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Senate Intel Committee Leaders Differ Over Russia Collusion; Trump Expected to Avoid Shutdown by Signing Border Deal; Trump Calls on Rep. Omar to Resign Over Anti-Semitism; Cohen Testimony Postponed Due to Shoulder Surgery; Interview with Sen. James Lankford (R-OK); White House Refuses to Hold Saudis Responsible for Khashoggi Murder; Interview with Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL). Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 13, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cohen is going to prison. He cannot escape his testimony.

[07:00:05] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's already stiffed us. Any good will that might have existed in the committee with Michael Cohen is now gone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY, with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY.

New this morning, two source who talked to the president tell CNN that he will sign the bipartisan deal to prevent the shutdown, but a White House aide does warn nothing is final. because this is President Trump.

He has made clear he's not thrilled with the deal. It gives him only a fraction of the $5.7 billion he demanded for the border wall. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have to study it. I'm not happy about it. It's not doing the trick. But I'm adding things to it. It's very simple. We're building a wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I should note after he said that out loud, he did study it, and he talked to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Richard Shelby. He has two days to sign it before a shutdown. One sign that it is inevitable that he will sign it, Sean Hannity indicated he would not wield his veto power.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: There you go. As the president struggles to fulfill his signature campaign promise,

he is vowing to find, quote, "other methods" to finance his border wall. The White House says taking executive action is not off the table.

So as that plays out, there is a rare public break between the two leaders of the Senate Intel Committee over the Russia investigation. Senator Mark Warner, who's the top Democrat on the panel, rejected the GOP chairman, Richard Burr's, recent statement that the committee has found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Joining us now to talk about all this we have Shawna Thomas, Washington bureau chief for "Vice News Tonight" on HBO. We have Frank Bruni, "New York Times" op-ed columnist; and we have Dana Bash, CNN chief political correspondent.

Dana, let's start with you. Share your reporting with us on where President Trump's head is and whether or not he's going to sign this bipartisan deal.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what I can tell you is I spoke to two people who spoke to the president yesterday, who said that he made clear to them he is going to sign this deal, if and when it gets to his desk.

And he was pretty fatalistic about it, making clear to both of these individuals that he gave the Congress, the negotiators three weeks to try to figure out a deal that he is certainly, as he made clear -- very clear publicly. He did so in private, that he is not happy with it.

But that he is going to keep the government open, that he understands that is a very important thing to do right now, and that he is going to keep the fight going, rhetorically and, probably, he understands in the courts when he does intend to use his executive -- his executive authority in some way, shape, or form, maybe even in multiple ways to try to keep the building of the wall going, above and beyond the money that Congress is going to give him.

BERMAN: You know, and again, it is interesting. Hannity said last night, "I'm not as upset as some conservatives are."

CAMEROTA: Like himself the night before.

BERMAN: The night before.

CAMEROTA: When it was a garbage deal.

BERMAN: Hannity is now on board with this going forward which, to me, indicates, along with Dana's reporting, this is -- this is a done deal. He's going to sign it.

Also, I think we should just look at the signals he's been sending rhetorically and signal-wise. Look at the picture from El Paso Monday night when he did the rally there. There's the banner hanging behind the president that says, "Finish the Wall." CAMEROTA: "Finish the Wall."

BERMAN: And James Corden, comics note this also. And Shawna, the president is changing the rhetoric here. Despite the fact that not a single mile of wall has been built in his administration, he's just trying to declare victory here.

SHAWNA THOMAS, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "VICE NEWS TONIGHT": But I think also that there have been a lot of pundits and a lot of people who have said the way -- if the president could just take the 55 -- you know, the 55 miles, say that he has some kind of victory and keep on going, that that's what he was going to do.

And "Finish the Wall" is just as good as "Build the Wall" for his base. And it allows him to continue to have someone to fight against, right?

So if it's "Finish the Wall," I have -- I'm actually able to build some of this. I've given that to my base, but I also get to say, "The Democrats are stopping me from finishing the wall," so that gives him something to run on in 2020.

BASH: Exactly.

THOMAS: And it also gives Democrats something to fight against in 2020. And if he moves money around or uses his national emergency power, either the California attorney general or the House of Representatives is going to sue him over that.

And while that isn't the best way for people to govern, that is something that creates conflict, intention, and that's the kind of thing you use in campaigns on both sides.

CAMEROTA: Frank, I find this so confusing. The president tweeted yesterday, "The wall is already being built!" exclamation point.

FRANK BRUNI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Now, here are the facts. Forty miles of replacement barriers, so that already existed, have been built or at least started. Those were approved last year. They're not the wall that he talked about, but they're a replacement of shoddy or whatever, failing work.

But if his base is OK -- hoodwinked, I guess, by the fact that that's what he's talking about with the wall, why was the government shut down for 35 days? If that's all we needed were this 40 miles -- 40 miles of replacement barrier?

[07:05:12] BRUNI: I just think it's so sweet that you're still dealing with those things called facts. You know, because those don't really --

CAMEROTA: I'm a stickler.

BRUNI: The president is finishing the wall the way I'm finishing dinner right now. Right?

But seriously, his strategy here -- and you've just hit on it -- is very clear. His strategy is make believe. Right? A couple days ago -- and you all talked about it -- he stood there on a stage in El Paso and said, "Crime went way down here after a wall was constructed, after a barrier went up." That was not remotely true, and he was told that again and again, and he did it again anyway.

And that's what's going to happen here. Watch. What's going to happen is he's going to begin telling you, in defiance of all facts, in defiance of anything we say here, he's going to say, "'X' number of miles have been constructed. No, they wouldn't have been if I wasn't here. This much more is coming. This has happened."

CAMEROTA: And the base is fooled by that. They're fooled by that.

BRUNI: He has spent four years conditioning his admirers to believe everything he says and, more to the point, to disbelieve everything we say. There's a reason he's been saying "fake news" for four years. It's for moments like this, so he can say, "Don't believe what they're telling you. Believe only what I say."

BERMAN: And there are signs that he has bent the Republican caucus in Congress toward his will on this, particularly when it comes to finding additional monies for it.

Dana, I'm not hearing as many objections from Republicans this week as I did last week or the week before. I don't know if he declares an executive order or emergency action.

But if he finds some money without taking it from disaster relief, I don't think Republicans are going to object at all. Mitch McConnell basically told us he won't object.

BASH: That's right. Well, I think that there is a difference between finding some money in the Department of Homeland Security and in the Department of Defense, the Pentagon; difference between that and declaring a national emergency.

That, Mitch McConnell has said publicly and privately to the president that that is a bad way to govern, because it is much more broad; and it sets a precedent that is tougher for Congress to swallow.

But it is true that they, in Congress, kind of understand that this is something the president is going to continue to fight on. Although I would say that given what the deal is, the substance of this deal, the fact that Republican leaders have kind of, frankly, put the president in a corner by agreeing to something that is lower than what the -- never mind what the president wanted, but what the president could have gotten from them just more than a month ago, tells you that they are actually over it when it comes to this issue.

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's switch topics and talk about how the president and Vice President Pence are criticizing Congresswoman Ilhan Omar about her comments, for which she was apologized, where she made what many saw as anti-Semitic statements about AIPAC and Jewish money controlling politicians.

She apologized. She said that she's learning. She said that she apologizes unequivocally.

But they -- they continue to say -- the president has said that she should resign from Congress. And if we may remind the president of 2015, when he used a trope that sounded quite similar to what she is being criticized for. Here is this moment from the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You're not going to support me, because I don't want your money.

You want to control your own politician. That's fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That -- that is him saying that money controls politicians to a Jewish group -- Shawna.

THOMAS: Well, I think this is an example of Representative Omar. She's playing in the big leagues now, let's be honest. And a lot of these freshman members, part of the reason why they got into Congress is that they are outspoken, and they are real, and they're authentic. And we want that from our leaders, I think.

But, you also have to be careful. You are representing 700,000 people. Some of those people who voted for you. Some of them didn't, but you have to choose your words carefully.

And I think she has gotten caught in that trap. And you know, you get slapped on the hand by the leader of the House. You get slapped on the hand by Nancy Pelosi if you go too far out of your lane. And she is learning how to navigate that.

BERMAN: But it's interesting, Frank, that when the president criticizes Omar for this for talking about Jewish money, it's an example of the pot calling the kettle anti-Semite.

BRUNI: Well, it's -- it's a total double standard. I mean, you mentioned one. The president has retweeted people who come from anti- Semitic organizations.

And let us not forget that in Charlottesville, some of those marchers who, according to the president, included very fine people on both sides, were saying, "Jews will not replace us." Right?

So Donald Trump has a lot to answer for in this regard. He has consistently encouraged people who engage in anti-Semitism.

Now, that does not excuse what Representative Omar tweeted. She's apologized. She said she didn't understand how disturbing it was. I'm going to take her at her word. But I really do think the fact that people have pointed out that tweet have said, "You need to answer for it. You need to get better than that." That's all fair. But yes, no evenhandedness here. The president is making it like he's

blameless.

[07:10:01] BERMAN: The president never apologized for Charlottesville.

BRUNI: The president never apologizes for anything. Why would he start there?

BERMAN: He didn't apologize for making that joke about Jewish money before that group there.

BRUNI: I repeat: The president never apologizes for anything.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Dana, that's why -- I mean, it's just a little hard to give him the moral high ground here. And the idea that they're trying to take the moral high ground is insulting.

BASH: Yes, I mean, the president can't help himself but to engage on something that he believes hurts Democrats, divides Democrats.

But the cleaner political strategy could have been to keep it on the Hill. Kevin McCarthy was very aggressive and is still aggressive about saying that the congresswoman should not be on the Foreign Relations Committee. And you could argue that he has a leg to stand on, because with all of the controversy about Steve King, he did take action. They're not -- everything here is apples and oranges. Nothing is completely comparable.

But with regard to at least a little bit of consistency, I think you can argue that that is better left in the hands of the House Republican leader, as opposed to the president who, as you guys have very -- laid out very well, has a complicated history with this, to say the least.

BERMAN: Kevin McCarthy, I will note, also has sent out tweets talking about money from Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and Tom Steyer, who all share one common trait: you know, they have Jewish heritage there. So Kevin McCarthy has his own dalliance with this type of notion, as well.

Shawna, very quickly on Michael Cohen here, because we haven't talked about this. I continue to be struck by the fact that Michael Cohen keeps skipping out on congressional testimony. He said he's not feeling well after shoulder surgery. This is after pictures of him emerged over the weekend eating at a restaurant and greeting diners in New York City.

I have a hard time believing that there isn't some other reason he's skipping. I have no idea what it is. I don't know if he's scared to testify under oath. I don't know if the Mueller people are telling him not to do go, but it's getting beyond weird at this point.

THOMAS: It's really strange. And, you know, Senator Burr basically is mad at Michael Cohen. They want to get him to testify in these committees before he has to go to jail, which is understandable, so that they can try to wrap up at least on the Senate Intelligence side, their investigation. But this is not winning him any favors.

And I have a hard time believing that it's Mueller who's trying to stop him, or I don't think Senator Burr would have the gotten that mad. It's not like these offices can't talk to each other.

So I think Michael Cohen just needs to be careful, because sooner or later everyone is going to subpoena him. And they're going to drag him in front. They're not going to let him be behind closed doors or anything like that. And some people are going to try to slap him down in public.

BERMAN: All right. Shawna, Dana, Frank, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

Republicans are urging President Trump to take the deal, sign the deal, prevent the shutdown. Will he do that? And then even after doing that declare a national emergency? We're going to ask a Republican senator next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:17:10] BERMAN: President Trump says he's not happy about the border deal struck by congressional negotiators, but two people who have spoken to the president tell CNN he will accept it; he will sign it to prevent a shutdown.

Joining me now is Republican Senator James Lankford from Oklahoma.

Senator, thank you so much for being with us.

The president has had a chance to learn some of what is part of this deal. You've had another day to digest it. Do you anticipate voting "yes" on it, and do you think the president should sign it?

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R), OKLAHOMA: I've actually seen the text of it yet. We've heard some broad parameters. It's about a thousand pages of text with seven appropriation bills, so we're all looking forward to the text actually being public and going through the text and trying to be able to get through it.

But the broad parameters of it, it is the seven appropriation bills, which is what should have been done back in December, which is the rest of the year of actual funding, not just a short-term continuing resolution. That is something we should have done months ago ,and we'll see if we can actually get the text out, get it done and accomplish it now.

BERMAN: So "yes"-ish, assuming the text is what you know about the deal?

LANKFORD: Yes.

BERMAN: And on the president yes, he should sign it, assuming the text is what you've been told it is?

LANKFORD: You know what? I like the extra "ish" added. I anticipate actually agreeing to it, but I've got to get through the details to actually make sure the actual paperwork lines up with the rhetoric.

BERMAN: You are welcome to use that in legislative session any time you want going forward.

I do want to ask, on a national emergency, you have been supportive of the idea of the president finding additional money from somewhere. But not, you say, declaring a national emergency. Is that correct?

LANKFORD: Right. That's correct. I think the best thing that we can do is actually reprogram funds. That's funds allocated to certain law enforcement entities or to national defense entities, and to be able to say those funds can also be used for border security, including anything on a barrier. That stays within the parameters of the law. We don't have to deal with a court case. The administration can move forward with construction.

You get into a court case and declaring a national emergency, moving from one fund to another is going to get caught up in the courts for a couple years, and it doesn't solve the problems.

So focus is actually solve the problem, and there is a problem as the president laid out at the State of the Union address. There are lots of folks that say "everyone's crossing just to be able to get work" is not true. There are some entities that are -- and some individuals that are crossing to do harm to us, and we should pay attention to that.

BERMAN: The White House and the president missed a deadline, which was Friday, to respond to whether it believed that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia was responsible or involved with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, which is something that the intelligence agencies and community has all suggested that, in fact, the crown prince was.

Is it acceptable, in your mind, that the White House skip this deadline, which is mandated by law?

LANKFORD: So, no, it is not acceptable, but no, the actual law is not asking whether the crown prince was involved. The law, the Magnitsky, is just saying who was involved. And so we don't want to jump to it. We want to be able to say, have you determined who was responsible for the execution of this journalist?

[07:20:06] And it's -- I think it's important to be able to get to the facts. It's important that Americans stand up for our basic values of free press, of free speech, of free faith. Those are critical aspects that we should continue to be able to stand up for. And we expect the administration to be able to finish its investigation, per the law.

BERMAN: But they're just flouting the law. I mean, so you're saying it's not acceptable they didn't come back to you with the information that they are mandated to do so?

LANKFORD: Well, I would expect they would do that. We had the same things with the Obama administration, Bush administration other times when there'd be something that is responsible to get there. Now it starts the process, and we'll do hearings. We'll make sure that there's pressure to actually get this done.

BERMAN: Can I can read you something that just came to our attention over the last few hours? And it comes from Tom Barrack, who is -- was chairman of the president's inauguration, a friend, obviously, of the president of the United States, who was speaking at a Middle Eastern conference in Abu Dhabi. In fact, speaking to CNN's Becky Anderson.

And he says about Saudi Arabia, "Whatever happened in Saudi Arabia, the atrocities in America are equal or worse. The West is confused. It doesn't understand the rule of law in the kingdom. It doesn't understand what succession in the kingdom is." Sounding like somehow he's justifying the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Is that type of language acceptable?

LANKFORD: It is not. I always try to say to people don't try to justify what is not justifiable. There's never a time that you can go murder a journalist in a foreign country, dismember them and carry their body off and say that somehow that's justifiable. It never ever is justifiable, and it doesn't equate to anything that's happened in the United States where we stand up for the free press.

BERMAN: You are part of legislation trying to move some of the nominations that the president makes through the Senate more quickly. Why is this important to you?

LANKFORD: So I'm actually not just trying to move through the Senate the nominations more quickly of this president. I'm trying to move through the Senate the nominations of any president in the future.

The Senate for the last two years has had a bog down on nominations. And what the Senate does for a couple years, it will continue to do from there on out. It's set new precedent. And the president is in the past two years there have been 128 nominations that have slowed down dramatically. That is requiring what's called an intervening day, plus an additional 30 hours after that intervening day. So it's really three days to be able to move one person.

Any future president requires about 1,000 people to be able to go through the nomination process that are just on the executive calendar. You could literally have any party at any time be able to shut down the Senate, and the Senate doesn't work. And this is not just for nominees that, quote unquote, "aren't good nominees." Many of these nominees were nominees that passed overwhelmingly, 80, 90 votes, once they got to the floor.

So we've got to be able to fix this process. It's coming from the Rules Committee now to say, "Let's resolve this now." If we don't get resolved now, it surely will not be resolved in 2021.

BERMAN: You do acknowledge that both parties have played games on nominations and slowing down nominations. Democrats, the minute you talk about nominations not coming to the floor, they're going to say Merrick Garland.

LANKFORD: True. BERMAN: But there are both parties who played at this, yes?

LANKFORD: No, it's very, very different, though. If you take the last -- let's say three presidents, take the first two years of when they're actually putting their government together, there have been a total of eight, eight nominations that were slowed down, on average, of each one of those. Four in one president, 12 in another, eight in another.

The last two years we've had 128. So this is dramatically different. So you can say, yes, there were eight done to President Obama.

BERMAN: OK.

LANKFORD: But you can't say that there's not 128 done or to say, for the next president, there won't be 128 done for them.

BERMAN: I do want to ask you again. You spoke at the faith breakfast last week. The representative from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, has been accused of making anti-Semitic statement on Twitter, or retweeting something. She has apologized for that.

They are largely along the lines of what the president himself has said in the past, in some cases, about Jewish money. Let me just play you something he said on the campaign trail in 2015.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You're not going to support me, because I don't want your money.

You want to control your own politician. That's fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Two questions. Do you accept Representative Omar's apology on her retweet? And do you think the president should be apologizing for some of the things that he has said in the past along those line?

LANKFORD: No, I don't think the president should be -- should apologize for that. I mean, he's talking about what's happening in New York City and money, and I don't know the context of those two quotes there, but I've heard other contexts like that.

But I do accept Representative Omar's apology, and I think it's entirely appropriate. She's a brand-new freshman representative. Sometimes you get out there and you say things and you try to correct it.

For any of us that are on television like right now, you get questions. You make responses, or you put out a tweet trying to be funny or to try to press a point. And sometimes you go over the line on that. So I would accept that from her.

BERMAN: I would accept you. I would expect you would accept it, given your background. What the president was talking to, who he was talking to was a Jewish group. He was talking to this Jewish group and saying, "You may not support me, because I don't need your money." That's the context there. You still think that that doesn't necessarily require an apology?

LANKFORD: No, actually, I don't. There's a lot of groups that anyone would speak to, to be able to say that same kind of -- type of thing. To say that it's in that strict context, it's about a Jewish group about finances, again, I have no idea what the context is. But as I look at that time, no, I wouldn't say that.

[07:25:13] BERMAN: All right. Senator Lankford, thanks for being with us. I appreciate it.

LANKFORD: You bet.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right. John, as you just mentioned, President Trump is calling for the Democratic congresswoman to resign for her anti-Israel tweets, but what about her apology?

Well, we're going to ask the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee what should happen next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: CNN has learned that President Trump will accept the bipartisan border deal that gives him only a fraction of the money that he wanted for his border wall.

If he does not take the deal, then the U.S. government could shut down again on Friday night. But who would be to blame and what is the new narrative?

Well, joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Cheri Bustos. She is the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Good morning, Congresswoman.

REP. CHERI BUSTOS (D), ILLINOIS: Good morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Our reporting is that the president will sign this bipartisan deal, though strangely, he is tweeting something that is -- that is confusing. He says last night, regardless of wall money, it is being built as we speak.

[07:30:00]