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President Trump Makes Controversial Statement about Congressman Assaulting Journalist During Rally; President Trump Lays out Midterm Strategy During Rally. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 19, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump praises a congressman for assaulting a journalist. Let's start with that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Any guy that could do a body slam is my guy.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump praising a reporter's assault as the world waits for answers about journalist's Jamal Khashoggi's apparent murder.

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: We ought to give them a few more days so that we too have a complete understanding of the facts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an opportunity for the Saudis to create a narrative that takes the blame off of the crown prince.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time to revoke the blank check the Trump administration has given to Saudi Arabia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Trump clearly wants to turn the border question into a midterm elections issue.

TRUMP: They refuse to change the laws. They also figure everybody coming in is going to vote Democrat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People coming into this country fleeing really bad situations. Unless you address that problem, you are not going to stop people from coming over the border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota on John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, October 19th, 8:00 in the east. At a rally in Montana last night the president praised a Republican congressman for assaulting a reporter last year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I had heard that he body slammed a reporter.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Any guy that could do a body slam, he's my guy.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Congressman Greg Gianforte was convicted of assault for grabbing a "Guardian" reporter named Ben Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slamming him to the ground. The president is glorifying that attack while at the same time trying to figure out how to respond to the apparent murder of "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi. For the past two weeks President Trump has refused to criticize the Saudi regime and accepted their denials. The "Washington Post" reports that some conservative lawmakers are even planning to defend the president by mounting a smear campaign to tarnish Khashoggi's reputation.

BERMAN: So in addition to supporting an act of violence against a journalist, the president also rolled out, I guess you could say the rest of his midterm message. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This will be an election of Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order, and common sense. That's what it's going to be. It's going to be an election of those things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, not subtle at all. Also not subtle, this shouting match between the White House chief of staff John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton. It was so loud we're told it could be heard throughout the West Wing. Reportedly John Kelly was so upset he left for the rest of the day. We'll tell you what that fight was about. Not at all disconnected to the message the president is trying to send.

Let's bring in CNN political commentator Van Jones, host of the Van Jones show, and CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp, host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered." Van I don't want to reveal what happens behind the scenes here, but when we were playing the clip of the president mimicking the body slamming of an American journalist, you were shaking your head.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I actually hadn't seen -- I had heard it, but I hadn't seen him actually acting it out like he's a wrestling federation kind of thing. I always go back to kids. I always go back to young people watching this sort of stuff on television. I used to want my kids and my nephews to watch the news. I'm not sure that that's a good idea anymore. That's literally the kind of thing that, if you saw it happening on a playground, someone making fun of somebody who got body slammed, it would be a teachable moment for every kid on that playground.

But yet it is not just the president doing it. It's the people laughing behind him. Something is happening where ordinary people, decent people who in other circumstances would stand up for what's right, are laughing and laughing and laughing about something that everybody knows in their heart is wrong.

CAMEROTA: So S.E., I had naively thought that a conviction for assault would take it out of the punchline repertoire and would take it out of the ginning of the crowd repertoire. This congressman had to plead guilty for assaulting a journalist. I didn't know it was going to make a comeback as a comedy schtick.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. Frankly, that might burnish his bona fides. Let's be honest about one thing. When the president goes to rally on behalf of a candidate, he usually doesn't mention the candidate very often. He doesn't know much about the candidate. I am imaging this is the only thing he has known about Greg Gianforte, so he went for it.

But Van is absolutely right. The appalling part of this was the crowd reaction, to me. I wasn't surprised that the president went there. This is perfectly in keeping with his M.O. I was shocked at how revelatory the crowd was to hear him talk about a member of Congress beating up a reporter, and the crowd eating this up.

[08:05:07] I have heard this described as tone deaf in the midst of the Khashoggi saga. That implies he is not aware, he is not hearing what we are all talking about. I think he's very aware, and I think -- I think he sees no daylight between these two things. He does not see one as a problem for the other, in fact.

BERMAN: Talk to me more about that. What do you mean exactly by that? What are the implications? Because people have been asking every day now, doesn't the president care that Khashoggi was apparently killed and dismembered?

CUPP: No, he does not. No, he does not. I think he realizes that is a political problem. But the president in his bones does not feel an affection, deep or shallow, for the democratic institutions that make this country great, one of those being freedom of the press. And that assault on Jamal Khashoggi was not just an assault on a man. It was an assault on an idea. That idea is freedom of the press.

And he does not have an intrinsic understanding of that. It doesn't move him. He doesn't get emotional about that. He is told he must care about that for political reasons, but it's an affect. He is wearing it to get through a scandal that, according to reporting, his son-in-law Jared Kushner is telling him to wait out because the outrage will die. I think he believes that.

CAMEROTA: And so that leads us to what the U.S. is going to do about this and what President Trump is going to do about this, Van. One option is just wait it out. This news cycle churns and eats things up and chews them up and spits them out at a really rapid pace.

JONES: Which Jared Kushner is apparently saying will happen.

CAMEROTA: Yes, as S.E. said. That's one option. Another option is to believe what sounds like may be the new Saudi narrative, which is somehow a general misunderstood the instructions. They were to detain, not dismember all of this. This it was a mistake.

JONES: A typo. That's why spell check sometimes, detain, dismember, there you go.

CAMEROTA: And so we just don't know what the president is going to do because thus far, he has believed the Saudi denial.

JONES: Look, I think it's pretty clear that the Trump White House would prefer for this to go away. Maybe he wants to wait it out, is willing to hear any kind of ludicrous excuse. The excuse that we have right now doesn't make any sense. I accidentally killed somebody. Afterwards, instead of calling them an ambulance, I called the bone saw people to cut him up. Who accidentally kills someone and doesn't call an ambulance?

CAMEROTA: Who brings an autopsy expert with you to detain someone?

JONES: Yes, exactly. So that whole thing, the thing is ludicrous. What they might to go is ludicrous. And the White House wanting, begging, wishing, praying that they come up with something that makes sense is ludicrous. I'm glad you have folks in Congress, including Republicans, who are saying this is a bridge too far. It's just not acceptable for this kind of stuff to happen in broad daylight.

Do not forget that this was someone working for an American news organization who was murdered and dismembered. America's government, America's president should be sticking up for that kind of person over anything else because the signal that it sends to other governments as well as the Saudi government is that it's open season on reporters, including reporters working for American news outlets. That cannot stand and even Republicans in Congress know that's true.

BERMAN: So S.E., in addition to do, which I do think actually is a feature of the president's midterm message. I think that praising Greg Gianforte, going after the media is something he very much wants to do over the next two-and-a-half weeks. We also got a preview of other things he will hit. Immigration, he's talking about the caravan coming from Honduras to the U.S. border as much as he humanly possibly can. And then he unveiled a new slogan on Twitter, jobs not mobs. What do you make of it?

CUPP: When he talks about two things lighting up the Republican base, Kavanaugh and caravan. I'm not sure who said it first. I saw Newt Gingrich, our old colleague, say it on FOX. I'm not sure if the president picked it up or Newt picked it up from the president. But he's not wrong about that. I think people tend to underestimate the amount of emotion and passion and in fact anger the Kavanaugh hearings stirred up in Republicans. And I am predicting a silent majority will really be motivated by what happened in that hearing, right or wrong, to get out to the polls. Immigration, as we know, has always been a feature of this president's campaign and presidency that also motivates Republican voters. So he's not wrong.

When it comes to jobs, not mobs, I wish as a Republican that he would talk mostly about jobs because he actually has a fairly good record there.

[08:10:01] Incontrovertible, in fact, when you look at the fact that we're at full employment for the first time in a really long time. The mobs part of it is really to the culture wars. That's really, again, what's going to animate some of these people who are very angry at the way Brett Kavanaugh was treated in their minds, the way that others have been treated in their minds. They see themselves in this, quote-unquote, persecuted man. And, so, I don't agree with it, but I don't think it's going to be ineffective.

CAMEROTA: Van, I have a theory that's been shot down every hour by every one of our guests, so I'm going to try it one more time. This shows my tenacity. I think he may talk about the caravan because obviously that gins up the base. But I think the illegal immigration numbers are not working for the president because they have gone up. Family illegal border crossings or family units, at least that's what it's being called, have spiked since he had to change his hideous family separation policy, and individual border crossings have gone up in 2018 over 2017. And my point is whatever he's doing is not working at the border, and won't that be disappointing to his supporters?

JONES: Wow.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

JONES: And you're sticking with that?

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: I'm sticking with that. I'm sticking with it. I'm going with the numbers.

JONES: Here's what I like about it. I like that it shows a faith in rationally, in reason, in numbers. And in the idea that somebody might ever hear what you just said and care.

BERMAN: He's such a nice guy.

JONES: I like that. I like that. But what I would say is that, no, that is not how it's going to work. If he ever admits the numbers are going up, he'll just blame the Democrats.

CAMEROTA: That is what he's doing. But the Republicans run the government.

JONES: Here's the thing.

CUPP: Alisyn, stop with your facts!

JONES: Exactly. Actually, I'm so glad that somebody who is in the industry like you are every day would still have that much faith in people and in reason. That's actually a good thing. My experience so far, at least the past three years, is that that's less powerful. And what's more powerful is the narrative. And the narrative is I'm doing everything I can. I'm trying to build this wall. I'm trying to drop nuclear bombs on these families and destroy, and the Democrats won't let me. Give me more power and I'll give you more outcomes. I think that in Trump world, every single fact gets turned into an argument for Trump to have more power.

BERMAN: The fact is, again, illegal border crossings are historically at a very low point.

CAMEROTA: I know that, but they have gone up. I'm just happy that Van didn't throw a glass of cold water in my face.

BERMAN: You are O for show. I want to end, if I can, on John Kelly and John Bolton who apparently had a shouting match so loud that it was heard throughout the West Wing, so heated that John Kelly reportedly went home in a huff afterwards. And it was over this subject. It was over this subject of specifically what Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is doing about it. John Bolton, I guess, went after her, John Kelly came to her defense. What are we supposed to do with this information of the shouting inside the White House over the subject?

(LAUGHTER)

CUPP: I was surprised it's not a more regular occurrence. I can imagine how frustrating it must be to work in a White House, especially when, like I said, there is actually a lot of things going right for this administration, but they tend to step all over those things at every turn. And so how do you effectively message? That's a com shop problem. And then how do you effectively staff, right? That's a chief of staff issue. How do you effectively enforce policy? All of those things are, I would imagine, impossible with the principal, President Trump, running every show, running the com shop, running the staffing, running the policy. It must be a very frustrating place to work. I'm surprised these blow-ups don't happen daily.

CAMEROTA: Thank you, S.E. Thank you, Van. Thank you for not throwing a glass of cold water actually in my face.

BERMAN: I love having them on together so much. We get doughnuts on Friday and we get Van and S.E.

JONES: Back together again.

CAMEROTA: Guess what, you can have more on it, because be sure to watch S.E. Cupp and van Jones back-to-back tomorrow night, "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" at 6:00 eastern followed by "The Van Jones Show" at 7:00 p.m. eastern. Van talks to vets who are running in the midterms and former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. That will be a great show.

BERMAN: I like Van and S.E. more than doughnuts, and I like doughnuts a lot.

President Trump gives Saudi Arabia more time to investigation to apparent killing and dismemberment of a "Washington Post" journalist. Can we actually trust the Saudis to investigate themselves? We'll discuss with a key member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY HOST: President Trump now says he believes the missing Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, is dead. The president met with Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, at the White House to get briefed on Pompeo's meetings with Saudi and Turkish officials. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

POMPEO: I told President Trump this morning that we ought to give them a few more days to complete that so that we, too, have a complete understanding of the facts surrounding that, which point we can make decisions about how or if the United States should respond the incident surrounding Mr. Khashoggi.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BERMAN: How or if the U.S. responds? Joining us now is Democratic senator Jeff Merkley, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Merkley, thanks so much for being with us. If the United States responds?

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY, D-OREGON: So what have we got?

BERMAN: What do you think that means?

MERKLEY: Well, it means the administration is trying to find a way through this in which they don't disrupt the relationship with Saudi Arabia in any fashion, and we've seen time and again the president essentially giving Saudi Arabia the space to investigate themselves and then we'll more or less accept their investigation, which I'm sure they're working to work out a detailed cover story to sell to the world.

BERMAN: Are you willing to disrupt the relationship with Saudi Arabia?

MERKLEY: I am because this is an issue of the United States standing up for human rights. And it's not just this individual issue. It's a set of things including the Saudi Arabia's support for terrorism around the world and their war in Yemen.

And this is a war that they have drawn us into and we've cooperated. We're refueling their planes, we're providing the precision munitions that they're using to hit civilian infrastructure, and we certainly are in a place where it's now just seeming this is transactional. They buy our stuff, so we will let them do whatever they want without criticism.

[08:20:00]

That is unacceptable for the United States as a leader in the world.

BERMAN: Senator, one of the things the Washington Post is reporting that is increasingly out there in the conservative media world is the idea that maybe Jamal Khashoggi brought this on himself. I guess that's the argument. He was an Islalmist. Maybe he's got a shady past. He interviewed Osama bin Laden. Should that matter?

MERKLEY: People do not bring their murder upon themselves. They do not - when you're seeking a certificate or a paper so you can get married and that is an excuse for potentially we believe he was tortured and killed. No, he's a journalist, he's an American resident, he resides in Virginia or resided in Virgina, he writes for an American newspaper. We - there is no excuse for what appears to have happened.

BERMAN: So Senator, I want to shift gears to immigration if I can because this is a subject that you talk about quite a bit. There is this group of migrants coming from Honduras, headed toward the United States. The reports, the numbers reach 4,000. Do you believe they should be stopped from getting here?

MERKLEY: Well, Mexico has put forward for the request for the United Nations to assist them in sorting out those who have legitimate fear of return, who have a foundation for potential asylum. I think that's probably a very useful step.

We have security at the border. We have a process for addressing migrants when they arrive. What we cannot do is proceed to treat children who United States and inflict trauma on them, treat them as criminals, inflict trauma on them.

And even today the administration is still pursing a plan to establish internment camps - family internment camps, lock children up behind barbed wire. This is something that's totally unacceptable. We are ashamed of what happened in World War II. We cannot allow this to be recreated.

And certainly this fundamental idea that inflicting trauma on children as a political message is an OK thing is not OK. And I think Americans have made that very clear to the administration, but no one there appears to be listening.

BERMAN: You're talking to a certain extent about the child separation policy which was widely condemned by members of both parties, but is there some way short of, as you put it, inflicting trauma on children of keeping people from crossing the border? Is it a goal, is it a Democratic goal, is it your goal to stop the flow of migrants from countries like Honduras and Guatemala?

MERKLEY: We do understand that a lot of the folks who are fleeing are fleeing drug violence, drug cartels, and the United States is tied up in this. And it's our demand (ph) for drugs that is fuelling that drug economy. President Obama worked to have a program to help address the issues in Central America so that those conditions would improve and not fuel this type of migration. I think that's a very, very smart way to proceed. But this administration seems to be uninterested. In fact, they almost want there to be an immigration challenge. They're almost cheering it on because they're looking for some way to create something to frighten the American people during an election.

I mean, we should be talking about the things that really frighten the American people, and that's healthcare system in which the administration is routinely in a method-after-method undermining and sabotaging its cost effectiveness and inflicting the challenge of preexisting conditions on the American people that you can't get insurance.

So, you know, they're running a side show for the election. We need to focus on the things that affect American's quality of life.

BERMAN: Although, as I said, I mean, this is an area you have focused on quite a bit, the border and how people are treated there. Is it safe to assume that you do believe that some number of those 4,000 people who want to get here should be allowed into the United States?

MERKLEY: You know, I met a young woman from Honduras who had arrived with her 65-day-old infant, Andrea (ph), and she could not get across the border until she proceeded to pretend to wipe windows - wash windows to get across the car bridge down there at McAllen Crossing.

And she said, "here's the situation. The drug cartel that control the neighborhood, my family took a loan from them. They couldn't repay it. And so, therefore they have targeted me and said when you're child is born, you will be shot if this loan hasn't been repaid."

They didn't have the money. She was targeted. She fled. She delivered her baby en route to the United States. I think that's somebody who traditionally would have a very strong case for asylum. She has to be able to demonstrate it, and quite - the challenge is is that it's very hard to do that.

So four out of five families who argue that they have a good case, if they can't demonstrate it, they don't get into the United States.

[08:25:00]

But we haven't established systems for addressing this, and immigrants, almost all of us have a family histories in which immigrants have been a strong reason we're here - fleeing persecution, fleeing famine. We have to have a certain sense of dignity and decency in recognizing that when people flee persecution we should greet them with the philosophy of the Statue of Liberty, not treat them as criminals and lock up the children behind barbed wire.

BERMAN: Senator Jeff Merkley, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

MERKLEY: Thank you, John. BERMAN: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: OK, new details about President Trump's role in scraping plans to move the FBI's headquarters out of Washington. Why was he involved in that? Well, newly released emails reveal the backstory.

BERMAN: Plus can Team USA Gymnastics recover from the Larry Nassar abuse scandal?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

So new this morning, internal emails reveal that President Trump was more instrumental than previously thought in stopping the FBI headquarters move out of Washington. Now, Democrats contend there's the hidden financial motive at play here. This is a really interesting story.

[08:30:00]