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Democrats Face Leadership Battle After Midterm Elections; Roger Stone Reveals He Talked To Trump Campaign About WikiLeaks; CNN Reality Check: The Facts Behind The President's Closing Argument; Charleston AME Church Pastor Visits Pittsburgh Synagogue. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired November 02, 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] REP. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO: You know, I don't have any intention on doing it. I think somebody will and somebody should. But I'm not necessarily saying it needs to be me but it needs to be somebody.
And I think there's a lot of us who think we need more representation from the Midwest. We don't have any Midwestern representation in the House leadership now. And if we're going to rebuild the blue wall we need somebody who can speak to our base --
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.
RYAN: -- but also talk to some of these Trump voters who are very disenchanted.
I was just grocery shopping the other day and a woman who voted for Trump and voted for me, and just said what is this president doing? He's tearing our country apart -- and she voted for him.
BERMAN: So how do you reach them? How do you reach those --
RYAN: So those are the kind of voters we need to start --
BERMAN: So what do you differently -- and we're almost out of time here. But, what do you focus on differently? How do you --
RYAN: Yes.
BERMAN: -- win back, specifically, that voter?
RYAN: You stay focused like a laser beam on this woman or this family's economic interests. Their wages, they're losing their pensions, they're getting squeezed more and more on health care costs, repealing preexisting conditions.
Those are the things that people are talking about every single day so our economic message has got to penetrate to that particular voter.
They know Trump's playing this immigration card just to fire them up. They want us to be strong on the border but they also understand reasonable immigration reform.
But when they sit down and they get their pencil out and they're writing their bills every month, they want a political party that's advocating for their economic interests. And that's got to be the message in the Midwest, in the south if we're going to rebuild our party, which I think many of our candidates are doing.
Let's be very clear. Our candidates running now, these are all going to be close races. But they're talking about manufacturing -- whether it's manufacturing in Michigan, teachers' wages in West Virginia.
These are localized races that we've been organizing around economics in the local community. And I think that's why Democrats are going to be successful this year because of that economic message.
BERMAN: Congressman Tim Ryan, we appreciate you being with us. We appreciate your patience with the audio. We're glad it all worked out.
RYAN: Thank you.
BERMAN: Thanks so much for being with us.
RYAN: Thanks.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, moving on.
Roger Stone is admitting for the first time that he did communicate with the Trump campaign about WikiLeaks in the run-up to the 2016 election. Now the question is did Stone speak directly to Wikileaks or were these predictions that he was making about Hillary Clinton's e-mail dumps and they just happened to be timed perfectly?
More from CNN's Sara Murray.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New e-mails reveal Roger Stone was in touch with a senior Trump campaign official, Steve Bannon, about WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential race.
Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has copies of the e-mails, a source tells CNN -- part of its investigation into whether Stone actually had an inside track with WikiLeaks and whether he shared any of that information with members of the Trump campaign.
In an e-mail on October fourth, 2016, Bannon, then the Trump campaign CEO, wrote to Stone, "What was that this morning?"
Stone published the e-mails in a column Thursday for the right-wing "Daily Caller."
Bannon's e-mail came shortly after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange delivered a speech billed as an "October Surprise" --
JULIAN ASSANGE, FOUNDER, WIKILEAKS: I understand that there's enormous expectation in the United States.
MURRAY: -- but Assange didn't unveil any new information, angering some of Trump's supporters who were hoping for a bombshell on Hillary Clinton.
In a reply to Bannon, Stone explained the delay -- "Fear, serious security concern. However, a load every week going forward."
Stone says his e-mail was based on public information. During his media event, Assange promised more WikiLeaks material was coming.
Stone's move to publish the e-mails preempted a "New York Times" story Thursday about Stone's efforts to pitch himself to Trump campaign officials as a WikiLeaks insider.
At least one campaign official told investigators Stone told campaign officials he had ties to Assange, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
While Stone made a show publicly and privately, bragging about his ties to Assange during the 2016 campaign, he has since revised his story. Stone says he actually relied on publicly available information, tips from journalists, and a backchannel source, progressive New York activist Randy Credico. Credico has denied he acted as a backchannel.
ROGER STONE, FORMER TRUMP POLITICAL ADVISER: And then, of course, there is Mueller investigation poking into every aspect of my private, personal, business, social, family, and political life.
MURRAY: Stone hasn't been contacted by Mueller's team but nearly a dozen of his associates have. Still, it's unclear what charges, if any, Stone could ultimately face.
"The New York Times" also published e-mails showing Stone asking Bannon to help him get funding from GOP donor Rebekah Mercer to spread a story based on no evidence that Bill Clinton has a love child.
"I've raised $150K for the targeted black digital campaign through a C4," Stone wrote. "Tell Rebekah to send us some money."
[07:35:02] The request could run afoul with federal election laws. Stone says he never received any money from the Mercers and he maintains he is innocent.
STONE: So you have no crime in connection with the 2016 election or anything else.
MURRAY (on camera): Now, even though Roger Stone has insisted he's done nothing wrong, he has still said he wouldn't be surprised if Mueller brings charges against him. Stone says the charges would just be trumped up and designed to get him to flip on President Trump.
Sara Murray, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: All right.
Joining us now is CNN's chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. He is a former federal prosecutor and staff writer at "The New Yorker."
And I'm about to steal John Berman's great opening question.
BERMAN: OK, go for it.
CAMEROTA: OK. Is Roger Stone in more legal jeopardy today than he was at the beginning of this week because of the release of these e- mails?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Probably, a little. But look, there's one thing you need to know about Roger Stone. And I know you and Berman didn't go to law school so you may not know this phrase, but Roger Stone is a B.S. artist.
CAMEROTA: Describe -- what is that?
TOOBIN: Are you familiar with that?
CAMEROTA: No, I'm not familiar with that.
TOOBIN: He lies to everybody. He puffs up his importance. He -- you know, one of the things when you talk to people about Roger, the phrase you always hear is oh, that's just Roger.
And that may be an advantage in this current situation because his boasting about his inside knowledge of WikiLeaks may legitimately be a lie, and that may actually help him avoid getting charged because he may not have had inside information about WikiLeaks but was simply bragging about it to Steve Bannon. And that's what's peculiar and interesting about this situation.
BERMAN: I did not go to law school --
TOOBIN: Yes, but you know that phrase.
BERMAN: -- but I went to the school of life, Jeffrey.
TOOBIN: Yes, you did.
BERMAN: And while I know it's not illegal to lie to journalists, it is illegal to lie to Congress and Roger Stone did speak to Congress. And, Roger Stone told direct lies about these Steve Bannon e-mails to the newspapers this week. So it makes you wonder what he told Congress back then.
TOOBIN: That's his big exposure, that his early statements to Congress where he simply denied any involvement with WikiLeaks or with the Trump campaign on this subject -- that is his potential problem.
It's also worth remembering that if he did know about WikiLeaks' bad activities that, in itself, is not a crime. It is not a crime to know about a crime and fail to report it. So as is so often the case in Washington scandals it may be lying is the problem but the underlying conduct might not be illegal. CAMEROTA: Well, let's talk about that because he does seem to have had some sort of special information. So here are some of his deleted tweets.
On October second before the dump of the hacked e-mails -- "Wednesday, Hillary Clinton is done." That's awfully specific.
On the next day, "I have total confidence that WikiLeaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon."
Two days later, "Libs thinking Assange will stand down are wishing thinking. Payload coming."
So, I mean, these are -- and then, sure enough, that did happen. So this is not the crime, you're saying. If he had told the Trump organization about this it would have been a crime?
TOOBIN: Well, not necessarily. The crime would have been somehow assisting in the hacking -- in the underlying hacking. It is not a crime to know that a crime is about to be committed and fail to report it.
And those e-mails, suggestive though they are, are not absolute proof that he knew --
BERMAN: Yes.
TOOBIN: -- that these -- that these e-mails were about -- were about to be released.
There were lots of rumors out and about, about what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks was about to do. That could be classic Roger Stone puffery about oh, Hillary's going down, Hillary's going down -- the kind of thing he said all the time whether there was any basis in fact or not.
BERMAN: But this is an actual conversation between Roger Stone and the CEO of the campaign, Steve Bannon, about WikiLeaks. We didn't know that before this week. We didn't know that that had happened before this week.
That is interesting and that's something the Mueller team will want to look at. And yes, there's an issue of even if Roger Stone knew, what's the illegality there.
But step back to where we were at the beginning of this. I mean, this could -- if you follow this down or it turns out Stone knew more than he did and was talking to the campaign more than he did -- is a political adviser to the president was connected to in conversations with somehow near the hacking of Democratic e-mails by the Russians?
TOOBIN: Absolutely, and it certainly raises questions about what Bannon knew and when. And remember, everybody knows hacking is illegal.
One question you could ask is why was Steve Bannon looking into this at all? Shouldn't he have been saying this is illegal activity? I don't want to get involved in this. I don't want to know anything about it.
[07:40:00] Now, it is not a crime simply to ask what the heck is going on but when you think about the categorical denials we've had from the Trump campaign -- we didn't know anything about this, we were not involved -- this edges close to a refutation of that.
CAMEROTA: I know you don't have a crystal ball --
TOOBIN: I do not.
CAMEROTA: -- however, is it your --
TOOBIN: I have a tie with turtles on it --
CAMEROTA: I see that.
TOOBIN: -- but not crystal ball -- yes.
CAMEROTA: Is there any significance to the tie with turtles?
TOOBIN: My daughter is in town and I'm in a good mood, so I decided to wear a tie with turtles.
CAMEROTA: This is Jeffrey Toobin in a good mood, right now?
TOOBIN: It is. Do I look like I'm in a bad mood? I am in a good mood.
CAMEROTA: No, you look just like the Jeffrey Toobin I see every day.
TOOBIN: I am in a good mood -- yes, OK.
CAMEROTA: OK. So is it your belief shortly after the midterms, like within days, that Robert Mueller's investigation will reveal something?
TOOBIN: I do think we are going to see something from Mueller publicly in the next few weeks because he, unlike James Comey before the 2016 election, has been quiet in terms of all public activity. You know, some sort of report is coming soon. Obviously, he's going to have to make a decision about indicting Roger Stone or not relatively soon.
The issue of the president's testimony, subpoena, voluntary agreement, answering questions in writing -- all of those issues need to be resolved. I think -- I think we're going to see some sort of resolution an all three of those.
BERMAN: Jeffrey Toobin, happy.
CAMEROTA: Happy Jeffrey Toobin.
TOOBIN: I am happy. That -- do I seem like depressed?
CAMEROTA: Yes, you're like -- no, ebullient. I mean, just --
TOOBIN: No, I am ebullient.
CAMEROTA: -- overflowing with happiness.
BERMAN: You're a carnival.
TOOBIN: I am.
BERMAN: A human carnival.
CAMEROTA: You are.
BERMAN: All right, thank you --
TOOBIN: Yes, that's true.
BERMAN: -- very much.
TOOBIN: I am the freak show part of the carnival.
BERMAN: The president -- the President of the United States has been on the campaign trail with one clear goal -- fear. We'll get a CNN "Reality Check."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:45:31] BERMAN: Four days to go until the midterms. President Trump's closing argument loaded with claims that demand a reality check.
CNN senior political analyst John Avlon here with the facts -- sir.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: All right, guys.
As you know, to Trump, the midterm elections are all about him, which is why it's a little bit weird he isn't focusing more on his strongest suit, jobs and the economy. Instead, he's making it all about his nationalist ideology and confronting an immigrant invasion.
Take this latest campaign video which critics have called the most racist ad ever blessed by a president. It claims this cop killer was allowed in by the Democrats.
In fact, there's no record of his entry at all, but he was deported the first time during the Clinton administration. And when he returned to murder two police officers with an AR-15, that was during the Bush administration.
But it's the back half of the video that's the core of the president's closing message. Undocumented immigrants storming the border with a 5,000-person caravan of immigrants around 900 miles from Texas.
Now, the president has announced he will deploy as many 15,000 troops to meet them, so soldiers will be on the border enforcing our immigration laws, right? Wrong.
Actually, they can't. That's because of an 1878 law called the Posse Comitatus Act which blocks U.S. troops from enforcing laws on domestic soil. That means the troops can only provide logistical support to the border patrol.
And here's another stat to put this Potemkin policy in perspective. Those 15,000 troops are more than the number of soldiers currently stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan. You know, real wars, not metaphorical ones.
In fact, there are only three countries that have more than 15,000 troops -- our permanent bases in Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
Now, confronted with the idea he might be complicit in a political stunt, Secretary of Defense "Mad Dog" Mattis said we don't do stunts.
But that's what his predecessor, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel thinks it is, calling it a quote "political distraction of the highest magnitude."
And when asked about the president's comments that troops could meet rocks with rifles, Hagle said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK HAGLE, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: That's a wanton incitement of unnecessary violence. Not in my lifetime have I ever heard those kind of words from a President of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: And what's this all cost? Well, that has yet to be determined. But, "The Washington Post" citing the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, reports it could cost up to $110 million through the middle of next month.
Keep that in mind when you consider this. The Trump administration has cut some anti-domestic terror programs.
For example, zeroing out the Countering Violent Extremism grant program, which was slated to distribute about $10 million to groups like the Chicago-based "Life After Hate," which focuses on stopping the spread of white supremacists groups. Well -- which according to the FBI, killed more Americans between 2000 and 2016 than quote "any other domestic extremist movement."
After a 2-week period in which right-wing domestic terrorism again reared it heads with pipe bombs and the deadliest anti-Semitic massacre in our nation's history at the hands of a man with an AR-15 who called refugees invaders, these kinds of cuts seem unwise in the extreme.
But when impulse meets ideology, common sense usually loses out.
And that's your "Reality Check."
CAMEROTA: John, that is such an important one today. Thank you very much for giving us that history. BERMAN: All right, a lot going on this morning.
CAMEROTA: There are.
So, these two communities are now connected by tragedy. The message from the reverend at Charleston's AME Church that he is bringing to Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:53:04] CAMEROTA: Tonight at sundown, Shabbat will begin for members of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. That's the community that is now missing 11 members of its close-knit family. They were murdered inside the temple by a gunman last Saturday.
Reverend Eric Manning of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina knows the unspeakable grief all too well. Three years ago, nine people were killed at his church, including the pastor, during a bible study when a gunman opened fire inside their church.
Reverend Manning drove to Pittsburgh. He will be spending the day there today. He joins us now.
Reverend Manning, thank you very much.
Why did you feel compelled to drive from South Carolina to Pittsburgh?
REV. ERIC MANNING, PASTOR, MOTHER EMANUEL AME CHURCH: Well, let me just quickly correct you. I flew last night from Charlotte --
CAMEROTA: That's faster.
MANNING: -- to Pittsburgh.
CAMEROTA: I'm glad -- I'm glad you did that.
MANNING: Yes, ma'am.
CAMEROTA: That's faster. And why did you want to go there?
MANNING: Well, we wanted to be here to show the -- not only, of course, Rabbi Myers, but the entire Tree of Life synagogue members that we stand with them in solidarity. That we are here for them.
A lot of times I've shared with the congregation of Mother Emanuel is the ministry of presence means so much -- just if people can look up and see you and receive a hug, receive a handshake, receive a handkerchief that may be able to wipe away the tears that are falling down from their cheeks. That helps immensely and goes a long way.
So we wanted to be here to, of course, show our solidarity, to be with Rabbi Myers as a listening ear and someone who could share with him, as well.
CAMEROTA: They are in the throes of grief and as someone for whom some time has passed since you all were in that situation, what will make it better for them? What can you say to them today?
[07:55:06] MANNING: I think a lot of times we always look for the right words to say and sometimes we just have to be silent and just stand there with them.
I shared with the congregation last week a sermon that words do matter and words do, of course, carry weight. And if we are given an opportunity to share those same words of love, compassion, and healing, then prayerfully will help them.
And to your point, of course, it -- the tragedy and the trauma took place just about a week ago. And while the emotions are still yet raw, while people are still preparing for funerals, while the synagogue members are still looking for answers, one thing that I will share with them as a testimony is that as time progresses you find the strength that you need to continue to press on.
But you also find the strength that you need to tell the story so that the lives of -- of course, Mother Emanuel lives of the nine members, but here from the Tree of Life synagogue -- those 11 lives that were taken abruptly will never be forgotten.
So we would hope and pray that we will be able to share with them those words that would provide comfort.
CAMEROTA: And in your Sunday sermon -- I just want to quote you -- you said, "The words that come out of your mouth can do much harm and/or much good. The choice is, indeed, yours."
And I'm just wondering if those were directed at anyone in particular?
MANNING: The words were not really directed at anyone in particular. Even from a sermonic perspective, I had to work on that sermon the entire week because we were dealing with a series of other political rhetoric that may have been out in the atmosphere.
But I wanted to remind the congregation that words carry weight. And from a leadership perspective, those who are in any spotlight, whatever they say will have a rippling effect.
And as a pastor of Mother Emanuel, I'm always very measured with the words which I use and which I share. And I just hope that others take the same time and thought about the words that they would use and that the words that they would share because again, as I shared with the congregation on Sunday, words do matter.
CAMEROTA: And, Reverend, do you believe that President Trump's words played any role in the violence that we saw last week?
MANNING: That is a hard question to answer and I would not even fathom to say that his words directly. I would think that it would be a lasting, I guess, time period of words that have been gone out without, I guess, a counterbalance.
Words of compassion, words of love, words of working together, words of compromise. Those words, of course, have fallen on deaf ears and are not readily used as frequently as we would want them to be.
So I can never really say that his words had a direct impact. But I would think within the culture of the negative rhetoric which we have heard and we continue to hear that people, of course, forget that hate really should not -- or hateful speech really has no place in mainstream media -- in mainstream discussions.
We should always be able to have a sensible debate if we have opposing views. We should be able to share one with another and hope that if we cannot agree then we can agree to disagree. But never use words that will tear people down --
CAMEROTA: Yes.
MANNING: -- but always use words that will build people up.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
MANNING: And when you build people up then you give people hope. You give people a lasting -- as I said already, hope that everything will get better eventually.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
Well, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers' words have certainly helped all of us and around the country during this week and we know that he must appreciate very much you being there to help them in that community through this grief this week.
Reverend Eric Manning, thank you very much.
MANNING: Thank you. Thank you, again, for the time. Thank you.
CAMEROTA: President Trump also playing loose and fast with facts as he ramps up his anti-immigration rhetoric.
"NEW DAY" continues right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's all about getting people stirred up. It's about fear.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When they throw rocks, I say consider it a rifle.
