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Trump's Efforts to Undermine Investigations; Harris to Testify in Fraud Hearing; Vatican Meets with Abuse Victims. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 20, 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] JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Organization who led the FBI in this tumultuous time actually go on national television and explain what the thinking was on the inside from the top echelons of the Justice Department and the FBI, that the president was acting in a way that might compromise national security, just incredible.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Renato, your thoughts?

RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I have to say, I am never going to get used to the idea that the FBI has serious concerns that the president of the United States is a Russian asset. When I first heard that news, I was blown away. I'm hearing a man who used to be heading up, for a period of time, the FBI say that is just unbelievable. It's unbelievable to me.

And what shocks me is that there isn't more of an outrage, there isn't more of a concern out there. You know, we -- we heard, you know -- you know yesterday from Mr. McCabe that the gang of eight, that the leaders in Congress were briefed on this and yet they've pretty much stood silently. They let the president attack the FBI and DOJ on a regular basis. And, you know, I know Maggie Haberman was on here earlier talking about that. You know, no one seems to be speaking up about it. No one seems to be alarmed by it. I really don't understand why it's not bigger news.

CAMEROTA: Well, Renato, I mean, but -- well, isn't the understanding that they're waiting for evidence? They're waiting for Robert Mueller's report. They're waiting for something to hang their hat on.

MARIOTTI: You know, I have to say, as to obstruction of justice, that's the one piece of this that there is no need to wait for evidence be it's right in front of our eyes. The tweets are there. The statements are --

CAMEROTA: Like what? Where do you see it so crystal clear?

MARIOTTI: Well, the president of the United States tweeted out that he would -- that, you know, attacking at the time the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for failing to quash indictments against two Republican congressmen because he said that they would lose those seats as a result. Isn't that just straight up corrupt? I mean there's no explanation for that otherwise. CAMPBELL: Can I --

MARIOTTI: And yet he was not condemned by members of his party.

CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Josh.

CAMPBELL: Can I also -- yes, I just want to add just a little backup here for Renato because, you know, it's not just the legal issue. But if you think about it, I mean the president, and as "The New York Times" was reporting, there was actually this strategy involved in discrediting the investigation on multiple fronts. And the issue is here, you know, as Renato gets to, when you have the president attacking these institutions, a certain segment of the population will start to believe this, that they're corrupt. And once that is baked in, no amount of fact that comes out from Robert Mueller for some people is going to change their mind once they're constantly being told that the FBI is corrupt. So I agree with Renato, it is -- it would have been incumbent on these lawmakers and the leaders inside the Justice Department to stand up to this nonsense and say, look, the FBI's not perfect. There were a lot of mistakes made. But to say constantly that they're corrupt. Again, that's what we expect leaders to do to stand up for these institutions. And the fact that they've been silent is just embarrassing.

CAMEROTA: But, Josh, listen, you know that that's what they're doing with Andrew McCabe. In fact, Axios is reporting this morning that the White House plans to keep promoting portions of his book that he's out on a book tour right now, that they believe, or they say, reveals that he's part of a deep state.

So, since you worked with him and since you know him so well and since he has had some checkered past in terms of his truth telling, where are you on how he should tackle -- I mean or -- forget him, where are you in terms of whether or not he's a credible source?

CAMPBELL: So, he obviously has his credibility issues. You have an independent inspector general who conducted an investigation and said that he lied. And what -- what I tend to do, and a lot of my former colleagues that I talk to, when we talk about some of these issues, is divorce Andy McCabe as the person from the actions.

Now, as a person, I mean, this is someone who served in the U.S. government admirably for over two decades fighting crime. So that -- that's in one bucket. The other being that, as we mentioned, the inspector general found that he was not truthful when confronted with investigators, which was obviously highly inappropriate, and that -- and he faced the punishment for that.

But what's interesting, what the White House is trying to do -- and, again, this is a strategy and these are very smart people. They're not dumb. What they're trying to do is say because Andy McCabe lied to investigators, which is a terrible thing, everything that he says must be a lie, which is, of course, nonsense because so much of what he says in this book is corroborated elsewhere. We know just looking at the pattern of this president, when we talk about his, you know, relationship with the Justice Department, interfering there, constantly attacking investigators, all that can be corroborated elsewhere. So although Andy McCabe has credibility issues in some respect, I don't think we shouldn't discount everything that he says.

CAMEROTA: Renato, Josh talked about a pattern. And I think that's what you're talking about too. I think that sometimes it's hard to keep it all in our head, all of the things that we've seen. And that's why today's "New York Times" comprehensive piece that lays out all of the times, all of the times that President Trump approached various people around him to try to interfere in an investigation. The Matt Whitaker, trying to -- the president wanted an ally of his installed in the Southern District of New York about the hush money payment. That's just one example. There's also examples of asking Corey Lewandowski to get rid of Jeff Sessions, of asking Don McGahn to get rid of Robert Mueller. I mean it adds up to a pattern of behavior.

MARIOTTI: There's no question about it. You know, a year ago I wrote that I thought that Mueller had sufficient evidence to prove obstruction. That was in January of last year. And since then we've found more and more and more evidence. I mean the fact is he does it on a daily basis. And we've gotten to the point now where it's baked into our understanding of Trump. And one concern that I would have is, you know, when there is a conclusion to this, I think if Robert Mueller came out and laid out the evidence that Trump obstructed justice, I think people would shrug and say, yes, we already few that. That's something he's already been doing. That doesn't mean it's not wrong, it's just that he's doing it in front of our very eyes. And because our political leaders don't condemn him or take action against him, we've become to -- you know, we've come to accept that as normal in some way.

[08:35:38] CAMEROTA: What's the upshot to you, Josh?

CAMPBELL: Well, I think obstruction of justice is the one crime that tells us that there are other crimes. Now, you know, I've said this, having been inside the FBI for over a decade, that I never encountered a subject in an investigation who actively obstructed a case that would have proven they were innocent. So the fact, as Renato mentioned, this is being done right before us. You have the president, on a number of occasions, in a number of instances, the Matt Whitaker exchange that we learned about yesterday, being only the latest, attempting to interfere in the Justice Department, no one obstruction investigation in which they're not guilty of something. And so I think that this is very telling.

Another thing that's also very interesting, I think, is that, you know, if the president thought that he was going to somehow convince the -- you know, put in a crony who would then get rid of an investigation, he has a misunderstanding of the Justice Department. These are rank and file career people who actually conduct the investigation. And if any of those people unearth potential misbehavior or illegality and they have someone at the top trying to shut that investigation down, these people would be screaming from the rooftops. So this strategy is faulty on a number of fronts.

CAMEROTA: All right, Renato Mariotti, Josh Campbell, thank you very much. CAMPBELL: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, socialism, socialism, socialism. We keep hearing it. The question is, why? And what does it mean in the context of the various accusations being hurled around here? We have a CNN "Reality Check," next.

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[08:41:23] BERMAN: So, if you did a political world cloud, "socialism" would be huge, like 24 point font --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: These days. So, why? And what does it mean in the context of 2020?

John Avlon has your "Reality Check."

Sir.

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

So we've heard a lot about socialism lately.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are alarmed by the new calls to adopt socialism in our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: And yesterday Bernie Sanders, an actual Democratic socialist, officially got in the presidential race.

Now, team Trump sees the specter of socialism as a lifeline ahead of the 2020 elections. Fox News has been dutifully beating the drum, mentioning some variation of socialism more than 700 times in the past five months. Now, that dwarfs the more than 200 times the White House Council of Economic Advisers cited socialism in a recent report where the 92 times President Trump has said the "s" word in public statements. All of which might cause to you ask, what exactly is socialism?

Well, here's what a dictionary says. Quote, any of the varies economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Got it?

All right, that's serious stuff with a not so great track record. After all, during the mid-20th century, when socialism was in fashion across much of the world, most of the countries that practiced it were economically stagnant or much worse. But in the 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the world poverty rate was cut in half.

On the flipside, Venezuela's socialist state managed to almost double the poverty rate in less than five years.

But socialism's history is easy to overlook among a generation born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They're more likely to remember the Great Recession and growing income inequality. You can't have 400 richest Americans controlling as much wealth as the bottom 150 million without courting a backlash.

So, many Democrats are proposing major tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans and some of their policies, like free college tuition, are broadly popular. Now, this may be big time budget busting, but it's not Soviet style socialism.

Socialism has actually never been that popular in the USA. During its heyday more than a century ago, the most successful presidential candidate on the socialist party ticket, Eugene Debbs (ph), never got more than 6 percent of the vote. And while younger voters show a willingness to consider socialism over capitalism in recent polls, they may have influenced by a lack of living memory about how -- just how bad it was behind the iron curtain, as well as decades of conservatives crying wolf about socialism.

For example, Bill Clinton was a pro-business centrist Democrat, but he was attacked for being a socialist for raising the top tax rate. Key portions of President Obama's health care plan, like the individual mandate and exchanges were originally proposed by a conservative think tank. Nonetheless, it was called a socialist government takeover of healthcare. The attacks weren't based in fact, but they stuck. A 2010 poll found that 55 percent of likely voters thought Obama was a socialist. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich even subtitled one of his books, quote, "Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine." And who can forget the Tea Party cries to keep your government hands off my Medicare.

Logic left the station a long time ago. But it's worth remembering that Medicare and Social Security were criticized as socialist when they were first proposed. They've been basically backed by Republican presidents ever since. Strengthen the social safety net is not socialism. And while far left economic policies may end up being political kryptonite in a general election, don't believe the hype that the choice we face is between capitalism and socialism. It just doesn't fit the facts. And that's your reality check.

CAMEROTA: Very helpful, John Avlon, thank you very much.

AVLON: We aim to enlighten, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: You do it well. And why do I feel like you have some Eugene Debbs (ph) memorabilia around your house?

BERMAN: Oh, yes, I have -- I can tell you stories.

CAMEROTA: I -- yes.

AVLON: Jerry Garcia (ph).

CAMEROTA: I knew that.

BERMAN: Gene -- I've got to say, mean Gene, as I like to call him.

CAMEROTA: Oh, gosh.

BERMAN: I've got a lot to say.

[08:45:01] CAMEROTA: All right, Mark Harris thought he'd be serving in Congress by now. Instead, the North Carolina Republican will be testifying at a hearing today to determine whether fraud tainted the vote. Earlier this week, a woman described how she illegally collected and falsified absentee ballots in the state's Ninth District to help Harris.

Dianne Gallagher is live for us from Raleigh.

What's the latest, Dianne?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so the latest is that, Alisyn, we are expecting Mark Harris, who believes he should be up in Washington right now, to testify later today. I've been told by his camp that he is going to answer questions. He's not going to reserve his right not to testify. But that's not going to happen until after they finish interviewing the man who founded the consulting group used by the campaign that was paying that political operative, McCrae Dowless, who is being accused of collecting absentee ballots illegally, having people change races.

So Andy Yates, the founder of Red Dome Group, spoke for four hours yesterday. Now he claims that neither he nor the candidate had any idea any illegal activity was going on. And, in fact, when they heard Monday's testimony, that he was shocked, angered and truly had no clue that Dowless told him everything was on the up and up.

But I've got to tell you that even when confronted with data he claims he had, part of the reason why he says the candidate wanted to brief Dowless on that Red Dome Group did not hire Dowless. Mark Harris chose to hire Dowless and even worked out his financial situation, Yates testified, before the consulting group came on, that were really suspicious at best. Some of these numbers that Dowless had in past elections, Yates said, you know, I just thought that he was really good at his job and in the community.

One more thing that happened, they talked to poll workers in the only early voting site in Bladen County. They admitted to tabulating those early votes early, John and Alisyn, and said that some of them even looked at it but did not reveal who was voted for in a sheriffs election that they were following.

BERMAN: Yes, there continue to be startle claims down there in North Carolina.

All right, Dianne, thanks very, very much. Will this week's Vatican summit on sexual abuse lead to any real change? We're going to speak to the survivor who personally helped changed the pope's mind about abuse allegations. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [08:51:23] CAMEROTA: For the first time in Catholic Church history, nearly 200 church leaders from around the world will gather tomorrow at the Vatican to confront sexual abuse by clergy. Our next guest is a survivor of abuse who helped spark the investigation in Chile that led to 24 bishops offering their resignations.

Joining us now is Juan Carlos Cruz. He organized a meeting between Vatican officials and about a dozen abuse survivors ahead of tomorrow's summit.

Juan Carlos, it is always great to see you and to have you on the show.

And I know you've just rushed out of that meeting that you organized with church -- with bishops and cardinals to come to talk to us.

So, what did you accomplish in that meeting? What did you tell them?

JUAN CARLOS CRUZ, VICTIM OF SEXUAL ABUSE BY CATHOLIC PRIEST: Yes, Alisyn, thank you for always having me. I mean, it's very important, a platform like yours. You and John have always been so supportive. So, thank you very much.

So I just came out of that meeting where there were some cardinal, archbishops and it was about 12 survivors, men and women from different places in the world. They asked me like two weeks ago to put it together, and I did. And it was -- I would say -- categorize it as constructive dialogue. It was strong. Nobody minced words. And we said I felt what we had to say.

Everybody, from their perspective, you know, because there were women, men, different geographies, but essentially the same -- the church is on borrowed time and we need to end this now.

CAMEROTA: And so what are you telling them about what needs to change?

CRUZ: So they speak a lot of zero tolerance and, Alisyn, we don't see zero tolerance. In fact, Alisyn, it would be important, for example, just to apply the law. Canon law is very strict on these things. There's a (INAUDIBLE), which is sort of a law that accompany this canon (ph) law that is very strict on how you deal with sexual abuse, but they are not enforcing it.

So, you know, I happen not to blame the pope on this. I think the pope is doing what he needs to do. It's these bishops that do not listen. I mean the pope can say whatever he says, but if the bishops don't do what he's saying and don't apply these laws and don't -- are not transparent and don't care fur survivors, we're not going to get anywhere. And, really, it's now or never. This summit is it.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, Juan Carlos, you say it's now or never. You know, I remember being in Boston -- I lived in Boston, I was a reporter in Boston in 2002 when the "Boston Globe," their spotlight team --

CRUZ: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Revealed the bombshell report of just how widespread this was in the Boston area. How can we still be here 17 years later? How can we still be having these revelations and this conversation 17 years later?

CRUZ: Alisyn, because we have useless bishops around the world. And this is the situation, Alisyn. And I think everybody who's listening will understand. I hear bishops -- I heard a Chilean bishop, I've heard a Spanish bishop, I've heard bishops from other places in the world saying, well, in 2011, we didn't have protocols or we didn't have elements to deal with situations like this with abuse.

[08:55:01] Alisyn. I think you'll agree with me, raping a child, abusing a boy, abusing a girl, vulnerable people, raping women has been wrong before Christ, after Christ, in the middle ages, now, and it will ever -- it will always be bad.

So this lie of I didn't have the protocols, it's simply because they want to protect the institution and avoids scandal. And that cannot be. It cannot be anymore.

And with the advent of what has happened in Chile, I've had conversations with the pope several times about this, with the advent of what's happened in Chile which has created a snowball effect with bishops, you see now it's imploding in Spain, it's imploding in Peru. Just you wait when it implodes in countries in Africa, when it implodes in India, when it implodes in the Philippines, these bastions of Catholicism, you will see that this is just the tip of the iceberg. And if the bishops don't do something now, it's going to get absolutely out of hand, more than it just is.

CAMEROTA: You know, Juan Carlos, we're out of time. We only probably have about 15 seconds. But from where you sit there in Rome today, having just come out of that meeting, do you think that today the pope and the cardinals and the bishops get it? Do they understand?

CRUZ: I think the pope gets it. I think others get it. But I think it will take a big, big radical change to have others get it. And it's not because they don't know that it's bad. It's because they want to protect power. It's because they want to protect the institution instead of taking care and looking after the survivors, which is -- which happens to be the most important people.

Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: Juan Carlos, we really appreciate having you and we really applaud your candor. We know this isn't easy. So thank you very much for telling us what's happening in Rome today.

CRUZ: Thank you. Thank you, Alisyn. Thank you, John. Take care. Thanks. CAMEROTA: We'll talk again.

BERMAN: So glad you had that discussion.

Listen, the president accused of lying about a new report in "The New York Times." What he's saying now and what it all means. That's next.

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