We didn't win because of Russia. We won because of you.

They can't beat us at the voting booths, so they're trying to cheat you out of the future and the future that you want. They're trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Who's "they"? The president said Democrats last night as the "they," they're trying to cheat you. The Republicans run the Congress. There are Republican majorities on every one of the handful of committees looking into this. The Republican deputy attorney general named Robert Mueller, special counsel, he was appointed by Donald Trump, the Republican deputy attorney general, and Bob Mueller himself has a Republican pedigree. Why is the president doing this? What's the politics behind it?

ABBY PHILLIP, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it's also -- I think he's also talking about Republicans, too, because I think he's aware that there are many Republicans who are pushing back on this idea that he can somehow disband the special counsel. There's a bipartisan bill being introduced right now to protect the special counsel from just that kind of thing.

[12:05:39] I think this speech last night, the offensive against the special counsel, was all about protecting the base from -- from kind of being swayed by some of this news that's coming out. I think it's a sign that they are actually worried about this.

For a long time it has been enough for Trump to say, hey, it's all fake news. Hey, it's the Democrats. Hillary Clinton is just upset that she lost. But it's got -- the investigation has both broadened and its deepened in such a way that I think there is a real risk to the base here. And that's why Trump is changing his pitch to his supporters and making sure that he frames it as something a little bit more robust so that he can really make a case to them that they should pay no attention to the preponderance of evidence out there. This is a very serious investigation.

JACKIE KUCINICH, "THE DAILY BEAST": And it's worked for him in the past, this us against them mantra. He used it throughout the 2016 campaign. And it really galvanized a lot of his support around him. And you heard that reiterated last night. This wasn't a rant to me when I listened to it. This seemed very structured. This seemed very controlled. This message, we heard it from Sarah Huckabee Sanders throughout the week. I can't remember it was this week or the last week, frankly, but you've heard this start -- this refrain, this message start to come out of the White House and it almost -- almost feels like discipline.

KIND: Also feels like discipline. And somewhat -- I remember, you know, covering the Clinton investigation, the investigation, yes, it started at Whitewater, ended up about his personal conduct. But the constant line from the Clinton -- to keep the Democrats when the impeachment thing started was to say, this is Republicans, Republicans, overreach Republicans, which is the way -- a little bit from President Trump last night.

: Yes, I mean this new, rhetorical line that when they're attacking me, they're attacking you.

KING: Right.

NAFTALI BENDAVID, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": And it's the voters who voted for me that are being insulted by this. And, hey, how many Russians are there out there, you know? It's not the Russian that won the election, it's you. So -- and what that does is it, in effect, makes it that when people criticize him, he's sort of saying, hey, they're criticizing all you good Americans out there who voted for me. And I think it's a fairly effective rhetorical device. We'll see if it caches on, but it's something they definitely started doing recently.

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: And I thought this rally was pretty revealing in terms of what is going on inside President Trump's head right now. We have seen a pattern from President Trump, whenever he feels like he's under siege, he sort of hunkers down in his comfort zone. And his comfort zone are these campaign-style rallies. You know, to keep this in context, he campaigned last night in West Virginia, a state that he easily won, a state that he would not have much trouble winning in the general election if he were to run again, talking about these kinds of things. And, you know, you could tell from the crowd's reaction, they reacted well when he said things like, this whole Russia investigation is a fabrication. I think he feels like he is under attack and he needs that kind of validation from his supporters.

KING: And when you take what we heard last night from the president, and put it in the context of what we see in the reporting. We just heard from Shimon, the CNN reporting, some excellent reporting, fresh reporting in "The Wall Street Journal," "The New York Times" as well. There's been some excellent reporting in "The Washington Post." Excellent reporting these days (ph) about how this is expanding, number one. There's a grand jury, which usually means, which these things happen, months and months and months over the Trump White House, back to financial records that well pre-date the 2016 campaign.

Remember, in the interview he did recently with "The New York Times," the president was asked about this and whether -- if he found out Bob Mueller was looking into his personal information finances would that cross the line.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHMIDT: Mueller was looking at your finances, your family's finances, unrelated to Russia. Is that a red line?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would that be a breach of what his actual (INAUDIBLE) --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would say, yes. Yes. I would say yes. By the way, I would say, I don't -- I don't -- I mean it's possible there's a condor or something. So, you know, I sell a lot of condo units and somebody -- somebody from Russia buys a condo. Who knows? I don't make money from Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He was also asked in that same conversation if he would fire Bob Mueller if Bob -- if he found out Bob Mueller had expanded his look into these things. And he said, I don't know. You know, it's too early to ask that question.

Now he knows. And we should -- every time we have these conversations I like to say, the president knows a lot more than we do because his lawyers are telling him and his associates are telling him what documents they're being asked for and the like.

His team has tried to send the signal, oh, he's never going to fire Bob Mueller. Is that -- do we believe that?

BENDAVID: I think it would be very poetically difficult to do it. It may be that in his heart he'd love to. But the fact is, he'd have to order Rob Rosenstein, who is now heading the investigation in the sense that Sessions has recused himself, to fire Mueller. I would be very surprised if Rosenstein himself doesn't resign and create sort of a Saturday Night Massacre-type situation.

[12:10:05] So I think it might be very frustrating for the president at times, he's said as much, but to actually get rid of Mueller or tell him what to do, I think politically that would be very difficult.

LEE: And I think this new development is a really clear and stark reminder that Mueller's mandate is actually quite broad. You know, the president would love to be able to draw these red lines. He would love for his finances and his past business exchanges to be, you know, off limits. But clearly he doesn't have the ability to do that. And I think what is the key thing from CNN's news reporting last night, and I agree, my colleagues have been doing an excellent job, is less so that Trump and his associates finances and past business dealings are potentially being looked at. It's more that this could potentially be the thing that investigators are looking at as the most promising for potential conclusions that might be drawn. And, of course, at this point, we don't know what those conclusions might be.

KUCINICH: And I think it's also -- it's part of the new challenge for secretary, now Chief of Staff John Kelly, is keeping the president level, keeping him focused on what the tasks at hand, be it legislation, be it some -- another initiative that he's pushing, and keep away from the Russia investigation, which clearly is a trigger for him.

We already saw him trying to mend fences with Jeff Sessions. There's reporting this week that he gave Jeff Sessions a call and said his job was safe. So you see him already making moves, trying to settle everything down and really create a more productive White House for this president.

KING: And I assume also not just Secretary Kelly, or General Kelly, Chief of Staff Kelly, others in the Trump White House and the Trump legal team, which, by the way, I should say, they've said, this is a grand jury underway. We want to cooperate. We want to get this over as fast as we can. So the public statements from the Trump legal team have been cooperative.

They also understand that, yes, there are a few voices in Congress saying Bob Mueller should go or Bob Mueller has overreached his line, but for the most part even Republicans are saying leave Bob Mueller alone.

Listen here, our Dana Bash sat down with two of the key senators on these issues, people not afraid to stand up and get in the president's face a little bit, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: I believe that the special counsel has a very broad mandate and he should follow the leads wherever they may be. And thus I do not think his investigation should be constrained beyond the mandate that he was given when he was (INAUDIBLE) --

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And the president called that a red line.

COLLINS: The president can't set red lines for Bob Mueller.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: All right, Senator Murkowski went on to say well put or well said to that point.

I mean they have to understand that at the White House. That, you know, the president can go to West Virginia, he can complain about this, but they're not going to get any help in Congress, any real help, you know, serious help from people if they start complaining about the scope of the investigation.

PHILLIP: Right. And beyond that, Congress has also does some very practical things to prevent a situation in which Bob Mueller could be fired. They've already said they're not going to confirm another attorney general nominee which, you know, if Trump tried to sort of change the head of the DOJ in order to move a chain of command down to fire Mueller, that would not be an option.

And, also, they've -- they've not gone into a real recess over this next couple of weeks because they don't want to allow any sort of shenanigans in which recess appointments might be able to put someone in place who could lead to a Mueller firing situation.

I think when I talk to people who have talked to those -- this White House, they get the sense that they're allowing Trump to vent, allowing him to talk about it and to be upset about it, but that on some level Trump knows that he has no good options here. And there -- I don't think many people expect at this point that he will actually carry out. KING: And back to your point about the political argument -- again, I

just want to restate the case. The Republican Congress left state (ph) in pro forma session so the president can't do anything. We a lot talk about blaming the Democrats. These are Republicans keeping an eye. We'll come back to this a little bit later in the program.

But next, a million new jobs in the first six months of the Trump presidency. So why is his approval rating on the economy under water?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:18:22] KING: Welcome back.

It didn't take long for a robust jobs report this morning from the Labor Department to find its way into the president's Twitter feed. Excellent job numbers just released and I have only just begun, the president said. Many job-stifling regulations continue to fall. Movement back to the USA.

Let's take a look at those numbers today, and the president certainly has reason to celebrate. This goes back to the Obama administration. But here you are in the Trump administration, the unemployment rate now 4.3 percent, 16 years ago last time it reached that low.

More importantly for the president, more than a million jobs added in the six full months of the Trump presidency so far. That's a good number. But remember during the campaign, the president said, get Obama out of the way, we'll have a Trump jobs boom? If you actually compare these six months of Trump with the same six months last year, the last year of Obama, job growth under President Obama was actually more robust than it is so far under President Trump. That's just the so far, but he said, get Obama out of the way, things will get way better. Not yet, actually.

And this is important. Most of the job growth has been in the health care sector, the services sector. The president said manufacturing would come back. He said mining would come back. He said his infrastructure program would bring construction jobs. Again, not yet. Only 28,000 new construction jobs so far in the Trump administration. Manufacturing, up more than that, nearly 50,000. That's pretty good news.

Coal mining, the president was in West Virginia last night, only 300 new coal mining jobs added during the Trump presidency so far. That number's actually down 200 from last month. You would think very differently if you listened to the president last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And as you've seen, I've kept that promise. As president, we are putting our coal miners back to work. We've ended the war on beautiful, clean coal. We've stopped the EPA intrusion. American coal exports are already up.

(END VIDEO CLIP) [12:20:19] KING: Is there a risk here? And I'll say this right up front -- we grade him every month because the numbers come out every month. In terms of his promises to the coal industry, his promises and regulations, we need to look six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, because if you start easing the energy and environmental regulations, it's going to take a while.

But at the moment he's in West Virginia last night saying, I've kept my promise. At the moment, he hasn't really. It's too soon to, you know, grill him for that, but is there a risk that those people think, where are those jobs?

PHILLIP: Well, I mean, I -- as I've always said about jobs numbers, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. So when they're good, they're good. You might get a good boost out of it. But if they go bad, you kind of have to own that, too.

I do think that Trump is not wrong to make sure that his supporters know even when incremental progress is made. Even if not as big as what he had hoped for or what he had promised them. That it's kind of like a base maintenance tool that most politicians would be wise to use more often. But at the same time, like you said, in six months, you know, we're talking -- if we're talking about a couple hundred coal jobs, that's not going to completely turn around coal country in most parts of this -- of this country. And, ultimately, that issue needs to be dealt with in order for Trump to have a really good argument going into his own re-election.

KING: The economy's usually a president's best friend. But, you know, but this president's still under water if you ask people to approve or disapprove in the economy. Why is that?

BENDAVID: Well, I mean, I've come to think on this whole question of, you know, I think a lot of Democrats felt like, well, of course he won't be able to revive the coal industry, because that has to do with much larger global factors and then they'll see. And then all those coal miners, they'll turn on him. They'll vote against him. They'll be against him politically.

But I actually don't think that's going to happen. I think this is much more an issue of identity. They sort of feel like Trump's on their side. They feel like he's against the environmentalists, against the government. And so I have this feeling that no matter what happens, let's say the coal industry doesn't revive, he'll blame other people, he'll cite other factors and probably a lot of his people who are supporters now will continue to support him later.

KING: And he comes -- I think you're making a critical point about his success and he comes and talks to them and he treats them with respect.

KUCINICH: Maybe -- go ahead.

LEE: Well, I -- go ahead.

KUCINICH: Manufacturing, I think, is much more of a danger zone for Trump because he's promising all these manufacturing jobs coming back, and they are. But the thing he has not -- he's never addressed is automation. That is -- these jobs aren't all being shipped to Mexico. They aren't all being shipped abroad. A lot of them are just, as it happened with Carrier, one of the most famous examples that he himself created, he's got all these jobs coming back, well, they weren't. They were cut. And part of it is because of automation. And the administration hasn't addressed this. And it's -- that's not going away. That's going to continue.

KING: Here's one piece of good news for the administration. Again, we'll see if it continues. You're right, live by the sword, die by the sword. If you read these reports every month, we can go to Vegas on them every month. But if you look at wage growth -- if you look at wage growth and compare at this same time last year, waging had gone down a little bit during the Obama presidency, about 74 cents weekly earnings, they'd gone down in the six months. In the six months of Trump, your weekly earnings in the United States on average have gone up $5. That's a good sign for any president. If people start feeling it in their pocketbook, they're not going to worry so much about the number of coal jobs or this or that. If your personal situation is better, you get happy, that should help a president.

LEE: Sure. And I think we can have a pretty long debate about how much credit does the president actually deserve for the numbers that we saw this morning. We can do an industry by industry analysis. But the bottom line is, that 4.3 number is a number that most people, I think, can wrap their heads around. And, you know, we talk so much about the president not being able to stay on message, that he's so easily distracted. Can he actually stay focused in touting these job numbers?

Well, I think he can because we've seen over and over again that his primary preoccupation is how he is perceived, especially by his supporters. And that is why we saw him go to a place like Vest Virginia. I think one of the most fascinating things that came out of the transcripts that were released between the president and the leader of Australia was that he talks so often about, this is going to make me look bad. This is not going to be a -- this is not going to be a good look for me with my supporters.

KING: Right. Right, he does -- he keeps -- he remembers the campaign.

LEE: Right.

KING: Whether he's talking to the prime minister of Australia or back at West Virginia.

Everybody sit tight. Up next, the president's West Virginia road show and the grand jury that doesn't quite fit the blame the Democrat strategy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:28:26] KING: Welcome back.

We know the president is 24/7 angry about the Russia election meddling investigations, but how he vents that anger can be very telling. This is last night in West Virginia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Have you seen any Russians in West Virginia, or Ohio, or Pennsylvania? Are there any Russians here tonight? Any Russians? They can't beat us at the voting booths. So they're trying to cheat you out of the future and the future that you want. They're trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want with a fake story that is demeaning to all of us, and most importantly, demeaning to our country and demeaning to our Constitution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Blaming Democrats is a simple party loyalty play. The president's numbers, we discussed earlier, slipping a bit with his base. And that partisan framing is designed to keep that slip from becoming a slide. But it's also a diversion from the truth. Of course some Democrats are partisan about the investigations, but the investigation that matters most doesn't involve Democrats and Republicans. The special counsel investigation, led by the former FBI Chief Robert Mueller, has moved now to an important new phase. One that extends the cloud over the Trump White House for months, maybe even longer.

CNN legal analyst Michael Zeldin joins us now, former federal prosecutor, who's worked on similar investigations.

Michael, just help the folks out at home who might not understand what it means when a special counsel goes from his office to having an active grand jury to help with the investigation. What does that tell us?

[12:30:02] MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. So you normally start these investigation with an informal process of interviewing witnesses. Then you cross over to the formal process of convening a grand jury.