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New Details Expected on Manafort & Cohen in Court Filings Today; Canada Arrests Chinese Tech Giant CFO, Faces Extradition to U.S. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 07, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He wants to get it over with.

[07:00:02] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Andrew McCabe decided to open up an obstruction of justice investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like they were trying to prevent a five- alarm fire from turning into a six-alarm fire.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a risky move for Trump. They're on the front lines of diplomacy.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She's excellent. She's been a supporter for a long time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She is clearly not qualified. The most important qualification is that you show up on Donald Trump's TV screen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To assign this volatility to the trade issue, I think is misplaced.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Markets are reacting to the uncertainty.

STEVEN MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: I am taking President Xi at his word, but they have to deliver on this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins me.

Today is a major day in the Mueller investigation. And you know what? The president seems to know it. Check out his Twitter feed if you have time, because he's on a rampage right now. Four tweets over the last 25 minutes, all about the Mueller investigation, going after Mueller personally, going after people involved in the investigation, going after Rod Rosenstein. Why is he doing this?

Well, in just a matter of hours, we will know more, potentially much more about where the investigations, plural, stand. Two sentencing memos will detail the extent of Michael Cohen's cooperation. Key question here: what has he been telling them about the president's business ties to Russia?

The Mueller team will also file a document spelling out the lies that they say Paul Manafort told them, lies that sunk his plea deal. One of the questions here: was he lying about things having to do with the Trump campaign and Russia?

There's more. CNN has learned in the days before Mueller was appointed and right after James Comey was fired, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and top FBI officials discussed ways to reign in President Trump. Those options included Rosenstein wearing a wire, which he later denied. The sources say -- and then this is big -- that then-acting FBI director Andy McCabe took the extraordinary step of opening an obstruction of justice investigation.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Also, President Trump today is expected to name State Department spokeswoman and former FOX News host Heather Nauert as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She would, of course, replace Nikki Haley in that role. Questions this morning about her qualifications for that job.

And an Oscar stunner overnight. Comedian Kevin Hart stepping down now as host of the Academy Awards only two days after he got the job. The reason? Well, he initially refused the demand from the Academy to apologize for his past anti-gay tweets, similar to statements he's made in comedy routines. It's an uproar in Hollywood, and it has plenty of people talking this morning.

BERMAN: We're going to start, though, on the Mueller investigation. Because this really is one of those rare days where we know that, by the end of the day, we're going to know more than we know right now.

Joining us now is Michael Isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo! News and co-author of "Russian Roulette: Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump"; Phil Mudd, former FBI senior intelligence advisor and CNN counterterrorism analyst; and CNN chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin.

Jeffrey, I want to start with you. Because the president is on this rampage this morning four tweets and running going all after the Mueller investigation and Rosenstein. There is absolutely no reason to dissect the words inside the tweets.

However, I think the fact that he's doing it tells us he might be nervous. What does he have to be nervous about today?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you know, every time Robert Mueller has disclosed substantive findings about what he discovered in his investigation, we have learned important new things. And here there are two very significant disclosures coming, as long as they're not redacted too much.

One is what did Michael Cohen really tell him? What's the full measure of his cooperation? And the second, in many ways, the most interesting, is how does Robert Mueller know that Paul Manafort lied to him so much? What are the other facts he uncovered that allowed him to conclude that Manafort was a liar? These are substantive areas of disclosures, but we -- and we should get them.

HILL: So substantive. We'll see what we end up getting. You know, a lot of us, everybody trying to read between the -- it's been pointed out the liberal use of toner, of course, in the Flynn filing.

And one of the things I know, Michael, that you pointed out is -- is what is reflected in there is likely not the meat, obviously, of what Mueller may have learned, specifically when it comes to obstruction of justice. So based on that, there's still so much to find out.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, AUTHOR, "RUSSIAN ROULETTE": Sure, look, in the Flynn memo it talked about the criminal cases that he has provided information for, but there's that whole other phase of the Mueller investigation which is obstruction, which is not clear that that is leaning towards a criminal case, because the ultimate target in an obstruction case is the president himself.

[07:05:14] He's the one that fired Comey. He's the one that asked Comey to let Mike Flynn go, "Hope you can see fit to let him go." And under DOJ policy, Mueller cannot bring a criminal case against a sitting president. That's been DOJ policy for quite some time.

So the only thing Mueller can do with that information is put it into a report that, you know, at some point may go to the Congress. That's -- you know, there were lots of questions about that.

So in this -- in the upcoming memos, especially with Manafort, there could be matters relating to obstruction. Were there communications between the White House and Manafort, Manafort's lawyers? There's been reporting on that. So that could be something that Mueller is looking at, but I'm not sure that's going to make its way into the memo we're like to see tonight.

BERMAN: I just also want to add that we're going to learn about Michael Cohen. And we know that Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty to arranging Russian deals for the president during the campaign, well into the campaign. Michael Cohen says that, under the president's direction, he made illegal payments having to do with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who said they had relationships with the president. There's all that. It's all areas which we can learn more about today.

On obstruction, Phil, it's very interesting. CNN's reporting last night, to me, struck me as, "Oh, that's curious," when we learned that after James Comey was fired and before Robert Mueller was hired as special counsel, Andy McCabe, who's FBI director, acting FBI director at the time, actually opened an official obstruction of justice investigation. What does that tell you?

MUDD: Boy, it tells me that, at the time that Comey was departing when he was fired by the president, remember the time before that, you had all the turmoil at the Department of Justice and the FBI about the Clinton investigation leading up to the elections in fall of '16, that there was so much turmoil at the FBI that -- that they look at a president who's only been around for a few months and consider a major criminal charge. I think the bar for obstruction of justice, we talked about it for a

long time, is going to be extremely high. What this tells me is more about the nature of how the FBI and maybe the Department of Justice were looking at the president in the initial months about the swirl around Comey than it does about the president himself.

My bottom line, John, is I look at this and say, "Look, they must have been extremely nervous, uncomfortable at -- at the FBI to have taken this step." That is a huge step.

TOOBIN: It is a huge step. And I think it just underlines the magnitude of how disturbed people were by what the president was doing.

I mean, you know, Comey has testified and written about this in great detail about, you know, all the pressure he was getting from the president -- you know, demanding loyalty, go easy on Mike Flynn. It was wildly inappropriate. Comey knew it. The other people at the FBI knew it.

You know, all of us -- you know, we've heard about it for so long, this is -- this is, you know, old news for us now, but the magnitude of it is still worth dwelling on. It was really bad what the president was doing, and they all knew it.

BERMAN: Michael.

ISIKOFF: Yes. I would say, look, the facts here have been known for quite some time, since like, February of last year. And, you know, what's stunning to me is here we are, you know, nearly two years later, and we haven't had a full airing of what happened.

You know, this is a subject that Congress should have taken up in public long ago with open hearings, with the key witnesses testifying before the TV cameras under oath; and the Mueller report on this should have been out a long time ago.

You know, there were a discreet set of actions taken in a short period of time in the first month or so of Donald Trump's presidency. It doesn't take two years to uncover the facts on those. All of the key witnesses could have been questioned, should have testified in public by now, and we should have answers on all these matters by now.

TOOBIN: Except -- except for one. I mean, you know, brother Mike is exactly right, that this -- we should know more about this.

But the fact that the president's lawyers managed to stretch out the whole debate over whether the president will answer questions from Mueller. And he still hasn't answered questions about those obstruction issues. That -- you know, that was -- this is sort of hamlet without the prince on -- in terms of obstruction of justice. He's never answered questions under oath about what went on when he fired Comey, and it looks like he never will.

ISIKOFF: And yes, and he likely never will, and I think that could have been predicted a long time ago. And so then what do you do from there? You take the facts you do have. You take the witnesses you do have and move forward.

[07:10:10] BERMAN: There is one more aspect to it, that even after those first few months, which Michael, you say should have been investigated more quickly.

There were more instances which raised new questions, such as after it came to light the Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr., where he was promised Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton. The fact that the president dictated the memo, which was misleading, at a minimum, dishonest at worst about what went on at that meeting.

So there's more fodder, perhaps, that they have to investigate. Maybe they were done investigating February and March, but all of a sudden, they've got to deal with July, August and September on those things.

ISIKOFF: Yes, look, there's no question this is a complex investigation with lots of threads. But I think the fact that we're seeing these memos today is an indicator we are coming towards an end game.

Usually, the cooperating witnesses don't have their sentencing until after all the information they've provided to the government has been processed and used for any ongoing -- further criminal cases.

So you know, we'll be looking very closely tonight to see how the language is worded. Do they use words like "substantial assistance" to an ongoing investigation for Michael Cohen? That will be especially revealing. They did in the Flynn case, but not in -- and this is very important -- in the Flynn memo, the substantial assistance referred to an ongoing investigation referred to a matter not under Robert Mueller's mandate, not related to the Russia investigation.

HILL: Right. And I know, Phil, you've said in the past, you just said Russia, Michael, the one where you're really looking for, and hopefully, today if it's not redacted, is Russia in any of these documents, because specifically Paul Manafort's, because as you point out, Phil, that could tell us a lot.

MUDD: That's right. I mean, I'm most closely following what Manafort documents say today for that simple reason.

We know three of the four pieces of this. We know from the Mueller investigation what the Russians were up to. We know that Americans involved with the campaign, including Paul Manafort and his deputy, were deeply involved in dirty money. We know everybody and his brother is lying in this investigation, but we still don't know the key question of whether something not only inappropriate but illegal was done in terms of the campaign, accepting information,, for example, from WikiLeaks about Russia.

I -- why would Manafort lie? We already know that he's been convicted on dirty money. The only reason I can think he's lying is he still has something else to hide, and that's Russia. I want to see what that document on Manafort says about anything he has to do with Russia. BERMAN: All right. Phil, Michael, Jeffrey, thanks all for being with

us. I can only say it one more time. Sometimes, when the president is most angry in the morning, it portends that perhaps he has a tip that he's going to be upset about if it goes public later in the day. So stay tuned.

HILL: There you go. Sort of like a crystal ball.

BERMAN: Sort of like.

HILL: Or a Magic 8-Ball.

BERMAN: Both magic. A magic crystal 8-Ball.

HILL: A wild week on Wall Street after the arrest of a Chinese executive, up to fuel fears of a growing rift between the U.S. and China. So where does it go from here? We're going to discuss that, next.

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[07:17:16] HILL: A roller-coaster week on Wall Street. The Dow slashing more than 3 percent since Monday and all of this, of course, as tensions between the U.S. and China continue to be tested following the arrest of a Chinese tech executive in Canada.

She is set to appear in court later today, facing extradition to the United States. Joining us to discuss, former Trump economic advisor and CNN senior economics analyst Stephen Moore; and "Washington Post" opinion columnist, Catherine Rampell. Good to have both of you with us.

So as this broke, this news broke and we started to learn more about the details, one of the things that came out, Catherine, is all of this was happening as President Trump or President Xi were meeting in Argentina. And we've been told by the administration, we've been told that the president didn't know it was happening at the time.

Stephen, do you believe that the president wasn't in on this? And how important would it have been for him to know? What could that have changed?

STEPHEN MOORE, CNN SENIOR ECONOMICS ANALYST: Well, apparently, from the news reports, he did not know while these negotiations were going on about this arrest.

Why is it important? Because I think it further confirms that China is very difficult to deal with. They don't play by the rules. They lie, they cheat, they steal. I mean, look, I don't know whether these allegations against this woman are true or not.

But there's been a pattern here. And I think what happened this week is that the White House, from my White House sources, they -- they sort of thought they had a handshake deal with China, and then as soon as the Chinese got back from Beijing, they started backtracking from that deal. And then, of course, the stock market collapsed by 1,000 points.

And, you know, it's so important to get this back on track. I think that, you know, this is just an indication of what happens if these negotiations fail.

On the other hand, the upside of this, if Donald Trump can get this deal done and they open -- the Chinese open up their markets to us and stop stealing $300 billion of our technology a year, the upside for the stock market and the economy are so high. So this is a huge high- stake game of poker that's going on right now.

HILL: It is a high-stakes game of poker. Is this the right tactic, Catherine?

RAMPELL: If you're talking about tariffs, I think the answer is no. China has definitely committed great transgressions against the United States, against our allies in terms of stealing I.P. for its technology transfer. You know, huge subsidies to state-owned enterprises, closing off its markets.

The question here is what are the right tools that are available to pressure China to start behaving? And the tools that, in my view and in the view of most economists that I have spoken with who focus on trade, is to get together with our allies, who have also been similarly victimized, and to force pressure on China to reform.

And these are very complicated structural reforms, so it's going to be challenging no matter what. But putting tariffs on China and, you know, sort of triggering these retaliations against American firms is not going to get the deal done.

[07:20:08] It's going to cause lots of pain to American firms, to American consumers, because American firms, of course, are the ones who are going to have to pay higher prices and who are being shut out of Chinese markets.

So I do not think this is the right route to getting when we want. And part of the problem here is not only what are the tools available but what are our objectives? And, you know, I talked about a lot of the issues that we have with China. The things that Trump focuses on, unfortunately, are not those issues. He's focused on the trade deficit, which is not, in and of itself, the main problem here. When we look at --

MOORE: Look, I think there's a lot of truth to that. I mean, I don't disagree with that. Of course, if we could get our allies onboard, it would do a lot of good in terms of isolating China, so that's right.

I think the question that I would have to these economists who say this isn't the right approach is, you know, how are you going to get China to behave themselves?

Now, look, we've had tariffs on -- and look, I'm a free-trade guy. I don't like the word "tariffs." I don't like it when Donald Trump calls himself "Tariff Man."

But on the other hand, you know, we tried the carrot of trade deals and so on for 20 years with China --

RAMPELL: No.

MOORE: Look, we've --

RAMPELL: We pulled out of the TPP. That -- TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

MOORE: I'm talking about with respect to China. I'm talking about --

RAMPELL: The Trans-Pacific Partnership -- but that was the point.

MOORE: They weren't a part of -- China wasn't even a part of TPP.

RAMPELL: I know. That was the point. It was that we were getting together with our allies, these other countries who were similarly victimized and using that to pressure China. We pulled out of that trade deal.

MOORE: Yes, but my point is this, that you know, we've had these tariffs now for many months now on China, and it is hurting their economy. There's no question about it.

RAMPELL: And ours, too.

MOORE: This is the -- this is the untold story. That China's industrial production has been really cut significantly this year. Their stock market is down 20 percent.

Trump is using the club of tariffs to try to get Beijing to behave, and Catherine, I think my problem with what you're saying is this hasn't -- this approach hasn't really worked very well. We've got to start using the other tools to get China to behave, because we can't go on with them stealing from us every year and --

RAMPELL: We're punishing our -- the issue is -- the issue is that we're punishing China, but we're also punishing our own companies.

MOORE: Well, that's true.

RAMPELL: We're also punishing our own consumers.

MOORE: That's true.

RAMPELL: I mean, if you look at the kinds of things that we put tariffs on, it's largely products that American firms that rely on global supply chains purchase. So they're the ones who are suffering, not to mention, of course, farmers and manufacturers who are suffering from retaliatory tariffs.

You know, you look at soybean farmers, China was the biggest export market for American soybean farmers, and that's been essentially shot off. The exports are down something like 95 percent over the past year to China. I mean, and that's largely due to these tariffs. Other factors, as well, of course.

So American firms, American consumers are hurting because of all of this. So it's very much a misdirected attack.

MOORE: Well, I think at some point we're going to have to have the showdown.

Look, this is the issue of our time, about what country is going to be the sort of economic superpower for the next 20 and 50 years. Will it be the United States, which I certainly hope it will? Or will it be China?

And China has -- has gained economic advantage by incredibly abusive trade practices with the United States. And I think it's like we've been -- as Trump says, we've had a "Kick Me" sign on ourselves for the last 20 years, with -- and China has been allowed to cheat and steal with impunity. And now we finally got a president who is kind of striking back --

RAMPELL: Against our own -- against our own -- but he's -- the problem is he's striking back against our own companies, our own consumers.

I agree that China has misbehaved. I think we agree on that point. The question is, is -- first of all, is Trump focusing on the right issue? And it doesn't seem like he is. He's focused mostly on deficits. He's not focused on these other kinds of issues, like forced technology transfer.

And also, is he actually using tools that will be effective? And when I was talking earlier about banding together with our allies, it's not only by pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that we have alienated those allies who would be quite useful in this fight. Of course, it's also picking trade wars with them, as well.

We've picked trade wars with Canada, with Mexico. We still have steel and aluminum tariffs on both of those countries. We've picked fights with Japan, with the E.U., with Korea, with all of these countries that should be enlisted in this fight against China.

MOORE: You're right, but let me -- but look, this -- what's happened in the last six to nine months actually proves that a lot of what Trump is doing is working. I mean, look at how --

RAMPELL: Based on what?

MOORE: Basically -- well, look, Canada basically relented in terms of -- remember, Trump said, "Look, we're going to either slap you with 25 percent auto tariffs or you're going to reduce our tariffs -- your tariffs on our dairy products and other things." And it worked, and we got this deal done in an effective way --

RAMPELL: We got substantially the same deal that we would have gotten before.

MOORE: There was improvement. There was improvement.

RAMPELL: There was cosmetic -- there was, like, cosmetic improvements to NAFTA that probably, we would have gotten anyway without picking this fight with our allies, without alienating some of our closest friends.

[07:25:07] HILL: Let me just bring us back to China for a minute here.

MOORE: Sure.

HILL: Because part of what I want to get in, is the president obviously tweeting less. The president is happy where things stand. Tweeting that "The teams on both sides are having smooth communication and good cooperation with each other. We're full of confidence an agreement can be reached within the next 90 days. I agree." That coming at 7:56 p.m.

Obviously, what we're hearing from China is far different, in fact, an editorial in the "Global Times," noting that the government there should seriously mull over the U.S. tendency to abuse legal procedures to suppress China's high-tech enterprise and increase interaction with the U.S. and exert pressure when necessary.

How much of a concern is that, specifically for companies and large tech companies that may be doing business in China? Could this lead to retaliation that could, in fact, be harmful, Stephen?

MOORE: Well, the problem is -- I mean, you put your finger on it. The problem is China won't even acknowledge that they are stealing technology.

Now, they put out a statement earlier this week that they are going to, you know, have more severe penalties on intellectual property, but nobody really believes that. I mean, there's a big problem with credibility, in terms of dealing with China. It's very much like dealing with the old Soviet Union. You know, you've got to use the Reagan principle here of not just trust but verify.

When this deal gets done -- and look, I'm optimistic, actually, that a deal will get done in 90 days, because China can't survive a 25- percent tariff on everything they bring into the United States. Their warehouses, their docks are just full of merchandise they can't sell right now. They need access to American markets.

But we've got to make sure not just that it's written down and there's a handshake deal but there's real enforcement that China, you know, actually abides by what they agree to.

HILL: Catherine, real quick, you have the last word.

RAMPELL: I agree that the issue is getting China to make these structural reforms and having measures in place to check that we are -- that they are actually abiding by whatever the agreement is.

I am less optimistic that we will get to that point, especially within the next 90 days, given that it doesn't seem like the groundwork necessary to make that happen has been in place.

HILL: Catherine, Stephen, appreciate it. Thank you both.

John.

MOORE: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right, Erica. I appreciate it.

President Trump has the leading candidate to be the next attorney general, someone who has been critical of parts of the Mueller investigation. So who is it and what are the chances of being confirmed? We have someone who has a vote on this joining us next.

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