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New Day

No Renegotiating Brexit; Winter Storm Looms for Eastern U.S.; Washington Post Face Checker; Tortured Mind of Sandy Hook Killer. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 11, 2018 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Uses political capital to create a deal. Build something big and not shut down the government with unified Republican control, or are we going to go careening off the cliff again.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Stay turned for our next episode.

AVLON: That's right.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: John, David, Nia, thank you.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Thanks, guys.

CAMEROTA: Another major blow for Theresa May's Brexit plan. What will happen now? We have all the breaking details for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: We have breaking news.

The head of the European commission says there is, quote, no room whatsoever for renegotiation of Brexit. This comes as the British Prime Minister Theresa May is in Brussels for talks after postponing the vote that was to be today on the deal to exit the European Union. So what now?

CNN's Bianca Nobilo live at 10 Downing Street in London with all the breaking details.

Bianca.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, John.

Yes, the prime minister is in a very difficult predicament. She's going on this whistle stop tour this morning to meet with European leaders to see if there is any wiggle room whatsoever to improve her Brexit deal. This comes after she called off a historic vote on her Brexit deal that was meant to be today. She announced that to the House of Commons yesterday to a raucous response from her own party who attacked her and from the opposition who also attacked her as well.

[06:35:24] Now, one thing is for sure, the prime minister has now defined herself on this Brexit plan. So she's synonymous with it. If it fails, she will fail, too, and her leadership is in a very delicate position as well. So one thing is for sure, her plan is on life support, so is her premiership. And even just this morning, there were more rumors that a vote of no confidence is imminent in the prime minister, from her back benches that don't like the deal that she struck with the European Union, but it doesn't look likely that the E.U. has any room to give her some more concessions on this.

So what does the prime minister do then? Well, she can try and take the deal back to the House of Commons, but it's so unlikely to pass. So then the United Kingdom is faced with this binary choice of maybe crashing out with no deal, or perhaps even that option of a second referendum.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, Bianca, do not move because it sounds like there will be a lot of breaking news, and bring us all the developments as they happen.

Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: Well, the southern U.S. is digging out of heavy snow and another winter storm is on the way.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers has our forecast.

What are you seeing, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: The next winter storm for Thursday, Friday will definitely be a rainmaker, and that could be a problem for the weight of the snow on some of the roofs that are down here across parts of the south. Might even have a foot and a half of snow on them and then all of a sudden that gets very wet.

The problem this morning is everywhere that really we did have snow over the weekend is now down below 32. Yesterday up to about 40. So melting thaw, melting thaw, freezing spots, icy spots all over the southeast right now.

This weather is brought to you by the Shark Ion Robot Cleaning System. One dock, two Sharks.

So let's get to it. Where does it go? Where does this system go from here?

From the northeast, the storm is moving away. Here's Thursday. Could be some severe weather not that far from Houston or even from New Orleans. But the problem is how much heavy rainfall is going to come down here. Probably gutters are going to be clogged with snow in some spots, leaves still clogging the gutters in other spots. We're expecting flash flooding here. Some of the areas across the southeast could pick up four inches of rainfall before it finally all stops.

New York, though, John, you warm up. I know there will be some showers. You get to 50 on Saturday. That's going to feel like springtime.

CAMEROTA: Oh, nice.

BERMAN: I like it.

All right, Chad, thank you very much.

So, new this morning, "The Washington Post" was finding so many falsehoods, so many lies, repeated so often that they just decided to create a whole new category of fact checking, the "Bottomless Pinocchio."

CAMEROTA: What does that mean?

BERMAN: "Bottomless Pinocchio." Are they talking about pants? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:42:19] BERMAN: So the fact checkers at "The Washington Post" say that President Trump has repeated so many false claims that they've been forced to introduce a new category. They're calling it the "Bottomless Pinocchio."

Joining us now is "The Washington Post" fact checker columnist Glenn Kessler.

Glenn, thank you so much for being with us.

Look, we've all come to know and love four Pinocchios when talking about people who have no regard for the facts. Why isn't that enough anymore?

GLENN KESSLER, THE FACT CHECKER COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, what we found with President Trump is that he has a tendency to double down and continue to make false claims long after they've been debunked. Most politicians would drop a claim once it was tagged with four Pinocchios.

So in the case of President Trump, there are claims that earned four Pinocchios that he has said not once, not twice but even 120 times. So we felt there was -- we needed to, you know, signify this in a way that would be memorable for people and also have it gathered in one place on "The Washington Post" website where people could refer to it.

BERMAN: Let me play one example of one of these claims that the president repeats again and again and again, even though you've often given her four Pinocchios on it. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We started building our wall. I'm so proud of it. We started -- we started. We have $1.6 billion. And we've already started -- you saw the pictures yesterday. I said, what a thing of beauty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So why isn't four Pinocchios enough for that?

KESSLER: Well, the problem with building the wall, so to speak, is that Congress has not appropriated funds for the president's wall. They have appropriated $1.6 billion for border security, but that is all fencing or replacement of existing fencing. And the language in the appropriations bill specifically says none of the money can be used on the prototypes, the concrete prototypes that the president has looked at. But he went ahead and just -- has been pretending that he is building the wall and he isn't.

BERMAN: So what's the process? What gets you? What criteria do you have to reach to get the "Bottomless Pinocchio"?

KESSLER: It has to be a claim that we've rated with either four Pinocchios or three, a mostly false claim, that has been repeated 20 or more times. And with our -- beginning of this webpage, we came up with 14 claims made by the president. There are a couple others that are close behind. They're only at like 15 or 16 repetitions. But once they reach 20, we'll add them to the list.

[06:45:00] BERMAN: And is anyone else besides President Trump even close to receiving a "Bottomless Pinocchio"?

KESSLER: Not at this moment. We've pondered about this, you know, going back in time, if we had this before, would someone have qualified. Obviously a president's words are scrutinized more closely than other politicians. And we have a continuous record of everything he has said. So -- but at the moment, I can't think of anyone contemporaneously who would qualify.

BERMAN: And, again, I think it's going back to the beginning here of why this is important. You note that when a politician is fact checking and called out for dishonesty or for a falsehood, they typically stop. That's not what's happening here.

What does that tell you -- when something that is not true keeps getting repeated, what does that tell you?

KESSLER: Well, we look upon these claims as a form of disinformation. And clearly the president, at this point, realizes that what he's saying is not true, but he wants to go ahead and still say it.

And these claims fit certain categories. They're claims where he exaggerates about his accomplishments or he brushes aside or tries to cover up his disappointments, or he's attacking someone that he perceives as an enemy. Those are the broad categories that you can see that these claims fall into.

BERMAN: No, and I think that's the important distinction there. Saying something wrong or incorrect or not true is one thing. Saying something that you know to be wrong or untrue or a lie again and again and again and again is something different and merits a different standard. Let me just put up on the screen some of the claims that the president

has repeated. You note the biggest tax cut in history is not true. He's said that 123 times. The trade deficit, 117 times. The U.S. economy has never been stronger, 99 times. Inflating our NATO spending, 87 times. Wow. The U.S. has started building the border wall, 86 times.

This is not incidental. This is not once or twice slipping up and saying the wrong thing. This is a pattern, it seems, almost systemic, Glenn.

KESSLER: Well, it is certainly part of his political character. And I should note that, you know, we -- we don't try to play gotcha at "The Washington Post." You know, if we find a politician has made a mistake, an error, and they come back to us and say, you know, you're right, that was an error, we don't actually award Pinocchios. We will still do a fact check, because people may have heard what they said. But there's some politicians that are readily able and willing to say, you know, I went too far there. That's not really the case with President Trump.

BERMAN: No, you guys are relentlessly fair about this. You don't go out of your way to award them unless you think they were said with cause.

Just to be clear, is this bottomless as in a bottomless pit of Pinocchios or a Pinocchio who's only wearing a top?

KESSLER: Well, what I'd like -- people are saying it should be a new drink in bars here in Washington, the "Bottomless Pinocchio," though I'm not sure what exactly would go into it.

BERMAN: I like that better. Your version of it is the best possible one.

Glenn Kessler, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

KESSLER: You're welcome.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I don't want to think about Pinocchio with no pants, but thank you for planting that.

BERMAN: Well, I want the drink.

CAMEROTA: That -- yes.

BERMAN: A drink is much better.

CAMEROTA: I will buy you that.

BERMAN: Or wings (ph).

CAMEROTA: All right, meanwhile, we have to get to this shocking story. There are newly released documents that will take us inside the mind of the Sandy Hook killer. What they show us about the years that led up to that massacre that destroyed so many lives.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:52:11] CAMEROTA: This morning we're learning disturbing new details about the tortured mind of the Sandy Hook killer. More than 1,000 pages of documents have just been released by Connecticut State Police.

CNN's Jean Casarez has been studying this and reporting on it and joins us now with more.

What have you learned?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's very difficult to even talk about this, right, in light of what happened, but it allows us to go into his mind, his mindset in the years prior.

These documents and writings of the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, have never been made public, until now. "The Hartford Current" was able to obtain over 1,000 documents from the Connecticut State Police after a five-year legal battle eventually decided by the state supreme court. The documents included Lanza's own writings, along with assessments from mental health professionals prior to December 2012 when Lanza shot and killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School after shooting his own mother to death.

While we knew the 20-year-old had led a life of isolation, we now know that Lanza was evaluated in 2006, six years before the mass shooting, by Robert King, a professor of child psychiatry at the Yale Child Studies Center. According to the newspaper's reporting, King asked him if there were kids that he enjoyed spending time with. A 14-year-old Lanza replied, why would that be significant?

According to the doctor's notes, he appeared pale, gaunt, awkward, standing rigidly with his eyes downcast, declining to shake hands, tremulous with discomfort and looking miserable. Dr. King's report stated in part it was difficult to interpret what this increasing social withdrawal and reclusiveness represents, but started that his homebound education was a mistake.

Many of Lanza's writings, according to "The Current," were not dated, but at one point he wrote a list of his problems, that's his handwriting right there, including the lights were too bright, there were too many dirty dishes and referring to his mother, you were in the room while I was in the kitchen. I am unable to distinguish between my problems, he wrote, because I have too many.

At another point he writes in what appears to be an online communication with a fellow gamer. I incessantly have nothing other than scorn for humanity. I have been desperate to feel anything positive for someone for my entire life.

And recovered from his computer was a spreadsheet that Lanza put together for over four years from 2006 through 2010 detailing mass killings all the way back to 1786. According to "The Current," there were great detailing of these mass murders by Lanza and the killings were arranged by how many people were murdered.

Alisyn.

[06:55:02] CAMEROTA: Oh, my God. Jean, oh, my God. I mean to know that there were all these red flags, it's just all so sickening and, of course, heart breaking to know that he was in some -- in his own weird way attempting to reach out to people and how it could all have been missed or not attended to.

CASAREZ: And it talks about his mother responding to the professional's report saying, oh, it was just -- he was nervous being with the psychiatrist assessing him and that was just that and we'll have a plan for him to get into regular school later on in the college years.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Just when you think it can't get more horrible, that story.

Jean, thank you very much for the reporting.

CASAREZ: Thank you.

BERMAN: I really hate to think about the families of the victims reading that news this morning.

CAMEROTA: Me too.

BERMAN: All right, a source tells CNN the president sees impeachment as a real possibility, even as Republicans in the Senate shrugging all of the revelations off. Big developments coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The scope of what's going on, the degree to which the Trump campaign was committing crimes, that's going to continue to expand.

[07:00:03] SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: I can't imagine basing any kind of prosecution on the word of Mr. Cohen.