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Trump Begins G-20 Summit as Mueller Revelations Rattle Him; Trump Emerges as Central Subject in Mueller Probe. Aired 6-6:29a ET

Aired November 30, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's a weak person, and what he's trying to do is get a reduced sentence.

[05:59:14] JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Today is the first day I actually thought Donald Trump might not finish his term in office. This thing is enormous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Virtually all of his indictments come from people who got to lie. Where's the crime?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This time line about the Trump Tower Moscow puts other people in jeopardy.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We will be very interested in invited Mr. Cohen to come back to our committee. We have a lot more work to be done.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday, November 30, 6 a.m. here in New York.

The breaking news this morning: the president is walking a political, diplomatic and legal tightrope right before our eyes this morning. President Trump is at the G-20 summit in Argentina with developments in the Mueller investigation clearly rattling him.

"The Washington Post" headline says it all: "'Individual 1': Trump Emerges as a Central Subject of Mueller Probe." New revelations are now connecting him, his children and his business to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. The president's longtime former attorney, Michael Cohen. He pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen says he did it in order to protect the president -- lied in order to protect the president and says he discussed the proposal with Trump on multiple occasions and also with members of the president's family.

Moments ago, the president now tweeted on this subject. Is he now admitting he knew of Cohen's conversations with Russian government officials about this deal? We'll discuss that. A source tells CNN the president is in a terrible mood, spooked and completely distracted and nervous that he may have trapped himself into perjury with his written answers to Mueller's questions. And now, two of the president's children are ensnared in this Mueller probe.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So the special counsel appears to be focused on three key areas. Roger Stone and WikiLeaks. The 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr. and this Moscow project.

We're also learning that one of the ideas floated then was to give a $50 million penthouse in the Moscow Tower to Vladimir Putin. This is according to convicted felon Felix Sater, who was a Trump advisor for years and who was working on that Moscow project with Michael Cohen.

Vladimir Putin had announced plans to sit down with President Trump tomorrow, but President Trump abruptly cancelled that meeting. We do expect to hear from President Trump in the next hour.

Let's begin with Abby Phillip. She is live in Buenos Aires with the latest.

Hi, Abby.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn.

President Trump landed here in Argentina late last night with controversy back home swirling around him. As we learned more about the special counsel's case, building a case on Russia -- Russia collusion in the 2016 election, President Trump is clearly spooked and distracted by all of this.

A source telling CNN that he is in a terrible mood going into this consequential weekend of meetings.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP (voice-over): Shortly after touching down in Argentina for the G-20 summit. President Trump calming on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe to end after his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about a planned Moscow Tower project, a lie Cohen says he told to be consistent with a political messaging and out of loyalty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Cohen has cooperated. Mr. Cohen will continue to cooperate.

According to charging documents, Cohen previously testified that discussions about the Moscow project ended before the 2016 Iowa caucus, but Cohen now says that negotiations continued until June of that year, while Mr. Trump was close to securing the Republican nomination.

During that summer, then-candidate Trump and his campaign chairman Paul Manafort insisted that Trump was not involved in any Russian business dealings. TRUMP: I have nothing to do with Russia. I have -- John, John, how

many times do I have to say it? You're a smart man. I have nothing to do with Russia.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs?

PAUL MANAFORT, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN: That's what he said. That's what I said. Obviously, what our position is.

PHILLIP: A claim the president has repeated throughout his presidency.

TRUMP: We could make deals in Russia very easily, if we wanted to. I just don't want to, because I think that would be a conflict.

PHILLIP: Prosecutors say Cohen discussed the Moscow tower project with President Trump on more than the three occasions he had previously mentioned and briefed Trump family members working in his business empire about the efforts.

This revelation putting Mueller's spotlight on two of the president's children involved in the Moscow project. The president responding to Cohen's cooperation with the special counsel by attacking his former long-time attorney and insisting that the public was aware of the project.

TRUMP: He's a weak person, and what he's trying to do is get a reduced sentence. So he's lying about a project that everybody knew about.

PHILLIP: But the proposal was first mentioned in passing in a "New York Times" article published in February 2017 after President Trump was elected.

A former business associate of Mr. Trump's, who was working with Cohen, tells CNN that one idea considered for the proposed Moscow tower was to give Vladimir Putin the $50 million penthouse as a, quote, "marketing ploy."

President Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, says the president never heard of the idea and insists there was no contradiction between what Cohen has told Mueller and what President Trump said to the special counsel's team in answers submitted last week to written questions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP: And even before President Trump left this morning for his first meetings, he was tweeting bout the special counsel investigation defending his business dealings in the 2016 election and calling it all a witch hunt.

[06:05:06] This is happening as President Trump is going into some of these meetings with world leaders this weekend and, clearly, it is on his mind, distracting him from what is happening here in just a few hours. We will see him and possibly hear more from him. We'll see if he gets any questions about all of this swirling around him, Alisyn and John.

CAMEROTA: OK, Abby, thank you so much. There's so much to talk about this morning.

Let's bring in former counsel to the U.S. assistant attorney general, Carrie Cordero; former Clinton White House press secretary, Joe Lockhart; and CNN senior political analyst, John Avlon.

Carrie, I want to start with the legality of all of this. OK.

So let's say that all of this is true. Let's say that President Trump, then Donald Trump, was interested in building a Trump Tower in Moscow. Let's say that the negotiations stretched into the presidential campaign. Where's the illegality?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, for that specific action, there's not something that would be a violation, as far as I've understood the facts as they've been reported. It's not something that would be a violation of U.S. law if he was negotiating those activities while he was a candidate.

Now, at the time he was a candidate, there's a difference between what he says publicly and what exposes him for criminal liability or exposes his family members for criminal liability.

I think the bigger legal issue is what he put in the answers that he submitted in writing to the special counsel's office, and what other individuals, probably family members or Trump Organization members, or Trump leadership members, Trump Organization business leadership members, put in their written or oral testimony --

CAMEROTA: If they lied, if they tried to fudge the timeline --

CORDERO: -- in front of investigators.

CAMEROTA: If they tried to fudge the timeline, somehow then it gets illegal?

CORDERO: Well, if they lied in their statements, so if either in their oral testimony in front of Congress or in answered that they've provided to the special counsel's investigators or if they put -- provided written responses, which is what Michael Cohen did. He lied in his written answers, which means that it wasn't just a misspeak or it wasn't just, you know, "I forgot," or something that can be explained. There was a deliberate effort to mislead those conducting the inquiries, and that's a violation of the criminal code, false information provided.

BERMAN: So now everything Donald Trump Jr. told Congress, it's on the line. And they will pore over every word of that, and he is liable for every word he said.

CAMEROTA: Right.

BERMAN: Jared Kushner now on the line for everything he said to Congress. Everyone else who testified for hours behind closed doors on the line there, and the president on the line for what he said --

CORDERO: Exactly.

BERMAN: -- just a couple weeks ago in his handwritten take-home exam. A lot more peril there.

Rudy Giuliani says his answers align with what Michael Cohen said. I don't know what that word means, exactly. It's an interesting choice, but he didn't seem to say they were in conflict.

John Avlon, to me, there was something interesting that happened just this morning. The president's tweet on this subject. He woke up in Argentina, and the very first thing he had to say was about the Mueller investigation.

Let me just read you that. He goes, "Oh, I get it. I'm a very good developer, happily living my life when I see our country going in the wrong direction, to put it mildly. Against all odds, I decide to run for president and continue to run my business. Very legal and very cool. Talked about it on the campaign trail. Lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia, put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn't do the project. Witch hunt."

I call this the "A Few Good Men" defense. This is, "You're damn right I did. I lightly looked at this deal."

But what does that mean? Is he admitting that he knew that Michael Cohen was in negotiations with Russian officials about a building project while he was crafting his policy on Russia during the campaign?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It seems that the president's sort of working out his position on this in real time in public. It's one of the virtues of Trump's dependence on Twitter. You get the Nixon tapes in real time, in effect.

And I think that, you know, what's significant here is he is trying out a Colonel Jessup, "You're damn right, I called the Code Red." "Sure, very cool. Of course I'm a real-estate developer. Everybody knows that. No big deal."

The question is and the problem is not the delineation between when he was a candidate and when he was president. At the heart of it is questions, obviously, about why Russia may have interfered in the election on his behalf. We know they wanted him to win, according to Vladimir Putin. But also what leverage, if any, the Russians may have had over then-candidate, now President Trump. This is not insignificant.

Remember, the only human being on earth not named Trump, that Donald Trump has refused to criticize, as a candidate and president, is Vladimir Putin. One of the big questions we've always asked ourselves is why? Why? And, you know, follow the -- two truisms we learned from Watergate may apply. One, want to find the truth? Follow the money. Two, may not be the crime as much as the cover-up. CAMEROTA: Well, there you go. OK. So "follow the money" leads us to

greed, right? So the -- Donald Trump as a candidate wanted to do a deal in Moscow. OK?

Where it gets, I think, fishy, is that somehow people were lying about that deal. The president is now not lying about that. He's like, yes, "Big deal. Look at my Twitter feed."

BERMAN: "You're damn right I did."

CAMEROTA: "You're damn right I did." In fact, yesterday -- I'll start with this -- on the White House lawn as he was heading off to Argentina, he spelled out the timeline, as far as he knows it. So listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Very simple. We had a position to possibly do a deal, to build a building of some kind in Moscow. I decided not to do it, and the primary reasons -- there could have been other reasons but the primary reason was simple. I was very focused on running for president. There would be nothing wrong if I did do it. I was running my business while I was campaigning. There was a good chance that I wouldn't have won, in which case, I would have gotten back into the business. And why should I lose lots of opportunities?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I think that's really telling. He didn't expect to win -- we know that -- so why should he cancel any of his business deals? So he continued to do it.

What's fishy is that somehow people around him were lying about the timeline. They say he wrapped up the deal before the campaign started, basically, in earnest. They hadn't. So they instinctively knew, for some reason, to lie about it, but he doesn't. And he's just telling you how it worked.

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he told you the truth yesterday, but he lied about it for about a year and a half. I mean --

CAMEROTA: Did he? Had he been on the record as saying --

AVLON: Which time was he lying.

CAMEROTA: -- that a time -- that it had wrapped up sooner?

LOCKHART: No, but he talked about how "I have no business interests in Russia. I've never done a deal in Russia." So he misled. Maybe he didn't lie.

I mean, I think his response this morning, as long as we're doing movie references, reminds me of the great Harrison Ford scene when he's in the Oval Office with the president. One of his friends is in trouble, and he says, "I barely know the guy." And Harrison Ford says, "No, no, no, he's not a friend. He's a close friend."

He's now set this up as "I lightly looked at the deal." So every e- mail that comes out is a story, because it shows that it wasn't lightweight.

I think the big thing here, and I think Carrie was right, that legally, this is not terrible for Trump; but this is ultimately a political matter. It will be -- if he is going to be removed from office, it's be in the House and the Senate. It's unlikely that happens.

And it's very politically difficult to sell to the public that "I was running for president at the same time as I was cozying up to the Russians to make money." And it's just -- that's one of those things that is very difficult for him politically, and may come to be the most important part of this as a political matter, as opposed to a legal matter.

AVLON: Yes. One thing I would say is obviously, yes, impeachment is a political matter. We all know that. But there is zero indication to date that Robert Mueller is interested in the politics or the optics of any of this.

What you've got, all throughout the last several months, a drama that is coming, really, to bear in public in -- with greater intensity, is Joe Friday versus the volcano. You've got Donald Trump, this volcanic personality, erupting constantly, and then you've got Robert Mueller saying, "Just the facts, just the fact," methodically, without apparent concern to the attacks he's under, moving forward. And we're getting the contours of a broader case. And that's a legal case, not a political case. And we've seen different fronts. Questions with WikiLeaks, questions with the Russians.

CORDERO: Alisyn and John, Alisyn and John.

AVLON: Yes.

CORDERO: Alisyn and John, here's why it mattered that he was lying at the time. It mattered from a national security perspective.

Remember, myself and many others in the national security community were fiercely opposed to his candidacy, because it appeared that he was using the candidacy and would potentially use his position as president for personal enrichment. And those actions that he was taking and the positions that he was taking towards Russia appeared to be at risk of being influenced by his personal financial and business interests.

And so we are still in that position in his presidency, where there's a serious question about what motivates his foreign policy and national security decisions and whether or not those decisions are influenced by intelligence information and advisers from government officials, or whether those decisions are influenced by other things that are of a more personal or financial interest nature.

BERMAN: Were his policy positions, through the time he wrapped up the Republican nomination, were they motivated by money? That's the question that is raised here. It's not answered, but it's the question that is raised.

CAMEROTA: But his point is that he didn't think he was going to win, so what would it have mattered until he won?

BERMAN: Well --

CAMEROTA: So everything that he did then, he would say, was legit as a businessman, who was running for president --

AVLON: Very cool.

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- and very cool. And now everybody wants to rewrite how it all -- I'm just speaking for him. I'm just channeling him.

BERMAN: I understand. I will raise other legal issues here, which is -- which is, again, Michael Cohen told the courtroom yesterday that he lied to Congress to put his views and statements in line with what the president had said publicly and out of loyalty.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: There's an open question. It wasn't said yesterday at all. But did the president know that Michael Cohen was going to go in and lie or --

[06:15:06] CAMEROTA: Right? Or coerce him to.

BERMAN: -- did he discuss it with him, or did he force him to? That's very important.

The other thing here is the money. I mean, this is -- this isn't just crossing the red line that Donald Trump set up for the Mueller investigation. This is leaping beyond it. This is vaulting over it by miles. This now puts this investigation all over the money, not just the special counsel investigation but a Democratic Congress, a Democratic House will be coming, and Adam Schiff. This just opens the door for him to look at financial dealings.

The other thing is we talk about the speaking indictments, the likes of which we saw over the summer, with the Russians, the speaking plea agreement that we saw with Jerome Corsi, where they're laying out facts before our eyes.

This was very much a speaking criminal information. This was Robert Mueller telling us what he is now looking at, and that includes the president's children.

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: And that, to me, is new; and it is big.

BERMAN: There's always been real questions about Don Jr., because he gave testimony to Congress. He's in the Russia meeting. Did he -- was that unlisted number he called the father?

Ivanka is something new. Now, this is part of the problem of a family business. This is not a prosecutor picking on someone's family, per se. This is the children were very involved with the business, including some developments that may have dealt with Russia, whether through Russian money, Felix Sater, a close ally of Cohen, and the family.

So how did that Russian money flow through and what context and awareness did the children have? It's part of the jeopardy. It's part of the Icarus problem that the Trump family may find themselves having.

Remember, it's difficult when American banks are very reluctant to loan to you, and so where did they get the money? And what was the knowledge in that kind of a family-owned business? And what is the implication for the kids?

And look, the president loves his children, obviously. That's going to ratchet up the pressure on the president and his feelings of persecution. And how will that impact his actions going forward.

LOCKHART: And it's not just this Moscow deal. I think -- I think Mueller wanted to put this on the record, but it opens up a whole other area. And it goes to the financing, Deutsche Bank, money laundering, all of this stuff, and that goes to what sort of leverage did the Russians have on the president?

BERMAN: All right, guys. Stick around. We have a lot more to discuss, including, I think, what's happening before our eyes in Buenos Aires. The president of the United States, we will hear from him again in just a few minutes. Will he answer questions? Will he address this?

From our reporting, one thing is clear: he has been knocked off balance here completely. The legal team did not see this coming. So what will the reaction be going forward on this? Also, as Robert Mueller moved closer to WikiLeaks revelations.

Stay with us. Our special live coverage continues after this.

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[06:21:24] BERMAN: All right. The president of the United States is in Buenos Aires for the G-20 summit, but the first thing the president did when he woke up this morning was to write about the Mueller investigation. He knows that this is swirling around him. It was clearly on his mind.

CNN's reporting is it has rattled him. It has rattled his team. We will hear from the president in just a few minutes. How will he address this?

We are back with Carrie Cordero, Joe Lockhart and John Avlon.

Carrie, one thing we haven't discussed, which I think is very interesting here, is CNN's reporting that Matt Whitaker, the acting attorney general, was notified that this was about to happen beforehand. He was told and --

CAMEROTA: You mean the Michael Cohen plea deal?

BERMAN: The Michael Cohen plea deal. The Michael Cohen plea deal. He was told this was about to happen. Now we don't know how much before he was told, but we know he was told, and evidently, he didn't stop it.

So does that mean the fears of Matt Whitaker interfering with the Mueller investigation, are they somewhat allayed this morning?

CORDERO: I don't think so. And there's a few reasons why.

So first of all, he -- that would be consistent with the special counsel's regulations. So on one hand, it cuts against the president's argument that the special counsel is just some rogue entity going off into far corners, because actually, this shows that, even with Matt Whitaker in place in the attorney -- acting attorney general's office, even the unprecedented way in which he has stepped into that position, that the special counsel is still going forward with the appropriate procedures.

The Justice Department has not been real transparent about exactly what Whitaker's role is and what Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, what his continued role is in overseeing the investigation.

So I don't think it's 100 percent clear whether or not the special counsel is still going up through a chain of command through Rod Rosenstein to Matt Whitaker.

Also, this plea agreement, if Matt Whitaker was notified of it but didn't have to approve it, it's not something that is so unusual in terms of an interpretation of the Constitution or the law. I think the more significant decisions that potentially could come to Whitaker would be something like whether or not the special counsel could subpoena the president. That's a constitutional issue. It's an unsettled area of law, and that's the type of thing where an attorney's -- attorney general's decision would be so important.

CAMEROTA: OK. That's really good to know. So John, let's just dive into our tape library.

AVLON: Nice.

CAMEROTA: Because I think it's time to go into the, you know, Wayback Machine and talk about all the times that Donald Trump denied having any -- any -- entanglements, financial entanglements with Russia. So listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: You said you have no investments in Russia, but do you owe any money to Russian individuals and institutions? TRUMP: No. Will I sell condos to Russians on occasion? Probably. I

mean, I do that. I have a lot of condos.

I don't have any deals with Russia. I had Miss Universe there a couple of years ago. Other than that, no.

We could make deals in Russia very easily if we wanted to. I just don't want to, because I think that would be a conflict.

I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don't have any deals in Russia.

I had the Miss Universe pageant, which I owned for quite a while. I had it in Moscow a long time ago. But other than that, I have nothing to do with Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Now, the timeline has changed now, with Michael Cohen. It's gone into 2016, into the race. But he might have been telling the truth during those dates.

BERMAN: It's fun with verb tense.

AVLON: Yes. That's the point.

BERMAN: The game is fun with verb tenses. "I do not, as of this second, have a deal with Russia. However, I was working really hard for a really long time to make a deal with Russia." He leaves that part out.

[06:25:08] CAMEROTA: Yes, but he doesn't have to add that.

AVLON: This goes back to Joe's former boss. You know, what the definition of "is" is.

LOCKHART: I knew we were going there. I knew we were going there.

AVLON: That's the archetypal fun with verb tenses example.

Look, the president, you know, at what point was he telling the truth? At what point was he lying?

CAMEROTA: I think that's important. I think that's relevant. And the timeline, I think, shows that there, that might have been technically true.

AVLON: I think it's a question of which part, if you parse it. For example, the question about the Russian condos. We know that a lot of Russians buy condos in cash, particularly in his Florida properties. Was he referring to that? Maybe. He probably did. What volume, exactly?

He says there's no outstanding loans. OK? Is that a technical assessment of any Russian money that may have flown through his properties or not? The problem is the president's credibility is not terribly high

because of a litany of lies and mistruths and half-truths. And now we're in real jeopardy, because he's not a candidate. He's not simply putting on a great show. He's got the responsibilities and real questions about his willingness to stand up and be tough to Russia, because he has steadfastly refused to do so.

BERMAN: And now we also know one additional thing, which is that Michael Cohen thought the president's position and statements on this were so problematic that he had to lie to Congress.

CAMEROTA: He lied. That he lied.

BERMAN: That he had to lie to Congress about it.

CAMEROTA: Michael Cohen took it upon himself, or perhaps was directed.

BERMAN: If you dissect the language the president used there at those moments, it was not a lie. Anything he said out loud. It was wildly misleading, as was this statement, which is a whopper, from Paul Manafort, who was the president's campaign chair at the time he said this. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs?

MANAFORT: That's what he said. That's what I said. That's, obviously, what our position is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Ringing, ringing denial.

BERMAN: That was in July. That was at the time of the Republican convention, which followed by about a month when this deal fell apart, which it fell apart officially on the very day that the "Washington Post" reported the Russian hack into the Democratic e-mails, June 14, 2016, the day that, miraculously, the Trump Tower Moscow deal fell through and the day it was reported.

LOCKHART: Well, I think we know that Paul Manafort is not a morning person.

AVLON: That's right.

CAMEROTA: If there's one thing we can say definitively.

AVLON: -- would have been their -- their, you know --

LOCKHART: If you believe that all of these things are coincidental, you really have a very active imagination. These things are all connected. One of the things that really troubles me, though, is the way they

respond. I was watching yesterday, and it -- Donald Trump sounds like a crime boss. People are rats; people are -- he's week. And, you know, Jim Acosta reported last night that a senior White House aide said to him that -- that Cohen is a rat and inmates hate rats.

CAMEROTA: Oh, God.

LOCKHART: That's a senior government employee talking like, you know, mafia muscle. And you know, that really, you know, that sort of mentality should be really troubling to people.

BERMAN: Carrie, just one last point on Michael Cohen, because the president and Rudy Giuliani were doing their best to bash Michael Cohen yesterday. But the fact of the matter is that Mueller wouldn't -- he team would not have done this if they did not have supporting documentation, which is clear they have.

CAMEROTA: They wouldn't have accepted his plea deal if they didn't have supporting documentation. They wouldn't have just taken his word.

BERMAN: There apparently are e-mails back and forth, exchanges that they have about all of this. Correct?

CORDERO: I think that's right. I mean, so many in the -- people involved in this case, in the Trump orbit, have proven themselves to be liars at one time or another that, at this point, I don't see how the special counsel's office could take the statements of someone unless they have other witnesses and lots of documents to back it up.

So I would think, in order for Michael Cohen to be able to proceed in this way and lay out what he is now saying is the truthful situation, that he would have to be able to verify it through other documents, tapes, other witnesses, all sorts of other information.

I would just add real quickly, and I think what Joe is saying, which is that this assault on prosecutors and -- verbal assault is what I mean, on prosecutors and sort of attacking of the justice system, it's not something that should go unnoted. And it's been a feature or a bug of the president's rhetoric throughout it.

And it is so significant, because in his rhetoric, he's always describing himself as a law-and-order president, a law-and-order administration, but it really is the exact opposite. Because they undermine the justice system, and they undermine the rule of law when you're attacking prosecutors and when you're trying to portray their activities as somehow damaging people who are otherwise good people. BERMAN: All right. Carrie, John, Joe, thank you guys. Stand by.

There's a lot more to discuss on this throughout the morning as we wait for the president to address this.

CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, a dramatic life-or-death moment captured on body camera. A sheriff's deputy captures his escape through the deadly Camp Fire. We will show that to you next.

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