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Stone's Efforts to Seek WikiLeaks Docs Detailed in Draft Mueller Doc; Interview with House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff concerning Possible Russia Related Investigations; President Trump Gives Interview to "Washington Post." Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 28, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] REP. ADAM SCHIFF, (D) RANKING MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Good morning.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So before we get to what will change when you are the chairman of that committee, with all of this new reporting from Sara Murray as well as other people, what jumps out at you this morning in terms of connecting the dots of Mueller's investigation.

SCHIFF: Well, all the connections, all the dots, as you say. And when you look at it, the Russians hacked the Clinton campaign, or the Podesta e-mails. The Russians then provide all that information to WikiLeaks. Roger Stone then goes to Corsi to get information from WikiLeaks to get these e-mails. Corsi then goes to WikiLeaks through and intermediary to get that information. Corsi then gets back to Roger Stone with information about the Podesta e-mails and their timing. Stone then makes public statements about the timing of the Podesta release. Stone is in contact with Donald Trump directly. And then of course the e-mails are dumped, and dumped at times that are optimal for the Trump campaign.

When you look at that constellation of facts and all the links between these different characters, it is either an extraordinary, extraordinary coincidence, or it's what collusion looks like. And this is maybe why the president so adamantly tries to deny collusion, because these facts are pretty damning.

CAMEROTA: Just to put a finer point on some of the things you're talking about, here's an example. OK, so here is an e-mail from Jerome Corsi to Roger Stone on August 2nd. This is obviously before the election. This is even before the WikiLeaks materials become public. "Word is friend in embassy," we assume that means Julian Assange, "plans two more dumps, one shortly after I'm back. Second is in October. Impact, plan to be very damaging. Time to let more than the Clinton campaign chairman," John Podesta," to be exposed, as in bed with enemy, if they are not ready to drop Hillary Rodham Clinton. That appears to be the game. Hackers are now about. Would not hurt to start suggesting Hillary Rodham Clinton old, memory bad, has stroke, neither he nor she well. I expect that much of the next dump focus will be setting the stage for the Clinton Foundation debacle." That's a lot of guesswork happening in that email. SCHIFF: It would have to be a lot of guesswork. And of course, the

explanation that Roger Stone gave publicly, and I can't talk about his testimony before our committee, but that testimony needs to be provided to Bob Mueller for consideration about whether it contains perjury. But of course the public explanation of Roger Stone is that he just surmised that there was information about Podesta's business that was going to come out, nothing to do with e-mails. That's flatly contradicted by this e-mail.

And so you also have to add to the other evidence all of this evidence of deception on the part of Stone, on the part of Corsi, on the part of so many characters within this drama. And of course if the other allegation that "The Guardian" published that Manafort was in touch directly with Assange and WikiLeaks, then that's a whole other order of attitude of severity, and of course it brings this right to the president's doorstep.

CAMEROTA: And of course, Paul Manafort has flatly denied that in a very unequivocal statement. But this leads us all to what you're going to do. So in January when you take the mantle, as is assumed you will, of chair of your committee away from Devin Nunes, who I think it is fair to say you think has not been terribly effective as a chairman, you then will have the power to subpoena witnesses. You will be able to call whoever you want. You will be able to get phone records. What will you do first?

SCHIFF: Well, I can't say what we'll do first, but I can tell you that we're going to do the same kind of prioritization that the other committees will do. And that is we're going to have to look at those investigative strands that the Republicans were afraid to go down because they were concerned what it might reveal, that are most important to the American people.

We need to know, for example, whether the Russians have financial leverage over the president of the United States that's warping U.S. policy in a pro-Russia direction. We were not allowed to look at whether the Russians were laundering money through the Trump Organization. That has to be examined.

But we also need to get a whole raft of documents that the Republicans were unwilling to pursue. And to give you one flagrant example, as they were setting up that Trump Tower meeting, as Don Jr. was on the phone with his Russian counterpart to make arrangements to get this dirt on Hillary Clinton, there was a phone call sandwiched in between these communications between Trump Jr. and Agalarov, Emin Agalarov, the son of that oligarch, and that call is a blocked number. And we wanted to get the phone records to determine, was Donald Trump talking to his son about this meeting. It's an obvious investigative step, but one the Republicans were unwilling to take because they were afraid of where the evidence might lead.

CAMEROTA: So you are saying that in January you would be able to figure out who that blocked number was?

SCHIFF: Yes. We'll have the investigative tools finally to compel an answer and be able to determine, OK, who was this call from. And, of course, that's not the end of the story. We would also need to know what took place in that conversation between whoever the president's son was talking to as he's making arrangements to get dirt from the Russians.

[08:05:09] CAMEROTA: Very quickly, are you troubled, or how troubled are you by the revelation that Paul Manafort's lawyers have been in direct communication with Donald Trump's lawyers?

SCHIFF: Well, it's very troubling, because it looks like Paul Manafort is essentially a backdoor to information to the Trump legal defense team while he is going through the pretense of cooperating with investigators. He's basically double dealing. And if that double dealing was the result of dangling a pardon for Mr. Manafort, then you get into another issue, and that is, is the president again attempting to obstruct justice? And it would add to the body of evidence, the body of extremely concerning evidence that the president of the United States is interfering in the impartial administration of justice and obstructing justice.

CAMEROTA: OK, next topic. As you know, there is a Democratic leadership vote this morning, I believe at 10:00 a.m. Is there any way in your mind that Nancy Pelosi does not become the next speaker of the House?

SCHIFF: No. I think she's going to have a very strong vote of support today in the caucus. And what's more, she should. She should. She has kept this incredibly diverse caucus, which just got even more diverse, all on the same page. No one was more responsible for both delivering health care to tens of millions of Americans and for making sure that that didn't go away when Donald Trump was elected. She has kept us unified. And as we go into the next two pivotal years, there is no one in a better position to keep us on the same page fighting for the same things, and making sure that we speak with one voice at a time when the rule of law, our very democracy is at risk, and so many of the things that we care about.

CAMEROTA: As we understand it, even if she does clear this hurdle, there is still a dozen incoming lawmakers from Republican leaning areas, Democrats, who say that they will oppose her in the January floor vote. Does that give you any concern?

SCHIFF: It only gives me concern in this way. We'll ultimately prevail in January. But my concern is that we don't want to be occupied by this attack on leader Pelosi for the next several weeks. We need to be preparing for exactly what we're going to do so we can hit the ground running. This is our legislative agenda. These are the first bills we're going to introduce. These are the first areas of oversight. Here is how we're going to organize ourselves. That needs to be our focus right now.

So we really do need to resolve this leadership fight today when we have the vote in caucus. And I certainly understand the intentions of those that are mounting this challenge. But at the end of the day, if the challenge doesn't succeed, and we'll know today the strength of support for leader Pelosi, then we need to come together. We need to move on and we need to get ready for the challenge ahead of us next year.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you very much. We appreciate you being on NEW DAY.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: In a wide-ranging interview with the "Washington Post," President Trump criticized the federal reserve and his administration's own climate change report, saying he has a high level of intelligence and insists his gut is better than anyone's brain. This is what he said when talking about the Federal Reserve, 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."

Joining us now is one of the "Washington Post" reporters who interviewed the president, CNN political analyst Josh Dawsey. Josh, thank you very much for being with us. It wasn't just his gut that advises the president on economic policy. He also said his very high intellect advises him on climate policy, more so than the climate scientists who all provide the 1,600 page report. This is what he said. "One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have such very high levels of intelligence, but we're not necessarily such believers. You look at our air and our water and it is right now at a record clean." The president, as I guess most part people do, wanted to tell you how smart he was yesterday a lot it seems.

JOSH DAWSEY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: The theme of this presidency, John, has been the president versus the presidency and his own administration. Obviously, his Federal Reserve, his handpicked chair is setting policies he doesn't like. His own different agencies, climatologists, various folks across the government put together this report. He said he didn't agree with the findings.

The president has not been hesitant at all to say I don't agree with the things that people in my own government are doing, my own appointees are doing. And he made that clear yesterday on a number of fronts, just because people inside his administration put something out does not mean that the president himself agrees with it. One of the famous quotes from the campaign trail from his former campaign manager was, the only person who speaks for Mr. Trump is Mr. Trump. And we have seen that happen again and again, including yesterday in this interview on a range of issues.

[08:10:03] BERMAN: No, I have a gut may go down in history as one of the more interesting things spoken from inside the Oval Office. There was a lot of policy there, and some movement in some cases. It was the first time he had spoken at length about the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. And the president suggested he might not meet with Vladimir Putin at the G-20 because of what went on there. Tell us what he said.

DAWSEY: The president said he still has scant intelligence on what happened there and was getting a briefing last night around 6:00 in the Oval Office about the aggression from Russia. He said he was obviously concerned about it. It could cause him to cancel his meeting. But he was noncommittal. We know that the president likes to meet with Vladimir Putin. He wants to meet with Chinese President Xi this weekend at the G-20. And we'll be interested to see if he does. But you can tell that it frustrated him that he was caught off guard by this Russian movement against Ukraine and that he may retaliate.

BERMAN: Any update on that briefing? Did it take place and has he --

DAWSEY: No, I don't have any update on that. I'm sorry.

BERMAN: There was another moment that's getting a lot of press. And I know that you're a terrific reporter which means you will not go against the off-the-record nature of this, but let me read you the exchange here. You were asking the president about Paul Manafort and a lot of news surrounding Paul Manafort yesterday. This is exchange. Josh Dawsey asked "People around you have told me you are upset about the way he's been treated. Are you planning to do anything to help him?" Trump, "Let me go off the record because I don't want to get in the middle of the whole thing." The president then spoke off the record. You then say after, "Is there any version you are willing to give us on the record in answer to that question?" The president says "I'd rather not. At some point I'll talk on the record about it, but I'd rather now." Now, you can't tell us what he said when he went off the record. But how was he talking in general terms? What struck you about how he was approaching the Paul Manafort situation?

DAWSEY: As you said, obviously, I can't say what the president said there because he went off the record and we agreed to it. What was interesting to me was the remarkable discipline he showed in going off the record. On a number of occasions, he's been happy to talk about the Mueller probe. He's been happy to tweet about it when his aides have told him not to, his lawyers have told him not to. He's expressed lots of support for Paul Manafort in the past, saying that he had gotten a raw deal and had been in solitary confinement and not been treated well.

And the president yesterday with Bill Shine and Sarah Sanders in the room, kept looking at them and saying he was not going to go on the record about the Mueller probe. It showed a lot of discipline from the president who has been advised constantly, do not talk about this investigation. You're not helping yourself, you're not helping yourself, and has often done it anyway. But here he did now.

We asked several other questions about the investigation, as you saw in the interview, whether or not he had talked to Matt Whitaker, the new A.G. about it, whether he had any intentions to fire Robert Mueller. He said he had no plans to do anything. It was some of his less aggressive public answers on the investigation, which I thought was interesting on its face.

BERMAN: Any sense about why? Obviously there was a lot of other things in your paper and many others about developments in the investigation overnight. Did it maybe chasten him some? DAWSEY: I don't know that it chastened him. I think his lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, people around him in the White House, Emmet Flood, have told him that floating a pardon for Paul Manafort or making any sort of comments about Paul Manafort could be deleterious to his cause. I think they're telling him just wait, see this out, see what happens. At the time you can consider what other options you want, but to be careful for now. So far the president has taken that advice. But as we've seen time and time again, he might decide not to at any minute, and then we could have a total shift in strategy.

BERMAN: So, Josh, the president offered you a drink in the Oval Office and you refused. Why?

DAWSEY: Well, I wasn't thirsty. No, the president, one of the things the president, people don't understand about him, he often sees himself a host even as president. He'll come back to Air Force One and say, is everyone having fun? At Mar-a-Lago he wanted the entire press corps to come have dinner at his club and came over and said how's the turkey? He's someone who, because he's had this club for many years and because in New York he loved entertaining people, is often solicitous of his guests in private. And it's not a defining characteristic of him, but it is something that is always striking to me.

BERMAN: Josh Dawsey, interesting. Thanks so much for joining us and sharing the insights of what went on in that interview, appreciate it.

DAWSEY: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: It is always tough to obviously ask a reporter to share insight on an off the record moment. But I was wondering if you were looking at Josh Dawsey's links, if it that was some sort of Morse code that you were trying to --

BERMAN: Josh is too good of a reporter. Once you agree to go off the record with somebody, you're not going to share anything about what happened there. I will say there is a legitimate discussion to be had at a higher level about whether the president should ever be able to go off the record. I'm in the camp of no. The president is the principal. What if he gave any hint at all? You need to know what the president is doing there.

CAMEROTA: I think I'm in the other camp.

BERMAN: It's split, but I don't think so. I don't think the president should be off the camp.

CAMEROTA: I think he should.

BERMAN: There you go.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: OK, many more details for you on what Robert Mueller is looking into. We have them next.

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[08:15:00] CAMEROTA: Many more details for you on what Robert Mueller is looking into. We have them, next.

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CAMEROTA: OK. So this morning, we had the first window yet into what dots Robert Mueller is trying to connect.

CNN's Sara Murray obtained these drafts of court filings. They say that former Trump adviser Roger Stone enlisted the help of Jerome Corsi, a known conspiracy theorist, to get documents from WikiLeaks that would help then-candidate Donald Trump.

Let's bring in former special assistant to President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings, former Democratic South Carolina House member, Bakari Sellers, and CNN politics editor at large, Chris Cillizza.

Chris, I will start with you because you analyze all of these things. So does today feel different in terms of all of the threads of putting together the Robert Mueller investigation?

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS EDITOR AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE: I don't know if different, Alisyn, but I think it's -- we see a bigger hole in the picture. It's like standing one inch from a picture, peering through a door with a very slight crack and trying to figure out what the whole thing says. Well, that door or that hole widened a little bit. I think we can see a little bit.

This is draft material, as you point out. But it does suggest where Bob Mueller is pushing at least in one direction, which is Roger Stone, WikiLeaks, Jerome Corsi and the fact that we know that WikiLeaks released a series of e-mails hacked from the DNC, as well as John Podesta, the campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton's e-mail in the run-up to the campaign, to the final vote.

So that's a piece. Now, we suspected that. We have seen sort of a focus more on Stone as things have gone along. But I do think it's clarification, and it's a little bit more broadening as it relates to what we now know at least on what avenue Mueller is going down.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I think it is different, though. You didn't ask me, but I think what is different today --

CAMEROTA: That's not going to stop you.

BERMAN: I think what is different today is we actually see documentation from the Mueller team. Yes, it was a draft, but it's not often we get actual information from what's going on inside the investigation. In this case, it is about Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi.

CAMEROTA: By the way, I just want to say, we didn't get it from Robert Mueller. Sara Murray got it from Jerome Corsi, just so everybody is clear.

BERMAN: Which is more twisted in a variety of ways, and we're going to ask about that with Ken Starr coming up.

Scott Jennings, you know, you worked on all kinds of campaigns and political organization. You know that there are sometimes people connected to campaigns and organizations that are strange, different. But, you know, you have Roger Stone. You have Corsi. You have Paul Manafort.

I was joking about the "Star Wars" bar scene. But that's what it is. You have these guys that it is impossible to connect. There's too much lying, there's lies on top of lies on top of lies.

So what do you take from it?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, some people are too dumb not to lie when put under oath. And that's what's happening here. And some people will go to jail for a long time because of it.

I do think we are starting to get a clear picture of what some people were doing. I think the core question is, were they doing it at the direction of somebody? And we don't know that. That's never been proven. We have no documentation on that.

And what we do know is you have a bunch of tier two, tier three operators that have proven to be dishonest who may have gone out and acted like irresponsible Cowboys and done really irresponsible things that are ultimately going to taint the president. Whether he had anything to do with it or not, we don't know. Whether any of his inner circle did that was actually in the campaign structure, they say they did, and that's the missing here. We're going to have to see if Mueller has uncovered.

I have any doubts they directed it, but I guess we'll see when Mueller files his report.

CAMEROTA: Bakari, what do you see with all these threads?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I don't see any tier two, tier three, tier four actors. I don't -- my friend, Scott, I'm not sure where he's getting that from because Paul Manafort was the campaign manager and chairperson of the convention. I don't think you get any higher than that. Michael Flynn was the national security adviser. I'm not sure you get higher than that.

CAMEROTA: But Jerome Corsi, who gave us these documents, he wasn't integral.

SELLERS: I mean, he may not have been integral, but I mean, we're acting as if Jared Kushner wasn't sitting in a meeting soliciting this information in Trump Tower. So, they're not tier two, tier three, tier four players that are involved, how high up it goes, the question is whether or not the president knew, what did he know and when did he know it. But there were people involved that made decisions in the campaign.

But also, I think that Robert Mueller has actually told us a lot. Every opportunity he gets in his pubic filings, if you go back and look at his indicts, they're what they call speaking indictments. He goes into great detail.

The sentencing submission and memorandum he's going to give on Paul Manafort is going to be in depth. We got a hint that he is going to lay out the various crimes and lies that he has told. And so, I think that Robert Mueller has given us a great deal of information through his pleas and informations, his speaking indictments, et cetera, and I just think this is another chip that will fall, and we're going to see that this campaign was rotten from the core.

But even more importantly, I want to compare it to Barack Obama. I think that's only fair. Barack Obama had zero people in his campaign and zero people in his administration be indicted or go to prison. Donald Trump has a full bus load of people who will be pulling up to the penitentiary shortly.

BERMAN: Bakari speaking indictments. If the Corsi draft, a speaking draft from Robert Mueller included words about President Trump, or then candidate Trump. It noted directly that Corsi was talking to Stone in writing. Mueller's team pointed out that Stone was believed to have contact with President Trump directly.

That we know, Chris, got under the president's skin and the president's legal team. They saw that over the last few weeks while they were answering the questions and that was enough to give them pause.

CILLIZZA: Well, yes, because Scott and Bakari both highlight this, which is we know Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi and while it is a separate element, Bakari does note, look, Mike Flynn has pled guilty and is cooperating. Rick Gates as pled guilty and is Cooperating. Paul Manafort still pled guilty, he's not cooperating.

We know that there is lots of people in this orbit who we strongly suspect in some cases, like the ones who have pled guilty, we know were either lying about what they knew and what they were doing or we have strong suspicions as it relates to Roger Stone and Corsi about what they were doing.

[08:25:11] What we don't have yet beyond the meeting in June with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Manafort and the Russians, we don't have anything that says Kushner was directing this. Donald Trump Jr. is directing this. Donald Trump himself knew about it. Because, remember, Donald Trump, he kind of goes all over the place in his rhetoric, but when he is at his finest rhetorical point he says, I didn't collude. There was no collusion.

So, the danger here is he is walling himself off. And, so, you have to try to keep it away from him anything that gets anywhere near that I think bothers him personally and obviously puts him in significant legal jeopardy, not to mention political jeopardy. So they are very, very cognizant of this fact. But his rhetoric is all over the place, which makes it hard.

CAMEROTA: I think, yes, he does.

Scott, Ivanka Trump, the president's adviser and daughter, was on a morning show and she talks the first time publicly about the fact she used personal e-mails when she was doing government business. Here's this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVANKA TRUMP, FIRST DAUGHTER: In my case, all of my e-mails are on the White House server. There is no intent to circumvent and there were mass deletions after a subpoena was issued. My e-mails were not deleted, nor there was anything of substance, nothing confidential that was within them. So, there is no connection between the two things.

INTERVIEWER: The idea of "lock her up" doesn't apply to you?

TRUMP: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Scott, I think she's missing one of the points, which is it's the initial wrongdoing, it's the knowing you are not supposed to do that and doing it anyway. That was the first hue and cry about Hillary Clinton, that she thinks she's above the law. Rules don't apply to her.

JENNINGS: Yes. I'm glad to see Ivanka speaking in her own voice and not through a spokesperson through a private attorney, which I didn't think was the right response in the beginning. So, I think she needs to be clear in her voice, which she was today. And the White House will have to go a step further. They're going to obviously end up answering questions about this from the House Democrats. They just need to be fully transparent.

If what she said is true, every e-mail was preserved, every email was put on the server, all rules are now being followed, all procedures have now been put in place, that's a perfectly fine story to tell and this will become a minor blip in the pantheon of investigations they're going to face. But at some point, they will have to take the next step and be more transparent with the House Democrats when they do their information request.

BERMAN: Bakari, I want to give you a quick last word.

SELLERS: I just want to laugh. I think Ivanka dug herself a hole. Donald Trump dug a hole, Ivanka jumped in it.

I'm glad to hear her voice, but the fact of the matter is, to say that she did not know is ludicrous. They persecuted Hillary Clinton day in and day out and for Ivanka Trump to fall into that same trap is laughable. It's the height of hypocrisy, but that's what we expect at 1600 Pennsylvania.

BERMAN: Bakari Sellers, Chris Cillizza, Scott Jennings, thank you one and all. Appreciate it.

CILLIZZA: Thank you. BERMAN: Robert Mueller apparently has lost two cooperating witnesses this week in the Russia investigation. How big of a blow is that? We'll discuss.

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