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Pardon for Manafort; Mueller Looks at Calls to Stone; Lawmakers Slam GM; Trump Threatens to Declassify Documents. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired November 29, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Going public with possibly pardoning Paul Manafort.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To use the pardon power to interfere with a pending investigation, that is an obstruction of justice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president is denying that he had any knowledge of that Trump Tower 2016 meeting and also whether he was communicating with Roger Stone about WikiLeaks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There really needs to be a live interview. We need to be able to ask (INAUDIBLE) questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have no smoking gun that the crown prince was involved.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I'm pissed the way the administration's handled the Saudi Arabia (INAUDIBLE) is just not acceptable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) because she was told not to go by the White House.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do not need Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia desperately needs us. Trump has shamed us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY.

President Trump waking up and going to sleep with the same thing on his mind, the Mueller investigation. In an interview with "The New York Post," the president dangled a pardon for his jailed former campaign chair, 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?

Manafort was convicted of eight felonies, pleaded guilty to two others, but the president has cast Manafort and other targets of the Mueller probe as victims of prosecutorial abuse, calling them brave for not flipping. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: CNN has also exclusive details about

President Trump's written answers to Robert Mueller's questions. Two sources say the president told Mueller, quote, to the best of his recollection, he did not know about the Trump Tower meeting promising dirt on Hillary Clinton with Russians and/or that Roger Stone never told him about WikiLeaks and the hacked Democratic e-mails. "The Washington Post" adds reporting saying that special counsel has been looking at phone logs of late night conversations between Mr. Trump and Roger Stone.

Let's discuss all of this with our CNN political analyst David Gregory, CNN's senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson and CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

OK, so, Jeffrey --

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, ma'am.

CAMEROTA: Are -- all right, do you think that -- of course he's going to saying that pardoning Paul Manafort is on the table. Everything is on the table with President Trump all the time. Are you -- do you think that this is real now, that this might actually happen?

TOOBIN: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean this is -- it's an incredibly inappropriate thing to say. You know, whether it is actually an obstruction of justice or an impeach -- or part of an impeachable offense. You know, that requires greater analysis and, you know, knowledge of the full facts.

But the fact that he is telling Paul Manafort, in effect, hang in there, you don't have to cooperate, you don't have to worry about Mueller because you may be getting a pardon, is just wildly, wildly inappropriate.

BERMAN: And it is different. I will note, it is different the way the president has answered the question up until this point, including two days ago when he would say, it's not being discussed. It's not being discussed.

CAMEROTA: That's right, but we also don't know how "The New York Post" posed the question, because they --

BERMAN: I'm not sure it even matters though.

CAMEROTA: Because they -- well, if they said, is it off the table, is a pardon for Paul Manafort off the table, he'd be like, nothing's off the table. You know how he speaks.

BERMAN: Or he could have said what he said consistently up until that point, this is not something we've talked about at all. Or he could just say, yes, it's off the table. Those are other options that you cannot (INAUDIBLE).

(CROSS TALK)

TOOBIN: And you know what I love what you -- what you just said? You know how he speaks. You know how he obstructs justice. This is just sort of how -- what he does. I mean that's -- actually you're not allowed to do that.

CAMEROTA: Look, David Gregory has always made that point he has a loose manner --

BERMAN: You're putting words in his mouth.

CAMEROTA: Of speaking. David Gregory has made that cogent point before.

Go ahead, David.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, but -- but what you were just bringing up, a couple of days ago he talked to "The Washington Post." Then comes up. He goes off the record. You know, this person who has no filter whatsoever says, no, no, no, I want to go off the record because I don't know how all of this is going to play out, and now he's just kind of letting it fly.

I mean I think Jeffrey's point about that anything is possible, that we have to finally believe this is backed up in so many different ways. The president has demonstrated over and over again he will do whatever he can do to undermine the investigation short of filing Mueller. And that the game's not over yet. But he fired Jim Comey because he didn't like how he was handling the investigation. He deliberately brought on a new attorney general who had been outspoken in his criticism of this investigation. And he is now making it very clear that in his opinion the special prosecutor is pressuring people to lie and to flip against him.

He's been engaged in a political attack on this investigation from the very beginning. And now it's not just a message to Manafort, but others out there, whether it's Flynn, whether it's Michael Cohen, that if you can -- if you can stay strong, obviously Flynn has already cooperated, that he may come to the rescue.

BERMAN: And it's in his head in a way that we haven't seen before at this volume.

Again, the last thing he wrote about last night before he went to bed was this. When he woke up this morning, before 7:00 a.m., he's writing about it again. And we know why. Because of our reporting we have learned that the president's legal team was upset about the fact that in this draft legal document and this plea deal between the prosecutor and Jerome Corsi, the president was mentioned by name. The special prosecutor is looking into conversations between Roger Stone and the president of the United States. The special counsel is looking to find out whether the president knew, in any way, about WikiLeaks and the e- mails and the coordination of the release of those e-mails.

[07:05:36] And, Nia, it seems to me, this is the crux of the entire investigation. This is it. This isn't some ancillary side deal. This isn't, you know, George Papadopoulos meeting with the professor. This is the president of the United States and what did he know about the hacked e-mails. NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: That's right. And

we know, from Dana's reporting and some other folks reporting, that he apparently, in his written testimony, said that he didn't know about WikiLeaks, he had no conversations with Roger Stone about this. He didn't know about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting either.

And what we don't know is whether or not Mueller, the special counsel here, the special prosecutor, has any information contradicting what Corsi has said, what Stone has said, what Manafort has said and what we know that Trump has said in his written testimony.

I think it is crucial to see how far Trump has gone. About a year ago, if you think about the way he spoke about Mueller, he basically didn't really criticize him. At some point I think, even in "The New York Times," he said that he thought he could be fair. And now we've gotten to this point where not only is he publicly floating the idea of a pardon, he is hammering Mueller day after day and saying that he's essentially corrupting the justice system, that he is trying to force people to lie under oath. He's also tweeting about his enemies and his enemies should be jailed, people like Hillary Clinton, people like Eric Holder.

So we are in a whole different territory now. It comes, obviously, as Manafort and those communications and sort of cooperation has broken down. And we also know that Mueller's lawyers are apparently -- or not Mueller's lawyers, Manafort's lawyers are apparently talking to Trump's lawyers and the president seems to have some sort of window into the Mueller investigation that he might not have had weeks ago.

CAMEROTA: Jeffrey, we know from our reporting, as well as "The Washington Post," that there were multiple late night calls between then candidate Donald Trump and Roger Stone and that Robert Mueller knows about those, but he doesn't know the content of those. Those -- as far as we know, those calls were not recorded. So how will he ever be able to determine if they talked about WikiLeaks?

TOOBIN: He may not. I mean if there were only two people on those phone calls, he may not know.

You know, again, prosecutors deal with the question of circumstantial evidence. We know for a fact that Roger Stone was obsessed by the issue of WikiLeaks and what WikiLeaks was going to disclose and when. He's talking to the candidate during this period where he's obsessed with precisely this issue. What do you think they talked about? We don't have proof. Mueller may not have proof. But prosecutors are in the business of making inferences, making reasonable guesses and seeing what other evidence corroborates that.

BERMAN: How psyched is President Trump that he doesn't use e-mail? I mean --

TOOBIN: You know what? Best decision he ever made.

BERMAN: No, it really --

TOOBIN: And -- and probably a very intentional decision perhaps for just this reason.

BERMAN: Right.

GREGORY: But what he can't control is who else has talked to the special prosecutor. What Trump has said about these phone calls, potentially what other people have testified directly about what they knew as opposed to just conversations that were overheard. And just what other evidence there is.

We know there's a couple areas at least that the special prosecutor is really focused on intently. This Trump Tower meeting where again the broader topic was dirt on Hillary Clinton, opposition research. And we also know about the WikiLeaks disclosure and the leaking of all of those e-mails and the hacking. And we know in both instances that the president has very publicly said, this is all great, who wouldn't want opposition research? And I love WikiLeaks. All of that was happening contemporaneously. That tells you a lot.

BERMAN: So the president -- Nia brought up the fact the written answers -- Dana Bash's reporting -- that the president says he didn't talk to Roger Stone about WikiLeaks or didn't know about the Trump Tower meeting to --

CAMEROTA: The best of his recollection.

HENDERSON: Right.

BERMAN: To the best of his recollection. Somehow he doesn't remember fully whether or not he discussed it, even though he tells us, again, he doesn't just have a good memory, he's got a great memory. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, 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.

[07:10:00] I have a good memory, like a great memory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: But to the best of his recollection. I'm scratching my head, did I know that there was going to be a Trump Tower meeting where the Russians were going to share intelligence on the meeting? He goes, no.

TOOBIN: How great are our colleagues?

BERMAN: Yes.

TOOBIN: Was that just a great montage right there? I just love CNN. That was just terrific anyway.

BERMAN: Jeffrey Toobin with this moment of appreciation.

TOOBIN: No, it was -- it was fantastic.

BERMAN: Thank you for that (INAUDIBLE).

TOOBIN: I'm sorry I interrupted. I apologize.

BERMAN: No problem. I'm always, always willing to spread the cheer.

Nia, it does seem that the president is covering his bases there by saying, to the best of his recollection he doesn't, you know, he didn't do it.

HENDERSON: He doesn't -- right.

BERMAN: Yes.

HENDERSON: He doesn't quite remember. And I just -- you know, I mean Jeffrey's the lawyer on the panel. I guess that's sort of wiggle room if there is contradicting evidence that Mueller could have here.

I do think it's hard to believe that the president, who so publicly was talking about WikiLeaks, we're supposed to believe that privately there were no conversations being had with anyone around him about WikiLeaks. It was only apparently, the president wants us to believe, that then-candidate Donald Trump was only publicly interested, but he wasn't talking to his adviser about it. Roger Stone, of course, we know from his e-mails, very interested in WikiLeaks as well.

So, you know, I mean, again, we don't know if there is any evidence. We don't know if, for instance, apparently Stone would talk to Donald Trump's assistant and forward memos about what, you know, he thought the strategy was and what was going on. And he would print them out for Donald Trump. What's in those memos? I'm sure if you are Mueller, you probably have those memos.

Again, we don't know the scope of the evidence here, but we obviously know that if you're Donald Trump you're going to try to protect yourself in those written answers from perjuring yourself. So there he has the caveat, to the best of his memory, that he doesn't remember.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Best of my recollection.

HENDERSON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Does that give him legal cover?

TOOBIN: It often does. It often does. I mean, you know, Nia-Malika, you know, I think she's not telling the truth, I think she did go to law school because I think she knows the legal phrase, wiggle room --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TOOBIN: Which, I mean, it is in --

CAMEROTA: To the best of her recollection, she did not go to law school.

TOOBIN: She -- to the best -- she did not go to law school. But, no.

But this is a tremendous advantage of getting the take home, open book exam that he got from Mueller as opposed to just answering questions because his lawyers could edit his answers and say, to the best of my recollection. And, in fairness, notwithstanding the magnificent memory that Donald Trump obviously has, you know, lots of people -- he hears a lot of things over a lot of -- has a lot of phone calls. And, you know, it is hard to remember things in every phone call.

BERMAN: Do we have -- do we have -- I talked to Corey Lewandowski yesterday, who was running the campaign for President Trump for a long time, and I asked Corey about what he would think when he heard that the president was speaking to Roger Stone on the phone. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: When you would here that then candidate Donald Trump was speaking to Roger Stone, what would your reaction be?

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Oh, it would drive me crazy. No, Roger Stone is a conspiracy theorist --

BERMAN: Right.

LEWANDOWSKI: Who makes up these crazy ideas, says crazy things, only to recant them or say that he didn't actually do what he said he did. And so people like that I didn't think were helpful on the campaign. And so, you know, I didn't enjoy when Roger was calling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And that's Corey Lewandowski. Go ahead.

HENDERSON: I mean he sounds a lot like Donald Trump in that -- I mean is he describing Donald Trump or Roger Stone? I mean Donald Trump is somebody who makes things up, doesn't remember. He's a conspiracy theorist as well. So, I mean, in some ways are bedfellows in that way.

GREGORY: But isn't it interesting that now -- and I've been feeling this for a while, that if there's a lot of heat on guys like Roger Stone, that the president and those close to him would just say, look, these guys were out on the fringe. I mean, you know, they're dirty tricksters. I don't know what they were up to. But what's striking -- I mean to hear Corey Lewandowski, who doesn't -- didn't have any experience in presidential campaigns, but still he -- so he says he was uncomfortable when they would talk -- when he would talk to Roger Stone. The fact that there was this flirtation with Russia that was very open, that the president was talking about it on the campaign trail and there was nobody immediately around the president to say how incredibly inappropriate it would be to get opposition research from a foreign government to say nothing -- the fact that it would come from Putin's Russia is astonishing. And for -- whatever the conclusions of this investigation, the stunning lack of good judgement and reckless disregard for how to behalf as a presidential candidate is what leaps off the page here when you look at this history.

BERMAN: David, Nia, Jeffrey, thank you. Thank you to our tape department --

HENDERSON: Thank you.

BERMAN: Who filled Jeffrey Toobin with joy this morning.

CAMEROTA: They have a good memory, our tape department.

TOOBIN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TOOBIN: Don't make fun. I --

BERMAN: No.

CAMEROTA: We're not. We're not.

BERMAN: Not of them, of you.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: General Motors --

HENDERSON: Nice.

BERMAN: General Motors is shutting down five plants, including one in Ohio. President Trump says that state's senator is to blame. So what did Sherrod Brown say to the president when they spoke last night on the telephone. You know what? We're going to ask the senator when he joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:51] BERMAN: Lawmakers slamming General Motors after the company announced plans to shut down five North American plants and cut nearly 15,000 jobs. One plant set to close is in Lordstown, Ohio. President Trump is blaming Ohio's Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown for the closure, telling "The Wall Street Journal," well, it's one plant in Ohio. But I love Ohio. And I told them you're playing around with the wrong person. And Ohio wasn't properly represented by their Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown because he didn't get the point across.

Well, joining me now is the Democratic senator from the state of Ohio, Sherrod Brown, who spoke to the president last night.

So let's start with the news. What did you talk about?

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: I talked about how -- well, he and I had been talk -- I first approached President Trump back in -- well, way earlier in the year and we had a long conversation in June. I asked him to step in there because the second shift of Lordstown, already 3,000 people had been laid off. The president didn't do anything. I reached him last night. He said he wanted to help. I said the first

thing you can do is you can take away that tax -- that provision in his tax bill that gives a company a 50 percent off coupon in their taxes. If you're producing in Lordstown, you pay a 21 percent tax rate. If you move to Mexico, you pay a 10.5 percent tax rate. And I asked the president to get rid of that tax break that encourages jobs to move overseas. He wasn't really aware of that, but he said he would help and he said he'd sign on to my American Jobs American Cars Act, which will incent car buying in the United States of American cars and take away that tax break for companies that outsource.

[07:20:22] He said he wants to help. He put me in touch with his U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, an Ohioan I might add, and we're going to work on this. And I'm going to take the president at his word. He doesn't always do what he says, but he promised this and we're going to move forward and hope we can get this through Congress.

BERMAN: All right, let's take this into two parts. Number one, he said he did not know that the tax plan that he supported last year created -- and it's complicated and I don't want to get people mired in the details here --

BROWN: Yes.

BERMAN: But this tax system which incentivizes companies, you say, to move their plants overseas, he didn't know about that?

BROWN: Yes. There's no -- there no question that's what that does. It essentially is a -- we say to American companies, if you move overseas, we'll give you a 50 percent off coupon in your taxes. He -- when I explained how that worked, he said he wants to help.

BERMAN: OK.

BROWN: He likes the American Jobs American Cars Act.

BERMAN: You -- that act also provides a tax credit for people who buy American cars of several thousand dollars, is that true?

BROWN: Yes. So you take the money you save from taking away the tax break that the corporation would get. Then when you buy one of 100 cars or 100 vehicles preapproved, these are cars that are at least 50 percent made in the U.S., made by U.S. workers, you get $3,500 off on that car at the dealership. So it takes away the corporate break and puts it in the pockets of middle class car buyers or working families. And that will obviously help sell more American made cars. It will help in Lordstown. It will help the Jeep plant. My wife and I drive a Jeep made by union workers in Toledo. They'll sell more of those all over the country.

BERMAN: Did the president explain to you why he seemed to blame you for the Lordstown (INAUDIBLE)?

BROWN: We -- I didn't talk about that. You know, I -- I mean the president's not one to take a lot of responsibility for his own -- his own issues, problems. I -- what I found amusing is that there's a Republican president, Republican House of Representatives, a Republican Senate, a Republican governor, a Republican Supreme Court and the president looked all over Ohio and he found a Democrat he can point to and blame. I just laugh. I mean I get in line of people the president's blamed for things.

I don't care about that. I want to fix this. He said he wants to fix it. I take him at his word. I'm working with his trade representative and we're going to go to town on it in the next few weeks.

BERMAN: Do you think he blamed you because you are considering a run for president in 2020?

BROWN: I think he blamed me because he can't blame himself and he needed to blame and Democrat. And I'm -- I guess I'm the only statewide Democrat in Ohio. So what better guy to blame? What the heck.

BERMAN: So you mentioned, again, the provision in the tax code which you think hurts manufacturing in Ohio. Do any of the president's other policies, have they hurt GM in your state?

BROWN: Well, I -- sure. I think the president -- I mean the White House looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives, except on the days it looks like a retreat for pharmaceutical executives. So I think plenty of his policies have been aimed right at the middle class. I mean his Supreme Court appointees, they put a thumb on the scale of justice that supports companies over workers, supports Wall Street over consumers, supports big insurance companies over individual health care policies.

BERMAN: You were supportive, though --

BROWN: So I can see that -- I can see on all of that what the president -- the damage the president's done.

BERMAN: You were supportive, though, of his steel tariff, which is something that some analysts say has cost General Motors $1 billion.

BROWN: Well, some analyst say a lot of things. I -- General Motors has not said that they are -- they are shutting these plants down. They've not even -- I mean they've not said anything about the tariffs being part of that.

My -- and the president and I talked about tariffs last night too. My differences on the tariffs is that they should -- we should work with our allies, western Europe and Canada and countries that have similar economies to ours, and focus the tariffs on those countries that have been the serial cheaters, Turkey, South Korea, China. That's not what he's exactly done with these tariffs. I support them generally, but I think we could do them better.

BERMAN: So a little bit of politics now.

BROWN: Sure.

BERMAN: The president, in talking about the various investigations swirling around him, has threatened Democrats who are coming into power in the House, not the Senate where you are, he's basically said, if you investigate me, you opening up a can of worms. The direct quote to "The New York Post" was, 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.

He's threatening to declassify information that he says will hurt Democrats. He's threatening you if you all investigate him.

BROWN: Well, there's -- so, I mean, there are threats all the time coming from the White House. To me, I want to see this Congress, both houses, I want to see this Congress do substance. I want us to do infrastructure. I want us to keep down drug prices. I want us to fix the Affordable Care Act, which has worked well with -- for 900,000 -- well, really, for my whole state. There will be investigations. There will be investigations of the president using his office to enrich his family. There will be investigations on other things. Those can go on.

[07:25:06] But my focus is, how do you -- how do you make peoples' lives better. And if you love your country, you fight for the people who make it work, and that's their health care, their retirement, their income, their education. That's what I'm all about. The investigations will take care of themselves, but let's really focus on bringing this country forward and making peoples' lives better.

BERMAN: That sounds like a presidential platform. Are you running?

BROWN: Well, no, it's not. It' -- but it's what I've always been. I mean my --

BERMAN: Are you running?

BROWN: I don't know. I absolutely don't know. I did not think about doing this until the election. And I've heard people from all over the country -- my wife and I were pretty overwhelmed by the number of people that like the fact that I won Ohio comfortably, that my message and my career have been devoted to the dignity of work that people in this town don't respect, people with an honor and respect the work that people do around the country. And when I say workers, I mean whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge or work on salary or work for tips or raise children. And people aren't -- in this country, aren't getting ahead when they're working hard. Call that presidential, call it a Senate race, call it common sense, it's what I've always fought for, whether I'm on CNN or Fox or "The Mansfield News Journal."

BERMAN: Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio. Thanks so much for being with us.

BROWN: Sure.

BERMAN: Thank you for sharing the contents of that conversation.

BROWN: Sure. A pleasure.

BERMAN: We're going to talk to the White House now and see if, in fact, the president is supportive of your measure, which would be significant.

BROWN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, John, senators taking a bipartisan stand against Russia's actions in Ukraine. Will President Trump confront Putin about it this week? We ask a Republican senator, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)