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Trump Lashes Out as Probe Hangs Over His Head; 900+ Missing California Wild Fire, Death Toll Climbs to 77. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 19, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Did you know before you appointed him that he had that record and was so critical of Robert Mueller?

[05:58:55] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I did not know that.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: He was chosen for the purpose of interfering with the Mueller investigation.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: It would be a disaster for the Republican Party for the Mueller investigation to be terminated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've never seen anything like this.

TRUMP: It's like total devastation.

GOV. JERRY BROWN (D), CALIFORNIA: We need federal help, and we need a collaborative and cooperative spirit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are people's loved ones and stuff that we're searching for out here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, November 19, 6 a.m. here in New York. And this morning, the president clearly has a lot of Schiff on his mind.

After days of closed-door meetings with his lawyers on the Russia probe, the president said in the clearest terms yet that he will probably not sit down with investigators. Not only that, he also indicated he's not going to do anything to protect the investigation and that, if his hand-picked acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker, wants to limit the probe, that is, quote, "going to be up to him."

Moreover, the president also targeted Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff. Ake a look. Sixth graders of the world unite. Read that first line there. This is the same president who last week said there must be decorum in the White House. Decorum. This does make you wonder that -- whether, when he said that, he was full of Schiff.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Well played.

BERMAN: See what I did there?

CAMEROTA: I did. I heard that.

President Trump did not stop there. He also slammed a revered and retired admiral who led the Osama bin Laden raid. Admiral William McRaven criticized the president earlier this year, and President Trump fired back and falsely claimed that he, quote, was a Hillary backer and suggesting that he should have caught bin Laden faster.

The president also says he refuses to listen to the reporting of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder, adding that, despite what his own CIA says, he still does not know if the Saudi crown prince was directly responsible.

Meanwhile, Republicans still taking hits from the midterms, the Democrats extending wins in the House. They now have a net gain of 37 seats. They even picked up a former Republican stronghold.

Joining us now, congressional reporter for "Politico," Rachael Bade; national political correspondent for "The New York Times," Alex Burns; and senior political correspondent for "The Washington Examiner," David Drucker.

Friends, let's replay some of what the president said on the Mueller probe. Because look, we're clearly near the end here. The president knows that, and his statements have gone further than they ever have before.

Listen to what he said as to whether or not he will sit down with the Mueller team. The answer is probably no. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We gave very, very complete answers to a lot of questions that I shouldn't have even been asked. And I think that should solve the problem. I hope it solves the problem. If it doesn't, you know, I'll be told and he we'll make a decision at that time, but probably, this is the end. I think we wasted enough time on the witch hunt, and the answer is probably, we're finished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I take that, Rachael, as a no, and to me it seemed like a no for a long, long time.

RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes, looks like the president is going to listen to his lawyers when it comes to sitting down with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. This is probably the one thing that his lawyers were most keen on getting him to listen to, and that is, you know, getting him to do these written questions, because we know how the president sort of likes to elaborate and take liberties with the truth. I do think that he is right and that that is a sign that Robert

Mueller is wrapping up his investigation and this sort of battle, this whole thing about the Russia probe and also, potential trying to obstruct justice. This is about to turn to the Hill. Once the report is done, the battle is going to be can House Democrats get their hands on -- hands on this report and what do they do with it? Because they say they want those findings to go public, and Matt Whitaker is going to be seeing this, an ally of the president, and he is probably going to fight back and try to keep this from getting out in the open. So that's where the new story is going to turn very soon.

So David, let's listen to a little bit of sound, with the president talking about Matt Whitaker and whether or not he knows of Whitaker's plans, whether or not he even knew that Matt Whitaker was a critic of the Mueller probe. So listen to this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: If Whitaker decides in any way to limit or curtail the Mueller investigation, are you OK with that?

TRUMP: Look, he -- it's going to be up to him. I think he's very well aware politically. I think he's astute politically. He's a very smart person, a very respected person. He's going to do what's right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: In that interview, he also said he did not know that Whitaker had been a critic, once again playing to the lack of vetting that happens in the White House of a lack of honesty from the president.

DAVID DRUCKER, SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Look, one minute, he knows that Mr. Whitaker is astute, and he's smart and he understands this. The next minute, "I hardly knew the guy. Who knows where he came from?" So it's hard to tell. I think the president likes to sort of play both sides of the fence here.

Look, I interviewed Ken Starr a couple of days after the election, and he talked about his experience in investigating the Clintons and just how delicate and how careful you have to be when investigating a president. Right?

So Robert Mueller is now on the stage where he's essentially talking to the president and trying to get information from the president, and he's trying to do that in a way that is the least politically charged it can be. And as we've seen --

CAMEROTA: In written form?

DRUCKER: Yes, correct. And I think the president and his lawyers are smart not to let the president sit down with Robert Mueller and talk one-on-one, because the president likes to freelance. He's in this situation in part because he was freelancing with Lester Holt when he talked about Russia being on his mind when he fired Jim Comey. So I think this is the smart way to go, because they can control

things, and I think it's likely to be enough for Robert Mueller unless there is serious wrongdoing that we are not yet aware of. And I think that for Whitaker, it is all a matter of what Mueller is producing. This is the other thing Starr impressed upon me, that none of us really know what we think we might know, whether you think this investigation's a witch hunt or you think it's legitimate. And we're not going to know all this until it's out there, if it gets out there.

[06:05:14] But because of that, all that is to say, I think we're making a lot of assumptions about what Whitaker might do, what the president might do, and it's really hard to say, because they have really kept a lot of the facts of the probe under wraps.

BERMAN: You know how I know that the president probably saw Matt Whitaker on cable TV? Because President Trump is the best cable news viewer in America.

CAMEROTA: One-man focus group.

BERMAN: If only -- if only everyone watched as much cable as President Trump, we'd be swimming in numbers, I have to say. I really do think the president knows clearly that Matt Whitaker was against the probe and said it repeatedly on our air right here on CNN.

And to David's point, I think it's very -- we're in a crazy moment here where no one knows what Robert Mueller will do. No one knows. And how he approaches this could dictate the next year. Not of our lives, just of our lives, but of the president's life, Congress's life. There's so much that hangs in the balance right now.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There sure is. And I would say a lot of the speculation about Matt Whitaker's ability to sort of steer this in a particular direction to suppress a report or to tailor a report, a lot of that is based on assumptions that have been built up over two years where you had one-party government. Right?

And I think that you have to look at the next couple stages of this as, you know, overlapping with a moment of real political and legal peril for the administration, arising from having an opposition House of Representatives. And just take what the president had to say about Matt Whitaker. We all kind of roll our eyes, because is it really credible that he had no idea --

BERMAN: No.

BURNS: -- that Matt Whitaker was -- right -- a critic of Robert Mueller? We know colleagues of mine at "The Times" reported that he was -- had been interviewing with White House officials for a job, essentially, as the attack dog going after Robert Mueller.

These are the kinds of things that Matt Whitaker may eventually be asked about under oath from the House, right? And you take that with the administration's long record already of essentially being largely unable to suppress secret information that's important to them. And I think you have to assume that this is really not something that they can carefully stage-manage the way a lot of people are hoping or fearing right now.

CAMEROTA: So John had some fun with the Adam Schiff tweet this morning.

BERMAN: There was fun to be had.

CAMEROTA: There's a lot of fun.

BERMAN: Although I have to say, it was -- like, my 11-year-old twin boys wouldn't stoop to that.

CAMEROTA: No, honestly --

BERMAN: It was too juvenile for them.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I agree with you. When I read it I thought, "Oh, I remember fourth grade."

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I haven't seen this for a long time. So Rachael, but you know, Adam Schiff, I guess, likes this fight. I mean, you know, he's willing to have this fight with the president and be one of the president's most high-profile foes.

BADE: Yes, he was pretty quick to retort. "Good one, Mr. President," kind of highlighting, you know, obviously that this was silly and he thought it was beneath him but he was going to respond anyway.

Look, the president is gearing up for his next battle right now in the way that he likes to do this best, and that is by coming up with nicknames for his enemies. You know, "Lyin' Ted," "Crooked Hillary." Now we have -- I'm not going to repeat the nickname he gave Congressman Adam Schiff, because it's clearly profane.

But look, that's exactly what he's doing. He's -- he's getting ready for a battle. He knows that Schiff is going to be one of the top chairmen next Congress who is going to come after him. The chairman was on, or the future chairman was on ABC's "This Week," saying specifically that he thought Whitaker's appointment was unconstitutional and that Whitaker was just put there to basically suppress the Russia investigation.

So again, the president is just sort of gearing up for this and clearly is continuing to use the same battle tactics that he has for the past two years, which by the way, created a bloodbath in the House for Republicans, so it sort of shows that he didn't really learn anything from the midterm elections and he's turning off voters from using these tactics. It looks like he's just doubling down.

BURNS: I think that point that Rachael just made, you can't stress it enough, that in the past and we've seen president's get whipped in the midterm elections, oftentimes they end up having a better next two years, because they use it as an opportunity to course correct.

And when you look at that interview that the president gave over the weekend and what he did on Twitter, and basically, everything that he's done in two weeks since the election, there's no sign that he's reassessing anything in his approach to politics. And the notion that you might somehow make the Democrats out to be the reasonable ones, that Adam Schiff is the one who is going to be in the hot seat. You know, it involves a more disciplined and restrained and, frankly, presidential approach to these things than Trump has ever taken.

DRUCKER: Yes, now look, the president came out blazing right after the election, essentially saying I want a historic victory in the Senate. He mocked Republicans in the House that lost and he decided that "I wasn't on the ballot after all. So after all, it actually had nothing to do with me." And I think the president has decided he believes this, and I think that that is evident because of the way he is acting. There has been no sense of "I can use the new Democratic majority to be more pragmatic, to at least alter my tone," and he talks about it very openly in some of these interviews.

[06:10:02] "Yes, I suppose I could have a softer tone, a different tone, but I wouldn't get done what I need to get done." What he does works. And he doesn't believe that there has been a political cost to it.

So that's -- that's the next sort of debate in American politics as we approach 2020, is will the country decide on a national level with a binary choice that the kind of politics the president practices is not the kind of politics they want. And that's what we're going to find out.

BERMAN: What does it mean for decorum? I mean, the burning question, Rachael, is what does this mean for decorum? The president says he wants decorum in the White House and then uses a fourth-grade -- that's being generous -- you know, insult on Adam Schiff there. Can we put that behind us?

BADE: Look, the president wants decorum for everyone except himself. This is how he -- this is how he goes to war with people. He gets down in the mud, and he loves the mud sling.

I agree with what, you know, Drucker and Alex are saying there, and that is that this is going to -- he's going to double down on this. And this is -- politically, the question is, what is this going to do to the Republican Party? I've talked to Republican House leaders since the election who know that they had a problem with suburban women and that that is one of the main reasons why they lost the control of the House.

And this sort of tactic really alienates women across the country. And so he's putting himself and his own politics, his own re-election. Clearly, he thinks this helps in 2020 ahead of the Republican Party, because Republicans aren't going to be able to take back the House as long as he is doing sort of things like this.

DRUCKER: And by the way, to Rachael's point, they have a problem with suburban men. This wasn't just women repudiating the president. One of the reasons Democrats were able to win some of these seats in plus Trump districts -- plus two, plus four, there was a plus 10 in a royal district in Maine -- is because they had a problem with Republican men, as well. It wasn't as stark, but it's something that's been uncovered. And the president is going to have to do something about this in 2020.

CAMEROTA: That's interesting. That's an interesting perspective. We know you've been out on the road a lot, interviewing voters. Thank you very much.

Thanks to our panel. We do have to get to this breaking news now.

This is from the fire lines in Northern California. More than 900 people this morning still unaccounted for as the death toll from the Camp Fire has now climbed to 77 people. All but 10 of the victims have been tentatively identified, and CNN's Kaylee Hartung is live in Chico with the latest.

What's happening this morning, Kaylee?

KAYLEE HARTUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, the search for and the recovery of human remains and the devastation of the Camp Fire continues 11 days after that fire ignited. Nine hundred and ninety- three people are still on authorities' lists of those unaccounted for, but that number is down 283 names from the previous day.

Officials warning that this number will continue to fluctuate sharply as they work through what they call raw data, multiple sources to get a list of unaccounted people nailed down.

Now, yesterday authorities began the process of balancing that mission with returning some people to their homes. It was an incredibly emotional and shocking experience, even for people who found their homes still standing in these partially burned areas, and crews have been working 24/7 to make these evacuation routes safe for some people to return.

President Trump also among those who got a first-hand look at the devastation over the weekend. He visited Paradise on Saturday. He relayed his sadness as he saw the devastation, and what people here are telling me: they don't want his consolation. They want his resources.

And perhaps nowhere is the need more evident than here in this parking lot. Some people living in tents behind me, RVs in this parking lot outside of the Wal-Mart. For some people who lost everything, this was only supposed to be a short-term solution for them. And now with rain in the forecast as soon as Wednesday, a fear of mudslides and flooding, there is a sense of urgency among local officials and volunteers to help these people find more long-term options, get them to somewhere more safe and secure.

But with approximately 50,000 people evacuated from these fire zones, more than 10,000 homes destroyed. There is a growing crisis here with no end in sight. And John, this fire continues to burn.

BERMAN: Kaylee Hartung, amazing pictures from there. Terrific reporting. We're going to stay on that all morning. Again, hundreds and hundreds still unaccounted for there. We're trying to learn what we can. So our thanks to Kaylee for that.

We heard the president's interview with Chris Wallace. Maybe the most shocking moment in that interview came with false claims the president made about the decorated animal, a war hero who oversaw the capture of Osama bin Laden. He said false things. He said inflammatory things about this admiral. So why did he do it? And what does this say about the president's relationship with the military? Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:27] CAMEROTA: President Trump escalating a fight with a revered retired admiral, William McRaven. He oversaw the operation that killed Osama bin Laden and the raid that captured Hussein Saddam. Earlier this year, he criticized President Trump's attacks on the media and his revoking of former CIA director John Brennan's security clearance.

Here's what the president said about him yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: McRaven, a retired admiral, Navy SEAL, 37 years, the former head of U.S. Special Operations --

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton fan.

WALLACE: Special Operations --

TRUMP: Excuse me, Hillary Clinton fan.

WALLACE; -- who led the operations, commanded the operations that took down Saddam Hussein and that killed Osama bin Laden, says that your sentiment is the greatest threat to democracy in his life.

TRUMP: He's a Hillary Clinton backer and an Obama backer, and frankly --

WALLACE: He's a Navy SEAL.

TRUMP: Wouldn't it have been nice if we'd gotten Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's bring back Alex Burns and Rachael Bade. We also want to bring in in our national security correspondent for "The New York Times," David Sanger. Great to have both of you.

David, I think this was so telling, it's that President Trump revealed that he sees everything in partisan terms. He sees everything -- can put people into two buckets for him: a Hillary Clinton fan or a Donald Trump fan. And that's it.

You know, your accomplishments, your heroism, your personality, not as important to him to focus on. Was he -- was he -- first of all, it's not true that he backed Hillary Clinton. Let's just dispense with that. This is exactly how president --

DAVID SANGER, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": He also worked with George Bush.

CAMEROTA: Yes. He used to worked with George Bush and Obama.

SANGER: Yes.

[06:20:04] CAMEROTA: But again, when we wonder why we're in this partisan -- locked in this partisan, you know, mortal combat, the president of the United States sees everything almost exclusively in those terms.

SANGER: It is pretty remarkable. And what this reminded me of was that, as soon as Russia investigation began, you heard the president say -- he said it to me, he said it in public and many -- many occasions that John Brennan and James Clapper and all the other intelligence professionals who are all career intelligence officials, were all political hacks and that, therefore, the judgment that Russia had been involved was tainted by the fact that they were political hacks.

You've now seen him do that with a four-star, you know, head of the Navy SEALs. And what's particularly remarkable about this also is he conflated the finding of Osama bin Laden, which was the CIA's job, with going out and killing Osama bin Laden, which was McRaven's job.

BERMAN: I'm not sure it's so surprising, given the president's knowledge of how things work there.

Let me just read you McRaven's response to this. He says, "I stand by my comment that the president's attack on the media is the greatest threat to our democracy in my lifetime. When you undermine the people's right to a free press and freedom of speech and expression, then you threaten the Constitution and all for which it stands."

And I will note, I mean, I wish I could have seen Chris Wallace's thought bubble there. He was looking at the president like, "Seriously? Seriously, we're talking about the bin Laden raid? You're going to go after the bin Laden raid?"

All right. Let's leave that there, because the president also made news, Alex, on Jamal Khashoggi, the "Washington Post" columnist, U.S. resident who was killed by the Saudis in the Turkish embassy. I think the president -- and he's made this clear before -- basically stated, you know, "I don't care if crown -- the crown prince of Saudi Arabia ordered this. It's not going to affect my view." He didn't say that exactly, but listen to what he said and see if you can read between the lines.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't want to hear the tape. No reason for me to hear the tape. But I --

WALLACE: Why don't you want to hear it, sir? TRUMP: Because it's a suffering tape. It's a terrible tape. I've

been fully briefed on it. There's no reason for me to hear it. If I said to the people, "Should I?," they said, "You really shouldn't." There's no reason. I know exactly -- I know everything that went on in the tank (ph) without having --

WALLACE: And what happened?

TRUMP: It was very violent, very vicious and terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And then when asked if he thought that the crown prince ordered the killing, Alex, the president said, "We will never know. How will we ever know for sure?"

BURNS: Well, this is the sort of rhetorical trick that he has used over and over again with different autocrats around the world, who he wants to have relationships with, right? That it sounds very, very much like the kind of evasions that we've heard from him on Putin and the 2016 election. That "can we ever really know beyond any possible doubt?" Right?

I do think that what sort of ties this together with his clash with Admiral McRaven is that the president's greatest political crises since coming into office has mainly arisen at moments when he is at odds with the national security establishment, whether it's the military, the intelligence services or both.

And the fact that you have already had him sort of sowing doubt about the CIA's conclusions with regard to Saudi Arabia, without quite going as far as you suggested, you know, he implicitly might, saying that "I don't care. I want to have a good relationship with Saudi Arabia," it does seem to me to put him and the White House in a very precarious public position as far as defending, articulating, executing a policy that is backed up by the national security services.

CAMEROTA: It's interesting, Alex. I mean, he does, you know, say that he's done so much for the military. And we know lots of people in the military who believe that, that the president has talked more about his support for the military.

But he, when it comes to war heroes --

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- not necessarily a fan, certainly doesn't really revere those that publicly he has denigrated, and he didn't go to Arlington National Cemetery.

BURNS: And it's so important politically, not just because -- I don't know many people there are out there who are, you know, sort of passionately, personally invested in Admiral McRaven, but for folks in the political middle, and for those Republican-leaning women and men who we talked about in the last segment, I've seen this kind of thing. They have clearly taken that as a permission slip to say, "You know what? Forget this guy, the president," that, you know, "This is not presidential. This is worse than just the tweets that already make me uncomfortable."

And the president is not seemingly doing anything to reign that in.

BERMAN: On this subject, I'm glad you brought that up again, is the closest, I think, we've ever heard the president say to "I was wrong" or "I made a mistake." Because on the visit to Arlington, Rachael, the president said, "You know, maybe I should have gone to Arlington," even though he said he was doing a lot of calls -- he was doing a lot of calling on that day. He does now, it seems, regret that he did not make that trip for Veterans Day.

BADE: Yes, and right, with good reason. I mean, like, the military is a key -- and military veterans are a key constituency for the president. He always has admired military leaders. It's -- it's something he's made a point to stock his cabinet with military veterans and leaders.

And so clearly, you know, it's a key group of people he wants to reach out to. He talks about rebuilding the military. And that was really damaging for his image.

[06:25:03] But I don't -- the thing that sort of baffles me, is that you know, he says, "Maybe I should have made that trip." But at the same time he's attacking McRaven, who clearly is a decorated general. It just doesn't make sense. It seems like at one minute he want to sort fix that image that he is, in some way, pushing back against the military or attacking a military leader. But then again, you know, he does stuff like this. So it doesn't -- it doesn't really make sense.

CAMEROTA: Noted. David, let's talk about 900 people as of this morning still missing in California, accounted for, basically. The death toll has risen today. So President Trump -- Chris Wallace asked him about the California wildfires, and he had an interesting solution. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I was watching the firemen the other day, and they were raking areas. They were raking areas where the fire was right over there. And they are raking trees, little trees like this -- not trees, little bushes that you could see are totally dry. Weeds. And they're raking them. They're on fire. That should have been all raked out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So anyway, he had said that he had gotten that idea from the Finnish preside, that you have to rake the forest and that that prevents forest fires. The Finnish president said, "I don't know what he's talking about. We didn't talk about that."

And it turns out that he may have seen that on television somewhere. When he said, "I've seen them doing it," that he saw firefighters raking the forest floor. SANGER: Yes. Well, you know, this goes into the critical fact check

question. The entire interview, from the raking the forest through to what he said about Khashoggi to the other place, you wouldn't even know where to begin to go fact check this stuff.

So the Finnish president, I thought, actually did a pretty good thing by sort of stepping out and saying, "Didn't come out of the conversation with me," but you can imagine how many other parts that come -- the 900 number that you describe is remarkable, because we can't really tell, since there were so many elderly people in this area whether some of those may be safe and not going that they are missing, or what else is going on with it.

One last point back on the overall interview, on the Khashoggi element that we were discussing. Isn't it remarkable that, in the Khashoggi case, he says "We will never know whether the Saudi leader heard about this." But in -- when he was talking about bin Laden just moments before, he was saying, "We could have figured it out years before, exactly where he was." So he nails the intelligence and maybe information about how you go after forest fires to fit whatever his convenient argument is at the time. And I think we haven't really seen that happen before.

The only real answer in the Khashoggi case is "We're going to follow the evidence wherever it leads us, and then we will make a decision about whether our national interests with Saudi Arabia outweigh our human rights interests here."

BERMAN: Every newspaper on Friday -- "The Washington Post," "The Wall Street Journal," "The New York Times" and then CNN ultimately mentioned also --reported, though, that the intelligence agencies say they believe with a high level of confidence that the crown prince ordered the killing. To me, it's astounding that someone wanted that information out there; someone leaked that. Someone wanted to put the president in a bind.

SANGER: And you saw what the State Department did the next day. The State Department, run by the former chief of the CIA, right, Mike Pompeo, turned out a statement saying the U.S. government has reached no decision. They didn't say the CIA.

What's that tell you? That they want to make it clear the CIA conclusion is just feeding into a bigger judgment that may be as political as much as it's factual.

CAMEROTA: All right. David, Alex, Rachael, thank you very much.

Now to this story. Michael Bloomberg has made an enormous donation to his alma mater. 2020 Democratic hopefuls no doubt taking notice of this move. What does all of it mean? That's next.

BERMAN: This is in the Maryland primary?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)