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Rudy Giuliani Can't Say If Trump Campaign Aides Colluded With Russia; Speaker Pelosi To President Trump: Change Date Of State Of The Union Address; Four Americans Killed By ISIS In Syria; Theresa May Barely Survives No-Confidence Vote. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired January 17, 2019 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[05:31:01] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "CUOMO PRIME TIME": Yes, you have.
GIULIANI: I have no idea if there -- I have not. I said the President of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Is the president's lawyer admitting members of the campaign may have colluded with Russia? An astonishing shift in the strategy that would insulate Donald Trump from his entire campaign.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Coast to coast, more pain from the government shutdown. Workers, contractors, and their families struggling now. A power play by the House speaker could cancel the State of the Union.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: That you've set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we're fighting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The president proclaimed ISIS in Syria was defeated. Now, four Americans are dead after a terror attack.
ROMANS: And the president of Michigan State has resigned. John Engler recently said some of Larry Nassar's sexual abuse victims were quote "enjoying the spotlight." He is out.
Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. It's almost Friday. And, folks, the eyes have it. Check out the look on the face of Chris
Cuomo when Rudy Giuliani says his claim about collusion. And look at Giuliani's as well. It is quite an evolution in eyebrows.
ROMANS: Those are two New Yorkers who have argued and tangled before and there is just a 2-second --
BRIGGS: Good stuff.
ROMANS: -- thread for you.
BRIGGS: Also, day 27 of this government shutdown. We'll get to the effects in just a moment.
We start, though, with collusion evolution authored by Rudy Giuliani. President Trump's lawyer deploying a very new strategy that would insulate the president from possible crimes by other campaign officials.
Last night, Giuliani told Chris Cuomo he is not ruling out the possibility other members of the campaign colluded with Russia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIULIANI: I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign.
CUOMO: Yes, you have.
GIULIANI: I have no idea if there -- I have not. I said the President of the United States. There is not a single bit of evidence the President of the United States committed the only crime you could commit here -- conspired with the Russians to hack the DNC.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: So, Giuliani claims he never said the campaign did not collude with Russians. Two problems -- one, his client has said otherwise repeatedly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian people.
There was no collusion whatsoever. There never has been. The last thing I want is help from Russia on a campaign.
There has been no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: All right. The second problem, Giuliani, himself, has denied that top campaign officials colluded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it still the position of you and your client that there was no collusion with the Russians whatsoever on behalf of the Trump campaign?
GIULIANI: Correct. When I say the Trump campaign, I mean the upper levels of the Trump campaign. I have no reason to believe anybody else did but the only ones I checked with were obviously the top four or five people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: So, Giuliani says he checks with the top people. You would assume that would include the campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. And remember, we just learned last week that Manafort gave secret polling data to an associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, who is thought to have ties to Russian intelligence.
ROMANS: All right, day 27 of the government shutdown. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is hitting the president where it hurts him the most, trying to take away his T.V. airtime.
A White House official tells CNN at this point, the president still plans to deliver his State of the Union address as scheduled, January 29th, even though Pelosi sent a letter to Mr. Trump asking him to move the date or deliver the speech in writing because of security concerns caused by the shutdown.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: This requires hundreds of people working on the logistics and the security of it. Most of those people are either furloughed or the victims of the shutdown -- the president's shutdown. But that isn't the point. The point is security.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[05:35:09] BRIGGS: Make no mistake, it is ultimately Speaker Pelosi's decision whether President Trump delivers an address to a joint session. The House and Senate must pass resolutions to greenlight the State of the Union and neither has done so. Pelosi controls whether the House will pass one at all.
ROMANS: That has House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy fired up. He's calling on Pelosi to quote "act like a speaker" and claims her request is motivated by pure politics.
DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen says, "The Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Secret Service are fully prepared to support and secure the State of the Union."
Secret Service, of course, the Treasury Department, but --
BRIGGS: No official comment from either --
ROMANS: Yes, no official comment. BRIGGS: -- regarding that.
All right, let's bring in "Politico" congressional reporter Rachael Bade, a CNN political analyst. She's live in Washington this morning.
ROMANS: Hi, Rachael.
BRIGGS: Good to see you, Rachael.
RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Good morning.
BRIGGS: OK, so let's -- just to reiterate, Rudy Giuliani to Chris Cuomo -- quote, "I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or people in the campaign."
Has he, effectively, moved the goalpost and narrowed them as well?
BADE: Move the goalpost, absolutely, and he's done this before, right? I mean, clearly, they're concerned right now.
This report just a couple of days ago that Paul Manafort gave internal polling to an oligarch that was linked to Russian officials is really scaring them. The thing that -- you know, he's saying I can speak for the top echelons of the campaign -- well, Paul Manafort was the --
ROMANS: Right.
BADE: -- top echelon of the campaign.
So, this is a big problem for them and they're trying to put distance right now between the President of the United States and Paul Manafort or other people who may find themselves in Mueller's crosshairs.
The thing that is really particularly interesting to me on this is like it also comes just a couple of days after we heard the president -- we heard -- or saw reports that the president was under investigation by the FBI about whether he was a secret Russian agent.
BRIGGS: Right.
BADE: I mean, just think how remarkable this is --
BRIGGS: Yes.
BADE: -- that Fox News, a couple of days ago, was asking him if he worked for Russia. And now, today -- or last night, we should say, we had this extraordinary statement from his top lawyer, and it just -- it's mind-boggling.
ROMANS: We've had sort of mind-boggling conversations with Rudy Giuliani before and I want to sort of rewind to May second, 2018 when he was talking about paying Stormy Daniels and how -- you know, how that was not a campaign finance violation -- listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIULIANI: I'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. It's not campaign money. No campaign finance violation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, they funneled it through a law firm.
GIULIANI: Funneled it through a law firm and the president repaid it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I didn't know that he did.
GIULIANI: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no campaign finance law?
GIULIANI: Zero.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: OK, correct me if I'm wrong. Michael Cohen is going to prison for almost three years for campaign finance violations, really, to just this.
BADE: Yes. Tell that to federal prosecutors who have basically brought in the president with this and said that he was involved in this.
Look, I mean, as it sort of works through the courts we can't see a lot of what's happening because a lot of this is private. But, you know, it's about to be cracked wide open -- both the Russian front, the Stormy Daniels payments.
I know that Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings, who is the chairman of one of the top Congressional committees doing in Congress, he's going to be bringing Cohen in, in just a couple of weeks, and they're going to be asking him about all this stuff, from the payments to any financial interests that the president had in Russia, Trump Tower in Moscow, et cetera.
And it's just extraordinary to me because there's so much that they can look into. And, you know, Elijah Cummings was interviewed just a couple of days ago and he said we can't just -- you know, we can't just start right away. We actually have to hit the ground running and sprinting because there's so much to investigate here.
BRIGGS: All right, let's get to the latest power play by Nancy Pelosi, effectively saying 'not in my house' related to the State of the Union, less than two weeks away. She writes this letter to President Trump saying really, that the point is security. We can't secure the event when, effectively, she could have disinvited him -- she did not.
Kirstjen Nielsen essentially fact-checked Ms. Pelosi and said the Secret Service is fully prepared to secure this event.
She is the perfect foil for Donald Trump, but was this the right place? She could have pulled a complete power play and disinvited him, effectively killing it.
ROMANS: Or she -- or she could have said it's a shutdown. Why are we having a speech to Congress when there's --
BRIGGS: But she didn't.
ROMANS: -- a shutdown? But instead, she claimed --
BRIGGS: Which would make sense to Americans.
ROMANS: -- the security angle.
BADE: This is very Pelosi, right? I mean, it's kind of like she's firm on something, but she's also very -- like, does things with like a ladylike mannerism. And this is her not just going out and twisting the knife publicly but trying to sort of soften it, saying I suggest, perhaps, you write your State of the Union or we delay it.
[05:40:09] But, yes, make no mistake about this. This is a power play on her part.
She has not only denied the president his wall, she has privately questioned his manhood to a group of House Democrats. She has sort of poked fun at this wall. What is it, a fence? What is it, a beaded curtain?
And now, she's taking away --
ROMANS: Yes.
BADE: -- the thing that the president loves the most, which is a national audience, speaking to the nation. And he's not going to be able to do that.
I don't know how he thinks he's going to be able to address the nation. Maybe he does it from the Oval Office. But the White House response --
BRIGGS: No way.
BADE: The White House response saying he's going to do this anyway is particularly interesting.
ROMANS: I like --
BADE: Go ahead.
ROMANS: In your piece, you call it satin and steel.
BADE: Yes.
ROMANS: And how you say that privately, Nancy Pelosi tells people if you saw how Donald Trump behaves behind closed doors there would be a citizen's arrest for average American citizens. So, there's clearly going to be a tangle between these two.
BADE: Yes, and it's -- I mean, make no mistake, it's risky on her part, right? She's not the most --
BRIGGS: Yes.
BADE: -- beloved figure in the Democratic Party.
ROMANS: Right.
BADE: I think 48 percent of people this week told a Quinnipiac poll that they did not approve of her and only 35 percent did. And this could backfire on her, make no mistake.
And we're just going to have to see how the American public sort of reads it. Do they see this as her being too unwilling to compromise because Democrats, of course, stood up at the White House this week as well? Does this backfire on them or does this make them look strong and make the president give in?
BRIGGS: It is notable, no tweet from the president after Pelosi wrote this letter --
BADE: Fascinating.
BRIGGS: -- and nothing from Sarah Sanders. So, you wonder why have they not responded and when will that be coming? They clearly don't know how to play it.
Rachael, great to have you here. Thank you.
BADE: Thank you.
ROMANS: All right, Rachael Bade. Thank you.
All right, four Americans are dead after an attack in Syria. ISIS has claimed responsibility.
And overnight, U.S. officials told CNN there are no plans to reverse President Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. A few weeks ago, he justified that decision saying ISIS was defeated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have won against ISIS. We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is an ally of President Trump and has been critical of the president's strategy in Syria. He says he's concerned the president's statements about Syria have emboldened ISIS.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAHAM: My concern about the statements made by President Trump is that you've set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we're fighting. You make people we're trying to help wonder about us. And as they get bolder, the people we're trying to help are going to get more uncertain. I saw this in Iraq and I'm now seeing it in Syria.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Some of the video we're about to show you may be disturbing here.
CNN's Jomana Karadsheh live in Istanbul with the very latest.
And this military convoy of U.S. military members was targeted near this restaurant where they were going to eat. Nineteen people killed, overall -- four Americans.
Jomana, what's the latest?
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A truly devastating attack, Christine. As you mentioned, ISIS claiming responsibility, saying it was one of their suicide bombers who carried out this bombing. That they were targeting coalition forces.
Of course, the timing of this -- as we've seen in recent weeks, administration officials with President Trump at the forefront, pretty much declaring victory over ISIS, saying that the group had been defeated.
And even on Wednesday, around the same time that this attack took place, you had Vice President Mike Pence speaking at the State Department at an event, saying that the caliphate had crumbled and that ISIS had been defeated. And that's not entirely true -- at least part of that statement is not.
The caliphate has crumbled, ISIS has lost the territory that it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, but that does not mean that ISIS has been defeated -- something that U.S. military officials, that experts -- security experts have been warning, saying that we're seeing ISIS morph into this insurgent terror group that is still capable of carrying out devastating attacks.
And if it was, indeed, responsible for that bombing that is still being investigated by the U.S. military, some say it is perhaps a message that they are far from defeated, Christine.
ROMANS: All right. Jomana Karadsheh for us in Istanbul. Certainly, just a tragedy. Thank you for that.
BRIGGS: All right. We head to the U.K. where Theresa May has survived another no-confidence vote. But can she find a way to get the U.K. out of the E.U. unscathed? We are live at 10 Downing Street, next.
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[05:48:56] BRIGGS: British Prime Minister Theresa May still in power but severely weakened after barely surviving a no-confidence vote. That vote coming just one day after May's Brexit plan was crushed by a historic margin. The prime minister must now deliver a Brexit plan B by Monday. Let's go live to 10 Downing Street and play whose government is a bigger mess with Hadas Gold. Good morning to you.
Your dysfunction -- not yours, but the U.K. government's, is front- page news every day here. Is our dysfunction front-page news there?
HADAS GOLD, CNN REPORTER: Honestly, in the U.K., all the focus is on what's happening in Parliament because political observers here haven't seen anything like this in decades -- probably in modern British political history.
Nineteen votes, Dave -- that is the difference. That is by how much Theresa May survived that no-confidence vote last night and kept her in power.
Immediately after, she came out here at Downing Street and spoke to the nation and she said she was going to be speaking to members of all the political parties, trying to get them to come to her and tell her what they need in order to be able to come to a consensus on that Brexit vote because if you remember just a couple of nights ago, her deal failed spectacularly in Parliament by 230 votes. Now, she has to come back with a plan B.
[05:50:11] But a really important person that is refusing to meet with her is Jeremy Corbyn. He's the leader of the opposition Labour Party and he has said he will not meet with her unless she guarantees that there will -- she will take a 'no deal' scenario off the table. No deal, of course, meaning that the U.K. could crash out of the European Union on March 29th without a deal.
We continue to be in sort of this stalemate situation, but it is moving. But, the clock is ticking down. Seventy-one days to go until that March 29th deadline of Brexit -- Dave.
BRIGGS: It sounds vaguely familiar, only you count down and we count up -- day 27 of our government shutdown.
Hadas Gold live for us in London. Thank you.
ROMANS: All right, new this morning. China's chief trade negotiator heads to Washington as the U.S. and China look for a way out of their trade war. Vice Premier Liu confirmed two days of talks in D.C. starting January 30th.
Also new, "The Wall Street Journal" reports federal prosecutors in the U.S. are pursuing a criminal investigation into Huawei. Investigators probing whether Huawei stole trade secrets from U.S. business partners. The scrutiny of Huawei could complicate talks by the U.S. and China to reach a deal to end that trade war.
Just yesterday, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the U.S.-China relationship -- he called it the most important in the world for the next 100 years.
Microsoft pledging big money to tackle homelessness in Seattle. Microsoft announced a $500 million commitment to preserve existing affordable housing and spur construction of new units. Twenty-five million of that commitment will go toward philanthropic grants to address homelessness in the area.
According to Microsoft, the Puget Sound region of Seattle has become the sixth-most expensive in the country. Now, the region is seeing -- get this -- a 21 percent increase in jobs since 2011, but only a 13 percent increase in housing units.
Sad news today in the investing world. John Bogle -- Jack Bogle died Wednesday at the age of 89. Bogle created the first index fund in 1975. He founded the Vanguard Group.
He's a legend in the investing world and I would argue he has done more to make the stock market accessible to everyday American investors than anyone else in history. He has always been an advocate for everyday investors in the cutthroat world of Wall Street.
And his brilliant idea was that why are you paying somebody to beat the market when humans, over time, can't beat the market? You should have a low-cost way to track the market, and that's what those index funds do.
BRIGGS: What a legacy.
All right. The White House fast-food latest, next.
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[05:57:11] BRIGGS: All right. A big storm out west could turn into a major snowstorm for the east coast. Here's Derek Van Dam.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Christine and Dave.
Yet another powerful winter storm slamming into the west coast. Look at the radar lighting up like a Christmas tree. We have heavy snow across the Sierra Nevada mountain range and heavy rainfall for the lower elevations, including the coastal areas that have been struck by recent fires in this region. The potential for mudslides and debris flow exists across those areas.
Flashflood threat today. Coasts and valleys expected one to three inches, higher amounts as you near the foothills and in towards the mountains before it changes to all snow, of course.
We have blizzard warnings in effect for much of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Winds could gust over 85 miles per hours. The potential to measure this snowfall in feet exists going forward through the rest of Thursday and into Friday.
Now, this storm system is a series of two storms, actually, moving eastward, the first one bringing a bit of snowfall to the New England coastline. Now, the secondary storm system that's currently over the west coast is going to dump a significant amount of snowfall across Upstate New York and into Maine. Easily, over a foot possible as we head into the weekend.
Here's a look at your 7-day temperatures. Quite a cooldown on Sunday.
Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right, thanks for that, Derek.
You know, Michigan State president John Engler has resigned after claiming Larry Nassar's sexual abuse victims are quote "enjoying the spotlight."
In an interview with the "Detroit News," he said this. "Survivors who haven't been in the spotlight have been able to deal with this better than the ones who've been in the spotlight, who are still enjoying that moment at times -- the awards and recognition."
More than 150 victims -- 150 victims testified about Nassar's abuse.
BRIGGS: Some celebrities offering to feed the Clemson Tigers who got a fast-food feast at the White House this week.
"GOOD MORNING AMERICA" host and NFL legend Michael Strahan offering to foot the bill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL STRAHAN, ABC HOST, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": The lobster with whatever you want. We're going to take care of you. We're going to give you the proper meal that you deserve.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Also, celebrity chef Ayesha Curry, the wife of Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry, tweeted an invite for the champs. She says, "No 10 cent dipping sauces on silver platters."
No word from Clemson if they will accept those invitations or if they even want them. They seemed -- they seemed OK with the feast.
ROMANS: If I were them, I'd accept all the invitations. All the hamburger today and the steak and lobster tomorrow.
BRIGGS: Sure.
ROMANS: All right, thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.
BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs.
Happy 97th birthday to Betty White today. Here's "NEW DAY."
ROMANS: Wow, happy birthday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There has been no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians.
GIULIANI: I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or people in the campaign.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He knows that there is very strong evidence of collusion and he is trying to get out ahead of that evidence.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: The government is closed because of President Trump. I think it's a good idea to delay it.
REP. CHRIS STEWART (R), UTAH, MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: It's not for the speaker to say we should reschedule and to disinvite the president.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't understand why --
