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Stone's Efforts to Seek WikiLeaks Docs Detailed in Draft Mueller Doc; Trump Skeptical of Climate Change Report Because of His 'High Levels of Intelligence'. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 28, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Investigators are looking at these two men and say, "Are these guys the key to a collusion question?"

[05:59:14] JEROME CORSI, ROGER STONE ASSOCIATE: Roger's saying, "I want you to help me figure out a way to make it sound like I didn't know these were Podesta's e-mails that Assange had."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have never heard of somebody cooperating against everybody the government asks, and then sharing information with other people who are under investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All bets are off in terms of leniency. The only thing he could be hoping for is a pardon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even dangling a pardon in front of a witness like Manafort dangerously goes to obstruction of justice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Wednesday, November 28, 6 a.m. here in New York. We have major developments overnight in the Mueller investigation.

This morning, we have the clearest window yet into just what investigators are after and maybe the closest connection yet between people close to the Trump campaign and those Democratic e-mails stolen by the Russians.

We also now know that all of this was in the president's head and his legal team's head a couple weeks ago when it was clear the president was acting agitated.

CNN has obtained draft court documents that suggest Mueller plans to show how Trump advisor Roger Stone allegedly sought information and e- mails from WikiLeaks, using another operative, conservative author Jerome Corsi, as a go-between. All this includes an e-mail from Corsi to Stone, saying WikiLeaks had information damaging to Hillary Clinton and planned to release it right before the election. That's just part of the noise out there this morning.

The president's former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, vehemently denying a report in "The Guardian" that he secretly met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the campaign. So that could be nothing, or it might be something.

Is Rudy Giuliani telling us that the Trump legal team has been in contact with Paul Manafort's people? They've even been exchanging notes on what the special counsel was asking Manafort, even after Manafort agreed to cooperate with the investigation? What does this suggest about a possible pardon? We're going to talk about all of this later this hour when former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski joins us.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Also new this morning, President Trump has given a wide-ranging interview to "The Washington Post." In it, the president slams his hand-picked Fed chairman, saying that he's not even a little bit happy with Jerome Powell. He blames the Fed for the stock market declines, as well as the GM plant closures and layoffs. And the president explains why he does not believe the science of climate change. The president says people like him have very high levels of intelligence. I'm not sure that that's a logical conclusion about climate science, but we'll get to that.

Also breaking overnight, one final Senate race of the midterm elections, the final one, has now been called. Despite a series of controversial -- controversial statements. Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith holds onto her seat, defeating Democrat Mike Espy in the Mississippi special election.

So we have all of this covered for you. It's going to be a very busy morning. Let's begin with CNN's Sara Murray for her latest reporting.

Sara, you have been busy.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: We have been busy. Look, what we found are these new e-mails. They show that ten weeks before WikiLeaks released their tranche of e-mails about Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, a man named Jerome Corsi got in touch with Roger Stone, one of President Trump's long-time political advisers, and warned him dirt was coming.

Now, I spoke to Jerome Corsi yesterday, and he shared draft documents of these filings that he said he received from Mueller's team when they were in plea negotiations. Now, Corsi says he's not ready to plead guilty to lying. He's not ready to take this plea. But these documents do offer an insightful window into one of Mueller's investigations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY (voice-over): The draft court filings offering significant new insight into what special counsel Robert Mueller may know about Trump associate Roger Stone's efforts to seek out damaging documents about Hillary Clinton from WikiLeaks ahead of the 2016 election. The draft filing says Stone e-mailed conservative author and right- wing conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi to get the pending WikiLeaks e- mails. That e-mail coming three days after WikiLeaks released e-mails from the Democratic National Committee in July of 2016, e-mails the U.S. government later said were hacked by Russian intelligence officers.

CORSI: Roger Stone writes in July, when I'm in Italy, and it says, "Get to Assange," and so I copied that e-mail. I forward it to Ted Malloch, associate in London.

MURRAY: Two days later, President Trump said this at a campaign rally.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.

MURRAY: A week later, the draft filing says, Corsi e-mailed Stone, writing, "Word is friend in embassy plans two more dumps, once shortly after I'm back, second in October. Impact planned to be very damaging" before referencing Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta and the Clinton Foundation. Two days later, Stone discussed the allegations against the Clinton Foundation on Info Wars.

ROGER STONE, TRUMP ASSOCIATE: Julian Assange has that proof, and I think he's going to furnish it for the American people.

MURRAY: Mentioning that he had recently been in contact with then- candidate Donald Trump.

STONE: I spoke to Donald Trump yesterday. He's in good spirits.

MURRAY: Later that month, Stone tweeted this cryptic message: "Trust me, it will soon be the Podestas' time in the barrel."

According to Corsi, Stone later asked him to help develop a cover story for that tweet, an allegation Stone denies.

CORSI: Roger was saying, you know, "I want you to help me figure out, you know, a way to make it sound like I didn't know these were Podesta's e-mails that Assange had; that wasn't what I was referring to."

[06:05:00] MURRAY: Stone insisting to CNN that the interactions with Corsi, laid out in the draft court filing, do not "prove that I had advanced notice that anyone had stolen Podesta's e-mails or that anyone had stolen Podesta's e-mails or that I knew the source or content of the WikiLeaks disclosures."

In an interview with CNN, Corsi says Stone also encouraged him to press Assange for dirt the morning the "Access Hollywood" tape was released.

CORSI: My recollection is that Roger is saying, you know, "This Billy Bud (ph) is going to be dropped. And Assange better get going. You know, why don't you get to your buddy, Assange, and tell him to start."

MURRAY: Stone vehemently denies Corsi's claim as "pure, unadulterated, unmitigated B.S." The same day that the "Access Hollywood" tape was made public, WikiLeaks published the first batch of Podesta's e-mails, prompting this response from Trump three days later.

TRUMP: WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks.

MURRAY: A source tells CNN that President Trump's lawyers learned he was referenced in the documents before Thanksgiving, and they were irritated by a line in the filing that notes that Corsi believed Stone was in regular contact with senior members of the Trump campaign, including then-candidate Donald J. Trump.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, a source says that revelation in that filing actually delayed the Trump team's responses to Mueller's written questions. And of course, we've seen in the days since then the president only ramping up his attacks on the special counsel on Twitter.

CAMEROTA: Sara Murray, that is incredible. You just laid it out so perfectly for everybody to know. Because we've been following all of these disparate bread crumbs, and now at least, there's a breadcrumb trail. So thank you very much.

Stick around, please. We will also want to bring in CNN senior political analyst John Avlon and former CIA counterterrorism official Phil Mudd.

Phil Mudd, you are a professional bread crumb follower.

BERMAN: He's Hansel and Gretel.

CAMEROTA: And the witch.

BERMAN: Definitely that.

CAMEROTA: Phil, did the trail just get more clear for you?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: It did. Look, there's a couple pieces we've known for months. We've known, obviously, what the Russians were up to as a result of the investigation, including Russian military intelligence. We've known that WikiLeaks released the information? We had the outlines of interests in the Trump circle, Roger Stone, for example, interest in contacting WikiLeaks. The middle of the puzzle, since we're in the holidays, and all of us do fascinating puzzles over the holidays. I'm sure you do, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I do in the summer. But OK, I like where you're going with this.

MUDD: The middle of the study is starting to clarify. That is the information about exactly how the interaction with WikiLeaks was happening. Now, for the final pieces we just need a couple of questions answered.

No. 1, obviously, Roger Stone is denying this, is it true? And then the biggest question, if there was interest in contacting WikiLeaks, and if people affiliated with the campaign were talking to Julian Assange, did they ever get anything more than we've got dirty stuff that we're going to release? That's why the cooperation of these people is so important. I want to know did you get anything? When and did you know about it?

BERMAN: I just want to highlight two things in all of this, and it's going to be P-109 and 108, guys, in the control room here.

P-109, this is part of the filing that so bothered the Trump legal team, and Sarah mentioned at the end of her piece. "Corsi said that in the summer of 2016 an associate ("Person No. 1")" -- that's Roger Stone -- "who Corsi understood to be in regular contact with senior members of the Trump campaign, including with then-candidate Donald J. Trump, asked Corsi to get in touch with Organization 1."

So what you have there is Mueller's team making a direct connection between people trying to get these e-mails and the president, and Donald Trump. It's right there in the Mueller document.

And then -- and this was in "The Washington Post" piece overnight, just slipped in. And I caught it, and it really jumped out to me. Rudy Giuliani, "an attorney for Trump, said the president does not recall ever speaking to either Stone or Corsi about WikiLeaks."

John Avlon, anyone who has been a day in journalism knows that's a non-denial denial.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYSTS: Yes.

BERMAN: He does not recall.

AVLON: That is a classic word used to set up a condition, because you don't know the truth or you don't want to deal with the truth. That is a non-denial denial in journalism. Anyone who watches a court show knows that that's not a solid foundation on which to build a denial.

The content is pretty stunning. Rudy Giuliani also apparently, you know, in contact with Manafort's folks.

The dots are being connected here in a deeper way than ever before than we've seen. In Sarah's reporting with Corsi, among the things we've seen is also an indication that he communicates that there's going to -- they have damaging information related to Hillary and e- mails. It's going to be released in two tranches, one early, the other in October for maximum damage, which is more or less exactly what happened.

We see, apparently, Corsi communicating with Ted Malloch, he tells Sara. Ted Malloch is connected to U.K. (ph) and Farage and Brexit. These are all really interesting dots that we're starting to bring into closer, and you get a sense of why the pressure is increasing on the president, because you can't spin your way out of these problems.

BERMAN: Sara -- can I just ask Sara one more question, on that note? Also in that piece, you note that Stone says he spoke to the president in the middle of it all.

[06:10:11] And that jumped out to me, again, because we know that the president's legal team was all of a sudden really hesitant to turn in the written questions that they were asked by Mueller when Mueller wanted to know what the president knew when?

MURRAY: And the really interesting thing about 2016, is that Roger Trump was calling Trump directly. He was a candidate then, so nobody really knew exactly how often they were speaking and what they were talking about.

But Roger Stone did say a day after he received this e-mail from Jerome Corsi saying, you know, dirt is coming. At the time, Stone did this radio program and said, "Oh, yes, I just spoke to the president yesterday," a day after he received this e-mail.

Now, Roger Stone insists he never discussed WikiLeaks with President Trump, but he's saying that to me. He's not saying it under oath.

BERMAN: And just to add to that something we know that we've discussed before in the show. Trump mentions WikiLeaks over 130 times publicly in the final month of the campaign. This is someone who has not only cheerleading but more than a passing familiarity with the organization and what they may be doing to help his effort.

CAMEROTA: I mean, look, no dots have been officially connected by Robert Mueller that we -- obviously, that he shared with us. But when you hear President Trump talk about WikiLeaks so often -- let's just listen to this. Because it's starting to not sound like a coincidence. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable. It tells you the inner heart. You've got to read it.

Another one came in today. This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove.

As I was getting off the plane, they were just announcing new WikiLeaks and I wanted to stay there, but I didn't want to keep you waiting.

This just came out. WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Presidential candidate or P.R. agent for WikiLeaks?

CAMEROTA: I don't know, but here's what I think is really interesting, Sarah, and maybe you can help everybody connect the dots here. Because everybody remembers the "Access Hollywood" tape. OK? That's something that obviously caught the nation's attention.

There was a nexus between the "Access Hollywood" tape now in terms of dates, and WikiLeaks. So on the day that the "Access Hollywood" tape is coming out, Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone have three conversations, according to Jerome Corsi, right, about "You better get the WikiLeaks thing out soon."

MURRAY: I mean, they were dropped something like 30 minutes after the "Access Hollywood" tape came out. So this has always been a big question in this investigation is did WikiLeaks get some kind of guidance from someone, saying, "Now is the time. Now is the time to pull the trigger and release this stuff. We're trying to mitigate the fallout."

Now, Stone insists that he never asked Jerome Corsi to do any of this, that he didn't ever believe Corsi was in touch with WikiLeaks anyway. But Corsi says, "You know, he called me over and over again and told me that, you know, try to get to Assange and say, if there's something to get out, put it out now."

BERMAN: Phil, I want to ask one more question on this subject with you. Again, you've been in the middle of these investigations. The reason we know all of this now is that Jerome Corsi and his legal team released these plea negotiations, these documents that they had been in touch with, with the special counsel.

If you're part of the investigation team, how pissed are you right now that these documents just became public? Do you care? Just talk about that.

And actually, the second part of this is the fact that the special counsel was willing to let Corsi plead guilty to a pretty minor thing in all of this, lying to investigators about one very specific part of this but not all the other stuff. What does that tell you?

MUDD: Corsi is a bit player here. Look, he might plead guilty, but the question I have about Corsi is not whether he's guilty of anything. It's a question about providing color commentary around what happened, especially in the summer of 2016.

Let me get specific. There are stories about, for example, Manafort meeting with WikiLeaks people. Obviously, the big story her is whether or not Roger Stone received information from WikiLeaks. I'm holding a lot of data over Corsi's head, for example, what his e-mail information shows about what he knew back then and saying, "Look, we need you to cooperate, because we want information, not about what you did but about what about Roger Stone did."

I don't think this story is over yet, Jen (ph_. I don't think the story about his cooperation is over yet, and I don't think his plea is that significant. The hammer is still there over him. I want to know what he knows about the summer of 2016.

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's talk about Paul Manafort. because that also was in the news yesterday. He apparently -- well, according to "The Guardian," OK, there's one source, "The Guardian" newspaper. And they have a story that he -- that Paul Manafort, before he was the Trump campaign chairman, had secret talks with Julian Assange in the embassy where Julian Assange has been holed up.

We've not been able to match that reporting. Nor has any other news outlet. Here is Paul Manafort's denial of that. "The story is totally false and deliberately libelous. I never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him. I have never been contacted by anyone connected to WikiLeaks, either directly or indirectly. I have never reached out to Assange or WikiLeaks on any matter. We are considering all legal options against 'The Guardian,' who proceeded with this story even after being notified by my representatives that it was false."

[06:15:02] It would be hard to have a stronger statement of denial than this one. This is unequivocal, because if that were true what "The Guardian" established or claims to have established, that would be the smoking gun.

AVLON: It would be very significant. And the reporter, we should say, who put this forward, Luke Harding, wrote a book on the subject, is a very good reporter on this, but they are so far out alone with this reporting. And it is a bombshell accusation, because as you say, it puts Manafort, the campaign chairman, in the Ecuadorian embassy with Assange on three occasions but one while he was on-boarding at the Trump campaign in March of 2016.

That is a big deal. It's stunning, because given the amount of intelligence emphasis on the embassy, it's significant new information. Manafort's denial is fulsome. It is wholehearted. It is aggressive, as aggressive as almost every other public denial he's given and then subsequently been proven to be lied about. WikiLeaks also has denied it. So truth will out, but a significant -- a significant development if it is further corroborated.

BERMAN: We don't know much more about that. So let's leave that there for a second, because there's another major Manafort development, Sara, and that has to deal with reporting Dana Bash first broke yesterday, which is that Paul Manafort's legal team, while after he pleaded guilty, while he was in his cooperation agreement with the special counsel, his lawyers were talking to the president's lawyers. They were sharing information.

Manafort's team was telling the president's team what the special counsel was asking. There is this back and forth there that makes you wonder if Manafort is not answering questions to curry favor again for a pardon.

MURRAY: Yes, I think that that's the conclusion you have to walk away with. You know, we're talking about that statement Manafort put out and Manafort's credibility.

This is someone who went in and, according to investigators, was willing to lie to them in the midst of negotiating a plea deal. So the idea that he would lie to journalists certainly isn't far-fetched. And it does tell you or suggests that he is playing some kind of longer end game, the fact that his lawyers were talking to the president's lawyers while in these plea negotiations, I think, is even further evidence of that.

One thing we should note, the president's lawyers are talking to a lot of people. They're trying to Jerome Corsi's lawyer. They are trying to be in contact with as many witnesses and as many of their lawyers as possible to get insight into what the special counsel knows.

AVLON: That's the significant part. They're actually playing catch- up in a significant way. The fact that they had to hold their statement while they tried to figure out that Trump was mentioned by Corsi in relation to Stone, because so many people have spoken to the special counsel. And they don't -- actually have been keeping track, for example, of what Don McGahn said and how long he spoke. The president's lawyers are playing catch-up here. It's becoming apparent that they don't know what Mueller said, and that puts them in a tricky position, even on an open-book test submission of questions.

CAMEROTA: Phil Mudd, the president gave an interview to "The Washington Post" yesterday and Manafort came up. Here is this excerpt.

Josh Dawsey, the reporter, says, "People around you have told me you're upset about the way he" -- Paul Manafort -- "has been treated. Are you planning to do anything to help him?"

The president says, "Let me go off-the-record, because I don't want to get in the middle of the whole thing." Then the president speaks off the record to "The Washington Post."

Then they come back on the record. Josh Dawsey says, "Is there anything in there you're willing to give us on the record in answer to that question," and the president says, "I'd rather not. At some point, I'll talk on the record about it. But I'd rather not."

Do you think he's going to pardon Paul Manafort?

MUDD: I don't know, but the significant piece of the story here is not just the fact that the president's lawyers are playing catch-up. If you're investigating this story on the inside and you're talking to Paul Manafort, who presumably has said, "I'm going to give you a plea bargain," which means "I'm going to cooperate," and then you find out he's talking to the president's lawyers, or his lawyers are talking to the president's lawyers.

What's your take away from that? My takeaway is you're not fully in with the Mueller team. You're clearly not cooperating fully with us, and you want to tell the opposing team, potentially, what the game plan is. That's part of the story where the Mueller team is going to the judge and saying, "Look, Paul Manafort said he was going to cooperate. He lied, and now he ought to go to jail." If you're an investigator, this really ticks you off.

I will say joint cooperation agreements is not unusual. What is unusual is after a plea deal for someone who has already pleaded guilty to then share information with other possible subjects in an investigation. You don't see that very much. Phil, Sara, John, thank you. We're going to be talking about this all

morning. Because it's very difficult to digest, but it's very significant.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Thank you.

BERMAN: All right. The president says he is a person of high intelligence. Is that what he said? Yes, it's something very -- he's a person of high intelligence.

CAMEROTA: Yes, in response to why he doesn't believe the climate science.

BERMAN: He also said when it comes to very complicated financial matters. He goes with his guts. Gut -- not with, you know, the folks with Ph.D.s.

We'll discuss all of this, next.

CAMEROTA: Makes perfect sense.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:23:31] BERMAN: In a new interview with "The Washington Post," President Trump attacked the historically independent Federal Reserve and his appointed share, saying, quote, "So I'm doing deals, and I'm not being accommodated by the Fed. I'm not happy with the Fed. They're making a mistake, because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me."

"I have a gut." Not a Ph.D., mind you, which is what some economists and people have in the Fed --

CAMEROTA: Please, spare me your elitist -- Northeast elitist talk, OK.

BERMAN: He has a gut, he has a gut.

Let's bring in John Avlon; senior writer and analyst for CNN Politics Harry Enten; and White House reporter for Bloomberg News, Toluse Olorunnipa.

Toluse, I want to start with you. Not only does he have a gut. He's not only relying on a gut. That's what he uses on economic policy.

But he uses what he calls a high level of intelligence dealing with climate science. Let me read you that: "One of the problems is that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence, but we're not necessarily such believers. You look at our air and our water, and it's right now at a record clean."

So his gut helps him more than the Fed's economists, and his high intelligence helps him more than climate scientists. It was a very interesting piece in "The Washington Post."

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Yes. And also, there was a part of that interview where he talked about the forest fires in California and put out his own theory about how bad forest management, the fact that people don't rake the forest is a reason why we have forest fires, not climate change, not other issues that several people who have expertise in this area have talked about in the past.

So the president is relying more and more on his gut, not listening to experts on things like intelligence, on things like Russia, saying that he, alone, can fix it and he knows best. It's a very interesting approach to the presidency, where you have access to all of these experts. you have access to the top intelligence official. And instead of listening to them, instead of listening to the scientists, he decides to go with his gut.

And even on the issue of the Fed the president is basically saying that his choice, Jay Powell, to lead the Fed is not doing the right thing. And the president had an opportunity to put his own person in there, and now he's sort of blaming his own choice for what's happening at the Fed. So at least on that issue, his gut did not lead him in the right direction.

CAMEROTA: Look, John, we've seen this time and again in the Trump presidency and the Trump candidacy. I remember Newt Gingrich famously told me during the Republican convention, "I'll go with feelings over facts any day."

AVLON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And that is -- that's what's happening. The president thinks that he has this Midas touch when it comes to his gut and feelings and how his base feels, and facts be damned.

AVLON: Yes, the problem is he's sort of got a reverse Midas touch when it comes to the consequences of governing.

Look, when people, politicians, when presidents in particular say they go with the gut over the facts, bad things usually happen. This president is an exaggerated version, because there seems to be almost contempt for the concept of intelligence. Contempt for his own intelligence agencies.

At the top of that package, the question of -- he shows, you know, questions the historically independent Fed. That's Replace almost an evergreen headline. Just replace "Fed" with almost any other independent organization designed to hold a president to account, and he wants to reject him.

It's a very revealing statement, a revealing interview. It's part of a larger piece. But it's why we've got, essentially, a no-nothing presidency and an administration made of experts who are trying to contain the damage he can do.

BERMAN: You're talking about a contempt for intelligence. I mean, it's a big "I" and a small "i" --

AVLON: Yes. BERMAN: -- here in this case. Big "I" being the intelligence community on things having to do with Khashoggi and Russia. Small "i" having to do with climate science, with the economy. It really is interesting. I mean, just a contempt for actual information. His response to the 1,600-page climate report is, "I don't buy it."

AVLON: It's basically a Flat-Earth Society approach to -- to dealing with the world it is. "I'm smart. I can see around me. The world is not circular in particular. You're not going to convince me of that." It's a slightly higher grade of that level of analysis.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean --

AVLON: That's a problem for a president with a massive government in a country that has a responsibility to lead the world. It makes us a punchline rather than a problem solver.

CAMEROTA: I mean, I think that we had a little window into this, Toluse, yesterday when the national security advisor, John Bolton, also said, "Why would I need to hear the tape" of Khashoggi being murdered? In other words, "I don't need more information. In other words, you know, what jurors are tasked with every day, of having to look at evidence, "I already have my conclusion. My hunch is good enough."

I mean, we just see it time and again.

OLORUNNIPA: Yes, it seems like the president, there are some things that he would rather not know about, and he thinks it's better as a president to not have the details about specific issues or specific matters of intelligence. The president has also said that he did not want to listen to the tape of the Khashoggi murder, because he said it's a horrible tape, and it's a suffering tape.

And this is something that you would expect the president and his top national security adviser to listen to, to get the transcript of, to have people who can translate and get the sense of what was happening to come to a conclusion.

But it seems like the president does not want to come to the conclusion that the Saudis were highly involved at the highest levels in this murder. He has thrown off and cast aside the intelligence community's conclusion that that was the take.

And he's talked about how he knows more than the generals, how he knows more than the people who are leading the battle in a number of these different fields, especially on foreign policy. And he's, rather than listening to them, saying that he knows more than them and that he is more than willing to cast aside their conclusions.

So this is a pattern with the president, and it's possible that there are people within the government who are sort of unhappy with the fact that their own intelligence conclusions are being cast aside in order to give cover to the Saudis or to give cover to the president's own perspective. BERMAN: You can see why he thinks this. He got to be pretty rich by

following his gut, and inheriting some of it. But he also got to be president by following his gut.

CAMEROTA: He's been rewarded at times for this.

BERMAN: It's just a lot more complicated, actually, being president. And there are a lot of really smart people around.

Harry, there was an election last night in Mississippi.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS: There was.

BERMAN: A Republican won in a Republican state. What did you see inside this election?

ENTEN: I think there were a few things that I saw. No. 1, this is the closest Senate margin in the state of Mississippi since dating back all the way to 1988. So if we were wondering whether Cindy Hyde- Smith's comments in the lead-up to this election hurt her in her candidacy, I would argue they did.

CAMEROTA: What was the margin?

ENTEN: The margin was about eight percentage points. But, you know, at the end of the day, Mississippi is still Mississippi. It's a state that hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1982. It's a state where no Democratic gubernatorial candidate has received a majority of the vote since 1987. It's a state that no Democratic presidential candidate has received a majority of the vote since 1956.