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Trump to Deliver Speech Tonight; Interview with Sarah Sanders; Questions about James Brown. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 05, 2019 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Of the U.S. economy.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

HARLOW: You know, that's true.

ROMANS: It is.

HARLOW: Too much credit. Too much blame.

ROMANS: It is. Well, this president takes all the credit and none of the blame, but here's what the president could highlight tonight in the State of the Union about the economy.

HARLOW: All right.

ROMANS: The job market is strong. Unemployment, the lowest in a generation. African-American unemployment, a record low. Last year the economy created some 2.6 million new jobs. The stock market is back above 25,000. Wages are finally starting to rise. Now, the credit for that goes to the dozens of states that have been raising their minimum wages above the federal level. Don't look to Washington for any credit there.

Now, the president's approval ratings on his handling of the economy now, they're trending higher than his overall approval. Forty-eight percent have a positive view of how he is handling this economy.

This is a president who takes the credit but never the blame for what's happening in the economy on his watch and he boasts of the strongest American economy in history. Now that is typical of Trump hyperbole.

Post-World War II, Clinton year booms were bigger. Still, no question, the economy is humming. For 2020 Democrats, that's an it's the economy stupid challenge. The risks here, the trade war with China, slowing global growth, not enough skilled workers to feed the jobs boom or a Fed that misfires on interest rates.

Now, the president talked economy over dinner last night, we're told, with the Fed Chief Jerome Powell. The Fed has been slowly raising interest rates to a more normal post-crisis level. Something the president here, John, has criticized. But they had a tete-a-tete over dinner last night about the economy and the president does have some pretty good statistics he could highlight tonight.

HARLOW: Yes.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: An interesting dinner that must have been given the circumstances.

ROMANS: Yes. I don't think he called him loco to his face.

BERMAN: No.

ROMANS: Only via Twitter.

HARLOW: You didn't get the invite.

ROMANS: I did not get the invite, no.

BERMAN: All right, Romans, thank you very, very much.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

BERMAN: Joining me now is White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.

Sarah, thank you so much for being with us.

The president delivers the State of the Union Address tonight. The first time he will do so to a divided Congress. Democrats have control of the House. Nancy Pelosi will be sitting behind him. How will tonight's message be different?

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Look, I don't think that the president's message is going to be different than the one he's been talking about since he started campaigning. This is a president who is a visionary. He's a president who likes to get things done. And he's going to lay out the case on all of the things that we've already accomplished, some of which we've done in a bipartisan fashion, and also looking forward. If we are willing to work together, if we are willing to choose greatness, here's what we can accomplish, here's what we can do. Let's come together, let's do what all of America wants from us. Let's do our jobs and let's solve real problems.

BERMAN: Coming together, unity, comity with a "t" there. Can you give me specific examples of things he will propose tonight that have bipartisan support?

SANDERS: I -- certainly I think you can expect that the president will talk about infrastructure. You will hear the president talk about the opioid crisis in this country. And I'm going to leave some things left for the president to talk about. But there are a number of policies that Democrats and Republicans know need to be addressed. I think infrastructure's one of the easiest ones for us to look at.

Everybody in this country knows that we have crumbling bridges and roads that need to be fixed. We also have a technology infrastructure that needs to get better. Whether it's securing networks, whether it's protecting our tech infrastructure, those are things that Republicans and Democrats agree on. They know we need to work on. And we're hopeful that we can come together and get something done.

BERMAN: Are we going to see another infrastructure week?

SANDERS: I don't know about that, but it's some of the best tweets I've ever had when my four-year-old accidentally got ahold of my phone and popped out a couple of infrastructure-like emojis. I guess I should count my blessings because it could have been much worse from a four-year-old.

BERMAN: That's why every week has been infrastructure week because of your four-year-old.

SANDERS: Yes.

BERMAN: One of the things that's interesting in polling, Sarah, is that if you look at January 2017, the president's approval rating among independents was 41 percent. If you look at February, 2019, the president's approval rating among independents is 41 percent. And I present that because if the goal here is for the president to expand beyond his base, the evidence is, is that's been a challenge. He hasn't had results there. And I wonder if you thought about why.

SANDERS: I think the president's primary focus isn't on results in the polls, of which I think there are a number of them and he's doing very well. Rasmussen had him at 45 just earlier this week.

But the biggest focus that the president has is actually on results for the American people, not what the polls are going to reflect. That's why he's focused so much on the economy. Everyone in the country is feeling the power of the economic boom that we're facing right now under the leadership of this president.

Jobs are coming in at a pace that we haven't seen in decades. Unemployment is lower. Wages are higher. There is no doubt in any economist's mind that the economy has been better under this president than it's been in decades. That's one of the best things that can happen to a country and it's one of the things that the president has directly been involved in, focused on and something that impacts all Americans and something that we're certainly very proud of and something I think that people will be voting on this come 2020.

[08:35:05] BERMAN: You know, we just had Christine Romans on to tell us about some of the economic realities here and how good the economy is. I think you will have people from both sides of the aisle who will saying that this expansion began during the Obama administration and this is, while wildly successful, very much a continuation of what we saw then. That's not to put an argument to this --

SANDERS: Actually, people during that administration said that things like manufacturing were dead, yet we've had 600,000 new manufacturing jobs added under this president. These are people that said GDP levels at 3 and 4 could never be reached, and they're being reached under this president. So --

BERMAN: They are being reached -- they are being reached, but they were reached in quarters during the Obama administration and President Trump has promised annual GDP of 5. We're not there yet. This isn't to argue about that, because as we said, Sarah, you know, Christine Romans was just here talking about the strength of the economy. And I think it is interesting and instructive, and I hope people are listening to you, we are going to hear the president talk about that tonight. Thematically, I think that is a very interesting point.

On the border wall and on these negotiations, ten more days before we face the possibility of another government shutdown, will the president make a specific promise tonight to declare an emergency if there's not an agreement that he likes that is reached?

SANDERS: Look, I'm not going to get ahead of the president's speech tonight. What I can tell you that he will discuss, when it comes to the wall and immigration, is that the president is committed today, as he's ever been, to border security. He knows that we have to stop the cartels, the coyotes, the human trafficking coming across our border. He's serious about it and he's not going to stop until we fix this problem. Not one more American life should be lost because we failed to secure our border, whether it's from gangs -- there was a shooting just yesterday by what looks to be MS-13 gang members in the New York subway. These things should not be happening if we can prevent that. And we know that the crime and the drugs and those things drastically stops if you have real border security, and that includes a wall.

BERMAN: OK, the includes the wall point is the part that is up for debate. I mean Democrats and Republicans have both called for new money -- have called for new money for border security. The wall is the sticking point. That is what the shutdown is over.

And just, again, for point of reference here, immigration, illegal border crossings up from last year but near an historic low. It is at the low point of where those trends are, correct?

SANDERS: But -- but -- but, John, I don't think the wall is up for the debate. Democrats have repeatedly voted and supported building a wall and putting a barrier on our border. They've been doing it for decades. Only since Donald Trump became president did they decide to oppose it. They have got to stop playing political games and realize that the safety and security of Americans is more important than partisan politics. I think you're going to see the president lay the case out for that tonight. Hopefully the Democrats in the room will be listening, not just to the president, but to the people of this country, to the families, the angel moms across this country.

BERMAN: Right.

SANDERS: Families that have lost a child, a brother, a sister, a mother to the opioid crisis. We know that 300 Americans a week are killed by heroin alone and 90 percent of that comes across the southern border.

BERMAN: It does --

SANDERS: If there is even one person that we can save by securing our border --

BERMAN: Yes.

SANDERS: We should be doing that.

BERMAN: And, again --

SANDERS: And hopefully Democrats are paying attention to that message tonight.

BERMAN: And I just want to point out again, as we -- as we pointed out before and others have, most of the heroin does come across at the legal points of entry, which I know you know.

SANDERS: But certainly not all.

BERMAN: And -- not all, but most. Again, legal ports of entry is where most of that happens.

Can you just clarify, as we sit here this morning, on February 5th, is it a wall or is it a fence at this point? What would -- would the president support a fence or only a wall?

SANDERS: Look, as the president said, you can call it a wall, you can call it a barrier. What we're looking at is a steel barrier that you can see through, but that keeps people from coming in illegally, forces folks to go through the ports of entry so that they have greater technology which both Democrats and Republicans support increasing so that we're pushing them to points where they can be checked and determine whether or not they should come into this country. That's something that we have to see happen.

BERMAN: Just to be clear --

SANDERS: And that's something the president's not going to stop until it does.

BERMAN: I think his most recent statement about wall or fence is, let's just call it for what it -- I think right now, and I could be wrong, I think right now he's on just a wall. A wall is a wall. We'll find out where he is tonight on that.

There are subpoenas issued overnight, Sarah, to the inaugural committee for all kinds of information, possible foreign contacts. Wants to know where the payments were going. Are you confident that no one performed any illegal actions on the president's inaugural committee?

SANDERS: Look, I'm reading the same reports you are this morning and gathering the information. What I do know, at this point, is this has nothing to do with the White House. And for anything specific and further, I'd refer you back to the Trump inaugural committee.

[08:40:02] BERMAN: The inaugural committee is absolutely separate from the White House.

The notion, though, that it has nothing to do with the White House, in a broader sense, though -- and we talked the day that Roger Stone was arrested as well -- it has something to do with the person who sits in the Oval Office, in that, President Trump, it was his inauguration. It was his campaign that there are so many investigations and questions with now. His transition, which is investigated. The Trump Organization being investigated at all. He is a common thread, to an extent, between all these investigations, is he not?

SANDERS: Actually, I think the common thread is hysteria over the fact that this president became president. The common thread is that there is so much hatred out there that they will look for anything to try to create and tie problems to this president. The things with people like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort literally have nothing to do with the president, have to do with the fact of their communications with Congress. And that's not something that the president has any jurisdiction over.

The president has asked everyone to be cooperative throughout the investigation. He himself has been. They've turned over millions of pages of documents. The fact that those things have taken place literally have absolutely nothing to do with the president.

BERMAN: Well --

SANDERS: And they have everything to do with the fact that people are spending their lives doing nothing but trying to find negatives when, in fact, the president has been incredibly successful. He's had two of the most successful years we've ever seen under any first-term president. The fact that he has been able to build the booming economy that he has, the fact that unemployment is at an all-time low, wages are rising --

BERMAN: And, Sarah -- and we did talk about that. We did talk about that.

I just want to point out, though, again, when you say Roger Stone, it had nothing to do with the president. This was the president's campaign. Roger Stone has been charged with lying about things that involved the president's campaign. So there is a connection there.

Whether the president broke any laws, that we don't know. He hasn't been accused of it, that is for sure. But to say he had nothing to do with -- or has nothing to do with him at this point, that may be a step beyond where we are.

Let me read you a statement that you made in November. I don't think the president has any concerns about the report, the Mueller report, because he knows there was no wrongdoing by him and there was no collusion. So I don't think he has any concern on that front.

If he has no concern about the Mueller report or the Mueller investigation, why doesn't he support the full release of said report?

SANDERS: Look, I'm going to leave the report -- the details of that to the president's counsel. I can tell you the president still has no concern because the president knows that he did nothing wrong and that there was no collusion on his behalf -- in his doing at any part during the campaign. That hasn't changed at all. BERMAN: So make it public.

SANDERS: In terms of what happens with the report, I'm going to -- I'm going to let the attorneys figure that out. I'm not an attorney, and I'm going to be part of that process or that determination.

BERMAN: No, but the president before has weighed in on things that the Justice Department does and doesn't do. Certainly, you know, why stop now? If he wants it to be public, he could ask for it to be public, yes?

SANDERS: Once again, the president has been fully cooperative throughout this process. It's gone on for two years. They've still found nothing to do with the president throughout this entire time of spending millions of taxpayer dollars, millions of hours. Frankly, the president, despite all of this, has been able to be incredibly successful. Just imagine all the things he could have gotten done in addition to what he did if we didn't have to deal with this day in, day out.

There is nothing in this that has done anything or tied anything to the president. And I think the country is ready to move on and focus on things that really matter and things they actually care about.

BERMAN: Sarah Sanders --

SANDERS: Poll after poll we've seen decrease people that actually care about this because it's something I think only the media and Democrats who dislike this president and are looking for any excuse they can find of why they lost that election. Really, it's just because we had a better candidate with a better message who worked much harder.

BERMAN: Well, the Southern District of New York I don't believe is run by Democrats. I have no idea what party they're in. But the U.S. attorney for the Southern District was appointed by the president of the United States.

Sarah Sanders, it is a pleasure to get a chance to speak to you again. Thank you so much for being with us. I know you have a busy day planning for the address tonight.

SANDERS: You bet. Thanks, John.

BERMAN: All right. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:48:19] HARLOW: All right, a shocking revelation from actor Liam Neeson. He says he once contemplated a racist revenge attack. And this morning he is expressing regret for that. He tells the British newspaper, "The Independent," this happened decades ago. He did not say exactly when or where. He says he took to the streets with a crowbar after learning that a loved one had been raped. And listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LIAM NEESON, ACTOR: I asked, did they -- did she know who he was? No. What color were they? She said it was a black person. I've gone up and down areas with a cosh hoping I'd be approached by somebody. I'm ashamed to say that. And I did it for maybe a week hoping some black bastard would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know, so that I could kill him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right. Well, Neeson says when he looks back now, he is ashamed of that horrible behavior. He has been giving interviews to promote his new film "Cold Pursuit" in which he plays a father bent on rage after the son of his death. And he is just again this morning explaining -- trying to explain those very, very controversial and racist remarks.

BERMAN: Look, it's startling when you hear him say those words.

HARLOW: Startling.

BERMAN: He does go on at great length to "The Telegraph" in that first interview, he was doing the same on "Good Morning, America," explaining what he meant and why he said it. Still, it is -- it is, like I said, a glaring statement.

HARLOW: Yes.

Also, new this morning, a CNN exclusive investigation is raising questions about the death of James Brown, the godfather of soul. Watch this.

[08:50:09] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This morning at 1:45 a.m., Mr. James Brown passed away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The godfather of soul died Christmas morning 2006, 41 years after his signature song hit the billboard charts. Officially the cause of death was a heart attack and fluid in the lungs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He sat down on the bed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officially the only person with him when he died was his personal manager.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he sighed very, very quietly and very gently. Then he closed his eyes and he was dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Until recently, I had no real reason to doubt these details. But that was before I learned that if it involves James Brown, you should always question the official story.

Two years ago, I got a phone call from a woman who sang in the circus. She had some surprising things to tell me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just kept it quiet. It was a need to know. If someone didn't ask me, I didn't tell them. James Brown was murdered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know, it sounds insane. And that's not the half of it. In the years that followed, as I listened to Jacque and met others who knew James Brown, the story kept getting stranger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why in the world has James Brown not been buried yet?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't need an autopsy. I'm his daughter. I have his blood.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This story has never been told before in the mainstream press. You won't find it in any of Brown's biographies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nobody wanted to hear the truth. Nobody wanted to print the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I spent nearly two years checking out Jacque's story. I traveled through nine states, interviewed nearly 140 people, analyzed more than 1,300 pages of text messages from her iPhone and sent a mysterious item from a black duffel bag for testing at a forensic lab. In two years, I've found out a lot of things Jacque didn't know when she called me. Pull up a chair and let me tell you the story of the circus singer and the godfather of soul.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The king is dead. Long live the king.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Wow. So many questions for our very own Thomas Lake. He wrote this three-part investigative series. It is all live right now on cnn.com. So I would also point you there after this.

Exceptional reporting. Two years of reporting. You went through 1,300 pages of text messages, tens of thousands of pages of court documents and police records. He's been dead for 12 years. No autopsy. And these questions won't go away.

THOMAS LAKE, CNN DIGITAL SENIOR WRITER: They won't. And what I found in my reporting is that at least 13 people who were close to James Brown, or knew him in some way, they have said they would like to see an autopsy or a criminal investigation.

HARLOW: Why hasn't one been done?

LAKE: This is an excellent question. But, at the time, Brown's daughter Yamma declined to have it done, which is, of course, her right. But I've asked her why a couple of times. She hasn't answered.

But the doctor who signed Brown's death certificate, Dr. Marvin Crawford, he gave CNN an exclusive interview. And he still wants to know what went wrong in James Brown's room right before he died.

HARLOW: The doctor wants to know that.

Your series also examines the death in 1996 of James Brown's third wife, that's Adrienne Brown. She was 45. She was recovering from plastic surgery in Beverly Hills. Investigators found no sign of foul play. Why is this question being raised now?

LAKE: We've got some new information on the death of Adrienne Brown. This woman who called me two years ago, Jacque Hollander, she was a good friend of Adrienne Brown and she always believed that Adrienne had been murdered. Well, in 2017, Jacque told me, you should talk to this detective who looked into the story of Adrienne's death.

And so I called him up and it turned out he had always had his suspicions. He's retired now. But he'd had his suspicions. And he had this notebook from a long-time informant, a police informant who had given it to him in 2001. But at the time, it hadn't -- at the beginning of the notebook it wasn't -- it was confusing and he hadn't read the whole thing.

Well, when I contacted him, he went back, dug it out of a box, read the whole thing and found this astonishing story. The informant wrote in her notebook -- she has since died -- but the informant wrote that a doctor confessed to her that he had sneaked into Adrienne Brown's recovery room in Beverly Hills and murdered her with a fatal drug overdose.

HARLOW: Oh, my goodness.

Also, the doctor -- I know CNN is not naming the doctor because the doctor has not been charged with a crime. What are your lingering questions on this?

[08:55:07] LAKE: I mean there are so many. You know, if this is true, what -- what -- why did he do this? What -- I mean the informant wrote in her notebook the phrase "murder for hire." The doctor was murder for hire. She also wrote that this was part of a plan to make it look like an overdose. So there are many questions that are to be explored still 23 years later after Adrienne Brown's death.

HARLOW: Twenty-three years later after her death, 12 years since James Brown's death. And all these questions because of your two years of reporting. Excellent job. Thank you.

Everyone can watch it on cnn.com, the three-part series now.

LAKE: Thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you, Thomas. We appreciate it.

BERMAN: Wow.

HARLOW: Wow, right?

BERMAN: Right.

Now, here's what to watch today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

9:30 a.m., El Chapo jury deliberations.

11:00 a.m., Patriots parade in Boston.

9:00 p.m., State of the Union Address.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We're just a few hours before the State of the Union Address. Sarah Sanders just told us to expect to hear a lot about the economy. We have more details and new subpoenas issued in investigations surrounding the president. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END