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Kavanaugh Denies New Allegations Ahead Of Hearing; CNN Reality Check: Trump Falsely Claims Women Were Paid To Make Up Stories About Him; Trump: China Is Interfering In U.S. Midterm Elections; President Trump Says North Korea Nuclear Deal Could Take Years. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired September 27, 2018 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And also, Rachel Mitchell's history as a victim's advocate. She made the case that she is known more for that than anything else.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right.
Meanwhile, another accuser, Deborah Ramirez, says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party while both were students at Yale. Does the Senate Judiciary Committee want to hear from her? We find out, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: The eyes of the world on one room in Washington. You're looking at live pictures of it right now. This is at the Capitol where in a just a couple of hours from now Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Blasey Ford says she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh 36 years ago. He denies that.
So, someone who will not testify -- who was not invited to speak at all is Deborah Ramirez, who says that Judge Kavanaugh thrust his genitals in her face at a drunken party at Yale and caused her to touch his genitals as she pushed him away. Kavanaugh denies these allegations.
Joining us now is John Clune. He is the attorney for Deborah Ramirez. John, thanks so much for being with us.
Yesterday, the president said "They're giving the women a major chance to speak" -- women, plural.
As far as I know, Professor Ford is the only one who will be testifying today. Is your client being given the opportunity to be heard?
JOHN CLUNE, ATTORNEY FOR DEBORAH RAMIREZ, KAVANAUGH ACCUSER: She has not been given the opportunity to testify today. She's not been invited. I don't think the president knew what he was talking about when he made that remark.
BERMAN: Sarah Sanders, who is the White House press secretary, moments ago, had this to say. Let me play it for you.
[05:35:05] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: And I don't question the stories but I certainly question the tactics that these individuals were more than willing to give interviews to "The Washington Post" and to "The New Yorker" but refuse to sit down with the Senate Judiciary Committee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: You client, Debbie Ramirez, did speak to "The New Yorker." Has she refused to sit down with the Senate Judiciary Committee?
CLUNE: We can't even talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee. So, no, she's not refused to sit down with them.
We tried to get them on the phone and they don't schedule phone calls with us. And we had a phone call scheduled. The majority party didn't show for the phone call. So, no, she's certainly not refused to do that.
But the thing that's important is that this is something that actually needs to be investigated by the FBI, not the Senate Judiciary Committee. They are not qualified to do this investigation.
And no respect -- or disrespect to Rachel Mitchell and the work that she's going to do today, but this is something that goes in the bailiwick of the FBI, and they're the only folks that can really do an investigation and investigate any corroborating witnesses that are available to talk.
BERMAN: I know you want the FBI to be involved but it doesn't look like that will happen.
But just to be crystal clear on this, your client would get on the phone with the Senate Judiciary Committee today? She would talk to the Republican staffers and the Republican investigators on this committee today?
CLUNE: No. She would get on the phone with the FBI today.
BERMAN: OK.
CLUNE: She would meet with the FBI now if they made that request. But, the Senate Judiciary Committee is not suited to do this kind of investigation and she's not going to cooperate with this kind of political theater.
BERMAN: OK. So to that extent, then, Sarah Sanders is not wrong. Your client will not sit down with the committee insofar as it is not a public hearing.
CLUNE: Unless they figure out some other way to have trauma-informed real sexual assault investigation into what happened, no. The only way that I can see that that would happen is be through the FBI. If there's another way, we would be happy to discuss that with the
Senate Judiciary Committee. But the fact that they won't even have a phone call with us gets in the way from having any kind of meaningful conversation.
BERMAN: But when you say phone call with us, you mean you. In this case, you don't want her to have a phone call with the committee, correct?
CLUNE: No. I'm saying we -- if there's another way for them to engage in this process that would be a meaningful investigation they need to talk to us about it.
BERMAN: OK, but not Senate investigators. You're precluding the possibility that it is Senate investigators.
CLUNE: I'm precluding the possibility unless they have -- going to explain to us how that would be a meaningful trauma-informed process.
What's going on today -- and again, no disrespect to Rachel Mitchell but this is not a real investigation into a sexual assault case and she's not going to engage in that kind of process.
BERMAN: Brett Kavanaugh says that he and Debbie Ramirez, your client, had a friendly relationship but were not friends. Is that accurate?
CLUNE: I don't know that I'd call it a friendly relationship. I mean, I think that they were acquaintances like a lot of people are acquaintances in college. They had common friends. That's about how I would describe it.
BERMAN: One other thing Brett Kavanaugh has said, and I want to read you this statement about the claim made by your client, is:
"This did not happen. I've never done anything like that. The New York Times could corroborate this story and found that she was calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it.
It sounds like an orchestrated hit to take me out. That's what it sounds like."
Now, "The New York Times" has since said they didn't run with the story because they didn't have an interview with Debbie Ramirez. Your client chose to speak to "The New Yorker," not the "New York Times."
But to the claim that your client was calling around to classmates to see what happened -- explain that.
CLUNE: Yes. So, I mean, Debbie Ramirez was very, very careful and very deliberate about what information she was putting out there. This is something that happened 35 years ago and so she was very careful about talking to other people and seeing if there was any way that her recollection of certain events was inconsistent with theirs, if she was misremembering anything.
And so she wanted to make sure that when she spoke to "The New Yorker" and when she gave that information it was something that she actually felt confident was accurate.
BERMAN: But the claim that Kavanaugh and some people supporting him seem to be making is that when she was making these calls she didn't remember it. She was trying to have her friends tell her that they did.
CLUNE: So what -- you know, what is important in any kind of conversation like this -- and Debbie was very careful about this -- is she did not want to suggest her memories to any other individuals. So she was very nondescript. I don't think she even identified Brett Kavanaugh by name.
She just wanted to know did you -- do you recall anything about an incident like this occurring while we were in college. And so that may have come off as though she was -- didn't remember anything. But the reality was she didn't want to suggest her own memories onto somebody else before they were able to give their feedback.
BERMAN: You know, it's interesting. We're going to hear from Professor Christine Blasey Ford in just a few hours.
We just heard a sound bite from Julie Swetnick, who is another woman who has accused Judge Kavanaugh in the last 24 hours.
We know your client's not going to testify today because she hasn't been allowed to -- not invited to testify in the open hearing. You say she's not going to speak to Senate investigators.
Is it possible she'll choose to speak publicly in the days before the Senate will vote on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh?
CLUNE: It's possible. And I know that you indicated that it doesn't seem like the FBI is going to do the investigation, but that's really what she's holding out for. So like I said, she would speak to them today if they -- if they were inclined to call her.
[07:40:10] BERMAN: Again, I'm not sure the FBI thing is going to happen based on what we've seen.
But again, she would be willing to maybe do an interview or speak publicly in the next few days?
CLUNE: I don't know the answer to that. I mean, she -- that's not something that we're planning on doing.
BERMAN: OK.
CLUNE: You know, the issue is to deal with what's going on with Senate Judicial and there's going to be any formal investigation into what happened.
BERMAN: All right.
John Clune, attorney for Debbie Ramirez, we appreciate your time. Thanks so much for being with us.
CLUNE: Thank you.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, John.
So, President Trump claimed at his press conference that four women were paid to make up stories of sexual misconduct about him. We have a CNN "Reality Check" for you, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: President Trump said a lot of things at his press conference yesterday, particularly about the women that have come forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against him. Are any of those things true?
CNN senior political analyst John Avlon is here with a "Reality Check." Hi, John.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, Ali.
So yesterday, we were all treated to the fourth solo special conference of Donald Trump's presidency and it was a freewheeling affair, shall we say? Talk of big fat con jobs and angry women and what appeared to be love letters from Kim Jong Un.
[07:45:00] But as you might imagine, there were more than a few statements that demand a reality check, and one that really caught our attention was the president's pushback after being asked why he tends to believe Brett Kavanaugh over his accusers.
Now, keep in mind that the president has more than a dozen cases of women who have accused him of inappropriate behavior of the groping and grabbing kind. Trump, of course, denies these allegations. But he took it to a different level yesterday, saying many of those women were basically, grifters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I was accused by four or five women who got paid a lot of money to make up stories about me. We caught them and the mainstream media refused to put it on television. They refused to even write about it.
There were four women -- and maybe more. I think the number's four or five. But one had a mortgage paid off her house -- $52,000. Another one had other things happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: President Trump went on to say that only Fox News reported on this story. Well, that's because most journalists have dismissed Trump's claims as where the women were made up to make up stories about him as shoddy or incomplete at best.
According to "The Washington Post" there is no evidence of payments made to any of the 13 women who have accused Trump in exchange for coming forward. Now, Trump appears to be talking about an attempt by some of the accusers' lawyers to raise money to defray legal expenses.
For example, Gloria Allred raised money to fund a defamation lawsuit by Summer Zervos who had already publicly accused Trump of sexual assault.
Allred's daughter, Lisa Bloom, set up a GoFundMe account for her client Jill Harth, which has raised less than a quarter of its $10,000 goal. She also facilitated a donation that paid off Harth's mortgage, but it's important to note that donation came well after Harth's accusations and there is no evidence to support the claim that she was paid to come forward.
And, of course, there's an irony alert here. Some of the truly eye- popping amounts -- $130,000, $150,000 -- were paid to get women not to talk by people close to Trump.
Now, at least one other Trump stat deserves a reality check. The president, again, explaining how popular he is with women despite ample evidence of a growing gender gap.
According to the latest CNN poll, less than three in 10 women approve of the job President Trump is doing. But that doesn't stop Trump from repeating one of this favorite rally lines.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know, I got 52 percent with women. Everyone said this couldn't happen -- 52 percent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: Now, if they say it couldn't happen that's because it didn't happen. In fact, Donald Trump got 41 percent of the female vote against Hillary Clinton. That 52 percent number was just for white women which, of course, is not the same thing as all women.
The president has said this before, he has been corrected before, and yet, he keeps repeating it. That's evidence of intent and would, therefore, qualify this as a lie.
And that's your "Reality Check."
BERMAN: And why does he keep repeating it? That's a great question, John Avlon. Thanks very much.
CAMEROTA: Thank you, John.
BERMAN: That music means the comics are having a field day with what's going on in Washington and the Supreme Court hearing we're about to hear.
These are your "Late-Night Laughs."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMES CORDEN, CBS HOST, "THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN": A third woman has now come forward accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct during his time in high school. That's three accusers or, as the Republicans call it, three strikes and you're voted in for a lifetime appointment.
JIMMY KIMMEL, ABC HOST, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!": These calendars make -- they do make the case for Judge Kavanaugh. I mean, look at this -- the detail.
There's beach week, first of all. And then, library, didn't have sex, didn't have sex, didn't have sex, finals, didn't have sex, still a virgin, no sex -- all good, good boy. So I guess that clears him, right?
STEPHEN COLBERT, CBS HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Trump knows what these women were going through.
TRUMP: That doesn't mean they had to report it because, in some instances, people keep it quiet. It's a very tough situation for a woman, there's no question.
COLBERT: And I should know. I have put women in that situation a lot, OK? I know what I'm talking about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: I love the calendar -- the Brett Kavanaugh calendar.
CAMEROTA: Does that remind you of your high school calendar?
BERMAN: I was never organized enough to keep a calendar. And if I did, though, I would have been proud to put "Grease 2" on that calendar, which Brett Kavanaugh did.
CAMEROTA: That's awesome -- all right.
Meanwhile, President Trump accuses a foreign power of interfering in the elections, but it's not Russia. More on that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:53:23] CAMEROTA: President Trump is making a serious claim of election interference, but only about China, not Russia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election.
They are trying to meddle in our election.
They would like to see me lose an election because they've never been challenged like this.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CAMEROTA: All right. Here to discuss this and more, we have David Sanger, CNN political and national security analyst, and national security correspondent for "The New York Times".
David, great to see you.
DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Great to be with you, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: The president seemed, for the first time, eager to talk about election interference.
SANGER: It's funny. That --
CAMEROTA: Funny because he was talking about China and he got to use all the same language that people have been using about Russia for the past two years. But he was talking about China and he said that it was retribution for his trade war with China.
What do we know about this?
SANGER: Well, first of all, he's using the language of the Russia investigation, talking about meddling and talking about election interference and the like.
What he's accusing the Chinese of doing is not actually cyber interference. The best they could come up with are that China is taking the retaliatory tariffs that they are imposing in response to the American tariffs and aiming them at districts, states that are sensitive to Trump that may well be the moment where the Chinese could put a little bit of pain in for voters.
So that's an old tactic that's been done by other countries and it's done periodically by the United States.
CAMEROTA: Well, he did mention this in a tweet yesterday. "China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news. That's because we are beating them on trade, opening markets, and the farmers will make a fortune when this is over!"
[07:55:10] So he is saying that they're adopting some of the tactics we saw Russia use.
SANGER: He's saying that they're using them but not adopting them.
The picture that they've showed was of a supplement -- newspaper supplement called the "China Daily." It's been coming out for years in newspapers, sold as an advertisement, marked as produced by the Chinese government.
"The Washington Post" runs it periodically. "The Des Moines Register" apparently runs it. And he has --
CAMEROTA: OK, that's different -- that's different -- SANGER: Yes.
CAMEROTA: -- than Russia planting fake accounts on Facebook.
SANGER: It is different and it's pretty well-marked.
And by the way, I'd have to say if you go and read it, it's pretty clunky. I mean, it's nothing that you're going to walk away thinking that your neighbor just told you to go vote a certain way.
CAMEROTA: Let's talk about North Korea because the president seems to believe that a lot has changed since he took office. That he says that we're on the brink of war with North Korea. And now, he has this winning relationship with Kim Jong Un ever since his meeting with him.
So here is the president on the timeline.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think we're really going (audio gap) to be very important. But we're not playing the time game. If it takes two years, three years or five months it doesn't matter. There's no nuclear testing and there's no testing of rockets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: There's no nuclear testing and there's no testing of rockets. That would be huge.
Is that true?
SANGER: There has been no nuclear testing and no testing of the missiles since November. That's terrific.
The problem with his timeline statement there is that what the -- it appears what the North Koreans are still doing is producing new nuclear material and producing new weapons.
So the arsenal appears to be expanding according to U.S. intelligence. Even Sec. Pompeo made reference to this when questioned about it in some testimony about a month ago. It's not certain because it's hard to see this from satellites, but it appears that production is still underway.
And there's the difficulty because if in the end, he doesn't get the agreement in three years or five (audio gap) whatever it is, the problem will have (audio gap). The president was saying they needed to disarm rapidly.
Remember what we were being told after the Singapore summit. The North Koreans had to produce a listing of all of their weapons, and of their missiles, and of their production facilities. They haven't done it.
Then they have to begin to stop production, get a freeze, and then figure out a way to get this stuff out. It isn't happening. Now, it's possible, as the president said, that something's going on behind the scenes that we just have not yet learned about, but that's where we are.
CAMEROTA: I want to get your take on the moment where the president was at the U.N. and addressing the world community, and there was chuckling after he said that he's accomplished more than any other U.S. president.
So watch this moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK.
That was not laughing at me. So, the fake news said people laughed at President Trump. They didn't laugh at me. People had a good time with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: OK, so that's his interpretation.
SANGER: Yes.
CAMEROTA: How did you see it and what did that mean? What did that laughter in that room mean?
SANGER: I think the laughter in the room initially -- to his statement which had been that he had the most productive first two years of any American president was.
But to the people in the room, it looked like this had been sort of the wrecking ball on American -- America's role in the world. He had pulled back from many institutions, he had gotten out of the Paris Accord, he had gotten out of the Iran agreement. He said, himself, he was surprised by it.
I think that second roll of laughter was that he sort of went with that laugh later on.
CAMEROTA: In a deft way, I thought. I thought that was sort of winning, right, that I didn't expect that. That was kind of self- effacing.
SANGER: You know, I thought he did that part well.
What worried me about the overall tone of the speech is that it was even more withdrawal from all of these major institutions and he put in contrast globalism and patriotism, as if you couldn't be a patriot to your country and still think about a global order.
CAMEROTA: David Sanger, always great to have you here with your perspective. Thanks so much.
SANGER: Great to be here. CAMEROTA: OK, we're following a lot of news. Let's get right to it.
BERMAN: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, September 27th, 8:00 in the east.
And we want to show you some live pictures. This is the hearing room on Capitol Hill where history is about to be made. Never before has a Supreme Court nominee or really, any nominee for any office faced the kind of allegations being made against Brett Kavanaugh.
You can see them testing -- testing the stage, testing the table, testing the microphones. This is the preparation going on just two hours before it's supposed to start.
Christine Blasey Ford says that Brett Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped her, held his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming.
In her prepared remarks, which she'll deliver -- again, just two hours from now -- she says, "Brett Kavanaugh's assault on me drastically altered --
