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NYT: Acting A.G. Refused Trump's Request to Interfere in Cohen Probe; McCabe Believes It's Possible Trump Could Be Russian Asset; 100 Million Americans in Path of Major Winter Storm. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 20, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SETH MEYERS, HOST, NBC'S "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS" (imitating Bernie Sanders): I'm running for president. That's why I'm whispering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi.

[07:00:09] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: "I'm Bernie Sanders."

BERMAN: All right. Thank you to our international viewers for watching. For you, "CNN TALK" is next. For our U.S. viewers, this new report from "The New York Times" causing a big stir. NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What's happening is a disgrace.

If it doesn't straighten out, I will get involved.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a wide-angle lens that won over an attempt at obstruction by the president.

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE FBI: The report is remarkable. It's consistent with things I experienced.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even if the president had made that request to Whitaker, it wouldn't have made a difference.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: The president treats the Justice Department as his own attorneys. He cannot ask people to do things for him.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: To have the acting FBI director say the president should be investigated as being a Russian asset is astonishing.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO DONALD TRUMP: He's a known liar and leaker. It's hardly worth dignifying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

BERMAN: All right. Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY.

Pattern of obstruction, corrupt intent, not to mention perjury, words being used this morning after the eye-opening report in "The New York Times." Questions, really, now being asked of the president's behavior, his actions, also those around him.

"The Times" reports the president asked former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to put a Trump supporter in charge of the investigation into Michael Cohen. Now "The Times" says it never happened, that that request was never fulfilled. The man the president wanted had already recused himself over a routine conflict of interest.

For his part, the president denied the discussion with Whitaker ever happened.

CAMEROTA: "The Times" also tallies the president's public attacks on the Russia investigation. They added up to more than a thousand times. They also say that the attacks have now moved from a P.R. strategy to a legal strategy and this is a strategy that was devised by some GOP members of the House.

Meanwhile, in an interview with CNN, one of those investigators, fired acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, says he believes it's possible the president could still be a Russian asset.

We have a lot to cover. So let's go live to CNN's Laura Jarrett in Washington. Laura, you first reported some of these elements about two months ago, so tell us what's new here.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, good morning.

Pardon talks, misleading statements, and a year's long campaign to undermine the Russian investigation. That is the portrait "The New York Times" paints today, which President Trump's critics will likely say is obstruction of justice in plain sight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT (voice-over): A damning report from "The New York Times" raising new questions about President Trump's alleged efforts to control and discredit the investigations that have consumed his presidency, including the Southern District of New York's probe into Mr. Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen.

"The Times" reports that last year, President Trump asked Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker if U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, who contributed to his campaign, could be installed to lead the Cohen probe, despite Berman having already recused himself from the investigation. The president denying the claim.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, not at all. I don't know who gave you that. That's more fake news. A lot of -- there's a lot of fake -- there's a lot of fake news out there.

JARRETT: "The Times" reports that there's no evidence that Whitaker took steps to intervene in the Cohen investigation and that the president soon soured on him.

This after CNN reported in December that Mr. Trump lashed out at Whitaker at least twice over the New York probe, after Cohen pleaded guilty for lying to Congress about the proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow and when prosecutors implicated the president in a hush-money scheme to silence women before the 2016 campaign.

Whitaker refusing to answer directly when asked under oath last month whether he ever discussed the investigation with the president.

MATTHEW WHITAKER, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: At no time has the White House asked for, nor have I provided any promises or commitments concerning the special counsel's investigation or any other investigation.

JARRETT: The Justice Department telling CNN, quote, "Mr. Whitaker stands by his testimony."

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA), OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: I think the bottom line is he wasn't transparent.

JARRETT: "The New York Times" report also shedding light on the White House's strategy to spin the resignation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn after it was revealed that he lied about his contacts with Russians.

"The Times" reports President Trump told press secretary Sean Spicer to say he requested Flynn's resignation, because, quote, "That sounds better." When Spicer asked whether that was true, Trump repeated, "Say that I asked for his resignation."

SEAN SPICER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The level of trust between the president and General Flynn had eroded to the point where he felt he had to make a change.

JARRETT: In the summer of 2017, "The Times" says one of Trump's attorneys reached out to the lawyers for both Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort to discuss possible pardons. Fearful of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, "The Times" report alleges President Trump and a number of House Republicans strategized and launched an effort to undermine the probe.

[07:05:09] REP. DEVIN NUNES (R), CALIFORNIA: There's no reason to continue this, because we have no evidence of collusion. We've turned up nothing.

JARRETT: Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe telling CNN that much of "The Times: report is consistent with what he witnessed at the bureau.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you still believe the president could be a Russian asset? ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: I think it's possible. I

think that's why we started our investigation. And I'm really anxious to see where Director Mueller concludes that.

JARRETT: The White House dismissing McCabe's claim.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO DONALD TRUMP: It's hardly worth dignifying with a response. He's a known liar and leaker.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: McCabe notably wouldn't comment on whether the FBI had been investigating members of the president's family, either before or after the Mueller probe started.

Meanwhile, the president overnight announcing that he intends to nominate Jeffrey Rosen as the new deputy attorney general, and Rod Rosenstein we expect to leave in the coming weeks -- John and Alisyn.

BERMAN: All right. Laura Jarrett, thank you very much. Stick around.

Joining us now for this conversation, CNN political analyst David Gregory; and Phil Mudd, CNN counterterrorism analyst and former FBI senior intelligence adviser.

And Laura, I do want to go back to you, because you laid out the new details in "The New York Times" investigation as well as the CNN reporting on what Whitaker and the president had discussed in terms of the SDNY.

Big picture, what is the legal jeopardy here for the president? The words "pattern of obstruction," "corrupt intent," why do they matter here?

JARRETT: Well, you really hit the nail on the head there, John. The questioning in any obstruction case is what is the president's intent? And whether he's doing it for some innocent reason: Did he want Berman in because he thought he was a better lawyer than Robert Khuzami, who's been serving as acting, the first assistant there on the case? Or did he want him in because he wanted someone who would protect him?

We remember how he tried to get Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general, to sort of un-recuse, leaning on him in that way.

And so the question all along in these cases is what is the president's intent? Is it a corrupt intent used to try to protect himself where he thinks he has real exposure? And in the Cohen case, it's clearly one where he has been already implicated as an unindicted co-conspirator in those hush-money payments in coordination with Michael Cohen, his former lawyer.

CAMEROTA: Phil, one of the interesting things about "The New York times" is it lays out, over the course of two years -- of course, it's very hard to keep all of this in your head -- how many times this -- we've seen this pattern. But "The New York Times" lays it all out. So it's not just that he leaned on Matt Whitaker to try to install

Geoffrey Berman, an ally. It also, well before that, he leaned on Corey Lewandowski to try to get rid of Jeff Sessions. And he leaned on Don McGahn, the White House lawyer, to try to get rid of Robert Mueller. So there is a pattern here.

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think that's true. And I think one of the real questions this raises is not just about the investigation. Let's go down the road and judge that Mueller determines that he's not going to charge the president. We're in for a fight.

The most significant nomination the president's made is the new attorney general, Barr. Barr is going to have to make the decision about how much of that information Mueller has about all these interferences, how much of that goes to the Congress. Because I suspect that Congress is going to be the one, maybe not Mueller in the Department of Justice, who decides what's going to happen with all the information about interference. So watch for a fight.

And the fight will be when the final report is done that includes, I guarantee you, more than "The New York Times" has, on White House interference. Does Barr say this information, A, should go to the public where we get to decide? And, B, should go to the Congress? I think there's going to be a fight.

BERMAN: That's a really important point you're making there, Phil. There are three people who have crucial decisions to make, perhaps, over the next few weeks.

No. 1 Robert Mueller. How much does he choose to tell William Barr, the attorney general, about whether or not he sees a pattern of obstruction?

Barr's got to decide how much he chooses to tell Congress about what he sees in the pattern of obstruction.

And then Jerry Nadler, as the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has to decide whether or not what he is given constitutes something that is worth investigating as a possible impeachable offense. And I'm using that word here only because the DOJ says that a sitting president can't be indicted, so the only recourse, the only political recourse, David Gregory, is impeachment. Those are some crucial decisions.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's a political decision, as well. And that's what's incredibly important here. That ultimately, if there's a report, as Phil says, does Bill Barr release it to the Congress? And once they have it, what do they do with it?

You have a Democratic House and a Republican-led Senate. So the House would draw up articles of impeachment, and the trial happens in the Senate. So the political breakdown is crucial here. The polarization is crucial here.

And something that Laura has mentioned this morning is also this campaign against the investigation that's been waged by the White House and allies on Capitol Hill.

[07:10:05] That all becomes relevant here, because Mueller is unlikely to charge criminally the president with an obstruction of justice charge. So this really becomes a question, then, of what is the value of the investigation, the purity of the investigation?

What you see the president doing and his allies doing is really building on this idea that there are those in the government who have been plotting against him, who had some axe to grind against him politically that brought all of this forward. So this becomes absolutely a political fight.

But I still think this morning we focus on some of these revelations, what is clear are two things. One, the president wanted lawyers who work for the government to be his personal lawyers to look after him.

And two, allies of the president said in a few different cases, "Hey, no, that's going too far," which is a very important sign about the power of individuals to say, "There's a line we don't cross," and of institutions to protect against abuse of government.

CAMEROTA: Agreed. I think that that is also a really important point to underscore, particularly, Laura, since we also know from your reporting and "The New York Times" that there were these private conversations that the president had with Republican lawmakers, where they were willing to do his bidding.

So, with Devin Nunes, Matt Gaetz -- I believe Jim Jordan was part of this group -- and they were willing to go public and attack the Mueller investigation. In fact, they decided that would be a worthwhile strategy.

So if you have the independent, you know, branch of the government, the Congress willing to do this, it is comforting, on some level, to know there were guardrails in the White House not willing to do the president's bidding.

JARRETT: People in Congress who, according to the former acting director of the FBI, actually knew the president was under investigation.

Now, people have pushed back on McCabe there and questioned exactly what he told them. But if, in fact, he did inform them, that means that this entire time, while they've been waging their campaign against Mueller, they've known what the president is facing. And I think that's worth keeping in mind here.

And, you know, we saw all of these little pieces in bits and drips and drabs over last several years. We saw what we called the Nunes memo, where they essentially tried to put the investigators on trial.

But what "The New York Times," I think, did nicely is sort of lay it out collectively, so that you could really see how it built over time. And then when Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI officials who had been exchanging text messages privately about the president, that just gave them another piece of ammunition, another -- another strike that they could put out against the investigators. And so it all sort of built on each other.

BERMAN: Phil Mudd, I want to go back, if I can, to the new information in "The New York Times," the report that the president leaned on Matthew Whitaker, who was then acting attorney general, to put someone who supported the president in charge of SDNY.

That conversation needed to take place only when Whitaker was already acting attorney general, which is November of 2018, which is, you know, nearly two years into the Trump presidency. Should the president not have known better than to have this type of conversation at that point?

MUDD: I can't -- I can't figure this one out, John. It's 7:12 in the morning, and I'm ticked off here. What the heck did the president think Whitaker was going do?

Let's play this out. He's going to pick up the phone to New York and tell the U.S. attorney, "I want you to un-recuse yourself?" That gets to "The New York Times" in roughly 7.2 seconds. And there's an immediate congressional investigation.

What did the president learn about ousting Jim Comey? Immediately, people say, "You're trying to interfere with an investigation. You get Robert Mueller."

I tell you what. Yesterday, for everybody who's in chronic depressive mode about what's happened the past couple years, America won yesterday, and the president lost. Think about what's happened.

Jeff Sessions, the president's ally, said, "I ain't doing what you want me to do."

Rod Rosenstein, a presidential appointee, says, "No."

Robert Mueller, a career Republican, says, "I'm going to conduct the most intrusive investigation since Watergate."

And a pro-Trump guy, Whitaker, says, "Are you kidding me? I ain't doing this. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of since the square wheel."

I mean, America won.

But I get to your point, John, I can't figure out what the president thought Whitaker was supposed to do. He can't pick up the phone. It's weird.

CAMEROTA: Do you see it that way, David?

GREGORY: I do think it's clear that the president has said that he wanted a loyal attorney general. He wants somebody who was going to look after him in the way that he thought Eric Holder, the attorney general for President Obama, looked after President Obama.

So in the president's mind, he's not thinking about what the presidency's about. He's not thinking about the institutions. He's thinking like he's still a private citizen, the way he's apparently done business his whole life, which is to have loyalists do your bidding for you.

And he thought, whether it would get leaked or not, you know, that he could call up and say, you know, "Make this happen. Because I need this to go away. I need this to be managed in a certain way."

And Alisyn, you brought this up this point earlier. In this reporting, Corey Lewandowski was asked by the president, you know, "Find a way to fire Sessions," and he kind of ignored it.

[07:15:03] We know about the reporting from "The Times" over a long period of time that Don McGahn, former White House counsel, was asked about firing Mueller and opposed the president doing that.

So here the president comes up with these ideas of he knows what he's doing and is rebuffed by even his supporters around him.

CAMEROTA: All right. Phil, David, Laura, thank you very much for helping us sort through the big news of this morning.

BERMAN: I think the headline there is we got to 7:12 without Phil getting pissed off. It took that long.

CAMEROTA: But wasn't that Phil -- yes, I thought he came in hot, right? I mean, that's Phil.

BERMAN: It's Wednesday.

CAMEROTA: OK.

There's a major winter storm sweeping across the U.S. More than 100 million people are in its path, from the plains to the northeast. Look at this. Washington shrouded in snow. There's a metaphor here, John.

BERMAN: What is it hiding?

CAMEROTA: What is Washington hiding? That's where CNN's Jessica Dean joins us with the latest -- Jessica.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you guys, it's hiding the U.S. Capitol, which is right behind me. And typically, if you were here on the National Mall, you could see it quite clearly. Not the case today with all this snow.

I was looking at it. It's good snowman-making snow, nice and packable there. But, yes, we've got snow sweeping all across the Washington, D.C., area. That means that the government is closed today. That means that people at the airport are encountering delays and cancellations, travel not exactly fun here in Washington as people wake up this morning.

Now I will say that the roads so far have been OK. The snow started coming down here around 6 this morning. So it's been at a pretty steady clip ever since then. As I said, when we got here, you could see the Capitol. Now you most certainly cannot.

And interestingly, when we got here this morning, people were out jogging in shorts. Now I've got one, two, three -- three layers on, so I was not jogging in shorts. But hats off to the people that could take the cold this morning.

But certainly, this storm, it has some serious implications. You know, people who are traveling up and down the East Coast today certainly need to be careful. And if you're planning on flying, certainly check in with your airline -- John.

BERMAN: We did just see a jogger behind you with no hat on. That is a bad idea.

CAMEROTA: It's all a bad idea.

DEAN: See?

BERMAN: You think exercise is a bad idea.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And I think the commitment to exercise on a day like this is just really misplaced.

BERMAN: Our Jessica Dean, thank you very much, making the startling claim that the U.S. Capitol is behind you, which clearly it's not.

All right. "The New York Times" laying out how a group of Republican congressmen jumped in to help the president by casting doubt on those investigating him. Did they go too far? We're going to ask a former Republican senator. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:21:37] BERMAN: Fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe claims that he briefed the Gang of Eight about the steps being taken to investigate President Trump and the justification behind it way back in May of 2017.

He says the leaders -- those leaders included the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell; former House Speaker Paul Ryan; and importantly former House Intel Chair Devin Nunes -- that they did not object to the investigation or anything he told them, apparently, at that time.

Joining me now is former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. Senator Santorum also a two-time Republican presidential candidate, which we will get to in a moment.

Senator, I do want to ask you, we put up that chart again of the people that Andy McCabe said he briefed, the so-called Gang of Eight. And I draw your attention to Nunes. The former House intelligence chair was one of the leaders, still is, attacking the Mueller probe and FBI actions during this investigation.

Yet, Andy McCabe says he was briefed on this from the very beginning and didn't raise any objections. Does that seem strange to you? RICK SANTORUM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he wasn't briefed on

it from the very beginning. Obviously, that occurred after the election, well in into the president's first term. So a lot of this stuff was going on well before that, and there were lots of concerns and very legitimate legitimate concerns about the nature of that investigation.

I mean, let's just put the shoe on the other foot. Can you imagine the Trump administration -- excuse me, the Trump campaign coming up with a dossier on Kamala Harris or Corey Booker or Amy Klobuchar and starting a counterintelligence investigation against -- against someone who's running -- against for president?

BERMAN: Just to be clear --

SANTORUM: That's just -- That's the kind -- So, yes, members of Congress would be upset about that. You would be upset about that.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, the dossier was not the beginning of the investigation.

SANTORUM: It was -- yes --

BERMAN: That has been debunked a million and a half times.

SANTORUM: It's not been debunked. It was the basis for these FISA warrants.

BERMAN: It wasn't the basis. It wasn't the basis for the investigation.

SANTORUM: Yes, of course it was.

BERMAN: It was -- it was used as part, but the Papadopoulos thing predates the use of the dossier.

SANTORUM: It's been used and was used repeatedly.

BERMAN: You know that -- you know that, and that's not --

SANTORUM: No, I do know that. It's been used repeatedly.

BERMAN: And that's not even pertinent morning, Senator. What I'm asking you is, if Devin Nunes in May of 2017, after James Comey had been fired, when Andy McCabe is briefing them on the counterintelligence investigations that at that point were new, into the actions of the president of the United States, should he have raised an objection?

SANTORUM: Well, look, I've been in a lot of those briefings; and you sit there and you sort of take -- you take the briefing, and you then try to find out what, you know, what's true and what's not true from what you've just been told.

And I'm not surprised that he wouldn't necessarily object at that moment, because probably a lot of the information was new; and you don't want to just start flailing away. You want to do your background checking, and then you come back with maybe an informed position to counter what Mr. McCabe had said.

BERMAN: So they were waiting?

SANTORUM: Yes.

BERMAN: That could be a possible explanation for their silence at that point.

Reading "The New York Times" report, if you follow the timeline there, they say the conversation between the president of the United States and the acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker, to replace the person overseeing the investigation into Michael Cohen, that conversation had to have happened after the midterm election, which Jeff Sessions was pushed out of the Justice Department. So we're talking November of 2018.

Shouldn't, at that point, the president have known better than to have that conversation?

SANTORUM: Well, Matt Whitaker denies that the conversation takes place, and the president denies the conversation takes place.

[07:25:05] BERMAN: Matt Whitaker denies -- Matt Whitaker denies that action occurred, that anything happened from it. He doesn't deny that they ever had the conversation. And the president's answer was -- The president's initial answer was "Fake news, fake news."

SANTORUM: Well, he said -- he said the president did not try to influence him or force him to do things that didn't -- that sounds pretty clear to me. Look --

BERMAN: CNN's reporting is, is that the president also had conversations expressing his displeasure with the SDNY investigation with Matthew Whitaker. So if it did happen, it fits a pattern there.

My question to you is, if the conversation did happen, should the president not have known better at that point, nearly two years into his presidency?

SANTORUM: The president of the United States has -- is the chief executive of the country. He has -- he has the right to talk to his officials about the way things, you know, the conduct of investigations, even when it comes to him.

And the president obviously didn't order or force Mr. Whitaker to do that. He made comments about things or maybe even you're reporting mused about things that he didn't like about the investigation. Is that -- is that improper? I would say no. Is it wise? No. But I don't think it's improper behavior on the part of a president.

BERMAN: So the pattern that "The New York Times" lays out that we've reported for a long time, of the president asking to put loyalists in charge of various aspects of this investigation -- SANTORUM: When you say loyalists, I mean, the idea -- look, you have

all sorts of people who were in previous Justice Departments that were, quote, "loyalists" to the president who had been in charge of investigations. That's all of a sudden --

BERMAN: It doesn't appear -- it doesn't appear, though, that they were put in place specifically because they were a loyalist.

And, again, "The New York Times" reporting is that the president wanted Geoffrey Berman, no relation to me, to be in charge of the investigation and Michael Cohen. And at that point, the SDNY had already said the president was involved in criminal activity, in their mind, in that investigation.

The president, according to "The Times," wanted to put someone who had supported him in charge of it. None of that -- Rudy Giuliani talking to Paul Manafort's lawyer, wanting to get rid of Robert Mueller, wanting to get rid of Jeff Sessions through Corey Lewandowski -- none of that moves the Santorum meter as it were? None of that moves the needle for your -- for you into something that was questionable?

SANTORUM: Well, look, I mean, the person he suggested to put in charge was not someone who would not normally be someone that you would suggest would be in charge. So --

BERMAN: He had recused himself. That's not normal.

SANTORUM: I understand that. No, I understand that.

But the point is, that's not -- he didn't pick someone from the Western District of California to do it who was -- who was a buddy of his. He took someone that would normally take that responsibility. So, no, I don't see it as outrageous.

Again, do I think it's wise? No, I don't think it's wise.

BERMAN: Right. I would only say that -- that someone who has recused himself might be the least likely person to be in charge of an investigation at a certain point.

I do want to get you, because you have such a unique perspective on this. You ran for president twice. Once, you came very close to getting the Republican nomination in 2012, beating Mitt Romney. 2016 not as close.

Bernie Sanders just announced a second run for the presidency. I know you don't agree with his policies. I don't want you to go after him on that.

SANTORUM: No, no.

BERMAN: But I do want you to give him advice. How hard is it to run a second time? What should he be looking out for?

SANTORUM: Well, I mean, he's in a -- he's in a very -- he's in a much better position. No. 1, he's a current senator and has been engaged and involved in the public debate for the last four years, unlike me that, between 2012 and 2016, it's hard to, you know, out there and remain relevant if you're not an elected official that gets coverage on a regular basis, No. 1.

No. 2, I ended my campaign in 2012 with a big debt. He ended his campaign with a big surplus. He's got $9 million sitting in the bank, probably better than anybody else right now.

So, I mean, those are two huge factors that make his situation a lot -- a lot better than mine.

So, and the other thing is, I mean, while there is a crowded Democratic field, unlike the 2016 race on the Republican side, there's no Oprah in the race yet. Maybe there will be. But there's no someone like a Donald Trump, who basically sucked all the oxygen out of the air, because the news media simply couldn't stop covering him.

I remember during 2016, of almost all the interviews I did on cable television, 95 percent of them were asking me questions about what Donald Trump said. That's not going to be the case for Sanders. He's going to have some space to be able to get his issues out there. He's been a leader, a thought leader for the Democratic party.

Now other people are doing what he's doing, but he's still out there, you know, on the cutting edge as a socialist, leading the Democratic Party down that line.

BERMAN: Senator Rick Santorum, great to have you with us.

SANTORUM: You bet.

BERMAN: An interesting assessment of the Bernie Sanders campaign there from someone who's seen something like it before. Appreciate it.

SANTORUM: You bet.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, John. Is it possible that the president is a Russian asset? We ask the former director of national intelligence if he agrees with Andrew McCabe.

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