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Michael Cohen to Testify Before Congress; Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff Says he May Subpoena Mueller Report if Not Released Publicly; Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga Sing Together at Oscars. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 25, 2019 - 8:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A critical week for the Trump presidency. NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We see eye to eye. As long as there's no testing, we're happy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the same day President Trump is meeting with Kim Jong-un, Michael Cohen will be testifying in public on Capitol Hill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What other light can he shed now that these cooperating. We think he has a lot to offer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has to be very careful. The president should first return with a codification of the freezing of the missile program.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've made it very plain to Chairman Kim. The alternative to giving up his nuclear weapons is remaining a pariah state.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the Oscar goes to "Green Book."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Green Book" is a very divisive film.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought I was court side at the Garden. The ref made a bad call.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota on John Berman.

BERMAN: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, February 25th, 8:00 in the east.

So to say this is a blockbuster week in politics that could have major implications on the president would be a gross understatement. Tomorrow Michael Cohen begins three days of testimony on Capitol Hill. Cohen, you'll remember, is the president's former lawyer, former fixer, now a convicted felon who has implicated the president in a crime. That's hard to fit on a business card. His testimony on Wednesday is open to the public and will be broadcast on television around the world, including to Vietnam where that same day, Wednesday, the president will sit down for a critical meeting with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Also new this morning, a bipartisan group of 58 former national security officials plan to issue a statement saying, quote, there is no factual basis for the president's national emergency to build a wall on the border with Mexico. The House will vote tomorrow to block the president's emergency declaration. It is expected to pass there and then put pressure on Senate Republicans.

Also happening now, the lawyers for President Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort must respond to Robert Mueller's sentencing memo, and in that memo, Mueller's team slammed Manafort as a, quote, bold criminal who repeatedly and brazenly broke the law.

Joining us now is Dana Bash, CNN chief political correspondent, Jeffrey Toobin, former federal prosecutor and CNN chief legal analyst, and David Gregory, a CNN political analyst. Great to have all of you. David Gregory, give us the big picture on just all of the news that's going to be happening on this pretty dramatic week.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, on the one hand, you have the president on the world stage. He's not going to be in primetime because he's on the other side of the world with the time change, but with an historic summit doing what only the president can do, which is lead America on the world stage and perhaps achieve something big. At the same time, he's negotiating with China, that could be important for the economy.

But back home, this drama with Michael Cohen is going to be big because he is going to be in person, very dramatically on Capitol Hill. A kind of a preview of how Democrats want to use this oversight authority to challenge the president. And Cohen is in a position now to really back up his story of how the president pushed him to lie, to be a fixer, kind of the inside world of a fixer. Everything from directly ordering him to make payments to women with whom he had affairs, directing him to keep records with regard to bone spurs from serving in the Vietnam War. All of these issues that have been out there over the months now and even years of the Trump presidency, we're going to get that inside look. He'll get some heat from Republicans, but he's going to be very dramatic witness here for Democrats against his boss, the guy he said he would take a bullet for.

BERMAN: I want to make one point here is that we know the president is watching our show today because he is sort of hate tweeting some of the things we had on TV in the last hour, including Dana's segment. But David, he's going to be really upset by what you just said, which is that he's not in primetime, during the meeting with Kim Jong-un.

GREGORY: Yes, exactly.

BERMAN: If that comes as news to him, that's really going to upset him today.

Jeffrey Toobin, to you. I want to know what the biggest threat is to the president with Michael Cohen testifying on Wednesday.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: The way the committees have divided up responsibility here is that the two intelligence committees will be talking about his relationship to the Russia investigation, specifically, matters relating to Russia in secret sessions. So we will not hear that from Michael Cohen. We will not hear about the discussions relating to the Trump Tower Moscow, which is very important. What we're going to hear on Wednesday in public is about what Cohen did for Trump when he was -- Trump was a private citizen in terms of the negotiating with the women.

And I think what will be most significant, at least in my opinion, is if there is any corroboration of statements he's made before, if there are documents, e-mails, texts, tape recordings which show that Donald Trump was a co-conspirator in the crimes for which Cohen has already pleaded guilty. That to me is going to be the most interesting part of the testimony.

[08:05:05] CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And I think because we are so used to getting inundated by so many crazy, who-would-have- thunk-it bits of information, as I'm listening to David and Jeffrey and thinking about this coming week, think about if you had a time machine and went back and someone said Michael Cohen is going to be on Capitol Hill testifying against Donald Trump. We would have all said, you are out of your mind, because he was so loyal and so, from his perspective, integral in protecting Donald Trump along the way. We've all had dealings with him real-time during the Trump campaign, even before that, when he considered himself the attack dog on behalf of the president. And we know that the mea culpa for doing all of that is a big part of what he's trying to tell federal prosecutors and what he will tell Congress.

But it is really incredible that you now have a President Trump and a Michael Cohen going to testify under oath in public against the president.

CAMEROTA: Does he have a choice? Does he have a choice?

TOOBIN: He could have --

CAMEROTA: If he said no, then they would have subpoenaed him.

TOOBIN: They would have subpoenaed him. He might have been able to take the Fifth, but he's pled guilty.

CAMEROTA: It sounds like he's not embraced it. He tweeted #truth, he wants to get it out in person.

TOOBIN: Ys, absolutely. But he probably could have fought it, but he wants to testify. The other thing that's worth remembering about this whole Russia

scandal is that there have been very few moments where the participants have spoken in public, other than the president. Remember, James Comey's very dramatic testimony shortly after he was fired. But other than that, we have not really heard directly from the principals. We heard from Andy McCabe last week, and that was pretty interesting. But he's not certainly as major a figure as Michael Cohen.

To hear Michael Cohen tell the story of Stormy Daniels, of Karen McDougal, that's going to be very different from listening to dweebs like me talk about it. I just think that's going to be important.

GREGORY: Or even the reporting we get out of pleadings made in court or actual court proceedings where we're not seeing them. I think Jeffrey is right. And the potential, we talk so much about all of these revelations and whether they impact public opinion. It is different when you have a witness who is testifying before Congress who has the ability to make this a dramatic moment. And some of the details that he is likely to talk about speak to how Donald Trump protects himself, protects secrets, protects his image. And there's no reason to think that there's much difference in how he's handled himself as a private citizen and president. And that's what's being investigated is whether he's treated the Oval Office as he has his personal empire and no different with a kind of disrespect for the trappings of the presidency. That's what will be so revealing potentially about this testimony.

And to Jeffrey's other point, the documentation will matter so much because of Cohen's own credibility problems, which the president will try to bring up at every turn and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani has. That's where corroboration will mean something in the eyes of the public.

BERMAN: Dana, these Republicans on this committee are going to come after Michael Cohen in a big, big way. What do you expect to see?

BASH: Yes. One of the reasons Michael Cohen is going to jail is because he lied to Congress the first time around. And that's no small thing. And it would be political malpractice for Republicans not to bring that up. Democrats are going to be on more of a fact- finding mission to set the table for Michael Cohen to be more as up front and as detailed and explicit as he possibly can about the inner workings of Trump world and of the president himself. But that's going to be a very big contrast. There's no question we're going to see Democrats trying to get information and Republicans trying to say, wait, wait, wait, you have no credibility, and here's why.

CAMEROTA: Jeffrey, next big legal question. Adam Schiff this weekend and before that, Intel, has said he plans to subpoena the Mueller report and subpoena Robert Mueller to come forward if the Mueller report isn't made public. So can he do that?

TOOBIN: He can do that.

CAMEROTA: But then does the DOJ -- could Bob (ph) Barr block that subpoena?

TOOBIN: Very interesting, hard question. Not I don't think a clear answer to either one of them. But remember, also, what is the Mueller report? We don't know how detailed a report he's going to file.

CAMEROTA: If he doesn't get satisfaction from the details, he plans to subpoena it?

TOOBIN: No, no, but I'm saying even Mueller himself, the report, is it 20 pages? Is it 1,000 pages? That's going to be very significant. And Mueller has a lot of discretion here in terms of what he files. The regulation is very vague and, frankly, mysteriously written so he could do a lot of different things.

[08:10:03] So there certainly could be a subpoena filed. There's no question that the Intelligence Committee could ask for Mueller's testimony. But whether Mueller would agree to testify beyond what's in the report, beyond what the Justice Department has said -- remember, Mueller is an employee of the Justice Department. He is a subordinate of Bill Barr. Presumably he will step down at some point. Then there will be less supervision over him. There are a lot of moving parts here. I don't know exactly how it's going to all play out.

BERMAN: We'll know more when we know exactly what Mueller gives him, and what would be subpoenaed.

TOOBIN: Just how many pages it is. That in and of itself we don't know.

BERMAN: So David Gregory, we need you to weigh in on something we've been discussing all morning here. It has to do with the Oscars last night and a moment between Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.

CAMEROTA: It has to do with love.

BERMAN: Let's play it here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SINGING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We're not asking about harmony, because we know you know a lot about that. We're asking you about chemistry here. The electricity between these two. Dana Bash was with a party of people last night who said, and I'm paraphrasing here, this was the sexiest moment in the history of history.

GREGORY: This is Hollywood love is what this is.

BERMAN: That's it?

GREGORY: No, this is Hollywood love.

BASH: No, come on.

GREGORY: This is love for the camera. This is deep, abiding, professional respect. I think that's what this is.

CAMEROTA: Look at the jaundiced David Gregory who thinks that it just expired as of 8:00 this morning, that chemistry expired.

GREGORY: I think they have wonderful professional and personal chemistry, and they are great friends. But I think they're myth building. That's what it's about.

CAMEROTA: They're no Mr. And Mrs. Gregory. I've seen you guys together. They can't compete with that.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: That's a very practical relationship. David Gregory here sucking all the romance out of life.

BASH: Boo.

TOOBIN: Here we are, a bunch of people on basic cable, and like we're supposed to know the answer to that question? I am like, what do we know?

BASH: Jeffrey Toobin, Jeffrey Toobin, you just pipe down over there, OK? We're not asking for your legal -- we're not asking for your legal interpretation. We're asking for your human reaction.

TOOBIN: Oh, human. I don't have any human reaction.

BASH: David, I just think you're wrong. I think there's a lot more there. There's acting and there's acting.

GREGORY: I think this is a case, and this is the beauty of Hollywood, that people are projecting on to this couple things that may or may not be there. But there's no question they're great together.

BERMAN: There's no difference in David Gregory, the tone of his answer there, than the entire discussion about Michael Cohen's testimony. That was like deadly earnest. That was shocking.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: I waited for the house intel committee to figure this out.

(LAUGHTER)

TOOBIN: Lady Gaga.

CAMEROTA: Thank you all very much.

We have a programming note. CNN will hold a presidential town hall tonight with Senator Bernie Sanders.

BERMAN: Hi. (LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Moderated by Wolf Blitzer. It gets me every time. It begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern only on CNN.

BERMAN: Just so people know that joke. The Bernie Sanders video --

CAMEROTA: The announcement.

BERMAN: His announcement, the first thing he says is, hi.

CAMEROTA: I'm Bernie Sanders.

BERMAN: And he pauses after hi. Best campaign announcement ever.

All right, a stunning new rebuke of President Trump's emergency border declaration. We're going to speak to one of dozens of former security officials who are now taking a stand. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, ANCHOR, CNN: The House will vote on a resolution tomorrow to block President Trump's national emergency declaration to fund his proposed border wall. New this morning, 58 former national security officials have signed a letter condemning the President's declaration. Joining me is one of the persons -- one of the people who signed the letter, Tony Blinken, former Deputy Secretary of State under President Obama and now a CNN global affairs analyst.

Tony, this is a bipartisan group of 58 former national security officials. Let me read one part of this letter, "Under no plausible assessment of the evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles the President to tap into funds appropriated for other purposes to build a wall at the southern border."

What interests me is you are all national security officials. Why is this a national security matter to you?

TONY BLINKEN, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, the President is declaring it a national emergency, and you've got hundreds of years of experience here behind this letter. Republicans, Democrats from the two Bush administrations, Clinton administration, the Obama administration, all saying based on their experience and their expertise that it is not. There is no factual basis for declaring a national emergency.

John, the facts are pretty clear. Illegal border crossings are at a 40-year low. They've gone from about 850,000 a decade ago to about 60,000 today. Terrorism crime -- there hasn't been to my knowledge a single American killed in a terrorist attack by an illegal immigrant. Crime - immigrants as a whole commit far fewer crimes than those who are native born. Drugs - they come in through legal ports of entry, not across the porous border.

And so across the board on every sort of factual basis you can look at, there is no basis for declaring a national emergency. BERMAN: We have talked about the numbers that you were citing on this

show significantly. I will say that the arrests at the border have ticked up a bit from last year, but they are still at or near a historic low.

So Alisyn had a chance to speak with Republican of member Congress, Sean Duffy a couple of hours ago and she put these facts to him and this is how he responded. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, ANCHOR, CNN: Do you respect Chuck Hagel? Do you respect Thomas Pickering? In other words, these are national security officials. Do you give them any more credence than just their opinion?

SEAN DUFFY, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, WISCONSIN, REPUBLICAN: But I would say, do they come to my community and see what illegal immigration does to our country, Alisyn? I mean, the fact that my counties in rural Wisconsin, they run out of money because of all of the out-of- home placements for kids that don't have parents now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So are you saying that illegal immigration is not a threat?

BLINKEN: Illegal immigration is an issue, and it is a problem, but the question is what to do about it? Most of the folks who come here and are here illegally come on legal visas that they overstay, not crossing the border illegally.

So we have to be smart about how we do this, and we obviously need comprehensive immigration reform, something Congress has struggled with for decades, but you know, I'm also listening to people like Congressman Will Hurd who have districts on the border who say this is not the way to deal with the problem.

And you know, John, those who support this plan by the President right now, they are going to regret it because at some point, there will be a future President.

[08:20:07]

BLINKEN: He'll declare or she'll declare a national emergency where it really matters, say on everything from healthcare to gun violence to climate change. So this has a way of what goes around comes around.

BERMAN: Do you think if a Democrat is elected, should declare a national emergency on climate change based on this?

BLINKEN: I think we shouldn't be fooling around with a national emergency declaration. There have been national emergencies declared in the past by Republican presidents and Democratic presidents but never in defiance of Congress. So all of these issues, ideally, should be worked closely and clearly with Congress, not around and over Congress.

BERMAN: A big week in diplomacy. The president headed to Hanoi in Vietnam to speak to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. This is the second meeting the two men will have. Last night, to governors, the President seemed to redefine what he considers success here. He's always talked about denuclearization. Now he says there's no timetable on denuclearization as long as North Korea doesn't conduct any more tests, the President says that will be success. Is that the right measurement?

BLINKEN: Well, look, this is moving the goal post closer. It's good that the North Koreans are not testing. That helps them perfect their weapons. So the fact that they've declared a pause is a good thing. But that is not denuclearization. That doesn't get rid of the nuclear weapons that they already have. That doesn't get rid of the infrastructure that they have to create fissile material for weapons and to build more weapons in the future.

That's what we need to start to get at. It's going to be a long process. It won't happen overnight. I think the President has already declared victory. Now, he's acknowledging that he's nowhere near that and at best, this meeting with Kim Jong-un is the beginning of the story, not the end of it.

BERMAN: But we keep on hearing from people, some of them connected to the administration is there are fears the President will give away too much in these meetings. What are you worried that he might give away there?

BLINKEN: Well, there are a lot of things that the North Koreans want he could give away starting with an actual declaration of peace on the Korean peninsula. He's already given away a lot. He's already given Kim Jong-un the status of sitting next to, on the international stage, the President of the United States. He's already suspended military exercises. He's mused about pulling American forces out of the Korean peninsula.

So there's concern that he'll continue to go down that road. Our allies are concerned, too. The Japanese, for example, are afraid he may trade the North Koreans pulling back on missiles that can reach the United States, but can still hit Japan or Korea. So there are all sorts of things --

BERMAN: What would the problem be with declaring an end to the Korean War?

BLINKEN: The problem is it puts a lot of pressure then on the United States to pull back its forces and its troops from the Korean peninsula. The basis for them being there is the armistice and if that changes into a durable peace, which is a good goal, we'd like to get there. But if that's a way for the North Koreans and China to get American forces off the peninsula, without doing anything in return, without denuclearizing, that's a bad deal. That's not the art of the deal. That's the art of the steal.

But look, the good news here, John is that this meeting does seem to be a lot better prepared than the first one. The Special Envoy for North Korea Steve Biegun is a very experienced and talented diplomat. So my hope is that he's prepared this well and the President listens to the brief that hopefully he gets.

BERMAN: Tony Blinken, great to have you on with us this morning, really appreciate it. Alisyn?

BLINKEN: Thanks, John. Good to be with you.

CAMEROTA: John, we have an update -- thanks, Tony -- we have an update on Jussie Smollett. He is digging in. He is still denying that he staged a hate crime, but wait until you hear what the Chicago Police Superintendent just said about the evidence against him.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:00]

CAMEROTA: We have new information this morning on "Empire" actor, Jussie Smollett from the Chicago Police Superintendent. Here is what he just told ABC News moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDDIE JOHNSON, CHICAGO POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: There's a lot more evidence that hasn't been presented yet that does not support the version that he gave us.

ROBIN ROBERTS, ANCHOR, ABC NEWS: There's more because you presented quite a bit, I mean, legal experts said that's the most that they've seen being presented --

JOHNSON: Up front.

ROBERTS: Up front like that.

JOHNSON: But there's still a lot of physical evidence, video evidence and testimony that just simply doesn't support his version of what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now to talk about this, we have Joey Jackson, he is a criminal defense attorney, and a CNN legal analyst and Areva Martin, she is a civil rights attorney and a CNN legal analyst. Great to have both of you. We have a lot. We actually have a sort of a crime round-up to talk to you all about. But let's start there, Joey, because we - you and I talked about, what compelled the Police Chief to present so much evidence at that press conference publicly and so did that explain why he took that tact?

JOEY JACKSON, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know, Alisyn, I think he felt that his Police Department was under attack. I think he felt that his city was under attack. I think he felt there were people who had made presumptions and Chicago PD, as we know, doesn't have the best reputation, there's a Department of Justice finding about them, about all of the things they've done of a negative variety particularly in the black community. And so I felt -- I think he felt he needed to do that.

I am concerned, though, about Jussie Smollett for a number of reasons. From a public relations perspective, I get people are dug in, and I think there's a lot to be said though for mea culpa. By all indications, Alisyn, in the event that he is guilty and there is that evidence against him and it's overwhelming, people love him, people will forgive him, people will understand that people make mistakes, and I think that not only goes to his public perception and image, but it also goes to the court system that values remorse, that values contrition -- that values -- I get it.

CAMEROTA: But you aren't saying he should plead guilty right now. He gets a trial, right?

JACKSON: He, of course gets a trial. He of course is entitled to the presumption. What I am suggesting to you is that the Chief said that not only is there evidence that all of you know about, but I've got evidence that only I know about and it's overwhelming.

So what I am saying is, if there is that evidence, there's a lot to be said if he's guilty to just come out and do what he needs to do. The longer it goes by, the worse, I think, it gets for him.

CAMEROTA: Areva, it was interesting to hear the chief say that he has video evidence because that was - there was so much discussion about where's all the video evidence? What did all the video cameras - what did they capture that night? And to hear him say that he has some that we don't know what it is.

AREVA MARTIN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Yes, I'm a little concerned, Alisyn about this Police Chief. I hope he's not on some big media tour. He gave that extensive press conference the other day and he answered one of the big questions I think all of us had, which was why would Jussie Smollett, who had such a promising career as an actor and a singer, why would he put all of that at risk? And he answered that question.