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"The Times" Interview With Trump Discussed. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired February 01, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Important new markers in the Russia investigation. This happened in a brand-new interview with the "The New York Times," an interview that he asked for by the way. The president claimed that the deputy attorney general has told his lawyers that had he is not a target or a subject in the Mueller investigation. The language there matters, and we're going to try to figure out if the president was being precise there.

He also said he did not know his status with a separate federal investigation in New York which is the one that's sending Michael Cohen to jail. Also, for the first time the president claimed he never spoke to his long time adviser Roger Stone about WikiLeaks in the stolen DNC e-mails and emphatically stated that he never directed anyone to do so. This gets to the greatest mysteries in the indictment of Stone last week and who in the Trump campaign proper was talking to Stone about WikiLeaks.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: The president also not in the mood for a deal on the border calling Congressional negotiations on border security a quote, "waste of time," accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of just playing games and reiterating his twitter messages of the past 48 hours. "If there is no wall it just doesn't work."

The president making it clear he is ready to declare a national emergency to fund his proposed border wall which he appears to see as the only solution here. The president also claiming once again the nation's top intel officials were misquoted in their televised testimony before Congress saying their threat assessment was in his words, "mischaracterized." Of course their findings directly contradicted some of the president's own views and just a reminder, that testimony again, sworn testimony, was televised.

BERMAN: Joining us now by phone is Maggie Haberman, White House Correspondent for "The New York Times". She was part of team that interviewed the president yesterday. Maggie Haberman, the human news cycle joins us here this morning to understand this interview. Maggie, I want to play for you the exchange about Rod Rosenstein where the president claims Rosenstein told the president's attorneys he's not a target or a subject in the Mueller probe. Listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, he told -- he told the attorneys that I'm not a subject -- I'm not a target of - yes, oh yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did he say anything about the SDNY investigation too?

TRUMP: About which?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: SDNY investigation. Because there's two; there's Mueller and there's Cohen.

TRUMP: I don't know - I don't know about that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

(END AUDIO)

BERMAN: Maggie, there's an awful lot there. It was reported back in April that the president had been told by the Mueller team that he wasn't a target. Subject is a different story. I'm not sure the president knew what he was saying there or if he meant to say that precisely. But also interesting, he wouldn't get into the SDNY investigation.

HABERMAN: Yes, he was -- he initially was pretty clear also that Rod Rosenstein had told him this and then he said he told his lawyers that which was striking. Look, whether he is -- that is true that he's not a target, you know, it's unclear. The Mueller team has never said and, remember, he doesn't have to be a target in order to face a possible impeachment charge.

It's important to note the distinctions here. But he was emphatic that his folks have been advised by Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, that he is not a target in this probe that is now running toward its second year. The striking thing is that he did not say the same thing about the Southern District of New York probe which has begun with Michael Cohen and I think has continued into other areas. That's the probe that a lot of his lawyers and advisers believe is potentially the more dangerous one for the president.

HILL: What's interesting about that too, Maggie, why it's so great that we have the audio to listen to here because when you hear him say I don't know, I don't know about that one in reference to the Southern District, his voice is much different than if you just read the transcript. if you're reading the transcript it may look like he's a little bit confused. He was pretty clear in that response.

HABERMAN: Yes, it's why the audio is important. Transcripts are important too, but I agree how he answers the question matters. He seemed pretty clear on what I was asking as we went on and asked about the different facets here.

BERMAN: All right, another key moment here, and really the first time we've heard the president weigh in on this precisely was what conversations he had with Roger Stone, if any, about WikiLeaks. This is important because the indictment last week there was that reference to a senior Trump campaign official being directed to contact Stone about WikiLeaks. You got an answer from the president on this. Let's listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you ever talk to him about WikiLeaks? Because that...

TRUMP: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: because... (inaudible).

TRUMP: No didn't. I never did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you ever tell him or other people to get in touch with him?

TRUMP: Never did.

(END AUDIO)

BERMAN: Interesting, Maggie, this is not the normal multisyllabic President Trump-like hedge. These were very simple clear words saying no.

HABERMAN: No, that's right. He didn't leave himself wiggle room to say not that I remember or anything that was very specific that he did not, himself, talk to Roger Stone about WikiLeaks and he did not direct any senior campaign officials to do the same.

[06:05:00]

We should note here that the Mueller indictment does not say that the president directed anyone to talk to Roger Stone about what's going on but there is an implication that certainly allows that it could have been the president. He took that off the table pretty strongly.

HILL: One of the things that was a little confusing in talking about Roger Stone is he said initially to you that he didn't see the indictment but then went on to say I know what's in the indictment.

HABERMAN: Well, he may have been told that. He didn't have to read it himself.

HILL: Did it sound -- I mean, it sounds like in sitting there in that room though, did he seem as confident in that answer in saying to you, "Listen, I do know what's in there?"

HABERMAN: Oh, did. Yes, actually I was -- I was struck by how tentative he was about all of that.

BERMAN: And look, it does answer one question, the president claims now that he wasn't part of that conversation. We know that lying to a reporter isn't the same thing as lying under oath, but saying that out loud does matter. It doesn't mean he didn't have conversations with other people in the campaign about WikiLeaks. He didn't get to that. We just don't know that yet. Also Maggie, you asked him really probing questions on the Trump Tower Moscow Project. This matters because Michael Cohen is convicted of lying to Congress about the timeline. His discussions, Cohen's discussions with Russia about Trump Tower

went much longer than he originally testified and the president and his legal team have been all over the place on this. Rudy Giuliani said well, these discussions went all the way through the campaign, then he back tracked. And the president yesterday to you he made clear that he thinks Rudy was wrong. Listen. Oh, "He was wrong," Mr. Trump said on Thursday. "Rudy has been wrong a little bit. But what's happened is this. I didn't care. The deal was not important. It was essentially a letter of intent or an option." What was he trying to do here with his explanation on the Moscow Project?

HABERMAN: Well at first I think he was trying to distance himself from what Rudy Giuliani had told Mike Schmidt and me as well as other reporters that are indicated this conversation had gone on up until the fall of 2016 which seemed to suggest that he thought Rudy was talking about their written answers to the Mueller investigation. But I think he was trying to minimize the project which he has done all along and suggest yes it was going on but it was really Michael Cohen's problems and it had nothing to do with me. And he was - he was very specific about that.

HILL: He called it unimportant...

HABERMAN: Right.

HILL: ... but he was pressed. You guys pressed him a little bit on even just the optics of it and what this is like to see it going on and talking about it, what could have been happening behind the scenes. That didn't really seem to faze him, Maggie.

HABERMAN: No and listen, he said some version of what he had said before which is, "Look, I was running for president. I was still running my business. Why would I have shut out any option?" And he's right there is nothing legally problematic with continuing to run your business as you're running for president, but it's certainly going to raise questions about your dealings with a foreign entity and nation that's been hostile to the U.S. if you are doing this in the middle of an election, especially if it later comes out that that country tried to influence the election in your favor.

BERMAN: The president also I think offered more clarity on where he sees this wall debate and the shutdown discussions going. The bipartisan group of Congress people are meeting behind closed deals trying to work out a deal. President made clear he didn't think this is going to happen. In all of this it seemed to me to be a predicate to declaring some kind of emergency, Maggie.

HABERMAN: Yes, I think that's right. I mean he made very clear that he's essentially running out the clock until they get to February 15th, then I'm going to do what I'm going to do. We said, "What is that?" He didn't want to say yes it will be definitely be a declaration of a national emergency but it was pretty clear that that's where he's headed.

HILL: I would say he was pretty close on that. And again, as we said off the top of the show, this really mirrors what we've heard from him over the last 48 hours...

HABERMAN: That's right.

HILL: ... making it clear. And also, he was clarifying that language yesterday in his tweet. We went back and forth for weeks and heard from the administration it's not a wall, don't call it a wall, the president's calling it a wall. He wants to call it a wall and that seems to help his case in that if I can't get my wall, because democrats obviously -- not only does Nancy Pelosi not want the wall, but they don't even want to use the word.

HABERMAN: No, that's right. On the other hand, the president has also tried moving it from wall to steel barrier or slats and he was pretty definitive on the wall yesterday. In tweets he said let's just call it what it is. He was pretty definitive that he is tired of having a back and forth with Congress. He has said things before when he continued negotiating with them so we have to see what happens here but he does seem to be all but saying this is for nothing. He called it I waste of time and making it clear where this is heading in his mind.

BERMAN: I hope people read the whole interview and listen to as much as you can because there's a lot of new ground covered here. He does lay down markers and he has talked about things I haven't heard him talk about before in such light. We only have time for one more, Maggie and that's the democratic race for president, the nomination here. I thought it was really interesting the way he talked about it frankly. The way he pronounced some of the people involved in the democratic race. Listen to what he said and how he assessed Kamala Harris, her roll out. Oh, it's a graphic not a sound bite.

He says, "I would say the best opening so far would be Kamala Harris, he said pronouncing it Ka-meel-a(ph). I would say in terms of the opening act, I would say would be her," he added, "a better crowd, better crowd, better enthusiasm."

We all noted the other day that the president no doubt noted her crowd because that's what he points out there. What did it sound to you he was saying in the pronunciation of her name that jumped off the page?

HABERMAN: I didn't think the pronunciation of her name was intended as belittling. I think it was just how he pronounced it, but look, he clearly aware of her, aware of the energy that she was generating at her kickoff. As you know, crowds are something he takes interest in and he's certainly aware of in other people. She's on his radar. Whether she is on his radar today more than say (inaudible) or Biden who I heard from several people is somebody he focuses on is unclear. But he's definitely aware she could pose a threat.

HILL: We'll be watching; a fascinating, fascinating interview, Maggie. Thanks for getting up for us early this morning to walk us through a little bit more and, again it's in "The Times" this morning.

BERMAN: Thanks, Maggie. I think the Human News Cycle nickname is going to stick by the way.

HILL: I kind of like it. BERMAN: OK. Misquoted. That's what President trump says happened

after his intelligence chiefs contradicted him before Congress. Remember, he says they were misquoted. We all heard them say it out loud. We have it on video. We'll discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:00]

HILL: President Trump now saying he's on the same page as his top intelligence chiefs, even though he publicly ridiculed them after they contradicted him on several threats facing the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, did you talk it your intelligence chiefs today about the displeasure you had with their testimony?

TRUMP: I did and they said they were totally misquoted and they were totally -- it was taken out of context. What I do is I'd suggest that you call them. They said it was fake news. so we tried to be ...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we just ran exactly what they said to Congress.

TRUMP: Excuse me. Excuse me, it didn't surprise me at all.

(END VIDEO)

HILL: I'm not sure what wasn't surprising, that we actually just ran the testimony...

BERMAN: Yes.

HILL: ... or that it was a little confusing. Let's bring in John Avlon, Joe Lockhart, former White House Press Secretary under President Clinton and Carrie Cordero, former counsel to the U.S. Assistant Attorney General. There's been a lot of back and forth on this understandably. We saw the testimony Tuesday. We saw the reaction from the president on Wednesday. It continued on Thursday. We got a lovely photo of the meeting. The photo itself not unusual, handing it out afterwards is a bit and we'll get to that. But the president saying that his own intel chiefs said they were misquoted, that they called it fake news when there is testimony is something that's remarkable but not surprising and I just want to play it through really quickly to remind everybody what the president has said in the past in the is from July of 2018.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

TRUMP: Don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news.

And just remember what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. (END VIDEO)

HILL: It's not happening, John Avlon.

JOHN AVALON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: What you're seeing and what you're reading is not happening. The best example in the world is this particular fight. The head of his intel community gives public testimony in real time, all of it available, plus written testimony. The president gets upset because he watches it on TV and don't like the chyrons, attacks his intel community and then says it's all been a terrible misunderstanding, reaches for the three's company excuse, and it's obvious he's trying to find a way out of this. The intel chiefs maybe want to find a way out of this, but his fight is not with the media, his fight is with the truth over and over again. And so his way is to simply say that didn't happen, that's delusional.

BERMAN: They said what they said and Dan Coats made clear in his testimony that what they were delivering was their best assessment of the facts in the situations around the world and what we all said is, oh my goodness, what they're saying is different than the depiction that the president is delivering. If you want an example of how it's different, just listen to how they have spoken differently about, say, North Korea. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

TRUMP: Chairman Kim, we have a great chemistry and we're well on our way. We signed an agreement that said we will begin the immediate denuclearization.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: North Korea will seek to obtain his WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities.

(END VIDEO)

BERMAN: So, look, there is daylight between what they said and what he said. there's just no other way to present it. Carrie, I'm sure the intelligence chiefs, because they don't want this kind of controversy, they don't need it, it doesn't help them, I'm sure they were uncomfortable with the way it was covered because we pointed out that what they're saying is different than what the president's saying. But they know it's different.

CARRIE CORDERO, FORMER COUNSEL TO THE U.S. ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: John, what a civics lesson this was, because it's so amazing that we have an intelligence community which really does its work behind closed doors, you know, mostly classified information, and yet because we have our checks and balances, because we have Congress, the Senate Intelligence Committee holds an annual hearing where they have all the -- many of the intelligence chiefs, there were six of them there, who come in front of Congress, testify in public in an open hearing and attached to it is a very long statement for the record that lays out their best assessments for all of the most pressing threats facing the country. So what we have is they fulfilled that duty, they give their best

assessment. It's -- sometimes assessments change from time to time, so this is their best assessment, their best analysis of the major threats that are facing the country and unfortunately in this circumstance for the president, it doesn't match up with his political rhetoric.

[06:20:00]

And so my take is that that's what he got upset by. He was upset by the fact that he saw that reporters accurately over the 24 hours after the hearing drew the contrasts between what was in the written and oral testimony versus what he says publicly are national security threats.

HILL: And the other thing too that's interesting is the messaging, because this is all about messaging too. So we talked briefly about this photo that was taken yesterday during the intel briefing. Joe, you told us on the break it's not unusual -- you want to have documents of everything that happens in the Oval Office.

JOE LOCKHART, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT CLINTON: Right.

HILL: But it's unusual to hand that photo out and in the interview that Maggie and Peter did in the Oval Office, this picture kept coming up with the president. He wanted them to talk about it. He wanted them to see it. He wanted it passed around.

LOCKHART: Yes. Like I said before, it's not unusual to take the pictures, really unusual to release it. You might release it if some monumental decision was made but the caption the president wanted in that picture was back to school, because he said these guys should go back to school. And his response earlier in the day was these guys are naive, these guys are passive and we started the segment by talking about the president saying he's -- he agrees with his intel chiefs. That's not what the president said.

The president said the intel chiefs agree with me, and that's a critical point. To get 16 agencies in Washington, D.C. to agree on a testimony, you know it's consensus. You know that there are new answers nuances and differences, but to get 16 that they do once a year is incredibly valuable and you know that's where they are and to have the president say, well, that's just not true, it's P.T. Barnham like, look over here. It's all political and it's all delusional and when you're on the campaign trail, delusion is a big part of it, aspiration is a big part of it. This is national security.

AVALON: This won't be the first time the CIA director has been called naive. And just tracking the dissent of man here, this is not quite comparing the intel community to Nazi Germany as the president did before inauguration day, shamefully. It used to be that partisanship ended at the water's edge when it came to national security and foreign policy. Now you've got continued evidence of a president at war with his own intelligence community because his impulses and instincts are the opposite of the facts they are presenting. BERMAN: I keep look at this picture, by the way that the president

is presenting showing how warm the relationship and is it looks like the least comfortable Thanksgiving dinner ever. I've never seen people look so happy in my life as they do that the table.

Another big development overnight, and I really do think this is an important development. CNN broke is this story yesterday, Pamela Brannon (ph) and a team of reporters. The phone calls that Donald Trump, Jr., placed the day that he was in conversations about having the meeting at Trump Tower where he was promised dirt from the Russians on Hillary Clinton, we knew at the time they were to blocked numbers.

House democrats had said, "Oh, did Donald Trump Jr. call his father? Were those calls to blocked numbers to his father?" Well CNN was the first to report yesterday, Carrie, that, no, they were to business associates of Donald Trump, Jr., not to his father. So at least we know that those phone calls weren't to the then candidate and he could not have at least in those phone calls told him or informed him about the Trump Tower meeting. It's an interesting set of facts and one that supports Donald Trump, Jr., and the president's claims.

CORDERO: Well it supports them to the extent it's one data point. It's a data point that says that those specific calls were not between Don, Jr., and Don, Sr. It shows the difficulty of us being on the outside trying to extrapolate or folks on the Hill who are not involved in the investigations trying to extrapolate from specific facts. For some reason, politically this particular fact sort of took on an aura of its own. I don't think it's dispositive of the broader investigation one way or another; it's one more data point that indicates perhaps the president didn't know about the June 2016 meeting. But it's not as if that window of time when those phone calls were made is the only opportunity that those two individuals would have ever had an opportunity to discuss that meeting.

BERMAN: No. but in fairness...

CORDERO: I think it's a data point but it's not dispositive.

AVALON: But -- but in fairness and for clarity, this is a very good fact pattern for the Trumps. That detail had been meant to allege that Trump clearly knew about the Russia meeting. This apparently says in this instance at least it didn't. It's a good fact pattern in the Trump story.

LOCKHART: And politically when democrats on the Hill are proven wrong, it gives enormous cover for the Trumpers out there to say, "See, see. If they were wrong about that they're wrong about everything." Let's wait for the Mueller report.

AVALON: Yes.

HILL: I was going to say it reminds us all - we don't know which is a lot.

BERMAN: All right. John, Carrie, Joe. Thank you all very much. You know what is happening this Sunday night?

HILL: Is there like a football game -- oh there are commercials and there's food.

BERMAN: There's a Super Bowl. There is a Super Bowl. OK, Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady is getting a huge honor ahead of it courtesy of a big beer brand.

HILL: And do you like puppies?

BERMAN: Who doesn't like puppies?

HILL: I love puppies and we have puppies with us in the 8:00 hour. Puppies who need loving homes. They're going to be playing in the Puppy Bowl and we're going to tell you how you could give them a new - wait for it - leash on life because...

BERMAN: Wow.

HILL: It's Friday.

BERMAN: Wow.

HILL: Yes. Puppies, people we have puppies.

BERMAN: And Tom Brady.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Millions of Americans are about to get a much-needed reprieve from the deep freeze, at least 16 deaths are linked to this week's extreme weather.