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Manafort Accused of Lying to FBI After Plea Deal with Mueller; Trump Angry at GM for Announcement of Plant Closings; Trump Claims Officers 'Badly Hurt,' Contradicting Border Chief; 3 U.S. Service Members Killed; Bernie Sanders Weighs in on Top Stories. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired November 27, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[07:00:05] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have a lot of phony stuff like the Russian witch-hunt garbage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Paul Manafort lied to the FBI, lied to the special counsel's office.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: To get a cooperation agreement, to throw that away is incredibly reckless.

TRUMP: The tear gas is a very minor form. It's very safe.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: There has got to be a compassionate answer that does not involve teargassing children.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If people are throwing rocks, it's not a good place to have your child.

TRUMP: The previous administration said, "Manufacturing is never coming back. You'd need a magic wand." Well, we found the magic wand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's insulting. He did not lift one finger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: GM got $170 million this year. At the same time thousands of people lost their jobs. Not fair.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning and welcome to your NEW JAY [SIC]. Just when you thought --

CAMEROTA: NEW JAY [SIC].

BERMAN: NEW JAY [SIC], your NEW DAY.

CAMEROTA: Whatever. BERMAN: Your new way. It's all new. It's all new this morning.

Just when you thought you saw the last twist in the Russia investigation, there is this. The president's former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, is lying. That's what Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team announced overnight. And those lies, they say, breached the plea deal that he had with prosecutors.

Now, you'll remember, that Manafort pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate, in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Manafort's lawyer says he has been truthful, but -- but the prosecutors say he lied repeatedly in meetings with investigators.

So what does that mean? Is the truth so damning it is worth Manafort risking more jail time? Is Manafort shopping for a pardon? These are just some of the new questions raised this morning on our new way, jay day.

CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, in one hour, polls will open in Mississippi for that special election for a U.S. Senate seat. The president traveled to that state to throw his support behind embattled Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, but as he campaigned, he did lose more ground in the House. A Democrat took the lead over an incumbent in California, putting a net gain of 40 seats for Democrats now within reach.

BERMAN: Joining us now, former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart; "Washington Post" opinion columnist Catherine Rampell; and CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

Jeffrey, you predicted that this would happen with Paul Manafort.

CAMEROTA: Did you?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: I predicted nothing.

BERMAN: Why does someone who's got a plea agreement, whose only way to a somewhat limited jail sentence is to tell the truth or to not lie, why does that person lie?

TOOBIN: Because they are A, stupid; B, arrogant; C, shopping for a pardon so they don't have to worry about what the judge is going to sentence them. All of those are possibilities.

But let's just be clear about this. It is very unusual for someone who has a plea agreement to make the prosecutor so angry that they tear it up and say, you are getting -- you're not getting any benefit from your cooperation. You're going to jail for a long time. And just in the immediate aftermath of this, it is very likely that Paul Manafort is going to get a very long sentence as a result of this.

CAMEROTA: But also -- but I mean, I'm sorry to -- just to stick with Jeffrey for a second, to -- are we overthinking this? If he's going to be pardoned, he's going to be pardoned and he's not going to serve that long jail sentence.

TOOBIN: Well, I mean, you know, let's see if he's pardoned. It's still -- but Donald Trump pardons people, because it's in Donald Trump's interest to pardon people.

It's not entirely clear to me that pardoning Paul Manafort, especially at this stage, is to his benefit. It would cause a political firestorm. I don't think his base is in love with Paul Manafort the way they were in love with Dinesh D'Souza or Joe Arpaio, these other people he pardoned.

So I mean, the bet on the pardon, if that's what this is, is far from a sure thing.

BERMAN: The other part of this, and Catherine, if you want to weigh in here, that's interesting to me is that the special counsel's team now goes to the judge for sentencing and can lay out how Paul Manafort lied. It's an opportunity, if the special counsel wants to take it, to reveal some of what's going on behind the scenes in this case.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, OPINION COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON POST": And the special counsel, of course, has been eerily quiet in recent months because of the lead up to the election. So we don't know what they'll reveal.

I think what's interesting and striking about all of this is that Mueller has caught multiple other people lying, too. Right? So Manafort should have known that Mueller was asking questions that he already knew the answer to. Right? Flynn, Papadopoulos, Gates, they were all -- they all pled guilty to misleading or lying to investigators.

So Manafort should have seen this coming, should have seen the trap that was laid for him, which raises the question who is he protecting? Right? Was he protecting himself? Was he protecting Trump? Was he protecting scary Russian thugs who he might have reason to fear? I don't know. But he should have seen this trap laid for him.

CAMEROTA: We can throw up a full screen right now of the plea deals to date in the Mueller probe. Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, who just --

[07:05:04] BERMAN: He's in jail, as in prison, for one day.

CAMEROTA: Who just showed up, who just reported -- that's it -- to jail. How do you see all this, Joe?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I wouldn't overestimate Jeffrey's first, as being stupid and arrogant.

BERMAN: Not Jeffrey himself. Paul Manafort.

LOCKHART: Jeffrey saying stupid and arrogant. But, you know, as you look at it from Trump's perspective, Manafort trying to plant -- there's nothing that would please Trump more, I think, than having someone force Mueller to chase a couple rabbit holes, like a bunch of misinformation.

So I think there is a possibility that this is a pardon play. It's not like I don't think -- even with the plea deal, he was going to have a lot of time out of prison in his life, he's an older gentleman. But I think, you know, this may just be a case of arrogance, someone who thinks he's way smarter than the person asking him the questions.

TOOBIN: And let's also consider the possibility that this is good news for Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Right.

TOOBIN: Because when he pleaded guilty, a lot of people said, "Oh, he's going to really be a great witness against Donald Trump. He's going to tell everything. He's going to be an insider."

Now the Mueller office has just given up on Manafort. They've said, "This guy is a hopeless liar. We're not using him. Go ahead and sentence him." So in that respect, it could be seen as good news for Trump.

BERMAN: All right. I want to move on to some other news overnight. And I do want to point out that the new Gallup poll has the president's disapproval rating at 60 percent, which matches an all- time high in those Gallup numbers.

And Catherine, this is right up your alley, in economics. GM announced it is going to shut down some of the plants in the United States and North America. About 15,000 jobs will be lost here. That's not having to do with the president's approval rating today, but if the economic approval is what's been keeping him actually higher --

RAMPELL: Keeping him afloat, yes.

BERMAN: Keeping him afloat. If he starts to have trouble in the Rust Belt with some of these manufacturing jobs, and if this is perhaps a sign that the economy might be about to slow down, that's a real issue.

RAMPELL: I think the issue here is that Trump made this promise that he was never going to be able to keep. That he was going to usher in a manufacturing renaissance, that he was going to bring back jobs that had already been offshored. And these were -- these were promises about turning back the clock that were never doable.

The fact that GM is laying off all of these workers is partly due to factors related to Trump, including the steel and aluminum tariffs, which are costing GM something like a billion dollars a year. Partly, they're related to things unrelated to Trump, like the fact that consumer tastes have changed.

But either way, it was never within Trump's control to turn back the clock and bring back these jobs or retain a lot of these jobs. These are forces beyond his control and, certainly, he was not going to be able to deliver on this undeliverable promise, given his trade war.

So all of those things are weighing against him. The real question is didn't turn see at some point that people would notice if he was not able to keep these kinds of promises? You know, he keeps making these promises. He's announced that steel plants are reopening that are not reopening. He has announced that car plants are opening at something like five different swing states.

Doesn't he realize that, at some point, the voters in those places, the people who are not getting those jobs or who are, in fact, losing jobs, won't they realize, hey, this guy has failed to deliver for me.

TOOBIN: But do you know what happened after he made those promises? He got elected president of the United States. Pretty good deal. I mean, you know, I think the odds that -- that people catch up to him, OK, maybe it happens, but, you know, those promises in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin --

RAMPELL: Yes, but now we have time to evaluate whether they're true. Now we have time to evaluate -- right?

TOOBIN: I mean, that's true, but --

RAMPELL: It was this fiction that he could paint without having any results. Now we have results.

CAMEROTA: I mean, one of the things that he's doing is blaming the CEO, Mary Barra, and saying, "Look, G.M. -- you know, the U.S. has been very nice to GM" and that they -- she should reopen these plants, and it's on her.

LOCKHART: Yes, well, the greatest myth in politics is people vote their own self-interests. They don't. They consistently don't. People vote against their interests. It's very difficult to explain.

TOOBIN: Is that true?

LOCKHART: That's -- that's very true. Look at, you know, people who receive the most amount of federal aid vote for the candidates who want to cut federal aid. And this has been going on for generations.

But I don't think he's completely helpless in the manufacturing. I mean, he put together a tax cut that did nothing to spur capital investment. If you look at the tax cut, there was a study out recently that showed most of that money went to stock buybacks, not to new capital investment.

So he's not helped us. He pursued a policy of giving a corporate giveaway, which everyone predicted wouldn't spur --

CAMEROTA: GM got a big tax cut.

LOCKHART: Yes. It got a big tax cut, and look what they did. They bought back their stock, and they didn't invest in their workers. This is what the Democrats were railing about, and it's happened.

RAMPELL: And, again, it's not the tax cut in isolation. He also raised taxes in the form of tariffs.

LOCKHART: Sure. [07:10:00] RAMPELL: Tariffs are taxes, right. And he was counting on the fact that this was going to help steal, which it did, but not realizing that there are many more companies, many more industries that buy steel, including auto than actually produce it.

TOOBIN: But isn't it also true that unemployment is at a historic low --

BERMAN: Yes.

TOOBIN: -- including in these states? So -- so it's not like, at least yet -- and, you know, obviously we'll see where things go -- that, you know, you can say his policies have set off a recession.

RAMPELL: No.

TOOBIN: I mean, terrible unemployment. I mean, look at the -- look at the unemployment.

RAMPELL: But we also just announced a $2 trillion fiscal stimulus that the first tranche of which went out this year in the form of a tax cut.

So yes, the economy is doing well. The question is how much of that is a sugar high? I'm not forecasting an immediate recession, but there will be a recession at some point, right? I mean, that's just how business cycles work.

And when we do have a recession, including potentially under Trump's watch, we're not going to have many bullets left in the gun to deal with it.

BERMAN: Right. And to Jeffrey's point, with low unemployment, it may be that these workers get absorbed in the economy more quickly.

CAMEROTA: Sure.

BERMAN: There might be an opportunity --

CAMEROTA: And there won't be any political pain.

BERMAN: There might be a political opportunity for the president to look like he is fighting for them or working for them. We'll see how it plays out, and some of the plants may stay open by the time the auto workers get in and negotiate new deals. But it isn't a good headline, for sure, today. And it's not got for those 15,000 workers who may lose their jobs immediately.

CAMEROTA: What should we talk about now?

BERMAN: Let's go immigration.

CAMEROTA: OK. So let's talk about what's happening at the border. So President Trump, as per usual, made claims yesterday that are not true. He claimed Border Patrol agents are being hurt. We had the Border Patrol chief on with us yesterday, who said, yes,

there were incidents of rock throwing, but that none of his -- luckily, they were wearing their full sort of flak gear and that none of them were actually hurt.

The point is, I think -- you tell me, Joe -- is that something is happening at the border. And we all can see it on video. And people are storming the border, and they're being held at bay. But none of that is good optics. And then there's tear gas. And we do see women and children, but mostly men in this group. And all of it is not good. And so now what?

LOCKHART: Well, we've had situations at the border, you know, over the years where you have these things. This is different, because the president of the United States has staked his political future on creating this and making it more than it is.

So we haven't had incidents where we've had to lob tear gas. There were plenty of people there to handle the situation, but he wants the conflict. He wants to create the fear in every American that our country is about to be invaded and taken over by, you know, a small group of people, you know, at the border in Mexico. And he's doing it. He's doing it.

We sit -- we talk about it every day. We put the pictures on the air and, you know, he wants to create something. And I'm afraid of where he wants to escalate it to.

You know, he literally said earlier just before the election that we should treat a rock as something you can answer with a rifle. Well, where do we think that's going to go?

BERMAN: Look, we'll wait and see how this plays out. Yesterday was a relatively calm day. After Sunday, there was obviously that chaos. Yesterday was calm. Maybe it will right itself over the next four days.

And then the next inflection point is political, which is a fight over wall funding, which is does the president want to go to the mat, shut down the government, maybe, for $5 billion for the border wall? Is that worth it for him politically during this lame-duck session before this historically big blue wave comes to power at the beginning of January?

TOOBIN: Well, it's hard to think that the Democrats, particularly in the Senate where they can -- they have more than 40 votes, have a lot of incentive to cooperate with him.

Why should they, you know, cut a deal now, unless they get something serious in return, like a deal for the DREAMers. I mean, the president has gone back and forth many times about whether he wants a deal for these young people who were brought to the United States as children.

He hasn't done it yet. He doesn't seem inclined to at the moment. But if he wants his wall, he's not going -- he's not going to get it without giving something. And the DREAMers are an obvious place for a deal.

CAMEROTA: OK. Joe, Catherine, Jeffrey, thank you all very much.

We have to get some -- to some breaking news right now. We're just getting this into our newsroom.

The Pentagon has just announced that three U.S. service members were killed in Afghanistan today. Officials say they lost their lives after an improvised explosive device detonated.

Three other service members and an American contractor were also hurt in this incident. The names of the service member killed -- service members killed are being withheld as the Defense Department notifies their families. We will bring you more information as soon as we have it.

BERMAN: Thousands of Americans still in active war zones all around the world.

Well, the shocking scenes from the border finally pushed Congress to solve some of these immigration issues. That's just one of the questions we put to Bernie Sanders. That plus his plans for 2020. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:19:20] BERMAN: The eyes of many in Congress fixed on the border after the confrontation between Border Patrol agents and hundreds of migrants. President Trump is renewing his demand to get funding for his border wall and threatening to shut down the government if he doesn't get it.

I sat down with Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont to discuss this and his new book "Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: So, Senator, you note in your book that you are the son of an immigrant, as you say, who came to this country with limited education and who might have been denied entrance in Trump's America. As we look at what's happening over the border right now in Tijuana, 5,000 to 9,000 migrants there waiting in a stadium, seeking asylum, do you think they all have a credible claim for asylum?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: No, I don't. I think you have to look at it case by case.

But I think what is most important is this country finally is going to have to deal with comprehensive immigration reform. You've got close to 2 million young people in this country who were raised in this country who know America as their only home, who were in the DACA program, are scared to death of being deported. Nobody thinks that makes sense.

So the time is long overdue, and I hope that with Democrats now in control over the House, we're going to be moving forward to serious comprehensive immigration reform and a path towards citizenship. What we do not want to do is demonize desperate men, women and children while leaving the horror of Central America who are looking for asylum.

BERMAN: Would you be supportive of at least listening to an idea of a remain-in-Mexico policy, where they could apply for asylum in the U.S.?

SANDERS: I am 100 percent supportive of comprehensive immigration reform. But you know, while we're talking about people at the border, that's very important. There was a report, as you know, that just came out last week from 13 government agencies, which is dealing with the crisis facing us in terms of climate change.

And what these agencies are telling us, if we do not get our act together and cut in a significant way carbon emissions, what you're going to be looking at are more wildfires like we have seen in California. You're going to see more rising sea levels. You're going to see more drought and more flooding. We have got to address that issue.

BERMAN: And that was the report. It was released by the Trump administration on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

SANDERS: Reluctantly released by the Trump administration.

BERMAN: Maybe on a Friday after Thanksgiving to minimize the impact it had. But my question for you is with only a Democratic House, a Republican Senate and a Republican president, what legislation? What do you want to see politicians in Washington do practically now?

SANDERS: Well, see, you're using the word "practically." Do you know what the intergovernmental panel on climate change said? They said that if we don't get our act together within 12 years -- 12 years, not a long period of time -- there's going to be irreparable harm to this planet.

So the point is, the American people have got to stand up and say that, for the sake of their children and their grandchildren, we are going to have to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry who consider their short-term profits more important than the kind of lives my grandchildren are going to have.

BERMAN: You don't have to convince me that it's a serious issue. You have to convince Republicans --

SANDERS: No, I have to convince --

BERMAN: -- in the Senate and Republicans in the White House.

SANDERS: No, I have to convince the American people to tell Republicans. So we have an international crisis. We've got to work with other countries around the world.

And here's the good news, John. When we do that, we're going to create millions of jobs through increasing energy efficiency and moving toward wind, solar and other sustainable energy.

Look, here's the point. The scientists have told us, despite Trump's absurd thought, that this is a hoax that the future of the planet is at stake. OK? Not a debatable issue, to my mind.

So we have got to have the courage to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry. And by the way, if the House can send us a serious bill, I think you will be surprised at the number of Republicans who will not choose to be voting against that.

BERMAN: You just brought up the president there. In your book you note sitting at the inauguration, listening to his inaugural address, and you noted it made you remark to yourself on what a phony and demagogue he is.

Let me read you a passage here. "Other than his racism and xenophobia, it's not clear that he really has any strong beliefs other than those that are politically expedient."

SANDERS: Did I say that?

BERMAN: You wrote that.

SANDERS: Well, it sounds good to me. I think it's right.

BERMAN: What did you mean?

SANDERS: Look, he has no political belief. He is a tony phony and a political opportunist.

I don't know if people know this. He now condemns legislation that I introduced called Medicare for All. Earlier in his life, he supported Medicare for all. This guy actually supported a tax on wealth. He was pro-choice.

But he moves with the wind, and right now he is in an extreme right- winger, because he thinks that's how you get votes. And what he is doing, which really disturbs me very much, above and beyond tax breaks for billionaires, above and beyond trying to throw 32 million people off of health insurance, all of which he is doing, he is doing what no president in modern history has done and really trying to divide the American people up, based on the color of our skin or the country we came from, or our religion, or our sexual orientation. That is outrageous.

And what that book is about is what I and other progressives have been doing over the last two years to bring people together. Not only in opposition to Trump, but to create an agenda that makes sense to farmers in Iowa and in Nebraska, where we are coming together around ideas that work for all of us.

What does that mean? We're the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people. Poll after poll shows the American people want a Medicare for a single-payer system. We've got millions of people in this country working for starvation wages. We've got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. [07:25:06] We've got to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. We've

got to make public colleges and universities tuition-free, and instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires, do you know what the American people want? They think billionaires and large corporations should start paying their fair share.

BERMAN: So this is how you think you beat President Trump?

SANDERS: This is how I think Democrats move forward in bringing the American people together and creating an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.

BERMAN: I want to ask you about running for president, but I don't want to ask you the same question everyone already asked.

SANDERS: Good.

BERMAN: Are you running? Are you running? Are you running?

SANDERS: Thank you.

BERMAN: Have you made up your -- do you know the answer to that question?

SANDERS: As of this moment, no. I mean, you know, running for president is not a simple decision. You don't say, "Hey, I'm going to run for president." You've got to communicate with people all over the country. I've got to know that the issues that I feel strongly about -- income and wealth inequality, a corrupt campaign finance system, the fact that our middle class continues to shrink, the greed of Wall Street and of the pharmaceutical industry, who rip us off every day with the highest prices in the world for drugs -- are those resonating with the American people? That I've -- and I'm not quite sure. I think they do, but, you know, we've got a little bit more work to do on it.

BERMAN: So you don't know?

SANDERS: At this point, no. You know, we just came from an election where people turned on their TV, and all they saw was TV ads and all that stuff.

The media pushes this a little bit more. The American people do not want never-ending campaigns. You know, they really don't.

So I think we give the American people a time to catch their breath and focus not on individuals, focus on the issues. Why are we the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people? Why are our people charged the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs? What are we going to do about the crisis of climate change? Let's talk about that.

BERMAN: Senator Bernie Sanders independent from Vermont. We've already taken up too much of your time. Thanks for being with us.

And let me just say the book, which we didn't get a chance to talk about and went over, I think, at length, Bernie Sanders, "Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance."

Thank you.

SANDERS: Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: OK, John.

As you know, there has been a startling rise in anti-Semitic acts across the country. What is behind this? Part one of a CNN series, "THE STATE OF HATE," is next.

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