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Rod Rosenstein To Leave Justice Department After A.G. Confirmed; President Trump Pushes For Wall, Democrats Demand Government Reopen; President Trump To Meet With Congressional Leadership At White House Today; Unredacted Paul Manafort Filings Hint At Collusion; CNN Reality Check: Fact-Checking Trump's Prime Time Immigration Speech. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 09, 2019 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:31:30] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news. CNN has learned that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who launched and has overseen Robert Mueller's Russia investigation for more than a year now, will leave the Justice Department in the coming weeks after a new attorney general is confirmed.

Joining us now to talk about this and so much more is former Democratic vice presidential candidate and senator, Tim Kaine. Good morning, Senator.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA), MEMBER, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Hey, Alisyn. Good to be with you.

CAMEROTA: Rod Rosenstein has shepherded the Mueller investigation. What is your feeling as you wake up to this news that he'll soon be departing?

KAINE: Well, that news causes me great concern, Alisyn. You're right, shepherded -- I would say, he's allowed and protected the investigation to go forward, which it needs to.

His announcement that he plans to step down once the A.G. is confirmed is going to really raise the stakes for the hearing in the Judiciary Committee on the nomination of William Barr to be A.G. because as you've also reported, William Barr was sending freelance memos to the Trump administration making the -- making a case to undercut the Mueller investigation.

So the deep concern will be if he comes in and Rosenstein is gone, is this just a preface to either undercutting the investigation or trying to keep the results of it hidden from the American people?

CAMEROTA: Well, let's talk about that because obviously, Rod Rosenstein is invested. Obviously, you are pleased -- so many Democrats are pleased with how he has handled it so far. So he knows all of that.

So does the fact that he is ready to leave mean that he thinks that Bill Barr can successfully oversee this? KAINE: Hard to say. I have a real hard time interpreting the news that you've just broken in terms of what it means.

But what I do know is this with certainty. The stakes of the Judiciary Committee hearing and, in particular, the inquiries to the nominee about what he will do with this investigation -- will he allow it to complete, will he enable it to have the resources it needs, and will he make sure that the results are available to Congress and the American public -- those questions assume greater importance.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, for his confirmation hearing, will he -- will you ask him directly, will you allow Congress to get a report? Will you allow all of this to continue? And if he says yes and yes, then is everything copasetic?

KAINE: Well, first, I'm not on Judiciary but I have offered to meet with the nominee before or right after the hearing, and I'm definitely going to ask him those questions. And how -- really, I don't make a determination on how I'm going to vote on a nominee until after the hearing. How I'm going to vote on the nominee is going to depend on the entire hearing. I think those questions are going to be some of the most important.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about the government shutdown and the president's speech last night. The president made his case for why he thinks a border wall is so important, but he also brought up things that we've been hearing about on both sides.

An appeal for more beds. He's called it a humanitarian crisis -- what's happening with the unaccompanied children and the families who are coming across. So, more medical personnel to deal with them. As I said, more beds.

More security personnel at the border to try to --

KAINE: Right.

CAMEROTA: -- stop drugs coming in.

So, did you hear some progress that Democrats can get on board with?

KAINE: Well look, Democrats, Alisyn, have been on board with massive border security investments as long as they're done the right way. Immigration Reform 2013 -- we all supported $40-plus billion over 10 years.

[07:35:03] We took a deal to the president just last February, less than a year ago -- $25 billion over 10 years in border security done the right way, and the president blew up the deal. He not only turned it down but he name-called everybody, Democrats and Republicans, who had been involved in it.

So there does need to be, I believe, a significant border security investment to stop Fentanyl from coming in by mail and through ports of entry. We need to deal with the largest group of undocumented people --

people who come in on visas and overstay them. You could build a million-foot wall and it wouldn't do anything about them. You need to spend some money on that.

Instead, what this president is doing is preaching the notion that the money has to go to a wall when his own team says that that's ineffective.

And he's shuddering government, including furloughing people in the Coast Guard. They interdict drugs and right now, some of them are working without pay and some of them aren't working. Come Friday, people are going to start missing paychecks, including agencies that we need to help us fight the scourge of drugs coming into the U.S.

CAMEROTA: So I guess the answer is no, you don't. You didn't hear any opening for Democrats to possibly have more negotiation with the president today.

KAINE: Well, so far, we're not hearing anything from him on that.

But what I would say to the president is this. We put money on the table last February -- dramatic money -- and you turned it down. That shows that -- that shows that we're serious.

CAMEROTA: Well listen, I mean -- but, Senator, just to be clear. Just to say what the administration has said about that is that that's because Democrats, he says, were trying to add not just Dreamers but other relatives and trying to expand it. I mean, that's why they say they walked away.

KAINE: Well, first, Alisyn, it's wrong. Democrats weren't trying to add anything. This was a bipartisan deal -- eight Republicans, eight Democrats.

The president had said fix Dreamers, and the president said I want $25 billion in border security. We went to him with both and said can you take yes for an answer and he said no.

And the reason he said no is this. I concluded he does not care about the policy on this. He wants immigration as a talking point to rev people up and he's willing to say anything.

Mexico will pay for it -- that was a lie. Democrats are for open borders -- that's a lie. Democrats won't cooperate with me -- that's a lie.

There is a deal to be had here but first, we've got to reopen government.

CAMEROTA: You know --

KAINE: It is so unfair to punish farmers who want ag loans, small businesses who want loans, families trying to go to national parks.

CAMEROTA: Yes. KAINE: We're going to punish all of them? No, reopen government and then we'll find a border security and immigration plan.

CAMEROTA: On that note, Senator, you are somebody who believes that the Senate should not vote on anything until government is reopened. But why freeze everything? Why make the wheels of government grind to a complete halt during this shutdown?

KAINE: Well, that's not what we're doing. There is a bill on the desk of the Senate -- actually, two bills right now. One to fund all of government through the end of the year -- the shuddered agencies, except the immigration agencies. They would be funded through February one.

Those were bills Alisyn, as you know, that Senate Republicans voted for just three weeks ago. And the House has sent those bills to us and said guys, just be true to your own principles. You voted on these bills -- reopen government.

And I believe the top priority of Congress right now should be to reopen government and quit punishing workers, citizens, and hurting our country's reputation.

CAMEROTA: I know that's your top priority but you could still vote on other things.

KAINE: Well, why? When we have the bill on the desk to reopen government, I do not think the majority should be able to -- oh, we don't want to reopen government. We want the things that we want.

So the right strategy is to reopen government and then we can find an immigration and border security deal and deal with the other business that's before us.

CAMEROTA: Senator Tim Kaine, we really appreciate you coming on with your perspective. Thank you.

KAINE: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: John --

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Up next, we're going to get reaction from the other side of the aisle. What do Republicans make of not just the president's speech but the departure of Rod Rosenstein and the news that Paul Manafort shared polling data with Russian intel? We're going to ask a Republican senator, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:42:53] BERMAN: In just hours, President Trump will again meet with congressional leaders in the Situation Room to resume talks over funding he's pushing for, for his proposed border wall. Before that happens, the president and vice president will have lunch with Republican senators on Capitol Hill as some cracks in the GOP grow over the shutdown.

Joining me now is Republican Sen. James Lankford from Oklahoma. Senator, Happy New Year. I haven't had a chance to say that yet.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK), MEMBER, HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: You bet. Happy New Year to you as well. Good to see you.

BERMAN: So, I'm an avid reader of your Twitter feed. After the address last night you said, "I am glad POTUS focused the border security conversation on tech as a crucial part of the larger border security strategy, along with fencing and other options."

You're glad he's talking about tech. The shutdown is not about technology. The shutdown is about the president's border wall, isn't it?

LANKFORD: Well, the shutdown is really about border security, period. And what's interesting on that is part of the border security is going to be technology, part of it's personnel, part of it's additional judges -- we have 800,000 people on a backlog for immigration -- and part of it is fencing. And so, trying to get the whole perspective.

I was pleased that he laid out a perspective and said all of these elements need to be there but I also want additional dollars for fencing, which we should do. There are certain areas of the border -- not the whole border, but there are certain areas of the border that need additional fencing and I think we should be able to do that.

But we need to focus on the larger issue which is how do we secure the border?

BERMAN: Well, there is agreement on the larger issue -- $1.3 billion of agreement on the larger issue, which you voted for in the last Congress. The president said he would not sign it and then the House did not vote on that.

I guess my question is would you support or could you support some agreement on border security -- funding border security that did not include funding for the border wall?

LANKFORD: No, I would not, and the reason why is because it needs to be a part of it. You can't just say that we're going to do everything with technology.

In urban areas when you've got a large town on one side of the border and a large town on the other side of the border, you've got to have a physical pedestrian barrier between the two or someone can quickly cross the border. There's not enough time to be able to respond.

So again, this is not a 2,000-mile long concrete wall. This is a physical barrier where it's needed in those certain areas, and in other areas we can use technology.

[07:45:05] And so to say we're going to do everything but a physical barrier ignores the urban areas. It ignores the areas where the highest human trafficking actually happens.

BERMAN: So you will fight for a wall? The question is when and how will you fight for a barrier, I should say? You said fencing, not necessarily a wall -- because Sen. Lisa Murkowski has joined a number of Republican senators who have now said OK, let's have discussion about border security --

LANKFORD: Sure.

BERMAN: -- and barriers, but let's do it separately from funding at least parts of the government.

Let's listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R), ALASKA: Let's allow for the operations -- these governmental functions in these six other departments -- allow for them to continue. And we here in Congress, working with the president and his team -- we can focus on his very legitimate concerns about border security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Could you sign on to that -- funding the six or seven other departments or appropriations and then have the border security discussion separately?

LANKFORD: No, I'd like to resolve it now. I'm on the Appropriations Committee as well. I'm very passionate about trying to get this.

One of the bills that we tried to get done was actually the bill that I chaired -- the Financial Services General Government bill. All these bills are exceptionally important to me.

Let me just back up and give a short history. The president actually said back in June and July of last year that we are not going to do appropriations -- this bill -- without doing additional border security. It's not like he dropped this on everybody at the last second. He's said it for months and months and months.

We should be able to do all of our appropriation bills instead of just doing continuing resolutions. And what Democrats have proposed is we'll fund everything in the government except for what the president's asking.

President Obama wouldn't have signed that, President Bush wouldn't have signed that. That's not reasonable to say I'm going to negotiate with you on everything except what you want to actually talk about. So, let's do both.

BERMAN: Yes, you were willing to support that -- you were willing to support that last month before the president said he would.

LANKFORD: Actually, I didn't.

BERMAN: OK.

LANKFORD: That was a voice vote and the Democrats have said over and over again it was a unanimous vote. If you were actually on the floor you heard it was not a unanimous vote. It was a voice vote that was put through on it.

And I was one of those that didn't support it because I wanted to do all seven appropriation bills, doing it the right way. We should have done it the right way --

BERMAN: OK.

LANKFORD: -- all through the process.

I would tell you in December, in that time period, I worked all the way through December trying to be able to find where's the common ground that we can have where we can do some additional fencing, some repair of some of the old fencing that's been damaged or has been cut through, and some additional land ports of entry. I think that's a common ground that we have and I felt very strong that we could be able to do that.

Senator Schumer didn't want to do negotiations through the end of December because he wanted to wait for Nancy Pelosi to be able to come in the House and not negotiate. So we could have finished this in December because a lot of my Democratic colleagues were fully on board with doing some in fencing --

BERMAN: OK.

LANKFORD: -- some in repairs, some land ports of entry.

BERMAN: All right. Well, thank you, then, for clearing that up. But just to be clear, at this point where it stands right now, you are among those who favor a shutdown or at least do not want any of this resolved until there is funding for some barrier?

LANKFORD: Right. Not only --

BERMAN: OK.

LANKFORD: I don't favor a shutdown and that since I favor us getting this resolved, including trying to resolve some of the border security issues. So I'm not for a shutdown. In fact, I've been very outspoken, opposed to any kind of shutdown.

I don't -- I don't like shutdowns. I don't like what they do to federal workers and to the American people. It's the wrong way to be able to do it. But it should be very reasonable to be able to do some border security in this period of time.

BERMAN: So, Senator, you just left the Senate Intelligence Committee to get on --

LANKFORD: Right.

BERMAN: -- Senate Finance, I know, which is a good job for any senator. So, congratulations for that.

But as part of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know you looked into the various angles of the Russia investigation for a long time.

LANKFORD: Sure.

BERMAN: We just learned yesterday because of an inadvertently unredacted court filing that Paul Manafort, then the president's campaign chair, delivered Trump campaign polling to someone connected to Russian intelligence.

Were you aware of that, and does that contact between a Trump campaign official and Russian intelligence -- does that constitute a form of collusion?

LANKFORD: No, it doesn't. And we're going to get through the rest of the information. I think more of that will come out. Obviously, that was redacted previously and then it was actually put out yesterday.

This is an ongoing relationship that Paul Manafort had with the Ukraine. He was a representative of the Ukraine and worked for the Ukrainian government and was trying to be able to work for a peace proposal which, by the way, I did not support what he was doing and don't think what he was doing was appropriate.

But he had Ukrainian clients. This was a Ukrainian client.

Now, this person also previously worked for the Russian military but so did most everybody in that. So I don't see this as a deliberate contact with the Russian government. This was a person that he'd worked with for a decade and a half, at that point, in Ukraine.

And so, we need to get the whole story on it because it makes it sound like this is some secret backchannel communication with it. If it was, this was someone that Paul Manafort had known for a very long time and trusted.

BERMAN: But according to prosecutors, knew had connections to Russian intelligence.

LANKFORD: Well, I think he knew he had connections with the Russian government. But communication with someone about polling data and what's going is no secret thing in that sense.

[07:50:04] BERMAN: Yes.

LANKFORD: So I'm -- again, looking for that as the smoking gun, I think would be a pretty big stretch.

There are lots of areas where I absolutely do not support Paul Manafort. He is not a good actor and there are many times that he has violated many laws. And I don't have any support for Paul Manafort, to say the least.

But the issue there is not Paul Manafort at this point, it's trying to say there is some kind of collusion because he's communicated with someone he's known for a decade and a half on polling data in the campaign he's working for, I don't think is an accurate portrayal.

BERMAN: All right, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma. Thanks for being with us, sir.

LANKFORD: You bet. Thank you.

BERMAN: Alisyn --

CAMEROTA: All right.

The president's Oval Office speech had fact-checkers working overtime pouring through every word. A reality check on the president's claims, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:55:03] CAMEROTA: It's time for "CNN Business Now." Stock futures pointing up after trade talks between the U.S. and China.

CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here with more. What's happening, Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Good morning, Alisyn.

Well, there's a lot of work to do, first of all. But for the first time in the U.S.-China trade war there is a sense the Chinese are budging to U.S. demands.

China has agreed to imports of five new varieties of genetically- modified crops. That's a win for American biotech seed companies and for farmers.

Already, China had cut tariffs on U.S. autos and resumed soybean purchases.

And a source close to these negotiations telling CNN it was a constructive -- that's the word they used -- constructive three days of face-to-face talks in China. And, China's top negotiator expected to come to D.C. later this month for more talks.

Now, the U.S. has a pretty long list of demands here, though. More market access, protection for U.S. intellectual property, the end of that forced transfer of technology in exchange for doing business in China.

And the Commerce secretary, this week, you guys, said negotiators are working hard to make sure that China actually complies with whatever they eventually agree to. That's been a big complaint of past trade rounds -- promises and then no follow-up.

Now, without a deal, the U.S. will jack up tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods -- that's March first -- all the way up to 25 percent.

Markets around the world higher, you guys, this morning, on optimism about all of this. Asian markets all closed higher, European markets opened higher, and U.S. futures pointing to a solid advance, John.

BERMAN: All right, Christine Romans. Thank you very much. This is the morning after the president's very first Oval Office address. We're hearing from people on both sides saying he did well, he didn't do well.

But what about the facts? Where was he on the facts?

CNN senior political analyst John Avlon joins us now with a reality check.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right, guys.

Look, teleprompter Trump is usually more on message than Twitter Trump or town hall rally Trump. But while the president backed off his fact-free claims about terrorists screaming across the border, the White House couldn't fully resist the gravitational pull of falsehoods in last night's remarks.

Let's start with drugs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our southern borders, a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs. More Americans will die from drugs this year than were killed in the entire Vietnam War.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: This is partially true. More than 58,000 Americans died during the Vietnam War and in 2017, the CDC said that over 70,000 people died from drug overdoses. That comp is a wake-up call.

But those drugs don't all come over the southern border. They come from domestic pill mills and shady doctors, as well as foreign smugglers -- like Fentanyl coming in from China. In fact, the majority of hard drugs seized at the border come through legal ports of entry, as Trump's own DEA has stated.

Next --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The border wall would very quickly pay for itself. The cost of illegal drugs exceeds $500 billion a year, vastly more than the $5.7 billion we have requested from Congress.

The wall will also be paid for indirectly by the great new trade deal we have made with Mexico.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: OK, that form of accounting doesn't exist. Money saved from the human cost of drugs obviously can't be earmarked to pay for a wall. Only Congress can do that.

Likewise, the USMCA revision of NAFTA, which isn't even approved by Congress yet, wouldn't pay for the wall because governments don't lose money on trade deficits.

Then there's the partisan blame game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only -- because Democrats will not fund border security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: In fact, Democrats offered $1.3 billion for border security in this budget negotiation. They offered 20 times that last year as part of a broader immigration deal.

And back in 2013, Senate Democrats passed on Obama plan to add 20,000 border agents and more than $3 billion in new technology for the border. House Republicans refused to even consider it.

But the president's claim that Sen. Schumer voted for a border fence in the past -- well, that's affirmative.

Now, we are now three days away from a record-length government shutdown and the president seems intent on focusing only on the border security side of the problem. This is not problem-solving, it's political posturing. And we know this because his reelection campaign pushed right out a fundraising pitch off this alleged crisis of the heart and soul.

But we shouldn't only focus on specific falsehoods without addressing the big lie behind the speech. I don't believe we've ever heard a modern American president demonize a group of people the way Donald Trump did last night.

He characterized undocumented immigrants as quote "criminal gangs, drug smugglers, and human traffickers" despite study after study from left, right, and center, showing that undocumented immigrants per capita commit less violent crime than American citizens.

Trump took almost one-fifth of the speech to describe horrific details of specific murders involving cop killings, rape, and even a beheading.

By comparison, listen to how the last Republican president, a former border state governor, spoke to the same group of people from the same room.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH (R), FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must remember that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives.

We're a nation of laws and we must --