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Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein Expected To Leave Justice Department In Mid-March; CNN Reality Check: GOP Hypocrisy On Executive Outreach; German Chancellor Angela Merkel Claims German Cars Are Threat; Study Shows Screen Time For Kids Under Two More Than Doubles. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 19, 2019 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:33:06] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. New this morning, CNN has learned that the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department mid-March -- that soon. Now, sources tell CNN it has nothing to do with new accusations leveled by fired FBI acting director Andrew McCabe in his new tell-all book.

Joining us now if Jeffrey Toobin, CNN chief legal analyst; Josh Campbell, former FBI supervisory special agent. He did serve as a special assistant to Andrew McCabe and James Comey. And, Phil Mudd, former FBI senior intelligence advisor.

Jeffrey, I want to start with you. Rod Rosenstein out by mid-March, which is three weeks from now -- three-four weeks from now.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Yes.

BERMAN: We knew Rosenstein was going to leave once Barr got confirmed.

Do you think he would be leaving if the Mueller situation were not close to some kind of conclusion?

TOOBIN: I actually do. I think he was ready to go. It is a natural time for him to leave with a new attorney general in place.

You know, it's amazing to think he is by, so far, the most famous deputy attorney general in history. I mean, think about the Obama administration. Who was the deputy attorney general? I actually know because I cover this stuff. But, I mean, these people are deeply obscure.

He has a major role in the first two years of the Trump administration and a major role in American history, frankly.

And we'll see how it all plays out but I think his work is done. The Mueller investigation has survived to at least towards the ending and I think that was his main assignment and it's complete. BERMAN: And the people telling us that he is going soon, Josh, had

made a point of saying it doesn't have to do with the new cloud of controversy swirling because of the Andy McCabe book.

Now, McCabe has been doing a round of interviews. He went on NPR yesterday. One of the things that did come up in the book, and we knew about this before, was that McCabe says that Rosenstein volunteered to wear a wire -- or suggested, perhaps, wearing a wire to record things that went on inside the White House.

[07:35:00] This is what McCabe says about Rosenstein's, I think, non- denials of the subject -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FBI: While the Deputy Attorney General says he never authorized anyone to wear a wire, that is true. He never authorized it because we never asked him for that authorization.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST, NPR "MORNING EDITION" AND NEWS PODCAST "UP FIRST": Meaning that his seeming denial of this story is not actually a denial. You don't think he denied anything you just said?

MCCABE: I don't -- I don't think he can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, Josh, just now, Andy McCabe said he would be willing to testify if he is subpoenaed which, of course, you know -- whether he's willing to or not, he's going to get -- if he gets a subpoena he's going to go testify. And he thinks -- or thought, at the time, the president was a threat and that is why the various investigations were opened. Your thoughts?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST, FORMER SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT, FBI: Yes, there are a lot of questions to be answered there, obviously. And what he's said in the book and what he's said in interviews obviously seems explosive.

I will say -- and, you know, no offense to my brother, Jeffrey, but what you have here are two lawyers that are out-lawyering each other. You have Andy McCabe and Rod Rosenstein who are issuing statements -- Andy McCabe saying something happened and Rod Rosenstein saying well, I didn't order that. And then, you know, the American people are caught in the middle trying to decipher this.

I think that clip that you just played just now probably gets to kind of the heart of it. I'm sure that it was discussed but then not ordered.

Now, to the point about testifying, as you mentioned, he may not have -- he may not have a choice. I mean, again, as these questions are raised, the American people want to know exactly what happened.

And for Congress's part, we heard from Sen. Graham obviously talking about wanting to haul people before Congress. Congress has politicized the Justice Department in ways that we haven't seen. But I think in this case that's actually -- it's a good thing for them to get to the bottom, especially this 25th Amendment business because a coequal branch of government would want to know if discussions were underway inside the Executive Branch to possibly remove the president.

BERMAN: We may come back to Andy McCabe in a second. Again, he is going on an interview right now. If he makes news we'll get back to it.

Phil Mudd, though, I wanted to get to you on another piece of news over the last 24 hours. Chris Ruddy, who runs Newsmax, told our Christiane Amanpour that the president is likely to fire DNI Dan Coats -- or Dan Coats will be moving on soon.

What is the infraction that Coats committed, allegedly? Well, Ruddy said he was publicly talking about intelligence, publicly saying that he did not think that North Korea would get rid of its nuclear weapons when he testified before Congress under oath.

Is that reason -- telling the truth as you see it, to Congress, to be dismissed?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIAL, FORMER SENIOR INTELLIGENCE ADVISER, FBI: Well, let me be clear here. We lived this already and the American people said they hated it. There are questions during my tenure at the CIA about whether the CIA was too supportive of the president going into the Iraq War.

There ain't no learning in the second kick of mule here, so we're going again into North Korea saying we'd prefer -- we'd prefer that the Intel guys support the president regardless of whether they agree with his position. Look, I think the Intel guys are supposed to get out there and talk about the facts.

I also think the president had an opportunity here. What he could have said was the Intel guys think this hill is insurmountable. The North Koreans will never give up nukes. I am the ultimate dealmaker. I'll show you that's wrong.

The Intel guys should have spoken and I think the president missed an opportunity. But do we want to live -- relive Iraq all over again? Speak the truth and let the truth fall where it may. That's what the Intel guys are supposed to do. That's what they did and Dan Coats is going to get fired for it.

TOOBIN: But isn't this what Donald Trump does? He fires people who disagree with him --

MUDD: Yes.

TOOBIN: -- period. I mean, that's just -- you know, that's -- you know, we're not -- we're not at the beginning of this administration anymore, you know. He didn't follow the party line -- Coats didn't -- and it looks like he's on his way out, period.

BERMAN: Jeffrey, can I ask you about something else that happened over the last 24 hours?

TOOBIN: Yes.

BERMAN: Roger Stone, who is in a lot of trouble --

TOOBIN: Yes.

BERMAN: -- facing charges. On Twitter, he -- or I guess it was Instagram.

TOOBIN: Instagram.

BERMAN: He posted a picture of Judge Amy Berman Jackson -- no relation to me or any Jackson for that matter -- and over her head you can see crosshairs there. And he -- there's a lot of words there about how she is a Democrat, a liberal, and an Obama-appointed judge.

Last night, his lawyers sent an apology -- an official apology to the court.

TEXT: "Please inform the court that the photograph and comment today was improper and should not have been posted. I had no intention of disrespecting the court and humbly apologize to the court for the transgression."

BERMAN: First of all, how much trouble would he be in for writing something like that, and why do you think they felt the need to apologize?

TOOBIN: Well, keep in mind that he is out on bail, effectively now. I mean, he is an indicted person out on bail.

Judge Jackson is the same judge who in a fairly close case locked up Paul Manafort for violation of his bail conditions, so she doesn't play around when it comes to these issues.

Looking at that Instagram post, it does look like a bullseye -- a target by her photograph. That is arguably a very threatening image. You know, they had, at first, some wacky story that it's not really a target. I don't really -- I don't really buy that.

And, you know, Roger Stone is a famous iconoclast, is a famous dirty trickster, you know. Has lived off being outrageous for decades.

He's in a different category now. He is under the supervision of the criminal justice system and his lawyers, quite correctly, recognized that unless he made amends here, and fast, he could wind up locked up for months before his trial.

[07:40:12] BERMAN: Josh, I have to imagine federal marshals don't look too kindly on posts like that. They take threats, if that is what that was, very seriously.

CAMPBELL: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, they have to add additional resources. They investigate threats as a matter of course when we have something like this very public. And you can't lose sight of the fact also that Roger Stone has a

certain following out there, which we've seen as he's posted statements in the past that relates to this quote-unquote "witch hunt". Where you have these online trolls and people coming and saying really nasty things. So, if you're conducting a threat assessment on the judge, you're now having to do more work, thanks to this witness -- or thanks to this subject, rather.

BERMAN: All right.

Phil, there's a new piece of information coming out of Andy McCabe's interview that's going on right now. He claims that he told the Congressional Gang of Eight that is bipartisan leaders of Congress and the Intelligence Committees -- he told them that a counterintelligence investigation had been opened, I believe, on the president. And he now claims that no one objected to that.

So, Phil, my question to you is would it -- would members of Congress object to that? Would that normally be the type of thing they would -- they would say I object or not object to? Or what does that tell you if they didn't object? Does that mean that they tacitly signed onto the notion that a counterintelligence investigation was OK?

MUDD: Well, I'm uncomfortable with a counterintelligence investigation. That's a different question.

To get to your point, yes. If there are members of Congress in the Gang of Eight -- and I have spoken to the Gang of Eight, myself, in the past at the CIA. If they object to an action the Executive Branch is taking, they ought not -- they not -- they should not only speak it, they should write it. If you want to live in Washington, D.C. nobody's going to believe your words.

Look at Rosenstein versus Andy McCabe right now. You've got to memorialize it in a piece of paper. If there's not a piece of paper from somebody in the Congress who objected, my question's going to be why is that?

Were you afraid to object then? Did politics overtake your good judgment? If they objected I want to see it, John. Where's the paper?

BERMAN: And, of course --

TOOBIN: Phil --

BERMAN: -- this is going to play into the fact, Jeffrey, that there are congressional committees. Now, in the Senate, Lindsey Graham says he wants McCabe and Rosenstein to come testify because he thinks that there was some kind of coup being, you know, founded here. But, McCabe is basically saying I put it to them and they didn't object.

TOOBIN: Which is a very significant fact -- something we didn't know. At least I didn't know. I haven't read the book yet.

But the fact that he told the Congress that this investigation was underway, no one objected. It's a weird situation to have them object now.

BERMAN: Perhaps a significant new piece of information --

TOOBIN: Yes.

BERMAN: -- coming out just now.

All right. Jeffrey, Phil, Josh, thank you very much -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: John, you may remember Republicans could not stand President Obama's use of executive orders. So why are many of those same lawmakers now quiet about President Trump's national emergency? We put it all under the microscope in our CNN reality check, next.

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[07:46:37] CAMEROTA: Executive overreach -- those used to be two of the Republicans' favorite words when it came to President Obama when he was in office, along with imperial, emperor, and king. But now that President Trump has reached even further with his emergency declaration, those same Republicans are strangely silent.

John Avlon has our reality check. How does this work, John?

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

Well, first, we've got a date to commemorate. Break out the birthday cake and drape those candles with tea bags, folks, because exactly 10 years ago today the Tea Party was born.

It was spawned by CNBC's Rick Santelli in an epic rant about government bailouts for homeowners in the depths of the Great Recession. And it became a rallying cry for conservative populists, boasting Glenn Beck and birtherism. It helped win back the House in 2010 and tilled the soil for the Trump campaign.

But here's the funny thing. The movement that was supposed to be about stopping taxpayer giveaways to big corporations and the intergenerational theft, the deficit and debt, hasn't said boo about those issues since Trump won the White House. But that white-hot policy hypocrisy is really evident when it comes to executive power.

So, one of the classic Tea Party rifts was to call President Obama a king, hell-bent on subverting the Constitution. Here's Sen. Ted Cruz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: This administration has been the most lawless administration we have ever seen. And this president routinely disregards the law, disregards the Constitution, and disregards the Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Of course, Ted Cruz now hugs President Trump pretty tight. And here's one of Trump's closest congressional allies, Mark Meadows,

slamming Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARK MEADOWS (R), NORTH CAROLINA: We did not elect a dictator. We elected a president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: And because there's a Trump tweet for everything even he declared that quote, "Republicans must not allow President Obama to subvert the Constitution of the U.S. for his own benefit, and because he is unable to negotiate with Congress."

See, it's funny because that's exactly what President Trump is being accused of doing with his executive order to build the wall after he couldn't make a deal with Congress.

But this is a much bigger deal than Obama's use of executive power that Trump attacked dozens and dozens of times on Twitter. This is a fundamental end run around the Constitution which gives Congress the power of the purse strings.

Trump's emergency is self-evidently not an emergency in any dictionary definition sense and it's a precedent that Republicans will regret when the next Democratic president comes into office and proclaims national emergency powers to combat gun violence or climate change, for example.

But with a few honorable exceptions, Republicans are backing Trump despite their protests under Obama.

Here's Jim Jordan slamming Obama's executive action on DACA. Quote, "As President Obama said, he's not an emperor. His job is to execute laws that are passed, not write his own."

And here's Jim Jordan today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN (R), OHIO: This is an emergency, this is a crisis. You tell me. How many -- I would ask the Democrats, how many caravans do we have to have before it's an emergency?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: And here's Mitch McConnell on Obama back in the day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Imposing his will unilaterally may seem tempting. It may serve him politically in the short-term but he knows it will make an already broken system even more broken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Wise words. But he apparently has a very different definition about how democracy works when a Republican is president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: I'm going to support the national emergency declaration. I think he ought to feel free to use whatever tools he can legally use.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:50:00] AVLON: Whatever righteous fury the Tea Party began with was undermined a long time ago. What we see now is rank hypocrisy regarding executive power under Trump and it's more evidence that hyperpartisanship has never been about principle. It's just about power.

And that's your reality check.

BERMAN: All right, John. Thank you very much, and happy birthday -- 10 years old -- to the Tea Party.

Time now for "CNN Business Now". The clock is ticking for President Trump to declare whether foreign cars are a national security threat to the United States. European allies are furious and the U.S. Auto Industry says it will raise car prices and kill American jobs.

Our chief business correspondent Christine Romans with more -- Romans.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Hi there, guys.

More tariff could be coming, this time on imported cars and auto parts. The Commerce Department has delivered to the White House the recommendations of its Section 232 national security investigation. Now, it hasn't been released to the public but the president now has 90 days to declare whether imported cars pose a national security threat to the U.S.

It's a position the German Chancellor Angela Merkel viewed as preposterous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGELA MERKEL, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): We're proud of our cars. They are built in the United States of America. So when these cars, because they're built in South Carolina, are not becoming less threatening, rather than the ones that are built in Bavaria, are supposed to be a threat to the national security of America, it's a bit of a shock to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Rankling some of America's oldest allies and the American auto industry, frankly. The National Automobile Dealers Association estimates tariffs would add more than two grand to the cost of U.S.- built cars and more than $6,000 to imported cars and trucks.

And a report from the Center for Automotive Research showed a 25 percent tariff would lead to 366,000 fewer U.S. jobs in the auto and related industries.

Now, there is no 100 percent U.S.-made car anymore and hasn't been for years. Cars assembled in the U.S. have many imported parts. And so- called foreign automakers make cars in the U.S. with American workers.

The industry already grappling, you guys, with higher costs from steel and aluminum tariffs. This, if it happened, would be so much bigger, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Those are very important numbers for all of us to know, particularly the price hikes --

ROMANS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- and what they would look like.

Thank you very much --

ROMANS: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: -- Christine.

All right. If you plop your child in front of the T.V. while you get ready, we have a new warning to tell all parents about.

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[07:56:35] CAMEROTA: Here's to your health. As busy parents, we all know the trick of parking our kids in front of a screen when we need a minute. But if you do it too often it could have a lasting negative impact on your child's development.

And, Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now with more.

So, Sanjay, tell us about this new study that has found a pretty significant increase in the amount of time that infants are spending in front of screens. What are the findings?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's the big headline. Kids from birth to two years old had a significant amount of an increase in screen time compared -- 1997 to 2014, which was five years ago but the last year for which this sort of data was available.

But look at that. Through age zero to two years, you actually got more screen time than three to five. So that was a big headline. It more than doubled in that early age group.

And another interesting thing that I found when I really dug into this data is that three hours for zero to two, 2 1/2 of those hours were still television time. So despite the fact that the landscape has changed tremendously over those nearly 20 years with phones and obviously, tablets -- all these types of things -- television time is the thing that still went up in those considerably -- zero to two.

But also, in that -- in that older age group -- 2 1/2 hours of television out of their three hours of television or so day where -- 2 1/2 hours of television time out of three hours of screen time a day.

So, T.V., despite all these new devices out there, still seems to dominate what these young kids are watching.

BERMAN: That is so interesting, Sanjay. So it's not one of these cases of these phones are the downfall of civilization.

GUPTA: Right.

BERMAN: It's the T.V., which has been there and is still there and getting bigger.

What's the long-term impact of this?

GUPTA: You know -- and I'm like you guys, OK. I've got three kids. It's something that certainly we have allowed screens in our houses.

There has been concern that if you start to do association studies, do these children have more -- are they more likely to have cognitive problems? More likely to have attention problems, behavioral problems. You can look at the list there. Increased risk of obesity, impaired sleep.

When it comes to that top line -- I mean, one of the things that comes up is which came first. Were there certain behavioral problems or something and that led to more screen time or did the screen time lead to more behavioral problems? I think it's sometimes tough to parse out.

And also, it's not so much sometimes what the screen time is doing to the brain as what the brain is not getting because of the screen time, meaning the interaction with parents, in particular. So, interaction with parents and parent teaching at age-appropriate times seems to be one of the biggest predictors of cognitive and behavioral success long-term.

So it's not so much the screen may be actually causes these problems, just that you're not getting the other stuff instead. So I think that's something to pay attention to.

CAMEROTA: For sure.

BERMAN: Absolutely, yes. These are numbers are important. I hope people are looking at them.

CAMEROTA: I wonder if they're counting Baby Einstein because those things were so trippy for my kids.

GUPTA: Yes, and the researchers say look, we need to make a distinction here. Not all screens are equal, not all programming is equal. Should we be lumping educational programming and learning devices into the same sort of screen time? CAMEROTA: Yes.

GUPTA: Interestingly, in China -- in the eastern province of China, they've started to go the other way and actually limit screen times because of the concerns about vision. They're doing more paper homework -- not assigning as much homework on readers and screens as they used to.

BERMAN: All right, Sanjay. Thank you very, very much.

GUPTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: Up next, we have big breaking news in the 2020 race for president. A new candidate in the race. So let's get right to it.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.