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Trump: Manafort Pardon is Not 'Off the Table'; Senate Defies Trump on Saudi Arabia after Journalist's Murder. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 29, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's no doubt the president is send a very strong message: Do not cooperate.

[05:59:28] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any pardon would look like a reward for funneling information to Trump. I can't tell you how extraordinary that is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president has told Mueller Roger Stone never told him about WikiLeaks, and he said he didn't know about the Trump Tower meeting.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: The special counsel has the evidence that can cooperate or dispute that contention.

SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: I just can't, for the life of me, understand why more of us here in the Senate aren't concerned about this investigation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I am accepting compliments on my dress right now, John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: She was very upset --

CAMEROTA: Yes, I am.

BERMAN: -- that no one had said anything about 30 seconds ago. It was ruining the whole morning.

CAMEROTA: And Asha complimented it, and now we can begin the show. Thank you, Asha.

BERMAN: I really do appreciate it, Asha. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Thursday, November 29, 6 a.m. here in New York.

We begin with Robert Mueller's investigation and the president's reaction to it. In an interview with "The New York Post," President Trump dangled the possibility of a pardon for his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, saying, quote, "It was never discussed, but I wouldn't take it off the table. Why would I take it off the table?"

The president has cast Manafort and other targets of the Mueller probe as victims of prosecutorial aggression. Manafort was convicted of eight felonies, and he pleaded guilty to two others.

BERMAN: CNN also has exclusive details about President Trump's written answers to Robert Mueller. This was part of the take-home, open-book exam.

The president told Mueller -- and here are the key words -- to the best of his recollection, he did not know about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting promising Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton, and that Roger Stone never told him about WikiLeaks and the hacked Democratic e- mails.

To the best of his recollection. That is not a "no." Any lawyer will tell you, too, that is a major hedge; and a good lawyer will advise you to hedge just like that.

It's also worth noting that President Trump brags of having, quote, "one of the great memories of all-time."

Finally, "The Washington Post" is picking up on reporting that CNN did last week that the special counsel has been looking at phone logs of conversations between President Trump and Roger Stone.

We have a lot to discuss with CNN political analysts David Gregory and John Avlon. Also, former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa.

Friends, there are those who might look at all of this and say, "It's just a bunch of small threads that will lead nowhere."

There are those who might suggest, however, I think when you take a giant step back, what you're seeing here is a big consistent theme. And we're seeing very clearly now, very clearly now where the special counsel is focused. To wit, he's very focused on whether people connected to Donald Trump were trying to coordinate the release of the hacked e-mails.

He's very focused on whether people connected to Donald Trump were trying to coordinate the release of the hacked e-mails. He's very focused on whether the president knew about it or was told about it. He is collecting evidence to this effect. That evidence might lead nowhere, but he's trying to get it.

And finally the president is freaked out about it, and his legal team is also. We saw that over the last three weeks, when he was agitated. We saw that when he delayed turning in his written answers. And we see it on Twitter now, where he begins his morning and ends his nights by railing on the special counsel investigation. And maybe we're seeing it by the fact he's dangling pardons to the likes of Paul Manafort.

Asha, is this a key moment when you step back in the investigation? Are we starting to see Mueller closing in and maybe wrapping up?

ASHA RANGAPPA, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: He's definitely closing in on what his mandate is about, which is to explore the links of any coordination between Russia and members of the campaign of effort -- Russia's efforts to interfere.

And when he's gotten to Stone and Corsi, Stone, who is noted in Mueller's documents as being in frequent contact with the president. You are starting to see what collusion would look like, definitely among this inner circle and if -- if Stone was communicating with the president -- with the president himself, potentially.

CAMEROTA: David Gregory, if I had a dollar for every time John Berman said, "It looks like Robert Mueller is getting close to wrapping up," I'd be at Starbucks, because a latte costs five bucks, and that's about how many times he's said it. OK.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I actually bought this sports jacket with all the money I earned from John for him bringing (ph) me in.

BERMAN: But that's from a thrift store, so that doesn't say much.

CAMEROTA: It is very interesting to get these nuggets from Robert Mueller and for us to attempt to put the pieces together. But we don't know if he's close or not close. I mean, the concentric circles that we've talked about, maybe they're getting tighter. Who knows?

GREGORY: Well, I think there's a couple of key things. The president has submitted his written answers to the special prosecutor. I think that's important.

Mueller has spent so much time with other people in Trump's orbit. He wanted to get the president on record. He now has that. He can challenge him with information that he's known up until now. I think that's a key point.

Also, the president's level of agitation does tell us something. I think he's, from the very beginning, wanted to influence this investigation, influence the outcome and win the political war over this investigation, if he has enough confidence that he himself will be spared charges. I don't know how he would know that, even at this point, given he can't know, despite whatever insight he has into what Mueller is after into what a final report would look like.

But I think that the fact that we have such a focus on, we know that Russia was trying to interfere. Did they find a partner at any level within the Trump campaign or within his orbit? That's what the meeting at Trump Tower is about. That's what the tie is to the release of these WikiLeaks e-mails.

And now it's very stark. There are witnesses who know about this meeting. We know from CNN's reporting that the president said he doesn't recall these meetings. So now the stage is set for who knows what and who's actually telling the truth?

[06:05:10] BERMAN: You earned the velour jacket --

GREGORY: Thank you.

BERMAN: -- with that responses.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's velour?

GREGORY: I'm awake because of velour.

AVLON: I thought that was at least velvet.

BERMAN: It's worth every cent of it.

David talked about the president being agitated. And people remarked yesterday, John, when the president in this interview with his hometown paper, not just any hometown paper, "The New York Post," probably his favorite hometown paper, went out of his way --

AVLON: John Barron's favorite paper.

BERMAN: Yes. That, too. He went out of his way to say that pardoning Paul Manafort is not off the table. I don't know what Paul Manafort knows or doesn't know. I do know the president answered that question differently yesterday than he has before.

AVLON: Yes, and that's not subtle, especially given the timing, especially given the fact that folks are now saying, "Look, you know, was -- were Manafort's lawyers backchanneling with Trump's lawyers in a way that was perhaps setting up a context or maybe some kind of quid pro quo." Highly questionable, but it's unusual for a guy like Paul Manafort, who's taken a plea deal, to have his lawyers be communicating with the president.

It's also odd for the president to be this in bed with folks who are under active investigation, who pled guilty to a federal prosecutor. But let's put that Captain Obvious point aside for a second.

Look, Jerome Corsi's own statements now seem to be fishing for a plea deal. This seems -- a pardon. This seems to be planning for sort of Plan D for people, that Donald will come in for them at the very end of the day.

This is troubling. This also comes, not only to agitate the president, in the context of the president retweeting a meme about putting his political opponents in jail --

BERMAN: Let's put that up so people can see what John's talking about here.

AVLON: This is nuts, folks. The president of the United States retweeting an image of putting his political opponents in jail. And I would note, there are, folks, not just political opponents but people directly involved in the investigation, including three Republicans; including the assistant attorney general, who he said, when asked about it, Rod Rosenstein, he said, "Well, you know, he never should have appointed the special prosecutor. Therefore, that's why I retweeted. That's why he's in there. I was aware of that, and to me that is a jailable offense," at least in the fantasy baseball world of Twitter and Donald Trump.

These are all signs of someone who's not particularly well, someone who's under a great deal of pressure, and someone who's dangling pardons in public to his former campaign chair.

CAMEROTA: All right. Well, hold on a second.

AVLON: OK.

CAMEROTA: I just -- I just -- I'm just not buying it. Of course a pardon for Paul Manafort isn't off the table. Nothing is ever off the table with Donald Trump. He told his foreign advisers, "Why can't we use nuclear weapons?"

RANGAPPA: Well --

CAMEROTA: Nuclear war isn't off the trouble with Trump. Surely, a pardon is not off the table.

RANGAPPA: OK. That is true as kind of a theoretical matter. What is notable is that he is saying this out loud and, from a a legal perspective, this is problematic for him.

Yes, the pardon -- the president has very broad pardon power. He could pardon Manafort. But dangling a pardon is something different. It is offering to use your presidential power in order to encourage or entice or influence somebody's behavior. That's a separate act. And that can also be evidence of obstruction.

So he's going nuts, because I can tell you his lawyers are telling him, shut up. Stop talking about pardons. If you're going to do it, just wait and do it or --

CAMEROTA: Isn't that also that we're doing the work for them? If Paul Manafort wanted to know if a pardon was possible, now he says it to "The New York Post." "The New York Post" puts it out. We broadcast it. They're having this conversation through the media now.

RANGAPPA: Except, Alisyn, I think you're right, that it is true that it's just like -- "Well, I'm just saying it out there." Except they were also -- they also had a joint defense agreement where these lawyers were in contact. And what I want to know is -- and I'm sure Mueller wants to know is did this come up in those conversations, because if it did, then he's in a lot of hot water.

BERMAN: And don't call me Shirley.

AVLON: What?

GREGORY: You have to -- you have to wonder what Manafort is thinking, right? He serves two masters at this point. He serves the special prosecutor, and he serves Trump.

RANGAPPA: And Russia. GREGORY: Well, and it's a risky proposition, the idea that he's going to bank on some kind of pardon.

But you know, what we've seen from the president almost from the start in firing Jim Comey, and calling out Rosenstein, firing the attorney general, putting in a sympathetic attorney general who we know is opposed to this investigation.

He signaled from the very beginning that he will go right up to the line and perhaps cross it to actually undermine this investigation. Not just take it on politically before the report ever comes and before Mueller's work is ever done.

But this is -- this is a president who will actively undermine the credibility, the validity of the investigation. And that work on his part continues. And I agree with John. I mean, it's a sign of his agitation. It's a sign of how much pressure he feels over this. And I'm sure what he -- what he stressed about is what he doesn't and can't know at this point, as well as just not taking it seriously.

BERMAN: There was a combined sigh and head nod there.

[06:10:03] AVLON: Is there a word we can coin for that quickly?

BERMAN: A snod?

AVLON: A snod? No, I reject that. I want something better.

Anyway, look, the point is that one of the ways we can put on the, you know, non-normalization filter on this is to look at presidential precedent. Trump is by far not the first president to be under investigation. He expressed great annoyance at the special prosecutor.

Look at Bill Clinton, who felt deeply persecuted by the investigation, the expansion of Whitewater. There wasn't talk about firing the attorney general, Janet Reno, as far as we know. He wasn't dangling pardons for people. There is a --

CAMEROTA: But he did pardon people. So I mean, he --

AVLON: But unrelated to the special prosecution. So that's not a -- that's not a thing. That math doesn't work.

CAMEROTA: All right. Go ahead. Keep going.

AVLON: I would argue respectfully.

CAMEROTA: My math doesn't work, right?

BERMAN: My good friend from New Jersey.

AVLON: That was when I became Joe Piscopo. I'm not sure what happened.

Look, the point is that this president is acting in ways that are far outside the norms, and that's how you know it's not remotely normal. And I think we give a pass sometimes, and we say, "Look, this president is a norm breaker. He's a disrupter. Yes, that's true."

But compared to the every -- way other presidents act when they've been under investigation, and this is a stark departure that should not be simply accepted.

BERMAN: Let me focus on the CNN reporting exclusive from yesterday. We know how the president answered some of these questions and, again, it is notable that these questions are focused on the same thing that Jerome Corsi is talking about and Roger Stone is talking about, which is did the president know about WikiLeaks before the release?

He says no, to the best of his recollection. Asha, first of all, just in general, to the best of your recollection, you know, legally speaking, that means what?

RANGAPPA: That means, "I'm giving myself a lot of room in case there's evidence that comes up to the contrary."

BERMAN: OK. Now --

RANGAPPA: It worked for Reagan.

BERMAN: Well, it did. And any good lawyer -- David Gregory knows this better than anyone -- will tell you that you want a hedge like that. You're going to say, "To the best of -- in my memory, I don't remember talking about that."

Here's the thing, though. Is that President Trump tells us he's got not just a good but among the greatest memories. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have one of the great memories of all time.

People know me for my memory.

I have a very good memory.

I have a good memory, like a great memory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So good, I think, that you could just say, "No. Bo, I never talked about WikiLeaks to Roger Stone. No, I didn't know about the Trump Tower meeting beforehand," not "to the best of my memory," David.

GREGORY: I mean, we just have to remember that, you know, the president tells a lot of untruths, and those don't matter legally the way his answers to the special prosecutor do.

And we know the special prosecutor and his team talked to lots of people with regard to WikiLeaks, with regard to the meeting who can say exactly what happened, what's there and what those conversations were like. And that's why the president is putting himself in a position to hedge, because there may be evidence that comes forward that the -- you know, that Mueller's team already has that contradicts that recollection. So what he ends up doing with all that, of course, depends on how much corroboration he's got.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but not so fast, not so fast --

AVLON: Not so fast.

CAMEROTA: -- Mr. Math. Unless Mr. Mueller has tape-recordings --

AVLON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- of Roger Stone and then-candidate Donald Trump's phone calls -- and there's no indication that either of them taped it at the moment -- how will he ever know what they discussed on there. All we know is that there were phone calls at pivotal times between Roger Stone, late-night phone calls that have been documented, but we don't know what they discussed. So we have no idea if they discussed WikiLeaks.

AVLON: Well, I think a pattern of phone calls itself is significant. One of the reasons the phone call to the undisclosed number from Don Junior after the Russia meeting is significant, which the president has now officially denied on the record.

Look, you've had a lot of people in the Trump orbit saying there's no way the president was -- candidate Donald Trump was talking to Roger Stone on the regular. That appears not to be true now.

It could be what was told to other people, but you're right, look, this isn't going to mean necessarily a question of taping, but --

CAMEROTA: So we're not going to know what they're saying.

AVLON: But easy on that. Hold on. I'm sorry. One really important point on this. The president's statement, even though there is some weasel words in there from legal language, this is significant, because now he could be liable to criminal charges, because this is on the record. This is not Kellyanne Conway's, you know, no one makes you take an oath when you go on television. This isn't the president being performative. This is actually a legal document, and there are consequences for lying.

RANGAPPA: Yes, I mean, I think you know, there are a lot of times in legal cases when you're not going to have a Scooby-Doo moment where you're, like, "Oh, you know, it's the caretaker."

AVLON: I love it.

RANGAPPA: You know, but --

BERMAN: Now I understand, by the way. Exactly.

RANGAPPA: You know, let's just look at how loquacious Stone has been in his e-mails. You know, it is simply writing to someone and saying, "I spoke to the president." And so there can be, you know, documentation of conversations that have been had, communicating, especially if there was coordination, instructions or approvals or something like that that could show up, if that was what was happening.

And if it's not, then as -- you know, as John said, we would just have the pattern of phone calls, which might be corroborative of things themselves.

[06:15:06] BERMAN: You know who made the same statement that you just made?

CAMEROTA: Scooby-Doo?

BERMAN: No -- well, that. But Roger Stone. It's one thing when Alisyn Camerota asks a very legitimate question, which is unless there are tape-recordings, how are you going to prove it? It's another thing when the person in the middle of the investigation says, "How can you prove it without the tape-recordings?" That's a little odd.

CAMEROTA: OK. Roger Stone and I are having a Vulcan mind meld, which is very troubling.

All right. Thank you all very much.

We have a lot to discuss. A defiant bipartisan vote by senators on Saudi Arabia is going against President Trump. Yes, there was bipartisanship. You heard me right. Why did Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch ally of the president, flip his vote?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I changed my mind, because I'm pissed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: All right. The U.S. Senate has rebuked President Trump's handling of Jamal Khashoggi's murder. U.S. senators advanced a bill that would end U.S. support of the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen. This comes hours after the secretary of state and defense secretary briefed senators. But many of them were still angry that the CIA director was not there.

We're back with David Gregory, John Avlon and Asha Rangappa. Asha, let's just start with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explaining why Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, did -- who has heard the tape of Khashoggi's murder, did not go to brief senators. So listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:04] MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I was asked to be here, and here I am. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But senators were very frustrated. Normally, in

your past role as CIA director, you would be here briefing these senators on an issue this sensitive. Why isn't the CIA director herself here today?

POMPEO: I was asked to be here, and I'm here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. I was wrong. That wasn't an answer. Sorry about that.

BERMAN: Just words said out loud.

AVLON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Why would -- I mean, don't we want all the information? This -- this seems to be willful blindness. There is a tape that exists. It's probably horrible. It's probably very horrible to listen to, but she's heard it. Why do they -- why would they not want that information?

RANGAPPA: Because they don't want actual evidence of somebody who has listened to the tape who has looked at the intelligence and assessed with high confidence in their conclusion that MSM (ph) was behind this.

I also think that there is a huge problem in terms of Congress's oversight function. I mean, this isn't, you know, an official hearing or something. But ever since the church hearings, where you know, the CIA had to come and talk about what they knew and what they were doing, there has been an understanding that, when they want to know what's happening in the intelligence realm, that that is going to be offered, barring any kind of, you know, highly-classified sensitive information.

AVLON: Yes. And let's be clear. The -- the answer to the question Mike Pompeo wouldn't answer is that Gina Haspel was going to go there, and she'd been to Turkey, and she'd heard the tapes, and she'd overseen a U.S. intelligence community saying with high confidence that this occurred, and she was not going to tell the president is lying, which has been from the beginning, even when he was denying and defending and trying to spin things in the Saudis' direction, that this is simply an inconvenient murder for U.S. geo-policy for the administration.

And so he wants it to go away. He was forced to confront facts he didn't want to confront. They're minimizing it with op-eds from the secretary of state in a disgraceful op-ed yesterday, basically saying, "We're going to give Saudi a pass on this."

This is -- is Gina Haspel and the CIA was not going to toe the party line. And that's why she didn't --

BERMAN: And we saw something unusual, which is Congress stepping in and saying enough from the president, including Republicans who normally line up behind the president. Lindsey Graham explained why. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: I'm glad we had, and I admire both secretaries, but it was inadequate because the CIA was not there. Any key vote, anything that you need me for to get out of town, I ain't doing it until we hear from the CIA.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you been in contact with the president?

GRAHAM: I just did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: "I just did," David Gregory. It is unusual.

GREGORY: When Lindsey Graham gets all colloquial on us, we know things are getting real.

And but look, I think it's interesting. Back to the Gina Haspel point, which is, look, she was dispatched over there to get the ground truth about what happened. She -- and she had a conclusion. And that conclusion is public and has been said the rest of the administration is marginalizing that view.

And it was very interesting that Jim Mattis, defense secretary, could go out so publicly and say, look, there's no smoking gun that would reveal the crown prince was behind this.

But I think Lindsey Graham, speaking for Republicans and Democrats said, no, he's going to push to get the CIA more involved and to scrutinize administration policy toward Saudi Arabia.

I think this is significant. This is the president's own party pushing back hard. And when the president issued his own conclusions about this in that very strange statement that he issued last week, he said, you know, he'll listen to Congress, but whatever they propose has to be in line with his thinking about the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia.

This whole thing has been unseemly, which unfortunately, a lot of our relationship with the Saudis is and has been for decades.

CAMEROTA: I think that it's so interesting, though, that the repercussion of Jamal Khashoggi's murder, and so this bipartisan vote. Some Democrats, like Chris Murphy, who we'll be having on the show, have been wanting the U.S. to get out of the Saudi-led military action in Yemen for years and was never able to break the log jam until yesterday. I mean, that's Jamal -- that's one of Jamal Khashoggi's legacies, that this, as a result, had he not been murdered, this wouldn't be happening.

RANGAPPA: Right. And I think what you're seeing, as John mentioned, is Congress actually starting to assert its role in the separation of powers framework, which they've been unwilling and unable to do in this domestic, you know, investigation, and all of that. And so I think you're going to see the president starting to see, you

know, he has this pushback. When the Dems get control in January, there's going to be pushback, and he's going to face a new, you know, situation. And on a lot of different fronts that I think he hasn't until now.

GREGORY: But I do think it's significant that one -- one truth about this administration has been how stalwart the relationship has been with Israel and Saudi Arabia in order to counter Iran. If there's a foreign policy priority, it has been that. And I don't see that changing, and therefore, I don't see the posture toward Yemen changing, unless there's enough pressure to do so.

AVLON: You could literally get away with murder, and you will -- that will not adjust the larger posture to these particular countries.

But it's significant when the same issue came up in a vote in March. Forty-four senators voted for it. Now you had 64. That's a significant sea change. And any time you get a coalition between Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee (ph), it's probably positive in the larger ability to reason together.

But this is maybe a symbolic vote. Yemen is something that hasn't captured enough folks' attention given the proxy war. You know, I believe "The New York Times" has about 85,000 children may have died of starvation in that country. And the U.S. is involved. And Saudi is, of course, directly involved or would be a proxy.

This is a -- maybe it's a symbolic vote, but it's a significant one because that 20-vote shift indicates that maybe, just maybe, Congress is finding a backbone.

BERMAN: You're talking about what Asha was talking about, when Democrats take control. The president, in the interview with "The New York Post," gave us a sense of where he might go when Democrats take control of the House in January, in addition to talking about "The Apprentice," he threatened them. He said he will declassify information that will be embarrassing to Democrats.

He says, quote, "I think that would help my campaign. If they want to play tough, I will do it. They will see how devastating those pages are."

Does that fill you with comfort and joy this holiday season, David Gregory, hearing the president --?

GREGORY: No, it doesn't. And when, after the midterms, the president was very clear that, you know, he'd work with Democrats as long as they work with him. Other than that, he would threaten them to -- to use other branches of the government against them.

I think threatening Democrats, I think threatening Mueller, threatening judges, this has become the normal M.O. for this president who -- who stands up to these kinds of checks and balances.

We have had the chief justice. We've had others in other aspects of the government saying, 'No, we will exercise that right." And this is the kind of fight that he may have to have with Nancy Pelosi and these checks and balances have to survive.

CAMEROTA: But John, what are these classified documents that he might declassify? Isn't it about the Russia investigation? Why would these embarrass Democrats?

AVLON: You know, I think that probably the closest parallels I have in my hand here, the names of 200 people in the State Department, this is a smear tactic. It's a fear tactic. It's the stuff we saw Joe McCarthy and other folks try to pull out. Don't overthink it. This is pure fear and anger and intimidation. And the fact -- and the idea that it's based on anything real, we shouldn't assume that at all.

RANGAPPA: It's an empty threat. I mean, every time that we've heard something about the FISA, for example, has actually vindicated the process and -- and how it was done.

But I think this is starting to look like the 50 ways to commit obstruction or something, because again --

AVLON: That's the least popular Paul Simon song.

BERMAN: Exactly, it was very hard to rhyme "obstruction." Get on the bus, obstruction. Make a new plan, obstruction.

CAMEROTA: It's also not a best-selling book.

RANGAPPA: When you're abusing your power in order to get some kind of self-benefit, which is to prevent Democrats from performing their lawful functions, which is oversight investigation, whatever it is they want to do, that starts to look like obstruction. And it could be an impeachable offense. I mean, you can't abuse your power that way.

BERMAN: Asha, David, John, thank you very much, and our apologies to Paul Simon.

So the Kremlin has made it official. The Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, and the president of the United States, Donald Trump, will meet this weekend. Will the president confront Putin about the clash with Ukraine, the fact that Russia is -- you know, has Ukrainian ships, things like that. We'll have a live report next.

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